"I was not always thus, young man. Ah! once my blood coursed freely through my veins as yours, my limbs were stout and strongly knit, my muscles were firmly strung, my figure was tall and graceful, and with my arm few dared to compete. No one ever cared a second time to tempt my anger; my eye was bright and piercing as an eagle's, and my voice was clear and powerful, so that it might be heard amid the raging of the fiercest storm. My heart never beat with fear; aloft, no one was more active, or would so readily spring to the weather earing, when, in the strongest tempest, the last reef was to be taken in the topsails. Ah! young man, you look incredulous. I have stood securely on the main truck when landsmen could scarcely keep their feet on deck. I have hung by one hand suspended to a single rope, tossing to and fro in mid air. I have swum for miles on the foaming bosom of the ocean. I have contended with the wild beast of the desert. I have stood amid showers of bell and grape when my shipmates have been falling thickly around. I have with a few daring comrades fought hand to hand against overpowering numbers on an enemy's deck. I have faced death in a hundred shapes, and I never trembled; yet now I bend even before the summer's breeze. Worthless and miserable as I am, I have loved, truly and devotedly, ay, and have been loved too in return. The eye of beauty has sparkled, her lip has smiled sweetly on me, her heart has beat with tender emotions; when I drew near, those lips have uttered words of tenderest endearment for my ear alone. I have been young, strong, handsome, and bold;--I am now old and broken, loathsome and nerveless. Learn a moral, young man. To this all must come whose span of life is lengthened out like mine; then do the work to which you have been called while you have strength. Remember that this life, whether passed in sunshine and in calm, or amid cloud and storm, is like a voyage, speedily over, and that while it lasts every man on board is bound to do his duty, nor like a coward skulk idly below. Vain and bitter are the regrets of age, and if all men did but feel the importance of acting their parts faithfully towards their Maker and their fellow-men, what an amount of misery and anguish would be saved them in their latter days! how different would he the world they are sent to inhabit! "But I asked you to sit down on this stone by my side, while we watch the shipping in the harbour below, and the deep blue sea sparkling in the rays of the setting sun, to listen to a tale of my younger days, and instead of that, I have been moralising, prating, you will say perhaps, of things which do not interest you. Well, well, follow my counsel; it is all I ask; and so to my tale.