True, there were some among these quiet people who flouted the law, poachers bent on making more money in one night than they could earn in a whole month in the flax sheds. .
enforced
obeyed
defied
enacted

defied

I assume you are looking for the definition of "flouted." "To flout" means to scorn at, or to treat something with disdain and contempt. If someone flouts the law, it means that he does not respect the law. In this case, the people who flouted the law were poachers who were interested in making more money than they could usually make in their regular business.

in that passage i would say the sentence which best describes the overall impact of the setting is when they mention the absence of people because it suggests that taking a walk at night is unusual.