"That's a very strange thing to say, sir," said the skipper, as he eyed Ruddle from head to foot. "May I ask how you make that out? Once a seaman always a seaman, I should say. I can't imagine my forgetting anything. I never could."
"It's a very strange story," said Ruddle; "and if there wasn't evidence for it I shouldn't believe it myself. But in my pocket-book below I have my old discharges as mate, and yet at the present moment there is no one on board who knows less about the sea than I do, though I hold a master's certificate."
"Spin us the yarn," said the skipper, and Ruddle told him the strange tale.
"I am informed," said the minister, "that I was, at the time I am about to mention, mate in a ship belonging to Dundee. I say I am told, because I have not the least recollection of it. To put it shortly, I may tell you that I had an accident, and when I became sensible again I was in hospital in Liverpool."
"But what was your accident?" asked Captain Gray.
"Something that I am told you call a shearpole came down from aloft and struck me on the head, and I knew no more," said Ruddle, who was evidently a very poor hand at a yarn.
"Well, well, go on," said the skipper. "What happened then?"
"How do I know?" asked Ruddle in his turn. "I was knocked silly while the crew were taking in sail in a very great storm to the south of Ireland, and they say I was very angry with the poor fellows up aloft and was using dreadful language to them. I was struck down, and when I came to myself I was not myself at all but another,—if I do not sadly confuse you by putting it that way,—and I had forgotten all that had happened since I went to sea, and I did not want to go again. I became a minister instead and a missionary."
"Well, I'm jiggered," said Gray, "but that's a corker of a yarn. Were you married when you were a seaman?"
"No," replied Ruddle; "I met my wife soon after I became my second and present self, and my remarkable story so interested her that we got married. It is interesting, isn't it?"