Condensed Novels: New Burlesques Part 7

But this I do know, that, having some conceit of a shipman's ways and of pirates, I did conceive at this time a pretty song for my comradoes, whereof the words ran thus:--

Yo ho! when the Dog Watch bayeth loud In the light of a mid-sea moon!

And the Dead Eyes glare in the stiffening Shroud, For that is the Pirate's noon!

When the Night Mayres sit on the Dead Man's Chest Where no manne's breath may come-- Then hey for a bottle of Rum! Rum! Rum!

And a pa.s.sage to Kingdom come!

I take no credit to myself for the same, except so far as it may shew a touch of my Lord of Southampton's manner--we being intimate--but this I know, that it was much acclaimed by the crew. Indeed they, observing that the Captain was of a cruel nature, would fain kill him and put me in his stead, but I, objecting to the shedding of precious blood in such behoof, did prevent such a lamentable and inhuman action by stealthily throwing him by night from his cabbin window into the sea--where, owing to the inconceivable distance of the ship from sh.o.r.e, he was presently drowned. Which untoward fate had a great effect upon my fortunes, since, burthening myself with his goods and effects, I found in his chest a printed proclamation from an aged and infirm clergyman in the West of England covenanting that, for the sum of two crowns, he would send to whoso offered, the chart of an island of great treasure in the Spanish Main, whereof he had had confession from the lips of a dying parishioner, and the amount gained thereby he would use for the restoration of his parish church. Now I, reading this, was struck by a great remorse and admiration for our late Captain, for that it would seem that he was, like myself, a staunch upholder of the Protestant Faith and the Church thereof, as did appear by his possession of the chart, for which he had no doubt paid the two good crowns. As an act of penance I resolved upon finding the same island by the aid of the chart, and to that purpose sailed East many days, and South, and North, and West as many other days--the manner whereof and the lat.i.tude and longitude of which I shall not burden the reader with, holding it, as a plain, blunt man, mere padding and impertinence to fill out my narrative, which helpeth not the general reader. So, I say, when we sighted the Island, which seemed to be swarming with savages, I ordered the masts to be stripped, save but for a single sail which hung sadly and distractedly, and otherwise put the ship into the likeness of a forlorn wreck, clapping the men, save one or two, under hatches. This I did to prevent the shedding of precious blood, knowing full well that the ignorant savages, believing the ship in sore distress, would swim off to her with provisions and fruit, bearing no arms. Which they did, while we, as fast as they clomb the sides, despatched them at leisure, without unseemly outcry or alarms. Having thus disposed of the most adventurous, we landed and took possession of the island, finding thereon many kegs of carbuncles and rubies and pieces of eight--the treasure store of those lawless pirates who infest the seas, having no colour of war or teaching of civilisation to atone for their horrid deeds.

I discovered also, by an omission in the chart, that this was not the Island wot of by the good and aged Devonshire divine--and so we eased our consciences of accounting for the treasure to him. We then sailed away, arriving after many years' absence at the Port of Bristol in Merrie England, where I took leave of the "Jolly Roger," that being the name of my ship; it was a strange conceit of seamen in after years ever to call the device of my FLAG--to wit, a skull and bones made in the sign of a Cross--by the NAME my ship bore, and if I have only corrected the misuse of history by lying knaves, I shall be content with this writing. But alas! such are the uncertainties of time; I found my good Lord of Southampton dead and most of his friends beheaded, and the blessed King James of Scotland--if I mistake not, for these also be the uncertainties of time--on the throne. In due time I married Mistress Marian Straitways. I might have told more of trifling, and how she fared, poor wench! in mine absence, even to the following of me in another ship, in a shipboy's disguise, and how I rescued her from a scheming Pagan villain; but, as a plain, blunt man, I am no hand at the weaving of puling love tales and such trifling diversions for lovesick mayds and their puny gallants--having only consideration for men and their deeds, which I have here set down bluntly and even at mine advanced years am ready to maintain with the hand that set it down.

