hough
not perceptibly, disabled for active service. Amongst his brethren in
captivity was a Captain Paling, who, when an exchange of prisoners took
place, hastened to join his regiment, and gave George, who was deemed
unfit for service, a letter to his mother and sisters who resided in
Dartmouth. The letter was all that the captain could give him, for he
was penniless as George was himself.

George Prescot feeling himself once more at liberty, took his passage
from Rotterdam in a sloop bound for Dartmouth, and with only the letter
of Captain Paling in his pocket to pay for his conveyance. He perceived
that the skipper frequently cast suspicious glances towards him, as
though he were about to ask, "Where is your money, sir?" But George saw
this, and he bore it down with a high hand. He knew that the certain way
of being treated with the contempt and neglect which poverty always
introduces in its train, was to plead being poor. He was by no means
learned, but he understood something of human nature, and he knew a good
deal of the ways of men--of the shallowness of society, and the depths
of civility. He therefore carried his head high. He called for the best
that the ship could afford, and he fared as the skipper did, though he
partook but sparingly.

But the vessel arrived in Dartmouth harbour; it entered the mouth of the
romantic river, on the one side of which was the fort, still bearing the
name of Cromwell, and on the other Kingsbridge, which Peter Pindar hath
celebrated; while on both sides, as precipitous banks, rose towering
hills, their summits covered by a stunted furze, and the blooming
orchard meeting it midway.

Some rather unpleasant sensations visited the disabled soldier as the
vessel sailed up the river towards the town. The beauty of its situation
made no impression upon him, for he had seen it a thousand times; and it
was perhaps as well that it did not; for to look on it from the river,
or from a distant height--like a long line of houses hung on the breast
of romance--and afterwards to enter it and find yourself in the midst of
a narrow, dingy street, where scarce two wheelbarrows could pass,
produceth only disappointment, and that, too, of the bitterest kind. It
seems, indeed, that the Devonians have conceded so much of their
beautiful county to the barrenness of Dartmoor, that they grudge every
inch that is occupied as a street or highway. Ere this time, George
Prescot had in a great measure drop