[22]So at least says an Orkney proverb.
[22]So at least says an Orkney proverb.
What ho, my jovial mates! come on! we’ll frolic itLike fairies frisking in the merry moonshine,Seen by the curtal friar, who, from some christeningOr some blithe bridal, hies belated cell-ward—He starts, and changes his bold bottle swaggerTo churchman’s pace professional, and, ransackingHis treacherous memory for some holy hymn,Finds but the roundel of the midnight catch.Old Play.
The stride of the Udaller relaxed nothing of its length or of its firmness as he approached the glimmering cabin, from which he now heard distinctly the sound of the fiddle. But, if still long and firm, his steps succeeded each other rather more slowly than usual; for, like a cautious, though a brave general, Magnus was willing to reconnoitre his enemy before assailing him. The trusty Laurence Scholey, who kept close behind his master, now whispered into his ear, “So help me, sir, as I believe that the ghaist, if ghaist it be, that plays so bravely on the fiddle, must be the ghaist of Maister Claud Halcro, or his wraith at least; for never was bow drawn across thairm which brought out the gude auld spring of ‘Fair and Lucky,’ so like his ain.”
Magnus was himself much of the same opinion; for he knew the blithe minstrelsy of the spirited little old man, and hailed the hut with a hearty hilloah, which was immediately replied to by the cheery note of his ancient messmate, and Halcro himself presently made his appearance on the beach.
The Udaller now signed to his retinue to come up, while he asked his friend, after a kind greeting and much shaking of hands, “How the devil he came to sit there, playing old tunes in so desolate a place, like an owl whooping to the moon?”
“And tell me rather, Fowd,” said Claud Halcro, “how you came to be within hearing of me? ay, by my word, and with your bonny daughters, too?—Jarto Minna and Jarto Brenda, I bid you welcome to these yellow sands—and there shake hands, as glorious John, or some other body, says, upon the same occasion. And how came you here like two fair swans, making day out of twilight, and turning all you step upon to silver?”
“You shall know all about them presently,” answered Magnus; “but what messmates have you got in the hut with you? I think I hear some one speaking.”
“None,” replied Claud Halcro, “but that poor creature, the Factor, and my imp of a boy Giles. I—but come in—come in—here you will find us starving in comfort—not so much as a mouthful of sour sillocks to be had for love or money.”
“That may be in a small part helped,” said the Udaller; “for though the best of our supper is gone over the Fitful Crags to the sealchies and the dog-fish, yet we have got something in the kit still.—Here, Laurie, bring up thevifda.”
“Jokul, jokul!”[23]was Laurence’s joyful answer; and he hastened for the basket.
“By the bicker of Saint Magnus,”[24]said Halcro,“and the burliest bishop that ever quaffed it for luck’s sake, there is no finding your locker empty, Magnus! I believe sincerely that ere a friend wanted, you could, like old Luggie the warlock, fish up boiled and roasted out of the pool of Kibster.”[25]
“You are wrong there, Jarto Claud,” said Magnus Troil, “for far from helping me to a supper, the foul fiend, I believe, has carried off great part of mine this blessed evening; but you are welcome to share and share of what is left.” This was said while the party entered the hut.
Here, in a cabin which smelled strongly of dried fish, and whose sides and roof were jet-black with smoke, they found the unhappy Triptolemus Yellowley seated beside a fire made of dried sea-weed, mingled with some peats and wreck-wood; his sole companion a barefooted, yellow-haired Zetland boy, who acted occasionally as a kind of page to Claud Halcro, bearing his fiddle on his shoulder, saddling his pony, and rendering him similar duties of kindly observance. The disconsolate agriculturist, for such his visage betokened him, displayed little surprise, and less animation, at the arrival of the Udaller and his companions, until, after the party had drawn close to the fire, (a neighbourhood which the dampness of the night air rendered far from disagreeable,) the pannier was opened, and a tolerable supply ofbarley-bread and hung beef, besides a flask of brandy, (no doubt smaller than that which the relentless hand of Pacolet had emptied into the ocean,) gave assurances of a tolerable supper. Then, indeed, the worthy Factor grinned, chuckled, rubbed his hands, and enquired after all friends at Burgh-Westra.
When they had all partaken of this needful refreshment, the Udaller repeated his enquiries of Halcro, and more particularly of the Factor, how they came to be nestled in such a remote corner at such an hour of night.
“Maister Magnus Troil,” said Triptolemus, when a second cup had given him spirits to tell his tale of woe, “I would not have you think that it is a little thing that disturbs me. I came of that grain that takes a sair wind to shake it. I have seen many a Martinmas and many a Whitsunday in my day, whilk are the times peculiarly grievous to those of my craft, and I could aye bide the bang; but I think I am like to be dung ower a’thegither in this damned country of yours—Gude forgie me for swearing—but evil communication corrupteth good manners.”
“Now, Heaven guide us,” said the Udaller, “what is the matter with the man? Why, man, if you will put your plough into new land, you must look to have it hank on a stone now and then—You must set us an example of patience, seeing you come here for our improvement.”
“And the deil was in my feet when I did so,” said the Factor; “I had better have set myself to improve the cairn on Clochnaben.”
“But what is it, after all,” said the Udaller, “that has befallen you?—what is it that you complain of?”
“Of every thing that has chanced to me since I landed on this island, which I believe was accursed at the very creation,” said the agriculturist, “and assigned as a fitting station for sorners, thieves, whores, (I beg the ladies’ pardon,) witches, bitches, and all evil spirits!”
“By my faith, a goodly catalogue!” said Magnus; “and there has been the day, that if I had heard you give out the half of it, I should have turned improver myself, and have tried to amend your manners with a cudgel.”
“Bear with me,” said the Factor, “Maister Fowd, or Maister Udaller, or whatever else they may call you, and as you are strong be pitiful, and consider the luckless lot of any inexperienced person who lights upon this earthly paradise of yours. He asks for drink, they bring him sour whey—no disparagement to your brandy, Fowd, which is excellent—You ask for meat, and they bring you sour sillocks that Satan might choke upon—You call your labourers together, and bid them work; it proves Saint Magnus’s day, or Saint Ronan’s day, or some infernal saint or other’s—or else, perhaps, they have come out of bed with the wrong foot foremost, or they have seen an owl, or a rabbit has crossed their path, or they have dreamed of a roasted horse—in short, nothing is to be done—Give them a spade, and they work as if it burned their fingers; but set them to dancing, and see when they will tire of funking and flinging!”
“And why should they, poor bodies,” said Claud Halcro, “as long as there are good fiddlers to play to them?”
