The hard-headed longshoremen and sailors who lived at the foot of the hill were a practical people, to whom spirits were something mostly and generally put up in bottles, and emptied on sunless, blustery days.

Still, they wouldn't have been human if they had not done some romancing.
There were a dozen yarns, each at variance with the other.

First, the old "monseer" was a fugitive from France; everybody granted that.
Second, that he had helped to cut off King Lewis' head; but nobody could prove that.

Third, that he was a retired pirate; but retired pirates always wound up their days in riotous living, so this theory died.

Fourth, that he had been a great soldier in the Napoleonic wars, and this version had some basis, as the old man's face was slashed and cut, some of his fingers were missing, and he limped.