“I handed him mine. When he got it, he began cutting off the buttons from his coat. Then he unbuckled his sword, and took off his hat. He jumped up, and holding all the things together, as it were in a lump, he hove them away into the sea as far from him as he could, uttering at the same time a loud and deep curse. ‘There goes the last link of the chain that binds me to slavery!’ he exclaimed. ‘Now, my lads, I’m once more Jim Dore, the bold smuggler.’
“The men in the boat thought what he had done was very fine, and so did I in those days, and so we all cheered him over and over again. When he landed at Yarmouth, every one turned out to welcome him as if he had been an admiral just come home after a great victory; and certainly the people did make much of him. Those Yarmouth men are great smugglers, there’s no doubt about it. I don’t think, however, myself, as I did in those days. Dore was a brave man, and it’s a great pity he had not been taught better, and he might have been an ornament to the service he deserted.
“When his leave was up, and he did not return, an officer with a boat’s crew was sent to look for him. He got notice of their coming, and got stowed out of the way, for there were plenty of people to help him. He had to keep in hiding for a long time, and often, I dare say, he wished himself back aboard the brig. When the war was over he took to smuggling again, and he soon got command of a large cutter. At last he and some other Yarmouth men went away in her, and from that day to this have never been heard of. It is supposed that the cutter was run down or foundered in a tremendous gale of wind, which sprung up soon after she was last seen.”
One of our friends who came from Poole in Dorsetshire, told us a very good story, when Jerry Vincent and one or two others sang out in chorus, “Howe! howe! howe!”
I asked what they meant.
“That is what we always say to a Poole man,” answered Jerry. “Did you never hear tell of the Poole man and the owl?”
I told him that I never had, and asked him for the story.
“Well, you must know that once upon a time there was a homeward-bound Poole man just coming up Channel, and not far off the land, when, the night being somewhat dark, do ye see, an old owl flew by ‘Howe! howe! howe!’ cried the owl.
“The master, who had been dozing aft, thinking all the time, exactly as many another man does, that he was wide awake, just heard the sound as he roused up, and fancied that another skipper was hailing him.
“‘From Newfoundland!’ he sang out, rubbing his eyes, and dreaming that he saw the strange ship abeam.