IT was longer than the squire
imagined ere we were ready for the
sea, and none of our first plans—not
even Dr. Livesey's, of keeping me
beside him—could be carried out as
we intended. The doctor had to go to
London for a physician to take
charge of his practice; the squire
was hard at work at Bristol; and I
lived on at the hall under the
charge of old Redruth, the
gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but
full of sea-dreams and the most
charming anticipations of strange
islands and adventures. I brooded by
the hour together over the map, all
the details of which I well
remembered. Sitting by the fire in
the housekeeper's room, I approached
that island in my fancy from every
possible direction; I explored every
acre of its surface; I climbed a
thousand times to that tall hill
they call the Spy-glass, and from
the top enjoyed the most wonderful
and changing prospects. Sometimes
the isle was thick with savages,
with whom we fought, sometimes full
of dangerous animals that hunted us,
but in all my fancies nothing
occurred to me so strange and tragic
as our actual adventures.
So the weeks passed on, till one
fine day there came a letter
addressed to Dr. Livesey, with this
addition, "To be opened, in the case
of his absence, by Tom Redruth or
young Hawkins." Obeying this order,
we found, or rather I found—for the
gamekeeper was a poor hand at
reading anything but print—the
following important news:
Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March 1,
17—
Dear Livesey—As I do not know
whether you
are at the hall or still in London,
I send this in
double to both places.
The ship is bought and fitted. She
lies at
anchor, ready for sea. You never
imagined a
sweeter schooner—a child might sail
her—two
hundred tons; name, HISPANIOLA.
I got her through my old friend,
Blandly, who
has proved himself throughout the
most surprising
trump. The admirable fellow
literally slaved in
my interest, and so, I may say, did
everyone in
Bristol, as soon as they got wind of
the port we
sailed for—treasure, I mean.
"Redruth," said I, interrupting the
letter, "Dr. Livesey will not like
that. The squire has been talking,
after all."
"Well, who's a better right?"
growled the gamekeeper. "A pretty
rum go if squire ain't to talk for
Dr. Livesey, I should think."
At that I gave up all attempts at
commentary and read straight on:
Blandly himself found the
HISPANIOLA, and
by the most admirable management got
her for the
merest trifle. There is a class of
men in Bristol
monstrously prejudiced against
Blandly. They go
the length of declaring that this
honest creature
would do anything for money, that
the HISPANIOLA
belonged to him, and that he sold it
me absurdly
high—the most transparent calumnies.
None of them
dare, however, to deny the merits of
the ship.
So far there was not a hitch. The
workpeople, to be sure—riggers and
what not—were
most annoyingly slow; but time cured
that. It was
the crew that troubled me.
I wished a round score of men—in
case of
natives, buccaneers, or the odious
French—and I
had the worry of the deuce itself to
find so much
as half a dozen, till the most
remarkable stroke
of fortune brought me the very man
that I
required.
I was standing on the dock, when, by
the
merest accident, I fell in talk with
him. I found
he was an old sailor, kept a
public-house, knew
all the seafaring men in Bristol,
had lost his
health ashore, and wanted a good
berth as cook to
get to sea again. He had hobbled
down there that
morning, he said, to get a smell of
the salt.
I was monstrously touched—so would
you have
been—and, out of pure pity, I
engaged him on the
spot to be ship's cook. Long John
Silver, he is
called, and has lost a leg; but that
I regarded as
a recommendation, since he lost it
in his
country's service, under the
immortal Hawke. He
has no pension, Livesey. Imagine the
abominable
age we live in!
Well, sir, I thought I had only
found a cook,
but it was a crew I had discovered.
Between
Silver and myself we got together in
a few days a
company of the toughest old salts
imaginable—not
pretty to look at, but fellows, by
their faces, of
the most indomitable spirit. I
declare we could
fight a frigate.
Long John even got rid of two out of
the six
or seven I had already engaged. He
showed me in a
moment that they were just the sort
of fresh-water
swabs we had to fear in an adventure
of
importance.
I am in the most magnificent health
and
spirits, eating like a bull,
sleeping like a tree,
yet I shall not enjoy a moment till
I hear my old
tarpaulins tramping round the
capstan. Seaward,
ho! Hang the treasure! It's the
glory of the sea
that has turned my head. So now,
Livesey, come
post; do not lose an hour, if you
respect me.
Let young Hawkins go at once to see
his
mother, with Redruth for a guard;
and then both
come full speed to Bristol.
