The Pirate

“Nay, but John Dryden?” said Mordaunt, in a tone which deprecated further digression.

“Ay, ay, glorious John – where was I? – Well, as we stood close by the bar, where one fellow sat grinding of coffee, and another putting up tobacco into penny parcels – a pipe and a dish cost just a penny – then and there it was that I had the first peep of him. One Dennis sat near him, who” —

“Nay, but John Dryden – what like was he?” demanded Mordaunt.

“Like a little fat old man, with his own grey hair, and in a full-trimmed black suit, that sat close as a glove. Honest Thimblethwaite let no one but himself shape for glorious John, and he had a slashing hand at a sleeve, I promise you – But there is no getting a mouthful of common sense spoken here – d – n that Scotchman, he and old Magnus are at it again!”

It was very true; and although the interruption did not resemble a thunder-clap, to which the former stentorian exclamation of the Udaller might have been likened, it was a close and clamorous dispute, maintained by question, answer, retort, and repartee, as closely huddled upon each other as the sounds which announce from a distance a close and sustained fire of musketry.

“Hear reason, sir?” said the Udaller; “we will hear reason, and speak reason too; and if reason fall short, you shall have rhyme to boot. – Ha, my little friend Halcro!”

Though cut off in the middle of his best story, (if that could be said to have a middle, which had neither beginning nor end,) the bard bristled up at the summons, like a corps of light infantry when ordered up to the support of the grenadiers, looked smart, slapped the table with his hand, and denoted his becoming readiness to back his hospitable landlord, as becomes a well-entertained guest. Triptolemus was a little daunted at this reinforcement of his adversary; he paused, like a cautious general, in the sweeping attack which he had commenced on the peculiar usages of Zetland, and spoke not again until the Udaller poked him with the insulting query, “Where is your reason now, Master Yellowley, that you were deafening me with a moment since?”

“Be but patient, worthy sir,” replied the agriculturist; “what on earth can you or any other man say in defence of that thing you call a plough, in this blinded country? Why, even the savage Highlandmen, in Caithness and Sutherland, can make more work, and better, with their gascromh, or whatever they call it.”

“But what ails you at it, sir?” said the Udaller; “let me hear your objections to it. It tills our land, and what would ye more?”

“It hath but one handle or stilt,” replied Triptolemus.

“And who the devil,” said the poet, aiming at something smart, “would wish to need a pair of stilts, if he can manage to walk with a single one?”

“Or tell me,” said Magnus Troil, “how it were possible for Neil of Lupness, that lost one arm by his fall from the crag of Nekbreckan, to manage a plough with two handles?”

“The harness is of raw seal-skin,” said Triptolemus.

“It will save dressed leather,” answered Magnus Troil.

“It is drawn by four wretched bullocks,” said the agriculturist, “that are yoked breast-fashion; and two women must follow this unhappy instrument, and complete the furrows with a couple of shovels.”

“Drink about, Master Yellowley,” said the Udaller; “and, as you say in Scotland, ‘never fash your thumb.’ Our cattle are too high-spirited to let one go before the other; our men are too gentle and well-nurtured to take the working-field without the women’s company; our ploughs till our land – our land bears us barley; we brew our ale, eat our bread, and make strangers welcome to their share of it. Here’s to you, Master Yellowley.”

This was said in a tone meant to be decisive of the question; and, accordingly, Halcro whispered to Mordaunt, “That has settled the matter, and now we will get on with glorious John. – There he sat in his suit of full-trimmed black; two years due was the bill, as mine honest landlord afterwards told me, – and such an eye in his head! – none of your burning, blighting, falcon eyes, which we poets are apt to make a rout about, – but a soft, full, thoughtful, yet penetrating glance – never saw the like of it in my life, unless it were little Stephen Kleancogg’s, the fiddler, at Papastow, who” —

“Nay, but John Dryden?” said Mordaunt, who, for want of better amusement, had begun to take a sort of pleasure in keeping the old gentleman to his narrative, as men herd in a restiff sheep, when they wish to catch him. He returned to his theme, with his usual phrase of “Ay, true – glorious John – Well, sir, he cast his eye, such as I have described it, on mine landlord, and ‘Honest Tim,’ said he, ‘what hast thou got here?’ and all the wits, and lords, and gentlemen, that used to crowd round him, like the wenches round a pedlar at a fair, they made way for us, and up we came to the fireside, where he had his own established chair, – I have heard it was carried to the balcony in summer, but it was by the fireside when I saw it, – so up came Tim Thimblethwaite, through the midst of them, as bold as a lion, and I followed with a small parcel under my arm, which I had taken up partly to oblige my landlord, as the shop porter was not in the way, and partly that I might be thought to have something to do there, for you are to think there was no admittance at the Wits’ for strangers who had no business there. – I have heard that Sir Charles Sedley said a good thing about that” —

“Nay, but you forget glorious John,” said Mordaunt.

