Bob nodded.
"Well, I am sorry for you, and I know how to appreciate your feelings; but I will tell you this, Bob: Whenever things get too hot for you, come to my house."
Bob thanked him from the bottom of his heart. It served to show him that he had at least one friend left in Clifton.
Bob left the academy on Thursday evening, and awoke the next morning to find the steamer in which he had taken passage tied up to the wharf in Clifton. There was the usual crowd to meet her, early as it was, and among the lookers-on Bob found many friends and acquaintances who were all eager to shake him by the hand. Although he was glad to see them he excused himself as soon as he could, and having given his luggage into the charge of a drayman, hurried away. He wanted to see his home once more, even if had no right there. There was one friend, at least, who would be glad to see him, and Bob was disappointed as well as surprised that he did not find him on the wharf, waiting for him. It was old Ben Watson, his father's gardener. But Bob knew where to find him, and he intended to visit him before he presented himself to his uncle. Perhaps Ben could tell him some things he wanted to know. With this determination, Bob went through the iron gate which opened into the grounds that had once belonged to his father; but instead of following the broad carriage-way that led up to the door he turned into a by-path, and presently found himself standing before a neat little cottage that was hidden away among the trees. There was an air of desolation about it that Bob had never noticed before. The door did not open at his knock, and when he looked in at the window he was surprised to see that the house was deserted—there was no furniture in it. Bob did not know what to make of it.
With a sigh of regret he turned into the path again, and after a few minutes' walk reached the stables. Here another disappointment awaited him. He found a man dressed as a hostler, and he was engaged in rubbing down one of Bob's own ponies; but the face he turned toward him was not that of old Jack Couch, who had charge of the stables during his father's lifetime. It was the face of a negro, and one Bob had never seen before.
If there had not been a person in the world with whom he was acquainted, Bob could not have felt more desolate and friendless than he did at that moment. When his father was alive there were four servants employed on the place—two in the house, one in the stables, and one in the garden. They were all men, and every one of them was a sailor who had grown gray in his father's service. Bob was a favorite with them all; and if any of them held a higher place in his estimation than the others, it was Ben Watson, the gardener. Many a relic and curiosity had the old fellow brought to him from over the sea, and many an hour had he spent in his cabin listening to his thrilling tales of the deep; and it was there, beside Ben's fire, that he had promised his father that, come what might, he would never be a sailor. The boy had often thought of old Ben since his father's death, and impatiently counted the hours of meeting him, but now he was gone.
"They're all gone," thought Bob, turning away from the stable without returning the hostler's civil greeting, "and I am left alone. They have been cast adrift in their old age, in spite of father's promise that they should always be cared for; and if I may judge by uncle's letters, I must go, too. If I had never made that promise I would be at sea in less than twenty-four hours; but it is as binding now as it was while father was living."
"Sah! Sah!" said a voice, arousing him from his reverie.
Bob looked up and saw a negro hurrying toward him.
"Sah!" repeated the negro, "ole Moster Layton done sent me to tell you dat dese is private grounds, an' he don't 'low no trespassin' from anybody."