The Treasure of Pearls by Gustave Aimard

The wanderer whose careless progress through the brake sufficiently clearly revealed that he was a stranger of a bold heart and contempt for customs different from his own, was, in fact, one of those Englishmen who seem born to illustrate, in the nature of exceptions, the formal character of his race.

Left an orphan in the fetters of a trustee who forgot he had ever been young, and showed no sympathy with his charge, George Frederick Gladsden had broken his bondage and run away from school at the age of twelve. Reaching a Scotch port, after a long tramp, he shipped as boy on a herring fisher, and so made his novitiate with Neptune. After that initiation, very severe, he chose to become a sailor of that irregular kind which is known as the _pier head jumping_. That is to say, instead of duly entering on a vessel and book at the office in broad daylight, "George" would lounge on the wharf till the very moment of her casting off. Then, of course, the captain is happy to take anybody in the least nautical or even able-bodied, who offers himself in lieu of one of the regularly engaged mariners detained by accident, debt, or drink.