The Pirate Part 61

"The punch-bowl!" said Fletcher; "I say, the bucket, d----n me!--Talk of bowls in the cabin of a paltry merchantman, but not to gentlemen-strollers--rovers, I would say," correcting himself, as he observed that Bunce looked sour at the mistake.

"And I say, these two pretty girls shall stay on deck, and fill my can,"

said Bunce; "I deserve some attendance, at least, for all my generosity."

"And they shall fill mine, too," said Fletcher--"they shall fill it to the brim!--and I will have a kiss for every drop they spill--broil me if I won't!"

"Why, then, I tell you, you shan't!" said Bunce; "for I'll be d----d if any one shall kiss Minna but one, and that's neither you nor I; and her other little bit of a consort shall 'scape for company;--there are plenty of willing wenches in Orkney.--And so, now I think on it, these girls shall go down below, and bolt themselves into the cabin; and we shall have the punch up here on deck, _al fresco_, as the old gentleman proposes."

"Why, Jack, I wish you knew your own mind," said Fletcher; "I have been your messmate these two years, and I love you; and yet flay me like a wild bullock, if you have not as many humours as a monkey!--And what shall we have to make a little fun of, since you have sent the girls down below?"

"Why, we will have Master Punch-maker here," answered Bunce, "to give us toasts, and sing us songs.--And, in the meantime, you there, stand by sheets and tacks, and get her under way!--and you, steersman, as you would keep your brains in your skull, keep her under the stern of the sloop.--If you attempt to play us any trick, I will scuttle your sconce as if it were an old calabash!"

The vessel was accordingly got under way, and moved slowly on in the wake of the sloop, which, as had been previously agreed upon, held her course, not to return to the Bay of Kirkwall, but for an excellent roadstead called Inganess Bay, formed by a promontory which extends to the eastward two or three miles from the Orcadian metropolis, and where the vessels might conveniently lie at anchor, while the rovers maintained any communication with the Magistrates which the new state of things seemed to require.

Meantime Claud Halcro had exerted his utmost talents in compounding a bucketful of punch for the use of the pirates, which they drank out of large cans; the ordinary seamen, as well as Bunce and Fletcher, who acted as officers, dipping them into the bucket with very little ceremony, as they came and went upon their duty. Magnus, who was particularly apprehensive that liquor might awaken the brutal pa.s.sions of these desperadoes, was yet so much astonished at the quant.i.ties which he saw them drink, without producing any visible effect upon their reason, that he could not help expressing his surprise to Bunce himself, who, wild as he was, yet appeared by far the most civil and conversable of his party, and whom he was, perhaps, desirous to conciliate, by a compliment of which all boon topers know the value.

"Bones of Saint Magnus!" said the Udaller, "I used to think I took off my can like a gentleman; but to see your men swallow, Captain, one would think their stomachs were as bottomless as the hole of Laifell in Foula, which I have sounded myself with a line of an hundred fathoms. By my soul, the Bicker of Saint Magnus were but a sip to them!"

"In our way of life, sir," answered Bunce, "there is no stint till duty calls, or the puncheon is drunk out."

"By my word, sir," said Claud Halcro, "I believe there is not one of your people but could drink out the mickle bicker of Scarpa, which was always offered to the Bishop of Orkney brimful of the best b.u.mmock that ever was brewed."[38]

"If drinking could make them bishops," said Bunce, "I should have a reverend crew of them; but as they have no other clerical qualities about them, I do not propose that they shall get drunk to-day; so we will cut our drink with a song."

"And I'll sing it, by ----!" said or swore d.i.c.k Fletcher, and instantly struck up the old ditty--

"It was a ship, and a ship of fame, Launch'd off the stocks, bound for the main, With an hundred and fifty brisk young men, All pick'd and chosen every one."

"I would sooner be keel-hauled than hear that song over again," said Bunce; "and confound your lantern jaws, you can squeeze nothing else out of them!"

"By ----," said Fletcher, "I will sing my song, whether you like it or no;" and again he sung, with the doleful tone of a north-easter whistling through sheet and shrouds,--

"Captain Glen was our captain's name; A very gallant and brisk young man; As bold a sailor as e'er went to sea, And we were bound for High Barbary."

"I tell you again," said Bunce, "we will have none of your screech-owl music here; and I'll be d----d if you shall sit here and make that infernal noise!"

"Why, then, I'll tell you what," said Fletcher, getting up, "I'll sing when I walk about, and I hope there is no harm in that, Jack Bunce." And so, getting up from his seat, he began to walk up and down the sloop, croaking out his long and disastrous ballad.

