The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

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 an 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 pût 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. Begone! (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.)

Drop

ACT II

The Stage represents the parlour of the ‘Admiral Benbow’ inn. Fire-place, 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 the half-door in L., corner back; door, R., beyond the fire-place; window with red half-curtains; spittons; 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 – chimbley – 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 haint 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 all 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 half-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 bos’un, ma’am. In the Guinea trade, we was known as ‘Pew’s Cap’n,’ and ‘Gaunt’s Bo’sun,’ one for 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 god-father. [‘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 know yourself, and there you are; and I’ll trouble you for another noggin of rum.