“Ay, glorious you may well call him. They talk of their Blackmore, and Shadwell, and such like, – not fit to tie the latchets of John’s shoes – ‘Well,’ he said to my landlord, ‘what have you got there?’ and he, bowing, I warrant, lower than he would to a duke, said he had made bold to come and show him the stuff which Lady Elizabeth had chose for her nightgown. – ‘And which of your geese is that, Tim, who has got it tucked under his wing?’ – ‘He is an Orkney goose, if it please you, Mr. Dryden,’ said Tim, who had wit at will, ‘and he hath brought you a copy of verses for your honour to look at.’ – ‘Is he amphibious?’ said glorious John, taking the paper, – and methought I could rather have faced a battery of cannon than the crackle it gave as it opened, though he did not speak in a way to dash one neither; – and then he looked at the verses, and he was pleased to say, in a very encouraging way indeed, with a sort of good-humoured smile on his face, and certainly for a fat elderly gentleman, – for I would not compare it to Minna’s smile, or Brenda’s, – he had the pleasantest smile I ever saw, – ‘Why, Tim,’ he said, ‘this goose of yours will prove a swan on your hands.’ With that he smiled a little, and they all laughed, and none louder than those who stood too far off to hear the jest; for every one knew when he smiled there was something worth laughing at, and so took it upon trust; and the word passed through among the young Templars, and the wits, and the smarts, and there was nothing but question on question who we were; and one French fellow was trying to tell them it was only Monsieur Tim Thimblethwaite; but he made such work with his Dumbletate and Timbletate, that I thought his explanation would have lasted” —

“As long as your own story,” thought Mordaunt; but the narrative was at length finally cut short, by the strong and decided voice of the Udaller.

“I will hear no more on it, Mr. Factor!” he exclaimed.

“At least let me say something about the breed of horses,” said Yellowley, in rather a cry-mercy tone of voice. “Your horses, my dear sir, resemble cats in size, and tigers in devilry!”

“For their size,” said Magnus, “they are the easier for us to get off and on them – [as Triptolemus experienced this morning, thought Mordaunt to himself] – and, as for their devilry, let no one mount them that cannot manage them.”

A twinge of self-conviction, on the part of the agriculturist, prevented him from reply. He darted a deprecatory glance at Mordaunt, as if for the purpose of imploring secrecy respecting his tumble; and the Udaller, who saw his advantage, although he was not aware of the cause, pursued it with the high and stern tone proper to one who had all his life been unaccustomed to meet with, and unapt to endure, opposition.

“By the blood of Saint Magnus the Martyr,” he said, “but you are a fine fellow, Master Factor Yellowley! You come to us from a strange land, understanding neither our laws, nor our manners, nor our language, and you propose to become governor of the country, and that we should all be your slaves!”

“My pupils, worthy sir, my pupils!” said Yellowley, “and that only for your own proper advantage.”

“We are too old to go to school,” said the Zetlander. “I tell you once more, we will sow and reap our grain as our fathers did – we will eat what God sends us, with our doors open to the stranger, even as theirs were open. If there is aught imperfect in our practice, we will amend it in time and season; but the blessed Baptist’s holyday was made for light hearts and quick heels. He that speaks a word more of reason, as you call it, or any thing that looks like it, shall swallow a pint of sea-water – he shall, by this hand! – and so fill up the good ship, the Jolly Mariner of Canton, once more, for the benefit of those that will stick by her; and let the rest have a fling with the fiddlers, who have been summoning us this hour. I will warrant every wench is on tiptoe by this time. Come, Mr. Yellowley, no unkindness, man – why, man, thou feelest the rolling of the Jolly Mariner still” – (for, in truth, honest Triptolemus showed a little unsteadiness of motion, as he rose to attend his host) – “but never mind, we shall have thee find thy land-legs to reel it with yonder bonny belles. Come along, Triptolemus – let me grapple thee fast, lest thou trip, old Triptolemus – ha, ha, ha!”

