Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of “ChristmasStories” , email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
I was apprenticed to the Sea when I was twelve years old, and I haveencountered a great deal of rough weather, both literal and metaphorical. It has always been my opinion since I first possessed such a thing asan opinion, that the man who knows only one subject is next tiresometo the man who knows no subject. Therefore, in the course of mylife I have taught myself whatever I could, and although I am not aneducated man, I am able, I am thankful to say, to have an intelligentinterest in most things.
A person might suppose, from reading the above, that I am in thehabit of holding forth about number one. That is not the case. Just as if I was to come into a room among strangers, and must eitherbe introduced or introduce myself, so I have taken the liberty of passingthese few remarks, simply and plainly that it may be known who and whatI am. I will add no more of the sort than that my name is WilliamGeorge Ravender, that I was born at Penrith half a year after my ownfather was drowned, and that I am on the second day of this presentblessed Christmas week of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six,fifty-six years of age.
When the rumour first went flying up and down that there was goldin California—which, as most people know, was before it was discoveredin the British colony of Australia—I was in the West Indies, tradingamong the Islands. Being in command and likewise part-owner ofa smart schooner, I had my work cut out for me, and I was doing it. Consequently, gold in California was no business of mine.
But, by the time when I came home to England again, the thing wasas clear as your hand held up before you at noon-day. There wasCalifornian gold in the museums and in the goldsmiths’ shops,and the very first time I went upon ’Change, I met a friend ofmine (a seafaring man like myself), with a Californian nugget hangingto his watch-chain. I handled it. It was as like a peeledwalnut with bits unevenly broken off here and there, and then electrotypedall over, as ever I saw anything in my life.
I am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, andshe died six weeks before our marriage-day), so when I am ashore, Ilive in my house at Poplar. My house at Poplar is taken care ofand kept ship-shape by an old lady who was my mother’s maid beforeI was born. She is as handsome and as upright as any old ladyin the world. She is as fond of me as if she had ever had an onlyson, and I was he. Well do I know wherever I sail that she neverlays down her head at night without having said, “Merciful Lord!bless and preserve William George Ravender, and send him safe home,through Christ our Saviour!” I have thought of it in manya dangerous moment, when it has done me no harm, I am sure.
In my house at Poplar, along with this old lady, I lived quiet forbest part of a year: having had a long spell of it among the Islands,and having (which was very uncommon in me) taken the fever rather badly. At last, being strong and hearty, and having read every book I couldlay hold of, right out, I was walking down Leadenhall Street in theCity of London, thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I callSmithick and Watersby of Liverpool. I chanced to lift up my eyesfrom looking in at a ship’s chronometer in a window, and I sawhim bearing down upon me, head on.
It is, personally, neither Smithick, nor Watersby, that I here mention,nor was I ever acquainted with any man of either of those names, nordo I think that there has been any one of either of those names in thatLiverpool House for years back. But, it is in reality the Houseitself that I refer to; and a wiser merchant or a