“You don’t say it is Will!” the old man said, getting up.
“It is Will sure enough,” the lad said, holding out his hand first to one and then to the other. “He has come back, as you see, an officer.”
“Yes, Parson told us that. Well, well! Why, it was only two days ago that Tom Stevens came in. He has growed to be a fine young fellow too, and he told us that you were well and hearty and had been through lots of fights. But he didn’t say nothing about your having come home.”
“Well, here I am, John; and what is better, I have brought home some money with me, and I shall be able to allow you and the mother a guinea a week as long as you live.”
“You don’t mean it, lad!” the old man said with a gasp of astonishment; “a guinea a week! may the Lord be praised! Do you hear that, missis? a guinea a week!”
“Lord, Lord, only to think of it; why, we shall be downright rich!” said his wife. “Plenty of sugar and tea, a bit of meat when we fancy it, and a drop of rum to warm our old bones on Saturday night. It is wonderful, John. The Lord be praised for His mercies! But can you afford it, Will? We wouldn’t take it from you if you can’t, not for ever so.”
“I can afford it very well,” Will said, “and it will give me [pg 203]more pleasure to give it you than to spend it in any other way. Now, mother, let us say no more about it. Here is a guinea as a start, and I wish you would go to the shop and get some tea and sugar and bread and butter and a nice piece of bacon, and let us have a meal just as we used to do when we had made a good haul, or taken a hand in a successful run.”
“It is three years and a half since I saw a golden guinea,” the old woman said as she put on her bonnet, “and they won’t believe their eyes at the shop when I go in with it. You are sure you would like tea better than beer?”
“Much better, though if John would prefer beer, get it for him; but I think we had better put that off till this evening, then we will have a glass of something hot together before I start.”
“You are not going away so soon as that, Will, surely?” the old man said when his wife had left them.