The branch train did not start for ten minutes, and Joan employed the interval in walking up and down the platform, looking at the church tower, the roofs of the fishing village, the boats upon the beach, and the familiar view of land and sea. Everything seemed quite unchanged; she alone was changed, and felt as though a century of time had passed over her head since that morning when she ran away to London. “Hullo, Joan Rock!” said a half-remembered voice at her elbow. “I’m in luck, it seems: I saw you off, and here I am to welcome you back. But you shouldn’t have married him, Joan; you should have waited for me as I told you. I’m in business for myself now, four saddle donkeys and a goat chaise, and doing grand. I shall die a rich man, you bet.” Joan turned round to see a youth with impudent blue eyes and hair of flaming red, in whom she recognised Willie Hood, much elongated, but otherwise the same. “Oh! Willie, is that you?” she said, stretching out her hand, for she was pleased to see a friendly face; “how are you, and how do you know that I am married?” “Know? Why, if you sent the crier round with a bell to call it, folks would hear, wouldn’t they? And that’s just about what Mr. Samuel Rock has done, talking of ‘my wife, Joan Haste as was,’ here, there and everywhere; and telling how as you were stopping in foreign parts awhile for the benefit of your health, which seems a strange tale to me, and I know a thing or two, I do. Not that it has done you much good, anyway, to judge from the air of you, for you look like the ghost of what you used to be. I’ll tell you what, Joan: for the sake of old times you shall have a ride every morning on my best donkey, all for love, if Sammy won’t be jealous. That’ll bring the colour back into your cheeks, you bet.” “How are my uncle and aunt?” asked Joan, hastening to change the conversation. “How are they? Will you promise to bear up if I tell you? Well, then, Mrs. G. is lodging for three months at the public expense in Ipswich jail, which the beaks gave her for assault ‘with intent to do grievous bodily harm’ —them was the words, for I went to hear the case,—‘upon the person of her lawful husband, John Gillingwater,’ and my! she did hammer him too—with a rolling pin! His face was like a squashed pumpkin, with no eyes left for a sinner to swear by. The guardians have taken pity on him too, and are nursing him well again, all for nothing, in the Union. I saw him hoeing taters there the other day, and he asked me if I couldn’t smuggle him a bottle of gin—yes, and nearly cried when I told him that it wasn’t to be done unless I had the cash in hand and a commission.” At this moment Willie’s flow of information was interrupted by the guard, who told Joan that she must get into the train if she did not wish to be left.