and my name ain't Slidders if you don't sleep all
the way across."

I really had no words for such unexpected
generosity; how was I to believe my ears at
such a kind proposal of a perfect stranger. Was
it anything in my appearance that could have
marked me out as an object for these
attentions? "I don't know how to thank you
enough," said I, in confusion; " and when I
think that we meet now for the first time—"

"What does that signify," said he, in the
same short way. " I've met pretty nigh all of
you by this time. I've been a matter of eleven
years on this station!"

"Met pretty nigh all of us!" What does that
mean? Who and what are we? He can't
mean the Pottses, for I'm the first who ever
travelled even thus far! But I was not given
leisure to follow up the inquiry, for he went on to
say, how in all that time of eleven years he had
never seen threatenings of a worse night than
that before us.

"Then why venture out?" asked I, timidly.

"They must have the bags over there, that's
the reason," said he, curtly; " besides, who's to
say when he won't meet dirty weather at sea—
one takes rough and smooth in this life, eh?"

The observation was not remarkable for
originality, but I liked it. I like the reflective
turn, no matter how beaten the path it may
select for its exercise.

"It's a short trip—some five or six hours at
most," said he; "but it's wonderful what ugly
weather one sees in it. It's always so in these
narrow seas."

"Yes," said I, concurringly, "these petty
channels, like the small events of our life, are
often the sources of our greatest perils."

He gave a little short grunt: it might have
been assent, and it might possibly have been a
rough protest against further moralising; at all
events, he resumed his paper and read away
without speaking. I had time to examine him
well, now, at my leisure, and there was nothing
in his face that could give me any clue to the
generous nature of his offer to me. No, he was
a hard-featured, weather-beaten, rather stern
sort of man, verging on fifty-seven or eight. He
looked neither impulsive nor confiding, and
there was in the shape of his mouth and the
curve of the lines around it that peremptory
and almost cruel decision that marks the sea
captain. "Well," thought I, "I must seek
the explanation of the riddle elsewhere. The
secret sympathy that moved him must have its
root in me; and, after all, history has never told
that the dolphins who were charmed by Orpheus
were peculiar dolphins, with any special fondness
for music, or an ear for melody; they were
ordinary creatures of the deep—fish, so to say,
taken "ex-medio acervo" of delphinity. The
marvel of their captivation lay in the spell of
the enchanter. It was the thrilling touch of his
fingers, the tasteful elegance of his style, the
voluptuous enthralment of the sounds he
awakened, that worked the miracle. This man
of the sea has, therefore, been struck by
something in my air, bearing, or address; one of
those mysterious sympathies which are the
hidden motives that guide half our lives has
drawn him to me, and he has said to himself,
' I like that man. I have met more pretentious
people, I have seen persons who desire to
dominate and impose more than he, but there
is that about him that, somehow, appeals to the
instincts of my nature, and I can say I feel
myself his friend already.'"

As I worked at my little theory, with all the
ingenuity I knew how to employ on such
occasions, I perceived that he had put up his
newspaper, and was gathering together, in old traveller
fashion, the odds and ends of his baggage.

"Here we are," said he, as we glided into the
station, " and in capital time, too. Don't trouble
yourself about your traps. My steward will be
here presently, and take all your things down to
the packet along with my own. Our steam
is up, so lose no time in getting aboard."

I had never less inclination to play the loiterer.
The odious attaché was still in my neighbourhood,
and until I had got clear out of his reach I felt
anything but security. He, I remembered, was
for Calais, so that, by taking the Ostend boat,
I was at once separating myself from his detestable
companionship. I not only, therefore,
accepted the captain's offer to leave all my effects
to the charge of his steward, but no sooner had
the train stopped, than I sprang out, hastened
through the thronged station, and made at all
my speed for the harbour.

Is it to increase the impediments to quitting
one's country, and, by interposing difficulties, to
give the exile additional occasion to think twice
about expatriating himself, that the way from
the railroad to the dock at Dover is made so
circuitous and almost impossible to discover?
Are these obstacles invented in the spirit of
those official details which make banns on the
church-door, and a delay of three weeks,
precede a marriage? as though to say, Halt,
impetuous youth, and bethink you whither you are
going! Are these amongst the wise precautions
of a truly paternal rule? If so, they
must occasionally even transcend the original
intention, for when I reached the pier the
packet had already begun to move, and it was
only by a vigorous leap that I gained the paddle-
box and thus scrambled on board.

"Like every one of you," growled out my
weather-beaten friend; " always within an ace of
being left behind."

"Every one of us!" muttered I. " What can
he have known of the Potts family, that he
dares to describe us thus characteristically?
And who ever presumed to call us loiterers or
sluggards?"

"Step down below, as I told you," whispered
he. "It's a dirty night, and we shall have
bucketing weather outside." And with this
friendly hint I at once complied, and stole down
the ladder. "Show that gentleman into my
state-room, steward," called he out from above.
"Mix him something warm, and look after
him."