Deeply, deeply," again mused
Wacousta, "have these services been repaid.
"As you have just learnt, Cornwall is the country of my
birth. I was the eldest of the only two surviving children
of a large family; and, as heir to the baronetcy of the
proud Mortons, was looked up to by lord and vassal as
the future perpetuator of the family name. My brother
had been designed for the army; but as this was a profession
to which I had attached my inclinations, the point was
waved in my favour, and at the age of eighteen I first
joined the ---- regiment, then quartered in the Highlands
of Scotland. During my boyhood I had ever accustomed
myself to athletic exercises, and loved to excite myself
by encountering danger in its most terrific forms. Often
had I passed whole days in climbing the steep and
precipitous crags which overhang the sea in the
neighbourhood of Morton Castle, ostensibly in the pursuit
of the heron or the seagull, but self-acknowledgedly for
the mere pleasure of grappling with the difficulties they
opposed to me. Often, too, in the most terrific tempests,
when sea and sky have met in one black and threatening
mass, and when the startled fishermen have in vain
attempted to dissuade me from my purpose, have I ventured,
in sheer bravado, out of sight of land, and unaccompanied
by a human soul.
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