News of Edward’s arrival soon flew across the yard, and in came from the barn his father, his next brother, Thomas, and the third, William. The father fell on his neck, and sobbed out his welcome and blessing. Edward had not hands enough for them all to shake.
An aged, white-headed labourer came in, and held out his shrivelled hand. Edward gave it a hearty squeeze. “God bless you,” said old Isaac; “this is the best day I have seen this many a year.”
“And where have you been this long while?” cried the father. “Eight years and more,” added the mother.
His elder brother took off his knapsack; and Molly drew him a chair. Edward seated himself, and they all gathered round him; the old dog got within the circle and lay at his feet.
“O, how glad I am to see you all again!” were Edward’s first words. “How well you look, mother! but father grows thinner. As for the rest, I should have known none of you, unless it had been Thomas and old Isaac.”
“What a sunburnt face you have got!—but you look brave and hearty,” cried his mother.
“Ay, mother, I have been enough in the sun, I assure you. From seventeen to five-and-twenty I have been a wanderer upon the face of the earth, and I have seen more in that time than most men in the course of their lives.
“Our young landlord, you know, took such a liking to me at school, that he would have me go with him on his travels. We went through most of the countries of Europe, and at last to Naples, where my poor master took a fever and died. I never knew what grief was till then; and I believe the thoughts of leaving me in a strange country went as much to his heart as his illness. An intimate acquaintance of his, a rich young West Indian, seeing my distress, engaged me to go with him in a voyage he was about to make to Jamaica. We were too short a time in England before we sailed, for me to come and see you first, but I wrote you a letter from the Downs.”
“We never received it,” said his father.
“That was a pity,” returned Edward; “for you must have concluded I was either dead or had forgotten you. Well—we arrived safe in the West Indies, and there I stayed till I had buried that master, too; for young men die fast in that country. I was very well treated, but I could never like the place; and yet Jamaica is a very fine island, and has many good people in it. But for me, used to see freemen work cheerfully along with their masters—to behold nothing but droves of black slaves in the fields, toiling in the burning sun, under the constant dread of the lash of hard-hearted task-masters—it was what I could not bring myself to bear; and though I might have been made an overseer of a plantation, I chose rather to live in a town, and follow some domestic occupation. I could soon have got rich there; but I fell into a bad state of health, and people were dying all round me of the yellow fever; so I collected my little property, and though a war had broken out, I ventured to embark with it for England.