, his cause might have had a very different issue from
that which it was now fated to have.

Just before Christmastide George received permission to return to
England on leave for a few weeks. He had never visited his old home
all those years, and it was with delight he took his passage in a
schooner bound for Hull. Hardly had he landed at that port when he ran
across the old skipper of the _Ouseburn Lassie_. The worthy fellow did
not at first recognize the schoolboy he had known in the sturdy
handsome young fellow wearing a cavalry lieutenant's uniform, and he
was taken aback when George accosted him with a hearty "How goes it,
old friend? How goes it with you?" The skipper saluted in some
trepidation, and it was not till George had given him a handshake that
gripped like a vice that he knew his man again. Soon the two were deep
in the work of exchanging histories. The crew of the captured collier
brig, it appeared, had been kept at Dunkirk till the autumn of 1704,
when they had been exchanged for certain French prisoners in ward at
Dover. The Fairburn colliery had prospered wonderfully, and the owner
now employed no fewer than four vessels of his own, one of which ran
to Hull regularly. In fact, the skipper was just going on board to
return to the Tyne.

Within an hour, therefore, Lieutenant Fairburn was afloat once more,
to his great joy. On the voyage he learnt many things from the old
captain. Squire Blackett was in very bad odour with the men of the
district. For years his business had been falling off, and he had been
dismissing hands. Now his health was failing; he was unable or
unwilling to give vigorous attention to his trade, and he talked of
closing his pit altogether. The colliers of the neighbourhood were
desperately irritated, and to a man declared that, with anything like
energy in the management, the Blackett pit had a fortune in it for any
owner.

The well-known wharf was reached, a wharf vastly enlarged and
improved, however, and George sprang ashore impatiently. Leaving all
his belongings for the moment, he strode off at a great rate for home,
rather wondering how it was that he did not see a single soul either
about the river or on the road. He rubbed his eyes as he caught a
sight of his boyhood's home. Like the wharf, the house had been added
to and improved until he scarcely recognized the spot at all. "Father
must be a prosperous man," was his thought. Opening the door without
ceremony, he en