ll, now, perhaps you'll tell me where I am to find the old
gentleman?' replied I.

"`Come with me,' said she, `he lives hard-by, and glad enough he'll be,
poor man, to have any one to talk with him a bit, for it's a lonesome
life he leads in bed there.'

"I followed the woman, and when about a hundred yards from the inn, she
stopped at the door of a small house, and called to Mrs Meshin, to `go
up and tell old Roberts that one of his grandsons is here.' A snuffy
old woman made her appearance, peered at me through her spectacles, and
then stumped up a pair of stairs which faced the door. Shortly
afterwards I was desired to come up, and did so. I found an old man
with silver hair lying in bed, and the said Mrs Meshin, with her
spectacles, smoothing down the bed-clothes, and making the place tidy.

"`What cheer, old boy?' said I, after T.P. Cooke's style.

"`What do you say? I'm hard of hearing, rather,' replied the old man.

"`How do you find yourself, sir?' said I.

"`Oh, pretty well for an old man; and so you're my grandson, Harry; glad
to see you.--You may go, Mrs Meshin, and shut the door, and do you
hear, don't listen at the key-hole.'

"The stately lady, Mrs Meshin, growled, and then left the room,
slamming the door.

"`She is very cross, grandson,' said the old man, `and I see nobody but
her. It's a sad thing to be bedridden this way, and not to get out in
the fresh air, and sadder still to be tended by a cross old woman, who
won't talk when I want her, and won't hold her tongue when I want her.
I'm glad to see you, boy. I hope you won't go away directly, as your
brother Tom did. I want somebody to talk to me, sadly; and how do you
like being at sea?'

"`I like the shore, better, sir.'

"`Ay, so all sailors say, I believe; and yet I would rather go to sea
than lie here all day long. It's all owing to my being out as I used to
do, night after night, watching for poachers. I had too little bed
then, and now I've too much of it. But the sea must be grand. As the
Bible says, "They who go upon the great waters, they see the wonders of
the deep."'

"I was glad to find that the old man was so perfect in all his mental
faculties, and after having listened to, rather than replied to,
observations about his son and my supposed brothers and sisters, by
which I obtained a pretty accurate knowledge of them, I wished him
good-bye, and promised to call and have a long talk in the morning.

"On my return