'Tell me something of your coasting, then, if
you have a mind to, and what sort of harvest an animal of spirit might
hope to bring home from it to warm his latter days with gallant
memories by the fireside; for my life, I confess to you, feels to me
to-day somewhat narrow and circumscribed.'
'My last voyage,' began the Sea Rat, 'that landed me eventually in
this country, bound with high hopes for my inland farm, will serve as
a good example of any of them, and, indeed, as an epitome of my
highly-coloured life. Family troubles, as usual, began it. The
domestic storm-cone was hoisted, and I shipped myself on board a small
trading vessel bound from Constantinople, by classic seas whose every
wave throbs with a deathless memory, to the Grecian Islands and the
Levant. Those were golden days and balmy nights! In and out of
harbour all the time--old friends everywhere--sleeping in some cool
temple or ruined cistern during the heat of the day--feasting and song
after sundown, under great stars set in a velvet sky! Thence we
turned and coasted up the Adriatic, its shores swimming in an
atmosphere of amber, rose, and aquamarine; we lay in wide land-locked
harbours, we roamed through ancient and noble cities, until at last
one morning, as the sun rose royally behind us, we rode into Venice
down a path of gold.
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