Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson (beach read book TXT) 📖

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 Doctor 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, “Doctor 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 Doctor Livesey, I should think.”

At that I gave up all attempt 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 to 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 whatnot⁠—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 freshwater 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.