d ambition--a passion
so intimately interwoven in my existence, that to have eradicated it the
whole fabric of my fame must have been demolished. I felt pride
justified.

Hurricanes are rarely of long continuance; this was succeeded by a gale,
which, though strong, was fine weather compared to what we had seen. We
fell to work, rigged our jury-mast, and in a few days presented
ourselves to the welcome gaze of the town of Halifax, which, having felt
the full force of the hurricane, expressed very considerable alarm for
our safety. My arms and legs did not recover for some time from the
effects of the bruises I had received in going aloft, and for some days
I remained on board. When I recovered, I went on shore, and was kindly
and affectionately received by my numerous friends.

I had not been long at Halifax before a sudden change took place in the
behaviour of my captain towards me. The cause I could never exactly
discover, though I had given myself some room for conjecture. I must
confess with sorrow, that notwithstanding his kindness to me on every
occasion, and notwithstanding my high respect for him, as an officer and
a gentleman, I had raised a laugh against him. But he was too
good-humoured a man to be offended at such a harmless act of youthful
levity; and five minutes were usually the limits of anger with this
amiable man on such occasions as I am about to relate.

The fact was this; my truly noble captain sported a remarkably wide pair
of blue trousers. Whether he thought it sailor-like, or whether his
tailor was afraid of putting his lordship to short allowance of cloth,
for fear of phlogistic consequences, I know not; but broad as was the
beam of his lordship, still broader and more ample in proportion were
the folds of this essential part of his drapery, quite enough to have
embraced twice the volume of human flesh contained within them, large as
it undoubtedly was.

That "a stitch in time saves nine," is a wise saw, unhappily, like many
others of the same thrifty kind, but little heeded in this our day. So
it was with Lord Edward. A rent had, by some mischance, been made in
the central seam, and, on the morning of the hurricane, was still
unmended. When the gale came, it sought a quarrel with anything it
could lay hold of, and the harmless trousers of Lord Edward became
subject to its mighty and resistless devastation; the blustering Boreas
entered by the seam aforesaid, and filled the trouse