The Jolly Roger Tales: 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventures. Лаймен Фрэнк БаумЧитать онлайн книгу.
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 j 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 we yet hesitate to do this, but that the gentry of Orkney have mixed families and friendship so much with our invaders, that they have become dead to the heroic Norse blood, which they derived from their ancestors?”
The latter part of this patriotic speech happened to reach the astonished ears of our friend Triptolemus, who, having a sincere devotion for the Protestant succession, and the Revolution as established, was surprised into the ejaculation, “ As the old cock crows the young cock learns — hen, I should say, mistress, and I crave your pardon if I say anything amiss in either gender. But it is a happy country where the father declares against the king’s customs, and the daughter against the king’s crown! and, in my judgment, it can end in naething but trees and tows.”
“Trees are scarce among us,” said Magnus; “and for ropes, we need them for our rigging, and cannot spare them to be shirtcollars.”
“And whoever,” said the Captain, “ takes umbrage at what this young lady says, had better keep his ears and tongue for a safer employment than such an adventure.”
“Ay, ay,” said Triptolemus, “ it helps the matter much to speak truths, whilk are as unwelcome to a proud stomach as wet clover to a cow’s, in a land where lads are ready to draw the whittle if a lassie looks but awry. But what manners are to be expected in a country where folk call a pleugh-sock a markal?”
“Hark ye, Master Yellowley,” said the Captain, smiling, “ I hope my manners are not among those abuses which you come hither to reform; any experiment on them may be dangerous.”
“As well as difficult,” said Triptolemus dryly; “ but fear nothing, Captain Cleveland, from my remonstrances. My labours regard the men and things of the earth, and not the men and things of the sea, — you are not of my element.”
“Let us be friends, then, old clod-compeller,” said the Captain.
“Clod-compeller!” said the agriculturist, bethinking himself of the lore of his earlier days; “ Clod-compeller pro cloud-compeller, Nefelepta Zeus — Graecum est, — in which voyage came you by that phrase?”
“I have travelled books as well as seas in my day,” said the Captain; “ but my last voyages have been of a sort to make me forget my early cruises through classic knowledge. — But come here, Bryce, — hast cast off the lashing? — Come all hands, and let us see if he has aught in his cargo that is worth looking upon.”
With a proud, and, at the same time, a wily smile, did the crafty pedlar display a collection of wares far superior to those which usually filled his packages, and, in particular, some stuffs and embroideries, of such beauty and curiosity, fringed, flowered, and worked, with such art and magnificence, upon foreign and arabesque patterns, that the sight might have dazzled a far more brilliant company than the simple race of Thule. All beheld and admired, while Mistress Baby Yellowley, holding up her hands, protested it was a sin even to look upon such extravagance, and worse than murder so much as to ask the price of them.
Others, however, were more courageous; and the prices demanded by the merchant, if they were not, as he himself declared, something just more than nothing — short only of an! absolute free gift of his wares, were nevertheless so moderate, as to show that he himself must have made an easy acquisition e of the goods, judging by the rate at which he offered to part with them. Accordingly, the cheapness of the articles created c a rapid sale; for in Zetland, as well as elsewhere, wise folk n buy more from the prudential desire to secure a good bargain,: than from any real occasion for the purchase. The Lady Glowrowrum bought seven petticoats and twelve stomachers on this sole principle, and other matrons present rivalled her in this sagacious species of economy. The Udaller was also a considerable purchaser; but the principal customer for whatever could please the eye of beauty, was the gallant Captain Cleveland, who rummaged the jagger’s stores in selecting presents for the ladies of the party, in which Minna and Brenda Troil were especially remembered.
“I fear.” said Magnus Troil, “ that the young women are to consider these pretty presents as keepsakes, and that all this liberality is only a sure sign we are soon to lose you?”
This question seemed to embarrass him to whom it was put.
“I scarce know,” he said, with some hesitation, “ whether this vessel is my consort or no — I must take a trip to Kirkwall to make sure of that matter, and then I hope to return to Dunrossness to bid you all farewell.”
“In that case,” said the Udaller, after a moment’s pause, “ I think I may carry you thither. I should be at the Kirkwall fair, to settle with the merchants I have consigned my fish to, and I have often promised Minna and Brenda that they should see the fair. Perhaps also your consort, or these strangers, whoever they be, may have some merchandise that will suit me. I love to see my rigging-loft well stocked with goods, almost as much as to see it full of dancers. We will go to Orkney in my own brig, and I can offer you a hammock, if you will.”
The offer seemed so acceptable to Cleveland, that, after pouring himself forth in thanks, he seemed determined to mark his joy by exhausting Bryce Snailsfoot’s treasures in liberality to the company. The contents of a purse of gold were transferred to the jagger, with a facility and indifference on the part of its former owner which argued either the greatest profusion, or consciousness of superior and inexhaustible wealth; so that Baby whispered to her brother, that, “if he could afford to fling away money at this rate, the lad had made a better voyage in a broken ship, than all the skippers of Dundee had made in their haill anes for a twelvemonth past.”
But the angry feeling in which she made this remark was much mollified, when Cleveland, whose object it seemed that evening to be, to buy golden opinions of all sorts of men, approached her with