ACT I _ SCENE I TO SCENE VIII

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_ The Stage represents a room in the Admiral Guinea's house: fireplace, arm-chair, and table with Bible, L., towards the front; door C., with window on each side, the window on the R., practicable; doors, R. and L., back; corner cupboard, a brass- strapped sea-chest fixed to the wall and floor, R.; cutlasses, telescopes, sextant, quadrant, a calendar, and several maps upon the wall; a ship clock; three wooden chairs; a dresser against wall, R. C.; on the chimney-piece the model of a brig and several shells. The centre bare of furniture. Through the widows and the door, which is open, green trees and a small field of sea.

ARETHUSA IS DISCOVERED, DUSTING

ARETHUSA. Ten months and a week to-day! Now for a new mark. Since the last, the sun has set and risen over the fields and the pleasant trees at home, and on Kit's lone ship and the empty sea. Perhaps it blew; perhaps rained; (AT THE CHART) perhaps he was far up here to the nor'ard, where the icebergs sail; perhaps at anchor among these wild islands of the snakes and buccaneers. O, you big chart, if I could see him sailing on you! North and South Atlantic; such a weary sight of water and no land; never an island for the poor lad to land upon. But still, God's there. (SHE TAKES DOWN THE TELESCOPE TO DUST IT.) Father's spy-glass again; and my poor Kit perhaps with such another, sweeping the great deep!

SCENE II

ARETHUSA; to her, KIT, C. [He enters on tiptoe, and she does not see or hear him]

ARETHUSA (DUSTING TELESCOPE). At sea they have less dust at least: that's so much comfort.

KIT. Sweetheart, ahoy!

ARETHUSA. Kit!

KIT. Arethusa.

ARETHUSA. My Kit! Home again - O my love! - home again to me!

KIT. As straight as wind and tide could carry me!

ARETHUSA. O Kit, my dearest. O Kit - O! O!

KIT. Hey? Steady, lass: steady, I say. For goodness' sake, ease it off.

ARETHUSA. I will, Kit - I will. But you came so sudden.

KIT. I thought ten months of it about preparation enough.

ARETHUSA. Ten months and a week: you haven't counted the days as I have. Another day gone, and one day nearer to Kit: that has been my almanac. How brown you are! how handsome!

KIT. A pity you can't see yourself! Well, no, I'll never be handsome: brown I may be, never handsome. But I'm better than that, if the proverb's true; for I'm ten hundred thousand fathoms deep in love. I bring you a faithful sailor. What! you don't think much of that for a curiosity? Well, that's so: you're right; the rarity is in the girl that's worth it ten times over. Faithful? I couldn't help it if I tried! No, sweetheart, and I fear nothing: I don't know what fear is, but just of losing you. (STARTING.) Lord, that's not the Admiral?

ARETHUSA. Aha, Mr. Dreadnought! you see you fear my father.

KIT. That I do. But, thank goodness, it's nobody. Kiss me: no, I won't kiss you: kiss ME. I'll give you a present for that. See!

ARETHUSA. A wedding-ring!

KIT. My mother's. Will you take it?

ARETHUSA. Yes, will I - and give myself for it.

KIT. Ah, if we could only count upon your father! He's a man every inch of him; but he can't endure Kit French.

ARETHUSA. He hasn't learned to know you, Kit, as I have, nor yet do you know him. He seems hard and violent; at heart he is only a man overwhelmed with sorrow. Why else, when he looks at me and does not know that I observe him, should his face change, and fill with such tenderness, that I could weep to see him? Why, when he walks in his sleep, as he does almost every night, his eyes open and beholding nothing, why should he cry so pitifully on my mother's name? Ah, if you could hear him then, you would say yourself: here is a man that has loved; here is a man that will be kind to lovers.

KIT. Is that so? Ay, it's a hard thing to lose your wife; ay, that must cut the heart indeed. But for all that, my lass, your father is keen for the doubloons.

