new ship; for it
was in October that I landed in Liverpool, while I had started away from
Cardiff in the _Esmeralda_ two years and five months previously exactly.

I was, however, all the better for my absence; for I had saved up over a
hundred and fifty pounds, and I had grown a big strapping chap, with
whiskers and beard in a small way, of which I was very proud.

Need it be asked where I first bent my steps on leaving my ship at
Liverpool?

Why, to Plymouth, of course!

I got there early in the morning; and, being acquainted with Sam
Pengelly's every-day practice, I knew exactly where to come across him,
that is, unless he should happen to be ill; for every morning--except
Sunday, when he always went to church, unless he chanced to be on board
his little foretopsail schooner, which was not likely at this time of
the year--he was invariably to be found on the Hoe, seated on one of the
benches in front of Esplanade Terrace, looking over at the vessels out
in the Sound, below and beyond.

Here I sought him; and here I found him, sure enough!

He did not see me coming; so, going behind the seat on which he was
sitting, I clapped him suddenly on the back, exclaiming at the same
time, in slight paraphrase of his old address to me that memorable
December day when I first heard his friendly voice--

"Hallo, old cockbird! How are you?"

Gracious me, you should only have seen him jump!

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

AT HOME AGAIN.

Sam Pengelly started up, and looked at me as if he thought I was a
ghost.

"What, laddie, is it you really?" he exclaimed, peering into my face
with his own, which, usually as florid as a peony, was now all white
with emotion; while his lips trembled nervously as he spoke. "Why," he
said, after a close inspection to see whether I was actually Martin
Leigh or else some base impostor assuming his voice and guise, "it _is_
the young cockbird, by all that's living--ain't I glad!" And, then,
throwing his arms round me in a bear-like hug, he almost squeezed every
particle of breath out of my body.

"Now, come along," he said presently, when he could speak again, the
kind-hearted fellow's joy choking him at first, and preventing him from
uttering a syllable; though he sighed, and drew his breath again in a
long sigh like a sob, and finally cleared his throat with a cough that
might have been heard on Drake Island.

"Where?" I asked.

"Why, to Old Calabar Cottage, in course!" he replied