l in the
direction he meant it to go, and the salt spray smacked my face and
soaked my slops, and every wind of heaven seemed to blow down my neck
and up my sleeves and trousers--I heartily agreed with him.

The man I was helping never spoke, except to shout some brief order into
my ear or an occasional reply to the words of command which rang over
our heads from the captain on the bridge. Of course I did not speak, I
had quite enough to do to keep my footing and take my small part in this
fierce bitting and bridling of the elements; but uncomfortable as it
was, I "took a pride and pleasure in it," as we used to say at home, and
I already felt that strenuous something which blows in sea-breezes and
gives vigour to mind and body even when it chills you to the bone.

That is, to some people; there are plenty of men, as I have since
discovered, who spend their lives at sea and hate it to the end. Boy and
man, they do their hard duty and live by its pitiful recompense. They
know the sea as well as other mariners, are used to her uncertain ways,
bear her rough usage, control her stormy humours, learn all her moods,
and _never feel her charm_.

I have seen two such cases, and I have heard of more, yarned with all
their melancholy details during those night watches in which men will
tell you the ins and outs of many a queer story that they "never talk
about." And it has convinced me that there is no more cruel blunder than
to send a boy to sea, if there is good reason to believe that he will
never like it; unless it be that of withholding from its noble service
those sailor lads born, in whose ears the sea-shell will murmur till
they die.

It had murmured in mine, and enticed me to my fate. I thought so now
that I knew the roughest of the other side of the question, just as much
as when I sat comfortably on the frilled cushion of the round-backed
arm-chair and read the Penny Numbers to the bee-master. Barefoot,
bareheaded, cold, wet, seasick, hard worked and half-rested, would I
even now exchange the life I had chosen for the life I had left?--for
the desk next to the Jew-clerk, for the partnership, to be my uncle's
heir, to be mayor, to be member? I asked myself the question as I stood
by the steersman, and with every drive of the wheel I answered it--"No,
Moses! No! No!"

It is not wise to think hard when you are working hard at mechanical
work, in a blustering wind and a night watch. Fatigue and open air make
you slee