Looking out into the garden, where Mr Fluke was in earnest confabulation with Joseph, Owen promised Kezia to say nothing about the demonstrative way in which she had received him.
“I should be very ungrateful if I did,” he added. “And how is Mr Fluke? Shall I go to him, or will you tell him I have arrived?”
“I will go to him,” she answered, “for though he has got a heart of some sort, it may be like his outside, a little withered. He took on sadly when he thought you were lost, and as he has been rather shaky lately, it might upset him if he were to see you suddenly.”
“Do, then, my dear Mrs Kezia, tell him that I have come, and am the same Owen Hartley that was when I went away, although I have got some strange things to talk to him about,” said Owen.
“Well, then, go into the parlour, and wait until I fetch him,” said Mrs Kezia, and she hurried out into the garden, nearly falling down the steps in her eagerness.
Owen would have liked to watch her while she communicated the news of his arrival. He had some time to wait before he heard her voice calling him. He at once went out; Mr Fluke was at the further end of the garden.
“I got him down there before I told him nat a young gentleman had come to see him, and that although he was a good deal bigger than Owen, and dressed in a naval uniform, that to my mind he was no one else. Even now he is not quite certain whether or not he is to see you.”
“You have acted prudently, as you always do, Mrs Kezia,” said Owen.
Mr Fluke looked at Owen, and then began to walk towards him, increasing his pace until he broke almost into a run. His limbs refused to obey the impulse of his feelings.
“Can it be? No! It is impossible! But yet, I don’t know. Yes! It is Owen Hartley. It must be! Owen, my boy, are you really come back?”