The water was covered with boats, the people standing up and waving and cheering. It was no easy matter to steer clear of them as we stood up the harbour. When rounding to off the dockyard, the anchor was dropped, the cable running out like lightning, as if eager to do its duty and help to bring us safe home. The prize then massing us, brought up close under our stern.
Scarcely was the cable stoppered, and the ship made snug, than hundreds of boats pulled up alongside, those on board anxious to hear all about the victory we had gained.
Among the first was a somewhat battered-looking wherry, with a little wizened old man and a boy pulling. The former, catching sight of me as I stretched my neck through a port, throwing in his oar, uttered a shout of astonishment, and then, with the agility of a monkey, quickly clambered up the side by a rope I hove to him.
“What! Will, Will, is it you yourself?” exclaimed Jerry Vincent, wringing my hand and gazing into my face. “We all thought you were far away in the East Indies, and Mistress Kelson made up her mind that you’d never come back from that hot region where they fry beefsteaks on the capstan-head.”
“But my wife—my wife! is she well? Oh, tell me, Mr Vincent,” I exclaimed, interrupting him. “She expected me to come back.”
“She’s well enough, if not so hearty as we’d be wishing; for, to say the truth, the roses don’t bloom in her cheeks as they used to do.”
I cannot describe the joy and relief this reply brought to my heart. The gratitude which I felt made me give old Jerry a hug, which well-nigh pressed the breath out of his body.
“Why, Will, my boy, you are taking me for Mrs Weatherhelm,” he exclaimed, bursting into a fit of laughter. “You’ll soon see her, and then you can hug her as long as you like, if you can get leave to go on shore; if not, I’ll go and bring her here as quick as I can pull back to the point and toddle away over to Southsea.”
“Oh, no, no; I wouldn’t have her here on any account,” I answered as I thought of the disreputable characters who in shoals would soon be crowding the decks, and who were even now waiting in the boats until they were allowed to come on board.
“Tell me, Jerry, about my uncle and Aunt Bretta; how are they both?”