"Very true, my boy," his mother answers; "but you should not be careless with your money.
"I suppose you got down at the crossroads?" says his elder brother.
"Yes, and went through the wood. I should have been here sooner if I hadn't lost my way there."
"Lost your way!" says his mother, alarmed. "My dear boy, you should not have left the path at dusk."
"Oh, mother," says the little midshipman, with a smile, "you're always thinking we're in danger. If you could see me sometimes sitting at the jib-boom end, or across the main topmast crosstrees, you would be frightened. But what danger can there be in a wood?"
"Well, my boy," she answers, "I don't wish to be over-anxious, and to make my children uncomfortable by my fears. What did you stray from the path for?"
"Only to chase a little owl, mother; but I didn't catch her after all. I got a roll down a bank, and caught my jacket against a thorn bush, which was rather unlucky. Ah! three large holes I see in my sleeve. And so I scrambled up again, and got into the path, and stopped at the cottage for some milk. What a time the woman kept me, to be sure! But very soon Mr. Davis drove up in his gig, and he brought me on to the gate."
"And so this story being brought to a close," his father says, "we find that you had no adventures at all!"
"No, papa, nothing happened; nothing particular, I mean."
Nothing particular! If they could have known, they would have thought lightly in comparison of the dangers of "the jib-boom end, and the main topmast crosstrees." But they did not know, any more than we do, of the dangers that hourly beset us. Some few dangers we are aware of, and we do what we can to provide against them; but, for the greater portion, "our eyes are held that we can not see." We walk securely under His guidance, without whom "not a sparrow falleth to the ground!" and when we have had escapes that the angels have wondered at, we come home and say, perhaps, that "nothing has happened; at least nothing particular."