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The Pirate. Вальтер Скотт
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“I should like it well enough,” said Mordaunt, who eagerly longed to see more of the world than his lonely situation had hitherto permitted; “but then my father must decide.”
“Your father? pooh!” said Captain Cleveland; – “but you are very right,” he added, checking himself; “Gad, I have lived so long at sea, that I cannot imagine any body has a right to think except the captain and the master. But you are very right. I will go up to the old gentleman this instant, and speak to him myself. He lives in that handsome, modern-looking building, I suppose, that I see a quarter of a mile off?”
“In that old half-ruined house,” said Mordaunt, “he does indeed live; but he will see no visitors.”
“Then you must drive the point yourself, for I can’t stay in this latitude. Since your father is no magistrate, I must go to see this same Magnus – how call you him? – who is not justice of peace, but something else that will do the turn as well. These fellows have got two or three things that I must and will have back – let them keep the rest and be d – d to them. Will you give me a letter to him, just by way of commission?”
“It is scarce needful,” said Mordaunt. “It is enough that you are shipwrecked, and need his help; – but yet I may as well furnish you with a letter of introduction.”
“There,” said the sailor, producing a writing-case from his chest, “are your writing-tools. – Meantime, since bulk has been broken, I will nail down the hatches, and make sure of the cargo.”
While Mordaunt, accordingly, was engaged in writing to Magnus Troil a letter, setting forth the circumstances in which Captain Cleveland had been thrown upon their coast, the Captain, having first selected and laid aside some wearing apparel and necessaries enough to fill a knapsack, took in hand hammer and nails, employed himself in securing the lid of his sea-chest, by fastening it down in a workmanlike manner, and then added the corroborating security of a cord, twisted and knotted with nautical dexterity. “I leave this in your charge,” he said, “all except this,” showing the bag of gold, “and these,” pointing to a cutlass and pistols, “which may prevent all further risk of my parting company with my Portagues.”
“You will find no occasion for weapons in this country, Captain Cleveland,” replied Mordaunt; “a child might travel with a purse of gold from Sumburgh-head to the Scaw of Unst, and no soul would injure him.”
“And that’s pretty boldly said, young gentleman, considering what is going on without doors at this moment.”
“O,” replied Mordaunt, a little confused, “what comes on land with the tide, they reckon their lawful property. One would think they had studied under Sir Arthegal, who pronounces —
‘For equal right in equal things doth stand,
And what the mighty sea hath once possess’d,
And plucked quite from all possessors’ hands,
Or else by wrecks that wretches have distress’d,
He may dispose, by his resistless might,
As things at random left, to whom he list.’”
“I shall think the better of plays and ballads as long as I live, for these very words,” said Captain Cleveland; “and yet I have loved them well enough in my day. But this is good doctrine, and more men than one may trim their sails to such a breeze. What the sea sends is ours, that’s sure enough. However, in case that your good folks should think the land as well as the sea may present them with waiffs and strays, I will make bold to take my cutlass and pistols. – Will you cause my chest to be secured in your own house till you hear from me, and use your influence to procure me a guide to show me the way, and to carry my kit?”
“Will you go by sea or land?” said Mordaunt, in reply.
“By sea!” exclaimed Cleveland. “What – in one of these cockleshells, and a cracked cockleshell, to boot? No, no – land, land, unless I knew my crew, my vessel, and my voyage.”
They parted accordingly, Captain Cleveland being supplied with a guide to conduct him to Burgh-Westra, and his chest being carefully removed to the mansion-house at Jarlshof.
CHAPTER IX
This is a gentle trader, and a prudent.
He’s no Autolycus, to blear your eye,
With quips of worldly gauds and gamesomeness;
But seasons all his glittering merchandise
With wholesome doctrines, suited to the use,
As men sauce goose with sage and rosemary.
On the subsequent morning, Mordaunt, in answer to his father’s enquiries, began to give him some account of the shipwrecked mariner, whom he had rescued from the waves. But he had not proceeded far in recapitulating the particulars which Cleveland had communicated, when Mr. Mertoun’s looks became disturbed – he arose hastily, and, after pacing twice or thrice across the room, he retired into the inner chamber, to which he usually confined himself, while under the influence of his mental malady. In the evening he re-appeared, without any traces of his disorder; but it may be easily supposed that his son avoided recurring to the subject which had affected him.
Mordaunt Mertoun was thus left without assistance, to form at his leisure his own opinion respecting the new acquaintance which the sea had sent him; and, upon the whole, he was himself surprised to find the result less favourable to the stranger than he could well account for. There seemed to Mordaunt to be a sort of repelling influence about the man. True, he was a handsome man, of a frank and prepossessing manner, but there was an assumption of superiority about him, which Mordaunt did not quite so much like. Although he was so keen a sportsman as to be delighted with his acquisition of the Spanish-barrelled gun, and accordingly mounted and dismounted it with great interest, paying the utmost attention to the most minute parts about the lock and ornaments, yet he was, upon the whole, inclined to have some scruples about the mode in which he had acquired it.
“I should not have accepted it,” he thought; “perhaps Captain Cleveland might give it me as a sort of payment for the trifling service I did him; and yet it would have been churlish to refuse it in the way it was offered. I wish he had looked more like a man whom one would have chosen to be obliged to.”
But a successful day’s shooting reconciled him to his gun, and he became assured, like most young sportsmen in similar circumstances, that all other pieces were but pop-guns in comparison. But then, to be doomed to shoot gulls and seals, when there were Frenchmen and Spaniards to be come at – when there were ships to be boarded, and steersmen to be marked off, seemed but a dull and contemptible destiny. His father had mentioned his leaving these islands, and no other mode of occupation occurred to his inexperience, save that of the sea, with which he had been conversant from his infancy. His ambition had formerly aimed no higher than at sharing the fatigues and dangers of a Greenland fishing expedition; for it was in that scene that the Zetlanders laid most of their perilous adventures. But war was again raging, the history of Sir Francis Drake, Captain Morgan, and other bold adventurers, an account of whose exploits he had purchased from Bryce Snailsfoot, had made much impression on his mind, and the offer of Captain Cleveland to take him to sea, frequently recurred to him, although the pleasure of such a project was somewhat damped by a doubt, whether, in the long run, he should not find many objections to his proposed commander. Thus much he already saw, that he was opinionative, and might probably prove arbitrary; and that, since even his kindness was mingled with an assumption of superiority, his occasional displeasure might contain a great deal more of that disagreeable ingredient than could be palatable to those who sailed under him. And yet, after counting all risks, could his father’s consent be obtained, with what pleasure, he thought, would he embark in quest of new scenes and strange adventures, in which he proposed to himself to achieve such deeds as should be the theme of many a tale to the lovely sisters