Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson (best ebook reader txt) 📗

annoyingly slow; but time cured that. It was

the crew that troubled me.

I wished a round score of men—in case of

natives, buccaneers, or the odious French—and I

had the worry of the deuce itself to find so much

as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke

of fortune brought me the very man that I

required.

I was standing on the dock, when, by the

merest accident, I fell in talk with him. I found

he was an old sailor, kept a public-house, knew

all the seafaring men in Bristol, had lost his

health ashore, and wanted a good berth as cook to

get to sea again. He had hobbled down there that

morning, he said, to get a smell of the salt.

I was monstrously touched—so would you have

been—and, out of pure pity, I engaged him on the

spot to be ship’s cook. Long John Silver, he is

called, and has lost a leg; but that I regarded as

a recommendation, since he lost it in his

country’s service, under the immortal Hawke. He

has no pension, Livesey. Imagine the abominable

age we live in!

Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook,

but it was a crew I had discovered. Between

Silver and myself we got together in a few days a

company of the toughest old salts imaginable—not

pretty to look at, but fellows, by their faces, of

the most indomitable spirit. I declare we could

fight a frigate.

Long John even got rid of two out of the six

or seven I had already engaged. He showed me in a

moment that they were just the sort of fresh-water

swabs we had to fear in an adventure of

importance.

I am in the most magnificent health and

spirits, eating like a bull, sleeping like a tree,

yet I shall not enjoy a moment till I hear my old

tarpaulins tramping round the capstan. Seaward,

ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the glory of the sea

that has turned my head. So now, Livesey, come

post; do not lose an hour, if you respect me.

Let young Hawkins go at once to see his

mother, with Redruth for a guard; and then both

come full speed to Bristol.

John Trelawney

 

Postscript—I did not tell you that Blandly,

who, by the way, is to send a consort after us if

we don’t turn up by the end of August, had found

an admirable fellow for sailing master—a stiff

man, which I regret, but in all other respects a

treasure. Long John Silver unearthed a very

competent man for a mate, a man named Arrow. I

have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey; so things

shall go man-o’-war fashion on board the good ship

HISPANIOLA.

I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man of

substance; I know of my own knowledge that he has

a banker’s account, which has never been

overdrawn. He leaves his wife to manage the inn;

and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old

bachelors like you and I may be excused for

guessing that it is the wife, quite as much as the

health, that sends him back to roving.

J. T.

 

P.P.S.—Hawkins may stay one night with his

mother.

J. T.

 

You can fancy the excitement into which that letter put

me. I was half beside myself with glee; and if ever I

despised a man, it was old Tom Redruth, who could do

nothing but grumble and lament. Any of the under-gamekeepers would gladly have changed places with him;

but such was not the squire’s pleasure, and the squire’s

pleasure was like law among them all. Nobody but old

Redruth would have dared so much as even to grumble.

 

The next morning he and I set out on foot for the

Admiral Benbow, and there I found my mother in good

health and spirits. The captain, who had so long been

a cause of so much discomfort, was gone where the

wicked cease from troubling. The squire had had

everything repaired, and the public rooms and the sign

repainted, and had added some furniture—above all a

beautiful armchair for mother in the bar. He had found

her a boy as an apprentice also so that she should not

want help while I was gone.

 

It was on seeing that boy that I understood, for the

first time, my situation. I had thought up to that

moment of the adventures before me, not at all of the

home that I was leaving; and now, at sight of this clumsy

stranger, who was to stay here in my place beside my

mother, I had my first attack of tears. I am afraid I

led that boy a dog’s life, for as he was new to the work,

I had a hundred opportunities of setting him right and

putting him down, and I was not slow to profit by them.

 

The night passed, and the next day, after dinner,

Redruth and I were afoot again and on the road. I said

good-bye to Mother and the cove where I had lived since

I was born, and the dear old Admiral Benbow—since he

was repainted, no longer quite so dear. One of my last

thoughts was of the captain, who had so often strode

along the beach with his cocked hat, his sabre-cut

cheek, and his old brass telescope. Next moment we had

turned the corner and my home was out of sight.

 

The mail picked us up about dusk at the Royal George on

the heath. I was wedged in between Redruth and a stout

old gentleman, and in spite of the swift motion and the

cold night air, I must have dozed a great deal from the

very first, and then slept like a log up hill and down

dale through stage after stage, for when I was awakened

at last it was by a punch in the ribs, and I opened my

eyes to find that we were standing still before a large

building in a city street and that the day had already

broken a long time.

 

“Where are we?” I asked.

 

“Bristol,” said Tom. “Get down.”