“Ay, ay,” said Triptolemus, shaking his head, “you are a proper person to uphold them in sucha humour. Well, to proceed:—I till a piece of my best ground; down comes a sturdy beggar that wants a kailyard, or a plant-a-cruive, as you call it, and he claps down an enclosure in the middle of my bit shot of corn, as lightly as if he was baith laird and tenant; and gainsay him wha likes, there he dibbles in his kail-plants! I sit down to my sorrowful dinner, thinking to have peace and quietness there at least; when in comes one, two, three, four, or half-a-dozen of skelping long lads, from some foolery or anither, misca’ me for barring my ain door against them, and eat up the best half of what my sister’s providence—and she is not over bountiful—has allotted for my dinner! Then enters a witch, with an ellwand in her hand, and she raises the wind or lays it, whichever she likes, majors up and down my house as if she was mistress of it, and I am bounden to thank Heaven if she carries not the broadside of it away with her!”
“Still,” said the Fowd, “this is no answer to my question—how the foul fiend I come to find you at moorings here?”
“Have patience, worthy sir,” replied the afflicted Factor, “and listen to what I have to say, for I fancy it will be as well to tell you the whole matter. You must know, I once thought that I had gotten a small godsend, that might have made all these matters easier.”
“How! a godsend! Do you mean a wreck, Master Factor?” exclaimed Magnus; “shame upon you, that should have set example to others!”
“It was no wreck,” said the Factor; “but, if you must needs know, it chanced that as I raised an hearthstane in one of the old chambers at Stourburgh, (for my sister is minded that there is littleuse in mair fire-places about a house than one, and I wanted the stane to knock bear upon,) when, what should I light on but a horn full of old coins, silver the maist feck of them, but wi’ a bit sprinkling of gold amang them too.[26]Weel, I thought this was a dainty windfa’, and so thought Baby, and we were the mair willing to put up with a place where there were siccan braw nest-eggs—and we slade down the stane cannily over the horn, which seemed to me to be the very cornucopia, or horn of abundance; and for further security, Baby wad visit the room maybe twenty times in the day, and mysell at an orra time, to the boot of a’ that.”
“On my word, and a very pretty amusement,” said Claud Halcro, “to look over a horn of one’s own siller. I question if glorious John Dryden ever enjoyed such a pastime in his life—I am very sure I never did.”
“Yes, but you forget, Jarto Claud,” said the Udaller, “that the Factor was only counting over the money for my Lord the Chamberlain. As he is so keen for his Lordship’s rights in whales and wrecks, he would not surely forget him in treasure-trove.”
“A-hem! a-hem! a-he—he—hem!” ejaculated Triptolemus, seized at the moment with an awkward fit of coughing,—“no doubt, my Lord’s right in the matter would have been considered, being in the hand of one, though I say it, as just as can be found in Angus-shire, let alone the Mearns. But mark what happened of late! One day, as I went up to see that all was safe and snug, and just to count out the share that should have been his Lordship’s—for surely the labourer, as one may call thefinder, is worthy of his hire—nay, some learned men say, that when the finder, in point of trust and in point of power, representeth thedominus, or lord superior, he taketh the whole; but let that pass, as a kittle questionin apicibus juris, as we wont to say at Saint Andrews—Well, sir and ladies, when I went to the upper chamber, what should I see but an ugsome, ill-shaped, and most uncouth dwarf, that wanted but hoofs and horns to have made an utter devil of him, counting over the very hornful of siller! I am no timorous man, Master Fowd, but, judging that I should proceed with caution in such a matter—for I had reason to believe that there was devilry in it—I accosted him in Latin, (whilk it is maist becoming to speak to aught whilk taketh upon it as a goblin,) and conjured himin nomine, and so forth, with such words as my poor learning could furnish of a suddenty, whilk, to say truth, were not so many, nor altogether so purely latineezed as might have been, had I not been few years at college, and many at the pleugh. Well, sirs, he started at first, as one that heareth that which he expects not; but presently recovering himself, he wawls on me with his grey een, like a wild-cat, and opens his mouth, whilk resembled the mouth of an oven, for the deil a tongue he had in it, that I could spy, and took upon his ugly self, altogether the air and bearing of a bull-dog, whilk I have seen loosed at a fair upon a mad staig;[27]whereupon I was something daunted, and withdrew myself to call upon sister Baby, who fears neither dog nor devil, when there is in question the little penny siller. And truly she raise to the fray as I hae seen the Lindsays andOgilvies bristle up, when Donald MacDonnoch, or the like, made a start down frae the Highlands on the braes of Islay. But an auld useless carline, called Tronda Dronsdaughter, (they might call her Drone the sell of her, without farther addition,) flung herself right in my sister’s gate, and yelloched and skirled, that you would have thought her a whole generation of hounds; whereupon I judged it best to make ae yoking of it, and stop the pleugh until I got my sister’s assistance. Whilk when I had done, and we mounted the stair to the apartment in which the said dwarf, devil, or other apparition, was to be seen, dwarf, horn, and siller, were as clean gane as if the cat had lickit the place where I saw them.”
Here Triptolemus paused in his extraordinary narration, while the rest of the party looked upon each other in surprise, and the Udaller muttered to Claud Halcro—“By all tokens, this must have been either the devil or Nicholas Strumpfer; and if it were him, he is more of a goblin than e’er I gave him credit for, and shall be apt to rate him as such in future.” Then, addressing the Factor, he enquired—“Saw ye nought how this dwarf of yours parted company?”
“As I shall answer it, no,” replied Triptolemus, with a cautious look around him, as if daunted by the recollection; “neither I, nor Baby, who had her wits more about her, not having seen this unseemly vision, could perceive any way by whilk he made evasion. Only Tronda said she saw him flee forth of the window of the west roundel of the auld house, upon a dragon, as she averred. But, as the dragon is held a fabulous animal, I suld pronounce her averment to rest upondeceptio visus.”
“But, may we not ask farther,” said Brenda, stimulated by curiosity to know as much of her cousin Norna’s family as was possible, “how all this operated upon Master Yellowley, so as to occasion his being in this place at so unseasonable an hour?”
“Seasonable it must be, Mistress Brenda, since it brought us into your sweet company,” answered Claud Halcro, whose mercurial brain far outstripped the slow conceptions of the agriculturist, and who became impatient of being so long silent. “To say the truth, it was I, Mistress Brenda, who recommended to our friend the Factor, whose house I chanced to call at just after this mischance, (and where, by the way, owing doubtless to the hurry of their spirits, I was but poorly received,) to make a visit to our other friend at Fitful-head, well judging from certain points of the story, at which my other and more particular friend than either” (looking at Magnus) “may chance to form a guess, that they who break a head are the best to find a plaster. And as our friend the Factor scrupled travelling on horseback, in respect of some tumbles from our ponies”——
“Which are incarnate devils,” said Triptolemus, aloud, muttering under his breath, “like every live thing that I have found in Zetland.”
