who came up in appearance to what I should fancy an angel in
heaven would look like. This is what I thought at the moment. When she
saw that she was observed, she drew her shawl instinctively closer
around her, and moved on.

CHAPTER SIX.

FIRST INTRODUCTION TO MISS TROALL--HAPPY EVENING--RETURN ON BOARD--AN
EXPEDITION PLANNED--ATTACK ON PRIVATEERS--THE BOAT SINKS UNDER ME--MEET
AN OLD FRIEND--FOLLOW HIS ADVICE--JOIN AN AMERICAN VESSEL--CHASED
AGAIN--THE ACTION BETWEEN THE BRITISH AND FRENCH SHIPS--LAND OUR
PASSENGERS--LOSS OF OUR VESSEL--GET ON SHORE AT GUERNSEY--LA MOTTE AND
HIS FAMILY--SAIL FOR PORTSMOUTH.

And so at length the dream in which I had so long indulged was realised.
Once more I trod my native shores. Once more I had visited the home of
my childhood. What a blank I had found! My lot has been that of
thousands of seamen--of thousands of poor wanderers over the face of the
globe, of every rank and in every clime. It is the tale which many and
many a shipmate has told me in our midnight watch:--"I got back to the
place where I was born. I thought to find it a home, but most of those
I left were dead! the rest removed. All were gone. The spot which once
I knew so well, knew me no more; so I fell in with an old messmate. We
had a jovial spree on shore, and then, when all our cash was gone, we
went to sea again." Such was not my lot, though. Had I been inclined
for a spree, which I was not, I had not time to indulge in it. I took a
walk through some of the beautiful green lanes about Plymouth, and
filled my hat full of wild-flowers, and then came back to the old lady's
house to take my tea, as I had promised. I opened the door without
ceremony, for I forgot entirely that it was not my own home, and walked
into the parlour, expecting to find the old lady. Instead of her, what
was my surprise to see seated at the tea-table the very young woman who
had been watching me in the churchyard. I was regularly taken aback,
and stammered out--

"Beg pardon, Miss, I didn't know that there was anybody here but the old
lady who asked me to tea."

"You need not offer any excuse; my aunt told me you were coming," she
answered, in just such a voice as I should have expected to hear when
looking at her.

In a very few minutes she made me quite at home, and her aunt came in,
and we soon were talking away just as if we were old friends. I will
not say that I forgot my grandmother and aunt, but I should