HOW WE GREW, AND GROWING, GREW APART As I said, I am not going to waste time telling you of my three long voyages, beyond what is absolutely necessary.

These lie for the most part like level plains in my memory, though not without their out-jutting points.

But the heights and depths lay beyond.
Very clear to me, however, is the fact that it was ever-growing thought of Carette, more even, I am bound to confess, than thought of my mother and grandfather, that kept me clear of pitfalls which were not lacking to the unwary in those days as in these.

Thought of Carette, too, that braced me to the quiet facing of odds on more than one occasion.
Our second voyage was distinguished by a whole day's fierce fighting with a French privateer off the Caicos Islands, while proceeding peacefully on our way from the newly acquired island of Trinidad to the St.Lawrence.It was my first experience of fighting, and a hot one at that.

Between killed and wounded we lost five men, but the Frenchman left ten dead on our deck the first time he boarded, and eight the second, and after that did not try again.