The World's Greatest Books - Volume 7 Part 38

We heard the splash of the jolly-boat touching the water; then the measured stroke of the oars, and a voice calling out, "Give way, my lads."

The character of the vessel we were on board of was now evident; and the bitter reflection that we were, as it were, chained to the stake on board of a pirate, on the eve of a fierce contest with one of our own cruisers, was aggravated by the consideration that a whole boat's crew would be sacrificed before a shot was fired.

The officer in the boat had no sooner sprung on board than he was caught by two strong hands, gagged, and thrown down the main hatchway.

"Heave," cried a voice, "and with a will!" and four cold 32-pound shot were hove at once into the boat alongside, which, crashing through her bottom, swamped her in a moment, precipitating the miserable crew into the boiling sea. Their shrieks rang in my ears as they clung to the oars and some loose planks of the boat.

"Bring up the officer, and take out the gag," said Williamson.

Poor Malcolm, who had been an old messmate of mine, was now dragged to the gangway, his face bleeding, and heavily ironed, when the blackamoor, clapping a pistol to his head, bade him, as he feared instant death, hail the cutter for another boat.

The young midshipman turned his pale mild countenance upwards as he said firmly, "Never!" The miscreant fired, and he fell dead.

"Fire!" The whole broadside was poured in, and we could hear the shot rattle and tear along the cutter's deck, and the shrieks and groans of the wounded.

We now ranged alongside, and close action commenced; never do I expect to see such an infernal scene again. Up to this moment all had been coolness and order on board the pirate; but when the yards locked, the crew broke loose from all control--they ceased to be men--they were demons, for they threw their own dead and wounded indiscriminately down the hatchways, to get clear of them. They had stripped themselves almost naked; and although they fought with the most desperate courage, yelling and cursing, each in his own tongue, yet their very numbers, pent up in a small vessel, were against them. Amidst the fire and smoke we could see that the deck had become a very shamble; and unless they soon carried the cutter by boarding, it was clear that the coolness and discipline of the service must prevail. The pirates seemed aware of this themselves, for they now made a desperate attempt at boarding, led on by the black captain. While the rush forward was being made, by a sudden impulse, Splinter and I, followed by Peter, scrambled from our shelter, and in our haste jumped down, knocking over the man at the wheel.

There was no time to be lost; if any of the crew came aft we were dead men; so we tumbled down through the cabin skylight, and stowed ourselves away in the side berths. The noise on deck soon ceased--the cannon were again plied--gradually the fire slackened, and we could hear that the pirate had sc.r.a.ped clear and escaped. Some time after this, the lieutenant commanding the cutter came down. We both knew him well, and he received us cordially.

In a week we were landed at Port Royal.

I was a midshipman when I began my log, but before I finally left the West Indies I was promoted to the rank of commander, and appointed to the Lotus Leaf, under orders for England.

Before I set sail, however, I was married to my cousin Mary in Jamaica; and when we got to Old England, where the Lotus Leaf was paid off, I settled for a time on sh.o.r.e, the happiest, etc., until some years afterwards, when the wee Cringles began to tumble home so fast that I had to cut and run, and once more betake myself to the salt sea.

SIR WALTER SCOTT

The Antiquary

Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh on August 15, 1771. As a child he was feeble and sickly, and very early he was smitten with lameness which remained with him through life, although he matured into a man of robust health. He was educated for the law, which he began to practise in 1792.

