light it lifted."

"Reckon they helped themselves on thar way hum."

It was a good deal worse than that; and an angry and disappointed pair
were they when the cork and the truth came out.

"Thar's jest a good smell!"

That was old Peter's remark; and it sounded as if words failed him to
add to it, but Burgin's wrath exploded in a torrent of bitter abuse of
the man or men who had emptied that demijohn. He gave old Peter a
capital chance to turn upon him morosely with,--

"Look a-yer, my chap, is this 'ere your boat?"

"No: I didn't say it was, did I?"

"Is that there your jug? I don't know if I keer to sit and hear one of
my neighbors--and he's a good feller too, he is--abused all night, jest
bekase I've been and let an entire stranger make a fool of me."

"Do you mean me?"

"Well, ef I didn't I wouldn't say it. Don't you git mad, now. It won't
pay ye. Jest let's take a turn 'round the village."

"You kin go ef you want ter. I'll wait for ye. 'Pears like I didn't feel
much like doin' any trampin' 'round."

"Stay thar, then. But mind you don't try on any runnin' away with my
boat."

"If I want a boat, old man, there's plenty here that's better worth
stealin' than yourn."

"That's so. I didn't know you'd been makin' any kalkilation on it. I
won't be gone any great while."

He was gone some time, however, whatever may have been his errand. Old
Peter was not the man to be at a loss for one, of some sort, even at
that hour of the night; and his present business, perhaps, did not
particularly require company.

When he returned at last, he found his own boat safe enough, and he
really could not tell if any of the others had walked away; but he
looked around in vain for any signs of his late comrade. Not that he
spent much time or wasted any great pains in searching for him; and he
muttered to himself, as he gave it up,--

"Gone, has he? Well, then, it's a good riddance to bad rubbidge. I ain't
no aingil, but that feller's a long ways wuss'n I am."

Whether or not old Peter was right in his estimate of himself or of
Burgin, in a few moments more he was all alone in his "cat-boat," and
was sculling it rapidly out of the crooked inlet.

His search for Burgin had been a careless one, for he had but glanced
over the gunwale of "The Swallow." A second look might have shown him
the form of the tramp, half covered by a loose flap of the sail, deeply
and heavily sleeping on the bottom of the boat. It was every bi