"Well, miss," Jack replied, "petticoats are all very well in their way, and many a brave and honest lad has run ashore on 'em before now and become a total wreck; but petticoats do hamper a person a bit, and they ain't the sort of things to go aloft in, in a gale of wind."
"Who wants to go aloft, pray?" Miss Progress asked.
"Well, miss," Jack answered; "you must take the rough with the smooth, and if you are going to be man's equal, you must do your fair share of man's work, and must not cry out if you lose your place in the social order and in man's estimation. Some of you are even now crying out that man does not treat you with the consideration that he used to. The fault lies at your own door. Who is going to take all the blows and hard knocks; and who is going to do all the fighting?"
"Man, of course," replied Miss Progress, "it is his province, his sphere."
"But has not woman her sphere? But let that fly stick to the wall; duty first and pleasure after. As to the fighting, miss; many people think that that spirit is not altogether absent from the female breast. Many go so far as to think that the apple which Eve gave to Adam was flavoured strongly with discord. Never a row yet, so some say, that a woman was not at the bottom of it. Put your helm down, miss, and go about; you and your likes are on the wrong tack. No good ever came yet from a crowing hen; and a maid that whistles ain't likely to be a credit to her family."
The Buccaneer complimented the cox'sn very much and hoped that his language would find favour amongst the ladies. Many of the grand company had dropped off to slumber; others were eagerly engaged in discussions amongst themselves as to whether it would be a good party stroke to take up the ladies. Many were for it and old Dogvane, it was thought, was amongst the number. Miss Progress was by no means satisfied and declared that woman's sphere was very much too narrow. The cox'sn, being encouraged by his master's approval, attacked Miss Progress again in good earnest. "Look'e here, miss," he cried, "your sphere is large enough if you will only do your duty in it; but as is well-known a bad workman always finds fault with his tools. If you try to be man's rival in the world you will come off second best." Many thought that old Jack would before long be in troubled waters; but he marched boldly on. "Woman," he cried out, "has a noble sphere. Let her study to be a good companion for man. Let her aim in life be to make his home comfortable, and his children happy, useful, and good. That, my hearty, is a woman's sphere."
Miss Progress explained to the deaf ears of the grand company that she was single, and the Buccaneer, by way of enlivening the proceedings, asked his cox'sn if he would not take Miss Progress in marriage; but old Jack declined with many thanks, and he told the lady in brutally plain language that spinsters were likely to increase if many women followed in her wake. Then speaking at the whole sex, through the lady before him, he exclaimed: "Too many of you are gadders about, and are to be found everywhere but in your own homes. A good, thrifty, cheerful, and pleasant housewife is a thing of the past. Too many women in the lower walks of life by neglecting their first duty, drive their husbands to the fireside of the pot-house, and their children to their work-house."
Other of the Buccaneer's women now came forward. One wanted to banish vice from the streets by the strong arm of the law. She drew attention to what she called the gross immorality of the age, and had she had her way she would have shut up half the theatres, or turned them into churches; and have burned most of the light literature of the day. Perhaps this would have been no disadvantage. She also would have dressed all the nude figures in the Buccaneer's several academies, leaving nothing but her own bare shoulders of an evening to offend the eyes of modesty. The female mind does at times go to strange extremes. Another peculiarity of the Buccaneer's people was that most of the racy light literature in his tight little island was written by the women, and how they became so well acquainted with the shady side of human nature was a mystery. But genius can explain all things. There is only one thing to be said against driving vice from the streets by the strong arm of the law. She is so very likely to find shelter in private houses, when the purity of the domestic hearth would probably suffer.
After this lady came another who wanted the Buccaneer to banish from his realms all violent death. She said: "To furnish your idle sons with sport, birds are slaughtered, and hares and foxes are cruelly chased to death."
"Young hounds must be blooded," the Buccaneer said.