The Life of a Celebrated Buccaneer Part 26

The doctor looked up from the work he was at and said, "Indeed, may I ask, my good sir, at what college you took your degree? Are you one of those narrow-minded bigots, who not being able to see beyond your own nose, which by the way seems to me to be an unusually long one, declare that all beyond is ignorance and folly? Pray, may I ask if you are h.o.m.oeopath, or allopath?"

The old c.o.xswain took no notice but creeping up to his master he whispered in his ear, "Master, master, have a care. This fellow is weaving a straight waistcoat for you, and G.o.d only knows, you are cramped enough as it is."

But the Buccaneer did not understand his old friend and so the quack continued his work, and presently said, addressing the c.o.xswain, "Well, my man, I will have nothing to do with you, and as you are likely to interfere with my treatment with your cut and dried notions, your room will be better than your company. Your master requires no fruit of the medlar kind."

"If your medicine," replied Jack, "is of the same kind as your joke, it won't kill with laughter if it does not cure, and there's comfort in that."

"Begone, thou dotard!" cried the quack, "and mumble your old wives'

sayings to old wives' ears." Thus was poor old Jack banished from his master's room. One of the accusations brought against the Buccaneer was that he turned his back upon his friends. About the truth of this it is not necessary to trouble; in such things, and indeed in many others that ill nature floats, there is generally sufficient to give a colouring.

One thing is certain, he now allowed a well-tried, and honest old servant, to be put on the wrong side of the door.

Like some faithful old dog, Jack hung about the place and often, and often tried to steal into his master's room, just to see how he was getting on. He swore he would be silent and not utter a word, but poor old Jack's reputation for silence was not great, and the quack doctor kept such an eye upon his patient that he could scarcely dare move, or speak, without his authority. The only consolation that old Jack had was to cry out in the hearing of everybody, "Well, damme! if this is liberty, give me the four iron-windowed stone walls of a prison for choice." But n.o.body seemed to heed him.

It was a sad sight to see this, at one time, daring old Buccaneer, so fettered and bound. Many a good fight had he fought for the sake of his freedom and after all it had only brought him to this. Evils, it is well known, never come alone, and misfortune after misfortune befell him, for one morning the merry round-faced sun rose with a broader smile than usual upon his jolly red face. It was found that Madam Liberty, of whom people had talked and prated so much, and made such a to-do about, toadying, and flattering her, on even the smallest occasion, had turned out to be no better than she should have been. The precise name by which she was known it is not necessary to mention. Women of her cla.s.s have at all times played conspicuous parts in the world's history; being even favoured of princes and other n.o.ble personages, while one even was made the consort of an emperor and sat upon an Eastern throne. But a greater surprise was still in store for people, for one morning they rose up to find that the modern Phryne had disappeared in a most mysterious manner and many believed that she had been made away with by her son, Demos.

This individual had now grown to great consideration in the Buccaneer's island, and under the patronage of the quack he had been made custodian of the household, and keeper of the old Buccaneer's honour; but the latter office under his care soon became a mere sinecure. In turn Demos became the master even of the quack, who had done so much to place him where he was; but is not the story of kicking away the ladder by which you have climbed, a very old one?

The uncrowned queen, Respectability, still held her sway, but her kingdom had become more confined, and she became a most prim, and exclusive sovereign. The great quack doctor treated her with the utmost consideration and politeness, and even Demos, who was for pulling down everything, tried to gain her over, but her majesty became extremely haughty and reserved, and would have little or nothing to do with him.

But now the sorrow of sorrows has to be told. It was a wild and stormy night. The rain swept over the island in blinding sheets. The wind howled amongst the rigging of the old Ship of State, and the wild waves dashed against the rock-bound coast, throwing up clouds of spray, and roaring like hungry monsters, eager to devour their prey. The old sign-board over the door of the Const.i.tution public-house laboured to and fro in the blast, and groaned every now and again as if in pain. The light from a feeble lamp shed its uncertain rays upon two forms lying side by side on the cold, damp earth, and the wind as it pa.s.sed them seemed to sing a funeral dirge to the Buccaneer's two best friends, the Beggar Woman, Patriotism, and the old c.o.xswain, Jack Commonsense.

The two of them had travelled side by side on the road to Misfortune; begging about from door to door, but they claimed neither pity nor sympathy, all people being much too busy with their own affairs to pay them any attention. At length they dragged their starved bodies to die in front of the old house they both loved so well. With the loss of these two the Buccaneer's days, it was believed, were numbered.

CHAPTER XLII.

Little is left to be told now. The sick man occasionally rallied, and he loved to dwell like most old men of every station in life, upon his past. He was also given to occasional fits of boasting, and when he did do anything he took good care to let all the world know it. "Did you see that!" he would cry out in an ecstasy of delight. "Did you see the mighty blow I struck? Never in my palmiest days did I do better. Hide, hide your diminished heads, ye Ramillies, Malplaquet, and Waterloo."

