I was born, as near as I can calculate, in the year 1801, at the time of
the Equinoctial gales, a fact which made the old fisherwives present at
my birth declare that I was marked out by the finger of Providence for a
sailor.
To confirm them, as it seemed, on this point, when the winds, with a
whirling rush, used to shriek around my parent's cottage, that clung,
limpet like to the face of the rocks which sheltered the little Cornish
fishing village, I, baby as I was, used to shriek in unison, not from
fear or pain, but unmitigated delight at, and sympathy with, its rough,
boisterous turmoil.
Certainly as I look back to my early days and what I have heard related
of them, the Breton saying, which in my voyages I have come across, "_Il
a de l'eau de mer autour du coeur_," appeared most true in my case, for
the rough shingly beach was my home in stormy weather or fine. [He has
the sea water about his heart.]
During the former I would perch on some rocky crag and, only partly
sheltered from the cutting, drifting rain, cling curlew-fashion to its
rugged surface, and silently, but with infinite enjoyment, watch the
mountain waves, with their white dancing crests flung into myriads of
flashing particles by the wind, break with a roar like thunder on the
beach beneath, adding their contribution of spray to the rain which
drenched me to the skin.
When the weather was fine, especially if it were warm, I used to tumble,
paddle, and roll in the clear pools left by the receding tide, like some
amphibious little imp of creation, often getting within dangerous
proximity to the fingers of death, and being saved by a miracle, till
the inmates of the fishing hamlet had some reason for their reiterated
remark that I assuredly was not born to be drowned. Assuredly not, nor
to be burned, boiled, nor served up for the supper of some dark-skinned
Indian chief and family neither, though in due course of my adventurous
life I have often fancied myself on the point of one of these pleasant
finales to existence.
It may naturally be thought that I was a constant source of anxiety to
my parents, and no doubt so I should have been, had not, at about the
time I had attained the second year of my life, a sudden squall caught
my father's fishing smack, and, capsizing it before he could luff, sent
him and his two companions into eternity. The smack was found by some
fishermen much damaged, quite empty, every vestige of tackle gone, its
sails rent, and my father and the others nowhere. My mother took this
so much to heart that she scarcely survived her husband's death a week,
and by joining him left me an orphan on my own hands. I say "my own,"
though only two years old, for I had already displayed my wandering
propensities by toddling and scrambling alone among the rocks; and,
notwithstanding the few pounds my parents left would have procured me
the protection of many an honest, good-hearted fisherwife, I scorned all
such control, and resisted every effort to prevent my perambulations
among the rocks and pools, where, not unfrequently when older, and on
warm moonlight evenings, I used to spend even my nights; though, at
other times, I condescended to accept the shelter offered me in Jack
Brunscombe's cottage, for whose little blue-eyed daughter I had early
shown a marked liking, and would speedily have talked her into being the
companion of my idle hours, but for the vigilance of her mother, who
valued her darling's tender little form far too highly to trust it with
so wild, daring, idle a scapegrace as I.
Idleness, however, I soon proved they had no right to lay to my charge.
Hardly had I acquired the great age of five, than the fishermen began to
accept very willingly little Dick Galbraith's services in hanging out
their nets to dry, in swabbing the boats, or in any other minor capacity
to which they found me ever ready to lend a hand, though a baby one.
It is a true saying that "let an energetic nature once get his foot on
the world's ladder, he will never lose it again." So with me. The
willing child was found the willing boy, which soon raised me to the
dignity of going on fishing expeditions with the fishermen, who out of
the great kindliness of heart to be found with these people, seemed each
to adopt me--an orphan and a waif--for his own. The old men, some of
whom had been sailors, were never tired of talking and telling yarns,
while I--as if conscious of the future before me, and of what importance
the information I was drinking in would hereafter be--was never tired of
listening and asking questions.
So had years passed over my head, when, on my eighteenth birthday, as
Jack Brunscombe with his family and I were seated in the little
cabin-like parlour, after a long and thoughtful pause, I suddenly broke
silence upon a subject which for months I had been turning over in my
mind.
"Brunscombe," I said, "you have frequently told me that there is a bit
of money I can lay claim to, when old enough to know what to do with
it."
"Right Dick, my bo'," replied the old man, removing his pipe from one
side of his mouth to the other, having on its passage rubbed his bristly
beard with the stem, "its what yer father's fects realised arter his
death bo', with compund interest."
"But, Brunscombe," I interrupted, "I don't consider that mine at all.
Have I not lived here with you ever since? That money is fairly yours."
"If yer mean mine, to pay for your board and lodgin' bo', yer had better
take and chuck it to the rocks and pools, for them alone 'as pervided
for yer."