An Interesting Conversation

This was taken from the novel

The Life, Times & Adventures of

Sir George Henry Nichols

or

The Legend of Captain Outrageous

Just prior to this conversation, there had been a dispute over a young girl and whether or not she was to be raped. In the struggle, one man was wounded and the rapist killed, the girl remained untouched.

After the episode with Donald, I began to think just what my life was really worth, and it didn't add up to a lot. The man shot me, outright, no ifs, no ands, no buts, he shot me, and only by the grace of God, am I not the same as he. I caught that ball, I saw it coming, and I caught it. Then Steve shot him dead, just that quick, and I some how wonder, does that make my life worth his, cause that's what he paid with, and was he some how cheated, because I be alive, with him having paid.

I never new what became of the girl, after I turned her over to Morgan, I never saw her again; I suppose he put her on a messenger to Jamaica. I often wondered if it was really about her, it started out that way, I thought, but in an instance, a man was dead, and could have been two. How can this be over a little girl? A little girl I'd never seen in my whole life, and shall never see again. How can this be? I have had men die all about me, and so I can look the other way, for is that not the way of life? For what is one without the other? I was truly upset over Baltimore, but only because of Vicky, if the truth were known. Why is it we value them so much, whether good intentions, or evil? Then I thought, tis the law I upheld, after all, I'm a knight, a Welshmen, a nobleman, but no, somehow, I truly felt it was about the girl.

This so haunted me that I posed the question to Harry in the cool of one evening while sitting about the deck, having a punch, I remember he looked at me real hard, and sitting on a barrel of tallow, leaned back against the mizzen, "Interesting question. Why do we cherish our women so?"

"I can tell 'im a thing or two eh admiral!" came a sharp reply from Crab, a real grubby fellow leaning there against the helm.

"Shu'd up Crab! That's not what he wants to know!" then Harry looked at me and said, "because of their position in life. If you have a good woman, you have everything, a family, someplace to go. Someplace you belong. You have a reason for the things you do." Then rubbing his chin, he went on, "If you have a good woman, you have farms, cities, you have trading, you have a reason to fight, because you have a reason for peace. And a reason to live, because you have a reason to die. She gives you immortality."

I looked at him like he was off his jump, I was sitting on a pile of rope there next to the cabin, "How can you say that, most of the men here don't have women, if fact the little girl I got shot over was the only thing close to a women any of us have seen since we left Port Royal! So what's our motivation?"

"The dream of a good woman," He said rather flatly.

Then Crab said, " 'ow come I got no women?"

"Cause you’re a crab, Crab! You're only as good as your women, and they, only as good as you. That's why there are stations in life, because the likes of you make it so." Then Harry turned to me and said, "If you want a good life, then you need a good woman, and if you want a good woman, then you have to be good. But more important then that, you have to be willing to die for her, whether you know who she is or not! Because if your not willing to die for her, then what good is she, and who wants her," he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger a moment, and then continued, "so you see, Donald wasn't so wrong, his dream just a little out of hand, but he was willing to die for her," then putting his hand up said, "but you were right to enforce the Articles, by doing so, you too proved you were willing to die for her. So you see without her, you had nothing."

"But perhaps it was the law for which I stood." Thinking myself somehow noble, and to hear his reply.

"It was still about her, you chose the law, which protected her. Donald simply chose her, and because you chose the law, which means that you indeed hold the law above yourself, places you above Donald." Then shaking his finger at me, said, "But it was still about the girl."

"On what do you base this?" I asked.

"'ea!! "ow ya know?" Crab echoed.

"Cause you were willing to die." Harry said.

"One dies for one's country!" I said, hearing my father telling me I was a 'Welshmen, for a Welshmen is a noble breed,' and I knew Henry was a Welshmen.

"One's country is one's women." he maintained.

"What of the children, the sons."

"'ea! What of the bloomin' children." I could tell Crab was enjoying the conversation.

"One's children is one's woman, you just haven’t thought about it." Henry was steady on his point, though I wasn't sure I bought it, although I reflected on something my father said years ago on my first trip to the well, 'Be gone with him to the spring, better for us to make another, least we have a spare.'

"Then if what you say is true, the reason the Spanish is a parcel of cowards...? Is because... They aren't willing to die for their women?" I thought I had him here, I thought for sure.

"Exactly" Henry said in total agreement.

"W'at that you say?" Crab bellowed just as I said.

"Exactly! What do you mean, exactly?"

"The Spanish didn't bring their women. Why? Because their intent is to plunder and take the booty back to Spain, and then return themselves. But unable to resist temptation, they took up with the local women, whom they considered no better than whores or animals, and so littered the countryside with bastards, neither of which is worth fighting for, and certainly not worth dying for." Henry was telling it well. "I promise you, if they would have brought their own women, we would not be here." Then raising his hand, "that's why we're so willing to fight, and indeed go look for the fight, least they bring it home to our women!" I could tell he was pleased with himself, for having thought of it so well.

"But the little Spanish girl wasn't one of my women, she was one of theirs." I offered.

"But you still have the dream, you still dream of a good woman. Therefore, woman is like a treasure in your eyes, regardless of who she is. They don't, to them, women, pesos, women,“ he said holding his hands out like a scale, “they're a gluttony, like the gold, you're only as good as your women, and they as good as you." Then he stood up and walked to the cabin door, opened it, then turned around and added, "And God will abandon the country, who fails it's women, because let us not forget, God's mother, was a woman! And if you remember correctly, man played no part in that scheme."

When he had gone on into the cabin, Crab said, "ya know 'e says it real fancy like and all, but what 'e says is true, a man won't kill ya ov'r alot, but 'e'll damn well kill ya ov'r a touch of tail, and don't ever think 'e won't!" And with that, Crab went off.

I sat there awhile alone, thinking about it all, and wondered if this was true, was this why Vicky haunted me so, unto this day, and with this thought, tears came into my eyes, for she was truly gone.