“It is my wish and intention,” said Bill, “to be a sailor. That is the profession that my poor father loved and followed, and nothing but the sea and a ship will ever satisfy my mind. To be sure, you may say that he, poor man, was lost, together with all who sailed with him, on a distant coast, and in a dreadful tempest, but that is no reason why I should meet with the same misfortune. How many there are who sail the ocean for a good long life-time in perfect safety, and at length, after earning a heap of gold and silver, die quietly in their beds at home, mourned and respected by all who knew them. I never look on those rusty old pistols and cutlass in our parlor, which my father always prized so dearly, without a keen desire to pack them away in a chest of my own, and hasten away to B., and enter upon my voyagings in one of those noble ships that you may always see there at the wharves. And then, when I look at those beautiful sea-shells that adorn our mantel, and the shark’s jaw, and the whale’s spine, and the stuffed flying-fish, I feel the strongest inclination to sail myself to foreign shores, and gather such curiosities with my own hands, and bring them home, to still further adorn our little room. Heigho! I wish I had a pea-jacket and was bound for sea to-morrow!” “I regret,” said master Jemmy, “the choice you have made; for I think you are about to devote yourself to a hard and dangerous life. Far better were it for you to hold the plough than the rudder, to plough up the rich furrows of the farm, than the rough billows of the ocean. Consider how many privations you will have to endure, and what perils you must face. Think of the dark, stormy nights at sea, with the wild winds howling through the rigging, the mast creaking, and bending, and ready to break, and the torn sails flapping and struggling to break free from your feeble grasp. Then will come the pelting rain, and the blinding snow, and the sharp sleet, and the blood will freeze in your veins, and every limb become benumbed with the cold. Then you must endure the sharp and bitter taunts and execrations of your officers, and, after a hard and thankless struggle with the storm, creep to your wet and cheerless hammock, in the dark and comfortless forecastle, and sigh for death, or lament that you ever left the warm fireside and the kind friends of your country home. I have no taste myself for such a boisterous life, and prefer to cultivate my mind, and devote myself to some gentler and more studious employment. How pleasant to stand at the bar and plead the case of some forlorn body, falsely accused, or to visit and heal at the sick bed, or to minister in the sacred desk, or even to preside over the little school in some humble village. Such is the height of my ambition.”