“No, I am not young Blount, but I have seen you as often and knew you as well as he did; and to thy cap, thy jerkin, the keys at thy girdle, and thy grizzled beard, thou art just as I left thee, old Robert. God grant that I may find my own dear father as little altered.”
The spade fell from the old man’s hand, and rubbing his eyes as if to clear his vision, at the same time coming closer to his object, he exclaimed,—
“Odd’s life, you cannot be Master Martin that went to foreign parts?”
“Yes, but I am,” said Martin, shaking the old man’s hand:—“tell me, Robert, is my father well.”
“Oh yes, he’s well,—that’s to say, he don’t ail, as I hear, God bless him!—but as to well,—I can’t call him well, after all, when I think of a kind soul like him without a——”
“Heavens! my mother is not dead?”
“Oh no; but have not you heard of all the changes here at Cheddar?”
“Of what changes do you speak? I have heard nothing. It was only last evening at sunset that I landed at Clevedon Creek in a fishing-boat which came alongside our brigantine as we were running up the Channel to Bristol. I journeyed hither, as you see, on foot, but I shall know all by going home at once.”
“Stop, Master Martin, the parson’s house is no home of thine now; an thou ring the bell, a sour face, and a hard word, and a slammed door, would be thy sorry welcome.”