And after some fashion Nolan said so.  And then they all fell to kissing him again, and wanted to rub his nose with theirs.

But he could not stand it long; and getting Vaughan to say he might go back, he beckoned me down into our boat.  As we lay back in the stern-sheets and the men gave way, he said to me:  “Youngster, let that show you what it is to be without a family, without a home, and without a country.  And if you are ever tempted to say a word, or to do a thing that shall put a bar between you and your family, your home, and your country, pray God in His mercy to take you that instant home to His own heaven.  Stick by your family, boy; forget you have a self, while you do everything for them.  Think of your home, boy; write and send, and talk about it.  Let it be nearer and nearer to your thought, the farther you have to travel from it; and rush back to it when you are free, as that poor black slave is doing now.  And for your country, boy,” and the words rattled in his throat, “—­and for that flag,” and he pointed to the ship, “never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though the service carry you through a thousand hells.  No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag.  Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind officers, and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother.  Stand by Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother, if those devils there had got hold of her to-day!”

I was frightened to death by his calm, hard passion; but I blundered out that I would, by all that was holy, and that I had never thought of doing anything else.  He hardly seemed to hear me; but he did, almost in a whisper, say:  “O, if anybody had said so to me when I was of your age!”

I think it was this half-confidence of his, which I never abused, for I never told this story till now, which afterward made us great friends.  He was very kind to me.  Often he sat up, or even got up, at night, to walk the deck with me, when it was my watch.  He explained to me a great deal of my mathematics, and I owe to him my taste for mathematics.  He lent me books, and helped me about my reading.  He never alluded so directly to his story again; but from one and another officer I have learned, in thirty years, what I am telling.  When we parted from him in St. Thomas harbor, at the end of our cruise, I was more sorry than I can tell.  I was very glad to meet him again in 1830; and later in life, when I thought I had some influence in Washington, I moved heaven and earth to have him discharged.  But it was like getting a ghost out of prison.  They pretended there was no such man, and never was such a man.  They will say so at the Department now!  Perhaps they do not know.  It will not be the first thing in the service of which the Department appears to know nothing!