Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (532 page)

Gaunt. David Pew, it were better for you that you were sunk in fifty fathom. I know your life; and first and last, it is one broadside of wickedness. You were a porter in a school, and beat a boy to death; you ran for it, turned slaver, and shipped with me, a green hand. Ay, that was the craft for you; that was the right craft, and I was the right captain; there was none worse that sailed to Guinea. Well, what came of that? In five years’ time you made yourself the terror and abhorrence of your messmates. The worst hands detested you; your captain — that was me, John Gaunt, the chief of sinners — cast you out for a Jonah. (Who was it stabbed the Portuguese and made off inland with his miserable wife? Who, raging drunk on rum, clapped fire to the baracoons and burned the poor soulless creatures in their chains?) Ay, you were a scandal to the Guinea coast, from Lagos down to Calabar; and when at last I sent you ashore, a marooned man — your shipmates, devils as they were, cheering and rejoicing to be quit of you — by heaven, it was a ton’s weight off the brig!

Pew. Cap’n Gaunt, Cap’n Gaunt, these are ugly words.

Gaunt. What next? You shipped with Flint the Pirate. What you did then I know not; the deep seas have kept the secret; kept it, ay, and will keep against the Great Day. God smote you with blindness, but you heeded not the sign. That was His last mercy; look for no more. To your knees, man, and repent. Pray for a new heart; flush out your sins with tears; flee while you may from the terrors of the wrath to come.

Pew. Now, I want this clear: Do I understand that you’re going back on me, and you’ll see me damned first?

 Gaunt. Of me you shall have neither money nor strong drink: not a guinea to spend in riot; not a drop to fire your heart with devilry.

Pew. Cap’n, do you think it wise to quarrel with me? I put it to you now, Cap’n, fairly, as between man and man — do you think it wise?

Gaunt. I fear nothing. My feet are on the Rock. Be-gone! (
He opens the Bible and begins to read.
)

Pew (
after a pause
). Well, Cap’n, you know best, no doubt; and David Pew’s about the last man, though I says it, to up and thwart an old Commander. You’ve been ‘ard on David Pew, Cap’n: ‘ard on the poor blind; but you’ll live to regret it — ah, my Christian friend, you’ll live to eat them words up. But there’s no malice here: that ain’t Pew’s way; here’s a sailor’s hand upon it.... You don’t say nothing? (
Gaunt turns a page.
) Ah, reading, was you? Reading, by thunder! Well, here’s my respecks. (
Singing
) —

(
He goes tapping up to door, turns on the threshold, and listens. Gaunt turns a page. Pew, with a grimace, strikes his hand upon the pocket with the keys, and goes.
)

ACT II

The Stage represents the parlour of the “Admiral Benbow” inn. Fireplace, R., with high-backed settles on each side; in front of these, and facing the audience, R., a small table laid with a cloth. Tables, L., with glasses, pipes, etc. Broadside ballads on the wall. Outer door of inn, with half-door in L., corner back; door, R., beyond the fireplace; window with red half-curtains; spittoons; candles on both the front tables; night without

SCENE I

Pew; afterwards Mrs. Drake, out and in
.

Pew (
entering
). Kind Christian friends —  — (
listening, then dropping the whine
). Hey? nobody! Hey? A grog-shop not two cable-lengths from the Admiral’s back-door, and the Admiral not there? I never knew a seaman brought so low: he ain’t but the bones of the man he used to be. Bear away for the New Jerusalem, and this is what you run aground on, is it? Good again; but it ain’t Pew’s way; Pew’s way is rum. — Sanded floor. Rum is his word, and rum his motion. — Settle — chimbly — settle again — spittoon — table rigged for supper. Table — glass. (
Drinks heeltap.
) Brandy and water; and not enough of it to wet your eye; damn all greediness, I say. Pot (
drinks
), small beer — a drink that I ab’or like bilge! What I want is rum. (
Calling and rapping with stick on table.
) Halloa, there! House, ahoy!

Mrs. Drake (
without
). Coming, sir, coming. (
She enters, R.
) What can I do —  — ? (
Seeing Pew.
) Well, I never did! Now, beggar-man, what’s for you?

Pew. Rum, ma’am, rum; and a bit o’ supper.

Mrs. Drake. And a bed to follow, I shouldn’t wonder!

Pew.
And
a bed to follow:
if
you please.

Mrs. Drake. This is the “Admiral Benbow,” a respectable house, and receives none but decent company; and I’ll ask you to go somewhere else, for I don’t like the looks of you.

