search for them, but that before they got to London he might overhaul the bag and take 'em out for himself_." Ben was perfectly satisfied with this answer. And charmed at thought of the great things awaiting him in London, he threw off his coat and bravely joined the crew in all their haste and bustle to weigh the anchor, and spread the sails before the freshening gale. But while the sailors, many of them at least, poor fellows, for lack of education, were straining at the clanking windlass, or creaking halyards, as void of thought as the timber-heads of the ship, the spirits of Ben were in a constant succession of pleasurable reflections on the magnificent scenes around him--the grand floating castle which bore him so high above the foaming billows--the rapid flight of the ship, as flying before the stormy winds she left the lessening shores behind her--the boundless fields of the blue rolling ocean, with all her porpoises gathering round in blackening shoals, bounding and blowing, as if to greet the monster vessel, and by their furious romps, adding to the crash and foam of the tempest. Though Ben was no poet, nor ever affected to be "_religious overmuch_," yet could he not behold such magnificent scenes without that adoring sense of eternal power and goodness which has been so elegantly expressed by the sweet voice of Zion:-- "Shout to the Lord, ye surging seas, In your eternal roar; Let wave to wave resound his praise, And shore reply to shore. "While monsters sporting on the flood In scaly silver shine, Speak terribly their Maker--God, And lash the foaming brine." CHAPTER XXVI. _Ben getting into trouble--finds out his old friend governor Keith to be a black sheep--and learns that a good trade and virtuous habits are the best wealth that a father can give his son._ "Who dares think one thing and another tell, My soul abhors him like the gates of hell." On the arrival of the ship in the Thames (or London river) the captain, like an honest fellow of his word, ordered the letter-bag on deck, and told Ben he was welcome now to overhaul it and pick out the governor's letters to him. After eagerly turning them all over and over again, not a single letter could he find that had his name on it, either directed to himself, or to his care. He picked out however a few that seemed to have some little squinting that way, one especially, that was directed to a PRINTER, and another to a BOOKSELLER. These he immediately carried to their respective owners. But in place of those smiles and prompt offers of money and merchandize, which his illustrious patron, governor Keith, had promised him, scarcely were his letters opened before they were nearly thrown back into his face, as coming from a couple of scoundrel debtors, who, instead of paying off their old scores, were now impudently asking for new credits.