The Pirate
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 then
it 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 found some 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 word _Shogh_.[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 reserved in 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 the other 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