The Pirate
Magnus again uplifted the handspike, but Bunce stopped his
hand.--"Avast, father!" he said, "or you will make a bad voyage of it
presently--And you, Fletcher, let go the girl!"
"And, d----n me! why should I let her go?" said Fletcher.
"Because I command you, Dick," said the other, "and because I'll make it
a quarrel else.--And now let me know, beauties, is there one of you
bears that queer heathen name of Minna, for which I have a certain sort
of regard?"
"Gallant sir!" said Halcro, "unquestionably it is because you have some
poetry in your heart."
"I have had enough of it in my mouth in my time," answered Bunce; "but
that day is by, old gentleman--however, I shall soon find out which of
these girls is Minna.--Throw back your mufflings from your faces, and
don't be afraid, my Lindamiras; no one here shall meddle with you to do
you wrong. On my soul, two pretty wenches!--I wish I were at sea in an
egg-shell, and a rock under my lee-bow, if I would wish a better
leaguer-lass than the worst of them!--Hark you, my girls; which of you
would like to swing in a rover's hammock?--you should have gold for the
gathering!"
The terrified maidens clung close together, and grew pale at the bold
and familiar language of the desperate libertine.
"Nay, don't be frightened," said he; "no one shall serve under the
noble Altamont but by her own free choice--there is no pressing amongst
gentlemen of fortune. And do not look so shy upon me neither, as if I
spoke of what you never thought of before. One of you, at least, has
heard of Captain Cleveland, the Rover."
Brenda grew still paler, but the blood mounted at once in Minna's
cheeks, on hearing the name of her lover thus unexpectedly introduced;
for the scene was in itself so confounding, that the idea of the
vessel's being the consort of which Cleveland had spoken at
Burgh-Westra, had occurred to no one save the Udaller.
"I see how it is," said Bunce, with a familiar nod, "and I will hold my
course accordingly.--You need not be afraid of any injury, father," he
added, addressing Magnus familiarly; "and though I have made many a
pretty girl pay tribute in my time, yet yours shall go ashore without
either wrong or ransom."
"If you will assure me of that," said Magnus; "you are as welcome to the
brig and cargo, as ever I made man welcome to a can of punch."
"And it is no bad thing that same can of punch," said Bunce, "if we had
any one here that could mix it well."
"I will do it," said Claud Halcro, "with any man that ever squeezed
lemon--Eric Scambester, the punch-maker of Burgh-Westra, being alone
excepted."
"And you are within a grapnel's length of him, too," said the
Udaller.--"Go down below, my girls," he added, "and send up the rare old
man, and the punch-bowl."
"The punch-bowl!" said Fletcher; "I say, the bucket, d----n me!--Talk
of bowls in the cabin of a paltry merchantman, but not to
gentlemen-strollers--rovers, I would say," correcting himself, as he
observed that Bunce looked sour at the mistake.
"And I say, these two pretty girls shall stay on deck, and fill my can,"
said Bunce; "I deserve some attendance, at least, for all my
generosity."
"And they shall fill mine, too," said Fletcher--"they shall fill it to
the brim!--and I will have a kiss for every drop they spill--broil me if
I won't!"
"Why, then, I tell you, you shan't!" said Bunce; "for I'll be d----d if
any one shall kiss Minna but one, and that's neither you nor I; and her
other little bit of a consort shall 'scape for company;--there are
plenty of willing wenches in Orkney.--And so, now I think on it, these
girls shall go down below, and bolt themselves into the cabin; and we
shall have the punch up here on deck, _al fresco_, as the old gentleman
proposes."
"Why, Jack, I wish you knew your own mind," said Fletcher; "I have been
your messmate these two years, and I love you; and yet flay me like a
wild bullock, if you have not as many humours as a monkey!--And what
shall we have to make a little fun of, since you have sent the girls
down below?"
"Why, we will have Master Punch-maker here," answered Bunce, "to give us
toasts, and sing us songs.--And, in the meantime, you there, stand by
sheets and tacks, and get her under way!--and you, steersman, as you
would keep your brains in your skull, keep her under the stern of the
sloop.--If you attempt to play us any trick, I will scuttle your sconce
as if it were an old calabash!"
The vessel was accordingly got under way, and moved slowly on in the
wake of the sloop, which, as had been previously agreed upon, held her
course, not to return to the Bay of Kirkwall, but for an excellent
roadstead called Inganess Bay, formed by a promontory which extends to
the eastward two or three miles from the Orcadian metropolis, and where
the vessels might conveniently lie at anchor, while the rovers
maintained any communication with the Magistrates which the new state of
things seemed to require.
Meantime Claud Halcro had exerted his utmost talents in compounding a
bucketful of punch for the use of the pirates, which they drank out of
large cans; the ordinary seamen, as well as Bunce and Fletcher, who
acted as officers, dipping them into the bucket with very little
ceremony, as they came and went upon their duty. Magnus, who was
particularly apprehensive that liquor might awaken the brutal passions
of these desperadoes, was yet so much astonished at the quantities which
he saw them drink, without producing any visible effect upon their
reason, that he could not help expressing his surprise to Bunce himself,
who, wild as he was, yet appeared by far the most civil and conversable
of his party, and whom he was, perhaps, desirous to conciliate, by a
compliment of which all boon topers know the value.
