class="c3">John Dutfen. [44e]

This story has a sequel.  My father told it once at the dinner-table of one of the canons in Norwich.  Every one laughed more or less, all but one, the Rev. “Hervey Du Bois,” a rural dean from the Fens.  He alone made no sign.  But he was staying in the house; and that night the Canoness was aroused from her sleep by a strange gurgling sound proceeding from his room.  She listened and listened, till, convinced that their guest must be in a fit, she at last arose, and listened outside his door.  A fit he was in—sure enough—of laughter.  He was sitting up in bed, rocking backwards and forwards, and ever and again ejaculating, “Why, John bor, yeou must ha’ meant to bile yar master alive.”  And then he went off into another roar.

IV.  CAPTAIN WARD.

      “That piece of song,
That old and antique song we heard last night.”

—‘Twelfth Night,’ II. iv.

This old song was lately taken down from the lips of an old Suffolk (Monk Soham) labourer, who has known it and sung it since he was a boy.  The song is of much

repute in the parish where he lives, and may possibly be already in print.  At all events it is a genuine “old and antique” song, whose hero may have been one of the sea captains or rovers who continued their privateering in the Spanish Main and elsewhere, and upon all comers, long after all licence from the Crown had ceased.  The Rainbow was the name of one of the ships which formed the English fleet when they defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, and she was re-commissioned, apparently about 1618.  The two verses in brackets are from the version of another labourer in my parish, who also furnished some minor variæ lectiones, as “robber” for “rover,” “Blake” for “Wake,” &c.

Rector.

Come, all ye valiant soldiers
   That march to follow the drum,
Let us go meet with Captain Ward
   When on the sea he come.

He is as big a rover
   As ever you did hear,
Yeou hain’t h’ard of such a rover
   For many a hundred year.

There was three ships come sailing
   From the Indies to the West,
Well loaded with silks and satins
   And welwets of the best.

Who should they meet but Captain Ward,
   It being a bad meeting,
He robbèd them of all their wealth,
   Bid them go tell the King.

[“Go ye home, go ye home,” says Captain Ward,
   “And tell your King from me,
If he reign King of the countrie,
   I will be King at Sea.”]

Away went these three gallant ships,
   Sailing down of the main,
Telling to the King the news
   That Ward at sea would reign.

The King he did prepare a ship,
   A ship of gallant fame,
She’s called the gallant Rainbow—
   Din’t yeou niver hear her name?

She was as well purwīded
   As e’er a ship could be,
She had three hundred men on board
   To bear her company.

Oh then the gallant Rainbow
   Sailed where the rover laid;
“Where is the captain of your ship?”
   The gallant Rainbow said.

“Here am I,” says Captain Ward,
   “My name I never deny;
But if you be the King’s good ship,
   You’re welcome to pass by.”

“Yes, I am one of the King’s good ships,
   That I am to your great grief,
Whilst here I understand you lay
   Playing the rogue and thief.”

“Oh! here am I,” says Captain Ward;
   “I value you not one pin;
If you are bright brass without,
   I am true steel within.”

At four o’clock o’ the morning
   They did begin to fight,
And so they did continue
   Till nine or ten at night.

[Says Captain Ward unto his men,
   “My boys, what shall we do?
We have not got one shot on board,
   We shall get overthrow.]

“Fight you on, fight you on,” says Captain Ward,
   “Your sport will pleasure be,
And if you fight for a month or more
   Your master I will be.”

Oh! then the gallant Rainbow
   Went raging down of the main,
Saying, “There lay proud Ward at sea,
   And there he must remain.”

“Captain Wake and Captain Drake,
   And good Lord Henerie,
If I had one of them alive,
   They’d bring proud Ward to me.”

Appended was this editorial note: “The date of Captain Ward is approximately established by Andrew Barker’s ‘Report of the two famous Pirates, Captain Ward and Danseker’ (Lond. 1609, 4to), and by Richard Daburn’s ‘A Christian turn’d Turke, or the tragical Lives and Deaths of the two famous Pyrates, Ward and Dansiker.  As it hath beene publickly acted’ (Lond. 1612, 4to).