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- 2137
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- 2026-01-30T03:55:03.879Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 2072
- text
- shipmates, since at the least they will at a pinch say a good word for
him at all hazards. Did Lieutenant Ratcliffe happen to tell your honour
of that adroit fling of Budd’s jumping up in the cutter’s bow under the
merchantman’s stern when he was being taken off? That sort of
good-humoured air even masks that at heart he resents his impressment.
You have but noted his fair cheek. A man-trap may be under his
ruddy-tipped daisies.’
Now the _Handsome Sailor_ as a signal figure among the crew had
naturally enough attracted the captain’s attention from the first.
Though in general not very demonstrative to his officers, he had
congratulated Lieutenant Ratcliffe upon his good fortune in lighting on
such a fine specimen of the _genus homo_, who in the nude might have
passed for a statue of young Adam before the Fall.
As to Billy’s adieu to the ship _Rights-of-Man_, which the boarding
lieutenant, in a deferential way, had indeed reported to him, Captain
Vere, more as a good story than aught else (having mistakenly understood
it as a satiric sally), had but thought so much the better of the
impressed man for it; as a military sailor, admiring the spirit that
could take an arbitrary enlistment so merrily and sensibly. The
foretopman’s conduct, too, so far as it had fallen under the captain’s
notice, had confirmed the first happy augury, while the new recruit’s
qualities as a _sailor-man_ seemed to be such that he had thought of
recommending him to the executive officer for promotion to a place that
would more frequently bring him under his own observation, namely, the
captaincy of the mizen-top, replacing there in the starboard-watch a man
not so young whom partly for that reason he deemed less fitted for the
post. Be it parenthesised here that since the mizen-topmen have not to
handle such breadths of heavy canvas as the lower sails on the mainmast
and foremast, a young man if of the right stuff not only seems best
adapted to duty there, but, in fact, is generally selected for the
captaincy of that top, and the company under him are light hands, and
often but striplings. In sum, Captain Vere had from the beginning deemed
Billy Budd to be what in the naval parlance of the time was called a
‘_King’s bargain_,’ that is to say, for His Britannic Majesty’s Navy a
capital investment at small outlay or none at all.
After a brief pause, during which the reminiscences above mentioned
passed vividly through his mind, he weighed the import of Claggart’s
last suggestion conveyed in the phrase ‘a man-trap under his
ruddy-tipped daisies,’ and the more he weighed it the less reliance he
felt in the informer’s good faith. Suddenly he turned upon him: ‘Do you
come to me, master-at-arms, with so foggy a tale? As to Budd, cite me an
act or spoken word of his confirmatory of what you in general charge
against him. Stay,’ drawing nearer to him, ‘heed what you speak. Just
now and in a case like this, there is a yard-arm-end for the false
witness.’
‘Ah, your honour!’ sighed Claggart, mildly shaking his shapely head as
in sad deprecation of such unmerited severity of tone. Then
bridling--erecting himself as in virtuous self-assertion, he
circumstantially alleged certain words and acts which collectively, if
credited, led to presumptions mortally inculpating Budd, and for some of
these averments, he added, substantiating proof was not far.
With gray eyes impatient and distrustful, essaying to fathom to the
bottom Claggart’s calm violet ones, Captain Vere again heard him out;
then for the moment stood ruminating. The mood he evinced,
Claggart--himself for the time liberated from the other’s
scrutiny--steadily regarded with a look difficult to render--a look
curious of the operation of his tactics, a look such as might have been
that of the spokesman of the envious children of Jacob deceptively
imposing upon the troubled patriarch the blood-dyed coat of young
Joseph.
- title
- Chunk 15