ARETHUSA. Right, Kit: and small blame to him. There is only one way to be honest, and the name of that is thrift.

KIT. Well, and that's my motto. I've left the ship; no more letter of marque for me. Good-bye to Kit French, privateersman's mate; and how-d'ye-do to Christopher, the coasting skipper. I've seen the very boat for me: I've enough to buy her, too; and to furnish a good house, and keep a shot in the locker for bad luck. So far, there's nothing to gainsay. So far it's hopeful enough; but still there's Admiral Guinea, you know - and the plain truth is that I'm afraid of him.

ARETHUSA. Admiral Guinea? Now Kit, if you are to be true lover of mine, you shall not use that name. His name is Captain Gaunt. As for fearing him, Kit French, you're not the man for me, if you fear anything but sin. He's a stern man because he's in the right.

KIT. He is a man of God; I am what he calls a child of perdition. I was a privateersman - serving my country, I say; but he calls it pirate. He is thrifty and sober; he has a treasure, they say, and it lies so near his heart that he tumbles up in his sleep to stand watch over it. What has a harum-scarum dog like me to expect from a man like him? He won't see I'm starving for a chance to mend; 'Mend,' he'll say; 'I'll be shot if you mend at the expense of my daughter;' and the worst of it is, you see, he'll be right.

ARETHUSA. Kit, if you dare to say that faint-hearted word again, I'll take my ring off. What are we here for but to grow better or grow worse? Do you think Arethusa French will be the same as Arethusa Gaunt?

KIT. I don't want her better.

ARETHUSA. Ah, but she shall be!

KIT. Hark, here he is! By George, it's neck or nothing now. Stand by to back me up.

SCENE III

TO THESE, GAUNT, C.

KIT (WITH ARETHUSA'S HAND). Captain Gaunt, I have come to ask you for your daughter.

GAUNT. Hum. (HE SITS IN HIS CHAIR, L.)

KIT. I love her, and she loves me, sir. I've left the privateering. I've enough to set me up and buy a tidy sloop - Jack Lee's; you know the boat, Captain; clinker built, not four years old, eighty tons burthen, steers like a child. I've put my mother's ring on Arethusa's finger; and if you'll give us your blessing, I'll engage to turn over a new leaf, and make her a good husband.

GAUNT. In whose strength, Christopher French?

KIT. In the strength of my good, honest love for her: as you did for her mother, and my father for mine. And you know, Captain, a man can't command the wind; but (excuse me, sir) he can always lie the best course possible, and that's what I'll do, so God help me.

GAUNT. Arethusa, you at least are the child of many prayers; your eyes have been unsealed; and to you the world stands naked, a morning watch for duration, a thing spun of cobwebs for solidity. In the presence of an angry God, I ask you: have you heard this man?

ARETHUSA. Father, I know Kit, and I love him.

GAUNT. I say it solemnly, this is no Christian union. To you, Christopher French, I will speak nothing of eternal truths: I will speak to you the language of this world. You have been trained among sinners who gloried in their sin: in your whole life you never saved one farthing; and now, when your pockets are full, you think you can begin, poor dupe, in your own strength. You are a roysterer, a jovial companion; you mean no harm - you are nobody's enemy but your own. No doubt you tell this girl of mine, and no doubt you tell yourself, that you can change. Christopher, speaking under correction, I defy you! You ask me for this child of many supplications, for this brand plucked from the burning: I look at you; I read you through and through; and I tell you - no! (STRIKING TABLE WITH HIS FIST.)

KIT. Captain Gaunt, if you mean that I am not worthy of her, I'm the first to say so. But, if you'll excuse me, sir, I'm a young man, and young men are no better'n they ought to be; it's known; they're all like that; and what's their chance? To be married to a girl like this! And would you refuse it to me? Why, sir, you yourself, when you came courting, you were young and rough; and yet I'll make bold to say that Mrs. Gaunt was a happy woman, and the saving of yourself into the bargain. Well, now, Captain Gaunt, will you deny another man, and that man a sailor, the very salvation that you had yourself?

