to find in it an appropriateness, which I had not yesterday
observed, to the Master's detestable purpose in the present journey.

We were then close upon the city of Glascow, where we were soon
breakfasting together at an inn, and where (as the devil would have it)
we found a ship in the very article of sailing. We took our places in
the cabin; and, two days after, carried our effects on board. Her name
was the _Nonesuch_, a very ancient ship, and very happily named. By all
accounts this should be her last voyage; people shook their heads upon
the quays, and I had several warnings offered me by strangers in the
street to the effect that she was rotten as a cheese, too deeply loaden,
and must infallibly founder if we met a gale. From this it fell out we
were the only passengers; the Captain, M'Murtrie, was a silent, absorbed
man, with the Glascow or Gaelic accent; the mates ignorant rough
seafarers, come in through the hawsehole; and the Master and I were cast
upon each other's company.

The _Nonesuch_ carried a fair wind out of the Clyde, and for near upon
a week we enjoyed bright weather and a sense of progress. I found myself
(to my wonder) a born seaman, in so far at least as I was never sick;
yet I was far from tasting the usual serenity of my health. Whether it
was the motion of the ship on the billows, the confinement, the salted
food, or all of these together, I suffered from a blackness of spirit
and a painful strain upon my temper. The nature of my errand on that
ship perhaps contributed; I think it did no more; the malady (whatever
it was) sprang from my environment; and if the ship were not to blame,
then it was the Master. Hatred and fear are ill bed-fellows; but (to my
shame be it spoken) I have tasted those in other places, lain down and
got up with them, and eaten and drunk with them, and yet never before,
nor after, have I been so poisoned through and through, in soul and
body, as I was on board the _Nonesuch_. I freely confess my enemy set me
a fair example of forbearance; in our worst days displayed the most
patient geniality, holding me in conversation as long as I would suffer,
and when I had rebuffed his civility, stretching himself on deck to
read. The book he had on board with him was Mr. Richardson's famous
"Clarissa," and among other small attentions he would read me passages
aloud; nor could any elocutionist have given with greater potency the
pathetic portions of that work. I would retort upon