But Peter gestured him towards me, and the boy turned with a glad cry. The knife dropped from his hand. There was a scurry of feet, and two arms were stretched up to me, two brown eyes—eyes that it seemed I had looked into so many times before—shone into mine.
"You have come back!" shouted the treble voice. "John said you would! And so did Master Burnet! Do you always wear a beard! Will you buy me clothes like those you and Peter wear? Will you teach me to cast the tomahawk and shoot with the bow and arrow? Will you take me to live with the Indians? Did you kill very many this time? What did you find beyond the sunset?"
I swept him in my arms, gray eyes beaming steadily through the mist that veiled my sight.
"I found contentment—and love," I said.
Elspeth burst into tears.
"Hecht, but them's the bonny worrds," she blubbered. "The master's hame and richt in his mind again!"
My son's bubbling laughter stirred me afresh, and I peered over his shoulder to perceive Corlaer waltzing like a clumsy bear, with John Allen's sedate person clasped against his enormous belly. And I sat down beside the boy and laughed, too, laughed as I had laughed in bygone years, with the joyous vigor of a happy heart.
THE END