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Gaunt (looking up). I make no such compacts. Go, and swear not at all.
Arethusa. Go, Kit! I keep the ring.
SCENE IV
Arethusa, Gaunt
Arethusa. Father, what have we done that you should be so cruel?
Gaunt (laying down Bible, and rising). Do you call me cruel? You speak after the flesh. I have done you this day a service that you will live to bless me for upon your knees.
Arethusa. He loves me, and I love him: you can never alter that; do what you will, father, that can never change. I love him, I believe in him, I will be true to him.
Gaunt. Arethusa, you are the sole thing death has left me on this earth; and I must watch over your carnal happiness and your eternal weal. You do not know what this implies to me. Your mother – my Hester – tongue cannot tell, nor heart conceive the pangs she suffered. If it lies in me, your life shall not be lost on that same reef of an ungodly husband. (Goes out, C.)
SCENE V
Arethusa. I thought the time dragged long and weary when I knew that Kit was homeward bound, all the white sails a-blowing out towards England, and my Kit’s face turned this way! (She begins to dust.) Sure, if my mother were here she would understand and help us; she would understand a young maid’s heart, though her own had never an ache; and she would love my Kit. (Putting back the telescope.) To think she died: husband and child – and so much love – she was taken from them all. Ah, there is no parting but the grave! And Kit and I both live, and both love each other; and here am I cast down? O, Arethusa, shame! And your love home from the deep seas, and loving you still; and the sun shining; and the world all full of hope? O, Hope, you’re a good word!
SCENE VI
Arethusa; to her, Pew
Pew (singing without) —
“Time for us to go!
Time for us to go!
And we’ll keep the brig three p’ints away,
For it’s time for us to go.”
Arethusa. Who comes here? a seaman by his song, and father out! (She tries the air.) “Time for us to go!” It sounds a wild kind of song. (Tap-tap; Pew passes the window.) O, what a face – and blind!
Pew (entering). Kind Christian friends, take pity on a poor blind mariner, as lost his precious sight in the defence of his native country, England, and God bless King George!
Arethusa. What can I do for you, sailor?
Pew. Good Christian lady, help a poor blind mariner to a mouthful of meat. I’ve served His Majesty in every quarter of the globe; I’ve spoke with ’Awke and glorious Anson, as I might with you: and I’ve tramped it all night long upon my sinful feet, and with a empty belly.
Arethusa. You shall not ask bread and be denied by a sailor’s daughter and a sailor’s sweetheart; and when my father returns he shall give you something to set you on your road.
Pew. Kind and lovely lady, do you tell me that you are in a manner of speaking alone? or do my ears deceive a poor blind seaman?
Arethusa. I live here with my father, and my father is abroad.
Pew. Dear, beautiful, Christian lady, tell a poor blind man your honoured name, that he may remember it in his poor blind prayers.
Arethusa. Sailor, I am Arethusa Gaunt.
Pew. Sweet lady, answer a poor blind man one other question: Are you in a manner of speaking related to Cap’n John Gaunt? Cap’n John as in the ebony trade were known as Admiral Guinea?
Arethusa. Captain John Gaunt is my father.
Pew (dropping the blind man’s whine). Lord, think of that now! They told me this was where he lived, and so it is. And here’s old Pew, old David Pew, as was the Admiral’s own bo’sun, colloguing in his old commander’s parlour, with his old commander’s gal (seizes Arethusa). Ah, and a bouncer you are, and no mistake.
Arethusa. Let me go! how dare you?
Pew. Lord love you, don’t you struggle, now, don’t you. (She escapes into front R. corner, where he keeps her imprisoned.) Ah, well, we’ll get you again, my lovely woman. What a arm you’ve got – great god of love – and a face like a peach! I’m a judge, I am. (She tries to escape; he stops her.) No, you don’t; O, I can hear a flea jump! (But it’s here where I miss my deadlights. Poor old Pew; him as the ladies always would have for their fancy man and take no denial; here you are with your commander’s daughter close aboard, and you can’t so much as guess the colour of her lovely eyes. [Singing] —
“Be they black like ebony,
Or be they blue like to the sky.”
