Chapter 44 - Page 2

grave.

'Well, two years later we were cruising from Sidney to Van
Dieman's Land. One night there came a big storm. A shipmate was
washed away in the dark. We never saw him again. They found a
letter in his box that said his real name was Nehemiah Brower, son
of David Brower, of Faraway, NY, USA. I put it there, of course,
and the captain wrote a letter to my father about the death of his
son. My old self was near done for and the man Trumbull had a
new lease of life. You see in my madness I had convicted and
executed myself.

He paused a moment. His mother put her hand upon his shoulder
with a word of gentle sympathy. Then he went on.

'Well, six years after I had gone away, one evening in midsummer,
we came into the harbour of Quebec. I had been long in the
southern seas. When I went ashore, on a day's leave, and wandered
off in the fields and got the smell of the north, I went out of my
head - went crazy for a look at the hills o' Faraway and my own
people. Nothing could stop me then. I drew my pay, packed my
things in a bag and off I went. Left the 'Burg afoot the day after;
got to Faraway in the evening. It was beautiful - the scent o' the
new hay that stood in cocks and rows on the hill - the noise
o' the crickets - the smell o' the grain - the old house, just as I
remembered them; just as I had dreamed of them a thousand times.
And - when I went by the gate Bony - my old dog - came out and
barked at - me and I spoke to him and he knew me and came and
licked my hands, rubbing upon my leg. I sat down with him there
by the stone wall and - the kiss of that old dog - the first token of
love I had known for years' called back the dead and all that had
been his. I put my arms about his - neck and was near crying out
with joy.

'Then I stole up to the house and looked in at a window. There sat
father, at a table, reading his paper; and a little girl was on her
knees by mother saying her prayers. He stopped a moment,
covering his eyes with his handkerchief.

'That was Hope,' I whispered.

'That was Hope,' he went on. 'All the king's oxen could not
have dragged me out of Faraway then. Late at night I went off
into the woods. The old dog followed to stay with me until he died.
If it had not been for him I should have been hopeless. I had with
me enough to eat for a time. We found a cave in a big ledge over
back of Bull Pond. Its mouth was covered with briars. It had a big
room and a stream of cold water trickling through a crevice. I
made it my home and a fine place it was - cool in summer and
warm in winter. I caught a cub panther that fall and a baby coon.
They grew up with me there and were the only friends I had after
Bony, except Uncle Eb.

'Uncle