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am sorry for Cleveland,” said Brenda, “ if such are his companions — but I care little for him in comparison to my father.”
“Reserve your compassion for those who need it/’ said Minna, “ and fear nothing for our father. — God knows, every silver hair on his head is to me worth the treasure of an unsunned mine; but I know that he is safe while in yonder vessel, and I know that he will be soon safe on shore.”
“I would I could see it,” said Claud Halcro; “ but I fear the Kirkwall people, supposing Cleveland to be such as I dread, will not dare to exchange him against the Udaller, The Scots have very severe laws against theftboot, as they call it.”
“But who are those on the road before us?” said Brenda; “and why do they halt there so jealously?”
“They are a patrol of the militia,” answered Halcro. “Glorious John touches them off a little sharply, — but then John was a Jacobite —
Mouths without hands, maintain’d at vast expense,
In peace a charge, in war a weak defence;
Stout once a-raonth, they march, a blustering band,
And ever, but in time of need, at hand.’
I fancy they halted just now, taking us, as they saw us on the brow of the hill, for a party of the sloop’s men, and now they can distinguish that you wear petticoats, they are moving on again.”
They came on accordingly, and proved to be, as Claud Halcro had suggested, a patrol sent out to watch the motions of the pirates, and to prevent their attempting descents to damage the country.
They heartily congratulated Claud Halcro, who was well known to more than one of them, upon his escape from captivity; and the commander of the party, while offering every assistance to the ladies, could not help condoling with them on the circumstances in which their father stood, hinting, though in a delicate and doubtful manner, the difficulties which might be in the way of his liberation.
When they arrived at Kirkwall, and obtained an audience of the Provost, and one or two of the Magistrates, these difficulties were more plainly insisted upon. — ”The Halcyon frigate is upon the coast,” said the Provost: “ she was seen off Duncansbay-head; and, though I have the deepest respect for Mr. Troil of Burgh-Westra, yet I shall be answerable to law if I release from prison the Captain of this suspicious vessel, on account of the safety of any individual who may be unhappily endangered by his detention. This man is now known to be the heart and soul of these buccaneers, and am I at liberty to send him abroad, that he may plunder the country, or perhaps go fight the King’s ship? — for he has impudence enough for anything.”
“Courage enough for anything, you mean, Mr. Provost,” said Minna, unable to restrain her displeasure.
“Why, you may call it as you please, Miss Troil,” said the worthy Magistrate; “ but, in my opinion, that sort of courage which proposes to fight singly against two, is little better than a kind of practical impudence.”
“But our father? “ said Brenda, in a tone of the most earnest entreaty — ” our father — the friend, I may say the father, of his country — to whom so many look for kindness, and so many for actual support — whose loss would be the extinction of a beacon in a storm — will you indeed weigh the risk which he runs against such a trifling thing as letting an unfortunate man from prison, to seek his unhappy fate elsewhere?”
“Miss Brenda is right,” said Claud Halcro; <; I am for let-a-be for let-a-be, as the boys say; and never fash about a warrant of liberation, Provost, but just take a fool’s counsel, and let the goodman of the jail forget to draw his bolt on the wicket, or leave a chink of a window open, or the like, and we shall be rid of the rover, and have the one best honest fellow in Orkney or Zetland on the lee-side of a bowl of punch with us in five hours.”
The Provost replied in nearly the same terms as before, that he had the highest respect for Mr. Magnus Troil of Burgh-Westra, but that he could not suffer his consideration for any individual, however respectable, to interfere with the discharge of his duty.
Minna then addressed her sister in a tone of calm and sarcastic displeasure. — ” You forget,” she said, “ Brenda, that you are talking of the safety of a poor insignificant Udaller of Zetland, to no less a person than the Chief Magistrate of the metropolis of Orkney — can you expect so great a person to condescend to such a trifling subject of consideration? It will be time enough for the Provost to think of complying with the terms sent to him — for comply with them at length he both must and will — when the Church of Saint Magnus is beat down about his ears.”
“You may be angry with me, my pretty young lady,” said the good-humoured Provost Torfe, “ but I cannot be offended with you. The Church of Saint Magnus has stood many a day, and, I think, will outlive both you and me, much more yonder pack of unhanged dogs. And besides that your father is half an Orkneyman, and has both estate and friends among us, I would, I give you my word, do as much for a Zetlander in distress as I would for any one, excepting one of our native Kirkwallers, who are doubtless to be preferred. And if you will take up your lodgings here with my wife and myself, we will endeavour to show you,” continued he, “ that you are as welcome to Kirkwall, as ever you could be in Lerwick or Scalloway.”
Minna deigned no reply to this good-humoured invitation, but Brenda declined it in civil terms, pleading the necessity of taking up their abode with a wealthy widow of Kirkwall, a relation, who already expected them.
Halcro made another attempt to move the Provost, but found him inexorable. — ” The Collector of Customs had already threatened,” he said, “ to inform against him for entering into treaty, or, as he called it, packing and peeling with those strangers, even when it seemed the only means of preventing a bloody affray in the town; and, should he now forego the advantage afforded by the imprisonment of Cleveland and the escape of the Factor, he might incur something worse than censure.” The burden of the whole was, “ that he was sorry for the Udaller, he wis sorry even for the lad Cleveland, who had some sparks of honour about him; but his duty was imperious, and must be obeyed.” The Provost then precluded farther argument, by observing, that another affair from Zetland required his immediate attention. A gentleman named Mertoun, residing at Jarlshof, had made complaint against Snailsfoot the Jagger, for having assisted a domestic of his in embezzling some valuable articles which had been deposited in his custody, and he was about to take examinations on the subject, and cause them to be restored to Mr. Mertoun, who was accountable for them to the right owner.
In all this information, there was nothing which seemed interesting to the sisters excepting the word Mertoun, which went like a dagger to the heart of Minna, when she recollected the circumstances under which Mordaunt Mertoun had disappeared, and which, with an emotion less painful, though still of a melancholy nature, called a faint blush into Brenda’s cheek, and a slight degree of moisture into her eye. But it was soon evident that the Magistrate spoke not of Mordaunt, but of his father; and the daughters of Magnus, little interested in his detail, took leave of the Provost to go to their own lodgings.
When they arrived at their relation’s, Minna made it her business to learn, by such inquiries as she could make without exciting suspicion, what was the situation of the unfortunate Cleveland, which she soon discovered to be exceedingly precarious. The Provost had not, indeed, committed him to close custody, as Claud Halcro had anticipated, recollecting, perhaps, the favourable circumstances under which he had surrendered himself, and loath, till the moment of the last necessity, altogether to break faith with him. But although left apparently at large, he was strictly watched by persons well armed and appointed for the purpose, who had directions to detain him by force, if he attempted to pass certain narrow precincts which were allotted to him. He was quartered in a strong room within what is called the King’s Castle, and at night his chamber door was locked on the outside, and a sufficient guard mounted to prevent his escape. He therefore enjoyed only the degree of liberty which the cat, in her cruel sport, is sometimes pleased to permit to the mouse which she has clutched; and yet, such was the terror of the resources, the courage, and ferocity of the pirate Captain, that the Provost was blamed by the Collector,