y those uneasy glances over the shoulder, as if he were an
escaping convict--may be gathered from some words of soliloquy
half-spoken aloud by him, while resting on the bank:

"I hope they won't miss me before breakfast-time. By then I ought to be
in Portsmouth, and if I've the luck to get apprenticed on board a ship,
I'll take precious good care not to show myself on shore till she's off.
But surely father won't think of following this way--not a bit of it.
The old bailiff will tell him what I said about going to London, and
that'll throw him off the scent completely."

The smile that accompanied the last words is replaced by a graver look,
with a touch of sadness in the tone of his voice as he continues:

"Poor dear mother, and sis Em'ly! It'll go hard with them for a bit,
grieving. But they'll soon get over it. 'Tisn't like I was leaving
them never to come back. Besides, won't I write mother a letter soon as
I'm sure of getting safe off?"

A short interval of silent reflection, and then follow words of a
self-justifying nature:

"How could I help it? Father would insist on my being a farmer, though
he knows how I hate it. One clodhopper in the family's quite enough;
and brother Dick's the man for that. As the song says, `Let me go
a-ploughing the sea.' Yes, though I should never rise above being a
common sailor. Who's happier than the jolly Jack tar? He sees the
world, any way, which is better than to live all one's life, with head
down, delving ditches. But a common sailor--no! Maybe I'll come home
in three or four years with gold buttons on my jacket and a glittering
band around the rim of my cap. Ay, and with pockets full of gold coin!
Who knows? Then won't mother be proud of me, and little Em too?"

By this time the uprisen sun has dispelled the last lingering threads of
mist, and Henry Chester (such is the youth's name) perceives, for the
first time, that he has been sitting beside a tall column of stone. As
the memorial tablet is right before his eyes, and he reads the
inscription on it, again comes a shadow over his countenance. May not
the fate of that unfortunate sailor be a forecast of his own? Why
should it be revealed to him just then? Is it a warning of what is
before him, with reproach for his treachery to those left behind?
Probably, at that very moment, an angry father, a mother and sister in
tears, all on his account!

For a time he stands hesitating; in his mind a conflict