says, and meant mischief. Cleveland saw his surprise, came close up to him, and spoke in a low tone of voice :-" Hark ye, my young brother, there is a custom amongst us gentlemen of fortune, that when we follow the same chase, and take the wind out of each other's sails, we think sixty yards of the sea-beach, and a brace of rifles, are no bad way of making our odds even." "I do not understand you, Captain Cleveland," said Mordaunt, "I do not suppose you do, I did not suppose you would," said the Captain; and, turning on his heel, with a smile that resembled a sneer, Mordaunt saw him mingle with the guests, and very soon beheld him at the side of Minna, who was talking to him with animated features, that seemed to thank him for his gallant and generous conduct. "If it were not for Brenda," thought Mordaunt, "I almost wish he had left me in the voe, for no one seems to care whether I am alive or dead. Two rifles and sixty yards of sea-beachis that what he points at ?- It may come, but not on the day he has saved my life with risk of his own." While he was thus musing, Eric Scambester was whispering to Halcro," If these two lads do not do each other a mischief, there is no faith in freits. Master Mordaunt saves Cleveland, — Cleveland, in requital, has turned all the sunshine of BurghWestra to his own side of the house; and think what it is to lose favour in such a house as this, where the punch-kettle is never allowed to cool! Well, now that Cleveland in his turn has been such a fool as to fish Mordaunt out of the voe, see if he does not give him sour sillocks for stock-fish." - well. "Pshaw, pshaw!" replied the poet, "that is all old women's fancies, my friend Eric; for what says glorious Dryden - sainted John, 'The yellow gall that in your bosom floats, "Saint John, or Saint James either, may be mistaken in the matter," said Eric; "for I think neither of them lived in Zetland. I only say, that if there is faith in old saws, these two lads will do each other a mischief; and if they do, I trust it will light on Mordaunt Mertoun." "And why, Eric Scambester," said Halcro, hastily and angrily, "should you wish ill to that poor young man, that is worth fifty of the other?" "Let every one roose the ford as he finds it," replied Eric; "Master Mordaunt is all for wan water, like his old dog-fish of a father; now Captain Cleveland, d'ye see, takes his glass, like an honest fellow and a gentleman." "Rightly reasoned, and in thine own division," said Halcro; and breaking off their conversation, took his way back to BurghWestra, to which the guests of Magnus were now returning, discussing as they went, with much animation, the various incidents of their attack upon the whale, and not a little scandalized that it should have baffled all their exertions. 66 I hope Captain Donderdrecht of the Eintracht of Rotterdam will never hear of it," said Magnus: "he would swear, donner and blitzen, we were only fit to fish flounders."* CHAPTER XVIII. And helter-skelter have I rode to thee, Ancient Pistol. FORTUNE, who seems at times to bear a conscience, owed the hospitable Udaller some amends, and accordingly repaid to Burgh-Westra the disappointment occasioned by the unsuccessful whale-fishing, by sending thither, on the evening of the day in which that incident happened, no less a person than the jagger, or travelling merchant, as he styled himself, Bryce Snailsfoot, who arrived in great pomp, himself on one pony, and his pack of goods, swelled to nearly double its usual size, forming the burden of another, which was led by a bare-headed barelegged boy. As Bryce announced himself the bearer of important news, he was introduced to the dining-apartment, where (for that primitive age was no respecter of persons) he was permitted to sit down at a side-table, and amply supplied with provisions and good liquor; while the attentive hospitality of Magnus permitted no questions to be put to him, until, his hunger and thirst appeased, he announced, with the sense of importance attached to distant travels, that he had just yesterday arrived at Lerwick from Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney, and would have been here yesterday, but it blew hard off the Fitful-head. "We had no wind here," said Magnus. "There is somebody has not been sleeping, then," said the pedlar, "and her name begins with N; but Heaven is above all." "But the news from Orkney, Bryce, instead of croaking about a capful of wind ?" "Such news," replied Bryce, "as has not been heard this thirty years-not since Cromwell's time." "There is not another Revolution, is there?" said Halcro ; "King James has not come back, as blithe as King Charlie did, has he ?" "It's news," replied the pedlar, "that are worth twenty kings, and kingdoms to boot of them; for what good did the evolutions The contest about the whale will remind the poetical reader of Waller's Battle of the Summer Islands. ever do us? and I dare say we have seen a dozen, great and sma'." "Are any Indiamen come north about ?" said Magnus Troil. "Ye are nearer the mark, Fowd," said the jagger; "but it is nae Indiaman, but a gallant armed vessel, chokeful of merchandise, that they part with so easy that a decent man like mysell can afford to give the country the best pennyworths you ever saw; and that you will say, when I open that pack, for I count to carry it back another sort lighter than when I brought it here." "Ay ay, Bryce," said the Udaller, “you must have had good bargains if you sell cheap; but what ship was it?" "Cannot justly say I spoke to nobody but the captain, who was a discreet man; but she had been down on the Spanish Main, for she has silks and satins, and tobacco, I warrant you, and wine, and no lack of sugar, and bonny-wallies baith of silver and gowd, and a bonnie dredging of gold dust into the bargain." "What like was she?" said Cleveland, who seemed to give much attention. "A stout ship," said the itinerant merchant, " schooner-rigged, sails like a dolphin, they say, carries twelve guns, and is pierced for twenty." "Did you hear the captain's name?" said Cleveland, speaking rather lower than his usual tone. "I just ca'd him the Captain," replied Bryce Snailsfoot; "for I make it a rule never to ask questions of them I deal with in the way of trade; for there is many an honest captain, begging your pardon, Captain Cleveland, that does not care to have his name tacked to his title; and as long as we ken what bargains we are making, what signifies it wha we are making them wi', ye ken ?" "Bryce