Did they cry—Tom, or his mother—when the separation came? Ay, and brothers, and sisters, and father too, as he was about to depart with him—real tears, to be sure; for, as much like their native oaks as our genuine old English race were in their hardihood and endurance of storms, their hearts were of the tenderest—in the right place. A still severer feeling of desolation was experienced by Tom and his father when they parted at Hull; but Tom "girt up the loins of his mind," and buried his sorrow in listening to the sailors' talk, and in thinking of his coming adventures. And now "the history of Cockle Tom" may end; for our purpose is not to write a long story, but to show how a simple and yet truly noble character may be formed: and that purpose is accomplished as well as we are able to reach it. For the remainder of Cockle Tom's life,—it was that of the true English sailor,—full of generosity and noble daring, shaded, here and there, with a dash of passion, or a fit of insobriety at the end of a long voyage of suffering, but tinted to brilliancy with many an act of exalted sacrifice. Five voyages Cockle Tom made to Greenland, or the Straits; three to the West Indies, and one to the East; six times he passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and visited Malta, or Corfu, or Constantinople; and four times he voyaged to the Guinea coast, ere he reached the age of thirty. That was the limit of his life; but he had saved as many lives as he numbered years by that time. As an expert swimmer,—as a soul that would venture even into the jaws of death to save a drowning man,—as a shipmate that would always take the severer share of toil and ease another,—as an agile and clever mariner that was unexcelled in the rapidity and perfection with which he could execute any manoeuvre in the management of his ship,—as the heart of fun and merriment,—and as the lad whose purse was ever at the command of a brother in need,—Cockle Tom was the glory and pride of every "true British tar" who knew him. And how fresh did his filial love remain amidst separation and newness of scene! His father and mother kept that sacred corner in his heart, perfectly unrivalled, for many a long year; and when he admitted another fair image there it was not allowed to encroach upon the consecrated room occupied by the old ones. He loved his wife, whom he married at five-and-twenty, and she deserved his love; but he did not love his parents the less for that. They received many a solid proof of his affection, although they seldom saw him; and the news of his death, though it did not distract them with unseemly grief, dimmed the brightness of their declining days.