Black like the Admiral’s? or blue like his poor dear wife’s? Ah, I was fond of that there woman, I was; the Admiral was jealous of me.) Arethusa, my dear, – my heart, what a ’and and arm you have got; I’ll dream o’ that ’and and arm, I will! – but as I was a-saying, does the Admiral ever in a manner of speaking refer to his old bo’sun David Pew? him as he fell out with about the black woman at Lagos, and almost slashed the shoulder off of him one morning before breakfast?
Arethusa. You leave this house.
Pew. Hey? (he closes and seizes her again). Don’t you fight, my lovely one: now don’t make old blind Pew forget his manners before a female. What! you will? Stop that, or I’ll have the arm right out of your body. (He gives her arm a wrench.)
Arethusa. O! help, help!
Pew. Stash your patter, damn you. (Arethusa gives in.) Ah, I thought it: Pew’s way, Pew’s way. Now look you here, my lovely woman. If you sling in another word that isn’t in answer to my questions, I’ll pull your j’ints out one by one. Where’s the Commander?
Arethusa. I have said: he is abroad.
Pew. When’s he coming aboard again?
Arethusa. At any moment.
Pew. Does he keep his strength?
Arethusa. You’ll see when he returns. (He wrenches her arm again.) Ah!
Pew. Is he still on piety?
Arethusa. O, he is a Christian man!
Pew. A Christian man, is he? Where does he keep his rum?
Arethusa. Nay, you shall steal nothing by my help.
Pew. No more I shall (becoming amorous). You’re a lovely woman, that’s what you are; how would you like old Pew for a sweetheart, hey? He’s blind, is Pew, but strong as a lion; and the sex is his ’ole delight. Ah, them beautiful, beautiful lips! A kiss! Come!
Arethusa. Leave go, leave go!
Pew. Hey? you would?
Arethusa. Ah! (She thrusts him down, and escapes to door, R.)
SCENE VII
Pew (picking himself up). Ah, she’s a bouncer, she is! Where’s my stick? That’s the sort of female for David Pew. Didn’t she fight? and didn’t she struggle? and shouldn’t I like to twist her lovely neck for her? Pew’s way with ’em all: the prettier they was, the uglier he were to ’em. Pew’s way: a way he had with him; and a damned good way too. (Listens at L. door.) That’s her bedroom, I reckon; and she’s double-locked herself in. Good again: it’s a crying mercy the Admiral didn’t come in. But you always loses your ’ed, Pew, with a female: that’s what charms ’em. – Now for business. The front door. No bar; on’y a big lock (trying keys from his pocket). Key one; no go. Key two; no go. Key three; ah, that does it. Ah! (feeling key) him with the three wards and the little ’un: good again! Now if I could only find a mate in this rotten country ’amlick: one to be eyes to me; I can steer, but I can’t conn myself, worse luck! If I could only find a mate. And to-night about three bells in the middle watch, old Pew will take a little cruise, and lay aboard his ancient friend the Admiral; or, barring that, the Admiral’s old sea-chest – the chest he kept the shiners in aboard the brig. Where is it, I wonder? in his berth, or in the cabin here? It’s big enough, and the brass bands is plain to feel by. (Searching about with stick.) Dresser – chair (knocking his head on the cupboard). Ah! – O, corner cupboard. Admiral’s chair – Admiral’s table – Admiral’s – hey! what’s this? – a book – sheepskin – smells like a ’oly Bible. Chair (his stick just avoids the chest). No sea-chest. I must have a mate to see for me, to see for old Pew: him as had eyes like a eagle! Meanwhile, rum. Corner cupboard, of course (tap-tapping). Rum – rum – rum. Hey? (He listens.) Footsteps. Is it the Admiral? (With the whine.) Kind Christian friends —
SCENE VIII
Pew; to him, Gaunt
Gaunt. What brings you here?
Pew. Cap’n, do my ears deceive me? or is this my old commander?
Gaunt. My name is John Gaunt. Who are you, my man, and what’s your business?
Pew. Here’s the facks, so help me. A lovely female in this house was Christian enough to pity the poor blind; and lo and be’old! who should she turn out to be but my old commander’s daughter! “My dear,” says I to her, “I was the Admiral’s own particular bo’sun.” – “La, sailor,” she says to me, “how glad he’ll be to see you!” – “Ah,” says I, “won’t he just – that’s all.” – “I’ll go and fetch him,” she says; “you make yourself at ’ome.” And off she went; and, Commander, here I am.