Snailsfoot is a cautious man," said the Udaller, laughing; "he knows a fool may ask more questions than a wise man cares to answer." "I have dealt with the fair traders in my day," replied Snailsfoot, "and I ken nae use in blurting braid out with a man's name at every moment; but I will uphold this gentleman to be a gallant commander-ay, and a kind one too; for every one of his crew is as brave in apparel as himself nearly-the very foremast-men have their silken scarfs; I have seen many a lady wear a warse, and think hersell nae sma' drink - and for siller buttons, and buckles, and the lave of sic vanities, there is nae end of them." "Idiots!" muttered Cleveland between his teeth; and then added, "I suppose they are often ashore, to shew all their bravery to the lasses of Kirkwall ?" "Ne'er a bit of that are they. The Captain will scarce let them stir ashore without the boatswain go in the boat-as rough a tarpaulin as ever swab'd a deck-and you may as weel catch & cat without her claws, as him without his cutlass and his double brace of pistols about him; every man stands as much in awe of him as of the commander himsell." "That must be Hawkins, or the devil," said Cleveland. "Aweel, Captain," replied the jagger, "be he the tane or the tither, or a wee bit o' baith, mind it is you that give him these names, and not me." "Why, Captain Cleveland," said the Udaller, "this may prove the very consort you spoke of." "They must have had some good luck then," said Cleveland, "to put them in better plight than when I left them. speak of having lost their consort, pedlar?" Did they "In troth did they," said Bryce; "that is, they said something about a partner that had gone down to Davie Jones in these seas." "And did you tell them what you knew of her?" said the Udaller. "And wha the deevil wad hae been the fule, then," said the pedlar, "that I suld say sae? When they kend what came of the ship, the next question wad have been about the cargo, and ye wad not have had me bring down an armed vessel on the coast, to harrie the poor folk about a wheen rags of duds that the sea flung upon their shores ?" "Besides what might have been found in your own pack, you scoundrel!" said Magnus Troil; an observation which produced a loud laugh. The Udaller could not help joining in the hilarity which applauded his jest; but instantly composing his countenance, he said, in an unusually grave tone, " You may laugh, my friends; but this is a matter which brings both a curse and a shame on the country; and till we learn to regard the rights of them that suffer by the winds and waves, we shall deserve to be oppressed and hag-ridden, as we have been and are, by the superior strength of the strangers who rule us.” The company hung their heads at the rebuke of Magnus Troil. Perhaps some, even of the better class, might be consciencestruck on their own account; and all of them were sensible that the appetite for plunder, on the part of the tenants and inferiors, was not at all times restrained with sufficient strictness. But Cleveland made answer gaily, "If these honest fellows be my comrades, I will answer for them that they will never trouble the country about a parcel of chests, hammocks, and such trumpery, that the Roost may have washed ashore out of my poor sloop. What signifies to them whether the trash went to Bryce Snailsfoot, or to the bottom, or to the devil? So unbuckle thy pack, Bryce, and shew the ladies thy cargo, and perhaps we may see something that will please them." "It cannot be his consort," said Brenda, in a whisper to her sister; "he would have shewn more joy at their appearance." "It must be the vessel," answered Minna; "I saw his eye glisten at the thought of being again united to the partner of his dangers." "Perhaps it glistened," said her sister, still apart, "at the thought of leaving Zetland; it is difficult to guess the thought of the heart from the glance of the eye." "Judge not, at least, unkindly of a friend's thought," said Minna; "and then, Brenda, if you are mistaken, the fault rests not with you." During this dialogue, Bryce Snailsfoot was busied in uncoiling the carefully arranged cordage of his pack, which amounted to six good yards of dressed sealskin, curiously complicated and secured by all manner of knots and buckles. He was considerably interrupted in the task by the Udaller and others, who pressed him with questions respecting the stranger vessel. "Were the officers often ashore? and how were they received by the people of Kirkwall ?" said Magnus Troil. "Excellently well," answered Bryce Snailsfoot; "and the Captain and one or two of his men had been at some of the vanities and dances which went forward in the town; but there had been some word about customs, or king's duties, or the like, and some of the higher folk, that took upon them as magistrates, or the like, had had words with the Captain, and he refused.to satisfy them; and then it is like he was more coldly looked on, and he spoke of carrying the ship round to Stromness, or the Langhope, for she lay under the guns of the battery at Kirkwall. But he" (Bryce) "thought she wad bide at Kirkwall till the summer-fair was over, for all that." "The Orkney gentry," said Magnus Troil, "are always in a hurry to draw the Scotch collar tighter round their own necks. Is it not enough that we must pay scat and wattle, which were all the public dues under our old Norse government; but must they come over us with king's dues and customs besides? It is the part of an honest man to resist these things. I have done so all my life, and will do so to the end of it." There was a loud jubilee and shout of applause among the guests, who were (some of them at least) better pleased with Magnus Troil's latitudinarian principles with respect to the public revenue, (which were extremely natural to those living in so secluded a situation, and subjected to many additional exactions,) than they had been with the rigour of his judgment on the subject of wrecked goods. But Minna's inexperienced feelings carried her farther than her father, while she whispered to Brenda, not unheard by Cleveland, that the tame spirit of the Orcadians had missed every chance which late incidents had given them to emancipate these islands from the Scottish yoke. Why," she said, "should we not, under so many changes as late times have introduced, have seized the opportunity to shake off an allegiance which is not justly due from us, and to return to the protection of Denmark, our parent country? Why should 66 |