“And what made you go and live in the sea, Old—­Bill?” questioned Martin, “and why did you grow so big?”

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“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed the giant, blowing a great cloud of spray from his lips.  “I don’t mind telling you that.  You see, Martin, I ain’t pressed for time.  Them blessed bells is nothing to me now, not being in the foc’sle trying to git a bit of a snooze.  Well, to begin, I were born longer ago than I can tell in a old town by the sea, and my father he were a sailor man, and was drowned when I were very small; then my mother she died just becoz every man that belonged to her was drowned.  For those as lives by the sea, Martin, mostly dies in the sea.  Being a orphan I were brought up by Granny.  I were very small then, and used to go and play all day in the marshes, and I loved the cows and water-rats and all the little beasties, same as you, Martin.  When I were a bit growed Granny says to me one day, ‘Bill, you go to sea and be a sailor-boy,’ she says, ’becoz I’ve had a dream,’ she says, ‘and it’s wrote that you’ll never git drowned.’  For you see, Martin, my Granny were a wise woman.  So to the sea I goes, and boy and man, I was on a many voyages to Turkey and Injy and the Cape and the West Coast and Ameriky, and all round the world forty times over.  Many and many’s the time I was shipwrecked and overboard, but I never got drowned.  At last, when I were gitting a old man, and not much use by reason of the rheumatiz and stiffness in the jints, there was a mutiny in our ship when we was off the Cape; and the captain and mate they was killed.  Then comes my turn, becoz I went again the men, d’ye see, and they wasn’t a-going for to pardon me that.  So out they had me on deck and began to talk about how they’d finish me—­rope, knife, or bullet.  ‘Mates,’ says I ’shoot me if you like and I’ll dies comforbly; or run a knife into me, which is better still; or string me up to the yard-arm, which is the most comforble thing I know.  But don’t you go and put me into the sea,’ says I, ’becoz it’s wrote that I ain’t never going to git drowned, and you’ll have all your trouble for nothing,’ says I. That made ’em larf a most tremenjous larf.  ‘Old Bill,’ says they, ’will have his little joke.’  Then they brings up some iron stowed in the hold, and with ropes and chains they ties well-nigh half a ton of it to my legs and arms, then lowers me over the side.  Down I wrent, in course, which made ’em larf louder than afore; and I were fathoms and fathoms under water afore I stopped hearing them larf.  At last I comes down to the bottom of the sea, and glad I were to git there, becoz now I couldn’t go no further.  There I lies doubled up like a old sea-sarpint along of the rocks, but warm and comforble like.  Last of all, the ropes and chains they got busted off becoz of my growing so big and strong down there, and up I comes to blow like a grampus, for I were full of water by reason that it had soaked into me.  So that’s how I got to be the Old Man of the Sea, hundreds and hundreds of years ago.”