Part 18

Ah! how can I describe to those who have never felt what it is to be divorced from their country and held for long years in bondage and tribulation, what joy I felt in once more landing a free man in my native land! Like the Conqueror, I longed to fall down and embrace the very soil, but it had rained recently and the soil was deep in mire. Or how can I describe to you the longing that seized me once again to embrace my wife and child. How vividly returned to me the old scene of our last parting: my wife’s tears and the carelessness of my boy, who now must have grown, if he was still living, to be a sturdy knave! If he still lived? What if my wife and all that I loved were dead? Or if, with the inconstancy of women, she were married again? I was in a fever of excitement, and, mounting my horse, I departed for London as quick as might be, though I took good care, for the sake of the valuables that I had about me, to travel always in good company, which did not always travel as fast as the heat of my passion would have had them. I thus arrived in London safely, without having encountered any footpads, and put up at a hostelry from which I could make my inquiries while I myself still remained unknown. It was a Saturday night when I arrived, and the following morning I waited outside the church that we had been wont to attend; for I had heard that Mistress Dudgeon still lived in the house in which I had left her, being now a reputed widow, although she was said still to cling to the belief that I lived. She was much persecuted by would-be suitors and blamed by all the gossips of the neighbourhood for wasting her youth in widowhood. I say, I watched at the church door, and saw many that I had known in former years pass by. There was Master Carroll, as pompous as ever, with his small meek wife; and Master Raynbowe, followed by a troop of children. Then came Master Bedingfield, with Mistress Bedingfield bearing the prayer-book, and grown monstrous stout and fearsome. Presently I saw my wife, leading her boy by the hand. How young she still looked, and how the men hung about her; but even I, jealous as I was, had no fault to find with the way in which she treated them. She did not even smile a greeting to her numerous admirers, but quietly took her accustomed place in church, and I slunk in after her. I observed her closely when the prayers of the congregation were asked for those who were in peril at sea or in slavery in Barbary, and could see how the tears ran down her cheeks and her whole frame was convulsed with sobs, how her arm stole round our boy, and she drew him closer towards her. At this sight I could scarce restrain my own tears, so tender is my nature, and had much ado to refrain from crying out then and there that I had come back to my own mouse. But I did refrain, and I let her get back to her own lodgings before I made myself known to her. What a scene there was! How she clung to me and sobbed upon my breast, and then thrusting me back the better to view me, nevertheless failed to see me for the tears that blinded her eyes. How she held up our boy before me, who seemed frighted, and whom I could have found it in me to whip for a fool. But, thank God, after a time she recovered her senses, though she could not yet part from my hand which she continued to hold within her own.

When she began to be able to think of somewhat else beyond her present happiness, she besought me to tell her of my sufferings, the which I related to her little by little, for the recital, like my suffering, was long. She wept all through, the which I forgave her, for the narrative as I related it was indeed moving, the more where I described to her how my thoughts in all my captivity were constantly with her, and how for her sake, and notwithstanding all my misery and suffering, I refused to yield to the temptation to turn renegade. I told her how I had been offered freedom, wealth, and marriage with the king’s daughter (for, indeed, I believe that the king would have given me his daughter) and she could not find words to express her joy and pride in my steadfastness. Then I showed her the riches I had gotten, which she somewhat misdoubted at first, and would have it that I ought to send it back, fearing that the king had presented it to me as a dowry with his daughter; but I assured her that it was washed up by the sea for our reward, and presently she became satisfied.

What more is there to relate? I was now even richer than when I left my country, my appetite for adventure was more than satiated by the years that I had passed in slavery, and I resolved thence-forward never again to tempt fortune, but to pass in enjoyment and in quiet at home the remainder of such days as it might please my God to grant me.

+Finis.+

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Transcriber’s Note: Table of contents has been added. Inconsistent spelling has been corrected. Obsolete spelling and punctuation have been retained as printed. Italic text is enclosed in _. Small caps text is enclosed in +.