“Well, Fowd,” continued Halcro, “I undertook to carry him to Fitful-head in my little boat, which Giles and I can manage as if it were an Admiral’s barge full manned; and Master Triptolemus Yellowley will tell you how seaman-like I piloted him to the little haven, within a quarter of a mile of Norna’s dwelling.”
“I wish to Heaven you had brought me as safe back again,” said the Factor.
“Why, to be sure,” replied the minstrel, “I am, as glorious John says,—
‘A daring pilot in extremity,Pleased with the danger when the waves go high,I seek the storm—but, for a calm unfit,Will steer too near the sands, to show my wit.’”
“I showed little wit in intrusting myself to your charge,” said Triptolemus; “and you still less when you upset the boat at the throat of the voe, as you call it, when even the poor bairn, that was mair than half drowned, told you that you were carrying too much sail; and then ye wad fasten the rape to the bit stick on the boat-side, that ye might have time to play on the fiddle.”
“What!” said the Udaller, “make fast the sheets to the thwart? a most unseasonable practice, Claud Halcro.”
“And sae came of it,” replied the agriculturist; “for the neist blast (and we are never lang without ane in these parts) whomled us as a gudewife would whomle a bowie, and ne’er a thing wad Maister Halcro save but his fiddle. The puir bairn swam out like a water-spaniel, and I swattered hard for my life, wi’ the help of ane of the oars; and here we are, comfortless creatures, that, till a good wind blew you here, had naething to eat but a mouthful of Norway rusk, that has mair sawdust than rye-meal in it, and tastes liker turpentine than any thing else.”
“I thought we heard you very merry,” said Brenda, “as we came along the beach.”
“Ye heard a fiddle, Mistress Brenda,” said the Factor; “and maybe ye may think there can be nae dearth, miss, where that is skirling. But thenit was Maister Claud Halcro’s fiddle, whilk, I am apt to think, wad skirl at his father’s deathbed, or at his ain, sae lang as his fingers could pinch the thairm. And it was nae sma’ aggravation to my misfortune to have him bumming a’ sorts of springs,—Norse and Scots, Highland and Lawland, English and Italian, in my lug, as if nothing had happened that was amiss, and we all in such stress and perplexity.”
“Why, I told you sorrow would never right the boat, Factor,” said the thoughtless minstrel, “and I did my best to make you merry; if I failed, it was neither my fault nor my fiddle’s. I have drawn the bow across it before glorious John Dryden himself.”
“I will hear no stories about glorious John Dryden,” answered the Udaller, who dreaded Halcro’s narratives as much as Triptolemus did his music,—“I will hear nought of him, but one story to every three bowls of punch,—it is our old paction, you know. But tell me, instead, what said Norna to you about your errand?”
“Ay, there was anither fine upshot,” said Master Yellowley. “She wadna look at us, or listen to us; only she bothered our acquaintance, Master Halcro here, who thought he could have sae much to say wi’ her, with about a score of questions about your family and household estate, Master Magnus Troil; and when she had gotten a’ she wanted out of him, I thought she wad hae dung him ower the craig, like an empty peacod.”
“And for yourself?” said the Udaller.
“She wadna listen to my story, nor hear sae much as a word that I had to say,” answered Triptolemus; “and sae much for them that seek to witches and familiar spirits!”
“You needed not to have had recourse to Norna’s wisdom, Master Factor,” said Minna, not unwilling, perhaps, to stop his railing against the friend who had so lately rendered her service; “the youngest child in Orkney could have told you, that fairy treasures, if they are not wisely employed for the good of others, as well as of those to whom they are imparted, do not dwell long with their possessors.”
“Your humble servant to command, Mistress Minnie,” said Triptolemus; “I thank ye for the hint,—and I am blithe that you have gotten your wits—I beg pardon, I meant your health—into the barn-yard again. For the treasure, I neither used nor abused it,—they that live in the house with my sister Baby wad find it hard to do either!—and as for speaking of it, whilk they say muckle offends them whom we in Scotland call Good Neighbours, and you call Drows, the face of the auld Norse kings on the coins themselves, might have spoken as much about it as ever I did.”
“The Factor,” said Claud Halcro, not unwilling to seize the opportunity of revenging himself on Triptolemus, for disgracing his seamanship and disparaging his music,—“The Factor was so scrupulous, as to keep the thing quiet even from his master, the Lord Chamberlain; but, now that the matter has ta’en wind, he is likely to have to account to his master for that which is no longer in his possession; for the Lord Chamberlain will be in no hurry, I think, to believe the story of the dwarf. Neither do I think” (winking to the Udaller) “that Norna gave credit to a word of so odd a story; and I dare say that was the reason that she received us, I must needs say, in a very dry manner. I rather think she knew that Triptolemus, our friend here, had foundsome other hiding-hole for the money, and that the story of the goblin was all his own invention. For my part, I will never believe there was such a dwarf to be seen as the creature Master Yellowley describes, until I set my own eyes on him.”
“Then you may do so at this moment,” said the Factor; “for, by ——,” (he muttered a deep asseveration as he sprung on his feet in great horror,) “there the creature is!”
All turned their eyes in the direction in which he pointed, and saw the hideous misshapen figure of Pacolet, with his eyes fixed and glaring at them through the smoke. He had stolen upon their conversation unperceived, until the Factor’s eye lighted upon him in the manner we have described. There was something so ghastly in his sudden and unexpected appearance, that even the Udaller, to whom his form was familiar, could not help starting. Neither pleased with himself for having testified this degree of emotion, however slight, nor with the dwarf who had given cause to it, Magnus asked him sharply, what was his business there? Pacolet replied by producing a letter, which he gave to the Udaller, uttering a sound resembling the wordShogh.[28]
“That is the Highlandman’s language,” said the Udaller—“didst thou learn that, Nicholas, when you lost your own?”
Pacolet nodded, and signed to him to read his letter.
“That is no such easy matter by fire-light, my good friend,” replied the Udaller; “but it may concern Minna, and we must try.”
Brenda offered her assistance, but the Udaller answered, “No, no, my girl,—Norna’s letters must be read by those they are written to. Give the knave, Strumpfer, a drop of brandy the while, though he little deserves it at my hands, considering the grin with which he sent the good Nantz down the crag this morning, as if it had been as much ditch-water.”
