house) offered to speak to her, she turned away from him in most ineffable disdain.  Now my father was at that time about thirty years of age, and thought no small beer of himself, as the saying goes.  He was a tall, handsome man, indeed, so good-looking that they used to call him “Handsome Jack” on board of the “Druid,” and he had, moreover, a pigtail of most extraordinary size and length, of which he was not a little proud, as it hung down far below the waistband of his trousers.  His hair was black and glossy, and his lovelocks, as the sailors term the curls which they wear on their temples, were of the most insinuating description.  Now, as my father told me, when he first saw my mother with her sky-scraping cap at the back of her head, so different from the craft in general, he was very much inclined to board her; but when she boomed him off in that style, my father, who was quite the rage and fancy man among the ladies of Sally Port and Castle Rag, hauled his wind in no time, hitching up his white trousers and turning short round on his heel so as to present his back to her whenever they happened to meet.  For a long time he gave her a wide berth.  Now this fact of my father returning her disdain had the usual effect.  At first she was very savage, and when she spoke of him to Lady Hercules, she designated him as “that proud coxswain, who seemed to think himself a greater man than Sir Hercules himself—­with his filthy pigtail, indeed!” My father also, when he spoke of her to the boat’s crew, termed her “that proud ——­ of a lady’s maid,” the word not mentionable being both canine and feminine.  Thus matters went on for some time, until my mother, by a constant survey of my father’s handsome proportions, every day thought him to be a more proper man, and a few advances on her part at last brought them to a mutual understanding.

CHAPTER TWO

     My Father does what most Sailors do—­he makes a foolish Marriage,
     one of the Consequences of which is brought to Light at the End of
     the Chapter.

I have observed at the finale of my first chapter, that at last my mother and father came to a good understanding; but at the same time Madam Araminta (for so my mother insisted upon being called) took good care to let my father understand that she considered that she was lowering herself by surrendering up her charms to a captain’s coxswain.  She informed him that her father might be said to have been royally connected, being a king’s messenger (and so, indeed, he might be considered, having been a twopenny postman), and that her mother had long scores against the first nobles in the land (she was a milk-woman), and that she had dry-nursed a young baronet, and was now not merely a ladies’ maid, but a lady’s laides’ maid.  All this important and novel communication sunk deep in my father’s mind, and when he heard it he could hardly believe his good fortune in having achieved such a conquest; but, as