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Treasure Island
Chapter 7. I Go to Bristol
The voyage took longer than the squire had imagined.
None of our first plans could be carried out as intended.
Even Dr. Livesey's plan to keep me beside him failed.
The doctor had to go to London for a physician to take charge of his practice.
The squire was hard at work in Bristol.
I lived on at the hall under the care of old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner.
I was full of sea-dreams and the most charming hopes of strange islands and adventures.
I thought for hours together over the map, all the details of which I remembered well.
Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, I approached that island in my imagination from every possible direction.
I explored every part of its surface.
I climbed a thousand times to that tall hill they call the Spy-glass, and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful and changing views.
Sometimes the island was full of savages, with whom we fought.
Sometimes it was full of dangerous animals that hunted us.
But in all my dreams, nothing happened to me as strange and tragic as our real adventures.
So the weeks passed, until one fine day there came a letter addressed to Dr. Livesey, with this addition,
"To be opened, in the case of his absence, by Tom Redruth or young Hawkins."
Obeying this order, we found, or rather I found, for the gamekeeper wasn't good at reading anything but print, the following important news.
Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March 1, 1750.
Dear Livesey, As I don't know whether you're at the hall or still in London, I send this in double to both places.
The ship is bought and fitted, she lies at anchor, ready for sea.
You never imagined a sweeter schooner, a child could sail her, two hundred tons, Name, HISPANIOLA.
I got her through my old friend, Blandly, who has proved himself throughout the most surprising trump.
The admirable man literally worked hard for my interest, and so, I may say, did everyone in Bristol.
They all worked like that as soon as they got wind of the port we sailed for, treasure, I mean.
"Redruth," said I, interrupting the letter, "Dr. Livesey won't like that. The squire has been talking, after all."
"Well, who has a better right?" growled the gamekeeper.
"It would be a pretty strange thing if the squire couldn't talk for Dr. Livesey, I should think."
At that I gave up all attempts at comment and read straight on,
Blandly himself found the HISPANIOLA, and by the most admirable management got her for almost nothing.
There's a class of men in Bristol terribly prejudiced against Blandly.
They even said this honest creature would do anything for money and that the HISPANIOLA belonged to him.
They said he sold it to me at an absurdly high price, claims which were obviously lies.
None of them dare, however, to deny the merits of the ship.
So far there wasn't a problem, the workpeople, to be sure, riggers and what not, were most annoyingly slow.
But time cured that, it was the crew that troubled me.
I wanted a full twenty men, this was in case of natives, buccaneers, or the hateful French.
I had the worry of the devil itself to find even half a dozen.
Then the most remarkable stroke of fortune brought me the very man I needed.
I was standing on the dock, when, by the merest accident, I started talking with him.
I found he was an old sailor who kept a pub and knew all the seafaring men in Bristol.
He had lost his health on land and wanted a good job as cook to get to sea again.
He had limped down there that morning, he said, to get a smell of the salt.
I was terribly touched, so would you have been, and, out of pure pity, I hired him on the spot to be ship's cook.
He's called Long John Silver, and has lost a leg.
But that I regarded as a recommendation, since he lost it in his country's service, under the famous Hawke.
He has no pension, Livesey, Imagine the terrible age we live in!
Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook, but it was a crew I had discovered.
Between Silver and myself we got together in a few days a company of the toughest old sailors imaginable.
They were not pretty to look at, but by their faces they were fellows of the most unstoppable spirit.
I declare we could fight a warship.
Long John even got rid of two out of the six or seven I had already hired.
He showed me in a moment that they were just the sort of inexperienced men we had to fear in an adventure of importance.
I'm in the most wonderful health and spirits, eating like a bull, sleeping like a tree.
Yet I won't enjoy a moment until I hear my old sailors tramping around the capstan.
Seaward, ho! Hang the treasure! It's the glory of the sea that has turned my head.
So now, Livesey, come quickly, Don't lose an hour, if you respect me.
Let young Hawkins go at once to see his mother, with Redruth for a guard.
