lace on the cap-sill, where the citizens assembled could
hear him, and cry out at the top of his voice:--'Hornblower!
good-bye. One word more, Hornblower! Let me entreat you not to smuggle
a pennyworth for anybody.' My reply always was that I would follow his
advice with christian strictness. Then he would modestly finger that
cravat so white, and fix in his face such becoming dignity, that I
thought his green glasses, which I never liked, covered his eyes to
great advantage. 'Remember what I have always endeavored to impress on
your mind,' he would continue; 'honesty is the best policy--it is!'
Just then everybody would look at the Squire, while it was with great
effort I kept from my face a smile. I knew honesty was the best
policy; I knew it was the true policy to all praiseworthy ends; but
how could I help contemplating the necessity of those preaching who
never practised it, seeing that the Squire was not what he seemed, for
he smuggled an hundred barrels of flour for every one he paid duty
upon. I had also seen him pass sentence of imprisonment and fine on
the wretch who smuggled a demijohn of bad spirits, when for him I had
smuggled a thousand.

"Thanks to a more liberal commercial policy, that has precluded the
necessity for such scenes as the Dash stealing her way into a river at
night to land her cargo of contraband goods. Those violations of law,
so prevalent a few years ago, have ceased; and in the improved
condition of the people we see the result of a new and more liberal
policy. But a few years ago, that small craft, the Dash, alone sought
to establish what was considered a doubtful trade with the port of
Boston; now, some forty pursue a profitable traffic with the State of
Massachusetts, which has annually brought to her in British bottoms no
less than 170,000 cords of Nova Scotia grown fire-wood.

CHAPTER XXVI.

SMOOTH ENCOUNTERS A COLONIAL JUSTICE OF STRANGE CHARACTER.

"Nova Scotia being what a South Carolinian would call a hard country
to live in (though the people were proverbially kind, and hospitable,
and loyal, and simple-minded), Smooth, like many other special
ministers, resolved to give up his mission in disgust, and, without
further delay, seek the arms of General Pierce. However, before
quitting the province, he visited the shores of Cape Breton (an island
belonging to Her Most Gracious Majesty), and there met with a
singularly eccentric character of the name of Belhash. This Bel