His manner was collected enough, but at my father's smile he reddened and his own eyes danced.
"Pack away your books and come along, then. There's some one will be glad to see you besides Benny's mother. Leave work till morning. I'll wager come sun-up you'll be glad enough to get to your tasks if you've had a little home life meanwhile. Come, lads, come."
Almost before we fully could realize what it meant, we were walking up to the door of my own home, and there was my mother standing on the threshold, and my sister, her face as pink now as it had been white on the day long ago when she had heard that Roger was to sail as supercargo.
Many times more embarrassed than Roger, whom I never had suspected of such shamelessness, I promptly turned my back on him and my sister; where upon my father laughed aloud and drew me into the house. From the hall I saw the dining-table laid with our grandest silver, and, over all, the towering candle-sticks that were brought forth only on state occasions.
"And now, lads," said my father, when we sat before such a meal as only returning prodigals can know, "what's this tale of mutiny and piracy with which the town's been buzzing these two weeks past? Trash, of course."
"Why, sir, I think we've done the right thing," said Roger, "and yet I can't say that it's trash."
When my father had heard the story he said so little that he frightened me; and my mother and sister exchanged anxious glances.
"Of course," Roger added, "we are convinced absolutely, and if that fellow hadn't got away at Whampoa, we'd have proof of Kipping's part in it—"
"But he got away," my father interposed, "and I question if his word is good for much, in any event. Poor Joseph Whidden! We were boys together."
He shortly left the table, and a shadow seemed to have fallen over us. We ate in silence, and after supper Roger and my sister went into the garden together. What, I wondered, was to become of us now?