 

Mr. Trelawney had taken up his residence at an inn far

down the docks to superintend the work upon the

schooner. Thither we had now to walk, and our way, to

my great delight, lay along the quays and beside the

great multitude of ships of all sizes and rigs and

nations. In one, sailors were singing at their work,

in another there were men aloft, high over my head,

hanging to threads that seemed no thicker than a

spider’s. Though I had lived by the shore all my life,

I seemed never to have been near the sea till then.

The smell of tar and salt was something new. I saw the

most wonderful figureheads, that had all been far over

the ocean. I saw, besides, many old sailors, with

rings in their ears, and whiskers curled in ringlets,

and tarry pigtails, and their swaggering, clumsy sea-walk; and if I had seen as many kings or archbishops I

could not have been more delighted.

 

And I was going to sea myself, to sea in a schooner, with

a piping boatswain and pigtailed singing seamen, to sea,

bound for an unknown island, and to seek for buried treasure!

 

While I was still in this delightful dream, we came

suddenly in front of a large inn and met Squire

Trelawney, all dressed out like a sea-officer, in stout

blue cloth, coming out of the door with a smile on his

face and a capital imitation of a sailor’s walk.

 

“Here you are,” he cried, “and the doctor came last night

from London. Bravo! The ship’s company complete!”

 

“Oh, sir,” cried I, “when do we sail?”

 

“Sail!” says he. “We sail tomorrow!”

 

8

 

At the Sign of the Spy-glass

 

WHEN I had done breakfasting the squire gave me a note

addressed to John Silver, at the sign of the Spy-glass,

and told me I should easily find the place by following

the line of the docks and keeping a bright lookout for a

little tavern with a large brass telescope for sign. I set

off, overjoyed at this opportunity to see some more of the

ships and seamen, and picked my way among a great crowd of

people and carts and bales, for the dock was now at its

busiest, until I found the tavern in question.

 

It was a bright enough little place of entertainment.

The sign was newly painted; the windows had neat red

curtains; the floor was cleanly sanded. There was a

street on each side and an open door on both, which

made the large, low room pretty clear to see in, in

spite of clouds of tobacco smoke.

 

The customers were mostly seafaring men, and they talked

so loudly that I hung at the door, almost afraid to enter.

 

As I was waiting, a man came out of a side room, and at

a glance I was sure he must be Long John. His left leg

was cut off close by the hip, and under the left

shoulder he carried a crutch, which he managed with

wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it like a bird.

He was very tall and strong, with a face as big as a

ham—plain and pale, but intelligent and smiling.

Indeed, he seemed in the most cheerful spirits,

whistling as he moved about among the tables, with a

merry word or a slap on the shoulder for the more

favoured of his guests.

 

Now, to tell you the truth, from the very first mention

of Long John in Squire Trelawney’s letter I had taken a

fear in my mind that he might prove to be the very one-legged sailor whom I had watched for so long at the old

Benbow. But one look at the man before me was enough.

I had seen the captain, and Black Dog, and the blind

man, Pew, and I thought I knew what a buccaneer was

like—a very different creature, according to me, from

this clean and pleasant-tempered landlord.

 

I plucked up courage at once, crossed the threshold,

and walked right up to the man where he stood, propped

on his crutch, talking to a customer.

 

“Mr. Silver, sir?” I asked, holding out the note.

 

“Yes, my lad,” said he; “such is my name, to be sure. And

who may you be?” And then as he saw the squire’s letter,

he seemed to me to give something almost like a start.

 

“Oh!” said he, quite loud, and offering his hand. “I

see. You are our new cabin-boy; pleased I am to see you.”

 

And he took my hand in his large firm grasp.

 

Just then one of the customers at the far side rose

suddenly and made for the door. It was close by him,

and he was out in the street in a moment. But his

hurry had attracted my notice, and I recognized him at

glance. It was the tallow-faced man, wanting two

fingers, who had come first to the Admiral Benbow.

 

“Oh,” I cried, “stop him! It’s Black Dog!”

 

“I don’t care two coppers who he is,” cried Silver. “But

he hasn’t paid his score. Harry, run and catch him.”

 

One of the others who was nearest the door leaped up

and started in pursuit.

 

“If he were Admiral Hawke he shall pay his score,”

cried Silver; and then, relinquishing my hand, “Who did

you say he was?” he asked. “Black what?”

 

“Dog, sir,” said I. Has Mr. Trelawney not told you of

the buccaneers? He was one of them.”

 

“So?” cried Silver. “In my house! Ben, run and help

Harry. One of those