“I am greatly excited by the same idea,” said the midshipman; “for, though I do not often talk about the circumstance of my birth, yet, in secret, it haunts my mind.”
“Faith, William,” said the Commander of the Babet, “I never bestowed a thought upon the respected authors of my being until now,” and the Captain tried to sigh and look sentimental.
“And why now, old friend?”
“Don’t you think me, William, a complete madman to be after letting myself fall ever head and ears in love with a French Admiral’s daughter?—and I a poor devil of a Lieutenant, worse off than yourself; for, by the powers of war! your father and mother may turn out, as in fairy tales, prince and princess; whereas mine, if I had any, were honest—by the bye, that’s doubtful!—pains-taking shoemakers.”
“Why, what on earth puts that into your head, O’Loughlin?”
“Stop till I light my pipe, and I’ll tell you all about it; I enjoy a pipe when I’m spinning a yarn.”
“You may,” returned our hero, laughing; “but it sadly interrupts the unity of a story.”
“Oh, by St. Patrick! never mind the unity; you will make it out, famously; you will have fire and smoke alternately. My first recollection,” began the Captain, “is of a Foundling Hospital in the beautiful city of Cork. How old I might be at the time my recollection begins, I can’t say—perhaps five or six.
“There were a round dozen of us, some younger and some older, but none beyond ten, for at ten years of age they were put out as apprentices. As I told you before, my lad, I never heard who my parents were, and, be my conscience! I don’t think any one of my comrades were a bit wiser. The treatment we got was none of the best, nor the food neither. When about nine years old, I was told I was to be bound in another year to a shoemaker, as it was very likely my father before me had been one. Why the devil they should think that puzzled me then, uncommonly; for, at that time, I had scarcely worn a shoe to my foot; but I knew I was firmly resolved never to be a shoemaker, or even a cobbler, who is a shade higher in rank in my opinion, as they are, like the king, exempt from taxation. I was a stout, active boy, and could write and read well, and was fond of getting hold of a book of any kind. I made up my mind to relieve the establishment of my presence, and one fine evening, just as it grew dark, I managed to hide myself, got out unobserved, and took to my heels, with a remarkably ragged coat, light airy trousers, seeing that they were full of holes, and as poor a pair of shoes to my feet as ever the son of a shoemaker possessed—and they do say they generally have the worst of those articles of any children.
“You may say with truth that I began the world very humbly, and with remarkably small amount of capital—having just one halfpenny, and that a bad one, in my pocket; but ‘a light heart and a thin pair of inexpressibles’—and mine were thin, God knows—is an old saying; so away I went, light every way, for I had had no supper.