“Will you be this honest gentleman’s cup-bearer—his Ganymede, friend Yellowley, or shall I?” said Claud Halcro aside to the Factor; while Magnus Troil, having carefully wiped his spectacles, which he produced from a large copper case, had disposed them on his nose, and was studying the epistle of Norna.
“I would not touch him, or go near him, for all the Carse of Gowrie,” said the Factor, whose fears were by no means entirely removed, though he saw that the dwarf was received as a creature of flesh and blood by the rest of the company; “but I pray you to ask him what he has done with my horn of coins?”
The dwarf, who heard the question, threw back his head, and displayed his enormous throat, pointing to it with his finger.
“Nay, if he has swallowed them, there is no more to be said,” replied the Factor; “only I hope he will thrive on them as a cow on wet clover. He is dame Norna’s servant it’s like,—such man, such mistress! But if theft and witchcraft are to go unpunished in this land, my lord must find another factor; for I have been used to live in a country where men’s worldly gear was keepit from infang and outfang thief, as well as their immortal souls from the claws of the deil and his cummers,—sain and save us!”
The agriculturist was perhaps the less reservedin expressing his complaints, that the Udaller was for the present out of hearing, having drawn Claud Halcro apart into another corner of the hut.
“And tell me,” said he, “friend Halcro, what errand took thee to Sumburgh, since I reckon it was scarce the mere pleasure of sailing in partnership with yonder barnacle?”
“In faith, Fowd,” said the bard, “and if you will have the truth, I went to speak to Norna on your affairs.”
“On my affairs?” replied the Udaller; “on what affairs of mine?”
“Just touching your daughter’s health. I heard that Norna refused your message, and would not see Eric Scambester. Now, said I to myself, I have scarce joyed in meat, or drink, or music, or aught else, since Jarto Minna has been so ill; and I may say, literally as well as figuratively, that my day and night have been made sorrowful to me. In short, I thought I might have some more interest with old Norna than another, as scalds and wise women were always accounted something akin; and I undertook the journey with the hope to be of some use to my old friend and his lovely daughter.”
“And it was most kindly done of you, good warm-hearted Claud,” said the Udaller, shaking him warmly by the hand,—“I ever said you showed the good old Norse heart amongst all thy fiddling and thy folly.—Tut, man, never wince for the matter, but be blithe that thy heart is better than thy head. Well,—and I warrant you got no answer from Norna?”
“None to purpose,” replied Claud Halcro; “but she held me close to question about Minna’s illness, too,—and I told her how I had met her abroad theother morning in no very good weather, and how her sister Brenda said she had hurt her foot;—in short, I told her all and every thing I knew.”
“And something more besides, it would seem,” said the Udaller; “for I, at least, never heard before that Minna had hurt herself.”
“O, a scratch! a mere scratch!” said the old man; “but I was startled about it—terrified lest it had been the bite of a dog, or some hurt from a venomous thing. I told all to Norna, however.”
“And what,” answered the Udaller, “did she say, in the way of reply?”
“She bade me begone about my business, and told me that the issue would be known at the Kirkwall Fair; and said just the like to this noodle of a Factor—it was all that either of us got for our labour,” said Halcro.
“That is strange,” said Magnus. “My kinswoman writes me in this letter not to fail going thither with my daughters. This Fair runs strongly in her head;—one would think she intended to lead the market, and yet she has nothing to buy or to sell there that I know of. And so you came away as wise as you went, and swamped your boat at the mouth of the voe?”
“Why, how could I help it?” said the poet. “I had set the boy to steer, and as the flaw came suddenly off shore, I could not let go the tack and play on the fiddle at the same time. But it is all well enough,—salt-water never harmed Zetlander, so as he could get out of it; and, as Heaven would have it, we were within man’s depth of the shore, and chancing to find this skio, we should have done well enough, with shelter and fire, and are much better than well with your good cheer and good company.But it wears late, and Night and Day must be both as sleepy as old Midnight can make them. There is an inner crib here, where the fishers slept,—somewhat fragrant with the smell of their fish, but that is wholesome. They shall bestow themselves there, with the help of what cloaks you have, and then we will have one cup of brandy, and one stave of glorious John, or some little trifle of my own, and so sleep as sound as cobblers.”
“Two glasses of brandy, if you please,” said the Udaller, “if our stores do not run dry; but not a single stave of glorious John, or of any one else to-night.”
And this being arranged and executed agreeably to the peremptory pleasure of the Udaller, the whole party consigned themselves to slumber for the night, and on the next day departed for their several habitations, Claud Halcro having previously arranged with the Udaller that he would accompany him and his daughters on their proposed visit to Kirkwall.
[23]Jokul, yes, sir; a Norse expression, still in common use.
[23]Jokul, yes, sir; a Norse expression, still in common use.
[24]The Bicker of Saint Magnus, a vessel of enormous dimensions, was preserved at Kirkwall, and presented to each bishop of the Orkneys. If the new incumbent was able to quaff it out at one draught, which was a task for Hercules or Rorie Mhor of Dunvegan, the omen boded a crop of unusual fertility.
[24]The Bicker of Saint Magnus, a vessel of enormous dimensions, was preserved at Kirkwall, and presented to each bishop of the Orkneys. If the new incumbent was able to quaff it out at one draught, which was a task for Hercules or Rorie Mhor of Dunvegan, the omen boded a crop of unusual fertility.
[25]Luggie, a famous conjurer, was wont, when storms prevented him from going to his usual employment of fishing, to angle over a steep rock, at the place called, from his name, Luggie’s Knoll. At other times he drew up dressed food while they were out at sea, of which his comrades partook boldly from natural courage, without caring who stood cook. The poor man was finally condemned and burnt at Scalloway.
[25]Luggie, a famous conjurer, was wont, when storms prevented him from going to his usual employment of fishing, to angle over a steep rock, at the place called, from his name, Luggie’s Knoll. At other times he drew up dressed food while they were out at sea, of which his comrades partook boldly from natural courage, without caring who stood cook. The poor man was finally condemned and burnt at Scalloway.
[26]Note IV.—Antique Coins found in Zetland.
[26]Note IV.—Antique Coins found in Zetland.
[27]Young unbroke horse.
[27]Young unbroke horse.
[28]In Gaelic,there.
[28]In Gaelic,there.
“By this hand, thou think’st me as far in the devil’s book as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try the man.... Albeit I could tell to thee, (as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend,) I could be sad, and sad indeed too.”Henry IV., Part 2d.
“By this hand, thou think’st me as far in the devil’s book as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try the man.... Albeit I could tell to thee, (as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend,) I could be sad, and sad indeed too.”
Henry IV., Part 2d.