GAUNT. Salvation, Christopher French, is from above.

KIT. Well, sir, that is so; but there's means, too; and what means so strong as the wife a man has to strive and toil for, and that bears the punishment whenever he goes wrong? Now, sir, I've spoke with your old shipmates in the Guinea trade. Hard as nails, they said, and true as the compass: as rough as a slaver, but as just as a judge. Well, sir, you hear me plead: I ask you for my chance; don't you deny it to me.

GAUNT. You speak of me? In the true balances we both weigh nothing. But two things I know: the depth of iniquity, how foul it is; and the agony with which a man repents. Not until seven devils were cast out of me did I awake; each rent me as it passed. Ay, that was repentance. Christopher, Christopher, you have sailed before the wind since first you weighed your anchor, and now you think to sail upon a bowline? You do not know your ship, young man: you will go to le'ward like a sheet of paper; I tell you so that know - I tell you so that have tried, and failed, and wrestled in the sweat of prayer, and at last, at last, have tasted grace. But, meanwhile, no flesh and blood of mine shall lie at the mercy of such a wretch as I was then, or as you are this day. I could not own the deed before the face of heaven if I sanctioned this unequal yoke. Arethusa, pluck off that ring from off your finger. Christopher French, take it, and go hence.

KIT. Arethusa, what do you say?

ARETHUSA. O Kit, you know my heart. But he is alone, and I am his only comfort; and I owe all to him; and shall I not obey my father? But, Kit, if you will let me, I will keep your ring. Go, Kit; go, and prove to my father that he was mistaken; go and win me. And O, Kit, if ever you should weary, come to me - no, do not come! but send a word - and I shall know all, and you shall have your ring. (GAUNT OPENS HIS BIBLE AND BEGINS TO READ.)

KIT. Don't say that, don't say such things to me; I sink or swim with you. (TO GAUNT.) Old man, you've struck me hard; give me a good word to go with. Name your time; I'll stand the test. Give me a spark of hope, and I'll fight through for it. Say just this - 'Prove I was mistaken,' and by George, I'll prove it.

GAUNT (LOOKING UP). I make no such compacts. Go, and swear not at all.

ARETHUSA. Go, Kit! I keep the ring.

SCENE IV

ARETHUSA, GAUNT

ARETHUSA. Father, what have we done that you should be so cruel?

GAUNT (LAYING DOWN BIBLE, AND RISING). Do you call me cruel? You speak after the flesh. I have done you this day a service that you will live to bless me for upon your knees.

ARETHUSA. He loves me, and I love him: you can never alter that; do what you will, father, that can never change. I love him, I believe in him, I will be true to him.

GAUNT. Arethusa, you are the sole thing death has left me on this earth; and I must watch over your carnal happiness and your eternal weal. You do not know what this implies to me. Your mother - my Hester - tongue cannot tell, nor heart conceive the pangs she suffered. If it lies in me, your life shall not be lost on that same reef of an ungodly husband. (GOES OUT, C.)

SCENE V

ARETHUSA

ARETHUSA. I thought the time dragged long and weary when I knew that Kit was homeward bound, all the white sails a-blowing out towards England, and my Kit's face turned this way? (SHE BEGINS TO DUST.) Sure, if my mother were here, she would understand and help us; she would understand a young maid's heart, though her own had never an ache; and she would love my Kit. (PUTTING BACK THE TELESCOPE.) To think she died: husband and child - and so much love - she was taken from them all. Ah, there is no parting but the grave! And Kit and I both live, and both love each other; and here am I cast down? O, Arethusa, shame! And your love home from the deep seas, and loving you still; and the sun shining; and the world all full of hope? O, hope, you're a good word!

