in my time," he added with one sharp glance--no more--but, as Byron
says of the look of Gulleyaz, 'twas like a short glimpse of hell. Pretty
fast! I should think so--now and then from an English cruiser, all sails
wetted down, with the gallows in the background. But as I had been on
board with Sam, the question was settled. We _had_ made a run which was
beyond all precedent.

I fancy that the captain, if he escaped the halter or the wave, in after
years settled down in some English coast-village, where he read
Wordsworth, and attended church regularly, and was probably regarded as a
gentle old duffer by the younger members of society. But take him for
all in all, he was the mildest-mannered man that ever scuttled ship or
cut a throat, and he always behaved to me like a perfect gentleman, and
never uttered an improper word.

We had to wait one month till my cousin could get certain news from
America. We employed the time in travelling in the south, visiting
Arles, Nismes, Montpellier, and other places. An English gentleman named
Gordon, whom I had met in Marseilles, had given me a letter of
introduction to M. Saint Rene Taillandier in the latter place. I knew
nothing at all then about this great man, or that he was the first French
critic of German literature, but I presented my letter, and he kindly
went with me about the town to show me its antiquities. I can remember
discussing Gothic tracery with him; also, that I told him I was deeply
interested in the Troubadours. He recommended Raynouard and several
other books, when finding that I was familiar with them all, he smiled,
and said that he believed he could teach me nothing more. I did not know
it then, but that word from him would have been as good as a diploma for
me in Paris.

As for old Roman ruins and Gothic churches, and cloisters grey, and the
arrowy Rhone, and castellated bridges--everything was in a more original
moss-grown, picturesque condition then than it now is--I enjoyed them all
with an intensity, a freshness or love, which passeth all belief. I had
attended Professor Dodd's lectures more than once, and illuminated
manuscripts, and had bought me in Marseilles Berty's "Dictionary of
Gothic Architecture," and got it by heart, and began to think of making a
profession of it, which, if I had known it, was the very wisest thing I
could have done. And that this is no idle boast is clear from this, that
I in after years made a design accordin