We must now change the scene from Zetland to Orkney, and request our readers to accompany us to the ruins of an elegant, though ancient structure, called the Earl’s Palace. These remains, though much dilapidated, still exist in the neighbourhood of the massive and venerable pile, which Norwegian devotion dedicated to Saint Magnus the Martyr, and, being contiguous to the Bishop’s Palace, which is also ruinous, the place is impressive, as exhibiting vestiges of the mutations both in Church and State which have affected Orkney, as well as countries more exposed to such convulsions. Several parts of these ruinous buildings might be selected (under suitable modifications) as the model of a Gothic mansion, provided architects would be contented rather to imitate what is really beautiful in that species of building, than to make a medley of the caprices of the order, confounding the military, ecclesiastical, and domestic styles of all ages at random, with additional fantasies and combinations of their own device, “all formed out of the builder’s brain.”
The Earl’s Palace forms three sides of an oblong square, and has, even in its ruins, the air of an elegant yet massive structure, uniting, as was usual in the residence of feudal princes, the character of a palace and of a castle. A great banqueting-hall, communicating with several large rounds, or projecting turret-rooms, and having at either end an immense chimney, testifies the ancient Northern hospitality of the Earls of Orkney, and communicates, almost in the modern fashion, with a gallery, or withdrawing-room, of corresponding dimensions, and having, like the hall, its projecting turrets. The lordly hall itself is lighted by a fine Gothic window of shafted stone at one end, and is entered by a spacious and elegant staircase, consisting of three flights of stone steps. The exterior ornaments and proportions of the ancient building are also very handsome; but, being totally unprotected, this remnant of the pomp and grandeur of Earls, who assumed the license as well as the dignity of petty sovereigns, is now fast crumbling to decay, and has suffered considerably since the date of our story.
With folded arms and downcast looks the pirate Cleveland was pacing slowly the ruined hall which we have just described; a place of retirement which he had probably chosen because it was distant from public resort. His dress was considerably altered from that which he usually wore in Zetland, and seemed a sort of uniform, richly laced, and exhibiting no small quantity of embroidery: a hat with a plume, and a small sword very handsomely mounted, then the constant companion of every one who assumed the rank of a gentleman, showed his pretensions to that character. But if his exterior was so far improved, it seemed to be otherwise with his health and spirits. He was pale, and had lost both the fire of his eye and the vivacity of his step,and his whole appearance indicated melancholy of mind, or suffering of body, or a combination of both evils.
As Cleveland thus paced these ancient ruins, a young man, of a light and slender form, whose showy dress seemed to have been studied with care, yet exhibited more extravagance than judgment or taste, whose manner was a janty affectation of the free and easy rake of the period, and the expression of whose countenance was lively, with a cast of effrontery, tripped up the staircase, entered the hall, and presented himself to Cleveland, who merely nodded to him, and pulling his hat deeper over his brows, resumed his solitary and discontented promenade.
The stranger adjusted his own hat, nodded in return, took snuff, with the air of apetit maitre, from a richly chased gold box, offered it to Cleveland as he passed, and being repulsed rather coldly, replaced the box in his pocket, folded his arms in his turn, and stood looking with fixed attention on his motions whose solitude he had interrupted. At length Cleveland stopped short, as if impatient of being longer the subject of his observation, and said abruptly, “Why can I not be left alone for half an hour, and what the devil is it that you want?”
“I am glad you spoke first,” answered the stranger, carelessly; “I was determined to know whether you were Clement Cleveland, or Cleveland’s ghost, and they say ghosts never take the first word, so I now set it down for yourself in life and limb; and here is a fine old hurly-house you have found out for an owl to hide himself in at mid-day, or a ghost to revisit the pale glimpses of the moon, as the divine Shakspeare says.”
“Well, well,” answered Cleveland, abruptly,“your jest is made, and now let us have your earnest.”
“In earnest, then, Captain Cleveland,” replied his companion, “I think you know me for your friend.”
“I am content to suppose so,” said Cleveland.
“It is more than supposition,” replied the young man; “I have proved it—proved it both here and elsewhere.”
“Well, well,” answered Cleveland, “I admit you have been always a friendly fellow—and what then?”
“Well, well—and what then?” replied the other; “this is but a brief way of thanking folk. Look you, Captain, here is Benson, Barlowe, Dick Fletcher, and a few others of us who wished you well, have kept your old comrade Captain Goffe in these seas upon the look-out for you, when he and Hawkins, and the greater part of the ship’s company, would fain have been down on the Spanish Main, and at the old trade.”
“And I wish to God that you had all gone about your business,” said Cleveland, “and left me to my fate.”
“Which would have been to be informed against and hanged, Captain, the first time that any of these Dutch or English rascals, whom you have lightened of their cargoes, came to set their eyes upon you; and no place more likely to meet with seafaring men, than in these Islands. And here, to screen you from such a risk, we have been wasting our precious time, till folk are grown very peery; and when we have no more goods or money to spend amongst them, the fellows will be for grabbing the ship.”
“Well, then, why do you not sail off without me?” said Cleveland—“there has been fair partition, and all have had their share—let all do as they like.I have lost my ship, and having been once a Captain, I will not go to sea under command of Goffe or any other man. Besides, you know well enough that both Hawkins and he bear me ill-will for keeping them from sinking the Spanish brig, with the poor devils of negroes on board.”
“Why, what the foul fiend is the matter with thee?” said his companion; “are you Clement Cleveland, our own old true-hearted Clem of the Cleugh, and do you talk of being afraid of Hawkins and Goffe, and a score of such fellows, when you have myself, and Barlowe, and Dick Fletcher at your back? When was it we deserted you, either in council or in fight, that you should be afraid of our flinching now? And as for serving under Goffe, I hope it is no new thing for gentlemen of fortune who are going on the account, to change a Captain now and then? Let us alone for that,—Captain you shall be; for death rock me asleep if I serve under that fellow Goffe, who is as very a bloodhound as ever sucked bitch!—No, no, I thank you—my Captain must have a little of the gentleman about him, howsoever. Besides, you know, it was you who first dipped my hands in the dirty water, and turned me from a stroller by land, to a rover by sea.”
“Alas, poor Bunce!” said Cleveland, “you owe me little thanks for that service.”
“That is as you take it,” replied Bunce; “for my part, I see no harm in levying contributions on the public either one way or t’other. But I wish you would forget that name of Bunce, and call me Altamont, as I have often desired you to do. I hope a gentleman of the roving trade has as good a right to have an alias as a stroller, and I never stepped on the boards but what I was Altamont at the least.”
“Well, then, Jack Altamont,” replied Cleveland, “since Altamont is the word”——
“Yes, but, Captain,Jackis not the word, though Altamont be so. Jack Altamont?—why, ’tis a velvet coat with paper lace—Let it be Frederick, Captain; Frederick Altamont is all of a piece.”
