"Children's Books - Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Children's Books)

elopement that time; but I say, being there, and one of my
companions being going by sea to London, in his father's ship, and
prompting me to go with them, with the common allurement of sea-faring
men, viz., that it should cost me nothing for my passage, I
consulted neither father nor mother any more, nor so much as sent them
word of it; but leaving them to hear of it as they might, without
asking God's blessing, or my father's, without any consideration of
circumstances or consequences, and in an ill hour, God knows, on the
first of September, 1651, I went on board a ship bound for London.
Never any young adventurer's misfortunes, I believe began sooner, or
continued longer than mine. The ship was no sooner gotten out of the
Humber, but the wind began to blow, and the waves to rise in a most
frightful manner; and as I had never been at sea before, I was most
inexpressibly sick in body, and terrified in my mind. I began now
seriously to reflect upon what I had done, and how justly I was
overtaken by the judgment of Heaven for my wicked leaving my
father's house, and abandoning my duty; all the good counsel of my
parents, my father's tears and my mother's entreaties, came now
fresh into my mind, and my conscience, which was not yet come to the
pitch of hardness which it has been since, reproached me with the
contempt of advice and the breach of my duty to God and my father.
All this while the storm increased, and the sea, which I had never
been upon before, went very high, though nothing like what I have seen
many times since; no, nor like what I saw a few days after. But it was
enough to affect me then, who was but a young sailor, and had never
known anything of the matter. I expected every wave would have
swallowed us up, and that every time the ship fell down, as I thought,
in the trough or hollow of the sea, we should never rise more; and
in this agony of mind I made many vows of resolutions, that if it
would please God here to spare my life this one voyage, if ever I
got once my foot upon dry land again, I would go directly home to my
father, and never set it into a ship again while I lived; that I would
take his advice, and never run myself into such miseries as these
any more. Now I saw plainly the goodness of his observations about the
middle station of life, how easy, how comfortably he had lived all his
days, and never had been exposed to tempests at sea, or troubles on
shore; and I resolved that I would, like a true repenting prodigal, go
home to my father.
These wise and sober thoughts continued all the while the storm
continued, and indeed some time after; but the next day the wind was
abated and the sea calmer, and I began to be a little inured to it.
However, I was very grave for all that day, being also a little
sea-sick still; but towards night the weather cleared up, the wind was
quite over, and a charming fine evening followed; the sun went down
perfectly clear, and rose so the next morning; and having little or no
wind, and a smooth sea, the sun shining upon it, the sight was, as I
thought, the most delightful that ever I saw.
I had slept well in the night, and was now no more sea-sick but very
cheerful, looking with wonder upon the sea that was so wrought and
terrible the day before, and could be so calm and so pleasant in so