Wild and impetuous and almost fierce by nature, he had brooded from his very boyhood upward over his real and imaginary wrongs, until the iron had so deeply pierced his soul, that he could see nothing but coldness, and hostility, and persecution in the conduct of all around him, with the exception of his old student uncle and his sweet Theresa. Ever suspecting, ever anticipating injury and insult, or at least coldness and repulsion from all with whom he was brought into contact, he actually generated in the breasts of others the feelings which he imputed to them all unjustly. Accusing the world of injustice or ere it was unjust, in the end he made it to be so indeed; and then hated it, and railed against it, for that which it had never dreamed of, but for his own fantastic waywardness. It was unfortunate for Durzil, that the good man, into whose care he had fallen, ever of a philosophical and studious, nay, even mystic disposition, had become, since the sad fate of his beloved sister, and the early death of a yet dearer wife, so wholly visionary, so entirely given up to the wildest theorizing, the most abstruse and abstract metaphysical inquiries, that no one could have been devised less fitting for the guardian and instructor of a high-spirited, hot-headed, fiery boy than he was. The consequence of this was, as it might have been expected, that disgusted early with the strange sorts of learning which the old man persisted in forcing into him against the grain, and discontented with the stillness and deathlike tranquillity of all around him, the boy ran away from his distasteful home, and shipped for the India voyage in a free-trader, half merchantman, half-picaroon, before he had yet attained his thirteenth year. In that wild and turbulent career, well suited to his daring and contemptuous spirit, he had, as he himself expressed it, become hardened and inured not to toils and sufferings only, but to thoughts and feelings, habits and opinions, which perhaps now could never be eradicated from his nature, of which they had become, as it were, part and parcel. When he returned, well nigh a man in years, and quite a man in stature, and perhaps more than most men in courage, resource, coolness and audacity, old Allan, to whom he had written once or twice, apprising him that he had adopted the sea as his home and his profession, received him with a hearty welcome, and with few or no inquiries as to the period during which he had been absent.