and now we must needs leave pertwood farm and its doubly bereaved occupant for a while, in order to follow the fortunes of the self-exiled charles. his was indeed a curious start in life. absolutely ignorant of the world, his whole horizon at the age of twenty years bounded by that little patch of lonely wiltshire down, and his knowledge of mankind confined to, at the most, half a dozen people. he had great native talent, which, added to an ability to keep his own counsel, was doubtless of good service to him in this breaking away into the unknown. his total stock of money amounted to less than £50, to him an enormous sum, the greater because he had never yet known the value of money. his native shrewdness, however, led him to husband it in miserly fashion, as being the one faithful friend upon which he could always rely.

and now the salt strain in his mother’s blood must have asserted itself unmistakably, if mysteriously, for straight as a homing bee he made his way down to the sea, finding himself a week after his flight at poole. i shall never forget the look upon his face as he told me how he first felt when the sea revealed itself to him. all his unsatisfied longings, all the heart-wrench32 of his rejected love, were forgotten in present unutterable delight. he was both hungry and weary, yet he sat contentedly down upon the verge of the cliffs and gazed upon this glorious vision until his eyes glazed with fatigue, and his body was numbed with the immovable restraint of his attitude. at last he tore himself away, and entered the town, seeking a humble lodging-place, and finding one exactly suited to his needs in a little country public-house on the outskirts of the town, kept by an apple-cheeked dame, whose son was master of a brigantine then lying in the harbour. she gave the handsome youth a motherly welcome, none the less warm because he appeared to be well able to pay his way.