These famous battles he loved to talk about.

He also took a strange delight in showering upon all his people all kinds of honours or distinctions, and it was said that men were decorated for doing little or nothing. This was a symptom of decay.

Sometimes as he sat pillowed up in his invalid's chair, with the great quack doctor in attendance upon him, he would mumble to himself, "Aye, aye, I knew thee well. There was Wallop, he swept the seas. There was brave Howard, Hawkins, Frobisher, and the rest, and you, my little man!

No, no, I've not forgotten Trafalgar and the Nile. Don't you remember them all, Jack? Jack! Jack! where's my c.o.x'sn, he never used to play the truant," but Jack never answered to his call, and the old man wandered on. "Clack, clack go my windla.s.ses; yo! ho! cry my men. Heave in, my lads. Sheet home and hoist up, and bear away for the main."

The great quack smiled as he glanced his eyes up at the long row of shelves, with their burdens of remedies, all of which had been prescribed to meet some fresh complaint, and many a costly dose had been given, which only aggravated the disease; and of many of the others, all that could be said was, that if they did no good, they at least did no harm; but the straight waistcoat every day received some slight addition, which contracted still more the old Buccaneer's actions, until in time he could scarcely call his soul his own.

Thus did this great man pa.s.s his declining years. Ruled over by a tyrannical quack. Worried by his own children, to whom he had given every indulgence, at the recommendation of Madam Liberty, until it could with justice be said that they one and all combined to bring the old Buccaneer's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.

It is usual in all books, and it is even necessary before you close your pages to kill some of the characters, if not all. Sometimes they die a natural death, at others they are either blown up with gun-powder, or otherwise made away; either with the steel blade, or the leaden bullet of the a.s.sa.s.sin. The characters who have strutted for a brief s.p.a.ce upon the pages of this history must be allowed to die peacefully. The star of Dogvane, the king of the Ojabberaways, after resting for a short while over the green isle of his adoption, set forever in the Western Ocean.

His chief jester, the merry Pepper, the man of infinite wisdom and resource, also pa.s.sed away. Dogvane was never allowed to carry out his grand design of covering the naked population of the Soudan in home-made fabrics. Nor was the cook soothed in his last moments by seeing the object of his life accomplished, namely, the total abolition of the Buccaneer's Upper Chamber; consequently we cannot imagine that his end was peace.

It is a pity that Death is no respecter of persons; had he been, the gifted Pepper, would, no doubt, have been spared to amuse and enlighten the world. Of the other conspirators of the cook's caboose, after having served their allotted time, they also pa.s.sed away, and it is not recorded that Billy Cheeks, before he died, set fire to the waters of the river that flowed by the Buccaneer's chief city. The carpenter rose high in his master's household, and carried to his grave a goodly load of honour. Of the rest, let history tell what truth or what lies it likes, here no more will be recorded. It will be remembered that our bold Buccaneer was at one time sorely grieved because he only had one general. This seemed to prey so upon his mind in his last days, that he tried to make amends for his past neglect by making generals by the score, whether they were fitted for the position or not; nor did the Buccaneer stop here, for he gave military t.i.tles to nearly all his sons, in the hope, no doubt, that amongst the crowd there might be one military genius, or perhaps two.

But stranger things were yet in store for the world, and a graver symptom of decaying power had yet to manifest itself. It has been already said that no man ever did more to degrade n.o.ble distinctions and marks of honour than did this, at one time, celebrated Buccaneer, in his declining years. It is true that he had not sunk quite so low as one of his neighbours, who sold such things for a mere money consideration; but he had in his latter years gone some considerable way even in this direction, for he had made money a stepping-stone to preferment. The one who placed drunkenness within easy reach of his people, might reasonably expect to be made a peer. The successful oil-man, or grocer, who had made his five talents into ten, need not despair of earning the at one time honourable distinction of knighthood, while any one who served his party well, even if it were to the discredit of his country, was pretty certain to be enn.o.bled. The number of new creations was so great, that his heraldic officers were nearly worn-out with finding ancestors and pedigrees for all these great people, and it was wonderful what things their industry, and their ingenuity, brought to light. Frequently they followed the poet's art and gave "to airy nothing a local habitation and a name."

Had he promoted all his cooks to seats in the Council Chamber it would not have been so very extraordinary a thing, considering the part that cooks play in this world of ours. The Buccaneer now put a climax to his folly by one day making all his tinkers lords, and all his tailors knights. Whether this was done in a spirit of irony, or from a deep conviction that, as he had gone so far, he could not in justice draw any hard and fast line, will never be known. He was without doubt the best tinker the world had ever seen, and he had a very large show of tinkered pots, pans, and kettles, always on hand, but many thought he might have stopped here.

