l
asleep. It was daylight before I awoke, and then I got up and looked
round me--it blew harder than ever; and, although there were some
vessels at a distance, scudding before the gale, they did not mind, or
perhaps see me. I sat very melancholy the whole day, the tears ran down
my cheeks, my eyes were full of salt from the spray--I saw at last
nothing but the roaring and trembling waves. I prayed every prayer I
knew, that is, I said the Lord's Prayer, the Belief, and as much of the
Catechism as I could recollect. It rained in torrents--I was wet,
starving, and miserably cold. At night I again fell asleep from
exhaustion. The morning broke again, and the sun shone, the gale was
breaking off, and I felt more cheered; but I was now ravenous from
hunger, as well as choking from thirst, and I was so weak that I could
scarcely stand. I looked round me every now and then, and lay down
again. In the afternoon I saw a large vessel standing right for me; this
gave me courage and strength. I stood up and waved my hat, and they saw
me--the sea was still running very high, but the wind had gone down. She
rounded-to so as to bring me under her lee. Send a boat she could not,
but the sea bore her down upon me, and I was soon close to her. Men in
the chains were ready with ropes, and I knew that this was my only
chance. At last, a very heavy sea bore her right down upon the boat,
lurching over on her beam ends, her main chains struck the boat and sent
her down, while I was seized by the scuff of the neck by two of the
seamen, and borne aloft by them as the vessel returned to the
weather-roll. They hauled me in, and I was safe. It was neck or nothing
with me then; wasn't it, Bob?"

"It was, indeed, a miraculous escape, Cockle." "Well, as soon as they
had given me something to eat, I told my story;--and it appeared that
she was an East Indiaman running down Channel, and not likely to meet
with anything to send me back again. The passengers, especially the
ladies, were very kind to me: and as there was no help for it, why, I
took my first voyage to the _East Indies_."

"And your father and your brother?"

"Why, when I met them, which I did about six years afterwards, I found
that they had been in much the same predicament, having lost the coble,
and the weather being so bad that they could not get on shore again. As
there was no help for it, they took their first voyage to the _West
Indies_; so there was a dispersion of a united famil