The nag and I reached Bristol a week later (slow going, but I’ve already admitted I’m no horseman) on the feast of Saint Augustine of Canterbury. I returned my mount to the stables and walked the short distance to Small Street. As I approached my own house — mine by the generosity of the sweetest woman I have ever known — my heart swelled with pride and the anticipation of embracing my dear wife and family again. It would be no exaggeration to say that my heart beat faster with expectation …
I should have known better.
As I opened the street door, Elizabeth and Nicholas hurtled downstairs, screaming at the tops of their voices, in full cry after Hercules, who had someone’s shoe betwee his jaws. Also joining in the chase was Margaret Walker’s black-and-white mongrel, yapping and snapping like the fiend he was. In the kitchen, Adam was indulging in one of his tantrums, while from upstairs came the sound of Margaret Walker — she was still with us, God save the mark! — banging with her stick on the bedchamber floor. Adela — looking, not surprisingly, overwrought — appeared in the passageway, saw me and said, ‘Oh, you’re back. I wish you’d control that animal of yours.’
I leaned against the door jamb and, suddenly, began to laugh. I laughed until the tears ran down my face, and in the end I wasn’t sure whether I was laughing or crying. But one thing I knew for certain:
I was home.