“Frederick be it, then, with all my heart,” said Cleveland; “and pray tell me, which of your names will sound best at the head of the Last Speech, Confession, and Dying Words of John Bunce,aliasFrederick Altamont, who was this morning hanged at Execution-dock, for the crime of Piracy upon the High Seas?”
“Faith, I cannot answer that question, without another can of grog, Captain; so if you will go down with me to Bet Haldane’s on the quay, I will bestow some thought on the matter, with the help of a right pipe of Trinidado. We will have the gallon bowl filled with the best stuff you ever tasted, and I know some smart wenches who will help us to drain it. But you shake your head—you’re not i’ the vein?—Well, then, I will stay with you; for by this hand, Clem, you shift me not off. Only I will ferret you out of this burrow of old stones, and carry you into sunshine and fair air.—Where shall we go?”
“Where you will,” said Cleveland, “so that you keep out of the way of our own rascals, and all others.”
“Why, then,” replied Bunce, “you and I will go up to the Hill of Whitford, which overlooks the town, and walk together as gravely and honestly as a pair of well-employed attorneys.”
As they proceeded to leave the ruinous castle, Bunce, turning back to look at it, thus addressed his companion:
“Hark ye, Captain, dost thou know who last inhabited this old cockloft?”
“An Earl of the Orkneys, they say,” replied Cleveland.
“And are you avised what death he died of?” said Bunce; “for I have heard that it was of a tight neck-collar—a hempen fever, or the like.”
“The people here do say,” replied Cleveland, “that his Lordship, some hundred years ago, had the mishap to become acquainted with the nature of a loop and a leap in the air.”
“Why, la ye there now!” said Bunce; “there was some credit in being hanged in those days, and in such worshipful company. And what might his lordship have done to deserve such promotion?”
“Plundered the liege subjects, they say,” replied Cleveland; “slain and wounded them, fired upon his Majesty’s flag, and so forth.”
“Near akin to a gentleman rover, then,” said Bunce, making a theatrical bow towards the old building; “and, therefore, my most potent, grave, and reverend Signior Earl, I crave leave to call you my loving cousin, and bid you most heartily adieu. I leave you in the good company of rats and mice, and so forth, and I carry with me an honest gentleman, who, having of late had no more heart than a mouse, is now desirous to run away from his profession and friends like a rat, and would therefore be a most fitting denizen of your Earlship’s palace.”
“I would advise you not to speak so loud, my good friend Frederick Altamont, or John Bunce,” said Cleveland; “when you were on the stage, you might safely rant as loud as you listed; but, in your present profession, of which you are so fond, everyman speaks under correction of the yard-arm, and a running noose.”
The comrades left the little town of Kirkwall in silence, and ascended the Hill of Whitford, which raises its brow of dark heath, uninterrupted by enclosures or cultivation of any kind, to the northward of the ancient Burgh of Saint Magnus. The plain at the foot of the hill was already occupied by numbers of persons who were engaged in making preparations for the Fair of Saint Olla, to be held upon the ensuing day, and which forms a general rendezvous to all the neighbouring islands of Orkney, and is even frequented by many persons from the more distant archipelago of Zetland. It is, in the words of the Proclamation, “a free Mercat and Fair, holden at the good Burgh of Kirkwall on the third of August, being Saint Olla’s day,” and continuing for an indefinite space thereafter, extending from three days to a week, and upwards. The fair is of great antiquity, and derives its name from Olaus, Olave, Ollaw, the celebrated Monarch of Norway, who, rather by the edge of his sword than any milder argument, introduced Christianity into those isles, and was respected as the patron of Kirkwall some time before he shared that honour with Saint Magnus the Martyr.
It was no part of Cleveland’s purpose to mingle in the busy scene which was here going on; and, turning their route to the left, they soon ascended into undisturbed solitude, save where the grouse, more plentiful in Orkney, perhaps, than in any other part of the British dominions, rose in covey, and went off before them.[29]Having continued to ascendtill they had wellnigh reached the summit of the conical hill, both turned round, as with one consent, to look at and admire the prospect beneath.
The lively bustle which extended between the foot of the hill and the town, gave life and variety to that part of the scene; then was seen the town itself, out of which arose, like a great mass, superior in proportion as it seemed to the whole burgh, the ancient Cathedral of Saint Magnus, of the heaviest order of Gothic architecture, but grand, solemn, and stately, the work of a distant age, and of a powerful hand. The quay, with the shipping, lent additional vivacity to the scene; and not only the whole beautiful bay, which lies betwixt the promontories of Inganess and Quanterness, at the bottom of which Kirkwall is situated, but all the sea, so far as visible, and in particular the whole strait betwixt the island of Shapinsha and that called Pomona, or the Mainland, was covered and enlivened by a variety of boats and small vessels, freighted from distant islands to convey passengers or merchandise to the Fair of Saint Olla.
Having attained the point by which this fair and busy prospect was most completely commanded, each of the strangers, in seaman fashion, had recourse to his spy-glass, to assist the naked eye in considering the bay of Kirkwall, and the numerous vessels by which it was traversed. But the attention of the two companions seemed to be arrested by different objects. That of Bunce, or Altamont, as he chose to call himself, was riveted to the armed sloop, where, conspicuous by her square rigging and length of beam, with the English jack andpennon, which they had the precaution to keep flying, she lay among the merchant vessels, as distinguished from them by the trim neatness of her appearance, as a trained soldier amongst a crowd of clowns.
“Yonder she lies,” said Bunce; “I wish to God she was in the bay of Honduras—you Captain, on the quarter-deck, I your lieutenant, and Fletcher quarter-master, and fifty stout fellows under us—I should not wish to see these blasted heaths and rocks again for a while!—And Captain you shall soon be. The old brute Goffe gets drunk as a lord every day, swaggers, and shoots, and cuts, among the crew; and, besides, he has quarrelled with the people here so damnably, that they will scarce let water or provisions go on board of us, and we expect an open breach every day.”
As Bunce received no answer, he turned short round on his companion, and, perceiving his attention otherwise engaged, exclaimed,—“What the devil is the matter with you? or what can you see in all that trumpery small-craft, which is only loaded with stock-fish, and ling, and smoked geese, and tubs of butter that is worse than tallow?—the cargoes of the whole lumped together would not be worth the flash of a pistol.—No, no, give me such a chase as we might see from the mast-head off the island of Trinidado. Your Don, rolling as deep in the water as a grampus, deep-loaden with rum, sugar, and bales of tobacco, and all the rest ingots, moidores, and gold dust; then set all sail, clear the deck, stand to quarters, up with the Jolly Roger[30]—we near her—we make her out to be well manned and armed”——
“Twenty guns on her lower deck,” said Cleveland.
