He always tapped three times then counted to five then tapped three times more. And he would do this again and again until she woke and heard and opened the window.
This night she unwrapped herself from the warmth of her sister's body and ran bare foot across the icy floor. To-day he should have brought a doll for her. It was his promise. Open the window for a year and on her seventh birthday there would be a doll from France with a lace trimmed dress and kid shoes.
``Thank you my old darling,'' he said and climbed through the window and crossed the room to the door.
``Where's my doll?'' she asked. But he didn't hear. She heard him clumping down the narrow stairs to the warm kitchen.
In the morning Bessie was standing at the kitchen table peeling potatoes and Smuggler John sat next to her his arm up under her skirt.
``Where's my doll?''
``Your doll? Oh! Your doll. Well dammit I forgot your doll.''
And Bessie said Oh! and dropped a potato and Smuggler John's hand reappeared and the child said ``You promised!'' And Smuggler John said ``Dammit its true. I promised.
He thought he had retired, but the child's hostile eyes bored into him and he knew he had to make another trip. All the profits his, this time.
``Alright, little girl, you made me do it. I'll bring you a doll Sunday night. Alright?'' The girl nodded.
On Sunday night he did not come tapping at her window. The excise men had stopped him on the beach and they said he fired on them and perhaps he did.
Bessie brought the blood stained doll and dropped it at the child's feet.
She tried to wash it clean. She sat all day in the kitchen working on the doll. She took wool from a black sheep, she took serge and calico from the scrap box. She warmed the wax head at the fire and she reshaped the features. When she finished she had recreated Smuggler John. A fine black beard and peppercorn eyes.
Bessie was slumped at the fire, her eyes swollen shut with rum and tears. The girl took Smuggler John and propped him up on the crumb strewn table and went out to play.