Pew. Turn me away? Why, Lord love you, I’m David Pew — old David Pew — him as was Benbow’s own particular cox’n. You wouldn’t turn away old Pew from the sign of his late commander’s ‘ed? Ah, my British female, you’d have used me different if you’d seen me in the fight! (There laid old Benbow, both his legs shot off, in a basket, and the blessed spy-glass at his eye to that same hour: a picter, ma’am, of naval daring: when a round shot come, and took and knocked a bucketful of shivers right into my poor daylights. “Damme,” says the Admiral, “is that old Pew,
my
old Pew?” he says. — ”It’s old Pew, sir,” says the first lootenant, “worse luck,” he says. — ”Then damme,” says Admiral Benbow, “if that’s how they serve a lion-’arted seaman, damme if I care to live,” he says; and, ma’am, he laid down his spy-glass.)

Mrs. Drake. Blind man, I don’t fancy you, and that’s the truth; and I’ll thank you to take yourself off.

Pew. Thirty years have I fought for country and king, and now in my blind old age I’m to be sent packing from a measly public-’ouse? Mark ye, ma’am, if I go, you take the consequences. Is this a inn? Or hain’t it? If it is a inn, then by act of parleyment, I’m free to sling my ‘ammick. Don’t you forget: this is a act of parleyment job, this is. You look out.

Mrs. Drake. Why, what’s to do with the man and his acts of parliament? I don’t want to fly in the face of an act of parliament, not I. If what you say is true —  —

Pew. True? If there’s anything truer than a act of  parleyment — Ah! you ask the beak. True? I’ve that in my ‘art as makes me wish it wasn’t.

Mrs. Drake. I don’t like to risk it. I don’t like your looks, and you’re more sea-lawyer than seaman to my mind. But I’ll tell you what: if you can pay, you can stay. So there.

Pew. No chink, no drink? That’s your motto, is it? Well, that’s sense. Now, look here, ma’am, I ain’t beautiful like you; but I’m good, and I’ll give you warrant for it. Get me a noggin of rum, and suthin’ to scoff, and a penny pipe, and a half-a-foot of baccy; and there’s a guinea for the reckoning. There’s plenty more in the locker; so bear a hand, and be smart. I don’t like waiting; it ain’t my way. (
Exit Mrs. Drake, R. Pew sits at the table, R. The settle conceals him from the upper part of the stage.
)

Mrs. Drake (
re-entering
). Here’s the rum, sailor.

Pew (
drinks
). Ah, rum! That’s my sheet-anchor; rum and the blessed Gospel. Don’t you forget that, ma’am: rum and the Gospel is old Pew’s sheet-anchor. You can take for another while you’re about it; and, I say, short reckonings make long friends, hey? Where’s my change?

Mrs. Drake. I’m counting it now. There, there it is, and thank you for your custom. (
She goes out, R.
)

Pew (
calling after her
). Don’t thank me, ma’am; thank the act of parleyment! Rum, fourpence; two penny pieces and a Willi’m-and-Mary tizzy makes a shilling; and a spade half-guinea is eleven and six (
re-enter Mrs. Drake with supper, pipe, etc.
); and a blessed majesty George the First crown-piece makes sixteen and six; and two shilling bits is eighteen and six; and a new half-crown makes — no it don’t! O no! Old Pew’s too smart a hand to be bammed with a soft tusheroon.

Mrs. Drake (
changing piece
). I’m sure I didn’t know it, sailor.

Pew (
trying new coin between his teeth
). In course you  didn’t, my dear; but I did, and I thought I’d mention it. Is that my supper, hey? Do my nose deceive me? (
Sniffing and feeling.
) Cold duck? sage and onions? a round of double Gloster? and that noggin o’ rum? Why, I declare if I’d stayed and took pot-luck with my old commander, Cap’n John Gaunt, he couldn’t have beat this little spread, as I’ve got by act of parleyment.

Mrs. Drake (
at knitting
). Do you know the captain, sailor?

Pew. Know him? I was that man’s bo’sun, ma’am. In the Guinea trade, we was known as “Pew’s Cap’n” and “Gaunt’s Bo’sun,” one for the other like. We was like two brothers, ma’am. And a excellent cold duck, to be sure; and the rum lovely.

Mrs. Drake. If you know John Gaunt, you know his daughter Arethusa.

