THE VOLUNTEER AND HIS FATE, SHOWING HOW A GREAT ROGUE, NOTWITHSTANDING THAT HE MAY APPEAR TO BE BORN TO BE HUNG, WILL SOMETIMES HAPPEN TO DROWN. The group on the quarter-deck was singular and ludicrous. Reuben Gubbins, for such was the name of the offender, was the only son of a small farmer, who, it appeared, had even gone the length of felony, by firing upon and wounding the game-keeper of the lord of the manor. He was quite six feet high, very awkwardly built, and wore under his frock a long-tailed blue-coat, dingy buckskin nether garments, and top-boots, with the tops tanned brown by service. His countenance betrayed a mixture of simplicity, ignorance, and strong animal instinct. He was the least suited being that could be possibly conceived of whom to make a sailor. His limbs had been long stiffened by rustic employments, and he had a dread of the sea, and of a man-of-war, horrifying to his imagination. In this dread it was very evident that his companions largely participated, not excepting the pragmatical clerk. The constable with the staff, and the constable without, ranged themselves on either side of the still sobbing Arcadian. Indeed, the staffless man, seemed to be but little less overcome than the prisoner. He felt as if all strength, value, and virtue had gone out of him; and ever and anon he glared upon the baton of his brother-officer with looks felonious and intent on rapine. The business was soon concluded. Reuben, rather than see himself tried for his life, determined to make trial of the sea, and thus became, perhaps, the most unwilling volunteer upon record. Poor fellow! his sufferings must have been great! The wild animal of the forest, when pining, for the first time, in a cage, or the weary land-bird, blown off, far away upon the restless sea, could not have been more out of their elements than tall and ungainly Reuben Gubbins on the deck of his Majesty's ship _Eos_. I do not know how it was, for I am sure that I ought to have despised him for his unmanly and incessant weeping,--I knew that he had offended the laws of his country,--yet, when the great lout went forward disconsolately, and sat himself down, amidst the derision of the seamen, upon a gun-carriage on the forecastle, I could not help going and dispersing the scoffers, and felt annoyingly inclined to take his toil-embrowned hand, sit down beside, and cry with him. However, I did not so far commit myself. But a few hours afterwards I was totally overcome.