ver, as I've often
since thought, it isn't so much what a man is born to which signifies,
as what he becomes by his honesty, steadiness, perseverance, and above
all by his earnest desire to do right in the sight of God.

My father, Jack Trawl (as he spelt his name, or, rather, as others spelt
it for him, he being no great hand with a pen), was an old
man-of-war's-man. I well remember hearing him say that his father, who
had been mate of a merchantman, and had been lost at sea when he himself
was a boy, was a Shetlander; and in an old Testament which had belonged
to his mother, and which he had treasured as the only relic of either of
his parents, I found the name written Troil. The ink was very faint,
but I made out the words clearly, "Margaret Troil, given to her by her
husband Angus." This confirmed me in the idea I had formed, that both
my father's parents had come from the far off island of Shetland.

My father being a sober, steady man, having saved more of his pay and
prize-money than had most of his shipmates, when he left the service
bought a wherry, hired and furnished a house, and married my mother,
Polly Treherne, the daughter of a bumboat-woman who plied her trade in
Portsmouth Harbour.

I have no cause to be ashamed of my grandmother, for every one who knew
her said, and I am sure of it, that she was as worthy a woman in her
line of life as ever lived. She gave good measure and charged honest
prices, whether she was dealing in soft tack, fruit, vegetables, cheese,
herrings, or any of the other miscellaneous articles with which she
supplied the seamen of His Majesty's ships; and her daughter Polly, who
assisted her, was acknowledged by all to be as good and kind-hearted as
she was pretty. No wonder, then, that she won the heart of my brave
father when she visited the ship in which he had just come home, or
that, knowing his worth, although she had many suitors, she consented to
marry him.

For some time all went well, but what happened is a proof that honest,
industrious persons may be overtaken by misfortunes as well as other
people. Father had no intention that his wife should follow her
mother's calling, as he could make enough to keep the pot boiling; but
after they had been married a few years, and several children had been
born, all of whom died in their infancy, except my eldest brother Jack,
and me and Mary, the two youngest, bad times came.

CHAPTER TWO.

HOW A TRUE FRIEND WAS GAINE