Ben Burton

Ben Burton
or, Born and Bred at Sea
by W H G Kingston
CHAPTER ONE.
"Dick Burton, you're a daddy! Polly's been and got a baby for you, old
boy!" exclaimed several voices, as the said Dick mounted the side of
the old "Boreas," on the books of which ship he was rated as a
quarter-master, he having just then returned from a pleasant little
cutting-out expedition, where he had obtained, besides honour and
glory, a gash on the cheek, a bullet through the shoulder, and a prong
from a pike in the side.
"Me a what?" he inquired, bending his head forward with a look of
incredulity, and mechanically hitching up his trousers. "Me a daddy?
On course it's a boy? Polly wouldn't go for to get a girl, a poor little
helpless girl, out in these outlandish parts."
"On course, Dick, it's a boy, a fine big, walloping younker, too. Why
bless ye, Quacko ain't no way to be compared to him, especially when
he sings out, which he can do already, loud enough to drown the
bo'sun's whistle, let me tell you," was the reply to Dick Burton's last
question.
That baby was me. Quacko was the monkey of the ship. I might not
have been flattered at being compared to him, though it must be owned
that I stood very much in the light of his rival. I soon, however, cut him
out completely. My mother was one of two women on board. The other
was Susan King, wife of another quarter-master. The two men enjoyed
a privilege denied to their captain, for they could take their wives to sea,
which he could not. To be sure, Polly and Susan made themselves more
generally useful than the captain's wife would probably have done had

she lived on board, for they washed and mended the men's shirts,
nursed them when sick or wounded, prepared lint and bandages for the
surgeons, and performed many other offices such as generally fall to
the lot of female hands. They had both endeared themselves to the men,
by a thousand kind and gentle acts, but my mother was decidedly the
favourite. This might have been because she was young and remarkably
handsome, and at the same time as good and modest as a woman could
be; and so discreet that she was never known to cause a quarrel among
her shipmates, or a pang of jealousy to her husband; and that, under the
circumstances of the case, is saying a great deal in her favour. Fancy
two women among nearly four hundred men, and not one of the latter
even thinking of infringing the last commandment of the Decalogue.
What an amount of good sense, good-temper, and self-command must
have been exercised on the part of the former.
Susan's qualifications for the position she held were very different to
those of my mother. In appearance she was a very Gorgon, a veritable
strong-minded, double-fisted female, tall, gaunt, and coarse-featured. A
hoarse laugh, and a voice which vied with the boatswain's in stentorian
powers, and yet withal she was a true woman, with a gentle, loving,
tender heart. Bill King, her husband, knew her good qualities, and
vowed that he would not swap her for Queen Charlotte, or any other
lady in the land, not if the offer was made to him with a thousand gold
guineas into the bargain.
I ought to be grateful to her, and do cherish her memory with affection,
for she assisted to bring me into the world; attended my mother in her
time of trial and trouble, and nursed me with the gentlest care. Yet Sue
had a tongue, and could use it too when occasion, in her judgment,
required its employment. But she always took the side of right and
virtue against wrong and vice, and woe betided the luckless wight who
fell under the ban of her just displeasure. She would belabour him, not
with her hands, but by word, look, and gesture, till he shrieked out for
mercy and promised never again to offend, or took to ignominious
flight like a thief with a posse of constables at his heels. Bill King was
a quiet-mannered little man with a huge pair of whiskers, like
studden-sails rigged out on either side of his cheeks, and a mild

expression of countenance which did not belie his calm good-temper
and amiability of disposition. But though gentle in peace, he was as
brave and daring a seaman as ever sprang, cutlass in hand, on an
enemy's deck, or flew aloft to loose topsails when a prize had been cut
out, amid showers of bullets and round-shot.
Of my father, I will only say that he was in no way behind his friend
Bill King in bravery, and though he