To the Ends of the Earth by William Golding Read Free Book Online Page A

lordship may imagine that this news of the presence on board of a fair incognita lent an added exhilaration to my animal spirits!
    Mr Taylor might have conducted me through the whole list of passengers; but as we were returning from the mainmast for (it may be) the twentieth time, a—or rather, the—parson who had earlier spewed so copiously into his own face came out of the lobby of the passenger accommodation . He was turning to ascend the ladder to the afterdeck, but seeing me between my young friends, and perceiving me to be of some consequence I suppose, he paused and favoured me with a reverence. Observe I do not call it a bow or greeting. It was a sinuous deflection of the whole body, topped by a smile which was tempered by pallor andservility as his reverence was tempered by an uncertainty as to the movements of our vessel. As a gesture called forth by nothing more than the attire of a gentleman it could not but disgust. I acknowledged it by the briefest lifting of my hand towards the brim of my beaver and looked him through. He ascended the ladder. His calves were in thick, worsted stockings, his heavy shoes went up one after the other at an obtuse angle; so that I believe his knees, though his long, black coat covered them, must be by nature more than usually far apart. He wore a round wig and a shovel hat and seemed, I thought, a man who would not improve on acquaintance. He was hardly out of earshot when Mr Taylor gave it as his opinion that the sky pilot was on his way to interview Captain Anderson on the quarterdeck and that such an approach would result in his instant destruction.
    “He has not read the captain’s Standing Orders,” said I, as one deeply versed in the ways of captains and their orders and warships. “He will be keel-hauled.”
    The thought of keel-hauling a parson overcame Mr Taylor completely. When Mr Willis had thumped him to a tear-stained and hiccupping recovery he declared it would be the best sport of all things and the thought set him off again. It was at this moment that a positive roar from the quarterdeck quenched him like a bucket of cold water. I believe—no, I am sure—the roar was directed at the parson but the two young gentlemen leapt as one, daunted, as it were, by no more than a ricochet or the splinters flying from where the captain’s solid shot had landed. It appeared that Captain Anderson’s ability to control his own officers, from Cumbershum down to these babes-in-arms, was not to be questioned. I must confess I did not desire more than the one engagement I had had with him as a ration per diem .
    “Come lads,” said I. “The transaction is private toCaptain Anderson and the parson. Let us get out of earshot and under cover.”
    We went with a kind of casual haste into the lobby. I was about to dismiss the lads when there came the sound of stumbling footsteps on the deck above our heads, then a clatter from the ladder outside the lobby—which turned at once to a speedier rattle as of iron-shod heels that had slipped out and deposited their wearer at the bottom with a jarring thump! Whatever my distaste for the fellow’s—shall I call it— extreme unction , in common humanity I turned to see if he required assistance. But I had taken no more than a step in that direction when the man himself staggered in. He had his shovel hat in one hand and his wig in the other. His parsonical bands were twisted to one side. But what was of all things the most striking was—no, not the expression—but the disorder of his face. My pen falters. Imagine if you can a pale and drawn countenance to which nature has afforded no gift beyond the casual assemblage of features; a countenance moreover to which she has given little in the way of flesh but been prodigal of bone. Then open the mouth wide, furnish the hollows under the meagre forehead with staring eyes from which tears were on the point of starting—do all that, I say, and you will still come short of the comic