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Favourite, and gentlemen adventurers.”
He then subscribed himself Frederick Altamont, and handed the letter to Fletcher, who read the said subscription with much difficulty; and, admiring the sound of it very much, swore he would have a new name himself, and the rather that Fletcher was the-most crabbed word to spell and conster, he believed, in the whole dictionary. He subscribed himself accordingly, Timothy Tugmutton..
“Will you not add a few lines to the coxcombs?” said Bunce, addressing Magnus.
“Not I,” returned the Udaller, stubborn in his ideas of right and wrong, even in so formidable an emergency. “The Magistrates of Kirkwall know their duty, and were I they”
But here the recollection that his daughters were at the mercy of these ruffians, blanched the bold visage of Magnus Troil, and checked the defiance which was just about to issue from his lips.
“D — n me,” said Bunce, who easily conjectured what was passing in the mind of his prisoner — ” that pause would have told well on the stage, — it wrould have brought down pit, box, and gallery, egad, as Bayes has it.”
“I will hear nothing of Bayes,” said Claud Halcro (himself a little elevated), “ it is an impudent satire on glorious John; but he tickled Buckingham off for it —
‘In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;
A man so various’
“Hold your peace! “ said Bunce, drowning the voice of the admirer ofDrydenin louder and more vehement asseveration, “ the ‘ Rehearsal’ is the best farce ever was written — and I’ll make him kiss the gunner’s daughter that denies it. D — n me, I was the best Prince Prettyman ever walked the boards —
‘Sometimes a fisher’s son, sometimes a prince.’
But let us to business. — Hark ye, old gentleman” (to Magnus), “you have a sulkiness about you for which some of my profession would cut your ears out of your head, and broil them for your dinner with red pepper. I have known Goffe do so to a poor devil, for looking sour and dangerous when he saw his sloop go to Davy Jones’s locker with his only son on board. But I’m a spirit of another sort; and if you or the ladies are ill used, it shall be the Kirkwall people’s fault, and not mine, and that’s fair; and so you had better let them know your condition, and your circumstances, and so forth — and that’s fair too.”
Magnus, thus exhorted, took up the pen, and attempted to write; but his high spirit so struggled with his personal anxiety, that his hand refused its office. “ I cannot help it,” he said, after one or two illegible attempts to write — ” I cannot form a letter if all our lives depended upon it.”
And he could not, with his utmost efforts, so suppress the convulsive emotions which he experienced, but that they agitated his whole frame. The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so, in great calamities, it sometimes happens, that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character. In the present case, Claud Halcro was fortunately able to perform the task the deeper feelings of his friend and patron refused. He took the pen, and, in as few words as possible, explained the situation in which they were placed, and the cruel risks to which they were exposed, insinuating at the same time, as delicately as he could express it, that, to the magistrates of the country, the life and honour of its citizens should be a dearer object than even the apprehension or punishment of the guilty; taking care, however, to qualify the last expression as much as possible, for fear of giving umbrage to the pirates.
Bunce read over the letter, which fortunately met his approbation; and, on seeing the name of Claud. Halcro at the bottom, he exclaimed, in great surprise, and with more energetic expressions of asseveration than we choose to record — ” Why, you are the little fellow that played the fiddle to old Manager Gadabout’s company, at Hog’s Norton, the first season I came out there! I thought I knew your catchword of glorious John.”
At another time this recognition might not have been very grateful to Halcro’s minstrel pride; but, as matters stood with him, the discovery.of a golden mine could not have made him more happy. He instantly remembered the very hopeful young performer who came out in Don Sebastian, and judiciously added, that the muse of glorious John had never received such excellent support during the time that he was first (he might have added, and only) violin to Mr. Gadabout’s company.
“Why, yes,” said Bunce, “ I believe you are right — I think I might have shaken the scene as well as Booth or Betterton either. But I was destined to figure on other boards “ (striking his foot upon the deck), “ and I believe I must stick by them, till I find no board at all to support me. But now, old acquaintance, I will do something for you — slue yourself this way a bit — I would have you solus.” They leaned over the taffrail, while Bunce whispered with more seriousness than he usually showed, “I am sorry for this honest old heart of Norway pine — blight me if I am not — and for the daughters too — besides, I have my own reasons for befriending one of them. I can be a wild fellow with a willing lass of the game; but to such decent and innocent creatures — d — n me, I am Scipio at Numantia, and Alexander in the tent of Darius. You remember how I touch off Alexander? “ (here he started into heroics.)
“Thus from the grave I rise to save my love; All draw your swords, with wings of lightning move. When I rush on, sure none will dare to stay — ’Tis beauty calls, and glory shows the way.”
Claud Halcro failed not to bestow the necessary commendations on his declamation, declaring, that, in his opinion as an honest man, he had always thought Mr. Altamont’s giving that speech far superior in tone and energy to Betterton.
Bunce, or Altamont, wrung his hand tenderly. “ Ah, you flatter me, my dear friend,” he said; “ yet, why had not the public some of your judgment! — I should not then have been at this pass. Heaven knows, my dear Mr. Halcro — Heaven knows with what pleasure I could keep you on board with me, just that I might have one friend who loves as much to hear, as I do to recite, the choicest pieces of our finest dramatic authors. The most of us are beasts — and, for the Kirkwall hostage yonder, he uses me, egad, as I use Fletcher, I think, and huffs me the more, the more I do for him. But how delightful it would be in a tropic night, when the ship was hanging on the breeze, with a broad and steady sail, for me to rehearse Alexander, with you for my pit, box, and gallery! Nay (for you are a follower of the muses, as I remember), who knows but you and I might be the means of inspiring, like Orpheus and Eurydice, a pure taste into our companions, and softening their manners, while we excited their better feelings?”
This was spoken with so much unction, that Claud Halcro began to be afraid he had both made the actual punch over potent, and mixed too many bewitching ingredients in the cup of flattery which he had administered; and that, under the influence of both potions, the sentimental pirate might detain him by force, merely to realise the scenes which his imagination presented. The conjuncture was, however, too delicate to admit of any active effort, on Halcro’s part, to redeem his blunder, and therefore he only returned the tender pressure of his friend’s hand, and uttered the interjection “ alas!” in as pathetic a tone as he could.
Bunce immediately resumed: “You are right, my friend, these are but vain visions of felicity, and it remains but for - the unhappy Altamont to serve the friend to whom he is now to bid farewell. I have determined to put you and the two girls ashore, with Fletcher for your protection; and so call up the young women, and let them begone, before the devil get aboard of me, or of some one else. You will carry my letter to the magistrates, and second it with your own eloquence, and assure them, that if they hurt but one hair of Cleveland’s head, there will be the devil to pay, and no pitch hot.”
Relieved at heart by this unexpected termination of Bunce’s harangue, Halcro descended the companion ladder two steps at a time, and knocking at the cabin door, could scarce find intelligible language enough to say his errand. The sisters hearing, with unexpected joy, that they were to be set ashore, muffled themselves in their cloaks, and when they learned that the boat was hoisted out, came hastily on deck, where they were apprised, for the first time, to their great horror, that