I wrote a letter to my uncle that same day, telling him of my return, for I thought if I went home too suddenly the shock might do him an injury, especially if he had the gout. Billy went to see his old dad, promising to come back next day, since I had resolved to take him home with me, and show my uncle the good companion of my solitude. He was true to his word, and when I asked him how his people fared, he said his father was the same as ever, only not quite so spry, and his mother-in-law (as he called her) was fatter, but no less ill-tempered. Her first words when she saw him were, "Back again like a bad penny!" and after he had told her and his father somewhat of his strange life since he left them, all she said was, "Well, you've growed a lot, and big enough to work the smithy, and me and your father can take that little public we've had our eyes on." "Not if I knows it," says Billy to me; "I know what it 'ud be. She'd always be in the bar, a-taking a little drop here and a little drop there, and she's a tartar when she's had two glasses. Dad's a deal better off as he is, and he knows it." I asked him whether he had made any inquiry for Elizabeth Jane, and he looked at me very seriously, and said, "I knowed it meant something when that there boat of ours went down. They don't know what's become of her, but her dad was hanged for house-breaking a year or two ago, so I reckon I've had a lucky escape. I'll go and see Clums when I get back." [Sidenote: Home Again] We went down to Stafford next day. The news of my return had already got abroad, and folk were expecting me, for there was a great crowd at the door of the _Bell_, and when I clambered off the coach, there was such a shouting and cheering as you never heard. I didn't know I had so many friends. Two great youths pushed their way through the throng and, gripping me by the arms, began lugging me into the inn, and one of them cried, "Well done, old Harry!" and then I knew it was my cousin Tom, and the other, who was James home from Cambridge, says, "Come on, Harry, Mother's in there," and when I asked where was Father, they told me he was crippled with the gout and couldn't come. My aunt, good woman, round and rosy as ever, was all of a tremble when she saw me, and burst into tears as she flung her arms around my neck; and then up comes honest John King, the landlord, with a tumbler of rum shrub, which he made her drink, saying it was the finest thing in the world for the staggers; and the pot-boy was close behind him with four foaming tankards of ale, and John lifts his and cries, "Welcome home!" his honest face shining like the sun. And then I remembered Billy, and called him in, and he came, rather red and uneasy, and the landlord sent for another pot when I explained who he was, and there was such a laughing and chattering that my head fairly buzzed.