These last acts were considered to be of so grave a nature that the priest took the place of the doctor, and when this happens little else remains to be told.

Before closing the pages of this history, another catastrophe must be recorded. In one of those storms which were of frequent occurrence in the Buccaneer's island, the old Church Hulk, which had ridden alongside of the Ship of State for so many years in fair weather and in foul, slipped her moorings one dark night, either by accident, or otherwise, and she drifted on to the rocks of discord, and being broken up was plundered; her own crew being fortunate enough to save some of her cargo of riches for themselves. After all was over they set to work to accuse and abuse each other. Some indeed expressed open satisfaction at what had happened, for the discipline on board the old Church Ship had long been too severe for them, and signs of mutiny and insubordination had long been manifest, as has been already shown. These felt that now they could worship their G.o.d how they liked, when they liked, and in what costume they liked; and those who wished it, and there were not a few, could even worship more G.o.ds than one.

The loss of the Church Ship was put down to various causes by her crew.

Some said it was the work of the devil; others said it was through the wickedness of men; but very few of them thought of applying to themselves the proverb, which the old c.o.xswain and his master had brought from the Spanish Main.

CHAPTER XLIII.

There are different opinions as to how the world is to end. Some say it will eventually fall a prey to that rapacious monster, the sun, which seems to be according to these people a veritable gourmand; requiring an enormous quant.i.ty of food to keep him going, and thinking no more of a planet than an ordinary individual does of an oyster. Others seem to think that the present inhabitants are to be frozen out, while others again think that the balance of things is to be upset, and that some day we shall, world and all, be flung into unlimitable s.p.a.ce, waking up eventually perhaps the peace and quiet of some far off system. Whatever the method, the result will be the same, so far as the inhabitants are concerned. All people are selfish enough to hope that things will last their time, for no matter how the world is abused, and called all sorts of bad names, but few leave it willingly, and if they could look out upon the many beauties with which they are surrounded; if they could be cured of their blindness, they would see something fresh every day to give them pleasure.

It was equally a matter of doubt as to how this brave old Buccaneer was to make his final exit. Frequently the last stroke of death is not given by that ailment that has been threatening through life. But as to the Buccaneer? Would his neighbours step in, and taking advantage of his weakness, knock the old gentleman on the head, and then divide his riches amongst themselves, and thus save all further trouble to administrators and executors? Would Demos, taking advantage of the position his wanton mother Liberty had placed him in, club the old gentleman, and so give him the finishing stroke? Such a thing has happened before now, in the world's history, and it may happen again.

Children petted and spoiled, have ere now risen against their parents, and have cruelly treated them. Was the old Buccaneer, the prosperous trader, to have the last drop of blood sucked out of him, by the foreign parasites and cheap-Jacks, or was he doomed to have the last spark of life trampled out of him by the Ojabberaways? Again, what if this old Buccaneer, who had sailed for so many years under the death's head and cross-bones, were destined to end his days under Petticoat Government?

There would be a strange irony in this, and such a thing would go far, no doubt, to rectify the many injustices that the fair s.e.x from the beginning has been subjected to. Revenge is sweet, and no doubt if this were to happen, the last moments of the Buccaneer would not be pa.s.sed in peace. But of his end who can tell? It would be but waste of time further to surmise, for we must say farewell to our brave old friend. We will leave him in the hands of the great quack doctor and his numerous attendants. What matters it, whether after lingering for a while below, he was taken up to heaven on a snow white cloud, the fringe of which was illumined by the glowing embers of a world he loved so well, and in which he had played a by no means insignificant part? What if he pa.s.sed away before the final consummation of all things, leaving his spirits behind to walk the earth, and to encourage some weary traveller who, commencing life as a Buccaneer, lives in after years under the protection of the great uncrowned queen Respectability, and takes for his fancy dress the cowl and frock of a monk?

The last moments of the great and powerful are sad to contemplate, and are not lightly to be intruded upon. We see the mighty intellect impaired, and the babbling tongue let loose. We see the strong arm that was once the terror of all those who came within its reach lying listless on the counterpane, with emaciated fingers whose strength is not sufficient to crush a fly. Character, virtue, intellect, all that goes to make a man great, have to retire into the shade of the sick chamber, and wait patiently there, silently watching the ravages that are being made. Then with the last breath of the dying man, Reputation spreads her wings, soiled perhaps, and torn by slander, and pierced by the sharp pointed shafts of ill-nature, and takes refuge in the marble palaces of History, where things are cleansed and purified, or condemned to everlasting obloquy.

We drop the curtain, and wish this celebrated Buccaneer a long good night.

THE END.