Yo-Ho-Ho For The Jolly Old Fellow!

When your historian received a summons in the unmistakable handwriting of Capt. Morgan Corbye inviting, nay, demanding that I join her for seasonal libations aboard the Winged Adventure, I thought it best to forward to her a small overture by means of a messenger, our last encounter having left me somewhat in her disfavour. When the boy arrived at my apartments following the delivery with his ears, nose and digits intact, I felt it safe to assume that at least for the nonce, the good Captain had forgiven my transgressions. Not wishing to commit another social faux pas, I had decided (and wisely) to forgo presenting Captain Corbye with a better grade of rum; her preferences in that regard are carved in stone and no man dares offer anything but her usual. I sent along eggnog instead, a beverage for which the Captain has a great fondness (when liberally laced with the aforementioned rum), and one which does not keep well at sea. That I should suspect an ulterior motive never crossed my mind, demonstrating how easily we are lulled into false perceptions.

The Captain met me at the railing, handed me down to the deck with the gracious demeanor of a high-society dame and escorted me to her somewhat inelegantly appointed cabin where a single lantern illuminated the upturned trunk which sufficed as her table. It was then I saw the error in my assumptions, for on the table was the Swear Box. I had last seen it in the hands of our timid village parson.

Now it must be told that Captain Corbye has at her command a wealth of invective the likes of which is not often found even at sea. Her bold language was how she became acquainted with the Swear Box. The clergy had been making the rounds of the pubs whilst several legitimate vessels were in the harbour and the ships' crews taking liberty on shore, for sailors will swear and it was the cleric's purpose to fine them, funds thus raised to benefit the sea-widows of the town. Most sailors obliged him with prodigious and purposeful donations; benevolence is in their nature. Capt. Corbye, on the other hand, refused to pay up a cent for a particularly descriptive oath she had vented upon the innkeeper and all his antecedents. That was the last I had seen of the Swear Box, and now it was resting beside my gift of eggnog and the Captain's diminishing store of rum. I knew that I would be expected to respond in kind to each curse Morgan Corbye uttered, but only I would pay the fines she set. Oh, the parson would get his Swear Box back, no doubt about that, and the widows would eat well over the holidays, but my purse would be a great deal lighter before this night was through. Morgan Corbye had found a means to aid the needy in true piratical style.