[CHAPTER I.]
Back Again.
"THAT's he—that's he—hurrah! Look, wife, look! He's a-sitting on the box of the coach that we may see him the better! Hurrah!" And with a cheer which came from the heart, Michael Garth lifted the straw hat from his wrinkled brow and grey hair, as a carriage drove rapidly along the country road, by the side of which stood his neat little cottage.
"Bless him! Bless him!" faltered old Martha, grasping eagerly her husband's arm with her trembling fingers, and straining her dim eyes to see the vicar's sailor son returning after ten years' absence from England.
"He sees us—he minds us!" said Michael.
"He's a-lifting up his cap—cheer, Mat, cheer—are ye dumb, lad!" cried Martha to her grandson, a red-haired lad of sixteen, who had come running from the plough to see the officer drive past.
Mat cheered, and his grandfather cheered; hearty and strong sounded the old man's voice—if an old man he could be called who had none of the weakness or infirmity of age.
And Lieutenant Harry Maude nodded and smiled, and shouted out as he passed a kindly greeting to the good old couple whom he had known from his childhood.
"He's not changed—not a bit changed!" cried Michael, as the carriage rolled away down the dusty hill. "A trifle older, may be, and a trifle browner, and he hadn't them fine whiskers afore; but there's just the same smile, the same merry look, as when I lifted him, over the five-bar-gate when he was a little chap no higher than my knee."
"How happy the vicar and all the ladies will be," said Martha, wiping her eyes with her apron, for the pleasure of seeing the young master come back had made them fill with joyful tears.