DAN'L BOREM

BY E. N---S W--T---T

I

Dan'l Borem poured half of his second cup of tea abstractedly into his lap.

"Guess you've got suthin' on yer mind, Dan'l," said his sister.

"Mor'n likely I've got suthin' on my pants," returned Dan'l with that exquisitely dry, though somewhat protracted humor which at once thrilled and bored his acquaintances. "But--speakin' o' that hoss trade"--

"For goodness' sake, don't!" interrupted his sister wearily; "yer allus doin' it. Jest tell me about that young man--the new clerk ye think o'

gettin'."

"Well, I telegraphed him to come over, arter I got this letter from him," he returned, handing her a letter. "Read it out loud."

But his sister, having an experienced horror of prolixity, glanced over it. "Far as I kin see he takes mor'n two hundred words to say you've got to take him on trust, and sez it suthin' in a style betwixt a business circular and them Polite Letter Writers. I thought you allowed he was a tony feller."

"Ef he does not brag much, ye see, I kin offer him small wages," said Dan'l, with a wink. "It's kinder takin' him at his own figger."

"And THAT mightn't pay! But ye don't think o' bringin' him HERE in this house? 'Cept you're thinkin' o' tellin' him that yarn o' yours about the hoss trade to beguile the winter evenings. I told ye ye'd hev to pay yet to get folks to listen to it."

"Wrong agin--ez you'll see! Wot ef I get a hundred thousand folks to pay me for tellin' it? But, speakin' o' this young feller, I calkilated to send him to the Turkey Buzzard Hotel;" and he looked at his sister with a shrewd yet humorous smile.

"What!" said his sister in alarm. "The Turkey Buzzard! Why, he'll be starved or pizoned! He won't stay there a week."

"Ef he's pizoned to death he won't be able to demand any wages; ef he leaves because he can't stand it--it's proof positive he couldn't stand me. Ef he's only starved and made weak and miserable he'll be easy to make terms with. It may seem hard what I'm sayin', but what seems hard on the other feller always comes mighty easy to you. The thing is NOT to be the 'other feller.' Ye ain't listenin'. Yet these remarks is shrewd and humorous, and hez bin thought so by literary fellers."

"H'm!" said his sister. "What's that ye was jest sayin' about folks bein' willin' to pay ye for tellin' that hoss trade yarn o' yours?"

"Thet's only what one o' them smart New York publishers allowed it was worth arter hearin' me tell it," said Dan'l dryly.

"Go way! You or him must be crazy. Why, it ain't ez good as that story 'bout a man who had a balky hoss that could be made to go only by buildin' a fire under him, and arter the man sells that hoss and the secret, and the man wot bought him tries it on, the blamed hoss lies down over the fire, and puts it out."

"I've allus allowed that the story ye hev to tell yourself is a blamed sight funnier than the one ye're listenin' to," said Dan'l. "Put that down among my sayin's, will ye?"

"But your story was never anythin' more than one o' them snippy things ye see in the papers, drored out to no end by you. It's only one o'

them funny paragraphs ye kin read in a minit in the papers that takes YOU an hour to tell."

To her surprise Dan'l only looked at his sister with complacency.

"That," he said, "is jest what the New York publisher sez. 'The 'Merrikan people,' sez he, 'is ashamed o' bein' short and peart and funny; it lacks dignity,' sez he; 'it looks funny,' sez he, 'but it ain't deep-seated nash'nul literature,' sez he. 'Them snips o' funny stories and short dialogues in the comic papers--they make ye laff,'

sez he, 'but laffin' isn't no sign o' deep morril purpose,' sez he, 'and it ain't genteel and refined. Abraham Linkin with his pat anecdotes ruined our standin' with dignified nashuns,' sez he. 'We cultivated publishers is sick o' hearin' furrin' nashuns roarin' over funny 'Merrikan stories; we're goin' to show 'em that, even ef we haven't cla.s.ses and t.i.tles and sich, we kin be dull. We're workin' the historical racket for all that it's worth,--ef we can't go back mor'n a hundred years or so, we kin rake in a Lord and a Lady when we do, and we're gettin' in some ole-fashioned spellin' and "methinkses" and "peradventures." We're doin' the religious bizness ez slick ez Robert Elsmere, and we find lots o' soul in folks--and heaps o quaint morril characters,' sez he."

