"Indeed!" The Collector eyed his companion reflectively. "You honoured
me with your observation this morning?"

Mr. Banner grinned. "Better say the whole of Port Nassau was hon'rin'
you. Oh, there'd be no lack of evidence!--but I guess the magistrates
were lookin' the other way. They allowed, no doubt, that even a
Sabbath-breaker might be havin' friends at Court!"

The Collector could not forbear smiling at the youth's impudence.

"May I ask what punishment I have probably escaped by that advantage?"

"Well," said Mr. Banner, "for lighter cases it's usually the stocks."

Still the Collector smiled. "I am trying to picture it," said he, after
a pause. "But you don't tell me they would put a young girl in the
stocks, merely for firing a gun on the Lord's Day, as you call it?"

"Wouldn't they!" Mr. Banner chuckled. "That, or the pillory."

"You are a strange folk in Port Nassau." The Collector frowned, upon a
sudden suspicion, and his eyes darkened in their scrutiny of Mr.
Banner's unpleasant face. "By the way, you told me just now that you
were here upon some sort of a dispensation. Forgive me if I do you
wrong, but was it by any chance that you might play the spy upon this
girl?"

"Shadbolt asked me to keep an eye liftin' for her."