When I was young, my mother and I kept the Governor's Daughter inn. Buissness was uncommon, but not terribly rare. My mother told me stories of scoundrels and thugs, and the British Empire, and my father.
I had met my father once, but he had to leave. I remember, he sailed in, hanging on the edge of the mast, as the waves pulled him in. But he left by the end of the day, as my mother and I could only sadly watch.
But most of all, I remember the proud old seaman with the sabre cut and tricorner hat first took up his lodging under our roof.
I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding off the dock from his dingy, a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his greasy locks falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut X across one cheek, a dirty, livid pink. I remember him looking round the cover and humming to himself as he did so, and then breaking out under his breath in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:
"We're devils and black sheep, We're really bad eggs, drink up, me hearties, yo ho!"
in the deep, slurred voice that seemed to have been drinking since the dawn of time. Then he rapped on the door, and when my mother appeared, greeted her fondly by name. I found this odd, as my mother had never mentioned such a man. She seemed shocked by his appearance, but invited him in, if a bit flustered.
My mother went to fetch him a bottle of rum as he examined our inn, taking far too much interest, for my liking at least, in my mother's body.
"Well, then," said he, "I'll stay here a while. Oh, I see what you're at- there"; and he threw three or four gold pieces to me. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," says he, looking as fierce as a commander.
And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he acted nothing of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like a man accustomed to be obeyed but rarely strike.
He had taken me aside and promised me a silver penny if I would "keep a weather-eye open for a seaman with one leg" and let him know the moment he appeared. It was then I realized I had not yet asked his name.
"What might you call me?" he asked, as though he had been waiting for me to ask.
"You might call me, Captain, Jack, Sparrow."