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

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.