As we dashed alongside of the pier, the years rolled back, and as of old I saw my mother pacing the well-known path to the boat. She was followed by my father at a short distance. I fancied that the dear form told of the lapse of time, in less firm step and the bent figure which age compels. My father was erect as ever, and his eye swept the far horizon of outer seas as of old; but surely his hair and beard were whiter.
Miranda's step was first upon the pier—she needed no help in leaving or entering a boat. Side by side we walked to meet my mother, who, with a sob of joy, folded me in her arms. "My boy! my boy!" was all she could articulate for some moments; then, gently disengaging herself, "and this is my new daughter?" she said. "May God bless and keep you both, my children, and preserve for us the great happiness which His providence has ordained this day."
"Well, neighbour!" in the well-remembered greeting which he affected, rang out here my father's clear tones, "and so you have finished your cruise for a while! What a man you have grown!" he exclaimed, as he looked upwards half-admiringly at my head and shoulders, markedly above his own. "Filled out, bronzed, you look a sailor, man, all over."
"And so you wouldn't give the Sydney girls a chance, and have brought a wife back with you for fear there mightn't be a 'currency lass' to spare. I must say I admire your taste, my boy. No one can fault that. Welcome, my dear Miranda, to your own and your husband's home. Give your old father a kiss and the ceremony is complete." Here the governor gravely embraced his new daughter, and then, holding her at arm's length, regarded her admiringly, till she playfully ran back to the girls. "Charley here guarantees she is as good as she is handsome. He said better, indeed; but that's impossible. No woman with her looks could be better inside than out. So, Hilary, my boy, I congratulate you on your choice. You've fallen on your feet in love and friendship both, according to what Carryall tells me of Paul Frankston's partnership arrangement. And now we'll come up to the house and drink the bride's health. I feel as if I needed a refresher after all this excitement. I little thought when I saw Charley come over so early what was in store for us, eh, mother?"
Before we reached the house the two girls, Mariana and Elinor, had taken possession of Miranda and carried her upstairs to the rooms which were to be allotted to us while we dwelt at Isola Bella. "Now that the other boys are up the country," said Mariana, who was the elder, "we have more houseroom than we need. So, directly we heard that you were in Sydney, Elinor and I set to work and arranged these two rooms, so that you and Miranda should be quite independent. There's such a pretty view of the harbour. You can use this one as a sitting-room, and there's a smaller dressing-room which he can make a den of. Men always like a place to be untidy in."
"Oh, how nice it will be," said Elinor, the younger one, whom I remember a curly-headed romp of ten when I left home, "to have a mate for rowing and boat-sailing. Mariana here doesn't care for boats, and dislikes rough weather. I suppose no weather would frighten you. Oh, what lovely trips we shall have, and mother can't be nervous when you are with me."
"I suppose you think Miranda is a sort of mermaid," said I, now arrived and joining in the conversation, "and impossible to be drowned. But what would become of me if anything happened to her? Do you think I can trust her with you? What a grand room! I remember it well in old days when it used to be the guest chamber. I was only allowed into it now and then, and always under inspection. I feel the promotion."
"Now, we'll run away and leave you," said Mariana. "Lunch is nearly ready; you will hear the bell."
We sat down on a couch and gazed into each other's eyes with clasped hands. The harbour, with its variously composed fleet, lay wide and diversified before us. Every conceivable vessel—barge, steamer, collier, skiff, yacht, and row-boat—made progress adown and across its waters. How fair a scene it was on this, one of the loveliest days which sun and sky and wavelets deep ever combined to fashion! After all my adventures by seas and lands—after all the sharp contrasts of my chequered life—now lotus-eating amid the groves or by the founts of an earthly paradise—now ignorant, from one day to another, of the hour when the death-knell would sound—now free and joyous, handsomely dressed, in foreign seaports with ruffling swagger and chinking dollars—anon ragged, shoeless, shipwrecked, and forlorn—nay, starving, but for the charity of the soft-hearted heathens whom we in our pride are prone to despise.
And now I was at home again. Home! sweet home! in fullest sense of the word—welcomed, beloved, fêted! What had I done to deserve this love and trust now so profusely showered upon me? My better angel, too, my darling Miranda, by my side, sharing in all this wealth of affection. How could I have foretold that such good fortune would be mine, all unworthy that I felt myself, when, bruised and bleeding, I was hurled ashore in the midnight storm from the wrecked Leonora?—when I felt in thought the deadly shudder which ever follows the scratch of the poisoned arrow—when I sank to eternal rest (as I then supposed) beneath the surf-tormented shore of the island? How had I jostled death, disease, danger in every form and shape,—and now, almost without thought or volition of my own, I was placed in possession of all those things for which through a long life so many men toil and struggle vainly and unsuccessfully.