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things; sometimes the smallest detail will become a pitfall. That’s right! Now let us be off under God’s protection, and mind you start with the right foot forward, so that we may both come back safe and sound. You needn’t be afraid of my smugglers, they do not look like dandies, but they are very respectable people, especially old Matouš. Do you know him? He never misses going to Church on Sundays and Saints’ days, and always stands close to the pulpit, to hear God’s word first-hand. Church and sermons, that’s what he likes, he is very devout. He never smuggles during Lent, and he doesn’t smoke, so as to make Providence look in favour upon him. In short, he is a very good man, just like my poor husband; they might have been brothers, those two. He is still as smart at the trade as his youngest son, no one can beat him at it. He is the leader of the party, and has ten or twenty followers. They walk one after the other at a distance of a hundred steps; they glide like shadows. Formerly there would be as many as fifty, but like everything else, the trade is going down. He climbs the rocks like a chamois and has the hearing of a partridge; he smells the police half a mile off. As soon as he