ck by this circumstance myself; of course, in
company with the rest of my fellow-men, I had always tied the sheet in a
sailing-boat; but in so little and crank a concern as a canoe, and with
these charging squalls, I was not prepared to find myself follow the
same principle; and it inspired me with some contemptuous views of our
regard for life. It is certainly easier to smoke with the sheet
fastened; but I had never before weighed a comfortable pipe of tobacco
against an obvious risk, and gravely elected for the comfortable pipe.
It is a commonplace, that we cannot answer for ourselves before we have
been tried. But it is not so common a reflection, and surely more
consoling, that we usually find ourselves a great deal braver and better
than we thought. I believe this is every one's experience: but an
apprehension that they may belie themselves in the future prevents
mankind from trumpeting this cheerful sentiment abroad. I wish
sincerely, for it would have saved me much trouble, there had been some
one to put me in a good heart about life when I was younger; to tell me
how dangers are most portentous on a distant sight; and how the good in
a man's spirit will not suffer itself to be overlaid, and rarely or
never deserts him in the hour of need. But we are all for tootling on
the sentimental flute in literature; and not a man among us will go to
the head of the march to sound the heady drums.

It was agreeable upon the river. A barge or two went past laden with
hay. Reeds and willows bordered the stream; and cattle and grey
venerable horses came and hung their mild heads over the embankment.
Here and there was a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy
shipping-yard; here and there a villa in a lawn. The wind served us well
up the Scheldt and thereafter up the Rupel, and we were running pretty
free when we began to sight the brickyards of Boom, lying for a long way
on the right bank of the river. The left bank was still green and
pastoral, with alleys of trees along the embankment, and here and there
a flight of steps to serve a ferry, where perhaps there sat a woman with
her elbows on her knees, or an old gentleman with a staff and silver
spectacles. But Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and shabbier with
every minute; until a great church with a clock, and a wooden bridge
over the river, indicated the central quarters of the town.

Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for one thing: that the
majorit