Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (534 page)

Pew. Lord love you, if I’d a-had a ‘ed like yours! Why, the Admiral was my first cap’n. I was that man’s bo’sun, I was, aboard the
Arethusa
; and we was like two brothers. Did you never hear of Guinea-land and the black ivory business? (
Sings
) —

Lay forward, lads!

Kit
and
Pew (
in chorus
) —

“Time for us to go,” etc.

Kit. I say, Pew, I like you; you’re a damned ugly dog; but I like you. But look ye here, Pew: fair does it, you know, or we part company this minute. If you  and the Ad —  — the Admirable were like brothers on the Guinea coast, why aren’t you like brothers here?

Pew. Ah,
I
see you coming. What a ‘ed! what a ‘ed! Since Pew is a friend of the family, says you, why didn’t he sail in and bear a hand, says you, when you was knocking the Admiral’s ship about his ears in argyment?

Kit. Well, Pew, now you put a name to it, why not?

Pew. Ah, why not? There I recko’nise you. Well, see here: argyment’s my weakness, in a manner of speaking; I wouldn’t a-borne down and spiled sport not for gold untold, no, not for rum, I wouldn’t! And besides, Commander, I put it to you as between man and man, would it have been seaman-like to let on and show myself to a old shipmate, when he was yard-arm to yard-arm with a craft not half his metal, and getting blown out of water every broadside? Would it have been ‘ansome? I put it to you, as between man and man.

Kit. Pew, I may have gifts; but I never thought of that. Why, no: not seaman-like. Pew, you’ve a heart, that’s what I like you for.

Pew. Ah, that I have: you’ll see. I wanted — now you follow me — I wanted to keep square with Admiral Guinea. Why? says you. Well, put it that I know a fine young fellow when I sees him; and put it that I wish him well; and put it, for the sake of argyment, that the father of that lovely female’s in my power. Aha? Pew’s power! Why, in my ‘ands he’s like this pocket ‘andke’cher. Now, brave boy, do you see?

Kit. No, Pew, my head’s gone; I don’t see.

Pew. Why, cheer up, Commander! You want to marry this lovely female?

Kit. Ay, that I do; but I’m not fit for her, Pew; I’m a drunken dog, and I’m not fit for her.

Pew. Now, Cap’n, you’ll allow a old seaman to be judge:  one as sailed with ‘Awke and blessed Benb —  — with ‘Awke and noble Anson. You’ve been open and above-board with me, and I’ll do the same by you: it being the case that you’re hard hit about a lovely woman, which many a time and oft it has happened to old Pew; and him with a feeling ‘art that bleeds for you, Commander; why, look here: I’m that girl’s godfather; promised and vowed for her, I did; and I like you; and you’re the man for her; and, by the living Jacob, you shall splice!

Kit. David Pew, do you mean what you say?

Pew. Do I mean what I say? Does David Pew? Ask Admiral ‘Awke! Ask old Admiral Byng in his coffin, where I laid him with these ‘ands! Pew does, is what those naval commanders would reply. Mean it? I reckon so.

Kit. Then, shake hands. You’re an honest man, Pew — old Pew! — and I’ll make your fortune. But there’s something else, if I could keep the run of it. Oh, ah! But
can
you? That’s the point. Can you? don’t you see?

Pew. Can I? You leave that to me; I’ll bring you to your moorings; I’m the man that can, and I’m him that will. But only, look here, let’s understand each other. You’re a bold blade, ain’t you? You won’t stick at a trifle for a lovely female? You’ll back me up? You’re a man, ain’t you? a man, and you’ll see me through and through it, hey? Come; is that so? Are you fair and square and stick at nothing?

Kit. Me, Pew? I’ll go through fire and water.

Pew. I’ll risk it. Well, then, see here, my son: another swallow and we jog.

Kit. No, not to-night, Pew, not to-night!

Pew. Commander, in a manner of speaking, wherefore?

Kit. Wherefore, Pew? ‘Cause why, Pew? ‘Cause I’m drunk, and be damned to you!

Pew. Commander, I ax your pardon; but, saving your  presence, that’s a lie. What? drunk? a man with a ‘ed for argyment like that? Just you get up, and steady yourself on your two pins, and you’ll be as right as ninepence.

