f it hadn't been for them, and others
like them, I should have been happy enough on board, and willing to do
my duty," he exclaimed. "I should have got on very well with Mr Bitts,
for he was always kind in his way, and wanted to make a seaman of me;
and I should have been one, for he was ready to show me how to do
everything I wanted to learn. However, it's all past now, and I must go
back to the plough. I must take care, though, that Mr Gooch doesn't
hear of my being at home again, or he will be down upon me. I suspect
that father will be afraid of that, and will be sending me off to a farm
away from home, so that, after all, I shall not be with him and mother
and Janet. I've half a mind even now to go back again--but then there's
this flogging, and Lord Reginald would be down upon me more than ever;
and what would Ben say? and old Purkiss would get it for helping me
off."

Such were some of Dick's meditations as he trudged on during the night,
making good about four miles an hour, so that he was nearly thirty miles
away from Plymouth when morning broke. He still walked on until he came
to a roadside inn, where, feeling very hungry, he stopped for breakfast.
While the landlady was cooking some eggs and bacon, he fell asleep,
with his head on the table.

"What ails you, lad?" said the woman, as she placed the smoking hot dish
near him, and shook him by the shoulder. "It's not the time o' day
people who have had a night's rest take to sleeping."

"But I haven't had a night's rest," answered Dick, rousing himself. "I
have been walking on all the morning; but I am more hungry than sleepy,
so I thank you for the eggs and bacon, and would be glad of a jug of ale
to wash them down."

The landlady, still looking at him somewhat suspiciously--detecting,
perhaps, the seaman's shirt below his frock--placed the ale before him.
From the questions she put to him, Dick thought that she guessed who he
was, and deemed it prudent to again set off. Recollecting Peter's
advice, he produced sixpence to pay for his breakfast, and then at once
took his leave. For another hour or more he trudged on, until he became
so weary that he could scarcely move. He saw a haystack a short
distance from the road, inviting him to rest beneath it. Hardly had he
thrown himself down on the lee side, away from the public path, than he
was fast asleep.

It was late in the afternoon before he awoke, when he continued his
journey, stopping only