furiously, while Conny took advantage of the opportunity to point out to
her the evil effects of using slang words; but the little lecture of the
elder sister was soon joked away by the doctor, and they arrived at the
station in the best of spirits.
Here they met with a wonderful surprise.
Some one who must have heard the news somehow or other of Teddy's return
home had decorated the front of the old waiting-room with evergreens and
sunflowers; and a sort of triumphal arch also being erected on the
arrival platform of the same floral pattern.
Who could have done it?
Why, no less a person than Jupp, whose black beard seemed all the
blacker, surrounding his good-humoured face, as he came out of the
office with Mary on his arm, and a young Master Jupp and another little
Mary toddling behind them--the whilom porter no longer dressed in grimy
velveteens, but in a smart black frock-coat, his Sunday best, while his
wife was equally spruce.
"I know it's ag'in the rules, miss," he explained to Conny; "but I see
the telegram as said Master Teddy'd be here this arternoon, God bless
him, and I'm thankful, that I am, he's restored safe and sound from the
bottom of the sea and Davy Jones's Locker, as we all on us thought. So
says I to Grigson, my old mate as was, who's in charge here now, and we
detarmined as how we'd make a kind of show like to welcome of him home."
"You're a right-down brick, Jupp!" said Doctor Jolly, shaking him by the
hand, while Mary kissed her former nurse children all round; and, while
they were all exchanging congratulations, up came the train rumbling and
whistling and panting and puffing into the station, the engine bearing a
Union Jack tied to the funnel, for Jupp's interest in two of the special
passengers being brought to Endleigh was well-known on the line.
Hardly had the train come to a standstill than out jumped Teddy, a
trifle taller and broader across the shoulders as might have been
expected from his two years of absence, but the same open-faced boy with
the curly brown hair and blue eyes that all remembered so well.
What a meeting it was, to be sure, and how he hugged his sisters and Dr
Jolly and Jupp and Mary all round--Uncle Jack almost being unnoticed for
the moment, although he did not appear to mind it, looking on with a
sympathetic grin of delight at the general joy expressed in every
countenance present!
The doctor's "shanderadan" had a full cargo back to the vicarage,
everybody talking to everybody all at once and none being able to finish
a complete sentence--little Cissy keeping tight hold of Teddy's arm the
while as if fearful of losing him again and thinking it might be all a
dream.
When they got to the house Teddy was through the gate and across the
lawn in two bounds, tapping at the door of the study before his father
knew that he had come.
Like another father, the vicar was overcome with glad emotion, clasping
him in his arms and embracing him, weeping as he cried in a broken
voice:
"This, my son, was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!"
Only a word more.
The terrible experiences Teddy had had, and the sense of discipline
inculcated in him during his short training at sea, made such a change
in his character that henceforth he lost his former justly-earned
titles, being never more called either "pickle" or "scapegrace."
He has not, however, abandoned the profession he originally adopted, in
spite of its many perils and dangers, and the fact that a sailor's life
is not altogether of that rose-coloured nature which story-writers
usually make out.
No, he still sails under his old captain in the same line, and voyages
backwards and forwards between Melbourne and London with praiseworthy
punctuality, in the new ship Captain Lennard commands in place of the
old _Greenock_. The vessel, too, is a regular clipper in her way,
beating everything that tries to compete with her, whether outwards or
inwards bound.
Teddy looks forward some day to taking his skipper's place when he
retires from active life afloat, and following the example of Uncle
Jack, who is already a captain too in his own right; for he is as steady
and trustworthy now as he was formerly impetuous and headstrong.
But, mind you, he has lost none of his pluck or fearless spirit, and is
the same genial, good-tempered, and happy-dispositioned boy he was in
earliest childhood--knowing now the difference between true courage and
mere bravado, and the value of obedience to those in authority over him.
As for Miss Conny, in spite of her ordinary sedateness of demeanour and
constant asseveration that she would only marry a clergyman like her
father, she is, to use Teddy's expressive diction, "spliced to a
sodger," having become engaged some time since to a gallant captain in a
marching regiment that was quartered for a while at Bigton, within easy
access of Endleigh.
Cissy and Liz are both growing up nice girls; while the vicar is still
hale and hearty, giving his parishioners the benefit every Sunday of a
"thirdly" and sometimes "fourthly, brethren," in addition to the first
and second divisions of his sermon; and never omitting his favourite
"lastly" with "a word in conclusion" to wind up with.
Doctor Jolly, to complete our list of characters, is yet to the fore
with his catching laugh, as "jolly" as ever; and, Jupp and Mary have
likewise been so tenderly dealt with by time that they hardly look a day
older than on that memorable occasion when Master Teddy introduced
himself to public notice.
Don't you remember?
Why, when he casually mentioned to the porter and reader alike, and all
whom it might concern, in the most matter-of-fact way in the world, that
he wanted to "do dan'ma!"
THE END.