9. Щеголева В.А. Роль текстов в процессе обучения иностранным языкам в школе и основные требования к текстам для аналитического чтения. – В сборнике «Вопросы методики обучения иностранным языкам в средней школе». – М.: Учнедиез, 1956.
I take my pen to write this story about Treasure Island in the year 17— and go back to the time when my father kept the "Admiral Benbow" inn, and to the day when the old seamen with a seaman's chest came to our inn.
I remember the day very well. The old seaman came up to the door of our inn. He was a tall, strong man in a blue old seaman's coat. He had a cutlass at his side. His face was brown, and there was a big scar on his cheek. He looked at the inn for some time and whistled to himself; then he suddenly began to sing that old song which we all knew very well later:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest —
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"[1]
When my father came out of the inn to meet him, and asked him what he wanted, he only said': "A glass of rum."
My father brought him a glass of rum. The seaman drank it slowly, and looked around at the inn and at the sea.
"This is a nice place," he said then. "A good place for an inn. Do many people come and stay here?"
"No," said my father. "Not many, I'm sorry to say.”
"Well, then," the seaman said. "This is a good place for me. I'll stay here for some time. Rum and bacon and eggs is all I want.[2] You want to know my name? You may call me captain. Yes, call me captain."
My father looked at him and didn't say anything.
"Oh, I understand," the man said. "Money? I can pay." He took three or four gold piecesout of his pocket and threw them on the ground in front of my father. "Tell me when I must give you more"
That was how the old seaman with the scar on his right cheek came to stay at our inn. So you see how little we knew about him. He did not like to talk much. All day he walked by the sea. He had a telescope and he looked into the sea as if he wanted to find something there. All evening he sat in the parlour of the inn in a corner by the fire and drank rum and water very strong.
The people who came to the inn for a drink in the evening were afraid of him. When somebody spoke to him, he didn't usually answer, and soon enough they learned to leave him alone. [3]
Every day, when he came from his walk by the sea, he asked one of us, "Have you seen any seaman on the road here today?"
At first we thought he wanted to see and speak to other seamen; but later we began to understand that it wasn't so, that he didn't want to see any seamen, that he was afraid of them/ If a seaman came to stay at the inn, the captain stood behind the curtain on the door of the parlour and looked at him for a long time before he came. Nobody understood why he did that. Only I knew something, but not very much.
This is what I knew.
One day the captain came up to me and said, "Jim, I'll give you a silver fourpenny on the first day of every month if you look well at the people who come to this place. If a seaman with one leg ever comes here, you must come and tell me at once.”
When the first day of the month came, he didn't forget to give me the silver fourpenny and to repeat, "Jim, remember what I said about the man with one leg "
But I must tell you I paid very dear for my fourpenny. Who was that man with one leg? Why was the captain afraid of him? I thought about it day and night. 1 saw him in my dreams. I knew the man with one leg was a terrible man and the captain's enemy. I began to think that he was my enemy too. Sometimes I dreamed that he ran after me on his one leg. But though I was terribly afraid of the seamen with one leg, 1 was less afraid of the captain than the people who came to the inn in the evening.
There were nights when the captain drank much more rum and water than usual, and when he was already drunk, he sang his wild old sea-songs very loudly. Sometimes he called for glasses round[4] and then he made the people in the parlour listen to his terrible stories; he made them sing his songs with him; and under his terrible look each man tried to sing louder than the others.
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest— Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
The men all sang, and the captain didn't let anybody leave the parlour. He made them stay at the inn till he fell asleep. But most of all it was his stories that frightened people Those stories were terrible: about storms at sea, about pirates and fights, about hanging people and about walking the plank.[5] Some of the people from the village stopped c6mmg to the inn in the evening.
"What shall we do?" my father asked. "I'm afraid that soon nobody will come to stay here. The captain frightens people, and they Won't come and stay here.
But I saw that though the captain frightened them, many people still caffi6. The inn parlour was always full of people in the evenings now. Life was not very interesting 1Й our little village, and people liked to come and listen to those terrible stories. The younger men called the captain a "sea-dog", and said that men like the captain made England terrible at sea.[6]
Time passed. The captain stayed at the "Admiral Benbow" week after week and month after month. The money which he gave my father was coming to an end.[7] But my father hasn't brave enough to ask him either to pay of to leave the inn. Later, when my father told him one day, that he must pay for his room and the food, the captain gave him such a terrible look that my father hurried out of the room.
