“I shall begin to think that a sailor’s life is the healthiest career in the world,” I said one day as I looked at the fine vigorous old fellow, who had all his faculties as perfect as a man of five-and-forty. “You’ve had your share of adventures, though, I suppose?”
“Ay, ay, sir, I have indeed,” he said, combing his thin hair with the waxy end of his pipe.
“Never in the Royal Navy, were you?”
“Oh, yes, doctor, I was not always in the merchant service. They tried to get me more than once.”
“What—made you good offers?”
“Good offers, doctor? No, they tried to press me, as they used in those days.”
“To be sure; yes,” I said. “You lived in the days of the press-gangs?”
“That I did, doctor, bad luck to ’em! Why, let me see, it’s as near as can be sixty year ago since we came slowly up the Thames with the tide, and after a deal of hauling, yoho-ing, and dodging, we got the old ship into London Docks, after being at sea two year, and a-going a’most round the world. Sick of it I was, and longing to get ashore, for there was more than one as I was wishing to see and get a word with—folks, too, as were as anxious to get a sight of me; and though a quietish, steadyish sort of a fellow, I felt as if I should have gone wild with the bit of work I had to do, while my mate, Harry Willis, was most as bad. Poor chap! he’s been dead and gone now this many a long year: had his number called and gone aloft. A good fellow was Harry, and the rest of that day him and I was knocking about in the ship, coiling down and doing all sorts of little jobs, such as are wanted after a long voyage, when there’s a great cargo aboard.
“One day passed, then another, and another, and mighty savage we were at being kept so long before we could get off; but the time came at last, and only just taking a few things each in a handkerchief, we slipped over the ship’s side, dropped on to the wharf, and were off.
“Well, being reg’lar old shipmates, you see, it was only natural that we should drop into a little public-house that was down Wapping way, to take a glass or two by way of a treat, and see about a night’s lodging where we could be together, as it was quite evening, and we’d some way to go into the country both of us, and meant to leave it till morning. A nice little place it was, close aside a wharf, where the tide came up, and ship after ship—colliers I think they were—lay in tiers, moored head and stern; in short, just such a place as a sailor would choose for a quiet glass and a night’s lodging, being snug and cosy-looking. But there, for the matter of that, after a poor fellow’s had years at sea, knocking about in the close forks’ll of a ship, everything looks snug and cosy ashore.