So saying, the portly though weatherbeaten hulk of the Udaller sailed off like a man-of-war that had braved a hundred gales, having his guest in tow like a recent prize. The greater part of the revellers followed their leader with loud jubilee, although there were several stanch topers, who, taking the option left them by the Udaller, remained behind to relieve the Jolly Mariner of a fresh cargo, amidst many a pledge to the health of their absent landlord, and to the prosperity of his roof-tree, with whatsoever other wishes of kindness could be devised, as an apology for another pint-bumper of noble punch.

The rest soon thronged the dancing-room, an apartment which partook of the simplicity of the time and of the country. Drawing-rooms and saloons were then unknown in Scotland, save in the houses of the nobility, and of course absolutely so in Zetland; but a long, low, anomalous store-room, sometimes used for the depositation of merchandise, sometimes for putting aside lumber, and a thousand other purposes, was well known to all the youth of Dunrossness, and of many a district besides, as the scene of the merry dance, which was sustained with so much glee when Magnus Troil gave his frequent feasts.

The first appearance of this ball-room might have shocked a fashionable party, assembled for the quadrille or the waltz. Low as we have stated the apartment to be, it was but imperfectly illuminated by lamps, candles, ship-lanterns, and a variety of other candelabra, which served to throw a dusky light upon the floor, and upon the heaps of merchandise and miscellaneous articles which were piled around; some of them stores for the winter; some, goods destined for exportation; some, the tribute of Neptune, paid at the expense of shipwrecked vessels, whose owners were unknown; some, articles of barter received by the proprietor, who, like most others at the period, was somewhat of a merchant as well as a landholder, in exchange for the fish, and other articles, the produce of his estate. All these, with the chests, boxes, casks, &c., which contained them, had been drawn aside, and piled one above the other, in order to give room for the dancers, who, light and lively as if they had occupied the most splendid saloon in the parish of St. James’s, executed their national dances with equal grace and activity.

The group of old men who looked on, bore no inconsiderable resemblance to a party of aged tritons, engaged in beholding the sports of the sea-nymphs; so hard a look had most of them acquired by contending with the elements, and so much did the shaggy hair and beards, which many of them cultivated after the ancient Norwegian fashion, give their heads the character of these supposed natives of the deep. The young people, on the other hand, were uncommonly handsome, tall, well-made, and shapely; the men with long fair hair, and, until broken by the weather, a fresh ruddy complexion, which, in the females, was softened into a bloom of infinite delicacy. Their natural good ear for music qualified them to second to the utmost the exertions of a band, whose strains were by no means contemptible; while the elders, who stood around or sat quiet upon the old sea-chests, which served for chairs, criticised the dancers, as they compared their execution with their own exertions in former days; or, warmed by the cup and flagon, which continued to circulate among them, snapped their fingers, and beat time with their feet to the music.

Mordaunt looked upon this scene of universal mirth with the painful recollection, that he, thrust aside from his pre-eminence, no longer exercised the important duties of chief of the dancers, or office of leader of the revels, which had been assigned to the stranger Cleveland. Anxious, however, to suppress the feelings of his own disappointment, which he felt it was neither wise to entertain nor manly to display, he approached his fair neighbours, to whom he had been so acceptable at table, with the purpose of inviting one of them to become his partner in the dance. But the awfully ancient old lady, even the Lady Glowrowrum, who had only tolerated the exuberance of her nieces’ mirth during the time of dinner, because her situation rendered it then impossible for her to interfere, was not disposed to permit the apprehended renewal of the intimacy implied in Mertoun’s invitation. She therefore took upon herself, in the name of her two nieces, who sat pouting beside her in displeased silence, to inform Mordaunt, after thanking him for his civility, that the hands of her nieces were engaged for that evening; and, as he continued to watch the party at a little distance, he had an opportunity of being convinced that the alleged engagement was a mere apology to get rid of him, when he saw the two good-humoured sisters join the dance, under the auspices of the next young men who asked their hands. Incensed at so marked a slight, and unwilling to expose himself to another, Mordaunt Mertoun drew back from the circle of dancers, shrouded himself amongst the mass of inferior persons who crowded into the bottom of the room as spectators, and there, concealed from the observation of others, digested his own mortification as well as he could – that is to say, very ill – and with all the philosophy of his age – that is to say, with none at all.

