362 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



communication with the men on the keel. The master, 

 however, a low fellow, who had got charge of the smack 

 only the voyage before, did not choose to risk himself in 

 the attempt, and the poor men on the wreck were left to 

 their fate. Before losing sight of them, their number 

 was lessened to eleven ; and Junner, who, had the rest 

 of the crew backed him, would have rescued them in 

 spite of the master, vowed that he would never set foot 

 again in the same vessel with a wretch so unfeeling, 

 He accordingly engaged with the poor young master of 

 the Oak, and perished with him a few days after. 



1 1 met in one of my walks, a few days after the dis- 

 aster, with a young lady, and our conversation happened 

 to turn on it. " I am sorry," she said, " for the master, 

 poor young fellow ! and for the wife and children of 

 Junner, but he himself was so rude in his manners, and 

 so ungrateful to the owners of the vessel in which he 

 had sailed so Jong, that I cannot be sorry for him/' I 

 saw that she had been misinformed regarding him, and 

 set her right. But why relate so commonplace an in- 

 cident as this ? I will tell you why. I am placed at 

 present in a rather unusual point of observation with 

 respect to the two classes of society of which our little 

 town, and indeed every other town, small or great, is 

 composed. I see all that is passing among our trades- 

 folk and labourers, and know all their opinions ; I see, 

 too, much of what is passing among the people of a 

 higher sphere, and have been acquainted with their 

 opinions also. And what is the result ? That there 

 exists little good- will between them, and that their 

 mutual suspicions and jealousies are effects, in the 

 greater number of instances, of mistake and misconcep- 

 tion. They are so divided, that they never meet to 

 compare notes ; a sad state of society, surely, in such 



