So Reuben told his tale to the Captain of the man-o’-war, and whether the sentry at the door had his ear to the keyhole all the while or not I don’t know, but certain it is that almost as soon as Reuben retired for the rest of the night to a comfortable berth, having first visited Priscilla’s cabin and found her supremely happy, his story was the common property of the ship’s company, and he could have had any one of them shed blood, their own or another’s, for him. Of that, of course, there was no need, but anyone who knows the British man-o’-warsman, officer or seaman, needs not to be told that on arrival at Honolulu the paymaster of the _Alcestis_ handed over to Reuben a sum of money sufficient for all reasonable expenses and fare to Vermont. Among those _reasonable_ expenses was included the cost of a wedding at the English church, to which over one hundred of the _Alcestis’_ crew invited themselves, and made those proceedings vibrate with their own enthusiasm. I regret to say, though, that after escorting the newly wedded pair on board the mail steamer bound to ’Frisco, and cheering themselves hoarse as she departed, several of those gallant blue-jackets were found so full of spirits, animal and vegetable, that it became necessary for the preservation of the public peace to put them under lock and key, with serious results to themselves.
Reuben and his adoring wife had no more adventures. They were the heroes of the passengers and crew of the _Golden Gate_, and they had much ado to dodge the wily reporters in the Queen City of the West. Nor were they able to prevent the appearance of their histories (with such extraordinary verbal embellishments as the said reporters deemed it necessary to add) in the flamboyant local newspapers. But in due time they found themselves travelling together the quiet moss-grown paths between Boston and the home farm, and arriving at the door of the Eddy Homestead to be received as the latest and best gifts of a loving God to the faithful old couple who had never wavered in the long waiting for them, nor doubted that they would come. Also it seems an anti-climax to record their settling down to a happy, useful, and loving life in the old farm of Priscilla’s youth, kept in readiness for them by Rube’s father against the day of their return.