Limekiller!

Of George I, we retain dull memories that he, not being able to speak English, thus became the first British Sovereign not to attend cabinet meetings, to the great advantage of Constitutional Government. But of George II — well, what of George II? The answer must only be: nothing. Nothing much in England, nothing good in Scotland, nothing much good in Ireland, and certainly nothing at all in British Columbia. But in British Hidalgo: a great deal more than nothing: for when it came to the second George’s attention that the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico or perhaps Peru (history is a little blurry as to this) was caught out in sketching plans to invade the sea-coast of British Hidalgo (which was, in those days, almost all sea-coast), did not George II declare that, if this were done, “He vould, py Got, pompard der coasts of Shpain!”? This has been forgotten in Britain (it has probably been forgotten in Spain, both nations having had very long and very bad headaches from their respective and very disrespectful empires); it has never been forgotten in British Hidalgo; “the Spaniard” — as he is always called, collectively — having foreborne to make the planned invasion.

To this day, in fact, in Woodcutters Cove, that forgotten last refuge of the White Creoles, there is still a statue of this bristly little monarch. True, it is only half life-size, and the sculptor has pictured him wearing the armor and tunic of a Roman general, with the result that there is a subversive school of thought which maintains stubbornly that it is a statue of Queen Victoria in corset and petticoat. But that is neither here nor there; and, alas, increasingly, that is where one nowadays mostly finds the White Creoles of the Colony, to wit: neither here nor there. the principal exception being, of course, Woodcutters Cove. Darker and more vigorous races have in large part taken over, elsewhere. The children of Asia (of both ends and of the middle) run most of the shops. The civil service and police constabulary are mostly Bayfolk (which is to say, mostly Black or Tan). Most of the farming around there is done by Panyars, as the entirely Mestizo population is called. The Black Arawacks, who are culturally Amerindian, do most of the fishing. What then do the White Creoles do? They do what log-cutting is still being done thereabouts. Aniline dyes have swept away the demand for logwood, and the mahogany has long been exhausted. But when baulks of rosewood and spars of pine or Santa Maria, logs of serricoty, or emmory, are cut, it is the White Creoles who cut it. And w’hen not doing that, they sit upon their verandahs, drinking rum and watered lime-juice, and they murmur of Good King George’s Golden Davs. that Good King being, of course, George II.

“‘Tired of fish-tea and rice-and-beans’?” Ruddy — for Rudderick — Goforth repeated, as one should repeat, “'Tired of life?”’

“Pretty tired of’m, yes,” Limekiller agreed. He sipped from the bottom of his glass. There hadn’t been much rum to start with and it had been of low proof: but the lime-tree after all grew in the front yard, and even if one didn’t know much else, one knew that lime- juice kept away the dreaded scurvy. There was, this time, a different and a more bitter taste in the glass, but no mystery was involved. and neither was Angostura. idly he picked up the piece of paper which Ruddy had copied, he said, from an old book, and read once more the careful capitals.

A Sovran Cure for The Small Feaver. Take one small bottle of white Rum called by Ye Spaniard a chaparita and lay therein three twigs of the Yerb Contribo and lett it steep for three Dayes. Drink 7 oz? morning and one ozz Evening for 3 dayes and Ye maye see Ye Feaver abate. Canton [sic] do not use same Twiggs more than thrice.

It was an old “old book.” Ruddy asked how “Jock” was feeling. “Jock” shrugged. “I guess the fever’s gone down,” he said. “It wasn’t much of a fever anyway.”

Ruddy covered his long chin with his long hand, and took thought. “Well… if the fever has gone down. and you still hasn’t got no appetite

“Didn’t say that I have no appetite. Said that I have no appetite for fish-tea and rice-and-beans.”