We quitted the ruins and returned to town.
"Have you yet formed," inquired my companion, "any plan for the future?"
"I quit St. Andrew's," I replied, "to-morrow morning. I have an uncle, the master of a West Indiaman, now in the Clyde. Some years ago I had a fancy for the life of a sailor, which has evaporated, however, with many of my other boyish fancies and predilections; but I am strong and active, and it strikes me there is less competition on
sea at present than on land. A man of tolerable steadiness and intelligence has a better chance of rising as a sailor than as a mechanic. I shall set out, therefore, with my uncle on his first voyage."
CHAPTER IV.
"At first, I thought the swankie didna ill—
Again I glowr'd, to hear him better still;
Bauld, slee, an' sweet, his lines mair glorious grew,
Glow'd round the heart, an' glanc'd the soul out through."
Alexander Wilson.
I had seen both the Indies and traversed the wide Pacific, ere I again set foot on the Eastern coast of Scotland. My uncle, the shipmaster, was dead, and I was still a common sailor; but I was light-hearted and skilful in my profession, and as much inclined to hope as ever. Besides, I had begun to doubt, and there cannot be a more consoling doubt when one is unfortunate, whether a man may not enjoy as much happiness in the lower walks of life as in the upper. In one of my later voyages, the vessel in which I sailed had lain for several weeks at Boston in North America—then a scene of those fierce and angry contentions which eventually separated the colonies from the mother country; and when in this place, I had become acquainted, by the merest accident in the world, with the brother of my friend the poet. I was passing through one of the meaner lanes, when I saw my old college friend, as I thought, looking out at me from the window of a crazy wooden building—a sort of fencing academy, much frequented, I was told, by the Federalists of Boston. I crossed the lane in two huge strides.
"Mr. Ferguson," I said—"Mr. Ferguson," for he was withdrawing his head, "do you not remember me?"