To me the events brought consequences of the most serious kind. I found a home, it is true, but a very different one from that to which I had all along been used. I was taken to live with an uncle, who, although my mother's own brother, had none of her tender or affectionate feelings; on the contrary, he was a man of morose disposition and coarse habits, and I soon found that I was but little more cared for than any one of his servants, for I was treated just as they. My school-days were at an end, for I was no more sent to school from the day I entered my uncle's house. Not that I was allowed to go about idle. My uncle was a farmer, and soon found a use for me; so that between running after pigs and cattle, and driving the plough horses, or tending upon a flock of sheep, or feeding calves, or a hundred other little matters, I was kept busy from sunrise till sunset of every day in the week. Upon Sundays only was I permitted to rest--not that my uncle was at all religious, but that it was a custom of the place that there should be no work done on the Sabbath. This custom was strictly observed by everybody belonging to the village, and my uncle was compelled to follow the common rule; otherwise, I believe, he would have made Sunday a day of work as well as any other. My uncle, not having any care for religion, I was not sent to church, but was left free to wander idle about the fields, or indeed wherever I chose to go. You may be sure I did not choose to stop among the hedges and ditches. The blue sea that lay beyond, had far more attractions for me than birds-nesting, or any other rural amusement; and the moment I could escape from the house I was off to my favourite element, either to accompany my friend, Harry Blew, in some of his boating trips, or to get possession of the "dinghy," and have a row on my own account. Thus, then, were my Sundays passed. While my mother was living, I had been taught to regard this idle way of spending Sunday as sinful; but the example which I had before me in my uncle's life, soon led me to form other ideas upon this matter, and I came to regard the Lord's Day as only differing from any other of the week in its being by far the pleasantest. One Sunday, however, proved anything but pleasant. So far from it, that it came very near being the most painful as well as the _last_ day of my life--which was once more imperilled by my favourite element--the water. CHAPTER FIVE. THE REEF.