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 parlour ; and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such was present . For me , at least , there was no secret about the matter , for I was , in a way , a sharer in his alarms . He had taken me aside one day and promised me a silver fourpenny on the first of every month if I would only keep my `` weather-eye open for a seafaring man with one leg '' and let him know the moment he appeared . Often enough when the first of the month came round and I applied to him for my wage , he would only blow through his nose at me and stare me down , but before the week was out he was sure to think better of it , bring me my four-penny piece , and repeat his orders to look out for `` the seafaring man with one leg . '' How that personage haunted my dreams , I need scarcely tell you . On stormy nights , when the wind shook the four corners of the house and the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs , I would see him in a thousand forms , and with a thousand diabolical expressions . Now the leg would be cut off at the knee , now at the hip ; now he was a monstrous kind of a creature who had never had but the one leg , and that in the middle of his body . To see him leap and run and pursue me over hedge and ditch was the worst of nightmares . And altogether I paid pretty dear for my monthly fourpenny piece , in the shape of these abominable fancies . But though I was so terrified by the idea of the seafaring man with one leg , I was far less afraid of the captain himself than anybody else who knew him . There were nights when he took a deal more rum and water than his head would carry ; and then he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked , old , wild sea-songs , minding nobody ; but sometimes he would call for glasses round and force all the trembling company to listen to his stories or bear a chorus to his singing . Often I have heard the house shaking with `` Yo-ho-ho , and a bottle of rum , '' all the neighbours joining in for dear life , with the fear of death upon them , and each singing louder than the other to avoid remark . For in these fits he was the most overriding companion ever known ; he would slap his hand on the table for silence all round ; he would fly up in a passion of anger at a question , or sometimes because none was put , and so he judged the company was not following his story . Nor would he allow anyone to leave the inn till he had drunk himself sleepy and reeled off to bed . His stories were what frightened people worst of all . Dreadful stories they were -- about hanging , and walking the plank , and storms at sea , and the Dry Tortugas , and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main . By his own account he must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men that God ever allowed upon the sea , and the language in which he told these stories shocked our plain country people almost as much as the crimes that he described . My father was always saying the inn would be ruined , for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over and put down , and sent shivering to their beds ; but I really believe his presence did us good . People were frightened at the time , but on looking back they rather liked it ; it was a fine excitement in a quiet country life , and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him , calling him a `` true sea-dog '' and a `` real old salt '' and such like names , and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea .
In one way , indeed , he bade fair to ruin us , for he kept on staying week after week , and at last XXXXX after month , so that all the money had been long exhausted , and still my father never plucked up the heart to insist on having more .
Benbow Bristol Spanish day first fourpenny month parlour sea-dog sharer