The Pirate Part 40

"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, pus.h.i.+ng 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."

The poet bowed to the beautiful young woman, with the devotion of a poet and the gallantry of a traveller, and having, in a whisper, reminded her that she was in no way responsible for the nonsense he was about to speak, he paused, looked upward, simpered as if he had caught a sudden idea, and at length set off in the following verses:

CLAUD HALCRO.

"Mother doubtful, Mother dread-- Dweller of the Fitful-head, Well thou know'st it is thy task To tell what beauty will not ask;-- Then steep thy words in wine and milk, And weave a doom of gold and silk,-- For we would know, shall Brenda prove In love, and happy in her love?"

The prophetess replied almost immediately from behind her curtain:--

NORNA.

"Untouched by love, the maiden's breast Is like the snow on Rona's crest, High seated in the middle sky, In bright and barren purity; But by the sunbeam gently kiss'd, Scarce by the gazing eye 'tis miss'd, Ere down the lonely valley stealing, Fresh gra.s.s and growth its course revealing, It cheers the flock, revives the flower, And decks some happy shepherd's bower."

"A comfortable doctrine, and most justly spoken," said the Udaller, seizing the blus.h.i.+ng Brenda, as she was endeavouring to escape--"Never think shame for the matter, my girl. To be the mistress of some honest man's house, and the means of maintaining some old Norse name, making neighbours happy, the poor easy, and relieving strangers, is the most creditable lot a young woman can look to, and I heartily wish it to all here.--Come, who speaks next?--good husbands are going--Maddie Groatsettar--my pretty Clara, come and have your share."

The Lady Glowrowrum shook her head, and "could not," she said, "altogether approve"----

"Enough said--enough said," replied Magnus; "no compulsion; but the play shall go on till we are tired of it. Here, Minna--I have got you at command. Stand forth, my girl--there are plenty of things to be ashamed of besides old-fas.h.i.+oned and innocent pleasantry.--Come, I will speak for you myself--though I am not sure I can remember rhyme enough for it."

There was a slight colour which pa.s.sed rapidly over Minna's face, but she instantly regained her composure, and stood erect by her father, as one superior to any little jest to which her situation might give rise.

Her father, after some rubbing of his brow, and other mechanical efforts to a.s.sist his memory, at length recovered verse sufficient to put the following query, though in less gallant strains than those of Halcro:--

MAGNUS TROIL.

"Mother, speak, and do not tarry, Here's a maiden fain would marry.

Shall she marry, ay or not?

If she marry, what's her lot?"

A deep sigh was uttered within the tabernacle of the soothsayer, as if she compa.s.sionated the subject of the doom which she was obliged to p.r.o.nounce. She then, as usual, returned her response:--

NORNA.

"Untouch'd by love, the maiden's breast Is like the snow on Rona's crest; So pure, so free from earthly dye, It seems, whilst leaning on the sky, Part of the heaven to which 'tis nigh; But pa.s.sion, like the wild March rain, May soil the wreath with many a stain.

We gaze--the lovely vision's gone-- A torrent fills the bed of stone, That, hurrying to destruction's shock, Leaps headlong from the lofty rock."

The Udaller heard this reply with high resentment. "By the bones of the Martyr," he said, his bold visage becoming suddenly ruddy, "this is an abuse of courtesy! and, were it any but yourself that had cla.s.sed my daughter's name and the word destruction together, they had better have left the word unspoken. But come forth of the tent, thou old galdragon,"[5] he added, with a smile--"I should have known that thou canst not long joy in any thing that smacks of mirth, G.o.d help thee!"

His summons received no answer; and, after waiting a moment, he again addressed her--"Nay, never be sullen with me, kinswoman, though I did speak a hasty word--thou knowest I bear malice to no one, least of all to thee--so come forth, and let us shake hands.--Thou mightst have foretold the wreck of my s.h.i.+p and boats, or a bad herring-fishery, and I should have said never a word; but Minna or Brenda, you know, are things which touch me nearer. But come out, shake hands, and there let there be an end on't."

Norna returned no answer whatever to his repeated invocations, and the company began to look upon each other with some surprise, when the Udaller, raising the skin which covered the entrance of the tent, discovered that the interior was empty. The wonder was now general, and not unmixed with fear; for it seemed impossible that Norna could have, in any manner, escaped from the tabernacle in which she was enclosed, without having been discovered by the company. Gone, however, she was, and the Udaller, after a moment's consideration, dropt the skin-curtain again over the entrance of the tent.

"My friends," he said, with a cheerful countenance, "we have long known my kinswoman, and that her ways are not like those of the ordinary folks of this world. But she means well by Hialtland, and hath the love of a sister for me, and for my house; and no guest of mine needs either to fear evil, or to take offence, at her hand. I have little doubt she will be with us at dinner-time."

"Now, Heaven forbid!" said Mrs. Baby Yellowley--"for, my gude Leddy Glowrowrum, to tell your leddys.h.i.+p the truth, I likena c.u.mmers that can come and gae like a glance of the sun, or the whisk of a whirlwind."

"Speak lower, speak lower," said the Lady Glowrowrum, "and be thankful that yon carlin hasna ta'en the house-side away wi' her. The like of her have played wa.r.s.e pranks, and so has she hersell, unless she is the sairer lied on."

Similar murmurs ran through the rest of the company, until the Udaller uplifted his stentorian and imperative voice to put them to silence, and invited, or rather commanded, the attendance of his guests to behold the boats set off for the _haaf_ or deep-sea fis.h.i.+ng.

"The wind has been high since sunrise," he said, "and had kept the boats in the bay; but now it was favourable, and they would sail immediately."

This sudden alteration of the weather occasioned sundry nods and winks amongst the guests, who were not indisposed to connect it with Norna's sudden disappearance; but without giving vent to observations which could not but be disagreeable to their host, they followed his stately step to the sh.o.r.e, as the herd of deer follows the leading stag, with all manner of respectful observance.[6](_a_)[7]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The garland is an artificial coronet, composed of ribbons by those young women who take an interest in a whaling vessel or her crew: it is always displayed from the rigging, and preserved with great care during the voyage.

[2] The best oil exudes from the jaw-bones of the whale, which, for the purpose of collecting it, are suspended to the masts of the vessel.

[3] There is established among whalers a sort of telegraphic signal, in which a certain number of motions, made with a broom, express to any other vessel the number of fish which they have caught.

[4] The Admiral of the Spanish Armada was wrecked on the Fair Isle, half-way betwixt the Orkney and Zetland Archipelago. The Duke of Medina Sidonia landed, with some of his people, and pillaged the islanders of their winter stores. These strangers are remembered as having remained on the island by force, and on bad terms with the inhabitants, till spring returned, when they effected their escape.

[5] _Galdra-Kinna_--the Norse for a sorceress.

[6] Note I.--Fortune-telling Rhymes.

[7] See Editor's Notes at the end of the Volume. Wherever a similar reference occurs, the reader will understand that the same direction applies.