It was sixteen months almost to a day before I set foot once more on Peter Port quay.

For beggars cannot be choosers, and for the very clothes we stood in we were indebted to the kind hearts who took pity on us in the American States.

We had had to wait at every point till means of forwarding us could be found, and we were welcomed in Peter Port as men returned from the dead.
Within two hours I was scrambling up through the ferns and gorse above Port a la Jument to the welcome that awaited me at home.
I peeped through the window before going in, and saw the table laid for supper and my mother busy at the hearth.

She turned when I entered, supposing it was my grandfather and Krok, and then with a cry she was on my neck.
Ah, how good it was to feel her there, and to find her unbroken by all the terrible waiting! She had hoped and hoped, and refused to give up hoping long after the others had done so.

She told me, between smiles and tears, that each time I went she had felt that she had probably seen me for the last time.