han,
without means and without a home; for, as my parents had been without
any fortune, and subsisted entirely upon the hard earnings of my
father's trade, no provision had been made against such an unexpected
event as my brave father's death, and even my mother had been left
almost penniless. Perhaps it was a merciful providence that called her
away from a world that to her was no longer a place of enjoyment; and
although I long lamented my dear kind mother, in after years I could not
help thinking that it was her happier destiny that at that time she had
been summoned away. Long, long years it was before I could have done
anything to aid or protect her--during the chill cold winter of poverty
that must have been her portion.

To me the events brought consequences of the most serious kind. I found
a home, it is true, but a very different one from that to which I had
all along been used. I was taken to live with an uncle, who, although
my mother's own brother, had none of her tender or affectionate
feelings; on the contrary, he was a man of morose disposition and coarse
habits, and I soon found that I was but little more cared for than any
one of his servants, for I was treated just as they.

My school-days were at an end, for I was no more sent to school from the
day I entered my uncle's house. Not that I was allowed to go about
idle. My uncle was a farmer, and soon found a use for me; so that
between running after pigs and cattle, and driving the plough horses, or
tending upon a flock of sheep, or feeding calves, or a hundred other
little matters, I was kept busy from sunrise till sunset of every day in
the week. Upon Sundays only was I permitted to rest--not that my uncle
was at all religious, but that it was a custom of the place that there
should be no work done on the Sabbath. This custom was strictly
observed by everybody belonging to the village, and my uncle was
compelled to follow the common rule; otherwise, I believe, he would have
made Sunday a day of work as well as any other.

My uncle, not having any care for religion, I was not sent to church,
but was left free to wander idle about the fields, or indeed wherever I
chose to go. You may be sure I did not choose to stop among the hedges
and ditches. The blue sea that lay beyond, had far more attractions for
me than birds-nesting, or any other rural amusement; and the moment I
could escape from the house I was off to my favourite element, either