curled as any at Whitehall.

Seeing him thus, and perceiving his real nature, which was plain
upon him, you might have been tempted to speculate how long such
a man would be content to lie by in this little backwater of the
world into which chance had swept him some six months ago; how
long he would continue to pursue the trade for which he had
qualified himself before he had begun to live. Difficult of belief
though it may be when you know his history, previous and subsequent,
yet it is possible that but for the trick that Fate was about to
play him, he might have continued this peaceful existence, settling
down completely to the life of a doctor in this Somersetshire haven.
It is possible, but not probable.

He was the son of an Irish medicus, by a Somersetshire lady in whose
veins ran the rover blood of the Frobishers, which may account for
a certain wildness that had early manifested itself in his
disposition. This wildness had profoundly alarmed his father, who
for an Irishman was of a singularly peace-loving nature. He had
early resolved that the boy should follow his own honourable
profession, and Peter Blood, being quick to learn and oddly greedy
of knowledge, had satisfied his parent by receiving at the age of
twenty the degree of baccalaureus medicinae at Trinity College,
Dublin. His father survived that satisfaction by three months only.
His mother had then been dead some years already. Thus Peter Blood
came into an inheritance of some few hundred pounds, with which he
had set out to see the world and give for a season a free rein to
that restless spirit by which he was imbued. A set of curious
chances led him to take service with the Dutch, then at war with
France; and a predilection for the sea made him elect that this