friend kindly tried to prepare me for my new career.
"Now, Jack," said he at last, "I've done my best to set you on your
legs. You must try to walk alone. I don't want to make a nursing baby
of you, remember." From that day forward Peter left me very much to
take care of myself. Still I felt that his eye was watching over me,
and this feeling gave me a considerable amount of confidence which I
should not otherwise have possessed.

By the next day at noon, the rest of the crew had assembled; the captain
and several passengers, mostly merchants and planters, came on board.
There was a fair wind blowing down the Liffey. "Open the dock-gates,
Mr Thompson, and let her go. She'll find her own way to Jamaica and
back again by herself, without a hand at the helm, she knows it so
well," the captain, as he stood on the poop, sung out to the
dock-master. I found that this was a standing joke of his.

The _Rainbow_ was a regular West India trader, and had had many
successful voyages there. Captain Helfrich was chief owner as well as
master, and was a great favourite with the merchants and planters at the
different islands at which he was in the habit of touching, and
consequently had always plenty of passengers, and never had to wait long
for freight. He was very proud of his brig, and of everything connected
with her. He himself also was a person not a little worthy of note. He
was, as I have said, a tall, fine man, robust and upright in figure,
with large, handsome features, and teeth of pearly whiteness. He was
probably at this time rather more than forty years old, but not a
particle of his crisp, curly, brown hair had a silvery tint. He had a
fine beaming smile, though he was very firm and determined, and could
look very fierce when angry. I had an unbounded respect for him. Thus
commanded, and with as good a crew as ever manned a ship, the _Rainbow_
dropped down the Liffey, and made sail to the southward; and under these
propitious circumstances I found myself fairly launched in my career as
a sailor.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE BITTERS AND SWEETS OF A SEA-LIFE.

"And so, Jack, you like a sea-life, do you?" said Peter Poplar to me one
day after we had been about two weeks from port. We had had very fine
weather all the time, with a north or easterly wind, and I expected to
find the ocean always as smooth and pleasant as it then was. One good
result was, that I had been able to pick up a good many of the deta