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      Claud Halcro

       “Be mine the Imber-goose to play,

       And haunt lone cave and silent bay: —

       The archer’s aim so shall I shun —

       So shall I ‘scape the levell’d gun —

       Content my verse’s tuneless jingle,

       With Thule’s sounding tides to mingle,

       While, to the ear of wandering wight,

       Upon the distant headland’s height.

       Soften’d by murmur of the sea,

       The rude sounds seem like harmony!”

      As the little bard stepped back, with an alert gait, and satisfied air, general applause followed the spirited manner in which he had acquiesced in the doom which levelled him with an Imber-goose. But his resigned and courageous submission did not even yet encourage any other person to consult the redoubted Norna.

      “The coward fools I” said the Udaller. “Are you too afraid, Captain Cleveland, to speak to an old woman? — Ask her anything — 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 was never 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

       M 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 Gnarda 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 1558.1 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.”

      1 The Admiral of the Spanish Armada was wrecked on the Fair Isle, halfway 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.

      “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 1 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, pushing 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