Treasure Island
I Go to Bristol
IT was longer than the we were for the sea, and none of our plans—not Dr. Livesey’s, of me him—could be out as we intended. The doctor had to go to London for a physician to take of his practice; the was hard at work at Bristol; and I on at the under the of old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but full of sea-dreams and the most of and adventures. I by the hour together over the map, all the of which I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper’s room, I approached that in my from every possible direction; I every of its surface; I a thousand times to that tall hill they call the Spy-glass, and from the top the most and prospects. Sometimes the was thick with savages, with we fought, sometimes full of animals that us, but in all my nothing to me so and as our adventures.
So the passed on, till one day there came a to Dr. Livesey, with this addition, “To be opened, in the case of his absence, by Tom Redruth or Hawkins.” Obeying this order, we found, or I found—for the was a hand at reading anything but print—the news:
Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March 1, 17—
Dear Livesey—As I do not know you are at the or still in London, I send this in to places.
The ship is and fitted. She at anchor, for sea. You a schooner—a child might sail her—two hundred tons; name, Hispaniola.
I got her through my old friend, Blandly, who has proved himself the most trump. The in my interest, and so, I may say, did in Bristol, as soon as they got wind of the port we for—treasure, I mean.
“Redruth,” said I, the letter, “Dr. Livesey will not like that. The has been talking, after all.”
“Well, who’s a right?” the gamekeeper. “A go if ain’t to talk for Dr. Livesey, I should think.”
At that I gave up all at and read on:
Blandly himself the Hispaniola, and by the most management got her for the trifle. There is a class of men in Bristol against Blandly. They go the length of that this would do anything for money, that the Hispaniola to him, and that he it me high—the most calumnies. None of them dare, however, to the of the ship.
So there was not a hitch. The workpeople, to be sure—riggers and what not—were most slow; but time that. It was the that me.
I a score of men—in case of natives, buccaneers, or the French—and I had the worry of the itself to so much as a dozen, till the most of me the very man that I required.
I was on the dock, when, by the accident, I in talk with him. I he was an old sailor, a public-house, all the men in Bristol, had his health ashore, and wanted a good as cook to to sea again. He had there that morning, he said, to a of the salt.
I was touched—so would you have been—and, out of pure pity, I him on the spot to be ship’s cook. Long John Silver, he is called, and has a leg; but that I as a recommendation, since he it in his country’s service, under the Hawke. He has no pension, Livesey. Imagine the age we live in!
Well, sir, I I had only a cook, but it was a I had discovered. Between Silver and myself we got together in a days a company of the old salts imaginable—not to look at, but fellows, by their faces, of the most spirit. I we a frigate.
Long John got of two out of the six or seven I had already engaged. He me in a moment that they were just the of fresh-water we had to in an of importance.
I am in the most health and spirits, like a bull, sleeping like a tree, yet I shall not a moment till I my old the capstan. Seaward, ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the of the sea that has my head. So now, Livesey, come post; do not an hour, if you respect me.
Let Hawkins go at once to see his mother, with Redruth for a guard; and then come full speed to Bristol.
John Trelawney
Postscript—I did not tell you that Blandly, who, by the way, is to send a after us if we don’t turn up by the end of August, had an for master—a man, which I regret, but in all other respects a treasure. Long John Silver a very man for a mate, a man named Arrow. I have a who pipes, Livesey; so shall go man-o’-war fashion on the good ship Hispaniola.
I to tell you that Silver is a man of substance; I know of my own knowledge that he has a banker’s account, which has been overdrawn. He his wife to manage the inn; and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old like you and I may be for that it is the wife, as much as the health, that sends him to roving.
J. T.
P.P.S.—Hawkins may one night with his mother.
J. T.
You can the into which that put me. I was myself with glee; and if I a man, it was old Tom Redruth, who do nothing but and lament. Any of the under-gamekeepers would have places with him; but such was not the squire’s pleasure, and the squire’s was like law among them all. Nobody but old Redruth would have so much as to grumble.
The next he and I set out on for the Admiral Benbow, and there I my mother in good health and spirits. The captain, who had so long been a of so much discomfort, was gone where the from troubling. The had had repaired, and the public rooms and the repainted, and had added some furniture—above all a for mother in the bar. He had her a boy as an also so that she should not want help while I was gone.
It was on that boy that I understood, for the time, my situation. I had up to that moment of the me, not at all of the home that I was leaving; and now, at of this stranger, who was to here in my place my mother, I had my attack of tears. I am I that boy a dog’s life, for as he was new to the work, I had a hundred opportunities of setting him right and him down, and I was not slow to profit by them.
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The night passed, and the next day, after dinner, Redruth and I were again and on the road. I said good-bye to Mother and the where I had since I was born, and the dear old Admiral Benbow—since he was repainted, no longer so dear. One of my last was of the captain, who had so often along the beach with his hat, his sabre-cut cheek, and his old telescope. Next moment we had the and my home was out of sight.
The us up about at the Royal George on the heath. I was in Redruth and a old gentleman, and in of the motion and the cold night air, I must have a great from the very first, and then slept like a up hill and through stage after stage, for when I was at last it was by a in the ribs, and I opened my to that we were still a large in a city and that the day had already a long time.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Bristol,” said Tom. “Get down.”
Mr. Trelawney had taken up his at an the to the work upon the schooner. Thither we had now to walk, and our way, to my great delight, along the and the great of ships of all and rigs and nations. In one, were at their work, in another there were men aloft, high over my head, to that no than a spider’s. Though I had by the all my life, I to have been near the sea till then. The of and salt was something new. I saw the most figureheads, that had all been over the ocean. I saw, besides, many old sailors, with in their ears, and in ringlets, and pigtails, and their swaggering, sea-walk; and if I had as many kings or I not have been more delighted.
And I was going to sea myself, to sea in a schooner, with a and pig-tailed seamen, to sea, for an unknown island, and to for treasure!
While I was still in this dream, we came in of a large and met Squire Trelawney, all out like a sea-officer, in cloth, out of the door with a on his and a of a sailor’s walk.
“Here you are,” he cried, “and the doctor came last night from London. Bravo! The ship’s company complete!”
“Oh, sir,” I, “when do we sail?”
“Sail!” says he. “We sail tomorrow!”
