“So the sight of the king did not cheer you?” the ferry-man remarked. “His touch did not cure you of all ills?”

James reminded himself that nobody here knew that he had failed in his mission and the purpose of his life was wasted. “No. The boys liked to see him.”

“You a royalist now, Rob?” his uncle demanded, as the ferry grounded on the bank.

“No, Uncle,” Rob replied quietly. “But I was glad to see the king in person.”

“And his coat!” Walter interpolated. “You should have seen his hat!”

The boys led their horses off the ferry onto dry land.

“Looks like he’s going to haggle on and on with the parliament men,” Ned said to James. “But I reckon the army will have something to say about any deal. He won’t wrap the army round his little finger, whatever tricks he plays on parliament. The soldiers won’t forgive him for starting the wars again, after we all thought we were at peace. The country’s turned against him like never before, for that. No one will forgive him that.”

“I don’t know,” James said wearily, stepping ashore and pulling at his horse’s bridle. “God knows what they will come to, and what it will cost us all.”

“You don’t take in vain the name of our Lord on my ferry,” Ned reproved him.

“I apologize,” James said, through cold lips, leading his horse up to the mounting block, climbing into the saddle, and taking Rob’s reins. “My good wishes to your mother, Rob.”

Alinor was striding along the bank path to Ferry-house garden to pick blackberries when she saw the silhouette of her beloved son against the afternoon sky, as he walked from the rife. He did not bound like a colt in the field, but walked as if his feet were heavy, his head down as if he were hurt.

“Holloah!” she shouted, and ran towards him. As soon as she took him in her arms, she knew that there was something wrong. She sniffed at him like an animal scenting ill health: the different houses where he had lodged, smoke from different kitchens in his hair, a different starch in his collar, the smell of the sea and the salt of the harbor on his coat. Then she stepped back and looked into his face and saw how his shoulders were hunched, and his face turned down. “What is it, son?” she asked him gently. “What ails you?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” he said dully.

“Come home, come inside.” She led the way back to the cottage without another word, dimly understanding that he would not speak under the arching sky with the gulls crying and the sea lapping at the bank as if it were flowing inshore and would make all the world into tidelands.

“Were you going somewhere?” he asked her.

“Just to pick blackberries. I can go later.”

She did not close the front door on the little room, but kept it open so that she could see his face in the bright afternoon light. He dropped onto his stool. He had sat there when he was a boy and cried for some small hurt. She wanted to hold him now, as she had done then.