A WONDERFUL EXCELLENT COOK
If an astrologer or an Arabian enchanter could say to a man, "Beware
of this or that, for it is a thing conceived of the Devil to work thy
ruin," there would be reason for studying the stars or smiting the
sand. And this, indeed, they do, according to the old tales. But if a
sailor seek out an astrologer to learn things that shall profit him,
he is more likely to find a man grown foolish by much study, who will
stroke his chin sagely and say, "Come, let us look into this matter.
Under Capricorn are all diseases in the knees and hams, leprosies, itch
and scales and schirrous tumors, fallow grounds and barren fields,
ox-houses and cow-houses, low dark places near the ground, and places
where sails and materials for ships be laid." And while he talks of
fixed angles and of the Lord of the Ascendant being in the fourth week,
some small unsuspected thing may be the very egg on which the Devil is
sitting like an old black hen to hatch forth a general calamity.
Thus certain incidents that shortly thereafter happened are to the
point, for although they appeared of little moment at the time, they
turned the tide of men's lives and made a stir that has to do with the
current of my tale.
Now the men of the Rose of Devon sighted a sail at high noon when they
were a week on their way south, and though she showed her heels and
ran, and though the Rose of Devon lacked her mizzenmast, the strange
vessel was but a small pink and so slow that they laid her aboard two
hours before dark. In her crew she had only a dozen men, and sorely
frightened they were, as they tossed in the lee of the dark frigate.
So to save themselves from a more cruel fate there was scarcely one of
them but leaped at the chance to join the Rose of Devon's crew. They
tumbled up their small cargo of salt fish for Bilbao and hoisted it on
board the ship, together with their shallop, and casting their pink
adrift, they forbore from complaining when their new master and his men
stole whatever pleased them, from the new men's rings and knives to the
very clothes on their backs. So, with her plunder and her recruits, the
Rose of Devon again squared her yards and continued on her course.
There was, to be sure, one fellow of mean spirit who whined dolefully,
upon conceiving his present extremity to be distasteful. But another
got comfort by knocking him on the head when no one was looking; and
finding him dead, the Old One hove him over-board and there was no
further trouble from the fishermen.
Yet it was no secret that there was grumbling and complaining forward
among the gentlemen of the Rose of Devon, so the Old One sent the
boatswain to summon them aft when the watches were changing.
He leaned against the swivel gun on the quarter-deck, and looking down
into their faces, smiled disagreeably. "It hath come to my ears," said
he, "that one hath a sad tale to tell because we failed to take the
Porcupine, which, though a mere ketch, outnumbered us in guns and men.
And another hath a sad tale to tell because this pink that late became
our prize is small and of little worth, though we got from her eleven
brave fellows who shall be worth a store of fine gold." He looked from
one of his men to another, for they were all there,--Martin and the
cook, and Philip Marsham and Will Canty, and Paul Craig and Joe Kirk,
the one-eyed carpenter and the rest,--and his thin face settled into
the many wrinkles that had got him his name. There was none of them,
unless it might be Harry Malcolm or Old Jacob, who could say surely at
one time or another what thoughts were uppermost in Tom Jordan's shrewd
head.
"Come, now, my hearts of gold," he cried, "let us have an end of such
folly. Said I not that these northern fisheries were meat for crows?
And that we must go south to find prey for eagles? We will choose a
fine harbour by some green island where there's rich fruit for the
picking and fat fish for the catching, and we will build there a town
of our own. We will take toll from the King of Spain's ships; we will
take us wives and women and gold and wine from the dons of the islands
and the main. Yea, we will lay up a great store of riches and live in
fullness of bread and abundance of idleness."
Some were pleased, but some doubted still, which the Old One
perceiving, for he read their faces, cried, "Nay, speak up, speak up!
Let us have no fair-protesting friends with hollow and undermining
hearts."
"Yea, it is a fair tale," cried one, in a surly voice, "but thus far we
have blows to show for our pains--blows and a kettle of fish."
"And methinks," another growled, "we shall see more of salt fish and
buccaned meat, than of fine wines and gold and handsome women."
"'Tis a swinish thought," the Old One retorted; but he smiled when he
said it, so that they took no offense, for of such grumbling he had no
fear. He was set to catch a bird of quite another feather.
Then old Jacob rose and they were silent to hear him. "Let us make an
end of talk," said he slowly. "We are on our way south and to stop or
turn aside would be nothing but foolishness." And with that, although
they had expected him to say more, he turned away.
Then, of a sudden, "Come, Will," the Old One cried, singling out his
man from all the rest, "what say you?"
If Will Canty's face changed at all, it was a whit the paler as he met
the Old One's eyes. "I say," he replied, "that since we have fish on
board, we are sure of fish and would do well to eat fish ere we lose
it."
