I’ve paid for your sickest fancies; I’ve humoured your crackedest whim - |
Dick, it’s your daddy, dying; you’ve got to listen to him! |
Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? He lied. |
I shall go under by morning, and - Put that nurse outside. |
’Never seen death yet, Dickie? Well, now is your time to learn, |
And you’ll wish you held my record before it comes to your turn. |
Not counting the Line and the Foundry, the Yards and the village, too, |
I’ve made myself and a million; but I’m damned if I made you. |
Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty-three - |
Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty freighters at sea! |
Fifty years between ’em, and every year of it fight, |
And now I’m Sir Anthony Gloster, dying, a baronite: |
For I lunched with his Royal ’Ighness - what was it the papers had? |
«Not the least of our merchant-princes.» Dickie, that’s me, your dad! |
I didn’t begin with askings, I took my job and I stuck; |
I took the chances they wouldn’t, an’ now they’re calling it luck. |
Lord, what boats I’ve handled - rotten and leaky and old - |
Ran ’em, or - opened the bilge-cock, precisely as I was told. |
Grub that ’ud bind you crazy, and crews that ’ud turn you grey, |
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The others they dursn’t do it; they said they valued their life |
(They've served me since as skippers). I went, and I took my wife. |
Over the world I drove ’em, married at twenty-three, |
And your mother saving the money and making a man of me. |
I was content to be master, but she said there was better behind; |
She took the chances I wouldn’t, and I followed your mother blind. |
She egged me to borrow the money, an’she helped me to clear the loan, |
When we bought half-shares in a cheap un and hoisted a flag of our own. |
Patching and coaling on credit, and living the Lord knew how, |
We started the Red Ox freighters - we’ve eight-and-thirty now. |
And those were the days of clippers, and the freights were |
clipper-freights, |
And we knew we were making our fortune, but she died |
in Macassar Straits - |
|
By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank - |
And we dropped her in fourteen fathom: I pricked it off |
where she sank. |
Owners we were, full owners, and the boat was christened for her, |
And she died in the Mary Gloster. My heart, how young we were! |
So I went on a spree round Java and well-nigh ran her ashore, |
’t liquor no more: |
Strict I stuck to my business, afraid to stop or I’d think, |
Saving the money (she warned me), and letting the other men drink. |
And I met M’Cullough in London (I’d saved five ’undred then), |
And ’tween us we started the Foundry - three forges and twenty men. |
Cheap repairs for the cheap ’uns. It paid, and the business grew; |
For I bought me a steam-lathe patent, and that was a gold mine too. |
«Cheaper to build ’em than buy ’em», I said, but M’Cullough he shied, |
And we wasted a year in talking before we moved to the Clyde. |
And the Lines were all beginning, and we all of us started fair, |
Building our engines like houses and staying the boilers square. |
But M’Cullough ’e wanted cabins with marble and maple and all, |
And Brussels an’ Utrecht velvet, and baths and a Social Hall, |
And pipes for closets all over, and cutting the frames too light, |
But M’Cullough he died in the Sixties, and - Well, I’m dying to-night. ... |
I knew - I knew what was coming, when we bid on the Byfleet’s keel - |
They piddled and piffled with iron. I’d given my orders for steel! |
Steel and the first expansions. It paid, I tell you, it paid, |
When we came with our nine-knot freighters and collared |
the long-run trade! |
And they asked me how I did it, and I gave ’em the Scripture text, |
«You keep your light so shining a little in front o’ the next!» |
They copied all they could follow, but they couldn’t copy my mind, |
And I left ’em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind, |
Than came the armour-contracts, but that was M’Gullough’s side; |
He was always best in the Foundry, but better, perhaps, he died. |
I went through his private papers; the notes was plainer than print; |
And I’m no fool to finish if a man’ll give me a hint. |
(I remember his widow was angry.) So I saw what his drawings meant, |
And I started the six-inch rollers, and it paid me sixty per cent. |
Sixty per cent with failures, and more than twice we could do, |
And a quarter-million to credit, and I saved it all for you! |
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I thought - it doesn’t matter - you seemed to favour your ma, |
But you’re nearer forty than thirty, and I know the kind you are. |
Harrer an’ Trinity College! I ought to ha’ sent you to sea - |
But I stood you an education, an’ what have you done for me? |
The things I knew was proper you wouldn’t thank me to give, |
And the things I knew was rotten you said was the way to live. |
For you muddled with books and pictures, an’ china an’ etchin’s an’ fans, |
And your rooms at college was beastly - more like a |
whore’s than a man’s; |
Till you married that thin-flanked woman, as white and as stale as a bone, |
’ she gave you your social nonsense; but where’s that kid o’ your own? |
I’ve seen your carriages blocking the half o’ the Cromwell Road, |
But never the doctor’s brougham to help the missus unload. |
(So there isn’t even a grandchild, an’ the Gloster family’s done.) |
Not like your mother, she isn’t. She carried her freight each run. |
But they died, the pore little beggars! At sea she had ’em - they died. |
Only you, an’ you stood it. You haven’t stood much beside. |
Weak, a liar, and idle, and mean as a collier’s whelp |
Nosing for scraps in the galley. No help - my son was no help! |
So he gets three ’undred thousand, in trust and the interest paid. |
I wouldn’t give it you, Dickie - you see, I made it in trade. |
You’re saved from soiling your fingers, and if you have no child, |
It all comes back to the business. ’Gad, won’t your wife be wild! |
’Galls and calls in her carriage, her ’andkerchief up to ’er eye: |
