stepped up to me and laid his hand on my
arm. "Captain Corning?" he said, and I said yes.

Well, he was a friend of Mr. Miller--he had seen me talking to Mr.
Miller, and learned that I was about to depart in the early morning,
bound for Placentia Bay; he would like to ask me to do him a small
favor. Could I take one package and land it on my way to Auvergne, where
was one friend of his? A small matter, one five-gallon keg of rum, that
rum which was of such trivial price in Saint Pierre, but on which the
duty was so high in Newfoundland, and his friend was one poor man, one
fisherman, who could not afford to pay the duty.

Now this Auvergne was twenty-five miles this side of any port of entry,
and my first landing in Newfoundland, according to law, had to be at a
port of entry. And so I told this chap that, and how I was liable to a
heavy fine, and so on.

Yes, he discerned much truth in what I said, but consider that poor
fisherman who could have his good rum merely for the landing--no other
cost, none whatever--he, a friend of Mr. Miller, was sending it as a
gift for the holiday Christmas time. And that rum--consider the
piteously cold nights hauling the nets when a drink of good rum was so
soothing, so grateful, so inspiring. And a little favor like that--the
Colonial Government would not be--truly not--and if I did not take the
rum that poor fisherman of Auvergne would have none in its stead. He
could not afford it, the duty was so high--an impossible duty, as no
doubt I knew.

I did know, and also I remembered many a drink of Saint Pierre rum I'd
had on a cold night in Newfoundland and no duty paid on it, and many a
cold night hauling herring when I didn't have it, but wished I had, and
would've gone a long ways to get it, duty or no duty. And then I
remembered how Miller had been pretty decent to me that day--the little
brooch he'd bought for the baby I could even then feel in my vest
pocket--and I said all right, and when half an hour later a dory slipped
up to the side of the _Aurora_ and a keg was handed over the rail I
didn't ask any questions, but took and stowed it under the cabin run.

Next morning we sailed, and, after a four hours' easy run, made
Auvergne, a little port in Placentia Bay, tucked away between two
headlands--one easterly, one westerly. Coming from Saint Pierre, it was,
of course, the westward one we rounded. According to directions, I
ground out two long and two short woofs on the fog-ho