 

SCENE VI

ARETHUSA; TO HER, PEW

PEW (SINGING WITHOUT) -

'Time for us to go! Time for us to go! And we'll keep the brig three pints away, For it's time for us to go.'

ARETHUSA. Who comes here? a seaman by his song, and father out! (SHE TRIES THE AIR) 'Time for us to go!' It sounds a wild kind of song. (TAP-TAP; PEW PASSES THE WINDOW.) O, what a face - and blind!

PEW (ENTERING). Kind Christian friends, take pity on a poor blind mariner, as lost his precious sight in the defence of his native country, England, and God bless King George!

ARETHUSA. What can I do for you, sailor?

PEW. Good Christian lady, help a poor blind mariner to a mouthful of meat. I've served His Majesty in every quarter of the globe; I've spoke with 'Awke and glorious Anson, as I might with you; and I've tramped it all night long, upon my sinful feet, and with a empty belly.

ARETHUSA. You shall not ask bread and be denied by a sailor's daughter and a sailor's sweetheart; and when my father returns he shall give you something to set you on your road.

PEW. Kind and lovely lady, do you tell me that you are in a manner of speaking alone? or do my ears deceive a poor blind seaman?

ARETHUSA. I live here with my father, and my father is abroad.

PEW. Dear, beautiful, Christian lady, tell a poor blind man your honoured name, that he may remember it in his poor blind prayers.

ARETHUSA. Sailor, I am Arethusa Gaunt.

PEW. Sweet lady, answer a poor blind man one other question: are you in a manner of speaking related to Cap'n John Gaunt? Cap'n John as in the ebony trade were known as Admiral Guinea?

ARETHUSA. Captain John Gaunt is my father.

PEW (DROPPING THE BLIND MAN'S WHINE). Lord, think of that now! They told me this was where he lived, and so it is. And here's old Pew, old David Pew, as was the Admiral's own bo'sun, colloguing in his old commander's parlour, with his old commander's gal (SEIZES ARETHUSA). Ah, and a bouncer you are, and no mistake.

ARETHUSA. Let me go! how dare you?

PEW. Lord love you, don't you struggle, now, don't you. (SHE ESCAPES INTO FRONT R. CORNER, WHERE HE KEEPS HER IMPRISONED.) Ah, well, we'll get you again, my lovely woman. What a arm you've got - great god of love - and a face like a peach! I'm a judge, I am. (SHE TRIES TO ESCAPE; HE STOPS HER.) No, you don't; O, I can hear a flea jump! [But it's here where I miss my deadlights. Poor old Pew; him as the ladies always would have for their fancy man and take no denial; here you are with your commander's daughter close aboard, and you can't so much as guess the colour of her lovely eyes. (SINGING) -

'Be they black like ebony; Or be they blue like to the sky.'

Black like the Admiral's? or blue like his poor dear wife's? Ah, I was fond of that there woman, I was: the Admiral was jealous of me.] Arethusa, my dear, - my heart, what a 'and and arm you HAVE got; I'll dream o' that 'and and arm, I will! - but as I was a-saying, does the Admiral ever in a manner of speaking refer to his old bo'sun David Pew? him as he fell out with about the black woman at Lagos, and almost slashed the shoulder off of him one morning before breakfast?

ARETHUSA. You leave this house.

PEW. Hey? (HE CROSSES AND SEIZES HER AGAIN) Don't you fight, my lovely one: now don't make old blind Pew forget his manners before a female. What! you will? Stop that, or I'll have the arm right out of your body. (HE GIVES HER ARM A WRENCH.)

ARETHUSA. O! help, help!

PEW. Stash your patter, damn you. (ARETHUSA GIVES IN.) Ah, I thought it: Pew's way, Pew's way. Now, look you here, my lovely woman. If you sling in another word that isn't in answer to my questions, I'll pull your j'ints out one by one. Where's the Commander?

ARETHUSA. I have said: he is abroad.

PEW. When's he coming aboard again?

ARETHUSA. At any moment.