Kit. Pew, before we budge, let me shake your flipper again. You’re heart of oak, Pew, sure enough; and if you can bring the Adam — Admirable about, why, damme, I’ll make your fortune! How you’re going to do it, I don’t know; but I’ll stand by; and I know you’ll do it if anybody can. But I’m drunk, Pew, you can’t deny that; I’m as drunk as a Plymouth fiddler, Pew; and how you’re going to do it is a mystery to me.

Pew. Ah, you leave that to me. All I want is what I’ve got: your promise to stand by and bear a hand (
producing a dark lantern
). Now, here, you see, is my little glim; it ain’t for me, because I’m blind, worse luck! and the day and night is the blessed same to David Pew. But you watch. You put the candle near me. Here’s what there ain’t many blind men could do, take the pick o’ them! (
lighting a screw of paper, and with that, the lantern
). Hey? That’s it. Hey? Go and pity the poor blind!

Kit (
while Pew blows out the candles
). But I say, Pew, what do you want with it?

Pew. To see by, my son. (
He shuts the lantern and puts it in his pocket. Stage quite dark. Moonlight at window.
) All ship-shape? No sparks about? No? Come, then, lean on me and heave ahead for the lovely female. (
Singing sotto voce
) —

ACT III

The Stage represents the Admiral’s house, as in Act I. Gaunt, seated, is reading aloud; Arethusa sits at his feet. Candles

SCENE I

Arethusa, Gaunt

Gaunt (
reading
). “And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.” (
He closes the book.
) Amen.

Arethusa. Amen. Father, there spoke my heart.

Gaunt. Arethusa, the Lord in His mercy has seen right to vex us with trials of many kinds. It is a little matter to endure the pangs of the flesh, the smart of wounds, the passion of hunger and thirst, the heaviness of disease; and in this world I have learned to take thought for nothing save the quiet of your soul. It is through our affections that we are smitten with the true pain, even the pain that kills.

Arethusa. And yet this pain is our natural lot. Father, I fear to boast, but I know that I can bear it. Let my life, then, flow like common lives, each pain rewarded with some pleasure, each pleasure linked with some pain: nothing pure whether for good or evil: and my husband, like myself and all the rest of us,  only a poor, kind-hearted sinner, striving for the better part. What more could any woman ask?

Gaunt. Child, child, your words are like a sword. What would she ask? Look upon me whom, in the earthly sense, you are commanded to respect. Look upon me: do I bear a mark? is there any outward sign to bid a woman avoid and flee from me?

Arethusa. I see nothing but the face I love.

Gaunt. There is none: nor yet on the young man Christopher, whose words still haunt and upbraid me. Yes, I am hard; I was born hard, born a tyrant, born to be what I was, a slaver captain. But to-night, and to save you, I will pluck my heart out of my bosom. You shall know what makes me what I am; you shall hear, out of my own life, why I dread and deprecate this marriage. Child, do you remember your mother?

Arethusa. Remember her? Ah, if she had been here to-day!

Gaunt. It is thirteen years since she departed, and took with her the whole sunshine of my life. Do you remember the manner of her departure? You were a child, and cannot; but I can and do. Remember? shall I ever forget? Here or hereafter, ever forget! Ten years she was my wife, and ten years she lay a-dying. Arethusa, she was a saint on earth; and it was I that killed her.

Arethusa. Killed her? my mother? You?

Gaunt. Not with my hand; for I loved her. I would not have hurt one hair upon her head. But she got her death by me, as sure as by a blow.

Arethusa. I understand — I can see; you brood on trifles, misunderstandings, unkindnesses you think them; though my mother never knew of them, or never gave them a second thought. It is natural when death has come between.

