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قراءة كتاب Wappin' Wharf: A Frightful Comedy of Pirates

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‏اللغة: English
Wappin' Wharf: A Frightful Comedy of Pirates

Wappin' Wharf: A Frightful Comedy of Pirates

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 6

say, from active practice and live in idle luxury on shore. Yet we shall see that their villainy still thrives.

Our scene is their cabin on the cliff. It is a rough stone building with peeling plaster and slates that by day are green with moss. But it is night and the wind is whistling its rowdy companions from the sea. Until the morning they will play at leap-frog from cliff to cliff. Far below is the village of Clovelly, snug with fire and candles.

We enter the cabin without knocking—like neighbors through a garden—and poke about a bit before our hosts appear. A door, forward at the right, leads to the kitchen. Back stage, also, at the right, a ladder rises to a sleeping loft. On the left wall are a chimney and fireplace with a crane and pot for heating grog, and smoky timbers above to mark the frequent thirst. On a great beam overhead are bags of clinking loot and shining brasses from wrecked ships. Peppers hang to dry before the fire, and a lighted ship's lantern swings from a hook. At the rear of the cabin, to the left, a row of mullioned windows looks at sea and cliffs in a flash of lightning. Below is a seaman's chest. Above, on the broken plaster, is scrawled a ship. In the middle, at the rear, there is a clock with hanging pendulum and weights. A gun of antique pattern leans beside the clock. To the right the cabin is recessed, with a door right-angled in the jog and other windows looking on the sea. A parrot sits on its perch with curbed profanity. The gaudy creature is best if stuffed, for its noisy tongue would drown our dialogue. Like Hamlet's player it would speak beyond its lines and raise a quantity of barren laughter. Our furniture is a table and three stools, and a tall-backed chair beside the hearth. On the table a candle burns, bespattered with tallow. The cabin glows with fire light.


Two pirates

Two pirates are discovered drinking at a table

At the lifting of the curtain there is thunder and lightning, and a rush of wind—if it can be managed. Two pirates are discovered, drinking at the table. By the smack of their lips it is excellent grog. One of them—Patch-Eye—has lost an eye and he wears a black patch. His hair curls up in a pigtail, like any sailor before Nelson. It looks as stiff as a hook and he might almost be lifted by it and hung on a peg. But all of our pirates wear pigtails—except one, Red Joe.

The other pirate at the table is called the Duke, for no apparent reason as he is a shabby rogue. We must not run our finger down the peerage in hope of finding him, or think that he owns a palace on the Strand. He has only one leg, with a timber below the knee. He wears a long cloak so that the actor's rusticated leg can be folded out of sight. The Duke has a great red nose—grog and rum and that sort of thing. His whiskers are the bush that marks the merry drinking place.

Patch-Eye is melancholy—almost sentimental at times. He would stab a man, but grieve upon a sparrow. At heart we fear he is a coward, and stupid. The Duke, on the contrary, is shrewd and he does a lot of thinking. He has heavy eyebrows. He is the kind of thinker that you just know that he is thinking. Both pirates are very cruel—and profane, but we must be careful.

And now we hush the melancholy fiddlers. If this comedy can stir the croaking bass-viol to any show of mirth, our work tops Falstaff. Glum folk with beards had best withdraw. Only the young in heart will catch the slender meaning of our play. Let's light the candles and draw the curtain!

Patch: Darlin'! Darlin'! (He lolls back in his chair and stretches out his legs for comfort.) Darlin'!

(At this a dirty old woman with one tooth appears from the kitchen. She is called Darlin' just for fun, as she is not at all kissable. A sprig of mistletoe, even in the Christmas season, would beckon vainly.)

Patch: Me friend, the Duke, is thirsty. Will yer fill the cups? Hurry, ol' dear! And squeeze in jest a bit o' lemon. It sets the stomich.

Darlin': Yer sets yer stomich like it were hen's eggs. Alers coddlin' it.

(She stirs and tastes the pot of grog, and hoists her wrinkled stockings.)

Duke: There 's no one like Darlin' fer mixin' grog.

Darlin': Fer that kind word I 'm lovin' yer. (She looks at him with admiration.) Ain 't he a figger o' a man? Wenus was nothin'. Jest nothin' at all.

Patch: It 's grog beats off the melancholy. As soon as me pipes go dry, I gets homesick fer the ocean. Here we be, Duke, thrown up at last ter rot like driftwood on the shore. No more sailin' off to Trinidad! No tackin' 'round the Hebrides! We is ships as has sprung a leak. It was 'appy days when we sailed with ol' Flint on the Spanish Main.

Duke: 'Appy days, Patch! (They drink.)

Patch: Aye! The blessed, dear, ol' roarin' hulk. No better pirate ever lived than Flint. Smart with his cutlass. Quick at the trigger. Grog! A sloppin' pail o' it was jest a sip.

Duke: I used ter tell him that his leg was holler.

Patch: He was a vat, was Flint—jest a swishin' keg.

Duke: Grog jest sizzled and disappeared, like when yer drops it on a red-hot seacoal.

Patch: Fer twenty year and more me and you has seen ol' Flint march his wictims off the plank.

Duke: "Step lively!" he 'd say. "Does n't yer hear Davy callin' to yer?" There was never a sailorman ever sat in the Port Light at Wappin' wharf which could drink with Flint.


Port light

"Port Light" at Wappin' Wharf

Patch: Wappin' wharf and gibbets is nothin' ter talk about. Funerals even is cheerfuller.

Duke: There 's his parrot.

Patch: She used ter cuss soft and gentle to herself—'appy all the day. She ain 't spoke since Flint was took. Peckin' at yer finger and broodin'.

Duke: There 's his ol' clock.

Patch: As hung in the cabin o' the Spittin' Devil.

clock"A 'ell of a clock fer a bouncin' ship" Duke: With the pendulum gettin' tangled in a storm. A 'ell of a clock fer a bouncin' ship.

Patch: She was tickin' peaceful the day Flint was hanged. But she stopped—does yer remember it?—the very minute they pushed him off the ladder.

Duke: She ain 't ticked since.

Patch: It makes yer 'stitious. And she won 't never run agin—that 's what Flint alers said—till his death 's revenged.

Duke: He told us never ter wind

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