So Amyas went in, and found Frank laid on the outside of his bed not yet undrest.

“I am a bad sleeper,” said he; “I spend more time, I fear, in burning the midnight oil than prudent men should.  Come and be my jongleur, my minnesinger, and tell me about Andes, and cannibals, and the ice-regions, and the fire-regions, and the paradises of the West.”

So Amyas sat down, and told:  but somehow, every story which he tried to tell came round, by crooked paths, yet sure, to none other point than Rose Salterne, and how he thought of her here and thought of her there, and how he wondered what she would say if she had seen him in this adventure, and how he longed to have had her with him to show her that glorious sight, till Frank let him have his own way, and then out came the whole story of the simple fellow’s daily and hourly devotion to her, through those three long years of world-wide wanderings.

“And oh, Frank, I could hardly think of anything but her in the church the other day, God forgive me! and it did seem so hard for her to be the only face which I did not see—­and have not seen her yet, either.”

“So I thought, dear lad,” said Frank, with one of his sweetest smiles; “and tried to get her father to let her impersonate the nymph of Torridge.”

“Did you, you dear kind fellow?  That would have been too delicious.”

“Just so, too delicious; wherefore, I suppose, it was ordained not to be, that which was being delicious enough.”

“And is she as pretty as ever?”

“Ten times as pretty, dear lad, as half the young fellows round have discovered.  If you mean to win her and wear her (and God grant you may fare no worse!) you will have rivals enough to get rid of.”

“Humph!” said Amyas, “I hope I shall not have to make short work with some of them.”

“I hope not,” said Frank, laughing.  “Now go to bed, and to-morrow morning give your sword to mother to keep, lest you should be tempted to draw it on any of her majesty’s lieges.”

“No fear of that, Frank; I am no swash-buckler, thank God; but if any one gets in my way, I’ll serve him as the mastiff did the terrier, and just drop him over the quay into the river, to cool himself, or my name’s not Amyas.”

And the giant swung himself laughing out of the room, and slept all night like a seal, not without dreams, of course, of Rose Salterne.

The next morning, according to his wont, he went into his mother’s room, whom he was sure to find up and at her prayers; for he liked to say his prayers, too, by her side, as he used to do when he was a little boy.  It seemed so homelike, he said, after three years’ knocking up and down in no-man’s land.  But coming gently to the door, for fear of disturbing her, and entering unperceived, beheld a sight which stopped him short.

Mrs. Leigh was sitting in her chair, with her face bowed fondly down upon the head of his brother Frank, who knelt before her, his face buried in her lap.  Amyas could see that his whole form was quivering with stifled emotion.  Their mother was just finishing the last words of a well-known text,—­“for my sake, and the Gospel’s, shall receive a hundred-fold in this present life, fathers, and mothers, and brothers, and sisters.”