"I won't tell, little mother; still, I must make a bargain with you, as I don't intend that fusty old Burgher Jans to have my handsome young mutterchen, that's poz! But, to change the subject, why are you so despondent about my leaving you now, dear mother?
I've been already away from you two voyages, and yet have returned safe and sound to Lubeck." "You forget, my child, that the pitcher sometimes goes once too often to the well.

The ocean is treacherous, and the perils of the sea are great, although you, in boy-like fashion, may laugh at them.

Strong men have but too often to acknowledge the supremacy of the waves when they bear them down to their watery grave, leaving widows and orphans, alas! to mourn their untimely fate with sad and bitter tears! Don't you remember your poor father's end, my son ?" "I do, mother," answered the boy gravely; "still, all sailors are not drowned, nor is a seafaring life always dangerous." "Granted, my child," responded his mother to this truism; "but, those who go down to the sea in ships, as the Psalmist says, see the perils of the deep, and lead a venturesome calling! Besides, Eric, I must tell you that I--I do not feel myself so strong as I was when you first left home and became a sailor boy; and, although I have no doubt a good Providence will watch over you, and preserve you in answer to my heartfelt prayers, yet you are now starting on a longer voyage than you have yet undertaken, and perchance I may not live to greet you on your return!" "Oh, mother, don't say that, don't say that!" exclaimed Eric in a heart- broken voice; "you are not ill, you are not ailing, mother dear ?" and he peered anxiously with a loving gaze into her eyes, to try and read some meaning there for the sorrowful presage that had escaped thus inadvertently from her lips, drawn forth by the agony of parting.
"No, my darling, nothing very alarming," she said soothingly, wishing to avoid distressing him needlessly by communicating what might really be only, as she hoped, a groundless fear on her part.

"I do not feel exactly ill, dear.

I was only speaking about the natural frail tenure of this mortal life of ours.