Little is left to be told now. The sick man occasionally rallied, and he
loved to dwell like most old men of every station in life, upon his
past. He was also given to occasional fits of boasting, and when he did
do anything he took good care to let all the world know it. "Did you see
that!" he would cry out in an ecstasy of delight. "Did you see the
mighty blow I struck? Never in my palmiest days did I do better. Hide,
hide your diminished heads, ye Ramillies, Malplaquet, and Waterloo."
These famous battles he loved to talk about.
He also took a strange delight in showering upon all his people all
kinds of honours or distinctions, and it was said that men were
decorated for doing little or nothing. This was a symptom of decay.
Sometimes as he sat pillowed up in his invalid's chair, with the great
quack doctor in attendance upon him, he would mumble to himself, "Aye,
aye, I knew thee well. There was Wallop, he swept the seas. There was
brave Howard, Hawkins, Frobisher, and the rest, and you, my little man!
No, no, I've not forgotten Trafalgar and the Nile. Don't you remember
them all, Jack? Jack! Jack! where's my cox'sn, he never used to play the
truant," but Jack never answered to his call, and the old man wandered
on. "Clack, clack go my windlasses; yo! ho! cry my men. Heave in, my
lads. Sheet home and hoist up, and bear away for the main."
The great quack smiled as he glanced his eyes up at the long row of
shelves, with their burdens of remedies, all of which had been
prescribed to meet some fresh complaint, and many a costly dose had been
given, which only aggravated the disease; and of many of the others, all
that could be said was, that if they did no good, they at least did no
harm; but the straight waistcoat every day received some slight
addition, which contracted still more the old Buccaneer's actions, until
in time he could scarcely call his soul his own.
Thus did this great man pass his declining years. Ruled over by a
tyrannical quack. Worried by his own children, to whom he had given
every indulgence, at the recommendation of Madam Liberty, until it could
with justice be said that they one and all combined to bring the old
Buccaneer's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.
It is usual in all books, and it is even necessary before you close your
pages to kill some of the characters, if not all. Sometimes they die a
natural death, at others they are either blown up with gun-powder, or
otherwise made away; either with the steel blade, or the leaden bullet
of the assassin. The characters who have strutted for a brief space upon
the pages of this history must be allowed to die peacefully. The star of
Dogvane, the king of the Ojabberaways, after resting for a short while
over the green isle of his adoption, set forever in the Western Ocean.
His chief jester, the merry Pepper, the man of infinite wisdom and
resource, also passed away. Dogvane was never allowed to carry out his
grand design of covering the naked population of the Soudan in home-made
fabrics. Nor was the cook soothed in his last moments by seeing the
object of his life accomplished, namely, the total abolition of the
Buccaneer's Upper Chamber; consequently we cannot imagine that his end
was peace.
It is a pity that Death is no respecter of persons; had he been, the
gifted Pepper, would, no doubt, have been spared to amuse and enlighten
the world. Of the other conspirators of the cook's caboose, after having
served their allotted time, they also passed away, and it is not
recorded that Billy Cheeks, before he died, set fire to the waters of
the river that flowed by the Buccaneer's chief city. The carpenter rose
high in his master's household, and carried to his grave a goodly load
of honour. Of the rest, let history tell what truth or what lies it
likes, here no more will be recorded. It will be remembered that our
bold Buccaneer was at one time sorely grieved because he only had one
general. This seemed to prey so upon his mind in his last days, that he
tried to make amends for his past neglect by making generals by the
score, whether they were fitted for the position or not; nor did the
Buccaneer stop here, for he gave military titles to nearly all his sons,
in the hope, no doubt, that amongst the crowd there might be one
military genius, or perhaps two.
But stranger things were yet in store for the world, and a graver
symptom of decaying power had yet to manifest itself. It has been
already said that no man ever did more to degrade noble distinctions and
marks of honour than did this, at one time, celebrated Buccaneer, in his
declining years. It is true that he had not sunk quite so low as one of
his neighbours, who sold such things for a mere money consideration; but
he had in his latter years gone some considerable way even in this
direction, for he had made money a stepping-stone to preferment. The one
who placed drunkenness within easy reach of his people, might reasonably
expect to be made a peer. The successful oil-man, or grocer, who had
made his five talents into ten, need not despair of earning the at one
time honourable distinction of knighthood, while any one who served his
party well, even if it were to the discredit of his country, was pretty
certain to be ennobled. The number of new creations was so great, that
his heraldic officers were nearly worn-out with finding ancestors and
pedigrees for all these great people, and it was wonderful what things
their industry, and their ingenuity, brought to light. Frequently they
followed the poet's art and gave "to airy nothing a local habitation and
a name."
Had he promoted all his cooks to seats in the Council Chamber it would
not have been so very extraordinary a thing, considering the part that
cooks play in this world of ours. The Buccaneer now put a climax to his
folly by one day making all his tinkers lords, and all his tailors
knights. Whether this was done in a spirit of irony, or from a deep
conviction that, as he had gone so far, he could not in justice draw any
hard and fast line, will never be known. He was without doubt the best
tinker the world had ever seen, and he had a very large show of
tinkered pots, pans, and kettles, always on hand, but many thought he
might have stopped here.
These last acts were considered to be of so grave a nature that the
priest took the place of the doctor, and when this happens little else
remains to be told.
Before closing the pages of this history, another catastrophe must be
recorded. In one of those storms which were of frequent occurrence in
the Buccaneer's island, the old Church Hulk, which had ridden alongside
of the Ship of State for so many years in fair weather and in foul,
slipped her moorings one dark night, either by accident, or otherwise,
and she drifted on to the rocks of discord, and being broken up was
plundered; her own crew being fortunate enough to save some of her cargo
of riches for themselves. After all was over they set to work to accuse
and abuse each other. Some indeed expressed open satisfaction at what
had happened, for the discipline on board the old Church Ship had long
been too severe for them, and signs of mutiny and insubordination had
long been manifest, as has been already shown. These felt that now they
could worship their God how they liked, when they liked, and in what
costume they liked; and those who wished it, and there were not a few,
could even worship more gods than one.
The loss of the Church Ship was put down to various causes by her crew.
Some said it was the work of the devil; others said it was through the
wickedness of men; but very few of them thought of applying to
themselves the proverb, which the old coxswain and his master had
brought from the Spanish Main.