Offshore, four miles offshore, Bagg was footing it for England as fast as his skinny little legs would carry him. The way was hard––a winding, uneven path over the pack. It led round clumpers, over ridges which were hard to scale, and across broad, slippery pans. The frost had 80 glued every fragment to its neighbour; for the moment the pack formed one solid mass, continuous and at rest, but the connection between its parts was of the slenderest, needing only a change of the wind or the ground swell of the sea to break it everywhere.
The moon was up. It was half obscured by a haze which was driving out from the shore, to which quarter the wind had now fairly veered. The wind was rising––coming in gusts, in which, soon, flakes of snow appeared. But there was light enough to keep to the general direction out from the coast, and the wind but helped Bagg along.
“I got t’ ’urry up,” thought he.
The boy looked behind. Ruddy Cove was within sight. He was surprised that the coast was still so near.
“Got t’ ’urry up a bit more,” he determined.
He was elated––highly elated. He thought that his old home was but a night’s journey distant; at most, not more than a night and a day, and he had more than food enough in his pockets to last through that. He was elated; but from time to time a certain regret entered in, and it was not easily cast out. He remembered 81 the touch of Aunt Ruth’s lips, and her arm, which had often stolen about him in the dusk; and he remembered that Uncle Ezekiel had beamed upon him most affectionately, in times of mischief and good works alike. He had been well loved in Ruddy Cove.
“Wisht I’d told Aunt Ruth,” Bagg thought.
On he trudged––straight out to sea.
“Got t’ ’urry up,” thought he.
Again the affection of Aunt Ruth occurred to him. She had been very kind; and as for Uncle ’Zeke––why, nobody could have been kinder.