Gaunt (sitting down). Well.
Pew. Well, Cap’n?
Gaunt. What do you want?
Pew. Well, Admiral, in a general way, what I want in a manner of speaking is money and rum. (A pause.)
Gaunt. David Pew, I have known you a long time.
Pew. And so you have; aboard the old Arethusa; and you don’t seem that cheered up as I’d looked for, with a old shipmate dropping in, one as has been seeking you two years and more – and blind at that. Don’t you remember the old chantie? —
“Time for us to go,
Time for us to go,
And when we’d clapped the hatches on,
’Twas time for us to go.”
What a note you had to sing, what a swaller for a pannikin of rum, and what a fist for the shiners. Ah, Cap’n, they didn’t call you Admiral Guinea for nothing. I can see that old sea-chest of yours – her with the brass bands, where you kept your gold dust and doubloons: you know! – I can see her as well this minute as though you and me was still at it playing pÅt on the lid of her… You don’t say nothing, Cap’n?.. Well, here it is: I want money and I want rum. You don’t know what it is to want rum, you don’t: it gets to that p’int that you would kill a ’ole ship’s company for just one guttle of it. What? Admiral Guinea, my old Commander, go back on poor old Pew? and him high and dry? (Not you! When we had words over the negro lass at Lagos, what did you do? fair dealings was your word: fair as between man and man; and we had it out with p’int and edge on Lagos sands. And you’re not going back on your word to me, now I’m old and blind! No, no! belay that, I say. Give me the old motto: Fair dealings, as between man and man.)
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) —
“Time for us to go,
Time for us to go,
When the money’s out, and the liquor’s done,
Why, it’s time for us to go.”
(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.
Kit. What cheer, mother? I’m only a sheet in the wind; and who’s the worse for it but me?
Mrs. Drake. Ah, and that dear young lady; and her waiting and keeping single these two years for the love of you!
Kit. She, mother? she’s heart of oak, she’s true as steel, and good as gold; and she has my ring on her finger, too. But where’s the use? The Admiral won’t look at me.
Mrs. Drake. Why not? You’re as good a man as him any day.
Kit. Am I? He says I’m a devil, and swears that none of his flesh and blood – that’s what he said, mother! – should lie at my mercy. That’s what cuts me. If it wasn’t for the good stuff I’ve been taking aboard, and the jolly companions I’ve been seeing it out with, I’d just go and make a hole in the water, and be done with it, I would, by George!
Mrs. Drake. That’s like you men. Ah, we know you, we that keeps a public-house – we know you, good and bad: you go off on a frolic and forget; and you never think of the women that sit crying at home.
Kit. Crying? Arethusa cry? Why, dame, she’s the bravest-hearted girl in all broad England! Here, fill the glass! I’ll win her yet. I drink to her; here’s to her bright eyes, and here’s to the blessed feet she walks upon!
Pew (looking round the corner of the settle). Spoke like a gallant seaman, every inch. Shipmate, I’m a man as has suffered, and I’d like to shake your fist, and drink a can of flip with you.
Kit (coming down). Hullo, my hearty! who the devil are you? Who’s this, mother?
Mrs. Drake. Nay, I know nothing about him. (She goes out, R.)
Pew. Cap’n, I’m a brother seaman, and my name is Pew, old David Pew, as you may have heard of in your time, he having sailed along of ’Awke and glorious Benbow, and a right-’and man to both.
Kit. Benbow? Steady, mate! D’ye mean to say you went to sea before you were born?
Pew. See now! The sign of this here inn was running in my ’ed, I reckon. Benbow, says you? no, not likely! Anson, I mean; Anson and Sir Edward ’Awke: that’s the pair: I was their right-’and man.
Kit. Well, mate, you may be all that, and more; but you’re a rum ’un to look at, anyhow.
Pew. Right you are, and so I am. But what is looks? It’s the ’art that does it: the ’art is the seaman’s star; and here’s old David Pew’s a matter of fifty years at sea, but tough and sound as the British Constitootion.
