The Pirate
and of unusual length, such as is chiefly used for shooting sea-fowl,
and for ball-practice.
"With slugs," continued the donor, "never gun shot closer; and with
single ball, you may kill a seal two hundred yards at sea from the top
of the highest peak of this iron-bound coast of yours. But I tell you
again, that the old rattler will never do you the service she has done
me."
"I shall not use her so dexterously, perhaps," said Mordaunt.
"Umph!--perhaps not," replied Cleveland; "but that is not the question.
What say you to shooting the man at the wheel, just as we run aboard of
a Spaniard? So the Don was taken aback, and we laid him athwart the
hawse, and carried her cutlass in hand; and worth the while she
was--stout brigantine--El Santo Francisco--bound for Porto Bello, with
gold and negroes. That little bit of lead was worth twenty thousand
pistoles."
"I have shot at no such game as yet," said Mordaunt.
"Well, all in good time; we cannot weigh till the tide makes. But you
are a tight, handsome, active young man. What is to ail you to take a
trip after some of this stuff?" laying his hand on the bag of gold.
"My father talks of my travelling soon," replied Mordaunt, who, born to
hold men-of-wars-men in great respect, felt flattered by this invitation
from one who appeared a thorough-bred seaman.
"I respect him for the thought," said the Captain; "and I will visit him
before I weigh anchor. I have a consort off these islands, and be cursed
to her. She'll find me out somewhere, though she parted company in the
bit of a squall, unless she is gone to Davy Jones too.--Well, she was
better found than we, and not so deep loaded--she must have weathered
it. We'll have a hammock slung for you aboard, and make a sailor and a
man of you in the same trip."
"I should like it well enough," said Mordaunt, who eagerly longed to
see more of the world than his lonely situation had hitherto permitted;
"but then my father must decide."
"Your father? pooh!" said Captain Cleveland;--"but you are very right,"
he added, checking himself; "Gad, I have lived so long at sea, that I
cannot imagine any body has a right to think except the captain and the
master. But you are very right. I will go up to the old gentleman this
instant, and speak to him myself. He lives in that handsome,
modern-looking building, I suppose, that I see a quarter of a mile off?"
"In that old half-ruined house," said Mordaunt, "he does indeed live;
but he will see no visitors."
"Then you must drive the point yourself, for I can't stay in this
latitude. Since your father is no magistrate, I must go to see this same
Magnus--how call you him?--who is not justice of peace, but something
else that will do the turn as well. These fellows have got two or three
things that I must and will have back--let them keep the rest and be
d----d to them. Will you give me a letter to him, just by way of
commission?"
"It is scarce needful," said Mordaunt. "It is enough that you are
shipwrecked, and need his help;--but yet I may as well furnish you with
a letter of introduction."
"There," said the sailor, producing a writing-case from his chest, "are
your writing-tools.--Meantime, since bulk has been broken, I will nail
down the hatches, and make sure of the cargo."
While Mordaunt, accordingly, was engaged in writing to Magnus Troil a
letter, setting forth the circumstances in which Captain Cleveland had
been thrown upon their coast, the Captain, having first selected and
laid aside some wearing apparel and necessaries enough to fill a
knapsack, took in hand hammer and nails, employed himself in securing
the lid of his sea-chest, by fastening it down in a workmanlike manner,
and then added the corroborating security of a cord, twisted and knotted
with nautical dexterity. "I leave this in your charge," he said, "all
except this," showing the bag of gold, "and these," pointing to a
cutlass and pistols, "which may prevent all further risk of my parting
company with my Portagues."
"You will find no occasion for weapons in this country, Captain
Cleveland," replied Mordaunt; "a child might travel with a purse of gold
from Sumburgh-head to the Scaw of Unst, and no soul would injure him."
"And that's pretty boldly said, young gentleman, considering what is
going on without doors at this moment."
"O," replied Mordaunt, a little confused, "what comes on land with the
tide, they reckon their lawful property. One would think they had
studied under Sir Arthegal, who pronounces--
'For equal right in equal things doth stand,
And what the mighty sea hath once possess'd,
And plucked quite from all possessors' hands,
Or else by wrecks that wretches have distress'd,
He may dispose, by his resistless might,
As things at random left, to whom he list.'"
"I shall think the better of plays and ballads as long as I live, for
these very words," said Captain Cleveland; "and yet I have loved them
well enough in my day. But this is good doctrine, and more men than one
may trim their sails to such a breeze. What the sea sends is ours,
that's sure enough. However, in case that your good folks should think
the land as well as the sea may present them with waiffs and strays, I
will make bold to take my cutlass and pistols.--Will you cause my chest
to be secured in your own house till you hear from me, and use your
influence to procure me a guide to show me the way, and to carry my
kit?"
"Will you go by sea or land?" said Mordaunt, in reply.
"By sea!" exclaimed Cleveland. "What--in one of these cockleshells, and
a cracked cockleshell, to boot? No, no--land, land, unless I knew my
crew, my vessel, and my voyage."
