stay, and tell his friends that he is in safe keeping."

So it was arranged, and I found myself an inmate of Greenwich Hospital.

After I had been seen walking up and down the terrace a few times with
Lieutenant R---, the pensioners, when I spoke to them, answered me
readily, though at first rather shy of talking of themselves or their
adventures. At length I fell in with a fine old man, and sitting down
on one of the benches facing the river, I began to tell him how much I
honoured and loved all sailors, and how I longed myself to become one.

"Ay, boy, there are good and bad at sea as well as on shore; but as to
the life, it's good enough; and if I had mine to begin again, I would
choose it before all others," he answered, and once more relapsed into
silence.

Just then Lieutenant H--- passed; he nodded at me with a smile, saying,
as he passed on, "My old friend there will tell you more of Lord Nelson
than any man now in the Hospital."

The old man looked at me with a beaming expression on his countenance.

"Ay, that I can," he said, "boy and man I sailed with him all my life,
from the day he got his first command till he was struck down in the
hour of victory. So to speak, sir, I may say I knew him from the very
day he first stepped on board a ship. This is how it was: My father was
a seaman, and belonged to the `Raisonable,' just fitted out by Captain
Suckling, and lying in the Medway. One afternoon a little fellow was
brought on board by one of the officers, and it was said that he was the
captain's nephew; but the captain was on shore, and there was nobody to
look after him. He walked the deck up and down, looking very miserable,
but not crying, as some boys would have done--not he. That wasn't his
way at any time. When the captain did come on board, and he saw his
nephew, he shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that he didn't
think he was fit for a sea-life. No more he did look fit for it, for he
was a sick, weakly-looking little fellow. However, it wasn't long
before he showed what a great spirit there was in him."

"Ay," said I, "there is a story I have heard which proved that, when he
was merely a child. He and another little fellow had gone away
bird's-nesting from his grandmother's house, and he not coming back, the
servants were sent to look for him. He was found seated by the side of
a brook, which he could not get over. `I wonder, child,' said the old
lady, when she saw him, `that