e a fine ship on the waters, out of Glasgow
port for the Plate maybe, and to think of it off the Brazils, and the
pampero coming quick as a thrown knife, and me not aboard to help
shorten sail or take a trick at the wheel. And it might have made me
ugly toward the old woman. And I wouldn't have had that at all, at
all.... But she's finished the voyage, poor cummer.... And it's a high
ship and a capstan shanty for me again ... all's well...."

"It's a wonder, honest man, you wouldn't stay on land at peace and you
forty years at sea."

"Well, it's a queer thing, decent wee fellow, but once you get the salt
water in your blood you're gone. A queer itching is in your veins. It's
like a disease. It is so. It spoils you for the fire on winter nights
and for the hay-fields in the month o' June. And it puts a great bar
between you and the folk o' dry land, such as there is between a
fighting man and a cowardly fellow. It's the salt in the blood, I think;
but you'd have to ask a doctor about that.

"I'm not saying it's a good life. It's a dog's life. It is so. And when
you're at sea you say: 'Wasn't I the fool to ever leave dry land; and if
I get back and get a job,' says you, 'you'll never see me leave it
again. It's a wee farm for me,' you'll say. And then somehow you'll find
yourself back aboard ship. And you'll be off the Horn, up aloft,
fighting a sail like you'd fight a man for your life, or you'll be in
the horse latitudes, as they call them, and no breeze stirring, and not
a damned thing to do but holystone decks, the like of an old pauper that
does be scrubbing a poorhouse floor. And you say: 'Sure I'd rather be a
tinker traveling the roads, with his ass and cart and dog and woman, nor
a galley-slave to this bastard of a mate that has no more feeling for a
poor sailorman nor a hound has for a rabbit. It's a dog's life,' you
say, 'and when we make port I'm finished.'

"But you make port and you stay awhile, and you find that the woman
you've been thinking of as Queen of Sheba is no more nor a common drab.
And the publican you thought of as the grand generous fellow has no more
use for you and your bit silver gone. It's a queer thing, but they on
land think of nothing but money. And one day you think, and the woman
beside you is pastier nor dough, and the man of the public house is no
more nor a cheap trickster, and you're listening to the conversation of
the timid urban people, and the house you're in is filthier nor