The Pirate
"With horror shuddering, in a heap they ran."
The pause was interrupted by the loud manly voice of the Udaller. "Why
does the game stand still, my masters? Are you afraid because my
kinswoman is to play our voluspa? It is kindly done in her, to do for us
what none in the isles can do so well; and we will not baulk our sport
for it, but rather go on the merrier."
There was still a pause in the company, and Magnus Troil added, "It
shall never be said that my kinswoman sat in her bower unhalsed, as if
she were some of the old mountain-giantesses, and all from faint heart.
I will speak first myself; but the rhyme comes worse from my tongue than
when I was a score of years younger.--Claud Halcro, you must stand by
me."
Hand in hand they approached the shrine of the supposed sibyl, and after
a moment's consultation together, Halcro thus expressed the query of his
friend and patron. Now, the Udaller, like many persons of consequence in
Zetland, who, as Sir Robert Sibbald has testified for them, had begun
thus early to apply both to commerce and navigation, was concerned to
some extent in the whale-fishery of the season, and the bard had been
directed to put into his halting verse an enquiry concerning its
success.
CLAUD HALCRO.
"Mother darksome, Mother dread--
Dweller on the Fitful-head,
Thou canst see what deeds are done
Under the never-setting sun.
Look through sleet, and look through frost,
Look to Greenland's caves and coast,--
By the iceberg is a sail
Chasing of the swarthy whale;
Mother doubtful, Mother dread,
Tell us, has the good ship sped?"
The jest seemed to turn to earnest, as all, bending their heads around,
listened to the voice of Norna, who, without a moment's hesitation,
answered from the recesses of the tent in which she was enclosed:--
NORNA.
"The thought of the aged is ever on gear,--
On his fishing, his furrow, his flock, and his steer;
But thrive may his fishing, flock, furrow, and herd,
While the aged for anguish shall tear his grey beard."
There was a momentary pause, during which Triptolemus had time to
whisper, "If ten witches and as many warlocks were to swear it, I will
never believe that a decent man will either fash his beard or himself
about any thing, so long as stock and crop goes as it should do."
But the voice from within the tent resumed its low monotonous tone of
recitation, and, interrupting farther commentary, proceeded as
follows:--
NORNA.
"The ship, well-laden as bark need be,
Lies deep in the furrow of the Iceland sea;--
The breeze for Zetland blows fair and soft,
And gaily the garland[1] is fluttering aloft:
Seven good fishes have spouted their last,
And their jaw-bones are hanging to yard and mast;[2]
Two are for Lerwick, and two for Kirkwall,--
And three for Burgh-Westra, the choicest of all."
"Now the powers above look down and protect us!" said Bryce Snailsfoot;
"for it is mair than woman's wit that has spaed out that ferly. I saw
them at North Ronaldshaw, that had seen the good bark, the Olave of
Lerwick, that our worthy patron has such a great share in that she may
be called his own in a manner, and they had broomed[3] the ship, and, as
sure as there are stars in heaven, she answered them for seven fish,
exact as Norna has telled us in her rhyme!"
"Umph--seven fish exactly? and you heard it at North Ronaldshaw?" said
Captain Cleveland, "and I suppose told it as a good piece of news when
you came hither?"
"It never crossed my tongue, Captain," answered the pedlar; "I have kend
mony chapmen, travelling merchants, and such like, neglect their goods
to carry clashes and clavers up and down, from one countryside to
another; but that is no traffic of mine. I dinna believe I have
mentioned the Olave's having made up her cargo to three folks since I
crossed to Dunrossness."
"But if one of those three had spoken the news over again, and it is two
to one that such a thing happened, the old lady prophesies upon velvet."
Such was the speech of Cleveland, addressed to Magnus Troil, and heard
without any applause. The Udaller's respect for his country extended to
its superstitions, and so did the interest which he took in his
unfortunate kinswoman. If he never rendered a precise assent to her high
supernatural pretensions, he was not at least desirous of hearing them
disputed by others.
"Norna," he said, "his cousin," (an emphasis on the word,) "held no
communication with Bryce Snailsfoot, or his acquaintances. He did not
pretend to explain how she came by her information; but he had always
remarked that Scotsmen, and indeed strangers in general, when they came
to Zetland, were ready to find reasons for things which remained
sufficiently obscure to those whose ancestors had dwelt there for ages."
Captain Cleveland took the hint, and bowed, without attempting to defend
his own scepticism.
"And now forward, my brave hearts," said the Udaller; "and may all have
as good tidings as I have! Three whales cannot but yield--let me think
how many hogsheads"----
There was an obvious reluctance on the part of the guests to be the next
in consulting the oracle of the tent.
"Gude news are welcome to some folks, if they came frae the deil
himsell," said Mistress Baby Yellowley, addressing the Lady
Glowrowrum,--for a similarity of disposition in some respects had made a
sort of intimacy betwixt them--"but I think, my leddy, that this has
ower mickle of rank witchcraft in it to have the countenance of douce
Christian folks like you and me, my leddy."
"There may be something in what you say, my dame," replied the good Lady
Glowrowrum; "but we Hialtlanders are no just like other folks; and this
woman, if she be a witch, being the Fowd's friend and near kinswoman, it
will be ill taen if we haena our fortunes spaed like a' the rest of
them; and sae my nieces may e'en step forward in their turn, and nae
harm dune. They will hae time to repent, ye ken, in the course of
nature, if there be ony thing wrang in it, Mistress Yellowley."