My father wasn't a strong man. At that time his health was poor. It was difficult for him to get up in the morning, and soon after that talk with the captain he felt so bad that he had to stay in bed all the time. Our doctor» Dr. Livesey, came to see him from time to time.
One late afternoon Dr. Livesey came to see my father The doctor took some dinner from my mother, and after that he sat smoking in the parlour and talking to some of the people there. The captain was also sitting in the parlour with his arms on the table. He was already very drunk. Suddenly he-the captain—began singing his wild old sea-song:
“Fifteen men on the dead man's chest - Yo ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
It was the first time the doctor heard the song. The captain sang very loudly, and I saw that the doctor didn't like it. He turned to see who was singing. At that moment the captain struck the table with his hand. The people knew what it meant: all talk stopped at once. Only the doctor went on talking
"Silence!" shouted the captain.
The doctor turned and looked at the captain.
"Are you speaking to me, sir?" the doctor asked.
"Silence!” the captain shouted louder.
“I have only one thing to say to you,” the doctor said. "If you don't stop drinking rum, there will soon be one dirty scoundrel less m the world."[8]
The captain jumped up from his chair with a terrible look. He took a sailor's knife out of his pocket, opened it and ran to the doctor with the knife in his hand. The doctor didn't move. He didn't even stand up. He only turned his head a little. He spoke louder now, and all the people in the parlour could hear him well:
"If you do not put that knife this moment in your pocket, I tell you, upon my honour, you shall very soon hang."[9]
The captain stopped, and for some time they looked at each other in silence. And the doctor won. The captain put the knife in his pocket and went back to his place like a beaten dog.[10]
"And now," the doctor said, “ I know there is a man like you here, and I’ll have an eye on you day and night.[11] I'm not a doctor only; I'm a magistrate; and if anybody tells me something bad about you, I'll know what to do. Remember that!"
The doctor soon went away, and the captain sat quietly in his place by the fire that evening and many other evenings, too.
[12]
CHAPTER 2 Black Dog Appears and Disappears
Soon after this a strange event happened, but at that time we did not understand what that event meant.
It happened in winter. One very cold January morning the captain got up earlier than usual and went for a walk to the sea in his old blue coat and hat. His telescope was under his arm.
All that winter my father was in very poor health. He was slowly dying. My mother and I had to do all the work in the inn. That morning Mother was with Father in his room and I was preparing breakfast for the people who stayed at the "Admiral Benbow". Suddenly the parlour door opened, and a man came in. I did not know that man. He had a cutlass at his side, but he didn't look like a sailor. You remember that at that time I always had my eyes open for seamen, with one leg or two. I looked at the man to decide if he was a seaman or not. I asked him if he wanted anything. He said he wanted a glass of rum. As I was going out of the room for the rum, he sat down at a table and asked me to come nearer.
"Come here, sonny," he said, "come nearer here."
I came up nearer to him.
"Is this table for my friend Bill?" he asked.
I told him I didn't know his friend Bill. I said that the table was for a man who stayed in our inn, and that we called him captain.
"Well," he said, "my friend Bill may like the name of captain. He has a scar on his cheek, hasn't he? That scar is on the right cheek, isn't it? Well, this is certainly my friend Bill. Tell me, sonny, is my friend Bill in this house now?"
I told him the captain was walking by the sea.
"Which way,1 sonny? Which way did he go?"
When I told him where the captain liked to walk and when he usually came back for breakfast, and answered a few other questions, the man said:
"I'll wait for him. I think he will be happy to see me."
I didn't like the look in his eyes as he said that.
The stranger waited in the parlour. Sometimes he went out into the road and then came back into the house. I also went out into the road to see if the captain was coming, but he at once called me back into the house. As I did not come back quickly enough, he gave me a terrible look and with an oath he shouted "Back into the housel" so loudly that it made me Jump. I hurried into the house and when I was back in the parlour again, he told me I was a good boy and became nice again.
At last the captain appeared in the road. When the stranger saw him he said:
"And there at last is my friend Bill. Oh, he is walking with a telescope under his arm. Now, sonny, you and 1 will go back into the parlour again, and we'll give my friend Bill a little surprise." Saying that the man made me go back with him into the parlour at once and put me behind him in the corner, behind the open door.
