from Joe next day the manner of it.

Mistress Hind did not recognize the captain, never having seen him
from a boy, until, sitting at table with a dish of coffee before
him, and she standing over him, bidding him haste that she might
return to bed--sitting thus, I say, he took up the dish and began
to blow into it to cool it, as children do.

"Why," says Mistress Hind, "tha blows it round and round to make
little waves, just like my brother John."

"Nelly!" says the captain, setting the dish down.

"And there they were," said Joe in telling me the story, "in each
other's arms, and when she'd done drying her eyes she says,

"'John, and I needn't ha' minded about the night rail!'"

It was nigh eleven o'clock when I got home--a very late hour in our
parts, and Mistress Pennyquick was in a great to-do, imagining all
kinds of evil that might have befallen me. Mr. Pinhorn had remained
with my father a long time, she said; he was now asleep and was not
to be disturbed. I was myself fairly tired out, and fell asleep the
instant my head touched the pillow.



Chapter 5: I Lose My Best Friend.