‘I am—I am very much interested; I think it a very funny story.’
‘Funny!’ he repeated, and then relapsed into silence, which remained unbroken until they turned in at Rosalie’s gate.
CHAPTER II
A thousand thorns, and briers, and stings
I have in my poor breast;
Yet ne’er can see that salve which brings
My passion any rest.Herrick.
‘Well, my boy, I be main glad you be come back. There bain’t no place like home, be there?’
As Isaac Sharpe repeated these words for the twentieth time since his nephew’s arrival, he beamed affectionately upon him through the fragrant steam of the bowl of punch specially brewed in his honour, and then, leaning back in his chair, sighed and shook his head.
‘Ye be wonderful like your mother, Richard,’ he said, and sighed again, and groaned, and took another sip of punch, blinking the while, partly from the strength of the decoction and partly because he was overcome by emotion.
Richard, sitting opposite to him, stretched out his legs luxuriously to the warmth of the crackling wood fire, and, removing his pipe from his lips, gazed contentedly round the familiar kitchen, which was now looking its best in the homely radiance.
‘It is good to come back to the dear old place and to find everything exactly the same as ever. You don’t seem to have grown a day older, Uncle Isaac—nothing is changed. I can’t tell you how delightful that is. I had been tormenting myself during the journey with fancying I should find things altered—but, thank Heaven, they are not.’
He glanced brightly at the broad, rubicund face opposite to him, and took his glass from the table.