drag or pull me
over the dangerous places. He was very unkind to me, which may appear
strange, as I was the only companion that he had; but he was of a morose
and gloomy disposition. He would sit down squatted in the corner of our
cabin, and sometimes not speak for hours,--or he would remain the whole
day looking out at the sea, as if watching for something, but what I
never could tell; for if I spoke, he would not reply; and if near to
him, I was sure to receive a cuff or a heavy blow. I should imagine
that I was about five years old at the time that I first recollect
clearly what passed. I may have been younger. I may as well here state
what I gathered from him at different times, relative to our being left
upon this desolate spot. It was with difficulty that I did so; for,
generally speaking, he would throw a stone at me if I asked questions,
that is, if I repeatedly asked them after he had refused to answer. It
was on one occasion, when he was lying sick, that I gained the
information, and that only by refusing to attend him or bring him food
and water. He would be very angry, and say, that when he got well
again, he would make me smart for it; but I cared not, for I was then
getting strong, whilst he was getting weaker every day, and I had no
love for him, for he had never shown any to me, but always treated me
with great severity.

He told me, that about twelve years before (not that I knew what he
meant by a year, for I had never heard the term used by him), an English
ship (I did not know what a ship was) had been swamped near the island
in a heavy gale, and that seven men and one woman had been saved, and
all the other people lost. That the ship had been broken into pieces,
and that they had saved nothing--that they had picked up among the rocks
pieces of the wood with which it had been made, and had built the cabin
in which we lived. That one had died after another, and had been buried
(what death or burial meant, I had no idea at the time); and that I had
been born on the island--(how was I born? thought I); that most of them
had died before I was two years old; and that then, he and my mother
were the only two left besides me. My mother had died a few months
afterwards. I was obliged to ask him many questions to understand all
this; indeed, I did not understand it till long afterwards, although I
had an idea of what he would say. Had I been left with any other
person, I should, of course, by con