the best of
his ability. The vessel laboured and groaned as she was buffeted by the
waves--the wind howled, and the sea struck her trembling sides and
poured over her deck. In the midst of this wild discord of the
elements, the small voice of the kneeling child, isolated from the rest
of the world, and threatened soon to be removed from it, was not unheard
or unheeded by an omniscient and omnipotent God, who has said that not a
sparrow should fall to the ground without his knowledge, and has pointed
out of how much more value are we than many sparrows.

Willy ended his devotions and his tears; and, feeling wet and cold,
recollected that what would warm his departed friend the mate, would
probably have the same effect upon him. He crawled up the
companion-hatch with another tin pot, and having succeeded in obtaining
some wine from the cask, returned to the cabin. Having warmed it over
the fire, and sugared it according to the well-practised receipt of Mr
Bullock, he drank more of it than, perhaps, in any other situation, he
would have done, and, lying down in the standing bed-place at the side
of the cabin, soon fell into a sound sleep.

CHAPTER NINE.

And there he went ashore without delay,
Having no custom-house nor quarantine
To ask him awkward questions on the way,
About the time and place where he had been:
He left his ship to be hove down next day.
DON JUAN.

The prize vessel, at the time when she carried away her masts, had
gained considerably to the northward of Ushant, although the master's
mate, from his ignorance of his profession, was not aware of the fact.
The wind, which now blew strongly from the North West, drove the
shattered bark up the Channel, at the same time gradually nearing her to
the French coast. After twenty-four hours' driving before the storm,
during which Willy never once awoke from his torpor, the vessel was not
many leagues from the port of Cherbourg. It was broad daylight when our
hero awoke; and after some little time necessary to chase away the vivid
effects of a dream, in which he fancied himself to be on shore, walking
in the fields with his dear mother, he recollected where he was, and how
he was situated. He ascended the companion-ladder, and looked around
him. The wind had nearly spent its fury, and was subsiding fast; but
the prospect was cheerless--a dark wintry sky and rolling sea, and
nothing living in view except the sea-bird that screamed as it s