As time passed on, however, I grew less timid, and began to feel more at home on the wide water. Then I extended my excursions sometimes as far as a mile from the shore, and thought nothing of it. My friend, the waterman, seeing me on one of these far voyages, repeated his former caution, but it might have had a more salutary effect had I not overheard him, the moment after, observe to one of his companions:-- "Wonderful boy! ain't he, Bob? Come of the true stock--make the right sort of a sailor, if ever he grows big enough." This remark led me to think that I had not much displeased my patron in what I had done; and therefore his caution "to keep close in-shore" produced very little effect on me. It was not a long time before I quite disobeyed it; and the disobedience, as you shall hear, very nigh cost me my life. But first let me tell of a circumstance that occurred at this date, and which quite changed the current of my existence. It was a great misfortune that befell me--the loss of both my parents. I have said that my father was a seaman by profession. He was the master of a ship that traded, I believe, to the colonies of America, and so little was he at home from the time I was old enough to remember, that I scarce recollected him more than just what he was like--and that was a fine, manly, sailor-looking man, with a face bronzed by the weather until it was nearly of a copper colour, but for all that a handsome and cheerful face. My mother must have thought so too, for from the time that news arrived that his ship was wrecked and he himself drowned, she was never herself again. She seemed to pine away, as if she did not wish to live longer, but was desirous of joining him in the other world. If such were her wishes, it was not long before they were gratified; for in a very few weeks after the terrible news had reached us, my poor mother was carried to her grave. These were the circumstances that changed the current of my existence. Even my mode of life was no longer the same. I was now an orphan, without means and without a home; for, as my parents had been without any fortune, and subsisted entirely upon the hard earnings of my father's trade, no provision had been made against such an unexpected event as my brave father's death, and even my mother had been left almost penniless. Perhaps it was a merciful providence that called her away from a world that to her was no longer a place of enjoyment; and although I long lamented my dear kind mother, in after years I could not help thinking that it was her happier destiny that at that time she had been summoned away. Long, long years it was before I could have done anything to aid or protect her--during the chill cold winter of poverty that must have been her portion.