“Then hurrah for a leg of mutton!”—for it should be said the Haabet was bound for Bordeaux, to exchange her timber for the light St. Julien’s claret, of which so much is drunk in the north, and the fishermen had taken their passage in her on the chance, which amounted to almost a certainty, of meeting with an English coaster that would put them on shore somewhere. This they had not been able to meet with on the east coast, for foreigners are too much afraid of the shoals to allow themselves to go near a track which, by English vessels, is as well beaten as a turnpike road.
“A leg of mutton!” said the Parson; “you are as bad as a Swede,—always thinking of your dinner.”
“Upon my word, I have eaten such a lot of trash in that country that it is very excusable to long for the sweet simplicity of English roast and boiled; we have not had one single wholesome, unsophisticated meal since we got there; it was all grease, and sugar, and gravy, and preserves, except, indeed, where we boiled our own salmon on the Torjedahl, or toasted our own ‘mutton,’ as Moodie calls it, at the skal.”
“Ah, poor Moodie! I wonder whether he has found out yet that mutton is not made out of elk’s meat? But that lugger is nearing us fast; I think we had better talk to Torgensen about it, and get our traps on deck.”
Torgensen was sorry to part with his passengers, and they, though to a certain extent reciprocating his grief, were much more sorry to part from Torgensen than from the Haabet. But, sorry or glad, it was all the same, the brig and the lugger, on their respective courses, rapidly approached each other; a weft hoisted by the former was answered by the latter, and, in a few minutes, her mast-heads were seen bobbing about over the brig’s lee quarter.
Less than half a minute sufficed to transfer the fishermen and their belongings from one deck to the other, and then, hands shaking,—caps waving,—hoist away the lugs,—and up-helm for merry England.
Away flew the lugger, “her white wings flying,”—it could not be added “never from her foes,” for she turned out afterwards to be a noted smuggler that no revenue cutter could ever catch. Up rose the white cliffs,—plainer and plainer grew the objects on shore: now the white houses of Dover came in view,—then the sheep on the downs, and the men on the piers,—then the rising sunbeams flashed back a merry welcome from the windows,—then the pier-heads opened, with the tide bubbling up against them like a river in flood, which, taking the lugger under the counter, gave her a final slew, as she rushed between them,—then through the inner harbour, and down sails, carrying on with the way already acquired,—then run up alongside the Custom-house quay.
“Home at last!” said the Captain, as he leaped on shore.
Hic longæ finis chartæque viæque.
THE END.