was unsympathisingly hurled at me--"Come home to
your parents and start afresh." Well, I took the advice, and went home to
my parents. I often think it was very good of them to allow their errant
son to come home as often as they did. I returned to my position as a
warpdresser at Lund's mill, being about eighteen years old at the time.
Things went on very peaceably and agreeably for another little while, but
I--just verging on the age of manhood--again felt a strong desire to go
out into the world.

OH! FOR A SAILOR'S LIFE!

I had been reading a book about the life of a sailor--how nice it is to
_read_ about a sailor's life!--and got the idea that I should like to be
a sailor. So, one morning I got up betimes, when lazy people were snoring
between the blankets. I clad myself in my best suit--one of splendid
black, put on my watch, provided myself with plenty of money--my parents
were not badly off--and started in search of a sailor's life. It didn't
look like a very good beginning, did it? I tramped to Leeds, and there I
had the--misfortune, I may safely say, to fall in with some of my
thespian friends. They very willingly helped me to spend my money, so
that when I left Leeds I had scarcely a penny in my pocket. But it was,
perhaps, all for the best, as things turned. I walked to Goole, and from
there to Hull. I lingered about the docks for some time, and then I fell
in with the skipper of a vessel who was looking out for an addition to
his crew. He asked me who I was. I, of course, told him and said I should
like to be a sailor. He smiled when I said that, and said I looked more
like a tailor than a sailor. But, then, I have said all along that
appearances are deceptive, and that it isn't always wise to rely on the
label of the bag. It was simply a matter of taste with the skipper: he
saw in me a nice chance of a suit of good clothes, &c., if nothing else.
He questioned me: "would you run away if I took you on? You know some of
you get tired of the first voyage." I assured him that _I_ wouldn't run
away, what other boys did. Whereupon it came to pass that he said that I
was a likely young fellow, and I was engaged--I mean to the skipper, of
course. I had to say a fond "Good-bye!" to my suit of black, watch, and
other articles, and bedeck myself in a canvas suit, with red shirt, belt,
and oil-skin cap. The name of the vessel was "The Greyhound," and "The
Greyhound" was laden with prepared stone and bound from Hu