you that Blandly, who, by the way, is to send a consort after us if we don’t turn up by the end of August, had found an admirable fellow for sailing master—­a stiff man, which I regret, but in all other respects a treasure.  Long John Silver unearthed a very competent man for a mate, a man named Arrow.  I have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey; so things shall go man-o’-war fashion on board the good ship Hispaniola.

I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man of substance; I know of my own knowledge that he has a banker’s account, which has never been overdrawn.  He leaves his wife to manage the inn; and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old bachelors like you and I may be excused for guessing that it is the wife, quite as much as the health, that sends him back to roving.  J. T.

     P.P.S.—­Hawkins may stay one night with his
     mother. 
     J. T.

You can fancy the excitement into which that letter put me.  I was half beside myself with glee; and if ever I despised a man, it was old Tom Redruth, who could do nothing but grumble and lament.  Any of the under-gamekeepers would gladly have changed places with him; but such was not the squire’s pleasure, and the squire’s pleasure was like law among them all.  Nobody but old Redruth would have dared so much as even to grumble.

The next morning he and I set out on foot for the Admiral Benbow, and there I found my mother in good health and spirits.  The captain, who had so long been a cause of so much discomfort, was gone where the wicked cease from troubling.  The squire had had everything repaired, and the public rooms and the sign repainted, and had added some furniture—­above all a beautiful armchair for mother in the bar.  He had found her a boy as an apprentice also so that she should not want help while I was gone.

It was on seeing that boy that I understood, for the first time, my situation.  I had thought up to that moment of the adventures before me, not at all of the home that I was leaving; and now, at sight of this clumsy stranger, who was to stay here in my place beside my mother, I had my first attack of tears.  I am afraid I led that boy a dog’s life, for as he was new to the work, I had a hundred opportunities of setting him right and putting him down, and I was not slow to profit by them.

The night passed, and the next day, after dinner, Redruth and I were afoot again and on the road.  I said good-bye to Mother and the cove where I had lived since I was born, and the dear old Admiral Benbow—­since he was repainted, no longer quite so dear.  One of my last thoughts was of the captain, who had so often strode along the beach with his cocked hat, his sabre-cut cheek, and his old brass telescope.  Next moment we had turned the corner and my home was out of sight.

The mail picked us up about dusk at the Royal George on the heath.  I was wedged in between Redruth and a stout old gentleman, and in spite of the swift motion and the cold night air, I must have dozed a great deal from the very first, and then slept like a log up hill and down dale through stage after stage, for when I was awakened at last it was by a punch in the ribs, and I opened my eyes to find that we were standing still before a large building in a city street and that the day had already broken a long time.