of my own knowledge that he has
a banker's account, which has never been
overdrawn. He leaves his wife to manage the inn;
and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old
bachelors like you and I may be excused for
guessing that it is the wife, quite as much as the
health, that sends him back to roving.
J. T.

P.P.S.--Hawkins may stay one night with his
mother.
J. T.

You can fancy the excitement into which that letter put me. I was half
beside myself with glee; and if ever I despised a man, it was old
Tom Redruth, who could do nothing but grumble and lament. Any of the
under-gamekeepers would gladly have changed places with him; but such
was not the squire's pleasure, and the squire's pleasure was like law
among them all. Nobody but old Redruth would have dared so much as even
to grumble.

The next morning he and I set out on foot for the Admiral Benbow, and
there I found my mother in good health and spirits. The captain, who had
so long been a cause of so much discomfort, was gone where the wicked
cease from troubling. The squire had had everything repaired, and the
public rooms and the sign repainted, and had added some furniture--above
all a beautiful armchair for mother in the bar. He had found her a boy
as an apprentice also so that she should not want help while I was gone.

It was on seeing that boy that I understood, for the first time, my
situation. I had thought up to that moment of the adventures before me,
not at all of the home that I was leaving; and now, at sight of this
clumsy stranger, who was to stay here in my place beside my mother, I
had my first attack of tears. I am afraid I led that boy a dog's life,
for as he was new to the work, I had a hundred opportunities of setting
him right and putting him down, and I was not slow to profit by them.

The night passed, and the next day, after dinner, Redruth and I were
afoot again and on the road. I said good-bye to Mother and the
cove where I had lived since I was born, and the dear old Admiral
Benbow--since he was repainted, no longer quite so dear. One of my last
thoughts was of the captain, who had so often strode along the beach
with his cocked hat, his sabre-cut cheek, and his old brass telescope.
Next moment we had turned the corner and my home was out of sight.

The mail picked us up about dusk at the Royal George on the heath. I was
wedged in between Redruth and a stout old gentleman, and i