While others remained under similar uncertainty and apprehension,
Halcro, who saw by the knitting of the old Udaller's brows, and by a
certain impatient shuffle of his right foot, like the motion of a man
who with difficulty refrains from stamping, that his patience began to
wax rather thin, gallantly declared, that he himself would, in his own
person, and not as a procurator for others, put the next query to the
Pythoness. He paused a minute--collected his rhymes, and thus addressed
her:
CLAUD HALCRO.
"Mother doubtful, Mother dread,
Dweller of the Fitful-head,
Thou hast conn'd full many a rhyme,
That lives upon the surge of time:
Tell me, shall my lays be sung,
Like Hacon's of the golden tongue,
Long after Halcro's dead and gone?
Or, shall Hialtland's minstrel own
One note to rival glorious John?"
The voice of the sibyl immediately replied, from her sanctuary,
NORNA.
"The infant loves the rattle's noise;
Age, double childhood, hath its toys;
But different far the descant rings,
As strikes a different hand the strings.
The Eagle mounts the polar sky--
The Imber-goose, unskill'd to fly,
Must be content to glide along,
Where seal and sea-dog list his song."
Halcro bit his lip, shrugged his shoulders, and then, instantly
recovering his good-humour, and the ready, though slovenly power of
extemporaneous composition, with which long habit had invested him, he
gallantly rejoined,
CLAUD HALCRO.
"Be mine the Imber-goose to play,
And haunt lone cave and silent bay:--
The archer's aim so shall I shun--
So shall I 'scape the levell'd gun--
Content my verse's tuneless jingle,
With Thule's sounding tides to mingle,
While, to the ear of wandering wight,
Upon the distant headland's height,
Soften'd by murmur of the sea,
The rude sounds seem like harmony!"
As the little bard stepped back, with an alert gait, and satisfied air,
general applause followed the spirited manner in which he had acquiesced
in the doom which levelled him with an Imber-goose. But his resigned and
courageous submission did not even yet encourage any other person to
consult the redoubted Norna.
"The coward fools!" said the Udaller. "Are you too afraid, Captain
Cleveland, to speak to an old woman?--Ask her any thing--ask her whether
the twelve-gun sloop at Kirkwall be your consort or no."
Cleveland looked at Minna, and probably conceiving that she watched with
anxiety his answer to her father's question, he collected himself, after
a moment's hesitation.
"I never was afraid of man or woman.--Master Halcro, you have heard the
question which our host desires me to ask--put it in my name, and in
your own way--I pretend to as little skill in poetry as I do in
witchcraft."
Halcro did not wait to be invited twice, but, grasping Captain
Cleveland's hand in his, according to the form which the game
prescribed, he put the query which the Udaller had dictated to the
stranger, in the following words:--
CLAUD HALCRO.
"Mother doubtful, Mother dread,
Dweller of the Fitful-head,
A gallant bark from far abroad,
Saint Magnus hath her in his road,
With guns and firelocks not a few--
A silken and a scarlet crew,
Deep stored with precious merchandise,
Of gold, and goods of rare device--
What interest hath our comrade bold
In bark and crew, in goods and gold?"
There was a pause of unusual duration ere the oracle would return any
answer; and when she replied, it was in a lower, though an equally
decided tone, with that which she had hitherto employed:--
NORNA.
"Gold is ruddy, fair, and free,
Blood is crimson, and dark to see;--
I look'd out on Saint Magnus Bay,
And I saw a falcon that struck her prey,--
A gobbet of flesh in her beak she bore,
And talons and singles are dripping with gore;
Let him that asks after them look on his hand,
And if there is blood on't, he's one of their band."
Cleveland smiled scornfully, and held out his hand,--"Few men have been
on the Spanish main as often as I have, without having had to do with
the _Guarda Costas_ once and again; but there never was aught like a
stain on my hand that a wet towel would not wipe away."
The Udaller added his voice potential--"There is never peace with
Spaniards beyond the Line,--I have heard Captain Tragendeck and honest
old Commodore Rummelaer say so an hundred times, and they have both been
down in the Bay of Honduras, and all thereabouts.--I hate all Spaniards,
since they came here and reft the Fair Isle men of their vivers in
1558.[4] I have heard my grandfather speak of it; and there is an old
Dutch history somewhere about the house, that shows what work they made
in the Low Countries long since. There is neither mercy nor faith in
them."
"True--true, my old friend," said Cleveland; "they are as jealous of
their Indian possessions as an old man of his young bride; and if they
can catch you at disadvantage, the mines for your life is the word,--and
so we fight them with our colours nailed to the mast."
"That is the way," shouted the Udaller; "the old British jack should
never down! When I think of the wooden walls, I almost think myself an
Englishman, only it would be becoming too like my Scottish
neighbours;--but come, no offence to any here, gentlemen--all are
friends, and all are welcome.--Come, Brenda, go on with the play--do you
speak next, you have Norse rhymes enough, we all know."
"But none that suit the game we play at, father," said Brenda, drawing
back.
"Nonsense!" said her father, pushing her onward, while Halcro seized on
her reluctant hand; "never let mistimed modesty mar honest mirth--Speak
for Brenda, Halcro--it is your trade to interpret maidens' thoughts."