“Look there,” said the vicar.
He turned and pointed down the road, where, at the top of the hill leading up from Danecross, two figures were just visible. They came nearer and nearer. One was that of Darvell, broad-shouldered and heavily built, but the other one was small and slender, and had rough yellow hair.
Mrs Darvell was a woman of decisive action as well as of a quick tongue. One look was enough for her. She immediately took off her pattens, which had iron rings to them, and were not adapted for rapid movement, and placed them quickly and quite unconsciously in the vicar’s arms as he stood beside her.
“Bless you, sir!” she said.
Before he had realised his situation she had flown down the road, reached the two figures, and enveloped Frank in her embrace, Darvell standing by meanwhile with a broad smile on his fair and foolish countenance.
The neighbours gathered round the group, and all the dogs, and pigs, and chickens belonging to the settlement also drew near. Jack Gunn’s donkey looked over the hedge, his furry ears showing a pointed interest in the affair, and in the distance the vicar surveyed the scene from the cottage door, still holding Mrs Darvell’s pattens.
So Frank had got home again; and after all his wanderings he found that:
“From east to west
At home is best.”