'Well, two years later we were cruising from Sidney to Van Dieman's Land. One night there came a big storm. A shipmate was washed away in the dark. We never saw him again. They found a letter in his box that said his real name was Nehemiah Brower, son of David Brower, of Faraway, NY, USA. I put it there, of course, and the captain wrote a letter to my father about the death of his son. My old self was near done for and the man Trumbull had a new lease of life. You see in my madness I had convicted and executed myself. He paused a moment. His mother put her hand upon his shoulder with a word of gentle sympathy. Then he went on. 'Well, six years after I had gone away, one evening in midsummer, we came into the harbour of Quebec. I had been long in the southern seas. When I went ashore, on a day's leave, and wandered off in the fields and got the smell of the north, I went out of my head--went crazy for a look at the hills o' Faraway and my own people. Nothing could stop me then. I drew my pay, packed my things in a bag and off I went. Left the 'Burg afoot the day after; got to Faraway in the evening. It was beautiful--the scent o' the new hay that stood in cocks and rows on the hill--the noise o' the crickets--the smell o' the grain--the old house, just as I remembered them; just as I had dreamed of them a thousand times. And--when I went by the gate Bony--my old dog--came out and barked at--me and I spoke to him and he knew me and came and licked my hands, rubbing upon my leg. I sat down with him there by the stone wall and--the kiss of that old dog--the first token of love I had known for years' called back the dead and all that had been his. I put my arms about his--neck and was near crying out with joy. 'Then I stole up to the house and looked in at a window. There sat father, at a table, reading his paper; and a little girl was on her knees by mother saying her prayers. He stopped a moment, covering his eyes with his handkerchief. 'That was Hope,' I whispered. 'That was Hope,' he went on. 'All the king's oxen could not have dragged me out of Faraway then. Late at night I went off into the woods. The old dog followed to stay with me until he died. If it had not been for him I should have been hopeless. I had with me enough to eat for a time. We found a cave in a big ledge over back of Bull Pond. Its mouth was covered with briars. It had a big room and a stream of cold water trickling through a crevice. I made it my home and a fine place it was--cool in summer and warm in winter. I caught a cub panther that fall and a baby coon. They grew up with me there and were the only friends I had after Bony, except Uncle Eb. 'Uncle Eb!' I exclaimed.