then the wind veered more towards the southward, with dirt: at
last it came on foggy, and I could hardly see the brig, and as it rained
hard, and blew harder, I wished that my father was ready, for my arms
ached with steering the coble for so long a while. I could not leave
the helm, so I steered on at a black lump, as the brig looked through
the fog: at last the fog was so thick that I could not see a yard beyond
the boat, and I hardly knew how to steer. I began to be frightened,
tired, and cold, and hungry I certainly was. Well, I steered on for
more than an hour, when the fog cleared up a little, and to my joy I saw
the stern of the brig just before me. I expected that she would
round-to immediately, and that my father would praise me for my conduct;
and, what was still more to the purpose, that I should get something to
eat and drink. But no: she steered on right down Channel, and I
followed for more than an hour, when it came on to blow very hard, and I
could scarcely manage the boat--she pulled my little arms off. The
weather now cleared up, and I could make out the vessel plainly; when I
discovered that it was not the _brig_, but a bark which I had got hold
of in the fog, so that I did not know what to do; but I did as most boys
would have done in a fright,--I sat down and cried; still, however,
keeping the tiller in my hand, and steering as well as I could. At
last. I could hold it no longer; I ran forward, let go the fore and jib
haul-yards, and hauled down the sails; drag them into the boat I could
not, and there I was, like a young bear adrift in a washing-tub. I
looked around, and there were no vessels near; the bark had left me two
miles astern, it was blowing a gale from the SE, with a heavy sea--the
gulls and sea-birds wheeling and screaming in the storm. The boat
tossed and rolled about so that I was obliged to hold on, but she
shipped no water of any consequence, for the jib in the water forward
had brought her head to wind, and acted as a sort of floating anchor.
At last I lay down at the bottom of the boat and fell asleep. It was
daylight before I awoke, and it blew harder than ever; and I could just
see some vessels at a distance, scudding before the gale, but they could
hardly see me. I sat very melancholy the whole day, shedding tears,
surrounded by nothing but the roaring waves. I prayed very earnestly: I
said the Lord's Prayer, the Belief, and as much of the Catechism as I
could recoll