Read "The Maid of Sker" by R.D. Blackmore online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
To do what is thoroughly becoming and graceful is my main desire. That any man should praise himself, and insist upon his own exploits and services to his native land, or even should let people guess at his valour, by any manner of side-wind -- such a course would simply deprive me of the only thing a poor battered sailor has left to support him against his pension; I mean of course humble, but nevertheless well-grounded, self-respect.
This delicacy alone forbids me even to allude to that urgent and universal call for my very humble services which launched me on the briny waves once more, and in time for a share in the glorious battle fought off Cape St. Vincent. Upon that great St. Valentine's Day of 1797 I was Master of the Excellent, under Captain Collingwood; and every boy in the parish knows how we captured the Saint Isidore, and really took the Saint Nicholas, though other people got the credit, and nearly took a four-decked ship of 130 guns, whose name was the Saint Miss Trinder, and who managed to sneak away, when by all rights we had got her.