Chapter Twenty Four.

At Home Again.

Sam Pengelly started up, and looked at me as if he thought I was a ghost.

“What, laddie, is it you really?” he exclaimed, peering into my face with his own, which, usually as florid as a peony, was now all white with emotion; while his lips trembled nervously as he spoke. “Why,” he said, after a close inspection to see whether I was actually Martin Leigh or else some base impostor assuming his voice and guise, “it is the young cockbird, by all that’s living—ain’t I glad!” And, then, throwing his arms round me in a bear-like hug, he almost squeezed every particle of breath out of my body.

“Now, come along,” he said presently, when he could speak again, the kind-hearted fellow’s joy choking him at first, and preventing him from uttering a syllable; though he sighed, and drew his breath again in a long sigh like a sob, and finally cleared his throat with a cough that might have been heard on Drake Island.

“Where?” I asked.

“Why, to Old Calabar Cottage, in course!” he replied, indignantly. “Do you think Jane won’t be glad to see you? Why, she’s been fretting her heart into fiddle-strings arter you all these last six months that you never wrote, thinking you was gone down to Davy Jones’s locker!”

“I’m very sorry I couldn’t write from Melbourne,” I said. “We were so hurried that I had hardly time to get once ashore. You got my other letters, though, eh?”

“Oh, aye,” replied Sam, as we went along the familiar old Stoke road that I knew so well, although it was now so long since I had seen it. “You’ve been main good in writin’, laddie, an’ I don’t know what Jane would ha’ done without your letters. She thinks you’re Teddy still, I believe, and seems to have got fonder than ever of you since you left. Do you know what the woman did when Cap’en Billings came to tell us how he’d seen you, and you was goin’ on first-rate?”

“No, I’m sure I can’t say,” I answered.

“Blest if she didn’t throw her arms round his neck and kiss him—just because he had last seen you!”

I did not laugh at this, as Sam did; I only thought of the great affection, which, so undeserved by me, I had drawn from Jane Pengelly’s great heart!

Presently, we came in sight of the cottage.

There it was, porch, creepers, and all, just as I had left it, only now the glow of the fuchsias had gone, with that of the scarlet geraniums and other flowers of summer; still, the autumn tints of the Virginian creeper, hanging down in festoons of russet and yellow and red from the roof, gave all the colouring that was wanted.

Sam opened the door and walked in, as usual; but it was before his usual time for returning from Plymouth, so Jane came out of the kitchen in surprise—this I could hear, for I remained without in the porch till he had warned her of my coming.

“Deary me, Sam, you are early,” she said. “Why, the pasty won’t be done for an hour and more.”

“What, have you got a Mevagissey pie ag’in for dinner?”

“Yes, Sam,” she replied.

“Now, that’s curious,” Sam said.

I could almost have felt certain that I knew what he was doing when he spoke those words in that way. He must have taken off his hat and begun scratching his head reflectively with the other hand, I’m certain!

“Curious?” repeated Jane. “Why?”

“Why, because we had it for dinner when the poor laddie left us.”

“Deary me!” exclaimed Jane, her voice full of alarm. “There’s no tidings of any harm come to he, surely!”

“No, no, Jane, my woman,” said he, “the lad’s all right; ’fact, I’ve—I’ve seen him this morning.”

“This morning!” cried she, all excitement. “Why, what are you holding the door back for? It’s him—he’s here!”

And, in another moment, my second mother, as I shall always call her, was clinging round my neck with almost more than a mother’s love for me—if that were possible!

“Deary me!” she said a little while after, “isn’t he like Teddy, now?”

Sam burst out laughing.

“Why, Teddy was a slim boy of fourteen, and this laddie here’s a fine strapping fellow, nearly six feet high, and as broad in the beam as a Dutch sloop!”

However, Jane wouldn’t be convinced but that I was the very image of her own lost child; and, as I had all her wealth of affection in consequence, I’m sure I have no reason to complain.

I took up my quarters at “Old Calabar Cottage,” as Sam loved to hear people call it, rolling out the full name himself with great gusto; and, in a little while, as things went on in the old way, I got so accustomed to everything around me that I could almost fancy my first voyage and the burning of the Esmeralda were a dream, as well as all my later experiences of the sea.

But, after a time, I began to long again to be on the deep, desiring once more to be daring its dangers and glorying in that “life on the ocean wave” which, once tasted by the true-born sailor, can never be given up altogether. I had just begun to deliberate with myself as to what sort of ship I should seek, and whither I would prefer to voyage for my next trip, when Sam came back from Plymouth one morning brimful of news.

“Well, laddie—who d’ye think I met to-day?” he called out to me, almost before he was quite inside the house.

“I’m sure I can’t guess,” I replied. “Who?”

“Why, Cap’en Billings, my cockbird!”

“Captain Billings!” I said, with surprise. “I thought he was in China.”

“No, but he’s going there this voyage.”

“This voyage?” I repeated questioningly, after Sam had said the words.

“Aye, laddie; he’s got a bran’ new ship, which the owners of the Esmeralda have had built, and just made him skipper of. And, what do you think, laddie?”

“I’m sure I can’t tell,” said I.

“He’s going to have a bran’ new second mate, who he hears has just got his certificate from the Trinity House Board—that is, if he’ll accept the berth under his old captain.”

“What!” I exclaimed, breathless with excitement, “does he offer to take me with him as he promised?”

“Aye, laddie, the berth’s open to you if you’ll have it, he says. Will you go?”

“Go?” I repeated, “of course I will!”

And so it came about that I am going to sail under my old skipper again.

The End.