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

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 look-out. 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.

Gaunt. Christopher French, I spoke but for your good, your good and hers. ‘Woe unto him’ – these are the dreadful words – ‘by whom offences shall come: it were better – ’ Christopher, I can but pray for both of us.

Kit. Prayers? Now I tell you freely, Captain Gaunt, I don’t value your prayers. Deeds are what I ask; kind deeds and words – that’s the true-blue piety: to hope the best and do the best, and speak the kindest. As for you, you insult me to my face; and then you’ll pray for me? What’s that? Insult behind my back is what I call it! No, sir; you’re out of the course; you’re no good man to my view, be you who you may.

Mrs. Drake. O Christopher! To Captain Gaunt?

Arethusa. Father, father, come away!

Kit. Ah, you see? She suffers too; we all suffer. You spoke just now of a devil; well, I’ll tell you the devil you have: the devil of judging others. And as for me, I’ll get as drunk as Bacchus.

Gaunt. Come!

SCENE V

Pew, Mrs. Drake, Kit

Pew (coming out and waving his pipe). Commander, shake! Hooray for old England! If there’s anything in the world that goes to old Pew’s ’art, it’s argyment. Commander, you handled him like a babby, kept the weather gauge, and hulled him every shot. Commander, give it a name, and let that name be rum!

Kit. Ay, rum’s the sailor’s fancy. Mrs. Drake, a bottle and clean glasses.

Mrs. Drake. Kit French, I wouldn’t. Think better of it, there’s a dear! And that sweet girl just gone!

Pew. Ma’am, I’m not a ’ard man; I’m not the man to up and force a act of parleyment upon a helpless female. But you see here: Pew’s friends is sacred. Here’s my friend here, a perfeck seaman, and a man with a ’ed upon his shoulders, and a man that, damme, I admire. He give you a order, ma’am: – march!

Mrs. Drake. Kit, don’t you listen to that blind man; he’s the devil wrote upon his face.

Pew. Don’t you insinuate against my friend. He ain’t a child, I hope? he knows his business? Don’t you get trying to go a lowering of my friend in his own esteem.

Mrs. Drake. Well, I’ll bring it, Kit; but it’s against the grain. (Exit.)

Kit. I say, old boy, come to think of it, why should we? It’s been glasses round with me all day. I’ve got my cargo.

Pew. You? and you just argy’d the ’ed off of Admiral Guinea? O stash that! I stand treat, if it comes to that!

Kit. What! Do I meet with a blind seaman and not stand him? That’s not the man I am!

Mrs. Drake (re-entering with bottle and glasses). There!

Pew. Easy does it, ma’am.

Kit. Mrs. Drake, you had better trot.

Mrs. Drake. Yes, I’ll trot; and I trot with a sick heart, Kit French, to leave you drinking your wits away with that low blind man. For a low man you are – a low blind man – and your clothes they would disgrace a scarecrow. I’ll go to my bed, Kit; and O, dear boy, go soon to yours – the old room, you know; it’s ready for you – and go soon and sleep it off; for you know, dear, they, one and all, regret it in the morning; thirty years I’ve kept this house, and one and all they did regret it, dear.

Pew. Come now, you walk!

Mrs. Drake. O, it’s not for your bidding. You a seaman? The ship for you to sail in is the hangman’s cart. – Good-night, Kit dear, and better company!

SCENE VI

Pew, Kit. They sit at the other table, L.

Pew. Commander, here’s her ’ealth!

Kit. Ay, that’s the line: her health! But that old woman there is a good old woman, Pew.

Pew. So she is, Commander. But there’s no woman understands a seaman; now you and me, being both bred to it, we splice by natur’. As for A. G., if argyment can win her, why, she’s yours. If I’d a-had your ’ed for argyment, damme, I’d a-been a Admiral, I would! And if argyment won’t win her, well, see here, you put your trust in David Pew.

Kit. David Pew, I don’t know who you are, David Pew; I never heard of you; I don’t seem able to clearly see you. Mrs. Drake, she’s a smart old woman, Pew, and she says you’ve the devil in your face.

Pew. Ah, and why, says you? Because I up and put her in her place, when she forgot herself to you, Commander.

Kit. Well, Pew, that’s so; you stood by me like a man. Shake hands, Pew; and we’ll make a night of it, or we’ll know why, old boy!

Pew. That’s my way. That’s Pew’s way, that is. That’s Pew’s way all over. Commander, excuse the liberty; but when I was your age, making allowance for a lowlier station and less ’ed for argyment, I was as like you as two peas. I know it by the v’ice (sings) —

‘We hadn’t been three days at sea before we saw a sail,
So we clapped on every stitch would stand, although it blew a gale,
And we walked along full fourteen knots, for the barkie she did know