He remembered how, when leaving their cottage, he heard the old man angrily refuse to call him back, saying, "He don't mean it, and will be home again in a few days." He nearly faltered then, but dreaded the kindly laugh which would follow if he returned. Brave heart to face the lash and degradation, rather than submit to the will of one who loved him, although he was a little harsh at times.
He left them in anger, and never afterwards communicated his whereabouts, or sent them a word of comfort; but he was never out of their thoughts, and their last years were racked with torturing anxiety on his account. After a long absence, he returned to England, and bent his steps towards his native village, thinking with the gold he had earned to cheer his aged parents, and heal their bruised hearts—wondering, as he passed along the streets, why the people stared so; mistaking children for their parents, and taking young men for old, in his eager desire to be recognized by some one. The very ale-house sign was cold in its appearance, and swung lazily on its hinges, as if to wave him off. "I don't know you," said the children. "I don't know you," echoed the trees—and the whole place seemed to enter a protest against his re-appearance among them. "Well, never mind! mother will know me," he thought; "and father will be glad to see me, I dare say;" and he turned down the lane in which stood his home. An old woman was in the porch. He shouted to her, "Mammy, here's Joe," upon which she tottered in and closed the door.
"What!" he bawled, "up to your old tricks, mammy, hiding again? Come, let me in. I'm real glad to see you." As he said this, he reached the threshold and rapped playfully, to hasten her re-appearance.
As no answer was given, he lifted the latch and walked into the house, where he was confronted by the woman, who ordered him to "begone and not worrit her." He gazed on the old crone in speechless amazement, until she again urged him to depart, upon which he mumbled something about "her not being his mother."
The woman, finding he was much affected, tendered him a seat, and he soon learned that his father was sleeping calmly by the side of his faithful spouse, in the village churchyard. He got up and walked to that place like one in a dream. When he stood by their neglected graves the choke rose in his throat, and bitterly he repented the sad consequences of his rash step.
The old sexton seeing some one at the graves, thought possibly he might be a relation of those buried there; so he hobbled to his side, and with parrot-like volubility told him, "there lies two good old folks, who died broken-hearted because their boy left them to go to sea, and was never again heard of;" and the sailor felt his utter loneliness, that he was an outcast, a very dog, with no one in the world to love or care for him.
These thoughts came crowding into his brain, and he writhed under the magic of their influence. However, after a time they left him, when he arose, and preluding the transformation with an oath, became once more a rough, callous fellow, "a daring, reckless sailor."
A knot of ordinary seamen and boys were collected around one old tar, who was evidently "a man of mark among them." This ancient mariner did not impart choice moral instructions to his audience; far from it, he was what they called "yarning," and his reminiscences savoured of back slums and low dens, but were not on that account less interesting to those about him. When he laughed they followed suit, and woe betide the man who dared contradict "Old Jemmy," or for one moment doubt the veracity of his "tough ones;" while instant squashment would be the doom of any boy who did not laugh louder or believe more implicitly than the men. Offerings of grog and tobacco were made by his obsequious admirers, and he was in that condition graphically described by sailors as "werry tight."
"Does any o' you remember Limpin Lew?" demanded this old man, adding parenthetically, "I suppose none of you ever knowed her, though."
"I knowed her rayther!" squeaked a small boy, who was standing on a shot rack, so as to get a full view of the old Tycoon's face.