Chapter 93

PEW; afterwards MRS. DRAKE, out and in

PEW (_entering_). Kind Christian friends—(_listening; then dropping the whine_.) Hey? nobody! Hey? A grog-shop not two cable-lengths from the Admiral’s back-door, and the Admiral not there? I never knew a seaman brought so low: he ain’t but the bones of the man he used to be. Bear away for the New Jerusalem, and this is what you run aground on, is it? Good again; but it ain’t Pew’s way; Pew’s way is rum.—Sanded floor. Rum is his word, and rum his motion.—Settle—chimbley—settle again—spittoon—table rigged for supper. Table-glass. (_Drinks heeltap_.) Brandy and water; and not enough of it to wet your eye; damn all greediness, I say. Pot (_drinks_), small beer—a drink that I ab’or like bilge! What I want is rum. (_Calling_, _and rapping with stick on table_.) Halloa, there! House, ahoy!

MRS. DRAKE (_without_). Coming, sir, coming. (_She enters_, _R._) What can I do—? (_Seeing_ PEW.) Well I never did! Now, beggar-man, what’s for you?

[PEW. Rum, ma’am, rum; and a bit o’ supper.

MRS. DRAKE. And a bed to follow, I shouldn’t wonder!

PEW. _And_ a bed to follow: _if_ you please.]

MRS. DRAKE. This is the ‘_Admiral Benbow_,’ a respectable house, and receives none but decent company; and I’ll ask you to go somewhere else, for I don’t like the looks of you.

PEW. Turn me away? Why, Lord love you, I’m David Pew—old David Pew—him as was Benbow’s own particular cox’n. You wouldn’t turn away old Pew from the sign of his late commander’s ’ed? Ah, my British female, you’d have used me different if you’d seen me in the fight! [There laid old Benbow, both his legs shot off, in a basket, and the blessed spy-glass at his eye to that same hour: a picter, ma’am, of naval daring: when a round shot come, and took and knocked a bucketful of shivers right into my poor daylights. ‘Damme,’ says the Admiral, ‘is that old Pew, _my_ old Pew?’ he says.—‘It’s old Pew, sir,’ says the first lootenant, ‘worse luck,’ he says.—‘Then damme,’ says Admiral Benbow, ‘if that’s how they serve a lion-’arted seaman, damme if I care to live,’ he says; and, ma’am, he laid down his spy-glass.]

MRS. DRAKE. Blind man, I don’t fancy you, and that’s the truth; and I’ll thank you to take yourself off.

PEW. Thirty years have I fought for country and king, and now in my blind old age I’m to be sent packing from a measly public-’ouse? Mark ye, ma’am, if I go, you take the consequences. Is this a inn? Or haint it? If it is a inn, then by act of parleyment, I’m free to sling my ’ammick. Don’t you forget: this is a act of parleyment job, this is. You look out.

MRS. DRAKE. Why, what’s to do with the man and his acts of parliament? I don’t want to fly in the face of an act of parliament, not I. If what you say is true—

PEW. True? If there’s anything truer than a act of parleyment—Ah! you ask the beak. True? I’ve that in my ’art as makes me wish it wasn’t.

MRS. DRAKE. I don’t like to risk it. I don’t like your looks, and you’re more sea-lawyer than seaman to my mind. But I’ll tell you what: if you can pay, you can stay. So there.

PEW. No chink, no drink? That’s your motto, is it? Well, that’s sense. Now, look here, ma’am, I ain’t beautiful like you; but I’m good, and I’ll give you warrant for it. Get me a noggin of rum, and suthin’ to scoff, and a penny pipe, and a half-a-foot of baccy; and there’s a guinea for the reckoning. There’s plenty more in the locker; so bear a hand, and be smart. I don’t like waiting; it ain’t my way. (_Exit_ MRS. DRAKE, _R._ PEW _sits at the table_, _R._ _The settle conceals him from all the upper part of the stage_.)

MRS. DRAKE (_re-entering_). Here’s the rum, sailor.

PEW (_drinks_). Ah, rum! That’s my sheet-anchor: rum and the blessed Gospel. Don’t you forget that, ma’am: rum and the Gospel is old Pew’s sheet-anchor. You can take for another while you’re about it; and, I say, short reckonings make long friends, hey? Where’s my change?

MRS. DRAKE. I’m counting it now. There, there it is, and thank you for your custom. (_She goes out_, _R._)

PEW (_calling after her_). Don’t thank me, ma’am; thank the act of parleyment! Rum, fourpence; two penny pieces and a Willi’m-and-Mary tizzy makes a shilling; and a spade half-guinea is eleven and six (_re-enter_ MRS. DRAKE _with supper_, _pipe_, _etc._); and a blessed majesty George the First crown-piece makes sixteen and six; and two shilling bits is eighteen and six; and a new half-crown makes—no it don’t! O, no! Old Pew’s too smart a hand to be bammed with a soft half-tusheroon.

MRS. DRAKE (_changing piece_). I’m sure I didn’t know it, sailor.

