Truly there was need that the old chair should be varnished and decorated with a crimson cushion, in order to make it suitable for such a magnificent-looking personage.
But Sir William Phips had not always worn a gold-embroidered coat, nor always sat so much at his ease as he did in Grandfather's chair.

He was a poor man's son, and was born in the province of Maine, where he used to tend sheep upon the hills in his boyhood and youth.

Until he had grown to be a man, he did not even know how to read and write.

Tired of tending sheep, he next apprenticed himself to a ship-carpenter, and spent about four years in hewing the crooked limbs of oak-trees into knees for vessels.
In 1673, when he was twenty-two years old, he came to Boston, and soon afterwards was married to a widow lady, who had property enough to set him up in business.

It was not long, however, before he lost all the money that he had acquired by his marriage, and became a poor man again.
Still he was not discouraged.