«Daddy! dear daddy’s dyin’!» and doing her best to cry. |
Grateful? Oh, yes, I’m grateful, but keep her away from here. |
Your mother ’ud never ha’ stood ’er, and, anyhow, women are queer. ... |
There’s women will say I’ve married a second time. Not quite! |
But give pore Aggie a hundred, and tell her your lawyers’ll fight. |
She was the best o’ the boiling - you’ll meet her before it ends. |
I’m in for a row with the mother - I’ll leave you settle my friends. |
’t understand - |
Or the sort that say they can see it they aren’t the marrying brand. |
But I wanted to speak o’ your mother that’s Lady Gloster still; |
I’m going to up and see her, without its hurting the will. |
Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand’s waiting for you, |
If you’ll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do. |
They’ll try to prove me crazy, and if you bungle, they can; |
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And I’ve only you to trust to! (O God, why ain’t it a man?) |
There’s some waste money on marbles, the same as M’Cullough tried - |
Marbles and mausoleums - but I call that sinful pride. |
There’s some ship bodies for burial - we’ve carried ’em, |
soldered and packed; |
Down in their wills they wrote it, and nobody called them cracked. |
But me - I’ve too much money, and people might... All my fault: |
It come o’ hoping for grandsons and buying that Wokin’ vault. ... |
I’m sick o’ the ’ole dam’ business. I’m going back where I came. |
Dick, you’re the son o’ my body, and you’ll take charge o’ the same! |
I want to lie by your mother, ten thousand miles away, |
And they ’ll want to send me to Woking; and that’s where |
you’ll earn your pay. |
I’ve thought it out on the quiet, the same as it ought to be done - |
’ here’s your orders, my son. |
You know the Line? You don’t, though. You write to the Board, and tell |
Your father’s death has upset you an’ you’re goin’ to cruise for a spell, |
An’ you’d like the Mary Gloster - I’ve held her ready for this - |
They’ll put her in working order and you’ll take her out as she is. |
Yes, it was money idle when I patched her and laid her aside |
(Thank God, I can pay for my fancies!) - the boat where |
your mother died, |
By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank, |
We dropped her - I think I told you - and I pricked it |
off where she sank. |
[’Tiny she looked on the grating - that oily, treacly sea -] |
’Hundred and Eighteen East, remember, and South just Three. |
Easy bearings to carry - Three South - Three to the dot; |
But I gave McAndrew a copy in case of dying - or not. |
And so you’ll write to McAndrew, he’s Chief of the Maori Line; |
They’ll give him leave, if you ask ’em and say it’s business o’ mine. |
I built three boats for the Maoris, an’ very well pleased they were. |
An’ I’ve known Mac since the Fifties, and Mac knew me - and her. |
|
Against the time you’d claim it, committin’ your dad to the deep; |
’ my body, and Mac was my oldest friend, |
I’ve never asked ’im to dinner, but he’ll see it out to the end. |
Stiff-necked Glasgow beggar! I’ve heard he’s prayed for my soul, |
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’t lie if you paid him, and he’s starve before he stole. |
He’ll take the Mary in ballast - you’ll find her a lively ship; |
And you’ll take Sir Anthony Gloster, that goes on ’is wedding-trip, |
Lashed in our old deck-cabin with all three port-holes wide, |
The kick o’ the screw beneath him and the round blue seas outside! |
’s carriage - our ’ouse-flag flyin’ free - |
Ten thousand men on the pay-roll and forty freighters at sea! |
He made himself and a million, but this world is a fleetin show, |
And he’ll go to the wife of ’is bosom the same as he ought to go - |
By the heel of the Paternosters - there isn’t a chance to mistake - |
’ll pay you the money as soon as the bubbles break! |
Five thousand for six weeks’ cruising, the staunchest freighter afloat, |
And Mac he’ll give you your bonus the minute I’m out o’ the boat! |
He’ll take you round to Macassar, and you’ll come back alone; |
He knows what I want o’ the Mary. ... I’ll do what I please with my own. |
’ud call it wasteful, but I’ve seven-and-thirty more; |
I’ll come in my private carriage and bid it wait at the door. ... |
For my son ’e was never a credit: ’e muddled with books and art, |
’e lived on Sir Anthony’s money and ’e broke Sir Anthony’s heart. |
There isn’t even a grandchild, and the Gloster family’s done - |
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Harrer and Trinity College - me slavin’ early an’ late - |
An’ he thinks I’m dying crazy, and you’re in Macassar Strait! |
Flesh o’ my flesh, my dearie, for ever an’ ever amen, |
That first stroke come for a warning. I ought to ha’ gone to you then. |
’un - the doctors said I’d do. |
Mary, why didn’t you warn me? I’ve alius heeded to you, |
Excep’ - I know - about women; but you are a spirit now; |
An’, wife, they was only women, and I was a man. That’s how. |
An’ a man ’e must go with a woman, as you could not understand; |
’em secrets. I paid ’em out o’ hand, |
Thank Gawd, I can pay for my fancies! Now what’s five thousand to me, |
For a berth off the Paternosters in the haven where I would be? |
I believe in the Resurrection, if I read my Bible plain, |
But I wouldn't trust ’em at Wokin'; we're safer at sea again. |
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I'm sick of the hired women. I'll kiss my girl on her lips! |
I'll be content with my fountain. I'll drink from my own well, |
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And the wife of my youth shall charm me - an' the rest can go to Hell! |
|
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Down by the head an' sinkin', her fires are drawn and cold, |
And the water's splashin' hollow on the skin of the empty hold - |
Churning an' choking and chuckling, quiet and scummy and dark - |
Full to her lower hatches and risin' steady. Hark! |
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'Never seen death yet, Dickie? ... Well, now is your time to learn! |