Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/75

Rh was highly undesirable. What with pirates and deserters and smugglers, at every street corner, honest John Ward had little incentive to be virtuous. By 1603 he had become a ragged, moody ruffian who got drunk every night "with drinking of the King" among a company of "scatter-goods and swaggerers." He went by the name of Jack Ward, and had a reputation as a stout drinker and swearer. He used to sit on the tavern benches "cursing the time" with a vehemence which won him the regard of all who heard. His biographer suggests that he paid no rent. The little money he possessed seems to have been spent in drink:

Ale was his eating and his drinking solely

so that "all the day you should hardly faile but finde him in an ale-house: but bee sure to have him drunke at home at night."

After a few months in Plymouth, his money (his savings, or the proceeds of the ketch) was exhausted. Plymouth ale became no longer feasible, nor would the hosts give him credit, and at this time he seems to have obtained some employment in one of the King's ships. It was not then a