"
Benbow laughed.
"The family spirit!" he says under his breath to Joe. "Speak to
her; don't tell her I'm here."
"Oh, Mistress Hind," says Joe in a mournful voice, "here's a
welcome to a poor worn-out old mariner as you used to befriend."
"Who in the world are ye?" she asks.
"Who but Joe Punchard, ma'am, that went away for rolling a barrel,
and has been a-rolling ever since."
"Ay, now I know your voice. Back like a bad penny, are ye? Come and
see me tomorrow; I'm abed now."
"But I've brought a friend with me--another poor old mariner"--with
a wink at Benbow--"who wants a night's lodging."
"Can he pay?" asks Mistress Hind.
"To be sure: his pockets are full of pieces of eight and other
sound coin."
"Then I'll come down to you; but ye must bide a minute or two till
I throw a few things on, for I'd die rather than show myself to a
mariner in my night rail."
Benbow laughed again.
"'Tis twenty years or more since I saw Nell," he said, "but I'd
know her tongue in any company."
And now the remembrance of my father's illness, which the
subsequent excitements had driven from my mind, returned with a
sudden force that made me take a hasty leave of the two travelers,
though both asked me to wait and drink a dish of coffee with them.
So I did not see the meeting of brother and sister, but learned
from Joe next day the manner of it.
Mistress Hind did not recognize the captain, never having seen him
from a boy, until, sitting at table with a dish of coffee before
him, and she standing over him, bidding him haste that she might
return to bed--sitting thus, I say, he took up the dish and began
to blow into it to cool it, as children do.
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