RELUCTANCE TO GO HOME. 65

pounds.” ‘This, indeed, was, as I said, an excursion of his spirits,
which were yet agitated by the sense of his loss, and was further
than he could have authority to go. However, he afterwards
talked very gravely to me; exhorted me to go back to my father,
and not tempt Providence to my ruin; told 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 know 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 go 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 guid at 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 irre-
sistible reluctance continued to going home; and as I stayed 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 toa
return wore off with it, till at last I quite laid aside the thoughts
of it, and looked out for a voyage.

That evil influence which carried me first away from my father’s
house, that 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