Although he had fair success in his profession, he soon began to occupy his leisure time with literature, and his first work was published in 1796. The first of the "Waverley" series made its appearance anonymously in 1814. As the series progressed, it became known that Walter Scott was the author of the famous novels, and he became the idol of the hour. In 1820 a baronetcy was bestowed upon him. Six years later he joined an old friend in the establishment of a large printing and publishing business in Edinburgh, but the venture was not successful, and Scott soon found himself a bankrupt. Here his manhood and proud integrity were most n.o.bly shown. With stern and unfaltering resolution, he set himself to the task of paying his debts from the profits of his pen. Within a s.p.a.ce of two years he realised for his creditors the amazing sum of nearly forty thousand pounds, but the limits of endurance had been reached, and in 1830 he was smitten down with paralysis, from which he never thoroughly rallied. He died at Abbotsford on September 31, 1832. As a lyrist Scott especially excelled, and as a novelist he takes rank among the foremost. Although many of his works are lax and careless in structure, yet if a final test in greatness in the field of novel writing be the power to vitalise character, very few writers can be held to surpa.s.s Sir Walter Scott. According to Basil Hall, "The Antiquary" was Scott's own favourite romance. It was published in May, 1816, the third of the Waverley Novels, and in it the author intended to ill.u.s.trate the manners of Scotland during the last ten years of the eighteenth century. "I have been more solicitous," he writes, "to describe manners minutely, than to arrange in any case an artificial and combined narrative, and have but to regret that I felt myself unable to unite these two requisites of a good novel." Scott took considerable pains to point out that old Edie Ochiltree, the wandering mendicant with his blue gown, was by no means to be confounded with the utterly degraded cla.s.s of beings who now practise that wandering trade. Although "The Antiquary" was not so well received on its first appearance as "Waverley" or "Guy Mannering," it soon rose to equal, and with some readers, superior popularity.

_I.--Travelling Companions_

It was early on a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth century, when a young man of genteel appearance, journeying towards the north-east of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry, at which place there is a pa.s.sage-boat for crossing the Firth of Forth.

The young gentleman was soon joined by a companion, a good-looking man of the age of sixty, perhaps older, but his hale complexion and firm step announced that years had not impaired his strength of health. This senior traveller, Mr. Jonathan Oldenbuck (by popular contraction Oldbuck), of Monkbarns, was the owner of a small property in the neighbourhood of a thriving seaport town on the north-eastern coast of Scotland, which we shall denominate Fairport. His tastes were antiquarian, his wishes very moderate. The burghers of the town regarded him with a sort of envy, as one who affected to divide himself from their rank in society, and whose studies and pleasures seemed to them alike incomprehensible. Some habits of hasty irritation he had contracted, partly from an early disappointment in love, but yet more by the obsequious attention paid to him by his maiden sister and his orphan niece.

Mr. Oldbuck, finding his fellow-traveller an interested and intelligent auditor, plunged at once into a sea of discussion concerning urns, vases, and Roman camps, and when they reached Queensferry, and stopped for dinner at the inn, he at once made some advances towards ascertaining the name, destination, and quality of his young companion.

His name, the young gentleman said, was Lovel. His father was a north of England gentleman. He was at present travelling to Fairport, and if he found the place agreeable, might perhaps remain there for some weeks.

"Was Mr. Lovel's excursion solely for pleasure?"

"Not entirely."

"Perhaps on business with some of the commercial people of Fairport?"

"It was partly on business, but had no reference to commerce."

Here he paused, and Mr. Oldbuck, having pushed his inquiries as far as good manners permitted, was obliged to change the conversation.

The mutual satisfaction which they found in each other's society induced Mr. Oldbuck to propose, and Lovel willingly to accept, a scheme for travelling together to the end of their journey. A postchaise having been engaged, they arrived at Fairport about two o'clock on the following day.

Lovel probably expected that his travelling companion would have invited him to dinner on his arrival; but his consciousness of a want of ready preparation for unexpected guests prevented Oldbuck from paying him that attention. He only begged to see him as early as he could make it convenient to call in a forenoon, and recommended him to a widow who had apartments to let.

A few days later, when his baggage had arrived from Edinburgh, Mr. Lovel went forth to pay his respects at Monkbarns, and received a cordial welcome from Mr. Oldbuck. They parted the best of friends, but the antiquary was still at a loss to know what this well-informed young man, without friends, connections, or employment, could have to do as a resident at Fairport. Neither port wine nor whist had apparently any charms for him. A coffee-room was his detestation, and he had as few sympathies with the tea-table. There was never a Master Lovel of whom so little positive was known, but n.o.body knew any harm of him.

