mind and keep in
doors when I am not with you, or I shall have one or other of you lost in
this great wilderness of a city. I shall return in two or three hours. I
will order something for dinner as I go along: I have your purse.
Good-by: God bless you both."

Inquiring his way every two or three minutes, Mason presently found
himself in the vicinity of Tower Stairs. A scuffle in front of a
public-house attracted his attention; and his ready sympathies were in an
instant enlisted in behalf of a young sailor, vainly struggling in the
grasp of several athletic men, and crying lustily on the gaping
bystanders for help. Mason sprang forward, caught one of the assailants
by the collar, and hurled him with some violence against the wall. A
fierce outcry greeted this audacious interference with gentlemen who, in
those good old times, were but executing the law in a remarkably good old
manner. Lieutenant Donnagheu, a somewhat celebrated snapper-up of loose
mariners, emerged upon the scene; and in a few minutes was enabled to
exult in the secure possession of an additional prize in the unfortunate
Henry Mason, who, too late, discovered that he had embroiled himself with
a _pressgang_! Desperate, frenzied were the efforts he made to extricate
himself from the peril in which he had rashly involved himself. In vain!
His protestations that he was a mate, a captain, in the merchant service,
were unheeded or mocked at.

To all his remonstrances he only got the professional answer--"His
majesty wants you, and that is enough; so come along, and no more
about it."

Bruised, exhausted, almost mad, he was borne off in triumph to a boat,
into which he was thrust with several others, and swiftly rowed off to a
receiving-ship in the river. Even there his assertions and protestations
were of no avail. Nothing but an Admiralty order, the officer in command
candidly told him, should effect his liberation. His majesty was in need
of seamen; and he was evidently too smart a one to be deprived of the
glory of serving his country. "You must therefore," concluded the
officer, as he turned laughingly upon his heel, "do as thousands of
other fine fellows have been compelled to do--'grin and bear it.'" In
about three weeks from the date of his impressment Mason found himself
serving in the Mediterranean on board the "Active" frigate, Captain
Alexander Gordon, without having been permitted one opportunity of
communicating with the shore. This was cert