But from then on all trace of similarity with his own dream ended.
They were entering Boston Harbor and in his excitement Justin held Deborah's hand so tightly that she cried out and he relaxed his grip with a murmur of apology.
"Castle William!" he murmured as they swept past the chief harbor fortification, from which an English ensign flapped gaily in the breeze.
Where the South End now rests was only water and, beyond it, the highlands of Dorchester and Nantasket rose in wooded splendor, innocent of the grime of industrial tenements and factories. They rounded a headland and, slowly, Boston itself swam into view.
Justin let out a cry of sheer delight. There was the old city—little more than a large town by twentieth-century standards with its fewer than twenty thousand inhabitants—its numerous spires and church steeples topping its hills, its houses and buildings crowding the wharves to which were moored fishermen, coasters and ocean ships, their masts making an intricate and fantastic pattern against the sky.
Then darkness whirled briefly about them and they seemed to be plucked from the deck of the white ship by a sort of whirlpool. Justin cried out, involuntarily, again felt the firm softness of Deborah's hand pressed against his lips. He was lying on the edge of a bed whose bottom seemed to be spilling over the side.
"Deborah?" sounded a shrill matronly voice from somewhere beyond a door, closed and invisible in the darkness. "Deborah, are ye all right? I thought I heard ye cry out."
"Just a dream, mama. I'm quite all right," the girl called back. There was a nervous silent wait, the sound of scuffling footsteps growing fainter, then the slam of another door.
"I thought surely ye'r outcry would have them all about us," said the girl reprovingly. "Ye'r really here with me after all and methinks ye'll be a great problem, if not my ruination forever."