diers, if I may say it, are not apt
to think too well of one another; but the Major from the first
fulfilled my conception of all a soldier should be-a gentleman
fearless and modest, a true Christian hero. Minden Cottage, you say?
And fronting the road a little this side of St. Germans? Tell me,
pray--and excuse the impertinence--what household does he keep?"

It is hard to write down Captain Branscome's questions on paper, and
divest them, as his gentle face and hesitating kindly manner divested
them, of all offensiveness. I did not resent them at the time or
consider then impertinent. But they were certainly close and minute,
and I had reason before long to recall every detail of his catechism.

Captain Coffin, on the other hand, welcomed me back to Falmouth with
a carelessness which disappointed if it did not nettle me.
He fetched out the tea and guava-jelly, to be sure, but appeared to
take no interest in my doings during the holidays, and was
uncommunicative on his own. This seemed the stranger because he had
important news to tell me. During my absence he and Mr. Goodfellow
between them had finished the whaleboat.

The truth was--though I did not at once perceive it--that upon its
completion the old man had begun to drink hard. Drink invariably
made him morose, suspicious. His real goodwill to me had not
changed, as I was to learn. He had paid a visit to Captain
Branscome, and give him special instructions to teach me the art of
navigation, the intricacies of which eluded his own fuddled brain.
But for the present he could only talk of trivialities, and
especially of the barber's parrot, for which he had conceived a
ferocious hate.

"I'll wring his neck, I will!" he kept repeating. "I'll wring his
neck one o' these days, blast me if I don't!"

I took my leave that evening in no wise eager to repeat the visit;
and, in fact, I repeated it but twice--and each time to find him in
the same sullen humour--between then and May 11, the day when the
_Wellingboro'_ transport cast anchor in Falmouth roads with two
hundred and fifty returned prisoners of war.

She had sailed from Bordeaux on April 20, in company with five other
transports bound for Plymouth, and her putting into Falmouth to
repair her steering-gear came as a surprise to the town, which at
once hung out all its bunting and prepared to welcome her poor
passengers home to England with open arm. A sorry crew they looked,
ragged, wild eyed, and