Board Thread:Roleplaying Board/@comment-26369190-20150322002629/@comment-25876934-20150322154831

(Ruth rises and comes forward.)

RUTH. Nay, dear master, my mind has long been gnawed by the cankering tooth of mystery. Better have it out at once.

SONG-RUTH.

RUTH. When Frederic was a little lad he proved so brave and daring,

His father thought he’d ’prentice him to some career seafaring.

I was, alas! his nurserymaid, and so it fell to my lot

To take and bind the promising boy apprentice to a pilot

– A life not bad for a hardy lad, though surely not a high lot,

Though I’m a nurse, you might do worse than make your boy a pilot.

I was a stupid nurserymaid, on breakers always steering,

And I did not catch the word aright, through being hard of hearing;

Mistaking my instructions, which within my brain did gyrate,

I took and bound this promising boy apprentice to a pirate.

A sad mistake it was to make and doom him to a vile lot.

I bound him to a pirate – you – instead of to a pilot.

I soon found out, beyond all doubt, the scope of this disaster,

But I hadn’t the face to return to my place, and break it to my master.

A nurserymaid is not afraid of what you people call work,

So I made up my mind to go as a kind of piratical maid-of-all-work.

And that is how you find me now, a member of your shy lot,

Which you wouldn’t have found, had he been bound apprentice to a pilot.

(End song.)

RUTH. Oh, pardon! Frederic, pardon!