Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1898-06-23
CHAPTER I.
THE OLD SEA-DOG AT THE ADMIRAL
BENBOW.
PART 1.
THE OLD BUCCANEER.

"A
BENBOW.
Squire Trelawney, DR.. Livesey and
the rest of these gentlemen having
asked me to write down the whole par
ticulars about Treasure Island, from
the beginning to the end, keeping moth
ing back but the bearings of the island.
and that only because there is still
treasure not yet lifted, | take up my
pen in the year of grace II, and go
back to the time when my father kept
the Admiral Benbow Inn, and the
brown old seaman, with the saber cut,
first took up his lodgings under our
roof.
I remember him as if it was yester-
day, as he came plodding to the inn
door, his sea chest following behind
him in a handbarrow; tall, strong
heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pig
tail falling over the shoulders of his
soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and
scared, with black, broken nails, and
the saber cut across one cheek, dirty,
livid white. | remember him looking
round the cove and whistling to him
self as he did SO, and then breaking out
in that old sea song that he sung so
often afterwards:
Fifteen men on the dead mans chest
Yo-ho-ho, and bottle of rum!"
In the high, old tottering voice that
seemed to have been tuned and broken
at the capstan bars. Then he raped
on the door with bit of of stick like
handspike that he carried, and when
my father appeared called roughly for
a glass of rum. This, when it was
brought to him, he drank slowly, like
connoisseur, lingering on the taste,
and still looking about him at the cliffs
and up at our signboard.
'This is a handy cove" says he, at
length; land a pleasant sittyated
grog-shop. Much company, mate"
MY father told him no, very little
company, the more was the pity.
"Well, then," said he, this is the
berth for me. Here you, matey," he
cried to the man who trundled the bar
row; bring up alongside and help up
my chest. I'll stay here bit," he con-
tinued. eI'm a plain man; rum and
bacon and eggs is what 1 want, and
that head up there for to watch ships
off. What you mought call me? You
mought call me captain. Oh, I see
what you're at-there;" and he threw
down three or four gold pieces on the
threshold. "You can tell me when I've
worked through that" says he, looking
as fierce as a commander.
And, indeed, bad as his clothes were,
and coarsely as he spoke, he had none
of the appearances of man who sailed
L. Ln l,,t 4,
mate CT skipper, accustomed to be
obeyed or to strike. The man who
came with the barrow told us the mail
had set him down the morning before
at the Royal George; that he had in
quired what inns there were along the
coast, and hearing ours well spoken of,
suppose, and described as lonely, had
chosen it from the others for his place
of residence. And that was all we
could learn of our guest.
He was very silent man by custom.
All day he hung round the cove, or up
on the cliffs, with a brass telescope;
all evening he sat in a corner of the par
Ior next the fire, and drank rum and
water very strong. Mostly he would
not speak when spoken to; only look
up suddenly and fierce, and blow
through his nose like fog-horn; and
we and the people who came about our
house soon learned to let him be.
Every day, when he came back from
his stroll, he would ask if any seafaring
men had gone by along the road? AT
first we thought it was the want of
company of his kind that made him
ask this question; but at last we began
to see he was desirous to avoid
them. When seaman put up at the
Admiral Benbow (as now and
then some did, making by the coast
road for BristoD, he would look at him
through the curtained door before he
entered the parlor; and he was always
sure to be as silent as mouse when
any such was present. For me, at
least, there was no secret about the
matter; for was, in q way, a sharer in
his alarms.
He had taken me aside one day, and
promised me a silver fourpenny on the
first of every month if l would only
keep my "weather-eye open for sea-
faring man with one leg" and let him
know the moment he appeared. Often
enough, when the first of the month
came round, and l applied to him for
my wage, he would only blow through
his nose at me, and stare me down, but
before the week was out he was sure to
think better of it, bring me my four
penny piece, and repeat his orders to
look out for "the seafaring man with
one leg"
How that parsonage haunted my
dreams, 1 need scarcely tell you. On
stormy nights, when the wind shook
che four corners of the house, and the
surf roared along the cove and up the
cliffs, 1 would see him in thousand
forms, and with a thousand diabolical
expressions. Now the leg would be cut
off at rhe knee, now at the hip; now he
was monstrous kind of a creature
whq had never had but the one leg,
and that in the middle of his body. To
see him leap and run and pursue me