Pew. What? Arethusa? Know her, says you? know her? Why, Lord love you, I was her godfather. (“Pew,” says Jack Gaunt to me, “Pew,” he says, “you’re a man,” he says; “I like a man to be a man,” says he, “and damme,” he says, “I like
you
; and sink me,” says he, “if you don’t promise and vow in the name of that new-born babe,” he says, “why, damme, Pew,” says he, “you’re not the man I take you for.”) Yes, ma’am, I named that female; with my own ‘ands I did; Arethusa I named her; that was the name I give her; so now you know if I speak true. And if you’ll be as good as get me another noggin of rum, why, we’ll drink her ‘elth with three times three. (
Exit Mrs. Drake; Pew eating; Mrs. Drake re-entering with rum.
)

Mrs. Drake. If what you say be true, sailor (and I don’t say it isn’t, mind!), it’s strange that Arethusa and that godly man her father have never so much as spoke your name.

Pew. Why, that’s so! And why, says you? Why, when I dropped in and paid my respecks this morning,  do you think she knew me? No more’n a babe unborn! Why, ma’am, when I promised and vowed for her, I was the picter of a man-o’war’s man, I was: eye like a eagle; walked the deck in a hornpipe, foot up and foot down; v’ice as mellow as rum; ‘and upon ‘art, and all the females took dead aback at the first sight, Lord bless ‘em! Know me? Not likely. And as for me, when I found her such a lovely woman — by the feel of her ‘and and arm! — you might have knocked me down with a feather. But here’s where it is, you see: when you’ve been knocking about on blue water for a matter of two and forty year, shipwrecked here, and blown up there, and everywhere out of luck, and given over for dead by all your messmates and relations, why, what it amounts to is this: nobody knows you, and you hardly knows yourself, and there you are; and I’ll trouble you for another noggin of rum.

Mrs. Drake. I think you’ve had enough.

Pew. I don’t; so bear a hand. (
Exit Mrs. Drake; Pew empties the glass.
) Rum, ah, rum, you’re a lovely creature; they haven’t never done you justice. (
Proceeds to fill and light pipe; re-enter Mrs. Drake with rum.
) And now, ma’am, since you’re so genteel and amicable-like, what about my old commander? Is he, in a manner of speaking, on half pay? or is he living on his fortune, like a gentleman slaver ought?

Mrs. Drake. Well, sailor, people talk, you know.

Pew. I know, ma’am; I’d have been rolling in my coach, if they’d have held their tongues.

Mrs. Drake. And they do say that Captain Gaunt, for so pious a man, is little better than a miser.

Pew. Don’t say it, ma’am; not to old Pew. Ah, how often have I up and strove with him! “Cap’n, live it down,” says I. “Ah, Pew,” says he, “you’re a better man than I am,” he says; “but damme,” he says, “money,” he says, “is like rum to me.”  (
Insinuating.
) And what about a old sea-chest, hey? a old sea-chest, strapped with brass bands?

Mrs. Drake. Why, that’ll be the chest in his parlour, where he has it bolted to the wall, as I’ve seen with my own eyes; and so might you, if you had eyes to see with.

Pew. No, ma’am, that ain’t good enough; you don’t bam old Pew. You never was in that parlour in your life.

Mrs. Drake. I never was! Well, I declare!

Pew. Well, then, if you was, where’s the chest? Beside the chimbley, hey? (
Winking.
) Beside the table with the ‘oly Bible?

Mrs. Drake. No, sailor, you don’t get any information out of me.

Pew. What, ma’am? Not to old Pew? Why, my god-child showed it me herself, and I told her where she’d find my name — P, E, W, Pew — cut out on the stern of it; and sure enough she did. Why, ma’am, it was his old money-box when he was in the Guinea trade; and they do say he keeps the rhino in it still.

Mrs. Drake. No, sailor, nothing out of me! And if you want to know, you can ask the Admiral himself! (
She crosses, L.
)

Pew. Hey? Old girl fly? Then I reckon I must have a mate, if it was the parish bull.

SCENE II

To these, Kit, a little drunk

Kit (
looking in over half-door
). Mrs. Drake! Mother! Where are you? Come and welcome the prodigal!

Mrs. Drake (
coming forward to meet him as he enters;
Pew
remains concealed by the settle, smoking, drinking, and listening
). Lord bless us and save us, if it ain’t my boy! Give us a kiss.

Kit. That I will, and twenty if you like, old girl. (
Kisses her.
)

Mrs. Drake. O Kit, Kit, you’ve been at those other houses, where the stuff they give you, my dear, it is poison for a dog.

Kit. Round with friends, mother: only round with friends.

Mrs. Drake. Well, anyway, you’ll take a glass just to settle it from me. (
She brings the bottle and fills for him.
) There, that’s pure; that’ll do you no harm. But O, Kit, Kit, I thought you were done with all this Jack-a-shoring.