Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1898-05-05


There were nights when he took deal
more rum and water than his head
would carry; and then he would some
times sit and sing his wicked, old, wild
sea songs, minding nobody; but some
times he would call for glasses round.
and force all the trembling company to
listen to his stories or bear a chorus
to his singing. Often have heard the
house shaking with ..Yo-ho-ho, and
bottle of rum" all the neighbors join
ing in for dear life, with the fear of
death upon them, and each singing
louder than the other. to avoid remark.
For in these fits he was the most over
riding companion ever known; he
would slap his hand on the table for ST.
lence all round; he would fly up in pas
sion of anger at a question, or some
times because none was put and so he
judged the company was not following
his story. Nor would he allow anyone
to leave the inn till he had drunk him
self sleepy and reeled off to bed.
His stories were what frightened peo-
PIE worst of all Dreadful stories they
were; about hanging, and walking the
plank, and storms at sea, and the Dry
Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on
the Spanish main. By his own account,
he must have lived his life among some
of the wickedest men that God ever al
lowed upon the sea; and the language
in which he told these stories shocked
our plain country people almost as
much as the crimes that he described.
My father was always saying the inn
would be ruined, for people would soon
Is Il zal
over and put down, and sent shivering
to their beds; but I really believe his
presence did US good. People were
frightened at the time, but on looking
back they rather liked it; it was a fine
excitement in quiet country life; and
there was even a party of the younger
men who pretended to admire him, call
ing him "true sea-dog," and a ''real
old SALT" and such like names, and say
ing there was the sort of man that
made England terrible at sea.
In one way, indeed, he babe fair to
ruin US; for he kept on staying week
after week, and at last month after
month, so that all the money had been
long exhausted, and still my father
never plucl1ed up the heart to insist on
having more. If ever HE mentioned it,
the captain blew through his nose so
loudly that you might say he roared,
and stared my poor father out of the
room. I have seen him wringing his
hands after such a rebuff, and am sure
the annoyance and the terror he lived
in must have greatly hastened his early
and unhappy death.
All the time he lived with us the cap
tain made no change whatever in his
dress but to buy some stockings from
a hawker. One of the cocks of his hat
having fallen down, he let it hang from
that day forth, though it was a great
annoyance when it blew. remember
the appearance of his coat, which he
patched himself upstairs in his room,
and which, before the end, was nothing
but patches. He never wrote or re-
ceived letter, and he never spoke with
any but the neighbors, and with these,
for the most part, only when drunk on
rum. The great sea-chest none of US
had ever seen open.
He was only once crossed, and that was
toward the end, when my poor father
was far gone in decline that took him
off. DIR. Livesey came late one after
noon to see the patient, took bit of
dinner from my mother, and went into
the parlor to smoke pipe until his
horse should come down from the ham,
let, for we had no stabling at the old
Benbow. I followed him in, and / re-
member observing the contrast the
neat, bright doctor, with his powder as
white as snow, and his bright, black
eyes and pleasant manners, made with
the coltish country folk, and, above all
with that filthy, heavy, bleared scare
| crow of pirate of ours, sitting far gone
| in rum, with his arms on the table. Sud
denly he-the captain, that is-began
, to pipe up his eternal song:
| Fifteen men on the dead mans chest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle OF ruml
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo-ho-ho. and bottle of rumi'
At first I had supposed "the dead
mans chest" to be that identical big
box of his upstairs in the front room
and the thought had been mingled in
my nightmares with that of the one
legged seafaring man. But by this time
we had all long ceased to pay any par
ticular notice to the song; it was new
that night, to- nebedy but DR.. Liyesey
and on him observed that it did not
produce an agreeable effect, for he
looked up for moment quite angrily
before he went on with his talk to ole
Taylor, the gardener, on anew cure fo1
rheumatics. In the meantime the cap
tain gradually frightened up at his
own music, and at last Tapped his hand
upon the table before him in a way we
all knew to mean-silence. The voices
| stopped at once, all but DIR. Livesey's;
he went on as before. speaking clear
and kind, and drawing briskly at hi,
fpipe between every word or two. Tbs
lcaptain glared at him for awhile
tapped his hand again, glared still