The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 15

Gaunt. Arethusa, you at least are the child of many prayers; your eyes have been unsealed; and to you the world stands naked, a morning watch for duration, a thing spun of cobwebs for solidity. In the presence of an angry God, I ask you: Have you heard this man?

Arethusa. Father, I know Kit, and I love him.

Gaunt. I say it solemnly, this is no Christian union. To you, Christopher French, I will speak nothing of eternal truths: I will speak to you the language of this world. You have been trained among sinners who gloried in their sin: in your whole life you never saved one farthing; and now, when your pockets are full, you think you can begin, poor dupe, in your own strength. You are a roysterer, a jovial companion; you mean no harm – you are nobody’s enemy but your own. No doubt you tell this girl of mine, and no doubt you tell yourself, that you can change. Christopher, speaking under correction, I defy you! You ask me for this child of many supplications, for this brand plucked from the burning: I look at you: I read you through and through; and I tell you – no! (Striking table with his fist.)

Kit. Captain Gaunt, if you mean that I am not worthy of her, I’m the first to say so. But, if you’ll excuse me, sir, I’m a young man, and young men are no better’n they ought to be; it’s known; they’re all like that; and what’s their chance? To be married to a girl like this! And would you refuse it to me? Why, sir, you yourself, when you came courting, you were young and rough; and yet I’ll make bold to say that Mrs. Gaunt was a happy woman, and the saving of yourself into the bargain. Well, now, Captain Gaunt, will you deny another man, and that man a sailor, the very salvation that you had yourself?

Gaunt. Salvation, Christopher French, is from above.

Kit. Well, sir, that is so; but there’s means, too; and what means so strong as the wife a man has to strive and toil for, and that bears the punishment whenever he goes wrong? Now, sir, I’ve spoke with your old shipmates in the Guinea trade. Hard as nails, they said, and true as the compass: as rough as a slaver, but as just as a judge. Well, sir, you hear me plead: I ask you for my chance; don’t you deny it to me.

Gaunt. You speak of me? In the true balances we both weigh nothing. But two things I know: the depth of iniquity, how foul it is; and the agony with which a man repents. Not until seven devils were cast out of me did I awake; each rent me as it passed. Ay, that was repentance. Christopher, Christopher, you have sailed before the wind since first you weighed your anchor, and now you think to sail upon a bow-line? You do not know your ship, young man: you will go to le’ward like a sheet of paper; I tell you so that know – I tell you so that have tried, and failed, and wrestled in the sweat of prayer, and at last, at last, have tasted grace. But, meanwhile, no flesh and blood of mine shall lie at the mercy of such a wretch as I was then, or as you are this day. I could not own the deed before the face of heaven, if I sanctioned this unequal yoke. Arethusa, pluck off that ring from off your finger. Christopher French, take it, and go hence.

Kit. Arethusa, what do you say?

Arethusa. O Kit, you know my heart. But he is alone, and I am his only comfort; and I owe all to him; and shall I not obey my father? But, Kit, if you will let me, I will keep your ring. Go, Kit; go, and prove to my father that he was mistaken; go and win me. And O, Kit, if ever you should weary, come to me – no, do not come! but send a word – and I shall know all, and you shall have your ring. (Gaunt opens his Bible and begins to read.)

Kit. Don’t say that, don’t say such things to me; I sink or swim with you. (To Gaunt.) Old man, you’ve struck me hard; give me a good word to go with. Name your time; I’ll stand the test. Give me a spark of hope, and I’ll fight through for it. Say just this – “Prove I was mistaken,” and by George, I’ll prove it.

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?