The heat was terrific after England and the sea-voyage, and we slept on the deck.  And Banks sat, most of the day, exclaiming at the vast scale on which this new country was laid out, and wondering at the myriad islands we passed, some of them fair with grain and tobacco; and at the low-lying shores clothed with forests, and broken by the salt marshes, with now and then the manor-house of some gentleman-planter visible on either side.  Late on the second day I beheld again the cliffs that mark the mouth of the Severn, then the sail-dotted roads and the roofs of Annapolis.

We landed, Banks and I, in a pinnace from the schooner, and so full was my heart at the sight of the old objects that I could only gulp now and then, and utter never a word.  There was the dock where I had paced up and down near the whole night, when Dolly had sailed away; and Pryse the coachmaker’s shop, and the little balcony upon which I had stood with my grandfather, and railed in a boyish tenor at Mr. Hood.  The sun cast sharp, black shadows.  And it being the middle of the dull season, when the quality were at their seats, and the dinner-hour besides, the town might have been a deserted one for its stillness, as tho’ the inhabitants had walked out of it, and left it so.  I made my way, Banks behind me, into Church Street, past the “Ship” tavern, which brought memories of the brawl there, and of Captain Clapsaddle forcing the mob, like chaff, before his sword.  The bees were humming idly over the sweet-scented gardens, and Farris, the clock-maker, sat at his door, and nodded.  He jerked his head as I went by with a cry of “Lord, it is Mr. Richard back!” and I must needs pause, to let him bow over my hand.  Farther up the street I came to mine host of the Coffee House standing on his steps, with his hands behind his back.

“Mr. Claude,” I said.

He looked at me as tho’ I had risen from the dead.

“God save us!” he shouted, in a voice that echoed through the narrow street.  “God save us!”

He seemed to go all to pieces.  To my bated questions he replied at length, when he had got his breath, that Captain Clapsaddle had come to town but the day before, and was even then in the coffee-room at his dinner.  Alone?  Yes, alone.  Almost tottering, I mounted the steps, and turned in at the coffee-room door, and stopped.  There sat the captain at a table, the roast and wine untouched before him, his waistcoat thrown open.  He was staring out of the open window into the inn garden beyond, with its shade of cherry trees.  Mr. Claude’s cry had not disturbed his reveries, nor our talk after it.  I went forward.  I touched him on the shoulder, and he sprang up, and looked once into my face, and by some trick of the mind uttered the very words Mr. Claude had used.

“God save us!  Richard!” And he opened his arms and strained me to his great chest, calling my name again and again, while the tears coursed down the furrows of his cheeks.  For I marked the furrows for the first time, and the wrinkles settling in his forehead and around his eyes.  What he said when he released me, nor my replies, can I remember now, but at last he called, in his ringing voice, to mine host: