rove over to Scarcombe, and to his pleasure, on entering
the cottage, found John and his wife both sitting just where he had last
seen them. They both rose to greet him.

"Thank God, Will," John said, "that we have been spared to see you alive
again! I was afraid that our call might come before you returned."

"Why, father, I don't think you look a year older than you did when I last
saw you. Both you and mother look good for another ten years yet."

"If we do, Will, it will be thanks to the good food you have provided for
us. We live like lords; meat every day for dinner, and fish for breakfast
and supper. I should not feel right if I didn't have a snack of fish every
day. Then we have ale for dinner and supper. There is no one in the
village who lives as we do. When we first began we both felt downright
fat. Then we agreed that if we went on like that we never could live till
you came back, so we did with a little less, and as you see we both fill
out our clothes a long way better than we did when you were here last."

"Well you certainly do both look uncommonly well, father."

"And you ain't married yet, Will?"

"No, I've not done anything about that yet, though perhaps it won't be
very long before I find a wife. I am not going to apply to go on service
again for a time, so I'll have a chance to look round, though I really
have one in my mind's eye."

"Tell us all about it, Will," the old woman said eagerly; "you know how
interested we must be in anything that affects you."

"Well, mother, among the many adventures I have been through I must tell
you the one connected with this young lady."

He then told her of his first meeting, of his stay at her father's house,
and of the hurricane which they experienced together.

"Well, mother, I met her again unexpectedly more than two and a half years
ago in London. Her father had come over here to live, and has a fine house
at Dulwich. I have just been staying there for a week, and I have some
hope that when I ask her she will consent to be my wife."

"Of course she will," the old woman said quite indignantly. "How could she
do otherwise? Why, if you were to ask the king's daughter I am sure she
would take you. Here you are, one of the king's captains, have done all
sorts of wonderful things, and have beaten his enemies all over the world,
and you are as straight and good-looking a young gentleman as anyone wants
to see. No one, who was not out of her mind, could th