“Branscome?  Branscome, of the Londonderry?” said my father.  “Ay, to be sure, I remember Branscome—­a Godfearing fellow and a good seaman.  You may take him back my compliments, Harry—­my compliments and remembrances—­and say that if Heaven permitted us to meet again in this world, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to crack a bottle with him.”

I duly reported this to Captain Branscome, and was taken aback by his reception of it.  He began in a sudden flurry to ask a dozen questions concerning my father.

“He keeps good health, I trust?  It would be an honour to call and chat with the Major.  At what hour would he be most accessible to visitors?”

I stared, for in truth he seemed ready to take me at my word and start off at once, and at my patent surprise he grew yet more nervous and confused.

“I have kept a regard for your father, Brooks—­a veneration, I might almost call it.  Sailors and soldiers, if I may say it, are not apt to think too well of one another; but the Major from the first fulfilled my conception of all a soldier should be-a gentleman fearless and modest, a true Christian hero.  Minden Cottage, you say?  And fronting the road a little this side of St. Germans?  Tell me, pray—­and excuse the impertinence—­what household does he keep?”

It is hard to write down Captain Branscome’s questions on paper, and divest them, as his gentle face and hesitating kindly manner divested them, of all offensiveness.  I did not resent them at the time or consider then impertinent.  But they were certainly close and minute, and I had reason before long to recall every detail of his catechism.

Captain Coffin, on the other hand, welcomed me back to Falmouth with a carelessness which disappointed if it did not nettle me.  He fetched out the tea and guava-jelly, to be sure, but appeared to take no interest in my doings during the holidays, and was uncommunicative on his own.  This seemed the stranger because he had important news to tell me.  During my absence he and Mr. Goodfellow between them had finished the whaleboat.

The truth was—­though I did not at once perceive it—­that upon its completion the old man had begun to drink hard.  Drink invariably made him morose, suspicious.  His real goodwill to me had not changed, as I was to learn.  He had paid a visit to Captain Branscome, and give him special instructions to teach me the art of navigation, the intricacies of which eluded his own fuddled brain.  But for the present he could only talk of trivialities, and especially of the barber’s parrot, for which he had conceived a ferocious hate.

“I’ll wring his neck, I will!” he kept repeating.  “I’ll wring his neck one o’ these days, blast me if I don’t!”

I took my leave that evening in no wise eager to repeat the visit; and, in fact, I repeated it but twice—­and each time to find him in the same sullen humour—­between then and May 11, the day when the Wellingboro’ transport cast anchor in Falmouth roads with two hundred and fifty returned prisoners of war.