sfortunes
commenced.

His thoughts consequently at once reverted to the sea; and the day after
his father's funeral, he set out with a sad heart, and yet with the
buoyant hope of youth cheering him on in spite of his grief, to take
counsel of an old friend, the master of a merchantman, who had been much
indebted to his father.

Captain Styles was a rough-mannered but a good man, and a thoroughly
practical sailor. He at once offered every aid in his power; but Edward
Willis, thanking him, assured him that he only came for advice.

"Do you want to become a seaman in whom your owners and passengers will
place perfect confidence, and who will be able, if man can do it, to
navigate your ship through narrow channels and among shoals, and clear
off a lee-shore if you are ever caught on one; or do you wish just to
know how to navigate a ship from London to Calcutta and back, with the
aid of a pilot when you get into shallow waters, and to look after the
ladies in fine weather, and let your first officer take care of the ship
in bad?"

"I wish to become a thorough seaman," replied Edward Willis.

"Then, my lad, you must first go to the school where you will learn the
trade," said Captain Styles. "I have an old friend, the master of a
Newcastle collier. He is an honest man, kind-hearted, and a first-rate
seaman. In six months with him you will learn more than in six years in
a big ship. If you were younger, it would be different; for it is rough
work, mind you. He is always at sea, running up and down the coast:
sometimes to the north, and at other times round the South Foreland, and
right down channel. Indeed, to my mind there is not a finer school to
make a man a seaman in a short time. It's the royal road to a knowledge
of the sea, though I grant it, as I said before, a very rough one."

Willis replied that he was not afraid of hard work, and would follow his
advice. Accordingly he went to sea in a collier for three years; then
he shipped on board a vessel trading to the Baltic, and next made a
voyage to Baffin's Bay, in a whaler; after which he joined an Indiaman.
Here, after what he had gone through, the work appeared comparatively
easy. He now perfected himself in the higher branches of navigation,
and from this time rose rapidly from junior mate to first officer, and
finally, in a few years, to the command of a first-class Indiaman, where
he was in a fair way of realising a handsome independence. Captain