All his dreams were of coming home, and sometimes he wrote letters to Nelly. The writing in them was uncertain, and the spelling was doubtful, but the love was safe enough. And when he had poured out his heart in small “i’s” and capital “U’s”? he always inquired how more material things were faring. “How’s the herrings this sayson; and did the men do well with the mack’rel at Kinsale; and is the cowhouse new thatched, and how’s the chapel going? And is the ould man still playing hang with the texes?” Kinvig heard of Davy’s prosperity, and received the news at first in silence, then with satisfaction, and at length with noisy pride. His boy was a bould fellow. “None o’ yer randy-tandy-tissimee-tea tied to the old mawther’s apron-strings about _him_. He’s coming home rich, and he’ll buy half the island over, and make a donation of a harmonia to the chapel, and kick ould Cowley and his fiddle out.” Awaiting that event, Kinvig sent Nelly to England, to be educated according to the station she was about to fill. Nelly was four years in Liverpool, but she had as many breaks for visits home. The first time she came she minced her words affectedly, and Kinvig whispered the mother that she was getting “a fine English tongue at her.” The second time she came she plagued everybody out of peace by correcting their “plaze” to “please,” and the “mate” to “meat,” and the “lave” to “leave.” The third time she came she was silent, and looked ashamed: and the fourth time it was to meet her sweetheart on his return home after ten years’ absence. Davy came by the Sneafell from Liverpool. It was August--the height of the visiting season--and the deck of the steamer was full of tourists. Davy walked through the cobweb of feet and outstretched legs with the face of a man who thought he ought to speak to everybody. Fifty times in the first three hours he went forward to peer through the wind and the glaring sunshine for the first glimpse of the Isle of Man. When at length he saw it, like a gray bird lying on the waters far away, with the sun’s light tipping the hill-tops like a feathery crest, he felt so thick about the throat that he took six steerage passengers to the bar below to help him to get rid of his hoarseness. There was a brass band aboard, and during the trip they played all the outlandish airs of Germany, but just as the pacquet steamed into Douglas Bay, and Davy was watching the land and remembering everything upon it, and shouting “That’s Castle Mona!” “There’s Fort Ann!” “Yonder’s ould St. Mathews’s!” they struck up “Home, Sweet Home.” That was too much for Davy. He dived into his breeches’ pockets, gave every German of the troupe five shillings apiece, and then sat down on a coil of rope and blubbered aloud like a baby.