Kit. You’re right there, Pew. Shake hands upon it. And you’re a man they’re down upon, just like myself, I see. We’re a pair of plain, good-hearted, jolly tars; and all these ’longshore fellows cock a lip at us, by George. What cheer, mate?
Arethusa (without). Mrs. Drake! Mrs. Drake!
Pew. What, a female? hey? a female? Board her, board her, mate! I’m dark. (He retires again behind, to table, R., behind settle.)
Arethusa (without). Mrs. Drake!
Mrs. Drake (re-entering and running to door). Here I am, my dear; come in.
SCENE III
To these, Arethusa
Arethusa. Ah, Kit, I’ve found you. I thought you would lodge with Mrs. Drake.
Kit. What? are you looking for your consort? Whistle, I’m your dog; I’ll come to you. I’ve been toasting you fathom deep, my beauty; and with every glass I love you dearer.
Arethusa. Now, Kit, if you want to please my father, this is not the way. Perhaps he thinks too much of the guineas: well, gather them – if you think me worth the price. Go you to your sloop, clinker built, eighty tons burthen – you see I remember. Skipper Kit! I don’t deny I like a man of spirit; but if you care to please Captain Gaunt, keep out of taverns; and if you could carry yourself a bit more – more elderly!
Kit. Can I? Would I? Ah, just couldn’t and just won’t I, then!
Mrs. Drake. I hope, madam, you don’t refer to my house; a publican I may be, but tavern is a word that I don’t hold with; and here there’s no bad drink, and no loose company; and as for my blessedest Kit, I declare I love him like my own.
Arethusa. Why, who could help it, Mrs. Drake?
Kit. Arethusa, you’re an angel. Do I want to please Captain Gaunt? Why, that’s as much as ask whether I love you. (I don’t deny that his words cut me; for they did. But as for wanting to please him, if he was deep as the blue Atlantic, I would beat it out. And elderly, too? Aha, you witch, you’re wise! Elderly? You’ve set the course; you leave me alone to steer it. Matrimony’s my port, and love is my cargo.) That’s a likely question, ain’t it, Mrs. Drake? Do I want to please him! Elderly, says you? Why, see here: Fill up my glass, and I’ll drink to Arethusa on my knees.
Arethusa. Why, you stupid boy, do you think that would please him?
Kit. On my knees I’ll drink it! (As he kneels and drains the glass, Gaunt enters, and he scrambles to his feet.)
SCENE IV
To these, Gaunt
Gaunt. Arethusa, this is no place for you.
Arethusa. No, father.
Gaunt. I wish you had been spared this sight; but look at him, child, since you are here; look at God’s image, so debased. And you, young man (to Kit), you have proved that I was right. Are you the husband for this innocent maid?
Kit. Captain Gaunt, I have a word to say to you. Terror is your last word; you’re bitter hard upon poor sinners, bitter hard and black – you that were a sinner yourself. These are not the true colours; don’t deceive yourself; you’re out of your course.
Gaunt. Heaven forbid that I should be hard, Christopher. It is not I; it’s God’s law that is of iron. Think! if the blow were to fall now, some cord to snap within you, some enemy to plunge a knife into your heart; this room, with its poor taper light, to vanish; this world to disappear like a drowning man into the great ocean; and you, your brain still whirling, to be snatched into the presence of the Eternal Judge: Christopher French, what answer would you make? For these gifts wasted, for this rich mercy scorned, for these high-handed bravings of your better angel – what have you to say?
Kit. Well, sir, I want my word with you, and by your leave I’ll have it out.
Arethusa. Kit, for pity’s sake!
Kit. Arethusa, I don’t speak to you, my dear: you’ve got my ring, and I know what that means. The man I speak to is Captain Gaunt. I came to-day as happy a man as ever stepped, and with as fair a lookout. What did you care? what was your reply? None of your flesh and blood, you said, should lie at the mercy of a wretch like me! Am I not flesh and blood that you should trample on me like that? Is that charity, to stamp the hope out of a poor soul?
Gaunt. You speak wildly; or the devil of drink that is in you speaks instead.
Kit. You think me drunk; well, so I am, and whose fault is it but yours? It was I that drank; but you take your share of it, Captain Gaunt: you it was that filled the can.
