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:

"A bottle from your choicest bin, Claude! Some of Mr. Bordley's.
For he that was lost is found."

The hundred questions I had longed to ask were forgotten. A peace stole
upon me that I had not felt since