From time to time, James had received letters from home. Communication
was irregular; but his mother and Mr. Wilks wrote frequently, and
sometimes he received half a dozen letters at once. He had now been
absent from home for four years, and his mother told him that he would
scarcely recognize Aggie, who was now as tall as herself. Mrs. Walsham
said that the girl was almost as interested as she was in his letters,
and in the despatches from the war, in which his name had several times
been mentioned, in connection with the services rendered by his scouts.
Richard Horton had twice, during James's absence, returned home. The
squire, Mrs. Walsham said, had received him very coolly, in consequence
of the letter he had written when James was pressed as a seaman, and
she said that Aggie seemed to have taken a great objection to him. She
wondered, indeed, that he could stay an hour in the house after his
reception there; but he seemed as if he didn't notice it, and took
especial pains to try and overcome Aggie's feeling against him.
While waiting at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence, Admiral Durell had
succeeded in obtaining pilots to take the fleet up the river. He had
sailed up the river to the point where the difficult navigation began,
and where vessels generally took on board river pilots.
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