on shore were all nicely
sleeping. The Squire, of course, had said his prayers, or, as it
sometimes would happen--though it was always accidental--had gone to
Digby, for the purpose of giving her Majesty's Collector a ride into
the country. The Collector was always an imported gentleman, who
maintained a good deal of imported dignity, which the Nova Scotians
had to 'tip' out of him, ere he became a clever fellow, according to
their notion of such a being. In addition to taking the Collector a
short pleasure trip into the country, the Squire had a nigger fellow,
of the name of Tom, who, as cunning as a fox, could tell the Dash was
coming, by something he always said he saw was in the clouds. Tom
lived on Pin Point, where the Squire had his half-way warehouse,
always full of foreign goods, on which no one could tell how much duty
had been paid. This half-way warehouse, which Tom called his, used to
atone for a monstrous quantity of sins. The Squire, however, declared
he had established it there, in the fulness of his generosity, merely
to accommodate his kind customers, whose means of travelling did not
enable them to reach his trading marts at either extreme. But, when
customers called at Pin-Point to do a little trading with the Squire,
they generally found it closed, and Old Tom offering his very best
apology, by saying it was where master only did his wholesale
business. This was accepted on the ground that the Squire and Tom were
very funny individuals. Well, we would run to the Point at night, and
Tom having everything ready to move at the word, would shoot the
Yankee goods into the warehouse, where, in six hours, they would be
all transferred into real British growth and manufacture. During this
time the Squire was nowhere; but Tom did things as if he knew
how. Indeed no sooner were the goods out than we made the best of our
way down the river again.

"Next morning, the sun about two hours up, you would see the Dash away
down the bay, as calm as moonlight, just sighting Digby.
Squire--totally ignorant of Hornblower's arrival--would be putting on
the longest face in the town of Annapolis, going up and down the
street quite disconsolate, and climbing into the church steeple to see
if he could sight the Dash below. 'Hornblower's gone this time!' he
would say, shaking his head, 'must be lost! must be lost! must be
lost!' And the Squire would tell about his horrid dream, seeing
Hornblower's ghost smuggling a chest of