PEW. Does he keep his strength?

ARETHUSA. You'll see when he returns. (HE WRENCHES HER ARM AGAIN.) Ah!

PEW. Is he still on piety?

ARETHUSA. O, he is a Christian man!

PEW. A Christian man, is he? Where does he keep his rum?

ARETHUSA. Nay, you shall steal nothing by my help.

PEW. No more I shall (BECOMING AMOROUS). You're a lovely woman, that's what you are; how would you like old Pew for a sweetheart, hey? He's blind, is Pew, but strong as a lion; and the sex is his 'ole delight. Ah, them beautiful, beautiful lips! A kiss! Come!

ARETHUSA. Leave go, leave go!

PEW. Hey? you would?

ARETHUSA. Ah! (SHE THRUSTS HIM DOWN, AND ESCAPES TO DOOR, R.)

 

SCENE VII

PEW (PICKING HIMSELF UP). Ah, she's a bouncer, she is! Where's my stick? That's the sort of female for David Pew. Didn't she fight? and didn't she struggle? and shouldn't I like to twist her lovely neck for her? Pew's way with 'em all: the prettier they was, the uglier he were to 'em. Pew's way: a way he had with him; and a damned good way too. (LISTENS AT L. DOOR.) That's her bedroom, I reckon; and she's double-locked herself in. Good again: it's a crying mercy the Admiral didn't come in. But you always loses your 'ed, Pew, with a female: that's what charms 'em. Now for business. The front door. No bar; only a big lock (TRYING KEYS FROM HIS POCKET). Key one; no go. Key two; no go. Key three; ah, that does it. Ah! (FEELING KEY) him with the three wards and the little 'un: good again! Now if I could only find a mate in this rotten country 'amlick: one to be eyes to me; I can steer, but I can't conn myself, worse luck! If I could only find a mate! And to-night, about three bells in the middle watch, old Pew will take a little cruise, and lay aboard his ancient friend the Admiral; or, barring that, the Admiral's old sea-chest - the chest he kept the shiners in aboard the brig. Where is it, I wonder? in his berth, or in the cabin here? It's big enough, and the brass bands is plain to feel by. (SEARCHING ABOUT WITH STICK.) Dresser - chair - (KNOCKING HIS HEAD ON THE CUPBOARD.) Ah! - O, corner cupboard. Admiral's chair - Admiral's table - Admiral's - hey! what's this? - a book - sheepskin - smells like a 'oly Bible. Chair (HIS STICK JUST AVOIDS THE CHEST). No sea-chest. I must have a mate to see for me, to see for old Pew: him as had eyes like a eagle! Meanwhile, rum. Corner cupboard, of course (TAP-TAPPING). Rum - rum - rum. Hey? (HE LISTENS.) Footsteps. Is it the Admiral? (WITH THE WHINE.) Kind Christian friends -

SCENE VIII

PEW; to him GAUNT

GAUNT. What brings you here?

PEW. Cap'n, do my ears deceive me? or is this my old commander?

GAUNT. My name is John Gaunt. Who are you, my man, and what's your business?

PEW. Here's the facks, so help me. A lovely female in this house was Christian enough to pity the poor blind; and lo and belold! who should she turn out to be but my old commander's daughter! 'My dear,' says I to her, 'I was the Admiral's own particular bo'sun.' - 'La, sailor,' she says to me, 'how glad he'll be to see you!' - 'Ah,' says I, 'won't he just - that's all.' - 'I'll go and fetch him,' she says; 'you make yourself at 'ome.' And off she went; and, Commander, here I am.

GAUNT (SITTING DOWN). Well?

PEW. Well, Cap'n?

GAUNT. What do you want?

PEW. Well, Admiral, in a general way, what I want in a manner of speaking is money and rum. (A PAUSE.)

GAUNT. David Pew, I have known you a long time.

