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alike against the adherents of Goffe and any attempt from the shore, the boat put off. As she approached the harbour, Cleveland displayed a white flag, and could observe that their appearance seemed to occasion a good deal of bustle and alarm. People were seen running to and fro, and some of them appeared to be getting under arms. The battery was manned hastily, and the English colours displayed. These were alarming symptoms, the rather that Cleveland knew, that, though there were no artillerymen in Kirkwall, yet there were many sailors perfectly competent to the management of great guns, and willing enough to undertake such service in case of need.
Noting these hostile preparations with a heedful eye, but suffering nothing like doubt or anxiety to appear on his countenance, Cleveland ran the boat right for the quay, on which several people, armed with muskets, rifles, and fowlingpieces, and others with half-pikes and whaling-knives, were now assembled, as if to oppose his landing. Apparently, however, they had not positively determined what measures they were to pursue; for, when the boat reached the quay, those immediately opposite bore back, and suffered Cleveland and his party to leap ashore without hindrance. They immediately drew up on the quay, except two, who, as their Captain had commanded, remained in the boat, which they put off to a little distance; a manoeuvre which, while it placed the boat (the only one belonging to the sloop) out of danger of being seized, indicated a sort of careless confidence in Cleveland and his party, which was calculated to intimidate their opponents.
The Kirkwallers, however, showed the old Northern blood, put a manly face upon the matter, and stood upon the quay, with their arms shouldered, directly opposite to the rovers, and blocking up against them the street which leads to the town.
Cleveland was the first who spoke, as the parties stood thus looking upon each other. — ” How is this, gentlemen burghers?” he said; “are you Orkney folks turned Highlandmen, that you are all under arms so early this morning; or have you manned the quay to give me the honour of a salute, upon taking the command of my ship?”
The burghers looked on each other, and one of them replied to Cleveland — ” We do not know who you are; it was that other man,” pointing to Goffe, “who used to come ashore as captain.”
“That other gentleman is my mate, and commands in my absence,” said Cleveland; — ”but what is that to the purpose? I wish to speak with your Lord Mayor, or whatever you call him.”
“The Provost is sitting in council with the Magistrates,” answered the spokesman.
“So much the better,” replied Cleveland. — ”Where do their Worships meet?”
“In the Council-house,” answered the other.
“Then make way for us, gentlemen, if you please, for my people and I are going there.”
There was a whisper among the townspeople; but several were unresolved upon engaging in a desperate, and perhaps an unnecessary conflict, with desperate men; and the more determined citizens formed the hasty reflection that the strangers might be more easily mastered in the house, or perhaps in the narrow streets which they had to traverse, than when they stood drawn up and prepared for battle upon the quay. They suffered them, therefore, to proceed unmolested; and Cleveland, moving very slowly, keeping his people close together, suffering no one to press upon the flanks of his little detachment, and making four men, who constituted his rearguard, turn round and face to the rear from time to time, rendered it, by his caution, a very dangerous task to make any attempt upon them.
In this manner they ascended the narrow street, and reached the Council-house, where the Magistrates were actually sitting, as the citizen had informed Cleveland. Here the inhabitants began to press forward, with the purpose of mingling with the pirates, and availing themselves of the crowd in the narrow entrance, to secure as many as they could, without allowing them room for the free use of their weapons. But this also had Cleveland foreseen, and, ere entering the Council-room, he caused the entrance to be cleared and secured, commanding four of his men to face down the street, and as many to confront the crowd who were thrusting each other from above. The burghers recoiled back from the ferocious, swarthy, and sunburnt countenances, as well as the levelled arms of these desperadoes, and Cleveland, with the rest of his party, entered the Council-room, where the Magistrates were sitting in council, with very little attendance. These gentlemen were thus separated effectually from the citizens, who looked to them for orders, and were perhaps more completely at the mercy of Cleveland, than he, with his little handful of men, could be said to be at that of the multitude by whom they were surrounded.
The Magistrates seemed sensible of their danger; for they looked upon each other in some confusion, when Cleveland thus addressed them: —
“Good morrow, gentlemen, — I hope there is no unkindness betwixt us. I am come to talk with you about getting supplies for my ship yonder in the roadstead — we cannot sail without them.”
“Your ship, sir?” said the Provost, who was a man of sense and spirit, — ” how do we know that you are her Captain?”
“Look at me,” said Cleveland, “and you will, I think, scarce ask the question again.”
The Magistrate looked at him, and accordingly did not think proper to pursue that part of the inquiry, but proceeded to say — ” And if you are her Captain, whence comes she, and where is she bound for? You look too much like a man-of- war’s-man to be master of a trader, and we know that you do not belong to the British navy.”
“There are more men-of-war on the sea than sail under the British flag,” replied Cleveland; “but say that I were commander of a freetrader here, willing to exchange tobacco, brandy, gin, and such like, for cured fish and hides, why, I do not think I deserve so very bad usage from the merchants of Kirkwall as to deny me provisions for my money?”
“Look you, Captain,” said the Townclerk, “it is not that we are so very strait-laced neither — for, when gentlemen of your cloth come this way, it is as weel, as I tauld the Provost, just to do as the collier did when he met the devil, — and that is, to have naething to say to them, if they have naething to say to us; — and there is the gentleman,” pointing to Goffe, “ that was Captain before you, and may be Captain after you “ — (“The cuckold speaks truth in that,” muttered Goffe), — ”he knows well how handsomely we entertained him, till he and his men took upon them to run through the town like hellicat devils. — I see one of them there! — that was the very fellow that stopped my servant-wench on the street, as she carried the lantern home before me, and insulted her before my face!”
“If it please your noble Mayorship’s honour and glory,” said Derrick, the fellow at whom the Townclerk pointed, “ it was not I that broughtto the bit of a tender that carried the lantern in the poop — it was quite a different sort of a person.”
“Who was it, then, sir?” said the Provost.
“Why, please your majesty’s worship,” said Derrick, making several sea bows, and describing as nearly as he could, the exterior of the worthy Magistrate himself,-”he was an elderly gentleman, — Dutch-built, round in the stern, with a white wig and a red nose — very like your majesty, I think;” then, turning to a comrade, he added, “ Jack, don’t’you think the fellow that wanted to kiss the pretty girl with the lantern t’other night, was very like his worship?”
“By G — , Tom Derrick,” answered the party appealed to, “ I believe it is the very man!”
“This is insolence which we can make you repent of, gentlemen!” said the Magistrate, justly irritated at their effrontery; “ you have behaved in this town, as if you were in an Indian village at Madagascar. You yourself, Captain, if captain you be, were at the head of ariother riot, no longer since than yesterday. We will give you no provisions till we know better whom we are supplying. And do not think to bully us; when I shake this handkerchief out at the window, which is at my elbow, your ship goes to the bottom. Remember she lies under the guns of our battery.”
“And how many of these guns are honeycombed, Mr. Mayor? “ said Cleveland. He put the question by chance; but instantly perceived, from a sort of confusion which the Provost in vain endeavoured to hide, that the artillery of Kirkwall