"'Thank you, Mr. Hornblower, I am sure you have more regard for your honor than to smuggle,' he would resume, keeping his eyes fixed upon me.
"'I am obliged to you for the confidence—the confidence of superiors in spirit or body; and I hope I may never do anything but what will merit yours. It has been my motto through life to keep before me the words of my good old mother. Ah! she was a mother. Fond soul, she used to say, 'Solomon, my boy, let your dealing with the world be marked by honesty, and remember that one small error in your life may stain forever your character. The eyes of an unforgiving world once excited to suspicion will ever wear the same glasses.'' Having said this, nothing more was wanted to make complete the Squire's confidence. Without further detention, he would have the papers made out, and having received them, we would trim our sheets and sail away up the river, Old Tom boarding us off Pin Point, and laughing himself almost out of his black skin—welcoming us after the fashion of friends met after a long absence. All this time the Squire would be impatiently waiting on the wharf at the little town of Annapolis—so glad to see Hornblower! 'No contraband goods on board, eh, Hornblower?' he would inquire, affecting such an amount of piety that it made me laugh in my shoes.
"'Not so much as a plug of tobacco!' I would reply, contemplatively, as the crew commenced putting out the few things we had entered at Her Majesty's Custom House. We had great regard for Her Majesty; nor have I the least doubt of the Squire's honesty, which would have been all right had it not been for the law and parliament. We have only to add that, having played his part after the manner of a good Christian, he would seek his way home, there to arrange an evening prayer-meeting.
"But the beauty of the Squire's nature, as illustrated in his pious hatred of smuggling, or otherwise defrauding Her Majesty, would shine out bright on the day the Dash left on her return voyage. I was sure of an invitation to breakfast with him on that morning, and he was equally sure to paint the purity of his conscience in such glowing colors that it was difficult for me to maintain a serious face. When we had eaten bread, and he had offered up his prayer (in which he always remembered Her Majesty), he would accompany me to the Dash, when, having got on board, and cast off, he would mount the most prominent place 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 Belhash added to a figure of great rotundity a square, red face, small hazel eyes, a heavy, flat nose, a low, reclining forehead, and a head covered with red, crispy hair, which he took great pains to part in the centre. The only expression the Squire's face could lay claim to was that of a pumpkin burned ripe in the sun. When in his favorite dress of blue-grey homespun, which he judiciously arranged (for Belhash was a Squire), no greater functionary lived on the island; that is, in his well-developed opinion of himself! His principal law business consisted in settling all disputes arising between the people on shore and the Yankee fishermen who, against the law, infested the coast, and for whom the Squire had a hatred he always made known in his decisions. To Belhash the Americans were all of a flock, they would steal, smuggle, take a Nova Scotiaman's eyeteeth out, and, what he most hated, concoct some republican plot to overthrow his darling government. 'Now,' said the Squire to me, one day, 'I have no bad opinion of you individually, Smooth; for, by the righteous, you're a sort of clever feller—an exception to Yankees in general—nor do I think you'll steal!'
"I said, 'No, I didn't think I would!' And he continued: 'You must see I am something of a man here on these shores; in fact, sir, some call me very distinguished; but I hardly think I have arrived at that yet, though the honorable attorney-general of the province, when this way lectioneerin about a year ago, in referring to my position in administering the law, said: 'That distinguished gentleman, Squire Belhash, than whom none is loyaler, or more capable of administering the law;' he did, sir, I assure you!'