The Perils of Certain English Prisoners

"In those c climates, you don't want to do much. I was doing nothing. I was thinking of the shepherd (my father, I wonder?) ffon the hillsides by Snorridge Bottom, with a long staff, and with a rough white coat in all weathers all the year round, who used to let me lie in a corner of his hut by night, and who used to let me go about with him and his sheep by day when I could get nothing else to do, and who used to give me so little of his victuals and so much ffof his staff, that I ran away from him-which was what he wanted all along, I expect-to be knocked about the world in preference to Snorridge Bottom. I had been knocked about the world for nine-and-twenty years in all, when I stood looking along those bright ftblue South American Waters. Looking after the shepherd, I may say."