"Bones of Saint Magnus!" said the Udaller, "I used to think I took off
my can like a gentleman; but to see your men swallow, Captain, one would
think their stomachs were as bottomless as the hole of Laifell in Foula,
which I have sounded myself with a line of an hundred fathoms. By my
soul, the Bicker of Saint Magnus were but a sip to them!"
"In our way of life, sir," answered Bunce, "there is no stint till duty
calls, or the puncheon is drunk out."
"By my word, sir," said Claud Halcro, "I believe there is not one of
your people but could drink out the mickle bicker of Scarpa, which was
always offered to the Bishop of Orkney brimful of the best bummock that
ever was brewed."[38]
"If drinking could make them bishops," said Bunce, "I should have a
reverend crew of them; but as they have no other clerical qualities
about them, I do not propose that they shall get drunk to-day; so we
will cut our drink with a song."
"And I'll sing it, by ----!" said or swore Dick Fletcher, and instantly
struck up the old ditty--
"It was a ship, and a ship of fame,
Launch'd off the stocks, bound for the main,
With an hundred and fifty brisk young men,
All pick'd and chosen every one."
"I would sooner be keel-hauled than hear that song over again," said
Bunce; "and confound your lantern jaws, you can squeeze nothing else out
of them!"
"By ----," said Fletcher, "I will sing my song, whether you like it or
no;" and again he sung, with the doleful tone of a north-easter
whistling through sheet and shrouds,--
"Captain Glen was our captain's name;
A very gallant and brisk young man;
As bold a sailor as e'er went to sea,
And we were bound for High Barbary."
"I tell you again," said Bunce, "we will have none of your screech-owl
music here; and I'll be d----d if you shall sit here and make that
infernal noise!"
"Why, then, I'll tell you what," said Fletcher, getting up, "I'll sing
when I walk about, and I hope there is no harm in that, Jack Bunce." And
so, getting up from his seat, he began to walk up and down the sloop,
croaking out his long and disastrous ballad.
"You see how I manage them," said Bunce, with a smile of
self-applause--"allow that fellow two strides on his own way, and you
make a mutineer of him for life. But I tie him strict up, and he follows
me as kindly as a fowler's spaniel after he has got a good beating.--And
now your toast and your song, sir," addressing Halcro; "or rather your
song without your toast. I have got a toast for myself. Here is success
to all roving blades, and confusion to all honest men!"
"I should be sorry to drink that toast, if I could help it," said Magnus
Troil.
"What! you reckon yourself one of the honest folks, I warrant?" said
Bunce.--"Tell me your trade, and I'll tell you what I think of it. As
for the punch-maker here, I knew him at first glance to be a tailor, who
has, therefore, no more pretensions to be honest, than he has not to be
mangy. But you are some High-Dutch skipper, I warrant me, that tramples
on the cross when he is in Japan, and denies his religion for a day's
gain."
"No," replied the Udaller, "I am a gentleman of Zetland."
"O, what!" retorted the satirical Mr. Bunce, "you are come from the
happy climate where gin is a groat a-bottle, and where there is daylight
for ever?"
"At your service, Captain," said the Udaller, suppressing with much
pain some disposition to resent these jests on his country, although
under every risk, and at all disadvantage.
"At _my_ service!" said Bunce--"Ay, if there was a rope stretched from
the wreck to the beach, you would be at my service to cut the hawser,
make _floatsome_ and _jetsome_ of ship and cargo, and well if you did
not give me a rap on the head with the back of the cutty-axe; and you
call yourself honest? But never mind--here goes the aforesaid toast--and
do you sing me a song, Mr. Fashioner; and look it be as good as your
punch."
Halcro, internally praying for the powers of a new Timotheus, to turn
his strain and check his auditor's pride, as glorious John had it, began
a heart-soothing ditty with the following lines:--
"Maidens fresh as fairest rose,
Listen to this lay of mine."
"I will hear nothing of maidens or roses," said Bunce; "it puts me in
mind what sort of a cargo we have got on board; and, by ----, I will be
true to my messmate and my captain as long as I can!--And now I think
on't, I'll have no more punch either--that last cup made innovation, and
I am not to play Cassio to-night--and if I drink not, nobody else
shall."
So saying, he manfully kicked over the bucket, which, notwithstanding
the repeated applications made to it, was still half full, got up from
his seat, shook himself a little to rights, as he expressed it, cocked
his hat, and, walking the quarter-deck with an air of dignity, gave, by
word and signal, the orders for bringing the ships to anchor, which
were readily obeyed by both, Goffe being then, in all probability, past
any rational state of interference.
The Udaller, in the meantime, condoled with Halcro on their situation.
"It is bad enough," said the tough old Norseman; "for these are rank
rogues--and yet, were it not for the girls, I should not fear them. That
young vapouring fellow, who seems to command, is not such a born devil
as he might have been."
"He has queer humours, though," said Halcro; "and I wish we were loose
from him. To kick down a bucket half full of the best punch ever was
made, and to cut me short in the sweetest song I ever wrote,--I promise
you, I do not know what he may do next--it is next door to madness."
Meanwhile, the ships being brought to anchor, the valiant Lieutenant
Bunce called upon Fletcher, and, resuming his seat by his unwilling
passengers, he told them they should see what message he was about to
send to the wittols of Kirkwall, as they were something concerned in it.
"It shall run in Dick's name," he said, "as well as in mine. I love to
give the poor young fellow a little countenance now and then--don't I,