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negroes say, an Obi woman. She demanded the wounded man of me, and I was too much pressed for time to hesitate in complying with her request. More she was about to say to me, when we heard the voice of a silly old man, belonging to the family, singing at some distance. She then pressed her finger on her lip as a sign of secrecy, whistled very low, and a shapeless, deformed brute of a dwarf coming to her assistance, they carried the wounded man into one of the caverns with which the place abounds, and I got to my boat and to sea with all expedition. If that old hag be, as they say, connected with the King of the Air, she favoured me that morning with a turn of her calling; for not even the West Indian tornadoes, which we have weathered together, made a wilder racket than the squall that drove me so far out of our course, that, without a pocket-compass, which I chanced to have about me, I should never have recovered the Fair Isle, for which we run, and where I found a brig which brought me to this place. But, whether the old woman meant me weal or woe, here we came at length in safety from the sea, and here I remain in doubts and difficulties of more kinds than one.”
“Oh, the devil take the Sumburgh Head,” said Bunce, “ or whatever they call the rock that you knocked our clever little Revenge against!”
“Do not say I knocked her on the rock,” said Cleveland; “have I not told you fifty times, if the cowards had not taken to their boat, though I showed them the danger, and told them they would all be swamped, which happened the instant they cast off the painter, she would have been afloat at this moment? Had they stood by me and the ship, their lives would have been saved; had I gone with them, mine would have been lost; who can say which is for the best?”
“Well,” replied his friend, “ I know your case now, and can the better help and advise. I will be true to you, Clement, as the blade to the hilt; but I cannot think that you should leave us. As the old Scottish song says, ‘Wae’s my heart that we should sunder!’ — But come, you will aboard with us to-day, at any rate?”
“I have no other place of refuge,” said Cleveland, with a sigh.
He then once more ran his eyes over the bay, directing his spyglass upon several of the vessels which traversed its surface, in hopes, doubtless, of discerning the vessel of Magnus Troil, and then followed his companion down the hill in silence.
Chapter XXXII
I strive like to the vessel in the tide-way,
Which, lacking favouring breeze, hath not the power
To stem the powerful current. — Even so,
Resolving daily to forsake my vices,
Habits, strong circumstance, renew’d temptation,
Sweep me to sea again. — O heavenly breath,
Fill thou my sails, and aid the feeble vessel,
Which ne’er can reach the blessed port without thee 1
‘Tis Odds when Evens Meet.
Cleveland, with his friend Bunce, descended the hill for a time in silence, until at length the latter renewed their conversation.
“You have taken this fellow’s wound more on your conscience than you need, Captain — I have known you do more, and think less on’t.”
“Not on such slight provocation, Jack,” replied Cleveland. “ Besides, the lad saved my life; and, say that I requited him the favour, still we should not have met on such evil terms; but I trust that he may receive aid from that woman, who has certainly strange skill in simples.”
“And over simpletons, Captain,” said his friend, “.in which class I must e’en put you down, if you think more on this subject. That you should be made a fool of by a young woman, why, it is many an honest man’s case; — but to puzzle your pate about the mummeries of an old one, is far too great a folly to indulge a friend in. Talk to me of your Minna, since you so call her, as much as you will; but you have no title to trouble your faithful squire-errant with your old mumping magician. And now here we are once more amongst the booths and tents, which these good folk are pitching — let us look, and see whether we may not find some fun and frolic amongst them. In merry England, now, you would have seen, on such an occasion, two or three bands of strollers, as many fire-eaters and conjurers, as many shows of wild beasts; but, amongst these grave folk, there is nothing but what savours of business and of commodity — no, not so much as a single squall from my merry gossip Punch and his rib Joan.”
As Bunce thus spoke, Cleveland cast his eyes on some very gay clothes, which, with other articles, hung out upon one of the booths, that had a good deal more of ornament and exterior decoration than the rest. There was in front a small sign of canvas painted, announcing the variety of goods which the owner of the booth, Bryce Snailsfoot, had on sale, and the reasonable prices at which he proposed to offer them to the public. For the further gratification of the spectator, the sign bore on the opposite side an emblematic device, resembling our first parents in their vegetable garments, with this legend —
“Poor sinners whom the snake deceives, Are fain to cover them with leaves. Zetland hath no leaves, ‘tis true, Because that trees are none, or few; But we have flax and taits of woo’, For linen cloth and wadmaal blue; And we have many of foreign knacks Of finer waft, than woo’ or flax. Ye gallanty Lambmas lads,1 appear, And bring your Lambmas sisters here, Bryce Snailsfoot spares not cost or care, To pleasure every gentle pair.”
1 It was anciently a custom at St. Olla’s Fair at Kirkwall, that the young people of the lower class, and of either sex, associated in pairs for the period of the Fair, during which the couple were termed Lambmas brother and sister. It is easy to conceive that the exclusive familiarity arising out of this custom was liable to abuse, the rather that it is said little scandal was attached to the indiscretions which it occasioned.
When Cleveland was perusing these goodly rhymes, which brought to his mind Claud Halcro, to whom, as the poet laureate of the island, ready with his talent alike in the service of the great and small, they probably owed their origin, the worthy proprietor of the booth, having cast his eye upon him, began with hasty and trembling hand to remove some of the garments, which, as the sale did not commence till the ensuing day, he had exposed either for the purpose of airing them, or to excite the admiration of the spectators.
“By my word, Captain,” whispered Bunce to Cleveland, “ you must have had that fellow under your clutches one day, and he remembers one gripe of your talons, and fears another. See how fast he is packing his wares out of sight, so soon as he set eyes on you!”
“His wares!” said Cleveland, on looking more attentively at his proceedings: “ By Heaven, they are my clothes which I left in a chest at Jarlshof when the Revenge was lost there — Why, Bryce Snailsfoot, thou thief, dog, and villain, what means this? Have you not made enough of us by cheap buying and dear selling, that you have seized on my trunk and wearing apparel?”
Bryce Snailsfoot, who probably would otherwise not have been willing to see his friend the Captain, was now by the vivacity of his attack obliged to pay attention to him. He first whispered to his little foot-page, by whom, as we have already noticed, he was usually attended, “ Run to the town-council-house, jarto, and tell the provost and bailies they maun send some of their officers speedily, for here is like to be wild wark in the fair.”
So having said, and having seconded his commands by a push on the shoulder of his messenger, which sent him spinning out of the shop as fast as heels could carry him, Bryce Snailsfoot turned to his old acquaintance, and, with that amplification of words and exaggeration of manner, which in Scotland is called “making a phrase,” he ejaculated — ” The Lord be gude to us! the worthy Captain Cleveland, that we were all sae grieved about, returned to relieve our hearts again! Wat have my cheeks been for you,” (here Bryce wiped his eyes), “and blithe am I now to see you restored to your sorrowing friends!”
“My sorrowing friends, you rascal!” said Cleveland; “I will give you better cause for sorrow than