than go out of your way to
do a churlish one."

He left me at this to go up on deck, and came down again about half an
hour later. I heard enough to convince me that the wind was freshening,
and that a heavy sea, too, was getting up, so that in all likelihood he
would hesitate ere he 'd try to put in at Ramsgate. He did not speak to
me this time, but sat with folded arms watching me as I lay pretending
to be asleep. At length he said,--

"I say, friend, you 've got no passport, I suppose? How do you mean to
land in France? or, if there, how do you propose to travel?"

"These are matters I don't mean to trouble you about, Captain," said I,
haughtily; and though I said the words boldly enough, it was exactly the
very puzzle that was then working in my brain.

"Ay, sir; but they are exactly matters that concern me; for you are not
on the schooner's manifest,--you are not one of her crew,--and I don't
mean to get into trouble on your behalf."

"Put me ashore at night, or leave me to reach it in any way," said I,
half angrily; for I was well-nigh out of patience at these everlasting
difficulties.

He made no reply to this speech, but starting suddenly up, like a man
who had hastily made up his mind on some particular course, he went
up on deck. I overheard orders given, and immediately after a stir and
bustle among the sailors, and in my anxiety at once connected myself
with these movements. What project had they regarding me? In what way
did they mean to treat me?--were the questions that rose to my mind. The
heavy working of the craft showed me that her course had been altered,
and I began to dread lest we should be turning again towards England.

From these thoughts my mind wandered back and back, reviewing the chief
events of my life, and wondering whether I were ever destined to reach
one spot that I could rest in, and where my weary spirit might find
peace. To be the sport of Fortune in her most wilful of moods seemed,
indeed, my lot; and to go on through life unattached to my fellows,
appeared my fate. I remember once to have read in some French author
that the attachment we feel to home, the sacred names of son and
brother, are not more than the instincts of habit; that natural
affection, as it is called, has no real existence; and that it is the
mere force of repetition that forms the tie by which we love those whom
we call father or mother. It is a cold and a cheerless theory, and yet
now it struck me with