“But suppose I don’t want to get married again? I know what marriage mean, an’ you don’t. Besides that, I am all right now, an’ I can live comfortable without anybody. When you could marry me y’u didn’t, and I don’t forget how y’u used to leave me in the night when we was together. It’s better we remain apart, for what ’appen once will ’appen again.”
“You know you don’t mean what y’u say,” replied Jones with conviction. “Jamaica is not Colon, and it will be all right when we get there. I will be steadier. I was steady there.”
“Cho!” exclaimed Susan, but there was something in her voice which denoted satisfaction. “Y’u going to go on the same way in Jamaica as you went on here,” she added.
“Well, we will have to make the best of it,” said Jones philosophically, “though you know quite well I am not a drunkard. We will get married in Parish Church.”
Fully a minute passed before she replied—
“As poor Mackenzie is just dead, don’t tell anybody here about it.”
When, two days after the Ninth Night ceremony, Susan and Jones, with Mr. Proudleigh standing between them, saw the grey-green mountains of Jamaica rising into view as the ship drew nearer the shore, they felt for the first time in their lives what a homecoming meant. Susan eagerly pointed out object after object as her eyes roved over the scene stretched out in front of her; Jones was enthusiastic; Mr. Proudleigh, contrary to his habit, was silent. But when the ship entered the harbour, and Kingston appeared, and he saw again the houses and the piers with which he had been familiar all his life, he broke his silence and spoke the thoughts that were in his mind.
“Fancy a old man like me go quite to Colon an’ come back,” he said reflectively. “Who is to tell what is gwine to happen in dis world! An’ I leave me second daurter and me sister behind me! Well, God will take care of them, same as Him take care of me. I am glad to come back. I really glad.”
“No place like home,” said Jones heartily.