This , when it was brought to him , he drank slowly , like a connoisseur , lingering on the taste and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard . `` This is a handy cove , '' says he at length ; `` and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop . Much company , mate ? '' My father told him no , very little company , the more was the pity . `` Well , then , '' said he , `` this is the berth for me . Here you , matey , '' he cried to the man who trundled the barrow ; `` bring up alongside and help up my chest . I 'll stay here a bit , '' he continued . `` I 'm a plain man ; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want , and that head up there for to watch ships off . What you mought call me ? You mought call me captain . Oh , I see what you 're at -- there '' ; and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold . `` You can tell me when I 've worked through that , '' says he , looking as fierce as a commander . And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke , he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast , but seemed like a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike . The man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at the Royal George , that he had inquired what inns there were along the coast , and hearing ours well spoken of , I suppose , and described as lonely , had chosen it from the others for his place of residence . And that was all we could learn of our guest . He was a very silent man by custom . All day he hung round the cove or upon the cliffs with a brass telescope ; all evening he sat in a corner of the parlour next the fire and drank rum and water very strong . Mostly he would not speak when spoken to , only look up sudden and fierce and blow through his nose like a fog-horn ; and we and the people who came about our house soon learned to let him be . Every day when he came back from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring men had gone by along the road . At first we thought it was the want of company of his own kind that made him ask this question , but at last we began to see he was desirous to avoid them .
When a seaman did put up at the Admiral Benbow -LRB- as now and then some did , making by the coast road for Bristol -RRB- he would look in at him through the curtained door before he entered the XXXXX ; and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such was present .
George before day evening fire first fog-horn grog-shop matey parlour