"There is sooth in thy words," quoth the Old One, and he smiled in
friendly wise. (But despite his smile, he liked the words little, as
any shrewd man might have known by his eyes, and Will Canty was no
fool.) "Come, cook, and boil us a great kettle of fish."
The rumble of low voices changed to laughter and the cook boldly cried,
"Yea, yea, master!"
"For our much voyaging and many pains," cried the men, as they went
about their work, "we have got a kettle of fish." And they laughed
mightily, for though it was the very thing that before had made them
grumble, now they saw it as a droll affair and made of it many jests,
of which a few were good and more bad, after the manner of jests.
As for the cook, he called his mate and bade him break out a drum of
fish and set a kettle to boil, and cuffed him this way and that, till
the poor fellow's ears were swollen.
And the Old One said to Harry Malcolm, "Saw you not how deftly the
fellow twisted out of the corner, and with a sly remark that no one can
take amiss? Oh, he is a slippery dog and I am minded to cut his throat
out of hand!"
"Now, that would be very foolish, for where there's one of them,
there's always two, and the one will toll the other on until there are
two dogs by the heels instead of one."
At that the Old One laughed harshly, and the two, who were after a
left-handed fashion uncommonly congenial, went off well pleased with
their conceit.
Down in the hold the kettle boiled right merrily, and the cook swelled
with pride that he had a mate to carry and fetch. He cuffed the poor
fellow this way, and he cuffed him that. He threw a pan at him when the
fire smoked worse than common, and he thrust a fistful of flour into
his face and down his neck when he let the fire lag. He flung him his
length on the floor for spilling a pint of water; and when in despair
the lad fled for his life, the cook seized him by the hair and haled
him back and put a long knife at his breast and swore to have his
heart's blood. Oh, the cook was in a rare and merry mood, for he had
drunk more sack than was good for him from the cask he had marked as
his own; but as he had waxed exceeding gay and haughty, the sack had
dulled his wits and he was drunker than he knew.
"Come, thou pig! Thou son of a swine!" he yelled. "Ladle out the fish
and choose of the best for the cabin. Yea, choose in abundance and
summon the master's boy and bid him haste. And do thou bestir thyself
and carry to the men." And with that, he fetched the poor fellow a blow
on his head, which knocked him off his feet.
The fellow ran to do the work and the cook, in vast satisfaction at
having so well acquitted himself, sat down with a goblet of sack and
tippled and nodded, and kept an ill-tempered eye on the master's boy
and his own, as with shrewd fear of broken heads they scurried back and
forth.
"It is most wonderful excellent sack," quoth the cook, and with his
sleeve he mopped his fiery bald head. "It was by a happy stroke I
marked it for my own. Truly, I had rather be cook than master, for here
I sit with mine eye upon the cabin stores, from which I can choose and
eat at will, and the captain, nay, the Lord High Admiral of England,
is himself none the wiser. Fish, sayest thou? Nay, fish is at best a
poor man's food. I will have none of it." And thus he ran on foolishly,
forgetting as he drank sack, that there was no one to hear him, not
even his mate. "Truly, I am a wonderful excellent cook. I may in time
become a captain. I may even become the governor of a plantation and
take for a wife some handsome Spanish woman with a wonderful rich
dowry. She must have an exceeding rich dowry if she will marry me,
though. Yea, I am a wonderful excellent cook." And the more he drank
the more foolish he became.
After a while, he cocked his head upon one side; and quoth he, "I hear
them calling and shouting! It seemeth they are singing huzza for me.
I hear them coming down to do me honour. Truly, I am a most wonderful
excellent cook and the fish hath pleased them well. Foolish ones that
they are to eat it!"
The silly fellow sat with his head on one side and smiled when they
burst in upon him. "Hast come for more fish?" he cried. "Yonder stands
the kettle. Nay, what's that? What's that thou sayest? Nay, fellow,
th' art mad? Thou know'st not to whom thou speakest."
"Fool! Knave! Scoundrel! Swine!" they yelled. "Oh, such a beating as
thy fat carcase will get. Hear you not the uproar? Think you to cozzen
us?"
With that they seized him, two by the head and two by the feet, and
dragged him to the ladder. They threw a rope about him and knotted it
fast and tossed the ends to men at the hatch above, who hauled him,
squealing and kicking like an old hog, up on deck. To the cabin they
dragged him, with all the men shrieking curses at him and pelting him
with chunks of fish, and in the cabin they stood him before the table
where the Old One and Harry Malcolm sat, and very angry were they all.
"Dog of a cook," said the Old One, "for a relish to conclude our meal,
we shall see thee eat of this fish that the boy hath brought us." And
he thrust before the cook a great dish. "Eat it, every shred, bones and
all," said he, "or I'll have thee butchered and boiled in place of it."
