Besides, who knows we may
sail together again?" But at this I shook my head.
"No more voyages for me, Hartog," I said, "I have had my share of the
rough side of life, and will now be content with the smooth."
"And you not thirty!" laughed Hartog. "Nay, Peter, I'll never believe
it of you, that having tasted of adventure, you will be satisfied with
a humdrum life ashore."
I was now rich by the sale of my jewels, and able to choose for myself
my future mode of life. Count Holstein advised me in the disposal of my
wealth, and a fine estate being for sale not far from his own, I
purchased it.
I urged my parents, who still resided upon the Island of Urk, where my
father followed the occupation of a fisherman, to give up this mode of
earning a livelihood and retire into private life, when I promised to
make them a handsome allowance. But they would not consent to abandon
their independence.
"I am not an old man, Peter," said my father, when I spoke to him on
the subject, "and I have, I hope, still many useful years' work in me.
I have always been a fisherman. My father was a fisherman, and so was
his father before him. Fishing is the only work I understand.
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