ifty years at sea without learning
something. I don't like the gathering of that bank there, Mr Seagrave,
and I shouldn't wonder if it were to blow again from the very same
quarter, and that before dark."

"God's will be done," replied Mr Seagrave, "but I am very fearful about
my poor wife, who is worn to a shadow."

"I shouldn't think so much about that, sir, as I really never knew of
people dying that way, although they suffer much. William, do you know
that we have lost some of our men since you were down below?"

"No--I heard the steward say something outside about the foremast."

"We have lost five of our smartest and best men--Wilson was washed
overboard, Fennings and Masters struck dead with the lightning, and
Jones and Emery crushed by the fall of the foremast. You are young,
Master Willy, but you cannot think too early of your Maker, or call to
mind what they say in the burial service,--`In the midst of life we are
in death.'"

"Thank you, Ready, for the lesson you have given my son," said Mr
Seagrave; "and, William, treasure it up in your memory."

"Yes, William, they are the words of an old man who has seen many and
many a one who was full of youth and spirits called away before him, and
who is grateful to God that he has been pleased to preserve his life,
and allow him to amend his ways."

"I have been thinking," said Mr Seagrave, after a silence of a minute
or two, "that a sailor has no right to marry."

"I've always thought so, sir," replied Ready; "and I dare say many a
poor deserted sailor's wife, when she has listened to the wind and rain
in her lonely bed, has thought the same."

"With my permission," continued Mr Seagrave, "my boys shall never go to
sea if there is any other profession to be found for them."

"Well, Mr Seagrave, they do say that it's no use baulking a lad if he
wishes to go to sea, and that if he is determined, he must go: now I
think otherwise--I think a parent has a right to say no, if he pleases,
upon that point; for you see, sir, a lad, at the early age at which he
goes to sea, does not know his own mind. Every high-spirited boy wishes
to go to sea--it's quite natural; but if the most of them were to speak
the truth, it is not that they so much want to go to sea, as that they
want to go from school or from home, where they are under the control of
their masters or their parents."

"Very true, Ready; they wish to be, as they consider they will be,
independent."