The Jolly Roger Tales: 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventures. Лаймен Фрэнк БаумЧитать онлайн книгу.
our sloop; and if we bring a broadside to bear on the town, why, your wives’ crockery will be in some danger. And then to talk to us of seamen being a little frolicsome ashore, why, when are they otherwise? You have the Greenland whalers playing the devil among you every now and then; and the very Dutchmen cut capers in the streets of Kirkwall, like porpoises before a gale of wind. I am told you are a man of sense, and I am sure you and I could settle this matter in the course of a five-minutes’ palaver.”
“Well, sir,” said the Provost, “ I will hear what you have to say, if you will walk this way.”
I Cleveland accordingly followed him into a small interior apartment, and, when there, addressed the Provost thus: “ I will lay aside my pistols, sir, if you are afraid of them.”
“D — n your pistols!” answered the Provost, “I have served the King, and fear the smell of powder as little as you do!v “So much the better,” said Cleveland, “ for you will hear me the more coolly. — Now, sir, let us be what perhaps you suspect us, or let us be anything else, what, in the name of Heaven, can you get by keeping us here, but blows’ and (bloodshed? For which, believe me, we are much better provided than you can pretend to -be. The point is a plain one — you are desirous to be rid of us — we are desirous to be gone. Let us have the means of departure, and we leave you instantly.”
“Look ye, Captain,” said the Provost, “ I thirst for no man’s blood. You are a pretty fellow, as there were many among the buccaneers in my time — but there is no harm in wishing you a better trade. You should have the stores and welcome, for your money, so you would make these seas clear of you. But then, here lies the rub. The Halcyon frigate is expected here in these parts immediately; when she hears of you she will be at you; for there is nothing the white lapelle loves better than a rover — you are seldom without a cargo of dollars. Well, he comes down, gets you under his stern”
“Blows us into the air, if you please,” said Cleveland.
“Nay, that must be as you please, Captain,” said the Provost; “ but then what is to come of the good town of Kirkwall, that has been packing and peeling with the King’s enemies? The burgh will be laid under a round fine, and it may be that the Provost may not come off so easily.”
“Well, then,” said Cleveland, “ I see where your pinch lies. Now, suppose that I run round this island of yours, and get into the roadstead at Stromness? We could get what we want put on board there, without Kirkwall or the Provost seeming to have any hand in it; or, if it should be ever questioned, your want of force, and our superior strength, will make a sufficient apology.”
“That may be,” said the Provost; “but if I suffer you to leave your present station, and go elsewhere, I must have some security that you will not do harm to the country.”
“And we,” said Cleveland, “ must have some security on our side, that you will not detain us, by dribbling out our time till the Halcyon is on the coast. Now, I am myself perfectly willing to continue on shore as a hostage, on the one side, provided you will give me your word not to betray me, and send some magistrate, or person of consequence, aboard the sloop, where his safety will be a guarantee for mine.”
The Provost shook his head, and intimated it would be difficult to find a person willing to place himself as hostage in such a perilous condition; but said he would propose the arrangement to such of the council as were fit to be trusted with a matter of such weight.
Chapter XXXV
“I left my poor plough to go ploughing the deep!”
Dibdim.
When the Provost and Cleveland had returned into the public Council-room, the former retired a second time with such of his brethren as he thought proper to advise with; and, while they were engaged in discussing Cleveland’s proposal, refreshments were offered to him and his party. These the Captain permitted his people to partake of, but with the greatest precaution against surprisal, one party relieving the guard, whilst the others were at their food.
He himself, in the meanwhile, walked up and down the apartment, and conversed upon indifferent subjects with those present, like a person quite at his ease.
Amongst these individuals he saw, somewhat to his surprise, Triptolemus Yellowley, who, chancing to be at Kirkwall, had been summoned by the Magistrates, as representative, in a certain degree, of the Lord Chamberlain, to attend Council on this occasion. Cleveland immediately renewed the acquaintance which he had formed with the agriculturist at Burgh-Westra, and asked him his present business in Orkney.
“Just to look after some of my little plans, Captain Cleveland. I am weary of fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus yonder, and I ju£t cam ower to see how my orchard was thriving, whilk I had planted four or five miles from Kirkwall, it may be a year bygane, and how the bees were thriving, whereof I had imported nine skeps, for the improvement of the country, and for the turning of the heather-bloom into wax and honey.”
“And they thrive, I hope? “ said Cleveland, who, however little interested in the matter, sustained the conversation, as if to break the chilly and embarrassed silence which hung upon the company assembled.
“Thrive!” replied Triptolemus; “ they thrive like everything else in this country, and that is the backward way.”
“Want of care, I suppose? “ said Cleveland.
“The contrary, sir, quite and clean the contrary,” replied the Factor; “ they died of ower muckle care, like Lucky Christie’s chickens. — I asked to see the skeps, and cunning and joyful did the fallow look who was to have taken care of them. — ’ Had there been onybody in charge but mysell,’ he said, ‘ ye might have seen the skeps, or whatever you ca’ them; but there wad hae been as mony solan-geese as flees in them, if it hadna been for my four quarters; for I watched them so closely, that I saw them a’ creeping out at the little holes one sunny morning, and if I had not stopped the leak on the instant with a bit clay, the deil a bee, or flee, or whatever they are, would have been left in the skeps, as ye ca’ them! ‘ — In a word, sir, he had clagged up the hives, as if the puir things had had the pestilence, and my bees were as dead as if they had been smeaked — and so ends my hope, generandi gloria mellis, as Virgilius hath it.”
“There is an end of your mead, then,” replied Cleveland; “ but what is your chance of cider? — How does the orchard thrive?”
“O Captain! this same Solomon of the Orcadian Ophir I am sure no man need to send thither to fetch either talents of gold or talents of sense! — I say, this wise man had watered the young apple trees, in his great tenderness, with hot water, and they are perished, root and branch! But what avails crieving?And I wish yoti would tell me, instead, what is all the din that these good folks are making about pirates? and what for all these ill-looking men, that are armed like so mony Highlandmen, assembled in the judgment-chamber? — for I am just come from the other side of the island, and I have heard nothing distinct about it. — And, now I look at you yoursell, Captain, I think you have mair of these foolish pistolets about you than should suffice an honest man in quiet times?”
“And so I think, too,” said the pacific Triton, old Haagen, who had been an unwilling follower of the daring Montrose > “ if you had been in the Glen of Edderachyllis, when we were sae sair worried by Sir John Worry-”
“You have forgot the whole matter, neighbour Haagen, said the Factor; “ Sir John Urry was on your side, and was ta’en with Montrose; by the same token, he lost his head.”
“Did he? “ said the Triton. — ” I believe you may be nght; for he changed sides mair than ance, and wha kens whilk he died for? — But always he was there, and so was I;- a fight there was, and I never wish to see another!”
The entrance of the Provost here interrupted their desultory conversation. — ” We have determined,” he said, “Captain, that your ship shall