wledge that they have been in error.
Mr Drummond, therefore, left his wife to examine further into the
matter, and gave her permission to send for me. The message given, and
the results of it have been stated. The answer returned was that I
would not come, and that I had threatened to break the clerk's head as
well as that of Mr Drummond; for although the scoundrel knew very well
that in making use of the word "master," I referred to the senior clerk,
he thought it proper to substitute that of Mr Drummond. The effect of
this reply may easily be imagined. Sarah was astonished, Mrs Drummond
shocked, and Mr Drummond was almost pleased to find that he could not
have been in the wrong. Thus was the breach made even wider than
before, and all communication broken off. Much depends in this world
upon messages being correctly given.

In half-an-hour we had hauled out of the tier and dropped down to the
American schooner, to take out a cargo of flour, which old Tom had
directions to land at the Battersea wharf; so that I was, for the time,
removed from the site of my misfortune. I cannot say that I felt happy,
but I certainly felt glad that I was away. I was reckless to a degree
that was insupportable. I had a heavy load on my mind which I could not
shake off--a prey upon my spirits--a disgust at almost everything. How
well do I recollect with what different feelings I looked upon the few
books which Mr Drummond and the Dominie had given me to amuse my
leisure hours. I turned from them with contempt, and thought I would
never open them again. I felt as if all ties were now cut off, and that
I was again wedded to the Thames; my ideas, my wishes, extended no
farther, and I surveyed the river and its busy scene as I did before I
had been taken away from it, as if all my energies, all my prospects
were in future to be bounded by its shores. In the course of
four-and-twenty hours a revulsion had taken place, which again put me on
the confines of barbarism.

My bargemates were equally dull as I was; they were too partial to me,
and had too much kindness of heart, not to feel my situation, and anger
at the injustice with which I had been treated. Employment, however,
for a time relieved our melancholy thoughts. Our cargo was on board of
the lighter, and we were again tiding it through the bridges.

We dropped our anchor above Putney Bridge a little after twelve o'clock,
and young Tom, with the wish of amusing me, propo