Wandering Heath Author:Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MY GRANDFATHER, HENDRY WATTY A DROLL 'Tis the nicest miss in the world that I was born grandson of my own father's father, and not of another man altogethe... more »r. Hendry Watty was the name of my grandfather that might have been ; and he always maintained that to all intents and purposes he was my grandfather, and made me call him so —' twas such a narrow shave. I don't mind telling you about it. 'Tis a curious tale, too. My grandfather, Hendry Watty, bet four gallons of eggy-hot that he would row out to the Shivering Grounds, all in the dead waste of the night, and haul a trammel there. To find the Shivering Grounds by night, you get the Gull Rock in a line with Tregamenna and pull out till you open thelight on St. Anthony's Point; but everybody gives the place a wide berth because Archelaus Rowett's lugger foundered there, one time, with six hands on board ; and they say that at night you can hear the drowned men hailing their names. But mv grandfather was the boldest man in Port Loe, and said he didn't care. So one Christmas Eve by daylight he and his mates went out and tilled the trammel; and then they came back and spent the forepart of the evening over the eggy-hot, down to Oliver's tiddly-wink, to keep my grandfather's spirits up and also to show that the bet was made in earnest. 'Twas past eleven o'clock when they left Oliver's and walked down to the cove to see my grandfather off. He has told me since that he didn't feel afraid at all, but very friendly in mind, especially toward William John Dunn, who was walking on his right hand. This puzzled him at the first, for as a rule he didn't think much of William John Dunn. But now he shook hands with him several times, and just as he was stepping into the boat he says, "You'll take care of Mary Polly while I'm away." Ma...« less