PEW (_trying new coin between his teeth_). In course you didn’t, my dear; but I did, and I thought I’d mention it. Is that my supper, hey? Do my nose deceive me? (_Sniffing and feeling_.) Cold duck? sage and onions? a round of double Gloster? and that noggin o’ rum? Why, I declare if I’d stayed and took pot-luck with my old commander, Cap’n John Gaunt, he couldn’t have beat this little spread, as I’ve got by act of parleyment.

MRS. DRAKE (_at knitting_). Do you know the captain, sailor?

PEW. Know him? I was that man’s bos’un, ma’am. In the Guinea trade, we was known as ‘Pew’s Cap’n,’ and ‘Gaunt’s Bo’sun,’ one for other like. We was like two brothers, ma’am. And a excellent cold duck, to be sure; and the rum lovely.

MRS. DRAKE. If you know John Gaunt, you know his daughter Arethusa.

PEW. What? Arethusa? Know her, says you? know her? Why, Lord love you, I was her god-father. [‘Pew,’ says Jack Gaunt to me, ‘Pew,’ he says, ‘you’re a man,’ he says; ‘I like a man to be a man,’ says he, ‘and damme,’ he says, ‘I like _you_; and sink me,’ says he, ‘if you don’t promise and vow in the name of that new-born babe,’ he says, ‘why damme, Pew,’ says he, ‘you’re not the man I take you for.’] Yes, ma’am, I named that female; with my own ’ands I did; Arethusa, I named her; that was the name I give her; so now you know if I speak true. And if you’ll be as good as get me another noggin of rum, why, we’ll drink her ’elth with three times three. (_Exit_ MRS. DRAKE: PEW _eating_. MRS. DRAKE _re-entering with rum_.)

[MRS. DRAKE. If what you say be true, sailor (and I don’t say it isn’t, mind!), it’s strange that Arethusa and that godly man her father have never so much as spoke your name.

PEW. Why, that’s so! And why, says you? Why, when I dropped in and paid my respecks this morning, do you think she knew me? No more’n a babe unborn! Why, ma’am, when I promised and vowed for her, I was the picter of a man-o’-war’s man, I was: eye like a eagle; walked the deck in a hornpipe, foot up and foot down; v’ice as mellow as rum; ’and upon ’art, and all the females took dead aback at the first sight, Lord bless ’em! Know me? Not likely. And as for me, when I found her such a lovely woman—by the feel of her ’and and arm!—you might have knocked me down with a feather. But here’s where it is, you see: when you’ve been knocking about on blue water for a matter of two-and-forty year, shipwrecked here, and blown up there, and everywhere out of luck, and given over for dead by all your messmates and relations, why, what it amounts to is this: nobody knows you, and you hardly know yourself, and there you are; and I’ll trouble you for another noggin of rum.

MRS. DRAKE. I think you’ve had enough.

PEW. I don’t; so bear a hand. (_Exit_ MRS. DRAKE; PEW _empties the glass_.) Rum, ah, rum, you’re a lovely creature; they haven’t never done you justice. (_Proceeds to fill and light pipe_; _re-enter_ MRS. DRAKE _with rum_.)] And now, ma’am, since you’re so genteel and amicable-like, what about my old commander? Is he, in a manner of speaking, on half pay? or is he living on his fortune, like a gentleman slaver ought?

MRS. DRAKE. Well, sailor, people talk, you know.

PEW. I know, ma’am; I’d have been rolling in my coach, if they’d have held their tongues.

MRS. DRAKE. And they do say that Captain Gaunt, for so pious a man, is little better than a miser.

PEW. Don’t say it, ma’am; not to old Pew. Ah, how often have I up and strove with him! ‘Cap’n, live it down,’ says I. ‘Ah, Pew,’ says he, ‘you’re a better man than I am,’ he says; ‘but dammne,’ he says, ‘money,’ he says, ‘is like rum to me.’ (_Insinuating_.) And what about a old sea-chest, hey? a old sea-chest, strapped with brass bands?

MRS. DRAKE. Why, that’ll be the chest in his parlour, where he has it bolted to the wall, as I’ve seen with my own eyes; and so might you, if you had eyes to see with.

PEW. No, ma’am, that ain’t good enough; you don’t bam old Pew. You never was in that parlour in your life.

MRS. DRAKE. I never was? Well, I declare!

PEW. Well then, if you was, where’s the chest? Beside the chimbley, hey? (_Winking_.) Beside the table with the ’oly Bible?

MRS. DRAKE. No, sailor, you don’t get any information out of me.

PEW. What, ma’am? Not to old Pew? Why, my god-child showed it me herself, and I told her where she’d find my name—P, E, W, Pew—cut out on the starn of it; and sure enough she did. Why, ma’am, it was his old money-box when he was in the Guinea trade; and they do say he keeps the rhino in it still.

MRS. DRAKE. No, sailor, nothing out of me! And if you want to know, you can ask the Admiral himself! (_She crosses_, _L._)

PEW. Hey? Old girl fly? Then I reckon I must have a mate, if it was the parish bull.