Among all these folk, intent upon their various occupations, what
place was there for me, I wondered? I got in the way of a line of
men on the quay side carrying large bales which I presumed had been
unloaded from a ship there moored. One of them hustled me violently
aside, another made a coarse jest upon me, and, raw and
inexperienced as I was, bewildered by the strangeness of it all, I
felt a sinking at the heart, and questioned for the first time
whether I had been wise in forsaking the scenes I knew and
venturing unbefriended into this outpost of the great world.
I was standing apart, gazing at the shipping, when an old,
weather-beaten sailor, smoking a black pipe, came up and accosted
me.
"Lost your bearings, matey?" he said in a very hoarse voice, which
yet had a tone of friendliness.
No doubt I looked foolish, for I knew no more than the dead what he
meant.
"Lor' bless you," he went on, "I knows all about it. 'Tis fifty
year since I made a course for that 'ere port from Selwood way, and
I stood like a stuck pig--like as you be standing now. Be you out
o' Zummerzet, like me?"
I told him I came from Shrewsbury.
"Never heard tell of it," he said, "but seemingly they grow high in
those parts. And what made ye steer for Bristowe, if I might ask?"
Mr. Vetch had warned me against confiding in strangers; but there
was something so honest in the old seaman's look that I, who have
rarely been wrong in my instinctive judgment of men, determined to
trust him, and told him so much of my story as I thought necessary.
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