CHAPTER XV

A torch for me – let wantons, light of heart,Tickle the useless rushes with their heels:For I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase —I’ll be a candle-holder, and look on.Romeo and Juliet.

The youth, says the moralist Johnson, cares not for the boy’s hobbyhorse, nor the man for the youth’s mistress; and therefore the distress of Mordaunt Mertoun, when excluded from the merry dance, may seem trifling to many of my readers, who would, nevertheless, think they did well to be angry if deposed from their usual place in an assembly of a different kind. There lacked not amusement, however, for those whom the dance did not suit, or who were not happy enough to find partners to their liking. Halcro, now completely in his element, had assembled round him an audience, to whom he was declaiming his poetry with all the enthusiasm of glorious John himself, and receiving in return the usual degree of applause allowed to minstrels who recite their own rhymes – so long at least as the author is within hearing of the criticism. Halcro’s poetry might indeed have interested the antiquary as well as the admirer of the Muses, for several of his pieces were translations or imitations from the Scaldic sagas, which continued to be sung by the fishermen of those islands even until a very late period; insomuch, that when Gray’s poems first found their way to Orkney, the old people recognised at once, in the ode of the “Fatal Sisters,” the Runic rhymes which had amused or terrified their infancy under the title of the “Magicians,” and which the fishers of North Ronaldshaw, and other remote isles, used still to sing when asked for a Norse ditty.36

Half listening, half lost in his own reflections, Mordaunt Mertoun stood near the door of the apartment, and in the outer ring of the little circle formed around old Halcro, while the bard chanted to a low, wild, monotonous air, varied only by the efforts of the singer to give interest and emphasis to particular passages, the following imitation of a Northern war-song:

THE SONG OF HAROLD HARFAGERThe sun is rising dimly red,The wind is wailing low and dread;From his cliff the eagle sallies,Leaves the wolf his darksome valleys;In the midst the ravens hover,Peep the wild-dogs from the cover,Screaming, croaking, baying, yelling,Each in his wild accents telling,“Soon we feast on dead and dying,Fair-hair’d Harold’s flag is flying.”Many a crest in air is streaming,Many a helmet darkly gleaming,Many an arm the axe uprears,Doom’d to hew the wood of spears.All along the crowded ranks,Horses neigh and armour clanks;Chiefs are shouting, clarions ringing,Louder still the bard is singing,“Gather, footmen, – gather, horsemen,To the field, ye valiant Norsemen!“Halt ye not for food or slumber,View not vantage, count not number;Jolly reapers, forward still;Grow the crop on vale or hill,Thick or scatter’d, stiff or lithe,It shall down before the scythe.Forward with your sickles bright,Reap the harvest of the fight —Onward, footmen, – onward, horsemen,To the charge, ye gallant Norsemen!“Fatal Choosers of the Slaughter,O’er you hovers Odin’s daughter;Hear the voice she spreads before ye, —Victory, and wealth, and glory;Or old Valhalla’s roaring hail,Her ever-circling mead and ale,Where for eternity uniteThe joys of wassail and of fight.Headlong forward, foot and horsemen,Charge and fight, and die like Norsemen!”

“The poor unhappy blinded heathens!” said Triptolemus, with a sigh deep enough for a groan; “they speak of their eternal cups of ale, and I question if they kend how to manage a croft land of grain!”

“The cleverer fellows they, neighbour Yellowley,” answered the poet, “if they made ale without barley.”

“Barley! – alack-a-day!” replied the more accurate agriculturist, “who ever heard of barley in these parts? Bear, my dearest friend, bear is all they have, and wonderment it is to me that they ever see an awn of it. Ye scart the land with a bit thing ye ca’ a pleugh – ye might as weel give it a ritt with the teeth of a redding-kame. O, to see the sock, and the heel, and the sole-clout of a real steady Scottish pleugh, with a chield like a Samson between the stilts, laying a weight on them would keep down a mountain; twa stately owsen, and as many broad-breasted horse in the traces, going through soil and till, and leaving a fur in the ground would carry off water like a causeyed syver! They that have seen a sight like that, have seen something to crack about in another sort, than those unhappy auld-warld stories of war and slaughter, of which the land has seen even but too mickle, for a’ your singing and soughing awa in praise of such bloodthirsty doings, Master Claud Halcro.”

