- end_line
- 446
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 378
- text
- CHAPTER II.
REDBURN’S DEPARTURE FROM HOME
It was with a heavy heart and full eyes, that my poor mother parted
with me; perhaps she thought me an erring and a willful boy, and
perhaps I was; but if I was, it had been a hardhearted world, and hard
times that had made me so. I had learned to think much and bitterly
before my time; all my young mounting dreams of glory had left me; and
at that early age, I was as unambitious as a man of sixty.
Yes, I will go to sea; cut my kind uncles and aunts, and sympathizing
patrons, and leave no heavy hearts but those in my own home, and take
none along but the one which aches in my bosom. Cold, bitter cold as
December, and bleak as its blasts, seemed the world then to me; there
is no misanthrope like a boy disappointed; and such was I, with the
warmth of me flogged out by adversity. But these thoughts are bitter
enough even now, for they have not yet gone quite away; and they must
be uncongenial enough to the reader; so no more of that, and let me go
on with my story.
“Yes, I will write you, dear mother, as soon as I can,” murmured I, as
she charged me for the hundredth time, not fail to inform her of my
safe arrival in New York.
“And now Mary, Martha, and Jane, kiss me all round, dear sisters, and
then I am off. I’ll be back in four months—it will be autumn then, and
we’ll go into the woods after nuts, an I’ll tell you all about Europe.
Good-by! good-by!”
So I broke loose from their arms, and not daring to look behind, ran
away as fast as I could, till I got to the corner where my brother was
waiting. He accompanied me part of the way to the place, where the
steamboat was to leave for New York; instilling into me much sage
advice above his age, for he was but eight years my senior, and warning
me again and again to take care of myself; and I solemnly promised I
would; for what cast-away will not promise to take of care himself,
when he sees that unless he himself does, no one else will.
We walked on in silence till I saw that his strength was giving out,—he
was in ill health then,—and with a mute grasp of the hand, and a loud
thump at the heart, we parted.
It was early on a raw, cold, damp morning toward the end of spring, and
the world was before me; stretching away a long muddy road, lined with
comfortable houses, whose inmates were taking their sunrise naps,
heedless of the wayfarer passing. The cold drops of drizzle trickled
down my leather cap, and mingled with a few hot tears on my cheeks.
I had the whole road to myself, for no one was yet stirring, and I
walked on, with a slouching, dogged gait. The gray shooting-jacket was
on my back, and from the end of my brother’s rifle hung a small bundle
of my clothes. My fingers worked moodily at the stock and trigger, and
I thought that this indeed was the way to begin life, with a gun in
your hand!
Talk not of the bitterness of middle-age and after life; a boy can feel
all that, and much more, when upon his young soul the mildew has
fallen; and the fruit, which with others is only blasted after
ripeness, with him is nipped in the first blossom and bud. And never
again can such blights be made good; they strike in too deep, and leave
such a scar that the air of Paradise might not erase it. And it is a
hard and cruel thing thus in early youth to taste beforehand the pangs
which should be reserved for the stout time of manhood, when the
gristle has become bone, and we stand up and fight out our lives, as a
thing tried before and foreseen; for then we are veterans used to
sieges and battles, and not green recruits, recoiling at the first
shock of the encounter.
- title
- Chunk 1