‘You are not married, nor likely to be?’
‘I am not married, nor likely to be. There is no one else,’ repeated Richard Egerton, with a bitter sigh.
‘Don’t sigh like that, sir.’
‘Dickey, please, Caleb.’
‘Dickey, then—my little Dickey, as I loved so hearty. To think I should have found you again arter all these years—grow’d to such a fine man, too—and in that awful storm! It beats everythink I ever heard of.’
‘Whatever is, is best,’ replied Egerton. ‘You won’t grumble again, will you, Caleb, because the answer to your prayer may be delayed a little?’
‘Don’t mention it, my boy. I feels ashamed even to remember it.’
‘You see that even the hurricane has borne its good fruit as well as its evil. Without it we might never have been made known to each other.’
‘It’s bin a marciful interposition of Providence from beginning to end,’ said old Williams, wiping his eyes. ‘But I should like to see you a bit more cheerful, Dickey. There has been a sad look in your face the last four days, which I couldn’t help noticin’, and now that I knows you to be who you are, I sha’n’t rest satisfied till you smiles in the old way again.’