“Why, that’s me!” cried Jacques; although “Jacques” no longer to us. “I’m Jim Craddock, and the old lady that you saw is my mother! My word! this is a rum start!”
After the curious coincidence of Bob and Dick being rescued by the son of “the old egg-woman,” as they always called her, between whom and themselves Rover had in the original instance scraped an acquaintance, nothing would content Jim Craddock but that he must bear up at once for Portsmouth, and restore Bob and Dick to those who bewailed them as lost, as well as return the battered little yacht, which the lugger had in tow astern, to her proper owner.
The meeting between Bob and his parents is too sacred a matter to touch upon here; but, it is easy enough to imagine the delight of those welcoming one coming back to them as it were from the dead; Dick, too, being received like another son.
As for Nellie, her joy was so great at beholding again her brother Bob, whom she loved so dearly, that she laughed till she cried and then fainted; while, on her recovery, she laughed and cried again, though she did not faint a second time!
But, you should only have seen Rover when he saw his young master.
Sarah, “the good Sarah,” said that she would never forget “the way in which that there dog went on as long as she lived!”
Of course, it can be well understood that there were no ill-feelings between Bob and the retriever anent the desertion of the latter from the cutter on the day of the boys’ terribly punished escapade; though, the mystery of the dog’s swimming ashore so strangely on that memorable occasion, it may be mentioned here, was never cleared up!
The Captain, it must be said, behaved much more unconcernedly than Rover.
“By Jove! I told you they’d turn up all right!” said he, chuckling away at such a rate that he could hardly stop to get out the next words. “I always told you so, didn’t I ma’am—now, didn’t I?”
“My gracious goodness, Cap’en Dresser, why you were the first to give them up!” cried Mrs Gilmour laughing. “Sure, I never did see such a man!”