"Whose portrait is it, then?" asked the pastor.
"It is my father’s," was the reply; "but for you to fully understand my feelings when I think of him, you must know something of my history; and as the present is a good opportunity, I will relate my story to you and to your family. I should like you all to know what troubles I have passed through."
The pastor’s wife and children did not want asking twice to come and listen to the captain’s adventures, which they had so long been hoping and longing to hear. When they had all come and were seated, he began his story.
"I was, as you know, born in this village in the year 17—. Shortly after my birth, my mother died, leaving me, her only child, to my father’s care. He, sadly distressed at her loss, resolved never to marry again. He was a pious and very learned man, and as I grew up he took great pains to instruct me in the fear of God; but his parochial duties and his studies prevented him from having me constantly under his own eye. I was, indeed, left in a great measure to the care of an old aunt, who was very deaf, and whose weak, easy good-nature could not restrain my naturally headstrong disposition, so that I had no lack of opportunities for disobeying my father’s commands, and satisfying my own taste for amusements of which he did not approve. I never found any difficulty in learning, and indeed could always get my tasks done long before the time I had to say them, so that I had a great deal of spare time on my hands which I used to spend in the streets, playing with the little boys of the village, who taught me a great many bad habits. Whenever I was found out, it is true, I was severely punished, and for a little while was more sharply looked after, but I too often managed to deceive my father, and did not hesitate even at falsehoods in order to be able to follow the bent of my own bad disposition.
"My father had intended that I should become a pastor like himself. My taste, however, was rather for a life of travels; but I dared not set up my will in opposition to his, and in my eighteenth year I left his house and entered the University at Giessen. The liberty which the students there enjoyed pleased me amazingly, and I endeavoured to avail myself of it to the utmost. I studied, however, with great diligence, and my natural aptitude for learning always left me plenty of time to devote to pleasure. Little by little I found my studies become irksome to me, and my desire for amusement increase, until at length I entirely gave up all serious occupations, and used to pass all my time either in pleasure-parties or in the public house. Before I left home my bad behaviour had gained for me the name of the Scapegrace, and at the University I did my best to show myself worthy of the title.