The captain had heard of Ulysses, and the mention of him carried him back to an old stone house on the hill, where he had read the wonderful adventures of the hero. "Well," Walter continued, "I am hunting for my father, and Jessie cried up in the pines when I told her about him, and how her father testified against him. Do you know Mr. Graham?" "Who?" screamed the captain, bounding to his feet, and bending so near to Walter that his hot breath stirred the thick brown hair. "Do I know whom?" But Walter refused to answer, or even to speak; the captain’s manner had startled him, or it may be there was something in the keen eye fixed so earnestly upon him, which held him speechless. For a moment the two gazed fixedly at each other,—the old man and the young,—the latter with a bright, vacant stare, while the other sought for some token to tell him that it was not without a reason his heart beat so fast with a hope of he scarcely knew what. "I will inquire below," he said at last, as he failed to elicit any information from Walter, and going to the office, he turned the leaves of the register back to the day when he had left three weeks before. Then with untiring patience he read on and on, read Jones and Smith, and Smith and Brown, some with wives and some without, some with daughters, some with sisters, and some alone, but none as yet were sent to No. 40. So he read on again and then at last he found the name he sought,—_Walter Marshall_. "Thank God! thank God!" he uttered faintly, and those who heard only the last word thought to themselves: "I never knew the captain _swore_ before." With great effort he compelled himself to be calm, and when at last he spoke none detected in his voice a trace of the shock that name had given him, bringing back at once the gable-roofed farm-house far away, the maple tree where his name was cut, the brown-haired wife, the stormy night when the wind rushed sobbing past the window where he stood and looked his last on her, the mother long since dead, and the father who believed him guilty. All this passed in rapid review before his mind, and then his thoughts came back to the present time, and centered themselves upon the restless, tossing form which, up in No. 40, had said to him: "Do you know my father?" "What is it, captain?" the landlord asked. "Your face is white as paper." "I am thinking," and the captain spoke naturally, "I am thinking that I will take care of that young man. I find I know his people, or used to know them, rather. Dismiss that imbecile old woman," and having said so much he left the room and fled up the stairs seeing nothing but that name as it looked upon the page,—_Walter Marshall_. He repeated it again and again, and in the tone with which he did so there was a peculiar tenderness, such as mothers are only supposed to feel toward their children.