"Sakes alive, Dan'l!" broke in his sister; "what's all that got to do with your yarn 'bout the hoss trade?"

"Everythin'," returned Dan'l. "'For,' sez he, 'Mr. Borem,' sez he, 'you're a quaint morril character. You've got protracted humor,' sez he. 'You've bin an hour tellin' that yarn o' yours! Ef ye could spin it out to fill two chapters of a book--yer fortune's made! For you'll show that a successful hoss trade involves the highest nash'nul characteristics. That what common folk calls "selfishness," "revenge,"

"mean lyin'," and "low-down money-grubbin' ambishun" is really "quaintness," and will go in double harness with the bizness of a Christian banker,' sez he."

"Created goodness, Dan'l! You're designin' ter"--

Dan'l Borem rose, coughed, expectorated carefully at the usual spot in the fender, his general custom of indicating the conclusion of a subject or an interview, and said dryly: "I'm thar!"

II

To return to the writer of the letter, whose career was momentarily cut off by the episode of the horse trade (who, if he had previously received a letter written by somebody else would have been an entirely different person and not in this novel at all): John Lummox--known to his family as "the perfect Lummox"--had been two years in college, but thought it rather fine of himself--a habit of thought in which he frequently indulged--to become a clerk, but finally got tired of it, and to his father's relief went to Europe for a couple of years, returning with some knowledge of French and German, and the cutting end of a German student's blunted dueling sword. Having, as he felt, thus equipped himself for the hero of an American "Good Society" novel, he went on board a "liner," where there would naturally be susceptible young ladies. One he thought he recognized as a girl with whom he used to play "forfeits" in the vulgar past of his boyhood. She sat at his table, accompanied by another lady whose husband seemed to be a confirmed dyspeptic. His remarks struck Lummox as peculiar.

"Shall I begin dinner with pudding and cheese or take the ordinary soup first? I quite forget which I did last night," he said anxiously to his wife.

But Mrs. Starling hesitated.

"Tell me, Mary," he said, appealing to Miss Bike, the young lady.

"I should begin with the pudding," said Miss Bike decisively, "and between that and the arrival of the cheese you can make up your mind, and then, if you think better, go back to the soup."

"Thank you so much. Now, as to drink? Shall I take the Friedrichshalle first or the Benedictine? You know the doctor insists upon the Friedrichshalle, but I don't think I did well to mix them as I did yesterday. Or shall I take simply milk and beer?"

"I should say simplicity was best. Besides, you can always fill up with champagne later."

How splendidly this clear-headed, clear-eyed girl dominated the man!

Lummox felt that REALLY he might renew her acquaintance! He did so.

"I remembered you," she said. "You've not changed a bit since you were eight years old."

John, wishing to change the subject, said that he thought Mr. Starling seemed an uncertain man.

"Very! He's even now in his stateroom sitting in his pyjamas with a rubber shoe on one foot and a pump on the other, wondering whether he ought to put on golf knickerbockers with a dressing-gown and straw hat before he comes on deck. He has already put on and taken off about twenty suits."

"He certainly is very trying," returned Lummox. He paused and colored deeply. "I beg," he stammered, "I hope--you don't think me guilty of a pun! When I said 'trying' I referred entirely to the effect on your sensitiveness of these tentative attempts toward clothing himself."

"I should never accuse YOU of levity, Mr. Lummox," said the young lady, gazing thoughtfully upon his calm but somewhat heavy features,--"never."

Yet he would have liked to reclaim himself by a show of lightness. He was leaning on the rail looking at the sea. The scene was beautiful.