relations, we advanced to the bedside, where we found
him in his last agonies, supported by two of his granddaughters, who sat
on each side of him, sobbing most piteously, and wiping away the froth
and slaver as it gathered on his lips, which they frequently kissed
with a show of great anguish and affection. My uncle approached him
with these words, "What! he's not a-weigh. How fare ye? how fare ye, old
gentleman? Lord have mercy upon your poor sinful soul!" Upon which,
the dying man turned his languid eyes towards us, and Mr. Bowling went
on--"Here's poor Roy come to see you before you die, and to receive your
blessing. What, man! don't despair, you have been a great sinner, 'tis
true,--what then? There's a righteous judge above, an't there? He minds
me no more than a porpoise. Yes, yes, he's a-going; the land crabs
will have him, I see that! his anchor's a-peak, i'faith." This homely
consolation scandalised the company so much, and especially the parson,
who probably thought his province invaded, that we were obliged to
retire into another room, where, in a few minutes, we were convinced of
my grandfather's decease, by a dismal yell uttered by the young ladies
in his apartment; whither we immediately hastened, and found his heir,
who had retired a little before into a closet, under pretence of giving
vent to his sorrow, asking, with a countenance beslubbered with tears,
if his grandpapa was certainly dead? "Dead!" (says my uncle, looking,
at the body) "ay, ay, I'll warrant him as dead as a herring. Odd's
fish! now my dream is out for all the world. I thought I stood upon the
forecastle, and saw a parcel of carrion crows foul of a dead shark: that
floated alongside, and the devil perching upon our spritsail yard, in
the likeness of a blue bear--who, d'ye see jumped overboard upon the
carcass and carried it to the bottom in his claws." "Out upon thee,
reprobate" cries the parson "out upon thee, blasphemous wretch! Dost
thou think his honour's soul is in the possession of Satan?" The clamour
immediately arose, and my poor uncle, being, shouldered from one corner
of the room to the other, was obliged to lug out in his own defence, and
swear he would turn out for no man, till such time as he knew who had
the title to send him adrift. "None of your tricks upon travellers,"
said he; "mayhap old Bluff has left my kinsman here his heir: if he has,
it will be the better for his miserable soul. Odds bob! I'd desire no
better news.