see "Lost in the Forest".

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SUNK AT SEA, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

TREATS OF OUR HERO'S EARLY LIFE, AND TOUCHES ON DOMESTIC MATTERS.

William Osten was a wanderer by nature. He was born with a thirst for
adventure that nothing could quench, and with a desire to rove that
nothing could subdue.

Even in babyhood, when his limbs were fat and feeble, and his visage was
round and red, he displayed his tendency to wander in ways and under
circumstances that other babies never dreamt of. He kept his poor
mother in a chronic fever of alarm, and all but broke the heart of his
nurse, long before he could walk, by making his escape from the nursery
over and over again, on his hands and knees; which latter bore constant
marks of being compelled to do the duty of feet in dirty places.

Baby Will never cried. To have heard him yell would have rejoiced the
hearts of mother and nurse, for that would have assured them of his
being near at hand and out of mischief--at least not engaged in more
than ordinary mischief. But Baby Will was a natural philosopher from
his birth. He displayed his wisdom by holding his peace at all times,
except when very hard pressed by hunger or pain, and appeared to regard
life in general in a grave, earnest, inquiring spirit. Nevertheless, we
would not have it understood that Will was a slow, phlegmatic baby. By
no means. His silence was deep, his gravity profound, and his
earnestness intense, so that, as a rule, his existence was unobtrusive.
But his energy was tremendous. What he undertook to do he usually did
with all his might and main--whether it was the rending of his pinafore
or the smashing of his drum!

We have said that he seldom or never cried, but he sometimes laughed,
and that not unfrequently; and when he did so you could not choose but
hear, for his whole soul gushed out in his laugh, which was rich, racy,
and riotous. He usually lay down and rolled when he laughed, being
quite incapable of standing to do it--at least during the early period
of babyhood. But Will would not laugh at everything. You could not
make him laugh by cooing and smirking and talking nonsense, and
otherwise making an ass of yourself before him.

Maryann, the nurse, had long tried that in vain, and had almost broken
her heart about it. She was always breaking her heart, more or less,
about her charge, yet, strange to