I always addressed him as sir, for I thought very likely he was a post-captain, or perhaps an admiral. I did not like, therefore, to say that I had just come from Guernsey, as he would at once have guessed that I had been serving on board a privateer, and I knew that many officers did not at all like the calling. I therefore said, “I beg pardon, sir, but I fear that I am taking you out of your way.”
“Not in the least, young man,” he answered in a good-natured tone. “Your way is my way.”
“Well, you are indeed a very civil, kind gentleman,” I thought. Then all of a sudden I remembered the land-sharks I had been warned against, but when I looked in his face I felt certain that he was not one of them.
“And so you have heard speak of Tom Kelson,” said he, looking at me.
“Not much, sir,” I answered. “There’s a lady down at Plymouth whom I know, Miss Rundle, who just spoke about him, and told me about my aunt’s marriage, and how she didn’t quite think—”
“Oh, never mind what Miss Molly Rundle thought,” said he, laughing, as he pushed open the door of a house and walked in. “You’ll find Mrs Kelson in there,” and he pointed to a parlour on one side of the passage. “Here, Bretta, come down; here’s a young man come to see you. Who he is I don’t know. He’s a friend of Molly Rundle’s, that is all I can make out,” I heard my new friend hail at the foot of the stairs.
I found myself in a very pretty, neat little sitting-room, with the picture of a ship over the mantelpiece, and lumps of coral and large shells, and shell flowers, on it, and bows and arrows, and spears and models of eastern craft, and canoes from the Pacific, and some stuffed birds and snakes, and, indeed, all sorts of curious things arranged in brackets on the walls, or nailed up against them, or filling the shelves of cabinets. Indeed, the room was a perfect museum, only much better arranged than museums generally are. I had some little time to look about me. “Well, Aunt Bretta is comfortably housed at all events,” I thought to myself.
At last the door opened, and a portly fair dame, with fair hair and a pleasant smile on her countenance, entered the room. “Who are you inquiring for, young man?” said she, dropping a sort of curtsey.
I looked at her very hard without answering. “Yes, it must be Aunt Bretta,” I thought. “But if it is her, she is a good deal changed. And yet I don’t know. Those kind eyes and that smile are just the same. Oh, yes, it is her.”
“Aunt Bretta,” I exclaimed, running towards her; “don’t you know me? I’m Willand Wetherholm, your nephew!”