"A decent, sensible lad," said the Laird of Monkbarns to himself, when these particulars of Lovel had been reported to him. "He scorns to enter into the fooleries and nonsense of these idiot people at Fairport. I must do something for him--I must give him a dinner, and I will write to Sir Arthur to come to Monkbarns to meet him. I must consult my womankind."

Accordingly, such consultation having been held, the following letter was sent to Sir Arthur Wardour, of Knockwinnock Castle:

"Dear Sir Arthur,--On Tuesday, the 17th inst, I hold a symposium at Monkbarns, and pray you to a.s.sist thereat, at four o'clock precisely. If my fair enemy, Miss Isabel, can and will honour us by accompanying you, my womankind will be but too proud. I have a young acquaintance to make known to you, who is touched with some stain of a better spirit than belong to these giddy-paced times, reveres his elders, and has a pretty notion of the cla.s.sics. And as such a youth must have a natural contempt for the people about Fairport, I wish to show him some rational as well as worshipful society. I am, dear Sir Arthur, etc., etc."

In reply to this, at her father's request, Miss Wardour intimated, "her own and Sir Arthur's compliments, and that they would have the honour of waiting upon Mr. Oldbuck. Miss Wardour takes this opportunity to renew her hostility with Mr. Oldbuck, on account of his long absence from Knockwinnock, where his visits give so much pleasure."

_II.--The Treacherous Sands_

Sir Arthur and his daughter had set out, on leaving Monkbarns, to return to Knockwinnock by the turnpike road; but when they discerned Lovel a little before them Miss Wardour immediately proposed to her father that they should take another direction, and walk home by the sands.

Sir Arthur acquiesced willingly, and the two left the high road, and soon attained the side of the ocean. The tide was by no means so far out as they had computed; but this gave them no alarm; there was seldom ten days in the year when it approached so near the cliffs as not to leave a dry pa.s.sage.

As they advanced together in silence a sudden change of weather made Miss Wardour draw close to her father. As the sun sank the wind rose, and the ma.s.s of waters began to lift itself in larger ridges, and sink in deeper furrows. Presently, through the drizzling rain, they saw a figure coming towards them, whom Sir Arthur recognised as the old blue-gowned beggar, Edie Ochiltree.

"Turn back! Turn back!" exclaimed the vagrant. "The tide is running on Halket-head, like the Fall of Fyers! We will maybe get back by Ness Point yet. The Lord help us--it's our only chance! We can but try."

The waves had now encroached so much upon the beach, that the firm and smooth footing which they had hitherto had on the sand must be exchanged for a rougher path close to the foot of the precipice, and in some places even raised upon its lower ledges. It would have been utterly impossible for Sir Arthur Wardour or his daughter to have found their way along these shelves without the guidance and encouragement of the beggar, who had been there before in high tides, though never, he acknowledged, "in sae awsome a night as this."

It was indeed a dreadful evening. The howling of the storm mingled with the shrieks of the sea-fowl. Each minute the raging tide gained ground perceptibly. The three still struggled forward; but at length they paused upon the highest ledge of rock to which they could attain, for it seemed that any farther attempt to advance could only serve to antic.i.p.ate their fate.

The fearful pause gave Isabella Wardour time to collect the powers of a mind naturally strong and courageous.

"Must we yield life," she said, "without a struggle? Is there no path, however dreadful, by which we could climb the crag?"

"I was a bold cragsman," said Ochiltree, "once in my life; but it's lang syne, and nae mortal could speel them without a rope. But there was a path here ance--His name be praised!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed suddenly, "there's ane coming down the crag e'en now! there's ane coming down the crag e'en now!" Then, exalting his voice, he halloo'd out to the daring adventurer such instructions as his former practice forced upon his mind.