And then both come at full speed to Bristol, John Trelawney
Postscript, I didn't tell you that Blandly had found an excellent man for sailing master.
He's a strict man, which I regret, but in all other respects a treasure.
By the way, Blandly is to send a second ship after us if we don't appear by the end of August.
Long John Silver found a very capable man for a mate, a man named Arrow.
I have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey.
So things shall go in navy fashion on board the good ship HISPANIOLA.
I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man of wealth.
I know from my own knowledge that he has a banker's account, which has never been overdrawn.
He leaves his wife to manage the inn, she's a woman of colour.
You and I are old bachelors, so we may guess that his wife, not just his health, sends him back to roaming.
With all good wishes for the voyage and your safety, J. T.
P.P.S, Hawkins may stay one night with his mother, J, T.
You can imagine the excitement that letter put me in.
I was half beside myself with joy.
And if I ever despised a man, it was old Tom Redruth, who could do nothing but complain and moan.
Any of the other gamekeepers would gladly have changed places with him.
But such wasn't the squire's wish, and the squire's wish was like law among them all.
Nobody but old Redruth would have dared so much as even to complain.
The next morning he and I set out on foot for the Admiral Benbow.
There I found my mother in good health and spirits.
The captain, who had so long been a cause of so much trouble, was gone where the wicked stop troubling.
The squire had repairs done, repainted the public rooms and sign, and added furniture, a beautiful armchair for Mother in the bar.
He had found her a boy as an apprentice also, so that she wouldn't need help while I was gone.
It was on seeing that boy that I understood, for the first time, my situation.
I had thought up to that moment of the adventures before me, not at all of the home that I was leaving.
At the sight of the clumsy stranger, who would stay in my place beside my mother, I had my first attack of tears.
I'm afraid I led that boy a dog's life.
He was new to the work, so I had many chances to correct him.
I wasn't slow to use those chances.
The night passed, and the next day, after dinner, Redruth and I were on foot again and on the road.
I said goodbye to Mother and the cove where I had lived since I was born.
The dear old Admiral Benbow, since he was repainted, no longer seemed quite so dear.
One last thought was of the captain who had walked the beach with his cocked hat, sabre-cut cheek and brass telescope.
The next moment we had turned the corner and my home was out of sight.
The mail coach picked us up about dusk at the Royal George on the heath.
I was squeezed in between Redruth and a stout old gentleman.
The night air was cold and the carriage moved swiftly.
Still, I must have dozed a great deal from the very first.
Then I slept like a log through stage after stage, up hill and down dale.
For when I was woken at last, it was by a punch in the ribs.
I opened my eyes to see we stood before a large building in a city street and the day had long since broken.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"Bristol," said Tom.
"Get down."
Mr. Trelawney had taken up his rooms at an inn far down the docks to supervise the work on the schooner.
There we had now to walk along the busy docks toward the shipyard and quay.
And our way, to my great delight, lay along the quays and beside the great crowd of ships of all sizes and rigs and nations.
In one, sailors were singing at their work.
In another, there were men high above, high over my head, hanging to ropes that seemed no thicker than a spider's.
Though I had lived by the shore all my life, I seemed never to have been near the sea until then.
The smell of tar and salt was something new.
I saw the most wonderful figureheads, that had all been far over the ocean.
I saw, besides, many old sailors, with rings in their ears, and whiskers curled in ringlets, and tarry pigtails, and their swaggering, clumsy sea-walk.
And if I had seen as many kings or archbishops I couldn't have been more delighted.
And I was going to sea myself, in a schooner with a piping boatswain and pig-tailed singing seamen.
I was bound for an unknown island to search for buried treasure!
We came suddenly in front of a large inn.
I was still in this delightful dream.
We met Squire Trelawney, all dressed like a sea officer in thick blue cloth.
He came out of the door with a smile on his face and a perfect imitation of a sailor's walk.
"Here you're," he cried, "and the doctor came last night from London. Bravo! The ship's company complete!"
"Oh, sir," cried I, "when do we sail?"
"Sail!" says he.
"We sail tomorrow!"