“It is a heresy,” said the animated little poet, bridling and drawing himself up, as if the whole defence of the Orcadian Archipelago rested on his single arm – “It is a heresy so much as to name one’s native country, if a man is not prepared when and how to defend himself – ay, and to annoy another. The time has been, that if we made not good ale and aquavitæ, we knew well enough where to find that which was ready made to our hand; but now the descendants of Sea-kings, and Champions, and Berserkars, are become as incapable of using their swords, as if they were so many women. Ye may praise them for a strong pull on an oar, or a sure foot on a skerry; but what else could glorious John himself say of ye, my good Hialtlanders, that any man would listen to?”

“Spoken like an angel, most noble poet,” said Cleveland, who, during an interval of the dance, stood near the party in which this conversation was held. “The old champions you talked to us about yesternight, were the men to make a harp ring – gallant fellows, that were friends to the sea, and enemies to all that sailed on it. Their ships, I suppose, were clumsy enough; but if it is true that they went upon the account as far as the Levant, I scarce believe that ever better fellows unloosed a topsail.”

“Ay,” replied Halcro, “there you spoke them right. In those days none could call their life and means of living their own, unless they dwelt twenty miles out of sight of the blue sea. Why, they had public prayers put up in every church in Europe, for deliverance from the ire of the Northmen. In France and England, ay, and in Scotland too, for as high as they hold their head now-a-days, there was not a bay or a haven, but it was freer to our forefathers than to the poor devils of natives; and now we cannot, forsooth, so much as grow our own barley without Scottish help” – (here he darted a sarcastic glance at the factor) – “I would I saw the time we were to measure arms with them again!”

“Spoken like a hero once more,” said Cleveland.

“Ah!” continued the little bard, “I would it were possible to see our barks, once the water-dragons of the world, swimming with the black raven standard waving at the topmast, and their decks glimmering with arms, instead of being heaped up with stockfish – winning with our fearless hands what the niggard soil denies – paying back all old scorn and modern injury – reaping where we never sowed, and felling what we never planted – living and laughing through the world, and smiling when we were summoned to quit it!”

So spoke Claud Halcro, in no serious, or at least most certainly in no sober mood, his brain (never the most stable) whizzing under the influence of fifty well-remembered sagas, besides five bumpers of usquebaugh and brandy; and Cleveland, between jest and earnest, clapped him on the shoulder, and again repeated, “Spoken like a hero!”

“Spoken like a fool, I think,” said Magnus Troil, whose attention had been also attracted by the vehemence of the little bard – “where would you cruize upon, or against whom? – we are all subjects of one realm, I trow, and I would have you to remember, that your voyage may bring up at Execution-dock. – I like not the Scots – no offence, Mr. Yellowley – that is, I would like them well enough if they would stay quiet in their own land, and leave us at peace with our own people, and manners, and fashions; and if they would but abide there till I went to harry them like a mad old Berserkar, I would leave them in peace till the day of judgment. With what the sea sends us, and the land lends us, as the proverb says, and a set of honest neighbourly folks to help us to consume it, so help me, Saint Magnus, as I think we are even but too happy!”

“I know what war is,” said an old man, “and I would as soon sail through Sumburgh-roost in a cockle-shell, or in a worse loom, as I would venture there again.”

“And, pray, what wars knew your valour?” said Halcro, who, though forbearing to contradict his landlord from a sense of respect, was not a whit inclined to abandon his argument to any meaner authority.

“I was pressed,” answered the old Triton, “to serve under Montrose, when he came here about the sixteen hundred and fifty-one, and carried a sort of us off, will ye nill ye, to get our throats cut in the wilds of Strathnavern37– I shall never forget it – we had been hard put to it for victuals – what would I have given for a luncheon of Burgh-Westra beef – ay, or a mess of sour sillocks? – When our Highlandmen brought in a dainty drove of kyloes, much ceremony there was not, for we shot and felled, and flayed, and roasted, and broiled, as it came to every man’s hand; till, just as our beards were at the greasiest, we heard – God preserve us – a tramp of horse, then twa or three drapping shots, – then came a full salvo, – and then, when the officers were crying on us to stand, and maist of us looking which way we might run away, down they broke, horse and foot, with old John Urry, or Hurry,38 or whatever they called him – he hurried us that day, and worried us to boot – and we began to fall as thick as the stots that we were felling five minutes before.”