"Why, now," said the cook, somewhat sobered by rough handling and a
trifle perplexed, but for all that still well pleased with himself, "as
for the bones, they are liable to scrape a man's throat going down. I
am reluctant to eat bones. But the meat is good. I rejoice to partake
of it, for so diligently have I laboured to prepare it that I have
denied myself, yea, though I hungered greatly."
"Eat," said the Old One and widely he grinned.
Looking suspiciously about him, for there was something in their manner
that he failed to understand, the cook thrust his hand into the dish
and took from it a great slice of fish, which he crammed into his mouth.
"Eat," said the Old One, "eat, O thou jewel among cooks!"
A curious look came over the cook's face and he raised his hand as if
to take the fish out of his mouth.
"Nay, swallow it down," said the Old One. "Be not sparing. There is
abundance in the dish. Yea, thou shalt stand there eating for a long
time to come." And though he smiled, his look made it plain that he was
in no trifling mood.
The cook turned pale and choked and gasped. "Water!" he cried thickly,
for his mouth was too full for easy speech.
"Nay, much drinking hath wrought havoc with thy wits. Eat on, eat on!"
Prodigious were the gulps by which the cook succeeded at last in
swallowing his huge mouthful, and great was his distress, for the salt
in it nearly choked him. "Water, water!" he weakly cried. "Nay, temper
thine heart with mercy, master! I beg for water--I beseech for water."
"Eat on," said the Old One grimly.
Then Harry Malcolm chuckled and the men in the door roared with
laughter, but the cook plunked down on his fat knees and thrust out
both his hands. "Nay, master, I cannot hold it down!"
"Eat on, O jewel among cooks!"
"Nay, master--"
"Come, then, lads, and cram it down his hungry throat."
Three of them seized him, and one, when he shut tight his mouth, thrust
a knife between his teeth.
"Blub-bub-blah!" he yelled. "I'll eat! I'll eat!"
They let him go and he rose and ate. Time and again he gasped for water
and they laughed; time and again he lagged and the Old One cried, "Eat
on!" When at last he stood miserably in front of the empty dish, the
Old One said, "For a day and a night shalt thou sit in bilboes with a
dry throat, which will be a lesson to learn thee two things: first,
before cooking a kettle of fish, do thou bear it well in mind to soak
out the salt so that the fish be fit for food; and second, by way of
common prudence, do thou sample for thyself the dishes that are cooked
for the cabin."
They haled him forward and locked the shackles on his feet and placed
beside him a great dish of the fish, that whoever wished might pelt him
with it; and there they left him to repent of his folly and forswear
drunkenness and whimper for water.
As the weary hours passed, the sun tormented him in his insufferable
thirst; but nightfall in a measure brought relief and he nodded in the
darkness and fell asleep.
Waking, he would rub his head, which sadly throbbed and would seek by
gulping to ease his parched throat; and sleeping again, he would dream
of great buckets of clear water. The voices that he heard buzzed in his
ears as if they were the droning of flies, and hunching himself down
in his shackles at one end of the iron bar, he forgot the world and
was forgotten, since his fat carcase lay inertly in a black shadow and
there was nothing to make a man keep him in mind.
He heard at last a voice saying, "But nevertheless it becomes you to
walk lightly and carefully," and another replying, "I fear him not, for
all his subtle ways. Much that goes on escapes him."
He stirred uneasily, and opening his eyes, saw that there were two men
leaning side by side against the forecastle.
"In the matter of wit, you grant him less than his due," said the first
speaker. "And in another matter you charge him with a heavier burden
than he needs bear."
The cook stirred and groaned and the first speaker chuckled, at which
the cook's gorge rose from anger.
"O jewel among cooks!" one of the two called softly, and the unhappy
man knew by the voice that the speaker was Philip Marsham.
Naming no names and talking in roundabout phrases as people do when
they wish one to know their meaning and another not to, the two
continued with no heed at all to the cook, whom they thought a mere
drunken lout. And indeed, their undertones were scarcely audible; but
anger sharpened the cook's ears and his wits, and he lay and ruminated
over such chance sentences as he got.
"It puzzled me from the first," said the other, "to see how easily you
bore with your comrade of the road."
"Why, he is a good soul in his way."
The other gave a grunt of disgust.
"Nay, it is a wonder to me that a lad with your nice notions ever found
his way to sea," Phil retorted.
"And I might never have gone, had not Captain Francis Candle been my
godfather."
"As for me, I have seen both sides of life; and, but for a certain
thing that happened, I might be well enough contented where I am."
"And that?"