Gaunt. I married her from Falmouth. She was comely as the roe; I see her still — her dove’s eyes and her  Smile! I was older than she; and I had a name for hardness, a hard and wicked man; but she loved me — my Hester! — and she took me as I was. O how I repaid her trust! Well, our child was born to us; and we named her after the brig I had built and sailed, the old craft whose likeness — older than you, girl — stands there above our heads. And so far, that was happiness. But she yearned for my salvation; and it was there I thwarted her. My sins were a burden upon her spirit, a shame to her in this world, her terror in the world to come. She talked much and often of my leaving the devil’s trade I sailed in. She had a tender and a Christian heart, and she would weep and pray for the poor heathen creatures that I bought and sold and shipped in misery, till my conscience grew hot within me. I’ve put on my hat, and gone out and made oath that my next cargo should be my last; but it never was, that oath was never kept. So I sailed again and again for the Guinea coast, until the trip came that was to be my last indeed. Well, it fell out that we had good luck trading, and I stowed the brig with these poor heathen as full as she would hold. We had a fair run westward till we were past the line; but one night the wind rose, and there came a hurricane, and for seven days we were tossed on the deep seas, in the hardest straits, and every hand on deck. For several days they were battened down: all that time we heard their cries and lamentations, but worse at the beginning; and when at last, and near dead myself, I crept below — O, some they were starved, some smothered, some dead of broken limbs; and the hold was like a lazar-house in the time of the anger of the Lord!

Arethusa. O!

Gaunt. It was two hundred and five that we threw overboard: two hundred and five lost souls that I had hurried to their doom. I had many die with me  before; but not like that — not such a massacre as that; and I stood dumb before the sight. For I saw I was their murderer — body and soul their murderer and, Arethusa, my Hester knew it. That was her death-stroke: it felled her. She had long been dying slowly; but from the hour she heard that story, the garment of the flesh began to waste and perish, the fountains of her life dried up; she faded before my face; and in two months from my landing — O Hester, Hester, would God I had died for thee!

Arethusa. Mother! O poor soul! O poor father! O father, it was hard on you.

Gaunt. The night she died, she lay there, in her bed. She took my hand. “I am going,” she said, “to heaven. For Christ’s sake,” she said, “come after me, and bring my little maid. I’ll be waiting and wearying till you come”; and she kissed my hand, the hand that killed her. At that I broke out, calling on her to stop, for it was more than I could bear. But no, she said she must still tell me of my sins, and how the thought of them had bowed down her life. “And O!” she said, “if I couldn’t prevail on you alive, let my death.”... Well, then, she died. What have I done since then? I’ve laid my course for Hester. Sin, temptation, pleasure, all this poor shadow of a world, I saw them not; I saw my Hester waiting, waiting and wearying. I have made my election sure; my sins I have cast them out. Hester, Hester, I will come to you, poor waiting one; and I’ll bring your little maid: ay, dearest soul, I’ll bring your little maid safe with me!

Arethusa. O teach me how! Show me the way! only show me. — O mother, mother! — If it were paved with fire, show me the way, and I will walk it barefoot!

Gaunt. They call me a miser. They say that in this sea-chest of mine I hoard my gold. (
He passes R. to chest, takes out key and unlocks it.
) They think  my treasure and my very soul are locked up here. They speak after the flesh, but they are right. See!

Arethusa. Her watch? the wedding ring? O father, forgive me!

Gaunt. Ay, her watch that counted the hours when I was away; they were few and sorrowful, my Hester’s hours; and this poor contrivance numbered them. The ring — with that I married her. This chain, it’s of Guinea gold; I brought it home for her, the year before we married, and she wore it to her wedding. It was a vanity: they are all vanities; but they are the treasure of my soul. Below here, see, her wedding dress. Ay, the watch has stopped: dead, dead. And I know that my Hester died of me; and day and night, asleep and awake, my soul abides in her remembrance.

Arethusa. And you come in your sleep to look at them. O, poor father! I understand — I understand you now.

Gaunt. In my sleep? Ay? do I so? My Hester!

Arethusa. And why, why did you not tell me? I thought — I was like the rest! — I feared you were a miser. O, you should have told me; I should have been so proud — so proud and happy. I knew you loved her; but not this, not this.

Gaunt. Why should I have spoken? It was all between my Hester and me.

Arethusa. Father, may I speak? May I tell you what my heart tells me? You do not understand about my mother. You loved her — O, as few men can love. And she loved you: think how she loved you! In this world, you know — you have told me — there is nothing perfect. All we men and women have our sins; and they are a pain to those that love us, and the deeper the love, the crueller the pain. That is life; and it is life we ask, not heaven; and what matter for the pain, if only the love holds on? Her  love held: then she was happy. Her love was immortal; and when she died, her one grief was to be parted from you, her one hope to welcome you again.