, let fall his staff, his much-loved staff, dear to
him by many a fond recollection of riot repressed, and evildoer
apprehended, and away it went, floating with the tide, far, far astern.
His unmitigated horror at this event was comic in the extreme, and the
keeper of the king's peace could not have evinced more unsophisticated
sorrow than did the late keeper of his conscience at the loss of the
Seals, the more especially as the magistrate's clerk refused to permit
the boat to go in pursuit of it, not wishing the only connecting link
between him and the shore to be so far removed from his control.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

THE VOLUNTEER AND HIS FATE, SHOWING HOW A GREAT ROGUE, NOTWITHSTANDING
THAT HE MAY APPEAR TO BE BORN TO BE HUNG, WILL SOMETIMES HAPPEN TO
DROWN.

The group on the quarter-deck was singular and ludicrous. Reuben
Gubbins, for such was the name of the offender, was the only son of a
small farmer, who, it appeared, had even gone the length of felony, by
firing upon and wounding the game-keeper of the lord of the manor. He
was quite six feet high, very awkwardly built, and wore under his frock
a long-tailed blue-coat, dingy buckskin nether garments, and top-boots,
with the tops tanned brown by service. His countenance betrayed a
mixture of simplicity, ignorance, and strong animal instinct. He was
the least suited being that could be possibly conceived of whom to make
a sailor. His limbs had been long stiffened by rustic employments, and
he had a dread of the sea, and of a man-of-war, horrifying to his
imagination. In this dread it was very evident that his companions
largely participated, not excepting the pragmatical clerk. The
constable with the staff, and the constable without, ranged themselves
on either side of the still sobbing Arcadian. Indeed, the staffless
man, seemed to be but little less overcome than the prisoner. He felt
as if all strength, value, and virtue had gone out of him; and ever and
anon he glared upon the baton of his brother-officer with looks
felonious and intent on rapine.

The business was soon concluded. Reuben, rather than see himself tried
for his life, determined to make trial of the sea, and thus became,
perhaps, the most unwilling volunteer upon record.

Poor fellow! his sufferings must have been great! The wild animal of
the forest, when pining, for the first time, in a cage, or the weary
land-bird, blown off, far away upon the restless sea, could not have