Now back of all my weaknesses and folly I had, as I have said, some of the sense of honour and proud rectitude of my father, who strictly abided by his creed and his conscience. I returned no more that day to the counting-house, but, saying to my mother I had business, I went off, with a hunk of bread, to my boat, and down the creek to the Delaware. I pulled out, past our old playground on the island, and far away toward the Jersey shore, and then, as the sun fell, drifted with the tide, noting the ruddy lines of the brick houses far away, and began to think. The scene I had gone through had made a deep impression. It has been ever so with me. Drinking, gaming, betting, and worse, never awakened my conscience or set me reflecting, until some sudden, unlooked-for thing took place, in which sentiment or affection was concerned. Then I would set to work to balance my books and determine my course. At such times it was the dear mother who spoke in me, and the father who resolutely carried out my decision. The boat drifted slowly with the flood-tide, and I, lying on the bottom, fell to thought of what the day had brought me. The setting sun touched the single spire of Christ Church, and lit up yellow squares of light in the westward-looking windows of the rare farm-houses on the Jersey shore. Presently I was aground on the south end of Petty’s Island, where in after-years lay rotting the “Alliance,” the remnant ship of the greatest sea-fight that ever was since Grenville lay in the “Revenge,” with the Spanish fleet about him. I came to ground amid the reeds and spatter-docks, where the water-lilies were just in bud. A noisy orchestra of frogs, with, as Jack said, fiddles and bassoons in their throats, ceased as I came, and pitched headlong off the broad green floats. Only one old fellow, with a great bass voice, and secure on the bank, protested loudly at intervals, like the owl in Mr. Gray’s noble poem, which my Jack loved to repeat. At last he--I mean my frog--whose monastery I had disturbed, so vexed me, who wanted stillness, that I smacked the water with the flat of an oar, which he took to be a hint, and ceased to lament my intrusion.