"To their many wants then," exclaimed the carpenter, "lend a kindly ear; but keep your own counsel. Be thrifty of your words unless you use them as our noble captain does, to conceal your thoughts. Away then, my lads! What, does no one move? It is too late for ghosts to prowl about, and of other things what have you to fear?"
"Who is afraid, Master Chips?" the cook asked indignantly, "I was only thinking."
"Vast heaving, my hearties, while the cook thinks," cried the carpenter. "In the meantime I will take a look round, the watchman may be about." Chips drew his cloak round him and pulled his slouched hat well down over his eyes; then with the stealthy walk peculiar to conspirators he took a look round. Just as he reached the back of the cook's galley, he heard what sounded like a splash in the water. It made him start; and his heart beat hard against his side, his hair stood on end, and he had to lean against the water-butt for support. "Pshaw!" he cried as he shivered in the chill morning air, "I am getting as bad as Billy Cheeks." The look-out man from aloft cried out, "All's well." Thus reassured, the carpenter told his companions that the coast was clear, so with cloaks well wrapped round them and hats well slouched they sneaked away to their beds.
CHAPTER XXIII.
It was but a narrow strip of water that separated the old Sea King, or Buccaneer, from his neighbours on the mainland. But narrow as the strip was it had been and it was of the greatest service to him; for it kept from his shores the numerous bands of robbers that infested the mainland. Of course things had very much improved of recent years, but still occasional robberies took place even now, and when an opportunity offered it was not allowed to pass by. Since the world began it has been said that honest men are few and rogues are many.
There can be very little doubt that the veneer called civilisation has done much for the world. It would appear, however, that when people are collected together into a nation, they cannot even now look upon the richness of a neighbour, without having some feelings of envy, and experiencing a slight itching sensation at the ends of the fingers.
Indeed, the study of history, and human nature generally, would lead us to believe that man is not only a very lazy fellow by nature, never working unless necessity compels him to; but that he is also a thief, and is only honest by compulsion, or by learning that it is to his personal advantage to be so. This much we may have hinted before. For mankind in general we have the highest admiration and consideration; but we cannot hide from ourselves the fact that it has with many virtues, also very many faults, and love of other people's property seems to be one.
Man we will not run down or decry. Look you at the savage! There is a great nobility about him, and in some things he compares most favourably with his highly cultivated and civilised brother. The latter is perhaps the proud possessor of a great intellect, of rank, of high position, having a long line of ancestors to decorate the walls of his ancestral hall. He may be the proud possessor of vast wealth, in fact, of everything that leads to human greatness, and yet see how he sneaks into a room as if he were some mean thing and thoroughly well ashamed of himself. Contrast with this man the noble bearing of the savage, every movement is as full of dignity, as, in all probability, his only blanket is of insects. This man feels himself a lord of creation. His mantle above alluded to he throws over his shoulders with an easy grace. His only possession perhaps is his spear or tomahawk which he is ever ready to bury in the stomach of an enemy or in the friendly earth. Then the savage is silent, and when he does speak, he does not prove himself a wind bag, but he speaks in measured tones, and with dignity and very much to the point. There is none of that senseless gabbling which is such a mark of Western civilisation, and which at times is so extremely confusing and even distressing. He does not wash, you say? Good people all, here the peculiar and special prejudice of civilisation presents itself. Yes, the tub crowns your Western edifice; but did your Saint James ever use the bath? The platter is well washed without, but within? The savage is a noble being, though perhaps the rain that falls from a generous heaven is the only washing he ever gets.
The imagination loves to dwell upon the ideal. It peoples the garden of Eden with beautiful and naked innocence. It loves to sing of the gentle shepherd, who, decked in ribbons and becoming fancy pastoral garments, pipes and dances to his flocks all day long, and in other ways wastes his employer's time. Strip the gentle shepherd of the clothing generously given him by the imagination and you find him a very rough fellow indeed, not given to singing so much as to cursing, and instead of dancing, is more ready to knock anyone on the head who interferes with his sheep-stealing propensities. We speak, good people all, of early pastoral times, of what we may call the ancient shepherd period.