“Forty, if you will,” retorted Bunce, “and we have but ten mounted—never mind. The Don blazes away—never mind yet, my brave lads—run her alongside, and on board with you—to work, with your grenadoes, your cutlasses, pole-axes, and pistols—The Don cries Misericordia, and we share the cargo withoutco licencio, Seignior!”
“By my faith,” said Cleveland, “thou takest so kindly to the trade, that all the world may see that no honest man was spoiled when you were made a pirate. But you shall not prevail on me to go farther in the devil’s road with you; for you know yourself that what is got over his back is spent—you wot how. In a week, or a month at most, the rum and the sugar are out, the bales of tobacco have become smoke, the moidores, ingots, and gold dust, have got out of our hands, into those of the quiet, honest, conscientious folks, who dwell at Port Royal and elsewhere—wink hard on our trade as long as we have money, but not a jot beyond. Then we have cold looks, and it may be a hint is given to the Judge Marshal; for, when our pockets are worth nothing, our honest friends, rather than want, will make money upon our heads. Then comes a high gallows and a short halter, and so dies the Gentleman Rover. I tell thee, I will leave this trade; and, when I turn my glass from one of these barks and boats to another, there is not the worst of them which I would not row for life, rather than continue to be what I have been. These poor men make the sea a means of honest livelihood and friendlycommunication between shore and shore, for the mutual benefit of the inhabitants; but we have made it a road to the ruin of others, and to our own destruction here and in eternity.—I am determined to turn honest man, and use this life no longer!”
“And where will your honesty take up its abode, if it please you?” said Bunce.—“You have broken the laws of every nation, and the hand of the law will detect and crush you wherever you may take refuge.—Cleveland, I speak to you more seriously than I am wont to do. I have had my reflections, too; and they have been bad enough, though they lasted but a few minutes, to spoil me weeks of joviality. But here is the matter,—what can we do but go on as we have done, unless we have a direct purpose of adorning the yard-arm?”
“We may claim the benefit of the proclamation to those of our sort who come in and surrender,” said Cleveland.
“Umph!” answered his companion, dryly; “the date of that day of grace has been for some time over, and they may take the penalty or grant the pardon at their pleasure. Were I you, I would not put my neck in such a venture.”
“Why, others have been admitted but lately to favour, and why should not I?” said Cleveland.
“Ay,” replied his associate, “Harry Glasby and some others have been spared; but Glasby did what was called good service, in betraying his comrades, and retaking the Jolly Fortune; and that I think you would scorn, even to be revenged of the brute Goffe yonder.”
“I would die a thousand times sooner,” said Cleveland.
“I will be sworn for it,” said Bunce; “andthe others were forecastle fellows—petty larceny rogues, scarce worth the hemp it would have cost to hang them. But your name has stood too high amongst the gentlemen of fortune for you to get off so easily. You are the prime buck of the herd, and will be marked accordingly.”
“And why so, I pray you?” said Cleveland; “you know well enough my aim, Jack.”
“Frederick, if you please,” said Bunce.
“The devil take your folly!—Prithee keep thy wit, and let us be grave for a moment.”
“For a moment—be it so,” said Bunce; “but I feel the spirit of Altamont coming fast upon me,—I have been a grave man for ten minutes already.”
“Be so then for a little longer,” said Cleveland; “I know, Jack, that you really love me; and, since we have come thus far in this talk, I will trust you entirely. Now tell me, why should I be refused the benefit of this gracious proclamation? I have borne a rough outside, as thou knowest; but, in time of need, I can show the numbers of lives which I have been the means of saving, the property which I have restored to those who owned it, when, without my intercession, it would have been wantonly destroyed. In short, Bunce, I can show”——
“That you were as gentle a thief as Robin Hood himself,” said Bunce; “and, for that reason, I, Fletcher, and the better sort among us, love you, as one who saves the character of us Gentlemen Rovers from utter reprobation.—Well, suppose your pardon made out, what are you to do next?—what class in society will receive you?—with whom will you associate? Old Drake, in Queen Bess’s time, could plunder Peru and Mexico without a line of commission to show for it, and, blessed be hermemory! he was knighted for it on his return. And there was Hal Morgan, the Welshman, nearer our time, in the days of merry King Charles, brought all his gettings home, had his estate and his country-house, and who but he? But that is all ended now—once a pirate, and an outcast for ever. The poor devil may go and live, shunned and despised by every one, in some obscure seaport, with such part of his guilty earnings as courtiers and clerks leave him—for pardons do not pass the seals for nothing;—and, when he takes his walk along the pier, if a stranger asks, who is the down-looking, swarthy, melancholy man, for whom all make way, as if he brought the plague in his person, the answer shall be, that is such a one, the pardoned pirate!—No honest man will speak to him, no woman of repute will give him her hand.”
“Your picture is too highly coloured, Jack,” said Cleveland, suddenly interrupting his friend; “there are women—there is one at least, that would be true to her lover, even if he were what you have described.”
Bunce was silent for a space, and looked fixedly at his friend. “By my soul!” he said, at length, “I begin to think myself a conjurer. Unlikely as it all was, I could not help suspecting from the beginning that there was a girl in the case. Why, this is worse than Prince Volscius in love, ha! ha! ha!”
“Laugh as you will,” said Cleveland, “it is true;—there is a maiden who is contented to love me, pirate as I am; and I will fairly own to you, Jack, that, though I have often at times detested our roving life, and myself for following it, yet I doubt if I could have found resolution to make the break which I have now resolved on, but for her sake.”
“Why, then, God-a-mercy!” replied Bunce, “there is no speaking sense to a madman; and love in one of our trade, Captain, is little better than lunacy. The girl must be a rare creature, for a wise man to risk hanging for her. But, harkye, may she not be a little touched, as well as yourself?—and is it not sympathy that has done it? She cannot be one of our ordinary cockatrices, but a girl of conduct and character.”
“Both are as undoubted as that she is the most beautiful and bewitching creature whom the eye ever opened upon,” answered Cleveland.
“And she loves thee, knowing thee, most noble Captain, to be a commander among those gentlemen of fortune, whom the vulgar call pirates?”
“Even so—I am assured of it,” said Cleveland.
“Why, then,” answered Bunce, “she is either mad in good earnest, as I said before, or she does not know what a pirate is.”
“You are right in the last point,” replied Cleveland. “She has been bred in such remote simplicity, and utter ignorance of what is evil, that she compares our occupation with that of the old Norsemen, who swept sea and haven with their victorious galleys, established colonies, conquered countries, and took the name of Sea-Kings.”