"Bill will not see us here when he comes in, sonny," he said in a low voice.
I did not like that voice. I did not know what to do. I stood behind the man in the corner. I was afraid of him now, and I saw that he was frightened of something, too. His hand was on his cutlass.
So we stood there in silence.
At last the captain came into the parlour and shut the door. He didn't see us and walked straight to the table where his breakfast was waiting for him.
"Bill," the .stranger said loudly.
The captain turned round quickly and saw us. His face became white at once. I was very sorry for him, he looked so old and ill now.
"Look here. Bill," the man said, "you know me. You know an old shipmate, don't you, Bill?"
"Black Dog!" the captain said in a very low voice.
"Yes," said the other. "Black Dog they call me. And I'm here to see my old shipmate Bill at the "Admiral Benbow" inn. Oh, Bill, Bill, we have seen something in life, you and me, haven't we?"
"Look here, you," said the captain. "You have found me;
here I am. Now say what you want?"
"We'll talk, Billy," the man answered. I’ll have a glass of rum from this dear child," he looked at me, "and we'll sit down and talk like old shipmates "
When I came back with the rum, they sat at the captain's table talking. Black Dog told me to go away and to leave the door open. "But don't try to listen to our talk," he said.
I left them together and went to the kitchen. For a long time I tried to listen to their talk, but they were speaking in low voices, and for a long time I could hear nothing. Then suddenly they began talking louder and louder and now I heard something that they were saying, but it was almost all oaths.
"No, no, no, no," repeated the captain, "If it comes to hanging, we'll all hang,2 I say."
Then suddenly there was a terrible noise—the table and chairs fell down. I heard a loud cry and saw Black Dog running to the door.3 Blood ran from a wound in his left arm. The captain was running after Black Dog with his cutlass- in his hand. At the door the captain was already very near him, but Black Dog ran out into the road. He ran so fast that soon disappeared. The captain stood by the door for a long time, silent. At last he turned back into the house.
"Jim,” he said, "rum!” He almost fell as he spoke. His face was all blue and red.
"Are you wounded?" I cried.
"Rum I" he repeated. "I must run away from here. Rum! Rum!"
I ran for the rum, but before I could get it I heard a loud fall in the parlour. I ran back into the room and saw the captain lying on the floor. At the same moment my mother who was frightened by the cries, ran into the parlour fo help me
The captain's eyes were closed, and his face was a terrible colour. My mother and I did not know what to do. We thought that he was wounded. I tried to make him drink some rum, but his teeth were shut, and we could not open his mouth We were happy when the door suddenly opened, and Dr. Livesey appeared in the parlour. He was going to see my father; but when he saw the captain lying on the floor, he at once came up to him.
“Oh, doctor/' we cried, "what shall we do? Where is he wounded?"
"Wounded?" said the doctor, "He is до more wounded than you or I. The man has had a stroke4, just as I told him. New you, Mrs. Hawkins," he said to my mother, "you go upstairs to your husband and tell him nothing about this. I'll try to save this man's life, and Jim will help me. Are you afraid of blood, Jim?" he asked me.
"No, I'm not,” I answered.
"We must take sane blood from his arm," the doctor said.The captain's arm was tattooed in many places with pictures and writing. We read: "Here's luck", “A fair wind”, "Billy Bones his fancy". 5
"And now, Mr. Billy Воnеs, if this is your name, we 11 see the colour of your blood. Hold his arm, Jim."
The doctor opened a vein.6 A lot of blood was taken, and at last the captain opened his eyes. He locked at the doctor and then at me; we saw he did not understand what was happening. Then suddenly he remembered everything, and at once tried to get up.
"Where's Black Dog?" he cried.
"There is no Black Dog here," said the doctor. "You have drunk too much rum, and you have had a stroke, just as I told you, and I have brought you back to life. And now, Mr. Billy Bones —"
"That's not my name," said the captain.
"I don't care7 whether it's your name or not. I only want to repeat that you must stop drinking. If you don't stop drinking rum, you will very soon die. Now try to get up and go to your bed. Jim and I will help you."
The captain was very weak. He was a tall man, and it was difficult even for the two of us to take him upstairs and put him on his bed.