Silver Read Free

time had been the first mate of the notorious buccaneer Captain Flint, and whose sole possession was an even more knocked-about sea-chest. For a week or two, the presence of this rascal caused no great difficulty at the Benbow – until the appearance of a second stranger, a pale, tallowy creature who, despite his ghostly countenance, went by the name of Black Dog – and soon after him a blind man named Pew, whose effect was so shocking that poor Bones fell dead almost the instant he saw him. To be particular, Pew tipped him the Black Spot; a man cannot long survive, once he has received that fatal sign.
    There soon followed a whole history of dramatic episodes: an assault on the inn by pirates; a miraculous escape; the discovery of an ancient map; a perusal of the map; the understanding that treasure had been left by Captain Flint on a certain island; an expedition planned in Bristol and launched to recover said treasure; the treachery of the crew, and especially of a smooth-talking rogue named John Silver, who came ornamented with a parrot in compensation for missing a leg; a very dangerous and thrilling sojourn onthe island; the discovery of some parts of the treasure; and a subsequent return to England and safety.
    I have mentioned all this in summary, omitting the names of most of the principal characters and even some parts of the adventure itself, for the important reason that I have heard it told so many hundreds of times by my father, I cannot bear to write it down at greater length. Even the most celebrated stories in the world, including perhaps that of Our Lord himself, weary with the retelling. I will only add, in the interest of illuminating what follows, that close attention should be paid to the phrase
some parts of the treasure
, in order to encourage the idea that certain
other parts of it
were left undisturbed. I will also point out that when my father eventually quit the island, three especially troublesome members of the crew – whom my father called
maroons –
were left behind to meet whatever fate they might find. Much of what remains to be said will depend on these details.
    Once my father had returned to Bristol he received his share of the wealth, which was valued in total at the astonishing sum of seven hundred thousand pounds. He often boasted of the amount, using it as an excuse to moralise – in a rather more ambiguous way than he intended – on the wages of sin. Of his own portion he never spoke precisely, referring to it as merely ‘ample’ before running on to say how Ben Gunn, a wild-man he discovered on the island and helped to rescue, had been granted an allocation of one thousand pounds, which he contrived to spend in nineteen days, so that he was a beggar again on the twentieth and given a lodge to keep, which he had always feared.
    Whatever the precise amount of my father’s treasure, it was clear that he need lack for nothing so long as he did not follow the example of this Ben Gunn. Accordingly, he returned to his mother, who was now in sole charge of the Benbow in Black Hill Cove, and helped her to manage the place until he gained his majority. At that time,being tired of living in such an out-of-the-way spot, which contrasted very markedly with the excitement he had known on the high seas, he departed for London and devoted himself for several years to the pursuit of his own pleasure.
    It is hard for any son to imagine the youth of his father – to the son, the father will generally be a creature of settled habits and solid opinions. Yet it is clear that throughout his time in the city, my parent lived more dashingly than I ever knew him do in the course of my own existence. Released from the burden of caring for his mother (who now rested her head on the shoulder of an affectionate and elderly sailor, who would shortly become her husband), and provoked by a million new temptations, he became by his own admission a
figure about the town
.
    This was before the period in which