Cooper's Clarksburg register. [volume] (Clarksburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1851-1861, 1854-01-04
TENDING CHE STILL
Or the Gauger .outwitted.
A STORY OF IRELAND.

ny has been amply borne both by theil
friends and enemies. Many causes might
be brought forward to account for this
questionable gift, if it were our intention
to be philosophical, but as the matter has
been so generally conceded, it would be
a waste of logic to prove to the world
that which the world cares not about, be-
yond the mere fact that it is SO. On this
or any other topic one illustration is worth
twenty arguments, and accordingly, in
stead of bToaching theory we shall re-
late the story.
Behind the hill or rather the mountain
of Altanaveenan lies one of those deep
and almost precipitous valIies, on which
the pratcised eye OF an Illicit distiller would
dwell with delight, as topography not
likely to be invaded by the unhalowed
fleet of the gaugcr and his red coats. In
point OF fact, the spot we speak of was,
from its peculiarly isolated situation, nearly
invisible, unless to such as came very
close to it. Being SO completely hemmed
in and concealed by round and singular
projections of the mountain hills, you
could never dream of its existence at all,
until you came upon the very verge ofthc
little preciptious gorge which led into it.
This advantages of oSition was not, how
ever, its only one. 1t is true, indeed, that
the moment YOU had entered it, all posi-
biIiLy of its bei1g applied to the purposes
OF distiiatiun at once vanished, and you
consequently could not help eXrlaimlny,
" what pity that SO safe and beautiful a
nook should nothave single spot on which
to raise sufficient stream Of water TO the
elevation necessary for the process Of
ldistiIiing." la yauger actually came to
the little chAsm, and cast his scrUIln'1tn5
| eye over it, he would Immediately perceive
that the erection of a private sill i'll sucn
place was piece of folly not generally
to be found in the plans of those who have
resort to such practices.
This absence however, of the requisite
conveniences was Only apparent not real.
To the right, about one hundred yards
above the entrance to it, ran ledge Of
rocks. some fifty feet high, or SO. Along
their lower brows, near the ground, grew
thick, mattered masses of long heath,
(which covered the entrance to a cave
about as large and as high as an ordinary
farm house. Though a series of smal!
fisure5 in The rocks which formed It's
roof, descended a stream Of clear, soft
water, precisely in body and volume such
as was actually required BY, the distiller !;
but. unless by lifting up this mass Of
heath no human being could for Il mo-
menL imagine that there existed any such
grotto, or 81 unexpected and easy an en-
trance to it. Here then was private
stilI-horso made " the hand Of nature
herself. such as no arr OF ingenuity of man
could equal
Now il 50 happened that about the pc
riod we write OF. there lived in our parish
two individuals 50 antagonistcaI to each
other in their pursuits oflile, that we Ques-
ton whether throughout all the instructive
anuipathies of nature we could lind any
two animals more destructive Of each 9th
cr than the two we mean-lo wit: Bob
Pentlanl the gauger, and little George
Stcen the illicit distllicr. Pen,land was
All old. staunch, well-traiued fellow, of
abou! fifty years or more, steady and
sure, and with all the Characteristic points
OF the highbred gauger about him. He
was talIish man, thin but lathy, with IL
hooked nose that could scent the tread OF
u distilIer with the kecnncss of slow
hound-his dark eye was deep-set, cir
cumspect, and roguish in its expression,
and his shaggy brow seemed always to be
engaged in calculating whereabouts his ln-
veterate foe, little George Steen, th"t
eternaily blinked him, when almost in his
very fangs, might then be distiIiing. To
be brief Pcntland was proyerbial for his
saEacily and and alroitness in detecting
disti!crS, and little George was equally y
proverbial for having always batfled him,
and that, ,toosometi undercircumstanCes
where escape see med hopeless.
The incident which we ar. about to de-
tail occurred at that period Of time when
the collective wisdom OF the Legislators
thought it was advisable to impose fine
upon the whole lownland in which the
still head and worm might be found thus
opeung the door for knavcry and fraud,
and, as it proved in most cases, rendering
the innocen. as liable to suffer for an Of
fence they never had contemplated, as the
guilty who planned and perpetrated it,
The consequence of such a law was, that
stil!-houses were always certain to be
, created either At the verge OF the neigh
borinr districts or as near them as the
circumstances of convenience ami situa-
ton would permit. The moment OF course,
that the hue and cry of the gauger and
his myrmidons was heard upon the wind
the whole apparatus was Immediately
heaved over the merring to the next town
land, from which the fine imposed by.Par'
Lament was necessarily raised, whilst the
crafty and offending district actuall y es,
capped. The state OF society generated by
such a plundering and barbarOus statute
as this, was dreadful. In the course OF I,
short time, reprisals, lawsuits. battles
murders, and massacres. multiplied tc
such an extent throughout the whole coun
try, that the sapient senators who occasion
ed such commotion were compelled 10 re
peal their own act as soon as they founl