“And a better one it is than that of pirate, and comes much to the same purpose, I dare say,” said Bunce. “But this must be a mettled wench!—why did you not bring her aboard? methinks it was pity to baulk her fancy.”
“And do you think,” said Cleveland, “that I could so utterly play the part of a fallen spirit as to avail myself of her enthusiastic error, and bring an angel of beauty and innocence acquainted withsuch a hell as exists on board of yonder infernal ship of ours?—I tell you, my friend, that, were all my former sins doubled in weight and in dye, such a villainy would have outglared and outweighed them all.”
“Why, then, Captain Cleveland,” said his confident, “methinks it was but a fool’s part to come hither at all. The news must one day have gone abroad, that the celebrated pirate Captain Cleveland, with his good sloop the Revenge, had been lost on the Mainland of Zetland, and all hands perished; so you would have remained hid both from friend and enemy, and might have married your pretty Zetlander, and converted your sash and scarf into fishing-nets, and your cutlass into a harpoon, and swept the seas for fish instead of florins.”
“And so I had determined,” said the Captain; “but a Jagger, as they call them here, like a meddling, peddling thief as he is, brought down intelligence to Zetland of your lying here, and I was fain to set off, to see if you were the consort of whom I had told them, long before I thought of leaving the roving trade.”
“Ay,” said Bunce, “and so far you judged well. For, as you had heard of our being at Kirkwall, so we should have soon learned that you were at Zetland; and some of us for friendship, some for hatred, and some for fear of your playing Harry Glasby upon us, would have come down for the purpose of getting you into our company again.”
“I suspected as much,” said the Captain, “and therefore was fain to decline the courteous offer of a friend, who proposed to bring me here about this time. Besides, Jack, I recollected, that, as you say, my pardon will not pass the seals without money,my own was waxing low—no wonder, thou knowest I was never a churl of it—And so”——
“And so you came for your share of the cobs?” replied his friend—“It was wisely done; and we shared honourably—so far Goffe has acted up to articles, it must be allowed. But keep your purpose of leaving him close in your breast, for I dread his playing you some dog’s trick or other; for he certainly thought himself sure of your share, and will hardly forgive your coming alive to disappoint him.”
“I fear him not,” said Cleveland, “and he knows that well. I would I were as well clear of the consequences of having been his comrade, as I hold myself to be of all those which may attend his ill-will. Another unhappy job I may be troubled with—I hurt a young fellow, who has been my plague for some time, in an unhappy brawl that chanced the morning I left Zetland.”
“Is he dead?” asked Bunce: “It is a more serious question here, than it would be on the Grand Caimains or the Bahama Isles, where a brace or two of fellows may be shot in a morning, and no more heard of, or asked about them, than if they were so many wood-pigeons. But here it may be otherwise; so I hope you have not made your friend immortal.”
“I hope not,” said the Captain, “though my anger has been fatal to those who have given me less provocation. To say the truth, I was sorry for the lad notwithstanding, and especially as I was forced to leave him in mad keeping.”
“In mad keeping?” said Bunce; “why, what means that?”
“You shall hear,” replied his friend. “In the first place, you are to know, this young man camesuddenly on me while I was trying to gain Minna’s ear for a private interview before I set sail, that I might explain my purpose to her. Now, to be broken in on by the accursed rudeness of this young fellow at such a moment”——
“The interruption deserved death,” said Bunce, “by all the laws of love and honour!”
“A truce with your ends of plays, Jack, and listen one moment.—The brisk youth thought proper to retort, when I commanded him to be gone. I am not, thou knowest, very patient, and enforced my commands with a blow, which he returned as roundly. We struggled, till I became desirous that we should part at any rate, which I could only effect by a stroke of my poniard, which, according to old use, I have, thou knowest, always about me. I had scarce done this when I repented; but there was no time to think of any thing save escape and concealment, for, if the house rose on me, I was lost; as the fiery old man, who is head of the family, would have done justice on me had I been his brother. I took the body hastily on my shoulders to carry it down to the sea-shore, with the purpose of throwing it into ariva, as they call them, or chasm of great depth, where it would have been long enough in being discovered. This done, I intended to jump into the boat which I had lying ready, and set sail for Kirkwall. But, as I was walking hastily towards the beach with my burden, the poor young fellow groaned, and so apprized me that the wound had not been instantly fatal. I was by this time well concealed amongst the rocks, and, far from desiring to complete my crime, I laid the young man on the ground, and was doing what I could to stanch the blood, when suddenly an oldwoman stood before me. She was a person whom I had frequently seen while in Zetland, and to whom they ascribe the character of a sorceress, or, as the negroes say, an Obi woman. She demanded the wounded man of me, and I was too much pressed for time to hesitate in complying with her request. More she was about to say to me, when we heard the voice of a silly old man, belonging to the family, singing at some distance. She then pressed her finger on her lip as a sign of secrecy, whistled very low, and a shapeless, deformed brute of a dwarf coming to her assistance, they carried the wounded man into one of the caverns with which the place abounds, and I got to my boat and to sea with all expedition. If that old hag be, as they say, connected with the King of the Air, she favoured me that morning with a turn of her calling; for not even the West Indian tornadoes, which we have weathered together, made a wilder racket than the squall that drove me so far out of our course, that, without a pocket-compass, which I chanced to have about me, I should never have recovered the Fair Isle, for which we run, and where I found a brig which brought me to this place. But, whether the old woman meant me weal or woe, here we came at length in safety from the sea, and here I remain in doubts and difficulties of more kinds than one.”
“O, the devil take the Sumburgh-head,” said Bunce, “or whatever they call the rock that you knocked our clever little Revenge against!”
“Do not sayIknocked her on the rock,” said Cleveland; “have I not told you fifty times, if the cowards had not taken to their boat, though I showed them the danger, and told them they would all be swamped, which happened the instant theycast off the painter, she would have been afloat at this moment? Had they stood by me and the ship, their lives would have been saved; had I gone with them, mine would have been lost; who can say which is for the best?”
“Well,” replied his friend, “I know your case now, and can the better help and advise. I will be true to you, Clement, as the blade to the hilt; but I cannot think that you should leave us. As the old Scottish song says, ‘Wae’s my heart that we should sunder!’—But come, you will aboard with us to-day, at any rate?”
“I have no other place of refuge,” said Cleveland, with a sigh.
He then once more ran his eyes over the bay, directing his spy-glass upon several of the vessels which traversed its surface, in hopes, doubtless, of discerning the vessel of Magnus Troil, and then followed his companion down the hill in silence.