“I said you’d come back all right. I know’d it when they telled me about the boat,” he cried to me as he came up.
“Boat! What about the boat?” I said.
“One o’ the fishermen picked her up, and as soon as I heered as her oars and hitcher were all right, I said there was no accident. The rope had loosed and she’d drifted away.”
“But how did you know we had gone off in the boat, Sam?” I said eagerly.
“How did I know?” he said. “Think when you didn’t come back a man was going to bed and forget you all?”
“Well, I hardly thought that, Sam,” I said.
“Because I didn’t, and I went right over to the mine and asked, and you weren’t there, and then I went to Uggleston’s and heerd you’d gone out in the boat, and that’s how I know’d, Mast’ Sep, sir.”
“Here, Sam, run back and tell Kicksey to hurry on the breakfast,” said my father.
“Hurry on the braxfass, captain,” said Sam grinning, “why, I told Kicksey to put the ham in the pan as soon as I see you a-coming.”
The result was that we were soon all seated at a capital breakfast and ready to forget the troubles of the night, only that every now and then the recollection of the smuggling scene came in like a cloud, and I could not help seeing that my father was a good deal troubled in his mind.