to-morrow! To-morrow!" at the top of her voice.
Of course they drove down to the station next day fully an hour before the train was due. Tommy beguiled the time by weighing her sisters and herself on the station weighing-machine, looked in at the booking-office, ran to the signal-box and asked to be allowed to work the levers, and in other ways acted up to her reputation.
At last the train was signalled. The three girls looked eagerly down the line. Presently the engine rounded the curve nearly half-a-mile away, and as the train rumbled along the straight line towards the station, a red bandana handkerchief was seen vigorously waving at the window of a compartment in the centre.
"There he is!" cried Tommy, dancing with excitement, and waving her handkerchief in return. "Stand back, miss," called the stationmaster, as she stepped near the edge of the platform.
"Oh, I shan't hurt your old engine," replied Tommy, who, nevertheless, allowed her sisters to take a hand each until the train came to a standstill. Then she darted towards the compartment from which issued a short, stoutish man, with a jolly, red face, short, close-trimmed beard, and eyes ready to light up with fun at the slightest provocation.
Captain Benjamin Barton was a sailor of the good old-fashioned sort. He had been to sea ever since he was thirteen, when he had run away to Plymouth after an exchange of discourtesies with the classical master at the Grammar School: he never could abide Latin. During nearly fifty years of life at sea he had saved a considerable sum, and had become part owner of his vessel, besides hav-ing shares in several others. He still loyally stuck to the sailing ship; the steamship had no attractions for him; and he was never tired
of comparing the two, to the great disadvantage of the more modern type. Tommy once said that he reminded her of the 'bus-driver behind whom she had sat when on her only visit to London, who had spoken with the bitterest scorn of the motor omnibus. The captain's twinkling black eyes gleamed with fun when Tommy assured him artlessly that the 'busman was "just such a dear old stick-
in-the-mud" as he was. Tommy sprang into his arms as he got out of the railway carriage. He gradually extricated himself from her
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embrace, and turning to his elder nieces, silently kissed them. In spite of a brave attempt at cheerfulness his eyes were rather dim as he mumbled a word of greeting. He had always been on the best of terms with their father, and, when he was ashore, had been accustomed to make the farm his headquarters. The loss of his brother-in-law had come as a great shock to him; and the remembrance of it, together with the meeting with the three fatherless girls, almost unmanned him for the moment. The red bandana handkerchief came into play again; he blew his nose furiously, declared that railway travelling always gave him a cold, and turning on Dan Whiddon, the small porter, who was staggering under a trunk he had taken from the compartment, he cried--
"Now, young Samson, don't be too rough with that little contraption of mine."
The aggrieved look on Dan's face set them laughing, and the tension was relieved. They passed out of the station, and came to the little farm wagonette. Tommy was usually driver, but as there was only room for one on the driver's seat, and she declared that she was going to sit with Uncle, Elizabeth good-naturedly offered to take the reins. When the Captain, the other girls, and the trunk were packed in behind, it was a tight squeeze, and Dan Whiddon, rejoicing in twopence, surveyed the pony doubtfully.
"You'm better get out and walk up t' hill," he suggested, with the familiarity of an old friend.
"Be off and buy your sweeties, Samson," said the Captain, "or we'll hitch you on as leader." And laughing at his own jest, Uncle Ben squeezed Mary with his right arm, and Tommy with his left, and called to Elizabeth to get under way.
There was little talking on the homeward drive. The younger girls were quite happy nestling against their uncle; and he was thinking of his many former home-comings. But when he entered the bright farm parlour, and saw the spread tea-table, and the blazing fire which Mrs. Pratt had kindled--then his jolly weather-worn face glowed, and he cried, in the same words he had used a score of times before--
"East or west, home is best. How do, Jane?"
"Nicely, thank'ee sir," returned Mrs. Pratt, with a bob, "except for my poor feet."
The girls smiled. They had heard the same question and answer ever since they could remember, when Uncle Ben came home. Tommy meanwhile had removed his hat, Mary had slyly stuffed his red handkerchief into his pocket, and now Elizabeth gently pushed him down into his favourite arm-chair. Mrs. Pratt, who suffered from bunions, and hobbled about, made the tea, while Mary toasted what was in that country place still called a Sally Lunn, and Elizabeth fetched from the dairy, now very bare and forlorn, a
pot of cool delicious Devonshire cream. During these preparations Tommy was content to sit at her uncle's feet, resting her head on his knees, and now and again giving his horny hand a squeeze.
It was Tommy, however, who kept things lively at the tea-table.
"Now, Uncle," she would say, "you must have more cream in your tea, or you'll be as nervous as a cat."
"Very well, my dear," was the meek reply. "Afloat I drink it without milk or cream, sea-cows not being tractable animals, you know;
but when in Rome, do as the rum 'uns do, eh?"
"That dreadful old pun of yours! You expect us to punish you, don't you now?"
"I'll be Punch to your Judy," returned the Captain, with a hearty laugh, and for some minutes he alternately cracked his simple jokes and devoted himself to his food. "I always say there's nothing in foreign parts to match the cakes and cream of Devonshire," he said, "and you'd know it if you lived on ship's biscuit and salt horse, my girl."
"Where have you been this voyage, Uncle?" asked Mary.
"Peru and Monte Video, and other outlandish parts, my dear. I was held up in the Doldrums, and water was running plaguy short;
'water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink,' as that poetry fellow says. One more voyage, my girls, and then I drop anchor for good."
"We hoped you would stay with us," said Elizabeth.
"Couldn't do it, Bess," he replied. "I can hold a straight course, but I couldn't run a straight furrow for the life of me. No; one more
voyage, to the South Pacific Islands this time, and then I'll take a snug little cottage somewhere by the sea, and spend my days white-
7
washing it, and getting worse-tempered every day, and you shall keep house for me, and smooth me down." And then Tommy put the usual question--it always came from Tommy.
"What adventures did you have this time, Uncle?"
Uncle Ben rubbed his chin, and assumed an air of deep reflection.
"Adventures! Well, the only one worth speaking about," he said slowly, "was when we were becalmed in latitude 35deg South, longitude
152deg East, I think it was. By the chart we should have been about a hundred and fifty miles from the nearest land, but one morning
Long Jimmy--the tall fellow with one eye, you remember----?"
"Yes," said Tommy; "he helped me down the side last time I saw you off."
"Well, he was look-out at the time, and he sings out, 'Land-ho!' I was on deck in a twinkling, I can tell you; and there, a couple of points on the starboard quarter, was a smallish kind of island, and stretching away behind it a lot of little islands pretty near as far as you could see. The biggest was as large as Mount St. Michael, maybe, and all of a white shiny rock. I made a few remarks about the chart-makers, and was thinking of putting out a boat to examine it, when, bless your eyes! that island began to move, and all the little
'uns after it."
Here he drank half a cup of tea, and the girls waited breathlessly for him to continue.
"Some one set up a cry of sea-serpent," he went on gravely, "and Sunny Pat--the little