The Pirate
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 of barley-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 such a 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 little use 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 the finder, is
worthy of his hire--nay, some learned men say, that when the finder, in
point of trust and in point of power, representeth the _dominus_, or
lord superior, he taketh the whole; but let that pass, as a kittle
question _in 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 him _in 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 and Ogilvies
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 upon _deceptio 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