coorous, for I never was up
in the stars; no more, I s'pose, was ever any o' you. I was born at
sea, d'ye see? I don't 'xactly know how I comed for to be born there,
but I wos told that I wos, and if them as told me spoke truth, I s'pose
I wos. I was washed overboard in gales three times before I comed for
to know myself at all. When I first came alive, so to speak, to my own
certain knowledge, I wos a-sitting on the top of a hen-coop aboard an
East Indiaman, roarin' like a mad bull as had lost his senses; 'cause
why? the hens wos puttin' their heads through the bars o' the coops, and
pickin' at the calves o' my legs as fierce as if they'd suddenly turned
cannibals, and rather liked it. From that time I began a life o'
misery. My life before that had bin pretty much the same, it seems, but
I didn't know it, so it didn't matter. D'ye know, lads, when ye don't
know a thing it's all the same as if it didn't exist, an' so, in coorse,
it don't matter."

"Oh!" exclaimed the first mate, who came up at the moment, "'ave hany o'
you fellows got a note-book in which we may record that horacular and
truly valuable hobserwation?"

No one happening to possess a note-book, Gurney was allowed to proceed
with his account of himself.

"Ships has bin my houses all along up to this here date. I don't
believe, lads as ever I wos above two months ashore at a time all the
coorse of my life, an' mostly not as long as that. The smell o' tar and
the taste o' salt water wos the fust things I iver comed across--'xcept
the Line, I comed across that jist about the time I wos born, so I'm
told--and the smell o' tar and taste o' salt water's wot I've bin used
to most o' my life, and moreover, wot I likes best. One old gentleman
as took a fancy to me w'en I wos a boy, said to me, one fine day, w'en I
chanced to be ashore visitin' my mother--says he, `My boy, would ye like
to go with me and live in the country, and be a gardner?' `Wot,' says
I, `keep a garding, and plant taters, and hoe flowers an' cabidges?'
`Yes,' says he, `at least, somethin' o' that sort.' `No, thankee,' says
I; `I b'long to the sea, I do; I wouldn't leave that 'ere no more nor I
would quit my first love if I had one. I'm a sailor, I am, out and out,
through and through--true blue, and no mistake, an' no one need go for
to try to cause me for to forsake my purfession, and live on shore like
a turnip'--that's wot I says to that old gen'lemen. Yes, lads, I've
roamed