"I remembered my pretty, pleasant room, with its white bed and curtains, its book-shelves filled with pretty little volumes which made me the envy of half the boys and girls in the village; and the writing-table, whose pretty braided cloth had been made for my birthday by my step-mother. I thought of my beautiful dog, and my cat which slept on the foot of any bed every night. Such were some of the remembrances which passed through my mind as I drove on, past farm and village, all in their Sunday stillness, till the daylight faded and I was called in to eat my supper and take a little rest. Even in the menagerie we had always rested on the Sabbath-day, generally at some country village, and some of our number would now and then take a fancy to go to church, where I am bound to say, they always behaved with perfect propriety, if they were not much the better for their attendance; but with us Sunday was the worst day of the whole week."
"I suppose a more home-sick boy than myself at this time never lived in the world. I should certainly have tried to run away, but the captain suspected my design and watched me closely. He declared he would kill me in an instant if he found me trying to escape, and I fully believed him to be capable of that or any other wickedness. I would have written to my father, but I had no paper and no time. In short, I could see no way of escape from my tormentor but in death, and so desperate did I become that I had serious thoughts of drowning myself. I hated my captain with a perfect hatred, and I sometimes felt as though I would willingly die if I could only kill him first."
"But after a while better thoughts began to prevail. I had been religiously brought up, and had learned many chapters of Holy Scripture by heart, and, though I had neither opened a Bible nor said my prayers since I ran away from school, what I had learned staid by me in spite of myself. I was riding along, one moonlight night, trying to keep myself awake, that I should not fall off my horse. I was more than usually miserable. An accident had occurred at a lock that morning by which one of the horses had been thrown into the water and nearly drowned; and though I was entirely innocent in the matter, the captain chose to throw all the blame upon my shoulders. He beat me till some of the men interfered to save my life, and I had had nothing to eat since but an apple, which the cook, who sometimes stood my friend, had slipped into my pocket. I could hardly sit up, and every movement gave me pain; but my tormentor seemed determined to give me no rest, though it was long past the time when I should have been relieved."
"As we plodded along we passed another boat. The man at the helm was singing a hymn which had been a great favorite of my dear mother—'The Voice of Free Grace.' It was the first time I had ever heard such a sound on board a canal-boat. It seemed at once to bring home and all the blessings and privileges I had so wantonly cast away before my eyes in one view, and I burst into tears and cried bitterly."
"I had not gone much further when someone clapped his hand upon my knee, and a man's voice said, kindly enough:
"'Hallo, my boy, you seem to be in a good deal of trouble. What's the matter you?'"
"I turned round, and recognized the red shirt and black, bushy whiskers of the man I had heard singing a little while before. I could not answer directly, and he walked along by the side of the horse, still keeping his hand on my knee. It was so long since I had had a hand laid on me in kindness that the very pressure seemed somehow to comfort me."
"'I like to jump ashore and walk ahead sometimes, and so get a little time to myself,' said he, presently. 'You seem in great trouble, and I should like to help you. Are you sick or hungry?'"
"'Both,' I answered, 'and a great deal more than that!'"
"My companion put his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a handful of cakes and crackers. They were rather strongly scented with tobacco, but I was too hungry to mind trifles, and I thought nothing had ever tasted so good."