Phil hesitated, for though they had talked freely, as young men will,
the question searched a side of Phil's life to which as yet he had
given no clue. "Why," said he, lowering his voice, "for one thing, I
saw for the first time my own grandfather; and for another, I saw a
certain old knight who quite won my fancy from such a man as a certain
one we know. Come, let us stroll together." And as they walked the deck
that night, arm in arm, Phil told his companion what his life had been
and what it might have been, and mentioned, in passing, the girl at the
inn.
Left to his miseries and his thoughts, of which the first were little
better company than the second, the woeful cook turned over and over
in his fat head such fragments of their talk as he had succeeded in
overhearing, and to say truth, he made little more out of it all than
the speakers had intended. But his parched throat teased his wits to
greater effort, and being come to such a state that he would have
bartered his immortal soul for water, had chance offered, he bethought
him of a plan by which, if luck held good, he might escape from his
shackles.
The moment for which he waited was a long time coming and he suffered
a great variety of increasing miseries before it arrived; but when
the watches changed, he saw among the men newly arrived on deck his
erstwhile dearest friend, and somewhat reluctantly forgiving his dear
friend for belabouring him over the head with a whole salt fish, the
cook softly called the man by name.
The fellow came snickering, which made it none the easier to bespeak
his aid; but the cook nevertheless swallowed his wrath as well as with
his dry throat he could, and whispered to the fellow that he must make
haste and tell the master there was news to be imparted in secret.
At this the fellow held up his hand with thumb thrust between first and
second fingers.
"Give me no fico," wailed the most excellent cook. "Nay, I have
stumbled upon a black and hidden matter. Go thou, and in haste, and it
will pay thee well."
For a time they bickered in the dark, but there was in the cook's
despair a sincerity that finally made the fellow believe the tale; and
finding, upon stealing aft, that there was still a light in the great
cabin, he mustered up his courage and knocked.
"Enter," cried a hard voice.
The fellow opened the door and peeped in and found the Old One sitting
alone at the table. Glancing hastily about, and the more alarmed to
meet the cold eye of Harry Malcolm who lay on the great bed in the
corner of the cabin, he closed the door at his back and whispered, "He
swears it's true--that there's foul work afoot. 'Tis the cook who hath
told me--yea, and hath bade me tell you. He would say no more--the
cook, I mean."
"Oh, my good friend, our most excellent cook!" Meditating, the Old
One looked the fellow up and down. "Here," said he, "strike off his
shackles and send him in with the key." And he threw the fellow the key
to the locks.
After a while the cook came weakly in and shut the door behind him and,
throwing the key on the table, fell into a chair.
"Ah," said the Old One, "what is this tale I have heard news of?"
"Water!" gasped the cook. For though he had managed, by pausing at the
butt on his way, to drink nearly a quart, he had no mind the Old One
should know of it.
The Old One smiled. "Go, drink, if thy tale be worth it; but mind, if
I deem thy tale not worth it, thou shalt pay with a drop of blood for
every drop of water."
The cook shot a doubting glance at the Old One, but went none the less,
and came back wiping his lips.
"Have at thy tale," said the Old One.
There was a quaver in the cook's voice, for he was by no means sure of
how great a tale he could make, and the master's face gave him small
encouragement, for from the beginning of the tale to the end the Old
One never altered his cold, cruel smile.
"It was the boatswain and young Canty," he said.
"Ah!"
"They was leaning on the forecastle and walking the deck arm in arm and
talking of one thing and another."
"And what did they say?"
"They talked about some one's slow wit--I could not make sure whose,
for they scoffed at me bitterly--and Canty was bepuzzled by the
boatswain's ways, and he wanted him to do something or other."
"Go on." The Old One, grinning coldly, leaned back and watched the
labouring cook, who wracked his few brains to make a worthier story.
"Nay, but I heard little else. Yet, said I, the master must know at all
costs."
"What a thick head is thine and how easily seen through and through!"
The Old One laughed. "Think you all this is worth a second thought? I
am of the mind to have you skinned and salted. But I forgive you, since
I have a milkish heart that is easy moved to pity. Get you down to your
berth and sleep."
The cook departed in haste, but with a fleeting glance at Harry Malcolm
whom he feared less only than the master. He was aware that for some
reason he did not understand, his broken tale had served his purpose.
When he had gone the Old One turned about. "You heard him. What think
you?" said he.
From the great bed in the corner, Harry Malcolm raised his head and
laughed silently. "Our able cook was hard pressed for an excuse to get
out of his ankle rings. Did you hear him slopping at the butt the first
time passing? As for his tale, we know what we knew, and no more."
"'Slow wits'! I wonder."
"At Baracao we shall see," said Harry Malcolm. "Neither one nor a dozen
can harm us before we raise land."
"And after raising land, which by God's mercy will be soon now, we
shall see whose wits will nick first when the edges crack together."
The Old One stretched and yawned and Harry Malcolm softly laughed.