new that there was harm, and felt that I might justly
be punished. At first, after Charley had recovered from the plague, he
appeared to have become a thoughtful and serious character, but
unhappily he very soon fell off again, and was now as reckless as ever.
At length the order came for us to return home. Merrily we tramped
round at the capstan bars to a jolly song, as we got in our anchor for
the last time, and made sail from the port of Leghorn. We passed the
Straits of Gibraltar, and with a smooth sea and southerly wind we had a
quick run to the Land's End, while our crew sang--

"To England we with favouring gale
Our gallant ship up Channel steer;
While running under easy sail,
The snow-white western cliffs appear."

CHAPTER FOUR.

COME IN SIGHT OF OLD ENGLAND--MANY A SLIP BETWEEN THE CUP AND THE LIP--
THE THOUGHTS OF HOME--EFFECTS OF DRUNKENNESS--BREAKERS AHEAD--SHIP ON
SHORE--SAVED IN A BOAT--THE SCILLY ISLES--ADVANTAGE OF LOSING MY SHOES--
BOAT LOST--I AM AGAIN PRESERVED--A NIGHT IN A CAVE--GO IN SEARCH OF
ASSISTANCE--HOSPITABLE RECEPTION IN THE ISLAND--THE OLD MATE'S DEATH--
SAIL FOR PLYMOUTH--SPRING A LEAK--LOSS OF THE ELLEN--THE WAVE-TOSSED
RAFT--DEATH OF OUR COMPANIONS.

We made the Land's End one morning in the middle of March, when a strong
north-easterly gale sprung up in our teeth, and threatened to drive us
back again into the middle of the Atlantic. After the bright sunny
skies and blue waters of the South, how cold and bleak and uninviting
looked our native land! But yet most of us had friends and relations
whom we hoped to see, and whom we believed would welcome us with warm
hearts and kindly greetings; and we pictured to ourselves the green
fields, and the shady woods, and the neat cottages, and picturesque
lanes to be found inside those rocky barriers, and we longed to be on
shore. The captain was as eager as any of us to reach home; so, the
brig being close-hauled, with two reefs in her topsails, we endeavoured
to beat up so as to get close under the land in Mount's Bay. It was a
long business, though--tack and tack--no rest and wet jackets for all of
us; but what cared we for that? We had an important object to gain.
Old England, our native land, was to windward. There we hoped to find
rest from our toils for a season; there each man hoped to find what in
his imagination he had pictured would bring him pleasure, or happiness,
or satisfaction of some sort. I've often th