Soon after daybreak I was awakened by my host, who came to inquire how I had passed the night. He was agreeably surprised to find me safe and well. To his inquiries, I related the adventure of the night without concealing my fears, and the chance there was of my having added one more testimony to the evil report of his apartment. The gratitude of the good people was extreme. They overwhelmed me with their thanks. They said I had rendered them a service they could not sufficiently repay. I had removed a cause of dread which had cast a gloom over their minds for many months; and, continued William—
"How silly it was in me not to know or think that it might be Colin!—for both the people who fled the room in terror gave the same account of the early part of the adventure. Colin, poor thing," he said, as he patted the head of the dog, "you little knew the evil you did your master and mistress. You and he that is gone were dear friends and inseparable companions. No Christian could have shown more concern at his death. You never came out from beneath his bed while the body lay on it; and, when he was carried out, Grace had to hold you, to prevent your snapping at the company as they bore him away. For long you visited his grave, and sat for hours upon it. It is the remembrance of your old friend that makes you still visit his room when all is quiet at night. He that is now 'where the Lord will,' taught you to take the string in your mouth and pull the latch, that, always welcome, you might enter when you chose."
During this address to the dog, he looked wistfully in the face of his master, as if he comprehended all that was said. The weather having now cleared up, the morning was beautiful. After breakfast, I bade adieu to my kind hosts, with a promise that if I ever passed that way I should make their house my home, and sleep in the room I had freed from its evil name.
As I moved cheerfully along the road, chanting some snatch of a song to keep up my spirits, my ears were assailed, at a sudden bend of the road, by a rough voice.
"Holloa, messmate, cast here a few coppers to help to revictual a hulk all the doctors in the world could not refit for sea!"
Turning my eyes to the roadside, I saw, seated upon a bank, two strange objects—a stout young man, in a tattered seaman's dress, with one arm off by the shoulder and the other by the elbow, and a young, good-looking, but tattered female by his side. In a moment my hand was in my pocket, and, drawing near to them, the female rose and held out her palm in dumb show.
"Not so fast, young woman," said I, as I was putting a half-crown into his vest-pocket; "it is for Jack."
"Bless your honour," said he, "it's all one. That there young one is my wife; poor thing, she was struck dumb in real earnest, when she saw me come home to her thus maimed. Bless her pretty face, she did not forsake poor Bill for all that."
While he spoke, a strong feeling came upon me that I had seen his face before; but when or where I could not call to mind. As I stood gazing into his face, he looked as scrutinisingly at me.
"Were you ever in the East Indies?" inquired I.