John Trelawney
Postscript—I did not tell you that
Blandly,
who, by the way, is to send a
consort after us if
we don't turn up by the end of
August, had found
an admirable fellow for sailing
master—a stiff
man, which I regret, but in all
other respects a
treasure. Long John Silver unearthed
a very
competent man for a mate, a man
named Arrow. I
have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey;
so things
shall go man-o'-war fashion on board
the good ship
HISPANIOLA.
I forgot to tell you that Silver is
a man of
substance; I know of my own
knowledge that he has
a banker's account, which has never
been
overdrawn. He leaves his wife to
manage the inn;
and as she is a woman of colour, a
pair of old
bachelors like you and I may be
excused for
guessing that it is the wife, quite
as much as the
health, that sends him back to
roving.
J. T.
P.P.S.—Hawkins may stay one night
with his
mother.
J. T.
You can fancy the excitement into
which that letter put me. I was half
beside myself with glee; and if ever
I despised a man, it was old Tom
Redruth, who could do nothing but
grumble and lament. Any of the
under-gamekeepers would gladly have
changed places with him; but such
was not the squire's pleasure, and
the squire's pleasure was like law
among them all. Nobody but old
Redruth would have dared so much as
even to grumble.
The next morning he and I set out on
foot for the Admiral Benbow, and
there I found my mother in good
health and spirits. The captain, who
had so long been a cause of so much
discomfort, was gone where the
wicked cease from troubling. The
squire had had everything repaired,
and the public rooms and the sign
repainted, and had added some
furniture—above all a beautiful
armchair for mother in the bar. He
had found her a boy as an apprentice
also so that she should not want
help while I was gone.
It was on seeing that boy that I
understood, for the first time, my
situation. I had thought up to that
moment of the adventures before me,
not at all of the home that I was
leaving; and now, at sight of this
clumsy stranger, who was to stay
here in my place beside my mother, I
had my first attack of tears. I am
afraid I led that boy a dog's life,
for as he was new to the work, I had
a hundred opportunities of setting
him right and putting him down, and
I was not slow to profit by them.
The night passed, and the next day,
after dinner, Redruth and I were
afoot again and on the road. I said
good-bye to Mother and the cove
where I had lived since I was born,
and the dear old Admiral
Benbow—since he was repainted, no
longer quite so dear. One of my last
thoughts was of the captain, who had
so often strode along the beach with
his cocked hat, his sabre-cut cheek,
and his old brass telescope. Next
moment we had turned the corner and
my home was out of sight.
The mail picked us up about dusk at
the Royal George on the heath. I was
wedged in between Redruth and a
stout old gentleman, and in spite of
the swift motion and the cold night
air, I must have dozed a great deal
from the very first, and then slept
like a log up hill and down dale
through stage after stage, for when
I was awakened at last it was by a
punch in the ribs, and I opened my
eyes to find that we were standing
still before a large building in a
city street and that the day had
already broken a long time.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"Bristol," said Tom. "Get down."
Mr. Trelawney had taken up his
residence at an inn far down the
docks to superintend the work upon
the schooner. Thither we had now to
walk, and our way, to my great
delight, lay along the quays and
beside the great multitude of ships
of all sizes and rigs and nations.
In one, sailors were singing at
their work, in another there were
men aloft, high over my head,
hanging to threads that seemed no
thicker than a spider's. Though I
had lived by the shore all my life,
I seemed never to have been near the
sea till then. The smell of tar and
salt was something new. I saw the
most wonderful figureheads, that had
all been far over the ocean. I saw,
besides, many old sailors, with
rings in their ears, and whiskers
curled in ringlets, and tarry
pigtails, and their swaggering,
clumsy sea-walk; and if I had seen
as many kings or archbishops I could
not have been more delighted.
And I was going to sea myself, to
sea in a schooner, with a piping
boatswain and pig-tailed singing
seamen, to sea, bound for an unknown
island, and to seek for buried
treasure!
While I was still in this delightful
dream, we came suddenly in front of
a large inn and met Squire
Trelawney, all dressed out like a
sea-officer, in stout blue cloth,
coming out of the door with a smile
on his face and a capital imitation
of a sailor's walk.
"Here you are," he cried, "and the
doctor came last night from London.
Bravo! The ship's company complete!"
"Oh, sir," cried I, "when do we
sail?"
"Sail!" says he. "We sail tomorrow!" |
