The Runaway | Page 4

them of all the rough realities which a nearer view
and a tried experience find in them. The mountain-side looks smooth
and pleasant from a distance, but we find it rugged and wearisome
when we attempt to climb it.
One idea had now gained almost sole possession of poor Rodney's
mind. He must go to sea! He thought of it all day, and dreamed of it at
night. He did not dare to speak about it to his mother, for he knew that
she would refuse her consent. He must run away! He formed a hundred
different plans, and was forced to abandon them. Now Will Manton
was gone, there was no one with whom he could consult. He was afraid
to speak of it, lest it should reach the ears of his mother. Alone he
nursed his resolution, and formed his plans.
He was very unhappy, because he knew that he was purposing wrong.

He could not be contented with his employment, and he knew how it
would grieve the hearts of those who loved him, if he should persist in
his design. Yet, when he pictured to himself the freedom from restraint,
the pleasure of roaming from place to place over the world, and the
thousand exciting scenes and adventures which he should meet by
becoming a sailor, he determined, at all hazards, to make the attempt.
Unhappy boy! He was sowing, for his own reaping, the seeds of a bitter
harvest of wretchedness and remorse.
CHAPTER III.
RODNEY IN NEW YORK.
On a beautiful Sabbath morning in July, Rodney stood in the hall of the
old Dutch house in which successive generations of the family had
been born, and paused to look the last farewell, he dare not speak, upon
those who loved him, and whom, notwithstanding his waywardness, he
also loved.
There sat his pious and venerable grandmother, with the little round
stand before her, upon which lay the old family Bible, over which she
was intently bending, reading and commenting to herself, as was her
custom, in half-audible tones. He had often stood behind her, and
listened, unobserved, as she read verse after verse, and paused after
each, to testify of its truth, or piously apply it to herself and others. And
now he thought that, in all probability, he would never see her again,
and he half repented his determination. But his preparations were all
made, and he could not now hesitate, lest his purpose should be
discovered.
He looked at his mother, as she was arranging the dress of a younger
and only brother, for the Sabbath-school. As she leaned over him, and
smoothed down the collar she had just fastened round his neck, Rodney,
with heart and eye, bade farewell to both.
He stood and gazed for a moment upon his only sister, who sat with her
baby in her arms, answering the little laughing prattler in a language

that sounded like its own, and which certainly none but the two could
understand. Some might doubt whether they understood it themselves;
but they both seemed highly interested and delighted by the
conversation.
That dear sister, amiable and loving, is long since dead. She greeted
death with a cheerful welcome, for the messenger released her from a
life of domestic unhappiness, and introduced her into that blessed
heaven "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at
rest."
And that prattling infant has become, in his turn, a runaway sailor-boy,
flying from an unhappy home to a more wretched destiny, of whose
wanderings or existence nothing has been heard for many years.
It was one hasty, intense glance which Rodney cast over these groups,
and each beloved figure, as it then appeared, was fixed in his memory
forever. He has never forgotten--he never can forget--that moment, or
the emotions that thrilled his heart as he turned away from them.
He had hidden a little trunk, containing his clothing, in the stable, and
thither he hastened; and, throwing his trunk upon his shoulder, he stole
out of the back gate, and took his course through bye streets to the dock,
where he went on board a steamboat, and in half an hour was sailing
down the Hudson towards New York.
He had no money with which to pay his passage. He had left home
without a single sixpence. When the captain came to collect the
passengers' fare, he told him a wicked, premeditated lie. He said that, in
taking his handkerchief from his pocket, he had accidentally drawn out
his pocket-book with it, and that it had fallen overboard. Thus one sin
prepares the way to the commission of another.
He offered to leave his trunk in pledge for the payment of the passage;
and the captain, after finding it full of clothing, ordered