“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, and it’s not for me to complain of the down-break in the engines, seeing that in place of rushing past the coast, we just crawled along the top of these grand cliffs in the bonny sunshine, which hardly wakes a smile upon the stern faces of them, while the white foam breaks at no allowance about their feet.  Many’s the hour, Jack, I’ve lain on the moss, and looked down into a dark cove to watch the tide come in, and turn blue, and green, and tawny purple over the weeds and rocks, and fall back again to where the black crags sit in creamy surf with sea-birds on their shoulders.  Eh! man, it’s sweet to come home and see it all again; the folk standing at their doors, and bairns sitting on the dykes with flowers in their hands, and the waving barley-fields on the cliff tops shining against the sea and sky, as lights and shades change their places over a woman’s hair.  There were some decent bodies in the train beside me, that thought I was daft, with my head out of the window, in an awful draught, at the serious risk of brow-ague, not to speak of coal-smuts, which are horrid if ye get them in your eye.  And not without reason did they think so, for I’ll assure ye I would have been loth to swear whether it was spray or tears that made my cheeks so salt when I saw the bit herring-boats stealing away out into the blue mist, for all the world as if they were laddies leaving home to seek their fortunes, as it might be ourselves.

“But I’m taking up your time with havers about my own country, and I ask your pardon; though I’m not ashamed to say that, for what I’ve seen of the world—­tropics and all—­give me the north-east coast of Scotland!

“I am hoping, at your leisure, to hear that ye both reached home, and found all belonging to ye as ye could wish; and I’m thinking that if Dennis wrote in French, I might make it out, for I’ve come by an old French Dictionary that was my father’s.  GOD save the Shamrock!  Your affectionate friend,
                                            “ALISTER AUCHTERLAY.

“I am ill at saying all that I feel, but I’ll never forget.”

Dennis and I tramped from Liverpool.  Partly for the walk, and partly because we were nearly penniless.  His system, as I told him, seemed to be to empty his pockets first, and to think about how he was going to get along afterwards.  However, it must be confessed that the number and the needs of the poor Irish we came across in connection with Biddy’s death and its attendant ceremonies, were enough to be “the ruination” of a far less tender-hearted Paddy than Dennis O’Moore.

And so—­a real sailor with a real bundle under my arm—­I tramped Home.

Dennis had been a good comrade out in the world; but that was a trifle to the tact and sympathy he displayed when my mother and father and I were making fools of ourselves in each other’s arms.