The Maid of Sker by R.D. Blackmore

At this moment it became a very nice point to perceive what was really honest and right, and then to carry it out with all that fearless alacrity, which in such cases I find to be, as it were, constitutional to me. My high sense of honour would fain persuade me to keep in strictest secrecy that which (so far as I could judge) was not, or might not have been, intended for my eyes, or ears, or tongue. On the other hand, my still higher sense of duty to my employer (which is a most needful and practical feeling), and that power of loyalty which descends to me, and perhaps will die with me, as well as a strong, and no less ancestral, eagerness to be up to the tricks of all mysterious beings -- I do not exaggerate when I say that the cut-water of my poor mind knew not which of these two hands pulled the stronger oar.

In short, being tired, and sleepy, and weary, and worn out with want of perceiving my way, although I smoked three pipes all alone (not from the smallest desire for them, but because I have routed the devil thus many and many a night I know -- as the priests do with their incense; the reason of which I take to be, that having so much smoke at home, he shuns it when coming for change of air -- growing dreamy thus), I said, with nobody to answer me, "I will tumble into my berth, as this dirty craft has no room for hammocks; and, between Parson and Captain, I will leave my dreams to guide me."