The inaction of the time spent in dodging about, with nothing to occupy him, nothing to interest him, had turned Adam’s thoughts inward, and made him determine to have done with these ventures, in which, except as far as the gain went, he really had nothing in common with the companions who took part in them.  But, as he very well knew, it was far easier to take this resolution in thought than it was to put it into action.  Once let the idea of his leaving them get abroad, and difficulties would confront him whichever way he turned:  obstacles would block his path and suspicion dodge his footsteps.

His comrades, though not very far-seeing men, were quite sharp enough to estimate the danger of losing sight of one who was in possession of all their secrets, and who could at any moment lay his finger upon every hiding-place in their district.

Adam himself had often listened to—­and, in company with others, silently commended—­a story told of years gone by, when a brother of the owner of the Stamp and Go, one Herkles Johns, had been pressed into the king’s service, and had there acquitted himself so gallantly that on his return a commission had been offered to him, which he, longing to take, accepted under condition of getting leave to see his native place again.  With the foreboding that the change of circumstances would not be well received, he seized the opportunity occasioned by the joy of his return to speak of the commission as a reward offered to him, and asked the advice of those around as to whether he had not best accept it.  Opposition met him on every side.  “What!” they said, “of his own free will put himself in a place where some day he might be forced to seize his father’s vessel or swear away the lives of those he had been born among?” The bare idea was inadmissible; and when, from asking advice, he grew into giving his opinion, and finally into announcing his decision, an ominous silence fell on those who heard him; and, though he was unmolested during his stay, and permitted to leave his former home, he was never known to reach his ship, aboard which his mysterious disappearance was much talked of, and inquiries set afloat to find out the reason of his absence; but among those whose name he bore, and whose confidence he had shared, he seemed to be utterly forgotten.  His name was never mentioned nor his fate inquired into; and Adam, remembering that he had seen the justice of this treatment, felt the full force of its reasoning now applied to his own case, and his heart sank before the difficulties in which he found himself entangled.

Even to Eve he could not open out his mind clearly, for, unless to one born and bred among them, the dangers and interests of the free-traders were matters quite beyond comprehension; so that now, when Eve was pleading, with all her powers of persuasion, that for her sake Adam would give up this life of reckless daring, the seemingly deaf ear he turned to her entreaties was dulled through perplexity, and not, as she believed, from obstinacy.