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Well, old Pigtown, with his white trousers and straw hat, red nose and big belly, was as well-known as could be, and was a capital old fellow for remembering and executing commissions, provided you gave him the money first; if not, he always took care to forget them.
"Friend Dux, and thou, young Tom, I do willingly accept thy proffered reconciliation; knowing, as I well do, that there may be much mischief in thy composition, but naught of malice." The Dominie extended his hands, and shook both those offered to him warmly. "There," said old Tom, "now my mind's at ease, as old Pigtown said." "I know not the author whom thou quotest from, good Dux." "Author!
D'ye see, old Pigtown commanded a little schooner, which plied between the isles, and he had been in her for a matter of forty years, and was as well-known as Port Royal Tom." "Who might Port Royal Tom be?" inquired the Dominie; "a relation of yours?"
Now, old Pigtown was very anxious about what had come of his son, and day after day expected he would come back again; but he never did, for very good reasons, as you shall hear by-and-by; and every one knowing old Pigtown, and he knowing everybody, it was at least fifty times a day that the question was put to him, `Well, Pigtown, have you heard anything of your son? And fifty times a day he would reply, `No; and my mind's but ill at ease. Well, it was two or three months afterwards, that when I was in the schooner with him, as we lay becalmed between the islands, with the sun frizzing our wigs, and the planks so hot that you couldn't walk without your shoes, that we hooked a large shark which came bowling under our counter, got him on board and cut him up.
I never said he was an author; he was only captain of a schooner, trading between the islands, that I sailed with a few weeks in the West Indies." "Pigtown, master." "Well, then that put old Pigtown's mind at ease for I am marvellously amused with thy narrations, which do pass away the time most agreeably, good Dux." "With all my heart, old gentleman; but first let us fill up our tumblers.
When we opened his inside, what should I see but something shining. I took it out, and sure enough it was a silver watch. So I hands it to old Pigtown. He looks at it very 'tentively, opens the outside case, reads the maker's name, and then shuts it up again. `This here watch, says he, `belonged to my son Jack.
Old Pigtown had a son, a little dark or so, which proved that his mother wasn't quite as fair as a lily, and this son was employed in a drogher, that is, a small craft which goes round to the bays of the island, and takes off the sugars to the West India traders. One fine day the drogher was driven out to sea, and never heard of a'terwards.
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