Plays of William E. Henley and R.L. Stevenson Part 43

KIT. Me, Pew? I'll go through fire and water.

PEW. I'll risk it.-Well, then, see here, my son: another swallow and we jog.

KIT. No, not to-night, Pew, not to-night!

PEW. Commander, in a manner of speaking, wherefore?

KIT. Wherefore, Pew? 'Cause why, Pew? 'Cause I'm drunk, and be d.a.m.ned to you!

PEW. Commander, I ax your pardon; but, saving your presence, that's a lie. What? drunk? a man with a 'ed for argyment like that? just you get up, and steady yourself on your two pins, and you'll be as right as ninepence.

[KIT. Pew, before we budge, let me shake your flipper again. You're heart of oak, Pew, sure enough; and if you can bring the Adam-Admirable about, why, damme, I'll make your fortune! How you're going to do it, I don't know; but I'll stand by; and I know you'll do it if anybody can.

But I'm drunk, Pew; you can't deny that: I'm as drunk as a Plymouth fiddler, Pew; and how you're going to do it is a mystery to me.

PEW. Ah, you leave that to me. All I want is what I've got: your promise to stand by and bear a hand (_producing a dark lantern_).] Now, here, you see, is my little glim; it ain't for me, because I'm blind, worse luck! and the day and night is the blessed same to David Pew. But you watch. You put the candle near me. Here's what there ain't mony blind men could do, take the pick o' them! (_lighting a screw of paper_, _and with that_, _the lantern_). Hey? That's it. Hey? Go and pity the poor blind!

KIT (_while_ PEW _blows out the candles_). But I say, Pew, what do you want with it?

PEW. To see by, my son. (_He shuts the lantern and puts it in his pocket_. _Stage quite dark_. _Moonlight at window_.) All s.h.i.+p-shape?

No sparks about? No? Come, then, lean on me and heave ahead for the lovely female. (_Singing sotto voce_)-

'Time for us to go, Time for us to go, And when we'd clapped the hatches on, 'Twas time for us to go.'

DROP

ACT III.

_The Stage represents the Admiral's house_, _as in Act I_. GAUNT _seated_, _is reading aloud_; ARETHUSA _sits at his feet_. _Candles_

SCENE I

ARETHUSA, GAUNT

[GAUNT (_reading_). 'And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy G.o.d my G.o.d: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.'

(_He closes the book_.) Amen.

ARETHUSA. Amen. Father, there spoke my heart.]

GAUNT. Arethusa, the Lord in his mercy has seen right to vex us with trials of many kinds. It is a little matter to endure the pangs of the flesh: the smart of wounds, the pa.s.sion of hunger and thirst, the heaviness of disease; and in this world I have learned to take thought for nothing save the quiet of your soul. It is through our affections that we are smitten with the true pain, even the pain that kills.

ARETHUSA. And yet this pain is our natural lot. Father, I fear to boast, but I know that I can bear it. Let my life, then, flow like common lives, each pain rewarded with some pleasure, each pleasure linked with some pain: nothing pure whether for good or evil: and my husband, like myself and all the rest of us, only a poor, kind-hearted sinner, striving for the better part. What more could any woman ask?

GAUNT. Child, child, your words are like a sword. What would she ask?

Look upon me whom, in the earthly sense, you are commanded to respect.

Look upon me: do I bear a mark? is there any outward sign to bid a woman avoid and flee from me?

ARETHUSA. I see nothing but the face I love.

GAUNT. There is none: nor yet on the young man Christopher, whose words still haunt and upbraid me. Yes, I am hard; I was born hard, born a tyrant, born to be what I was, a slaver captain. But to-night, and to save you, I will pluck my heart out of my bosom. You shall know what makes me what I am; you shall hear, out of my own life, why I dread and deprecate this marriage. Child, do you remember your mother?

ARETHUSA. Remember her? Ah, if she had been here to-day!

GAUNT. It is thirteen years since she departed, and took with her the whole suns.h.i.+ne of my life. Do you remember the manner of her departure?

You were a child, and cannot; but I can and do. Remember? shall I ever forget? Here or hereafter, ever forget! Ten years she was my wife, and ten years she lay a-dying. Arethusa, she was a saint on earth; and it was I that killed her.

ARETHUSA. Killed her? my mother? You?

GAUNT. Not with my hand; for I loved her. I would not have hurt one hair upon her head. But she got her death by me, as sure as by a blow.

ARETHUSA. I understand-I can see: you brood on trifles, misunderstandings, unkindnesses you think them; though my mother never knew of them, or never gave them a second thought. It is natural, when death has come between.

