Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1902-01-30
PART 1.
THE OLD BUCCANEER.
CHAPTER i.


Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey and
the rest of these gentlemen having
asked me to write down the whole
particulars about Treasure Island. from
the beginning to the end keeping moth
ing back but the bearings of the ISL
and, and that only because there is
still treasure not vet lifted l 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.
1 remember him as if ii We're yester-
day, as he came plodding to the inn
door, his sea chest following behind
him in hand-barrow; tall, strong,
heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pig
tail falling over the shoulders of his
soied blue coat his hands ragged and
Scared, With black, broken nails, and
the saber Cut across one cheek, dirty,
livid White. l remember him looking
| round the cove and whisting 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 a bottle of rum.'
in the hight, old tottering voice that
seemed to have been tuned and broken
at the capstan bars. Then he raped
sli lile uCOE WITH IL Dlt vi sstlSh IIht u
handspike that he carried, and when.
my father appeared called roughly for
q glass of rum. This, when it was
brought to him. he drank slowly, like Il
connoisseur. lingering on the taste,
| and still looking about him at the
cliffs and up at our sgnhoard.
This is handy cove says he, at
length; and a pleasant sittyated
grog-shop. Much company, mate2''
| 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, matay,' he
cried to the man Who trundlcd the bar
row; bring up alongside and hep mp
my chest. III stay here a bit, he CON
tinucd. I'm Il plain man; rum and
bacon and eggs is what ] want, and
that head up there for to watch ships
Off What you lnought call me2 You
mought call me captain. Oh see
what you're at--thore;n 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 commander.
And, indeed, bad as his clothes We're
and coarsely as he spoke, he had none
of the appearance of man who sailed
4 before the mast; but seemed like n
mate or 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 We're along the
coast, and hearing ours we'll spoken of,
| I 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 around the cove, or
/ sf.1i "a "a
all evening he sat in a corner of the
paror 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 feg 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 IL any saafnr-
Ing men had gone along by 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 be
gan to see he was DESTROYS to avoid
them. When q seaman put up at the
Admiral Penbow Gas now and then
\ some did making by the coast road
for B1isto) he would look at him
through the curtained door before he
entered the parlor; and he was always
sure to be as silent as a mouse when
any such Was present. For me, at least
there was no secret about the matter;
for l was, in a way, a sharer of his
alarms.
He had taken me aside one day, and
Ipromised me a silver fourpenny on the
first of every month If | would only
keep my ''weather-eye open for sea-
faiing man with one leg" and let him
know the moment he appeared. Often
enough, when the first of the month
\ l,oon Il tn, 1,i f,,
my wage, he would only blow through
his nose at me, and stare me down, hut
| before the week was out he was sure tC
think better of 1T, bring me my four
penny piece, and repeat his orders tr
look out for the seafaring man with
one leg"
How that parsonage haunted my
dreams, need scarcely tell you. ON
stormy nights, when the wind SHOOT.
the four corners of the house, and the
surf roared along the cove and up tho
cliffs, l would see him in thousand
forms, and With a thousand diabolical
expressions. Now the leg would he cui
off at the knee, now at the hip; now he
was a monStrouS kind of Il creature
who had never had but tie one leg
and that in the middle of his body. II
see him leap and run and pursue Inc
4 over hedge and ditch, was the worst OF
nightmares. And altogether paiG
pretty dear for my monthly fourpenny
piece in the shape of these abonlinable
fancies.
But though / was so terrified by the
idea of the seafaring man with one leg
l was far less afraid of the captain
himself than anybody else who knew
him. There We're nights when he tool
a deal more rum and water than his
head would carry; and then he woulC
sometimes sit and sing his wicked, old
t,.ty a l..
sometimes he would call for glasses
round, and force all the trembling com.
pany to listen to his stories or bear {;
chorus TO his singing. Often ! have
heard the house shaking with .Yo-ho-
no. and a bottle of rum, all the neigh
bors Joining in for dear life, with the
fear of death upon them, and each
singing louder than the other, to avot
remark. For in these fits he was the
most overriding companion ever
known; he would slap his hand on tho
table for silence all round; he wouit
fly up in a passion of anger at a ques-
ton, or sometimes because none was
put and so he judged the company wos
not following his story. Nor would he
allow any one to leave the inn till h
had drunk himself sleepy and reeiet
off to bed.
His stories We're what frightened
people worst of all. Dreadful stolie.
they We're; about hanging, and walk
ing the plank, and storms at sea, anC
the Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds an,
places on the Spanish main. BY biz
own account. he must have lived hi.
life among some of the wickedest mel
God ever allowed upon the sea; ant
the language in which he told thcs'
stories shocked our plain country peo
pie almost as much as the crimes tina
he described. My father was alway.
saying that the inn would be ruined
for people would soon cease comm;
there to be tyrannized over and pu