The Sea Lions eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 610 pages of information about The Sea Lions.

The Sea Lions eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 610 pages of information about The Sea Lions.
this being the case, she ever met him and parted from him with a gentle and ingenuous interest in his welfare, and occasionally with much womanly tenderness.  He knew that she prayed for him daily, as fervently as she prayed for herself; and even this, he hoped, would serve to keep alive her interest in him, during his absence.  In this respect our young sailor showed no bad comprehension of human nature, nothing being more likely to maintain an influence of this sort, than the conviction that on ourselves depends the happiness or interests of the person beloved.

Chapter VIII.

   “And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
    Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
    Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy
    I wanton’d with thy breakers—­they to me
    Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
    Made them a terror—­’twas a pleasing fear;
    For I was, as it were, a child of thee,
  And trusted to thy billows, far and near,
  And laid my hand upon thy mane—­as I do here.”

  Byron.

It was past the turn of the day when Roswell Gardiner reached his vessel, after having carefully and with manly interest in all that belonged to her, seen Mary to her home, and taken his final leave of her.  Of that parting we shall say but little.  It was touching and warm-hearted, and it was rendered a little solemn by Mary Pratt’s putting into her lover’s hand a pocket-bible, with an earnest request that he would not forget to consult its pages.  She added, at the same time, that she had carefully marked those passages which she wished him most to study and reflect on.  The book was accepted in the spirit in which it was offered, and carefully placed in a little case that contained about a hundred volumes of different works.

As the hour approached for lifting the anchor, the nervousness of the deacon became very apparent to the commander of his schooner.  At each instant the former was at the latter’s elbow, making some querulous suggestion, or asking a question that betrayed the agitated and unsettled state of his mind.  It really seemed as if the old man, at the last moment, had not the heart to part with his property, or to trust it out of his sight.  All this annoyed Roswell Gardiner, disposed as he was, at that instant, to regard every person and thing that in any manner pertained to Mary Pratt, with indulgence and favour.

“You will be particular about them islands, Captain Gar’ner, and not get the schooner ashore,” said the deacon, for the tenth time at least.  “They tell me the tide runs like a horse in the high latitudes, and that seamen are often stranded by them, before they know where they are.”

“Ay, ay, sir; I’ll try and bear it in mind,” answered Gardiner, vexed at being importuned so often to recollect that which there was so little likelihood of his forgetting; “I am an old cruiser in those seas, deacon, and know all about the tides.  Well, Mr. Hazard, what is the news of the anchor?”

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The Sea Lions from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.