When I reached home, I found that my cousin had arrived. I ran up to him, and exclaimed:
‘Will, I have heard from Tom! Read the letter! Here it is! It reached me this morning!’
He said with a grimace:
‘The very paper they make them use has an Old Bailey look.’ He then read the letter, and cried out: ‘Why, Marian, this seems as though we were to take him!’
‘Yours is the only ship, Will. I am certain Tom will go with you. Is it not extraordinary?’
He looked at the letter again and said:
‘The dates tally. I was at the office of the owners yesterday, and I learn that we sail about the 12th. But Tom speaks here of Van Diemen’s Land. That’s certainly not known at the office. I asked the question, and they said it was not known whether it was to be Launceston or Hobart Town or Sydney.’
‘It will be all the same,’ I replied, ‘so long as he goes in your ship.’
‘I hope it won’t be to Norfolk Island, for his sake. You look strange, Marian. What’s put all that fire into your eyes? And you breathe as if you’d been running. Tom’s letter has upset you.’
‘It has done me so much good that I feel almost a child again, Will.’