PEW. And so you have; aboard the old ARETHUSA; and you don't seem that cheered up as I'd looked for, with an old shipmate dropping in, one as has been seeking you two years and more - and blind at that. Don't you remember the old chantie? -

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

What a note you had to sing, what a swaller for a pannikin of rum, and what a fist for the shiners! Ah, Cap'n, they didn't call you Admiral Guinea for nothing. I can see that old sea-chest of yours - her with the brass bands, where you kept your gold dust and doubloons: you know! - I can see her as well this minute as though you and me was still at it playing put on the lid of her . . . You don't say nothing, Cap'n? . . . Well, here it is: I want money and I want rum. You don't know what it is to want rum, you don't: it gets to that p'int, that you would kill a 'ole ship's company for just one guttle of it. What? Admiral Guinea, my old Commander, go back on poor old Pew? and him high and dry? [Not you! When we had words over the negro lass at Lagos, what did you do? fair dealings was your word: fair as between man and man; and we had it out with p'int and edge on Lagos sands. And you're not going back on your word to me, now I'm old and blind? No, no! belay that, I say. Give me the old motto: Fair dealings, as between man and man.]

GAUNT. David Pew, it were better for you that you were sunk in fifty fathom. I know your life; and first and last, it is one broadside of wickedness. You were a porter in a school, and beat a boy to death; you ran for it, turned slaver, and shipped with me, a green hand. Ay, that was the craft for you: that was the right craft, and I was the right captain; there was none worse that sailed to Guinea. Well, what came of that? In five years' time you made yourself the terror and abhorrence of your messmates. The worst hands detested you; your captain - that was me, John Gaunt, the chief of sinners - cast you out for a Jonah. [Who was it stabbed the Portuguese and made off inland with his miserable wife? Who, raging drunk on rum, clapped fire to the baracoons and burned the poor soulless creatures in their chains?] Ay, you were a scandal to the Guinea coast, from Lagos down to Calabar? and when at last I sent you ashore, a marooned man - your shipmates, devils as they were, cheering and rejoicing to be quit of you - by heaven, it was a ton's weight off the brig!

PEW. Cap'n Gaunt, Cap'n Gaunt, these are ugly words.

GAUNT. What next? You shipped with Flint the Pirate. What you did then I know not; the deep seas have kept the secret: kept it, ay, and will keep against the Great Day. God smote you with blindness, but you heeded not the sign. That was His last mercy; look for no more. To your knees, man, and repent! Pray for a new heart; flush out your sins with tears; flee while you may from the terrors of the wrath to come.

PEW. Now, I want this clear: Do I understand that you're going back on me, and you'll see me damned first?

GAUNT. Of me you shall have neither money nor strong drink: not a guinea to spend in riot; not a drop to fire your heart with devilry.

PEW. Cap'n, do you think it wise to quarrel with me? I put it to you now, Cap'n, fairly, as between man and man - do you think it wise?

GAUNT. I fear nothing. My feet are on the Rock. Begone! (HE OPENS THE BIBLE AND BEGINS TO READ.)

PEW (AFTER A PAUSE). Well, Cap'n, you know best, no doubt; and David Pew's about the last man, though I says it, to up and thwart an old Commander. You've been 'ard on David Pew, Cap'n: 'ard on the poor blind; but you'll live to regret it - ah, my Christian friend, you'll live to eat them words up. But there's no malice here: that ain't Pew's way; here's a sailor's hand upon it . . . . You don't say nothing? (GAUNT TURNS A PAGE.) Ah, reading, was you? Reading, by thunder! Well, here's my respecks (SINGING) -

'Time for us to go, Time for us to go, When the money's out, and the liquor's done, Why, it's time for us to go.

(HE GOES TAPPING UP TO DOOR, TURNS ON THE THRESHOLD, AND LISTENS. GAUNT TURNS A PAGE. PEW, WITH A GRIMACE, STRIKES HIS HAND UPON THE POCKET WITH THE KEYS, AND GOES.)

DROP. _

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