Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1923-09-28
PART I
The Old Buccaneer
CHAPTER 1
The Old Sea-Dog at the Admiral
Benbow

whole particulars about Treasure
Island, from the beginning to the
end, keeping nothing 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 IT, and go back to the
time when my father kept the Adj
miral Benbow Inn and the brown
old seaman, with the saber-cut, first
took up his lodging under our roof.
remember him as if it were yes
terday, as he came plodding to the
inn door, his sea-chest following be-
strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his
tarry pigtail falling over the shout
ders of his soiled blue coat; his
hands ragged and SCARED, with black,
broken nails, and the saber-cut across
one cheek, a dirty, livid white. 1
remember him looking round the
cove and whistling to himself as he
did so, and then breaking out in that
old sea-song that he sung so often
afterward:
Fifteen men on the dead mans
chest,
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!"
in the high, old tottering voice that
seemed to have been tuned and
broken at the capstain bars. Then
he raped on the door with bit of
stick like a handspike that he car
ried, and when my father appeared,
called roughly for a glass of rum.
This, when it was brought to him,
he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, |
lingering on the taste, and still look
ing about him at the cliffs and up
at our signboard.
''This is a handy cove" said he,
at length; "and a pleasant sittyated
grog-shop. Much company, mater?
My father told him no, very little
company, the more was the pity.
"Well, them" said he, this is the
uGIlu lOI lLlC.I IlClS gOuJ l1dlCJg
cried to the man who trundled the
BARROW, bring up alongside and help
up my chest. I'll stay Bit" he
continued. "I'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, 1 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" said he, looking as fierce +
as a commander.
And, indeed, bad as his clothes
were, and coarsely as he spoke, he
had none of the appearance of
man who sailed before the mast, but
seemed like a mate or skipper, ac-
customed to be obeyed or to strike.
The man who came with the barrow c
told us the mail had set him down
he morning before at the Royal
George; that he had inquired what q
ms there were along the coast, and
hearing ours well spoken of, 1 sup
pose, and described as lonely, had
chosen it from the others for his {
,lace of residence. And that was '
Ill we could learn of our guest. q
He was a very silent man by Gus b
ON. All day he hung round the n
owe, or upon the cliffs, with a brass b
all evening he sat in e
orner of the parlor next to the fire, b
md drank rum and water very y
trong. Mostly he would not speak n
yhen spoken to; only look up sud h
en- and fierce, and blow through his a
ose like a fog-horn; and we and the Il
eople who came about our house II
DON learned to let him be. Every e
ay, when he came back from his
troll, he would ask if any seafaring Ct
len had gone by along the road. At II
rst we thought it was the want of Il
Dmpany of his own kind that made CT
i'm ask this question; but at last n
'e began to see he was DESTROYS to u
void them. When a seaman put up W
t the Admiral Benbow (as now and p
Zen some did, making by the coast pi
BAD for BRISTOL, he would look at al
inn through the curtained door be- II
IRE he entered the parlor; and he OF
as always sure to be as silent as a 81
ouse when any such was present. al
or me, at least, there was no secret ly
bout the matter; for 1 was, in a Sc
ay, a sharer in his alarms. OF
He had taken me aside one day
nd promised me silver fourpenny w
D the first of every month If would ia
lly keep my weather eye open for tn
seafaring man with one Leg" and ca
/ him know the moment he ap-l pa
sSred. Often enough, when the m