but
effectually, recovered from the effects of the African climate, and the
hardships I had lately gone through, and was ultimately pronounced as
fit as ever for service. When Larry Harrigan heard that I was ill, he
came over to Ryde, and could scarcely be persuaded to leave me for a
moment, till assured by the doctor that I was in no danger whatever, but
even he seemed much to doubt the judgment of the learned disciple of
Galen. Afterwards he allowed very few days to pass without coming to
set me, till I was strong enough to return his visits, which I did not
fail to do. The good, kind old man! He never went back to Ireland, but
lived on at Southsea, in perfect comfort, till he and his wife reached a
green old age. He used to tell me, confidentially, that there was an
honest navy agent, who had found him out, and insisted on paying him a
wonderful interest for a certain share of prize-money, which he had
fortunately neglected to claim in his younger days. It was, in truth, a
way I took of contributing to maintain the old man in comfort, without
his feeling that he was a pensioner on my bounty.

Some time after I had been at home, I heard from my gallant friend
Waller, who had gone back to Barbadoes. He gave me a piece of
information, at which I own I was not very much surprised, namely, that
he was on the point of bringing Miss Alice Marlow to England as his
bride. "I hope that she will prove worthy of him, for a finer fellow
does not exist," said I.

A short time before I left Daisy Cottage to join my next ship, I was
sitting in the drawing-room, when Sir Richard Sharpe was announced, and
in walked Dicky himself. We almost wrung each other's hands off before
we could speak, and then we did indeed rattle away. His father was
dead, he told me.

"I have been compelled to deprive the navy of my services," said he,
with perfect gravity. "But you see that I have my estates to look
after, and my mother and sisters' welfare to attend to; and I could not
fulfil my duties in these respects were I to remain afloat. Do you
know, D'Arcy, I am very glad indeed that I went to sea," he continued,
more seriously. "It made me think much less of myself, and cured me of
many faults; for I am very sure that I should have been spoiled had I
remained at home. They always let me have too much of my own way, and
that is bad for the best of us. Now in the service I got cobbed and
mast-headed, and made to do what I was told;