‘You know me then!’ said he, ’strange that but one eye alone of those who knew me in my boyhood should recognize me, but sea and storm do much to alter a man, human passion does more.’ (He spoke now without any of the sea jargon that had made his account of the encounter with Curly Tom almost unintelligible to the farmers); ‘but,’ he added, ’you had better send this lad to bed.’

‘You need not,’ said the boy, rising as he spoke, ’I remembered you instantly.  I will not betray you if you wish to remain unknown.’

‘You may safely trust him,’ said his aunt, ‘he never breaks his word.’

‘A good sign that,’ said the seaman, ’and a bold boy I warrant, he is well grown too for his years, and like—­’

‘Like who?’ asked aunt and nephew in one breath.

‘Like one I never wish to speak of,’ was the answer, ’let be, let be, I have much to ask you; first of my father, does he live?’

’He does, bowed down by age and now by sorrow, Walter.  When you and I were younger—­years ago—­when my sister, who is now an angel in heaven, I hope, married you, I never thought the day would come when my lips should be the ones to tell you of the desolation of your child.’

Walter recoiled, and rising from his seat grasped the back of the chair he had been seated on with such a nervous gripe that the strong oak rail broke in two with the pressure, and his heaving chest and quivering lip told the fierce emotions that were struggling for utterance.—­The landlady understood his look.

’Do not fear, Walter—­your child is as pure as an angel.  It is the desolation of her heart I speak of—­not the pollution.  It is the blight that has fallen upon her young love—­upon a woman’s first and holiest impressions—­a virtuous love for a deserving object.  Are you calm enough to hear the tale?’

‘I am—­proceed.’

’My tale will not be a long one, but sad—­sad for more than one victim has and will fall yet to the fell passions of him, who rules this neighborhood with a rod of iron.  You remember Geoffry Hunter, of the Toll gate farm?’

‘Well; he and I were schoolmates.’

’He died some few years after you went on that voyage from which no one ever expected to see you return—­I for one.  Though remembering your daring courage and hardihood, I did not credit the tale that was brought here that you had perished in the woods attempting to escape.  I felt confident you would one day return—­as you did ten years ago, and brought this boy with you.  Geoffry Hunter left two children.  You knew them—­Horace and Ellen.  Poor Ellen! victim of a titled villain!’ and the good woman paused, and tears filled her eyes.  It was some moments ere she could proceed.  ’Horace grew up a fine young-man.  As a boy he was a playmate of our proud master; and when Ellen returned from Canterbury, where she had been educated by an aunt, she was the pride of the village, the joy of her widowed mother’s