road all day,
shooting, or fishing, or minding the farm, or riding after some stray
beast, or away by the seaside below Glenthorne, wondering at the great
waters, and resolving to go for a sailor. For in those days I had a firm
belief, as many other strong boys have, of being born for a seaman. And
indeed I had been in a boat nearly twice; but the second time mother
found it out, and came and drew me back again; and after that she cried
so badly, that I was forced to give my word to her to go no more without
telling her.

But Betty Muxworthy spoke her mind quite in a different way about it,
the while she was wringing my hosen, and clattering to the drying-horse.

'Zailor, ees fai! ay and zarve un raight. Her can't kape out o' the
watter here, whur a' must goo vor to vaind un, zame as a gurt to-ad
squalloping, and mux up till I be wore out, I be, wi' the very saight of
's braiches. How wil un ever baide aboard zhip, wi' the watter zinging
out under un, and comin' up splash when the wind blow. Latt un goo,
missus, latt un goo, zay I for wan, and old Davy wash his clouts for
un.'

And this discourse of Betty's tended more than my mother's prayers,
I fear, to keep me from going. For I hated Betty in those days, as
children always hate a cross servant, and often get fond of a false
one. But Betty, like many active women, was false by her crossness only;
thinking it just for the moment perhaps, and rushing away with a bucket;
ready to stick to it, like a clenched nail, if beaten the wrong way with
argument; but melting over it, if you left her, as stinging soap, left
along in a basin, spreads all abroad without bubbling.

But all this is beyond the children, and beyond me too for that matter,
even now in ripe experience; for I never did know what women mean, and
never shall except when they tell me, if that be in their power. Now let
that question pass. For although I am now in a place of some authority,
I have observed that no one ever listens to me, when I attempt to lay
down the law; but all are waiting with open ears until I do enforce it.
And so methinks he who reads a history cares not much for the wisdom or
folly of the writer (knowing well that the former is far less than his
own, and the latter vastly greater), but hurries to know what the people
did, and how they got on about it. And this I can tell, if any one can,
having been myself in the thick of it.

The fright I had taken that night in Glen Doone satisfie