out as a pattern-man for youth to follow; and so--but we
all play parts--all, all! And now for a stave of a song: Hurrah for the
free trade!--a shout for the brave Buccaneers!--a pottle of sack!--and
now, sir, I am myself again! The brimstone smell of that dark ruffian
nearly overpowered me!" So saying, he passed his hand frequently over
his brows, attempting at the same time to laugh away his visible
emotion.

"It will not do!" said the young man, whom Dalton had addressed by the
name of Walter; "something has disturbed you: surely, Captain, I may ask
what it is?"

"Some forty years ago I had a father," replied the Buccaneer, looking
earnestly in the youth's face; "he was an aged man then, for he did not
marry until he was old, and my mother was beautiful, and quitted his
side: but that does not matter; only it shows how, as my poor father had
nothing else to love, he loved me with the full tenderness of a most
affectionate nature. He was a clergyman too, and a firm royalist; one of
those devoted royalists, as regarded both God and king, who would
submit, for their sakes, to the stake or the block with rapture at being
thought worthy to make the sacrifice. Well, I was wild and wilful, and
even then would rather steal a thing than gain it by lawful means: not
that I would have stolen aught to keep it, for I was generous enough;
but I loved the danger and excitement of theft, and, on the occasion I
speak of, I had taken some apples from a neighbouring tree belonging to
a poor woman. It was evening when I took this unlucky fruit; and not
knowing a safe place in which to deposit it, I was restless and
disturbed all night. The next day, from a cause I could not guess at, my
father would not suffer me to go out, and was perpetually, on some
pretext or other, going to and from the cupboard where my treasure had
been placed. I was in agony; and as night again closed in, the agitation
and anxiety I had suffered made me ill and pale. My dear father drew
near him the little oak table that was set apart for the Bible, and,
opening it, said that he had that day composed a sermon for my especial
case. I dreaded that my apple-stealing had been discovered; and I was
right, though he did not say so. He enlarged in sweet and simple
language upon his text: it was this--'There is no peace, saith my God,
to the wicked.' Walter! Walter! the old man has been many years in his
grave, and I have been as many a reckless wanderer over the face