‘Not a bit of it,’ he replied, ‘I am too happy here. We have a good ship, we have staunch comrades, we have prospect of wresting plenty of doubloons and pieces of eight from those rascally Spaniards. We have Jamaica, with all its taverns, and its dice, and its wenches, to help us to spend them; and besides all these, why, we have at this moment a steady land-breeze, which is sending us along at five knots, and a glass of good brandy, after a good supper, to keep out the marsh fever. What more can any man want?’
‘Perhaps,’ quoth I, ‘you were not happy at home?’
‘You have hit it there,’ replied my comrade. ‘No. My father was a stout king’s man—why he was so, I know not, for I am sure the king never did much for him. But poor dad got what brains he had knocked out at Naseby, and some time after my mother married old Ephraim Crotch, as bitter a Puritan as ever wore cropped hair and ass’s ears. Now I, being a youth of spirit, did in no ways take to my father-in-law—on the contrary. Well, I mocked his slang, and mimicked his snuffle. Many a time did he lay his staff across these shoulders—augh! they ache even now! The old frump—I hate the thought of him!—often hath he turned me out of doors, to sleep in the fields. Then have I peeped in at the lattice, and seen old square-toes snug in the chimney ingle. “Ha!” thought I, “my father’s bones would rattle in their grave could he but look in, and see you in his old oaken chair, whelp of the Barebones breed!” So you may believe that our house was a pretty place for bickering. I loved all that my stepfather hated. He said that music was devil’s screeching—ergo, I played the viol and the tabor till they were broken on my head. He denounced all diversion, swore that rope-dancing was a subtle device of the evil one, and that the bowling-alley was the highway to hell—ergo, did I frequent fairs and jovial meetings, where the bowls trundled, and wrestled many a fall, and grinned through many a horse collar. I promise thee, Will, I was not made for a Puritan, and so, at length, they having, by an ordinance of old Noll, hewed down our Maypole, I e’en laid a good thick splinter thereof across the back of my reverend stepfather, and marched from Cornwall for ever and a day.’
‘To London, no doubt?’ quoth I.
‘Even so,’ he said, ‘but there I found neither gold nor silver in the streets, and I lived for some months a very unedifying vagabond sort of life, knees and elbows being generally very bare, and stomach generally very hungry. At length, being hard driven, I e’en enlisted, though it went hard against my conscience, under Old Noll. Such drilling, such fighting, and such psalm-singing. The sergeant’s ratan was never off our shoulders, except when he was exhorting us in the pulpit, or standing on a horseblock, calling the royalists sons of Agag. So, this going on for some time, and I trying in vain to become a saint, for which I had not sufficient bad qualities, I e’en took leave to desert; and because the land was too hot to hold me, I became a mariner and went to sea. But at sea, Will, I saw one great sight, I saw the king land on the beach of Dover, and having long observed that seasons of rejoicing are seasons of hospitality, I treated my ship as I had done my regiment, and followed the royal train up to London. That was indeed a march. All the country flocked to the road to see the king come back to his own again. It was nothing but eating and drinking, and up caps, “Huzza for King Charles, and to the devil with the Rump!” Well, on Blackheath, near London, was drawn up my own old regiment. ‘Gad, the sun was on my side of the hedge now, for there stood our sergeant as grim as Beelzebub in the sulks, and I having many pottles of wine in me, gave a tug to his grizzled moustache, and asked what he thought of me for a son of Agag now. I warrant you Old Ironside used his halberd with very little discretion by way of reply, and so I came away with a bloody cockscomb. But all was one for that. Wine was a great balm, and I applied it plenteously; being indeed in a very loyal state of drunkenness for certain days, I know not how many, until, having a little recovered, I found myself in the filthy hold of a ship with other ragamuffins; some sober and weeping, some drunk and singing, and some ill with the small-pox and jail fever, raving and dying. Then I presently understood that all this goodly company was bound on a voyage to the plantations in Barbadoes—we having, it seems, signed articles to that effect, in consideration of certain small sums of money, which they told us we had received, and spent in drink very jovially, and as became stout-hearted fellows. I made a bold attempt to escape by knocking down the sentry at the hatchway, but all I gained by the proceeding was a pair of very heavy irons, which were put on near the Tower, and which were not knocked off until we were three days’ sail from Barbadoes. There I landed, and, being duly sold, was set to labour with sundry other companions in misfortune amongst the sugar-canes. In a few months I was one of a very few survivors, but being very weak and sickly from two fevers which I had, I was not very sharply looked after, and so I managed, without much difficulty, to smuggle myself on board a small bark bound for Jamaica, where I joined the “Brethren of the Coast,” and have lived a reasonably jolly life ever since.’
This was Nicky’s story, and an adventurous one it was. While I was thinking of it, he began again—
‘No, no—no England for me, while there are Spaniards to fight, good ships to sail in, and stout fellows to drink with in these bright Indian seas.’ And therewith, having taken a good draught of brandy, he burst out singing:
‘Take comfort, pretty Margery, and swab away your tears,
Your sweetheart, Tom, has sailed among the gallant Buccaneers,
So dry your eyes, my Margery, your Tom is true and bold,
And he’ll come again to see you, lass, with glory and with gold,
For his comrades are the stoutest and the bravest in the land,
And there’s ne’er a Don came out of Spain will meet them hand to hand.
So-ho! for pike and sabre cut, and balls about your ears,
’Tis little he must care for these, would join the Buccaneers!
‘The man who lies at home at ease, a craven heart has he,
While there’s wild boars on the hills to hunt, and Spaniards on the sea;
So look alive my stately Don, for spite your thundering guns,
Your shining gold we’ll make our own, and eke your pretty nuns.
We’ll spend the first, and love the last, and when we tire ashore,
’Tis but another cruise my boys, and back we come with more.
So-ho! for pike and sabre cut, and balls about your ears,
’Tis little he must care for these, would join the Buccaneers!’
‘Silence, silence, Nicky!’ said I, laughing; ‘you will awaken the watch below.’
‘So be it,’ quoth he; ‘to listen to such a song is better than sleep. ’Tis a rare good one, and a rare fellow made it in Tortugas, one night when we were melting the last pieces of eight remaining after a cruise on shore. But you put me out. Hear the last verse—