Robinson Crusoe | Page 9

the first time

he saw me, it appeared his tone was altered; and, looking very
melancholy, and shaking his head, he asked me how I did, and telling
his father who I was, and how I had come this voyage only for a trial,
in order to go further abroad, his father, turning to me with a very grave
and concerned tone "Young man," says he, "you ought never to go to
sea any more; you ought to take this for a plain and visible token that
you are not to be a seafaring man." "Why, sir," said I, "will you go to
sea no more?" "That is another case," said he; "it is my calling, and
therefore my duty; but as you made this voyage on trial, you see what a
taste Heaven has given you of what you are to expect if you persist.
Perhaps this has all befallen us on your account, like Jonah in the ship
of Tarshish. Pray," continues he, "what are you; and on what account
did you go to sea?" Upon that I told him some of my story; at the end
of which he burst out into a strange kind of passion: "What had I done,"
says he, "that such an unhappy wretch should come into my ship? I
would not set my foot in the same ship with thee again for a thousand
pounds." This indeed was, as I said, an excursion of his spirits, which
were yet agitated by the sense of his loss, and was farther than he could
have authority to go. However, he afterwards talked very gravely to me,
exhorting me to go back to my father, and not tempt Providence to my
ruin, telling me I might see a visible hand of Heaven against me. "And,
young man," said he, "depend upon it, if you do not go back, wherever
you go, you will meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments,
till your father's words are fulfilled upon you."
We parted soon after; for I made him little answer, and I saw him no
more; which way he went I knew not. As for me, having some money
in my pocket, I travelled to London by land; and there, as well as on the
road, had many struggles with myself what course of life I should take,
and whether I should go home or to sea.
As to going home, shame opposed the best motions that offered to my
thoughts, and it immediately occurred to me how I should be laughed at
among the neighbours, and should be ashamed to see, not my father
and mother only, but even everybody else; from whence I have since
often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common temper of
mankind is, especially of youth, to that reason which ought to guide

them in such cases - viz. that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are
ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action for which they ought
justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which
only can make them be esteemed wise men.
In this state of life, however, I remained some time, uncertain what
measures to take, and what course of life to lead. An irresistible
reluctance continued to going home; and as I stayed away a while, the
remembrance of the distress I had been in wore off, and as that abated,
the little motion I had in my desires to return wore off with it, till at last
I quite laid aside the thoughts of it, and looked out for a voyage.
CHAPTER II
- SLAVERY AND ESCAPE

THAT evil influence which carried me first away from my father's
house - which hurried me into the wild and indigested notion of raising
my fortune, and that impressed those conceits so forcibly upon me as to
make me deaf to all good advice, and to the entreaties and even the
commands of my father - I say, the same influence, whatever it was,
presented the most unfortunate of all enterprises to my view; and I went
on board a vessel bound to the coast of Africa; or, as our sailors
vulgarly called it, a voyage to Guinea.
It was my great misfortune that in all these adventures I did not ship
myself as a sailor; when, though I might indeed have worked a little
harder than ordinary, yet at the same time I should have learnt the duty
and office of a fore-mast man, and in time might have qualified myself
for a mate or lieutenant, if not for a master. But as it was always my
fate to choose for the worse, so I did here; for having money in my
pocket and good clothes upon my back, I would always