The Splendid Spur<br />Being Memoirs of the Adventures of Mr. John Marvel, a Servant of His Late Maj by Arthur Quiller-Couch (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📖

On deck, a few sailors mov'd about, red eyed and heavy. They show'd no surprise to see us, but nodded very friendly, with a smile for our strange complexions. Here again, as ever, did adversity mock her own image.

But what more took our attention was to see a row of men stretch'd on the starboard side, like corpses, their heads in the scuppers, their legs pointed inboard, and very orderly arranged. They were a dozen and two in all, and over them bent Captain Billy with a mop in his hand, and a bucket by his side: who beckon'd that we should approach.

“Array'd in order o' merit,” said he, pointing with his mop like a showman to the line of figures before him.

We drew near.

“This here is Matt. Soames, master o' this vessel—an' he's dead.”

“Dead?”

“Dead-drunk, that is. O the gifted man! Come up!” He thrust the mop in the fellow's heavy face. “There now! Did he move, did he wink? 'No,' says you. O an accomplished drunkard!”

He paus'd a moment; then stirr'd up No. 2, who open'd one eye lazily, and shut it again in slumber.

“You saw? Open'd one eye, hey? That's Benjamin Halliday. The next is a black man, as you see: a man of dismal color, and hath other drawbacks natural to such. Can the Aethiop shift his skin? No, but he'll open both eyes. See there—a perfect Christian, in so far as drink can make him.”

With like comments he ran down the line till he came to the last man, in front of whom he stepp'd back.

“About this last—he's a puzzler. Times I put him top o' the list, an' times at the tail. That's Ned Masters, an' was once the Reverend Edward Masters, Bachelor o' Divinity in Cambridge College; but in a tavern there fell a-talking with a certain Pelagian about Adam an' Eve, an' because the fellow turn'd stubborn, put a knife into his waistband, an' had to run away to sea: a middling drinker only, but after a quart or so to hear him tackle Predestination! So there be times after all when I sets'n apart, and says, 'Drunk, you'm no good, but half-drunk, you'm priceless.' Now there's a man—” He dropp'd his mop, and, leading us aft, pointed with admiring finger to the helmsman—a thin, wizen'd fellow, with a face like a crab apple, and a pair of piercing grey eyes half hidden by the droop of his wrinkled lids. “Gabriel Hutchins, how old be you?”

“Sixty-four, come next Martinmas,” pip'd the helmsman.

“In what state o' life?”

“Drunk.”

“How drunk?”

“As a lord!”

“Canst stand upright?”

“Hee-hee! Now could I iver do other?—a miserable ould worms to whom the sweet effects o' quantums be denied. When was I iver wholesomely maz'd? Or when did I lay my grey hairs on the floor, saying, 'Tis enough, an' 'tis good'? Answer me that, Cap'n Bill.”

“But you hopes for the best, Gabriel.”

“Aye, I hopes—I hopes.”

The old man sigh'd as he brought the Godsend a point nearer the wind; and, as we turn'd away with the Captain, was still muttering, his sharp grey eyes fix'd on the vessel's prow.

“He's my best,” said Captain Billy Pottery.

With this crew we pass'd four days; and I write this much of them because they afterward, when sober, did me a notable good turn, as you shall read toward the end of this history. But lest you should judge them hardly, let me say here that when they recovered of their stupor—as happen'd to the worst after thirty-six hours—there was no brisker, handier set of fellows on the seas. And this Captain Billy well understood: “but” (said he) “I be a collector an' a man o' conscience both, which is uncommon. Doubtless there be good sots that are not good seamen, but from such I turn my face, drink they never so prettily.”

'Twas necessary I should impart some notion of my errand to Captain Billy, tho' I confin'd myself to hints, telling him only 'twas urgent I should be put ashore somewhere on the Cornish coast, for that I carried intelligence which would not keep till we reached Plymouth, a town that, besides, was held by the rebels. And he agreed readily to land me in Bude Bay: “and also thy comrade, if (as I guess) she be so minded,” he added, glancing up at Delia from the paper whereon I had written my request.

She had been silent of late, beyond her wont, avoiding (I thought) to meet my eye: but answer'd simply,

“I go with Jack.”

Captain Billy, whose eyes rested on her as she spoke, beckon'd me, very mysterious, outside the cabin, and winking slily, whisper'd loud enough to stun one——

“Ply her, Jack”—he had call'd me “Jack” from the first—“ply her briskly! Womankind is but yielding flesh: 'am an amorous man mysel', an' speak but that I have prov'd.”

On this—for the whole ship could hear it—there certainly came the sound of a stifled laugh from the other side of the cabin door: but it did not mend my comrade's shy humor, that lasted throughout the voyage.

To be brief, 'twas not till the fourth afternoon (by reason of baffling head winds) that we stepped out of the Godsend's boat upon a small beach of shingle, whence, between a rift in the black cliffs, wound up the road that was to lead us inland. The Godsend, as we turn'd to wave our hands, lay at half a mile's distance, and made a pretty sight: for the day, that had begun with a white frost, was now turn'd sunny and still, so that looking north we saw the sea all spread with pink and lilac and hyacinth, and upon it the ship lit up, her masts and sails glowing like a gold piece. And there was Billy, leaning over the bulwarks and waving his trumpet for “Good-bye!” Thought I, for I little dream'd to see these good fellows again, “what a witless game is this life! to seek ever in fresh conjunctions what we leave behind in a hand shake.” 'Twas a cheap reflection, yet it vex'd me that as we turn'd to mount the road Delia should break out singing—-

“Hey! nonni—nonni—no! Is't not fine to laugh and sing When the hells of death do ring!—”

“Why, no,” said I, “I don't think it”: and capp'd her verse with another—

“Silly man, the cost to find Is to leave as good behind—”

“Jack, for pity's sake, stop!” She put her fingers to her ears. “What a nasty, creaking voice thou hast, to be sure!”

“That's as a man may hold,” said I, nettled.

“No, indeed: yours is a very poor voice, but mine is beautiful. So listen.”

She went on to sing as she went, “Green as grass is my kirtle,” “Tire me in tiffany,” “Come ye bearded men-at-arms,” and