For all his light treatment of his wife's terrors, Master Huntoon had his own fears for his son's safety, and realized better than she could the many forms of danger and temptations that beset a home-bred youth, setting out to do business or battle with the world. It was with a glad leap of the heart and a curious catch in his throat that he recognized the stalwart figure by the gunwale as the packet drew near the wharf, though a moment later he realized that something must have gone wrong with the ketch.
"All's well, Father," cried Romney; which meant, "There's the devil to pay; but I'm alive."
Before the ship had made fast her first hawser, the boy was over its side and in his mother's arms, with one hand held fast in his father's, pouring forth a torrent of words so bewildering that his father finally clapped his hand over his son's mouth, saying,—
"Softly, thou headlong stripling, or thou wilt split our ears in the effort to hear, and our heads trying to take all in. Now let me put the questions, and do thou say 'ay' or 'no,' and as little more as the grace of God lets thee hold thy tongue for. Now, thou didst load at St. Mary's?"
"Ay, sir."
"And cleared in safety?"
"Ay."
"And stopped at St. Gabriel's Manor?"
"Ay."
"What for?"