give them everything they need.  That’s due to her and to the child, and it’s due to you; and if she’ll come I’ll do my best to make her happy while she lives.  I heard about five years ago from a man who worked for a short time in Farguson’s ship-yard how she was suffering, and what names the people called the child, and my one thought ever since has been to do the decent thing by both.  I couldn’t then, for I was living in a hut back in the mountains a thousand miles from the coast, or tramping from place to place; so I kept still.  He told me, too, how you felt toward me, and I didn’t want to come and have bad blood between us, and so I stayed on.  When Olssen Strom, my foreman, sailed for Perth Amboy, where they are making some machinery for the company, I thought I’d try again, so I sent him to find out.  One thing in your letter is wrong.  I never went to the hospital with yellow fever; some of the men had it aboard ship, and I took one of them to the ward the night I ran away.  The doctor at the hospital wanted my name, and I gave it, and this may have been how they thought it was me, but I did not intend to deceive you or anybody else, nor cover up any tracks.  Yes, father, I’m coming home.  If you’ll hold out your hand to me I’ll take it gladly.  I’ve had a hard time since I left you; you’d forgive me if you knew how hard it has been.  I haven’t had anybody out here to care whether I lived or died, and I would like to see how it feels.  But if you don’t I can’t help it.  My hope is that Lucy and the boy will feel differently.  There is a steamer sailing from here next Wednesday; she goes direct to Amboy, and you may expect me on her.  Your son,

“Barton.”

“It’s him, Tod,” cried the captain, shaking the letter over his head; “it’s him!” The tears stood in his eyes now, his voice trembled; his iron nerve was giving way.  “Alive, and comin’ home!  Be here next week!  Keep the door shut, boy, till I pull myself together.  Oh, my God, Tod, think of it!  I haven’t had a day’s peace since I druv him out nigh on to twenty year ago.  He hurt me here”—­and he pointed to his breast—­“where I couldn’t forgive him.  But it’s all over now.  He’s come to himself like a man, and he’s square and honest, and he’s goin’ to stay home till everything is straightened out.  O God! it can’t be true! it can’t be true!”

He was sobbing now, his face hidden by his wrist and the cuff of his coat, the big tears striking his pea-jacket and bounding off.  It had been many years since these springs had yielded a drop—­not when anybody could see.  They must have scalded his rugged cheeks as molten metal scalds a sand-pit.

Tod stood amazed.  The outburst was a revelation.  He had known the captain ever since he could remember, but always as an austere, exacting man.

“I’m glad, captain,” Tod said simply; “the men’ll be glad, too.  Shall I tell ’em?”

The captain raised his head.

“Wait a minute, son.”  His heart was very tender, all discipline was forgotten now; and then he had known Tod from his boyhood.  “I’ll go myself and tell ’em,” and he drew his hand across his eyes as if to dry them.  “Yes, tell ’em.  Come, I’ll go ’long with ye and tell ’em myself.  I ain’t ’shamed of the way I feel, and the men won’t be ’shamed neither.”