“Yes, sir.”
“For nearly two years?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That is enough for me. Any poor fellow that has braved the horrors of that den for even a month ought to have the best sort of a chance. I will engage you on the spot, Mr. Avery. If you have been a 'Jersey' prisoner, that is enough for me. I am willing to try a 'green hand,' who has had to endure that experience.”
“You are very kind, Colonel Hamilton,” and Harry's grateful appreciation showed plainly in his face.
“Could you stay to-day,” asked the Colonel, “and let me set you right to work at some copying? I think we can come to a satisfactory arrangement about terms when I am not so hurried.”
Of course Harry stayed—stayed through one of the busiest and happiest days of his life; and not until twilight had long settled down on the river did he step aboard of the “Gretchen” and set sail for the old Van Vleet Farm.
When the wind is right in your favor, and you have little to do but mind your helm, you have a fine chance for a quiet think—that is, if you are any sort of a sailor; and Harry improved the opportunity and thought hard—thought of all that the day's good fortune might mean to him: of ability to pay his own way for the first time in his life; of a little money to be sent off now and then to the younger brothers in New London, and then, in a vague sort of a way, of a home of his own some day. Meantime all the while there would be the constant daily companionship with Colonel Hamilton himself, who seemed to him (as indeed to many another, and in the face, too, of his extreme youthfulness) at once the noblest, the kindest, and by far the greatest man he had ever met. What a pity, he thought, that he should have sided against Aunt Frances!
But of one thing Harry felt sure, which was that he had certainly “taken to” Colonel Alexander Hamilton; and there was another thing just as sure which he did not know about, and that was that the Colonel had decidedly “taken to” Harry.