Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson (good books to read for teens .txt) 📗
- Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
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So the weeks passed on, till one fine day there came a letter addressed to Doctor Livesey, with this addition, “To be opened in the case of his absence, by Tom Redruth or Young Hawkins.” Obeying this order, we found, or rather I found—for the gamekeeper was a poor hand at reading anything but print—the following important news:
“Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March 1, 17—.
“Dear Livesey: As I do not know whether you are at the Hall or still in London, I send this in double to both places.
“The ship is bought and fitted. She lies at anchor, ready for sea. You never imagined a sweeter schooner—a child might sail her—two hundred tons; name, Hispaniola.
“I got her through my old friend, Blandly, who has proved himself throughout the most surprising trump. The admirable fellow literally slaved in my interest, and so, I may say, did everyone in Bristol, as soon as they got wind of the port we sailed for—treasure, I mean.”
“Redruth,” said I, interrupting the letter, “Doctor Livesey will not like that. The squire has been talking, after all.”
“Well, who’s a better right?” growled the gamekeeper. “A pretty rum go if Squire ain’t to talk for Doctor Livesey, I should think.”
At that I gave up all attempt at commentary, and read straight on:
“Blandly himself found the Hispaniola, and by the most admirable management got her for the merest trifle. There is a class of men in Bristol monstrously prejudiced against Blandly. They go the length of declaring that this honest creature would do anything for money; that the Hispaniola belonged to him, and that he sold to me absurdly high—the most transparent calumnies. None of them dare, however, to deny the merits of the ship.
“So far there was not a hitch. The workpeople, to be sure—riggers and whatnot—were most 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 freshwater 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.
“P.S.—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 color, 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
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