They parted accordingly, Captain Cleveland being supplied with a guide
to conduct him to Burgh-Westra, and his chest being carefully removed to
the mansion-house at Jarlshof.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] This was literally true.
CHAPTER IX.
This is a gentle trader, and a prudent.
He's no Autolycus, to blear your eye,
With quips of worldly gauds and gamesomeness;
But seasons all his glittering merchandise
With wholesome doctrines, suited to the use,
As men sauce goose with sage and rosemary.
_Old Play._
On the subsequent morning, Mordaunt, in answer to his father's
enquiries, began to give him some account of the shipwrecked mariner,
whom he had rescued from the waves. But he had not proceeded far in
recapitulating the particulars which Cleveland had communicated, when
Mr. Mertoun's looks became disturbed--he arose hastily, and, after
pacing twice or thrice across the room, he retired into the inner
chamber, to which he usually confined himself, while under the influence
of his mental malady. In the evening he re-appeared, without any traces
of his disorder; but it may be easily supposed that his son avoided
recurring to the subject which had affected him.
Mordaunt Mertoun was thus left without assistance, to form at his
leisure his own opinion respecting the new acquaintance which the sea
had sent him; and, upon the whole, he was himself surprised to find the
result less favourable to the stranger than he could well account for.
There seemed to Mordaunt to be a sort of repelling influence about the
man. True, he was a handsome man, of a frank and prepossessing manner,
but there was an assumption of superiority about him, which Mordaunt did
not quite so much like. Although he was so keen a sportsman as to be
delighted with his acquisition of the Spanish-barrelled gun, and
accordingly mounted and dismounted it with great interest, paying the
utmost attention to the most minute parts about the lock and ornaments,
yet he was, upon the whole, inclined to have some scruples about the
mode in which he had acquired it.
"I should not have accepted it," he thought; "perhaps Captain Cleveland
might give it me as a sort of payment for the trifling service I did
him; and yet it would have been churlish to refuse it in the way it was
offered. I wish he had looked more like a man whom one would have chosen
to be obliged to."
But a successful day's shooting reconciled him to his gun, and he became
assured, like most young sportsmen in similar circumstances, that all
other pieces were but pop-guns in comparison. But then, to be doomed to
shoot gulls and seals, when there were Frenchmen and Spaniards to be
come at--when there were ships to be boarded, and steersmen to be marked
off, seemed but a dull and contemptible destiny. His father had
mentioned his leaving these islands, and no other mode of occupation
occurred to his inexperience, save that of the sea, with which he had
been conversant from his infancy. His ambition had formerly aimed no
higher than at sharing the fatigues and dangers of a Greenland fishing
expedition; for it was in that scene that the Zetlanders laid most of
their perilous adventures. But war was again raging, the history of Sir
Francis Drake, Captain Morgan, and other bold adventurers, an account of
whose exploits he had purchased from Bryce Snailsfoot, had made much
impression on his mind, and the offer of Captain Cleveland to take him
to sea, frequently recurred to him, although the pleasure of such a
project was somewhat damped by a doubt, whether, in the long run, he
should not find many objections to his proposed commander. Thus much he
already saw, that he was opinionative, and might probably prove
arbitrary; and that, since even his kindness was mingled with an
assumption of superiority, his occasional displeasure might contain a
great deal more of that disagreeable ingredient than could be palatable
to those who sailed under him. And yet, after counting all risks, could
his father's consent be obtained, with what pleasure, he thought, would
he embark in quest of new scenes and strange adventures, in which he
proposed to himself to achieve such deeds as should be the theme of many
a tale to the lovely sisters of Burgh-Westra--tales at which Minna
should weep, and Brenda should smile, and both should marvel! And this
was to be the reward of his labours and his dangers; for the hearth of
Magnus Troil had a magnetic influence over his thoughts, and however
they might traverse amid his day-dreams, it was the point where they
finally settled.
There were times when Mordaunt thought of mentioning to his father the
conversation he had held with Captain Cleveland, and the seaman's
proposal to him; but the very short and general account which he had
given of that person's history, upon the morning after his departure
from the hamlet, had produced a sinister effect on Mr. Mertoun's mind,
and discouraged him from speaking farther on any subject connected with
it. It would be time enough, he thought, to mention Captain Cleveland's
proposal, when his consort should arrive, and when he should repeat his
offer in a more formal manner; and these he supposed events likely very
soon to happen.
But days grew to weeks, and weeks were numbered into months, and he
heard nothing from Cleveland; and only learned by an occasional visit
from Bryce Snailsfoot, that the Captain was residing at Burgh-Westra, as
one of the family. Mordaunt was somewhat surprised at this, although the
unlimited hospitality of the islands, which Magnus Troil, both from
fortune and disposition, carried to the utmost extent, made it almost a
matter of course that he should remain in the family until he disposed
of himself otherwise. Still it seemed strange he had not gone to some of
the northern isles to enquire after his consort; or that he did not
rather choose to make Lerwick his residence, where fishing vessels often
brought news from the coasts and ports of Scotland and Holland. Again,
why did he not send for the chest he had deposited at Jarlshof? and