I have said the captain was weak , and indeed he seemed rather to grow weaker than regain his strength . He clambered up and down stairs , and went from the parlour to the bar and back again , and sometimes put his nose out of doors to smell the sea , holding on to the walls as he went for support and breathing hard and fast like a man on a steep mountain . He never particularly addressed me , and it is my belief he had as good as forgotten his confidences ; but his temper was more flighty , and allowing for his bodily weakness , more violent than ever . He had an alarming way now when he was drunk of drawing his cutlass and laying it bare before him on the table . But with all that , he minded people less and seemed shut up in his own thoughts and rather wandering . Once , for instance , to our extreme wonder , he piped up to a different air , a kind of country love-song that he must have learned in his youth before he had begun to follow the sea . So things passed until , the day after the funeral , and about three o'clock of a bitter , foggy , frosty afternoon , I was standing at the door for a moment , full of sad thoughts about my father , when I saw someone drawing slowly near along the road . He was plainly blind , for he tapped before him with a stick and wore a great green shade over his eyes and nose ; and he was hunched , as if with age or weakness , and wore a huge old tattered sea-cloak with a hood that made him appear positively deformed . I never saw in my life a more dreadful-looking figure . He stopped a little from the inn , and raising his voice in an odd sing-song , addressed the air in front of him , `` Will any kind friend inform a poor blind man , who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in the gracious defence of his native country , England -- and God bless King George ! -- where or in what part of this country he may now be ? '' `` You are at the Admiral Benbow , Black Hill Cove , my good man , '' said I. `` I hear a voice , '' said he , `` a young voice . Will you give me your hand , my kind young friend , and lead me in ? '' I held out my hand , and the horrible , soft-spoken , eyeless creature gripped it in a moment like a vise . I was so much startled that I struggled to withdraw , but the blind man pulled me close up to him with a single action of his arm . `` Now , boy , '' he said , `` take me in to the captain . '' `` Sir , '' said I , `` upon my word I dare not . '' `` Oh , '' he sneered , `` that 's it ! Take me in straight or I 'll break your arm . '' And he gave it , as he spoke , a wrench that made me cry out .
`` Sir , '' XXXXX I , `` it is for yourself I mean .
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