"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 nobody 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 class have at all times played conspicuous parts in the world's history; being even favoured of princes and other noble 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 Constitution 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 passed them seemed to sing a funeral dirge to the Buccaneer's two best friends, the Beggar Woman, Patriotism, and the old coxswain, 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.