o contended with him against starvation, nevertheless,
somehow he continued to subsist, as those tough old oaks of the cliffs,
which, though hacked at by hail-stones of tempests, and even wantonly
maimed by the passing woodman, still, however cramped by rival trees and
fettered by rocks, succeed, against all odds, in keeping the vital
nerve of the tap-root alive. And even towards the end, in his dismallest
December, our veteran could still at intervals feel a momentary warmth
in his topmost boughs. In his Moorfields' garret, over a handful of
reignited cinders (which the night before might have warmed some lord),
cinders raked up from the streets, he would drive away dolor, by talking
with his one only surviving, and now motherless child--the spared
Benjamin of his old age--of the far Canaan beyond the sea; rehearsing to
the lad those well-remembered adventures among New England hills, and
painting scenes of rustling happiness and plenty, in which the lowliest
shared. And here, shadowy as it was, was the second alleviation hinted
of above.

To these tales of the Fortunate Isles of the Free, recounted by one who
had been there, the poor enslaved boy of Moorfields listened, night
after night, as to the stories of Sinbad the Sailor. When would his
father take him there? "Some day to come, my boy," would be the hopeful
response of an unhoping heart. And "Would God it were to-morrow!" would
be the impassioned reply.

In these talks Israel unconsciously sowed the seeds of his eventual
return. For with added years, the boy felt added longing to escape his
entailed misery, by compassing for his father and himself a voyage to
the Promised Land. By his persevering efforts he succeeded at last,
against every obstacle, in gaining credit in the right quarter to his
extraordinary statements. In short, charitably stretching a technical
point, the American Consul finally saw father and son embarked in the
Thames for Boston.

It was the year 1826; half a century since Israel, in early manhood, had
sailed a prisoner in the Tartar frigate from the same port to which he
now was bound. An octogenarian as he recrossed the brine, he showed
locks besnowed as its foam. White-haired old Ocean seemed as a brother.

CHAPTER XXVII.

REQUIESCAT IN PACE.

It happened that the ship, gaining her port, was moored to the dock on a
Fourth of July; and half an hour after landing, hustled by the riotous
crowd near Faneuil Hall, the old man na