He caught her to his breast as he spoke, and kissed the pale sweet face, with a kind of defiant rapture, as if he challenged Fate to do him any harm. The pain of separation from that fair young wife had been so keen an agony that there was a touch of savage exultancy in the joy of re-union--some such fierce gladness as a knight-crusader might have felt in days of old, coming back to his beloved after years of war and travel. God help the crusader’s wife of those rough days if she had turned from the path of virtue during his exile. There would be a short shrift and a bloody shroud for such a sinner! They walked into Fowey by that pathway which Isola had trodden so often in the year that was gone--not always alone. The pleasure steamer was waiting in the little haven, where the two rivers part under the cloven hills. Out seaward the air blew fresh and free, and the spray was dashing up against the rocks, and Polruan’s grey roofs were wrapped in morning shadows while Fowey laughed in the sunshine. That water journey to Falmouth was delicious upon such a morning, and it needed not a brass band of three men and a boy, blaring out the new and popular music-hall song of the year before last, to enliven the voyage. Those arable lands yonder, undulating with every curve of the ever-varying coast-line, the emerald green of young corn shining in the sunlight, copse and spinney here and there in the clefts and hollows, the Gribbin Head standing up stony and grim on the crest of the topmost hill, and, anon, Par harbour lying low upon the level sands, and then this point and that, till they meet the gallant fleet of fishing-boats sailing out from Mevagissey, like a peaceful Armada, and skim past the haven, and the little town and quay crowded at the foot of the hill, and the coastguard’s stronghold yonder, high up against the bright blue sky, whiter than any other mortal habitation ever was or will be. And so to Falmouth, with porpoises playing under their bows, like sportive dolphins, as if they carried Dionysius or Arion on their deck--a brief summer sail, in the keen sweet air of an English summer. To Martin Disney’s British nostrils that atmosphere seemed soul-inspiring, the very breath of life and gladness, after the experiences of a hot-weather campaign. And here was Falmouth, with proud Pendennis on a sunny height, and bay and harbour, town and hill, terrace above terrace, tower and steeple--the town and streets all crowded and clustered in the foreground, where the river winds inward to the heart of the land. The Green Bank gave them cordial welcome, and luncheon was speedily spread in a private sitting-room, at a snug round table by a window overlooking the harbour--luncheon, and of the best, tongue and chicken, and salad, cherry pasty, junket and cream. Colonel Disney applied himself to the meal with a hearty relish.