"You see how I manage them," said Bunce, with a smile of self-applause--"allow that fellow two strides on his own way, and you make a mutineer of him for life. But I tie him strict up, and he follows me as kindly as a fowler's spaniel after he has got a good beating.--And now your toast and your song, sir," addressing Halcro; "or rather your song without your toast. I have got a toast for myself. Here is success to all roving blades, and confusion to all honest men!"

"I should be sorry to drink that toast, if I could help it," said Magnus Troil.

"What! you reckon yourself one of the honest folks, I warrant?" said Bunce.--"Tell me your trade, and I'll tell you what I think of it. As for the punch-maker here, I knew him at first glance to be a tailor, who has, therefore, no more pretensions to be honest, than he has not to be mangy. But you are some High-Dutch skipper, I warrant me, that tramples on the cross when he is in j.a.pan, and denies his religion for a day's gain."

"No," replied the Udaller, "I am a gentleman of Zetland."

"O, what!" retorted the satirical Mr. Bunce, "you are come from the happy climate where gin is a groat a-bottle, and where there is daylight for ever?"

"At your service, Captain," said the Udaller, suppressing with much pain some disposition to resent these jests on his country, although under every risk, and at all disadvantage.

"At _my_ service!" said Bunce--"Ay, if there was a rope stretched from the wreck to the beach, you would be at my service to cut the hawser, make _floatsome_ and _jetsome_ of ship and cargo, and well if you did not give me a rap on the head with the back of the cutty-axe; and you call yourself honest? But never mind--here goes the aforesaid toast--and do you sing me a song, Mr. Fashioner; and look it be as good as your punch."

Halcro, internally praying for the powers of a new Timotheus, to turn his strain and check his auditor's pride, as glorious John had it, began a heart-soothing ditty with the following lines:--

"Maidens fresh as fairest rose, Listen to this lay of mine."

"I will hear nothing of maidens or roses," said Bunce; "it puts me in mind what sort of a cargo we have got on board; and, by ----, I will be true to my messmate and my captain as long as I can!--And now I think on't, I'll have no more punch either--that last cup made innovation, and I am not to play Ca.s.sio to-night--and if I drink not, n.o.body else shall."

So saying, he manfully kicked over the bucket, which, notwithstanding the repeated applications made to it, was still half full, got up from his seat, shook himself a little to rights, as he expressed it, c.o.c.ked his hat, and, walking the quarter-deck with an air of dignity, gave, by word and signal, the orders for bringing the ships to anchor, which were readily obeyed by both, Goffe being then, in all probability, past any rational state of interference.

The Udaller, in the meantime, condoled with Halcro on their situation.

"It is bad enough," said the tough old Norseman; "for these are rank rogues--and yet, were it not for the girls, I should not fear them. That young vapouring fellow, who seems to command, is not such a born devil as he might have been."

"He has queer humours, though," said Halcro; "and I wish we were loose from him. To kick down a bucket half full of the best punch ever was made, and to cut me short in the sweetest song I ever wrote,--I promise you, I do not know what he may do next--it is next door to madness."

Meanwhile, the ships being brought to anchor, the valiant Lieutenant Bunce called upon Fletcher, and, resuming his seat by his unwilling pa.s.sengers, he told them they should see what message he was about to send to the wittols of Kirkwall, as they were something concerned in it.

"It shall run in d.i.c.k's name," he said, "as well as in mine. I love to give the poor young fellow a little countenance now and then--don't I, d.i.c.k, you d----d stupid a.s.s?"

"Why, yes, Jack Bunce," said d.i.c.k, "I can't say but as you do--only you are always bullocking one about something or other, too--but, howsomdever, d'ye see"----

"Enough said--belay your jaw, d.i.c.k," said Bunce, and proceeded to write his epistle, which, being read aloud, proved to be of the following tenor:

"For the Mayor and Aldermen of Kirkwall--Gentlemen, As, contrary to your good faith given, you have not sent us on board a hostage for the safety of our Captain, remaining on sh.o.r.e at your request, these come to tell you, we are not thus to be trifled with. We have already in our possession, a brig, with a family of distinction, its owners and pa.s.sengers; and as you deal with our Captain, so will we deal with them in every respect. And as this is the first, so a.s.sure yourselves it shall not be the last damage which we will do to your town and trade, if you do not send on board our Captain, and supply us with stores according to treaty.

"Given on board the brig Mergoose of Burgh-Westra, lying in Inganess Bay. Witness our hands, commanders of the Fortune's 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 c.o.xcombs?" 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, blanked 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 pa.s.sing in the mind of his prisoner--"that pause would have told well on the stage--it would 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 of Dryden in louder and more vehement a.s.severation, "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 sort of 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 paternal 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 which 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.