ated him. And when he said
I'd got to go into the business I just told him I'd see him damned
first. That was when he first saw that you can't make any man a
slave--not even your own son--as long as he's got enough to eat. He
couldn't starve me. It's starved men who are made slaves, Jenny. They've
got no guts. Well, he threw me over. He thought I should starve myself
and then go back to him, fawning. I didn't go. I was eighteen, and I
went on a ship. I had two years of it; and my father died. I got
nothing. All went to a cousin. I was nobody; but I was free. Freedom's
the only thing that's worth while in this life. And I was twenty or so.
It was then that I picked up a girl in London and tried to keep her--not
honest, but straight to me. I looked after her for a year, working down
by the river. But it was no good. She went off with other men because I
got tired of her. I threw her over when I found that out. I mean, I told
her she could stick to me or let me go. She wanted both. I went to sea
again. It was then I met Templecombe. I met him in South America, and we
got very pally. Then I came back to England. I got engaged to a
girl--got married to her when I was twenty-three ..."

"Married!" cried Jenny, pulling herself away. She had flushed deeply.
Her heart was like lead.

"I'm not lying. You're hearing it all. And she's dead."

"What was her name?"

"Adela.... She was little and fair; and she was a little sport. But I
only married her because I was curious. I didn't care for her. In a
couple of months I knew I'd made a mistake. She told me herself. She
knew much more than I did. She was older than I was; and she knew a lot
for her age--about men. She'd been engaged to one and another since she
was fifteen; and in ten years you get to know a good deal. I think she
knew everything about men--and I was a boy. She died two years ago.
Well, after I'd been with her for a year I broke away. She only wanted
me to fetch and carry.... She 'took possession' of me, as they say. I
went into partnership with a man who let me in badly; and Adela went
back to her work and I went back to sea. And a year later I went to
prison because a woman I was living with was a jealous cat and got the
blame thrown on to me for something I knew nothing about. D'you see?
Prison. Never mind the details. When I came out of prison I was going
downhill as fast as a barrel; and then I saw an advertisement of
Templecombe's for a skipper. I saw him, a