GAUNT. I married her from Falmouth. She was comely as the roe; I see her still-her dove's eyes and her smile! I was older than she; and I had a name for hardness, a hard and wicked man; but she loved me-my Hester!-and she took me as I was. O how I repaid her trust! Well, our child was born to us; and we named her after the brig I had built and sailed, the old craft whose likeness-older than you, girl-stands there above our heads. And so far, that was happiness. But she yearned for my salvation; and it was there I thwarted her. My sins were a burden upon her spirit, a shame to her in this world, her terror in the world to come. She talked much and often of my leaving the devil's trade I sailed in. She had a tender and a Christian heart, and she would weep and pray for the poor heathen creatures that I bought and sold and s.h.i.+pped into misery, till my conscience grew hot within me. I've put on my hat, and gone out and made oath that my next cargo should be my last; but it never was, that oath was never kept. So I sailed again and again for the Guinea coast, until the trip came that was to be my last indeed. Well, it fell out that we had good luck trading, and I stowed the brig with these poor heathen as full as she would hold. We had a fair run westward till we were past the line; but one night the wind rose and there came a hurricane, and for seven days we were tossed on the deep seas, in the hardest straits, and every hand on deck. For several days they were battened down: all that time we heard their cries and lamentations, but worst at the beginning; and when at last, and near dead myself, I crept below-O! some they were starved, some smothered, some dead of broken limbs; and the hold was like a lazar-house in the time of the anger of the Lord!

ARETHUSA. O!

GAUNT. It was two hundred and five that we threw overboard: two hundred and five lost souls that I had hurried to their doom. I had many die with me before; but not like that-not such a ma.s.sacre as that; and I stood dumb before the sight. For I saw I was their murderer-body and soul their murderer; and, Arethusa, my Hester knew it. That was her death-stroke: it felled her. She had long been dying slowly; but from the hour she heard that story, the garment of the flesh began to waste and perish, the fountains of her life dried up; she faded before my face; and in two months from my landing-O Hester, Hester, would G.o.d I had died for thee!

ARETHUSA. Mother! O poor soul! O poor father! O father, it was hard on you.

GAUNT. The night she died, she lay there, in her bed. She took my hand.

'I am going,' she said, 'to heaven. For Christ's sake,' she said, 'come after me, and bring my little maid. I'll be waiting and wearying till you come;' and she kissed my hand, the hand that killed her. At that I broke out calling on her to stop, for it was more than I could bear. But no, she said she must still tell me of my sins, and how the thought of them had bowed down her life. 'And O!' she said, 'if I couldn't prevail on you alive, let my death.' . . . Well, then, she died. What have I done since then? I've laid my course for Hester. Sin, temptation, pleasure, all this poor shadow of a world, I saw them not: I saw my Hester waiting, waiting and wearying. I have made my election sure; my sins I have cast them out. Hester, Hester, I will come to you, poor waiting one; and I'll bring your little maid: ay, dearest soul, I'll bring your little maid safe with me!

ARETHUSA. O teach me how! Show me the way! only show me.-O mother, mother!-If it were paved with fire, show me the way, and I will walk it bare-foot!

GAUNT. They call me a miser. They say that in this sea-chest of mine I h.o.a.rd my gold. (_He pa.s.ses R. to chest_, _takes out key_, _and unlocks it_.) They think my treasure and my very soul are locked up here. They speak after the flesh, but they are right. See!

ARETHUSA. Her watch? the wedding ring? O father, forgive me!

GAUNT. Ay, her watch that counted the hours when I was away; they were few and sorrowful, my Hester's hours; and this poor contrivance numbered them. The ring-with that I married her. This chain, it's of Guinea gold; I brought it home for her, the year before we married, and she wore it to her wedding. It was a vanity: they are all vanities; but they are the treasure of my soul. Below here, see, her wedding dress. Ay, the watch has stopped: dead, dead. And I know that my Hester died of me; and day and night, asleep and awake, my soul abides in her remembrance.

ARETHUSA. And you come in your sleep to look at them. O poor father! I understand-I understand you now.

GAUNT. In my sleep? Ay? do I so? My Hester!

ARETHUSA. And why, why did you not tell me? I thought-I was like the rest!-I feared you were a miser. O, you should have told me; I should have been so proud-so proud and happy. I knew you loved her; but not this, not this.

GAUNT. Why should I have spoken? It was all between my Hester and me.

ARETHUSA. Father, may I speak? May I tell you what my heart tells me?

You do not understand about my mother. You loved her-O, as few men can love. And she loved you: think how she loved you! In this world, you know-you have told me-there is nothing perfect. All we men and women have our sins; and they are a pain to those that love us, and the deeper the love, the crueller the pain. That is life; and it is life we ask, not heaven; and what matter for the pain, if only the love holds on? Her love held: then she was happy! Her love was immortal; and when she died, her one grief was to be parted from you, her one hope to welcome you again.