The Pirate

“And why, I pray you?” said Minna; “there have been no evil offences between you, but rather an exchange of mutual services; why can you not be friends? – I have many reasons to wish it.”

“And can you, then, forget the slights which he has cast upon Brenda, and on yourself, and on your father’s house?”

“I can forgive them all,” said Minna; – “can you not say so much, who have in truth received no offence?”

Cleveland looked down, and paused for an instant; then raised his head, and replied, “I might easily deceive you, Minna, and promise you what my soul tells me is an impossibility; but I am forced to use too much deceit with others, and with you I will use none. I cannot be friend to this young man; – there is a natural dislike – an instinctive aversion – something like a principle of repulsion in our mutual nature, which makes us odious to each other. Ask himself – he will tell you he has the same antipathy against me. The obligation he conferred on me was a bridle to my resentment; but I was so galled by the restraint, that I could have gnawed the curb till my lips were bloody.”

“You have worn what you are wont to call your iron mask so long, that your features,” replied Minna, “retain the impression of its rigidity even when it is removed.”

“You do me injustice, Minna,” replied her lover, “and you are angry with me because I deal with you plainly and honestly. Plainly and honestly, however, will I say, that I cannot be Mertoun’s friend, but it shall be his own fault, not mine, if I am ever his enemy. I seek not to injure him; but do not ask me to love him. And of this remain satisfied, that it would be vain even if I could do so; for as sure as I attempted any advances towards his confidence, so sure would I be to awaken his disgust and suspicion. Leave us to the exercise of our natural feelings, which, as they will unquestionably keep us as far separate as possible, are most likely to prevent any possible interference with each other. – Does this satisfy you?”

“It must,” said Minna, “since you tell me there is no remedy. – And now tell me why you looked so grave when you heard of your consort’s arrival, – for that it is her I have no doubt, – in the port of Kirkwall?”

“I fear,” replied Cleveland, “the consequences of that vessel’s arrival with her crew, as comprehending the ruin of my fondest hopes. I had made some progress in your father’s favour, and, with time, might have made more, when hither come Hawkins and the rest to blight my prospects for ever. I told you on what terms we parted. I then commanded a vessel braver and better found than their own, with a crew who, at my slightest nod, would have faced fiends armed with their own fiery element; but I now stand alone, a single man, destitute of all means to overawe or to restrain them; and they will soon show so plainly the ungovernable license of their habits and dispositions, that ruin to themselves and to me will in all probability be the consequence.”

“Do not fear it,” said Minna; “my father can never be so unjust as to hold you liable for the offences of others.”

“But what will Magnus Troil say to my own demerits, fair Minna?” said Cleveland, smiling.

“My father is a Zetlander, or rather a Norwegian,” said Minna, “one of an oppressed race, who will not care whether you fought against the Spaniards, who are the tyrants of the New World, or against the Dutch and English, who have succeeded to their usurped dominions. His own ancestors supported and exercised the freedom of the seas in those gallant barks, whose pennons were the dread of all Europe.”

“I fear, nevertheless,” said Cleveland, “that the descendant of an ancient Sea-King will scarce acknowledge a fitting acquaintance in a modern rover. I have not disguised from you that I have reason to dread the English laws; and Magnus, though a great enemy to taxes, imposts, scat, wattle, and so forth, has no idea of latitude upon points of a more general character; – he would willingly reeve a rope to the yard-arm for the benefit of an unfortunate buccanier.”

“Do not suppose so,” said Minna; “he himself suffers too much oppression from the tyrannical laws of our proud neighbours of Scotland. I trust he will soon be able to rise in resistance against them. The enemy – such I will call them – are now divided amongst themselves, and every vessel from their coast brings intelligence of fresh commotions – the Highlands against the Lowlands – the Williamites against the Jacobites – the Whigs against the Tories, and, to sum the whole, the kingdom of England against that of Scotland. What is there, as Claud Halcro well hinted, to prevent our availing ourselves of the quarrels of these robbers, to assert the independence of which we are deprived?”

“To hoist the raven standard on the Castle of Scalloway,” said Cleveland, in imitation of her tone and manner, “and proclaim your father Earl Magnus the First!”

“Earl Magnus the Seventh, if it please you,” answered Minna; “for six of his ancestors have worn, or were entitled to wear, the coronet before him. – You laugh at my ardour, – but what is there to prevent all this?”

“Nothing will prevent it,” replied Cleveland, “because it will never be attempted – Any thing might prevent it, that is equal in strength to the long-boat of a British man-of-war.”

“You treat us with scorn, sir,” said Minna; “yet yourself should know what a few resolved men may perform.”

“But they must be armed, Minna,” replied Cleveland, “and willing to place their lives upon each desperate adventure. – Think not of such visions. Denmark has been cut down into a second-rate kingdom, incapable of exchanging a single broadside with England; Norway is a starving wilderness; and, in these islands, the love of independence has been suppressed by a long term of subjection, or shows itself but in a few muttered growls over the bowl and bottle. And, were your men as willing warriors as their ancestors, what could the unarmed crews of a few fishing-boats do against the British navy? – Think no more of it, sweet Minna – it is a dream, and I must term it so, though it makes your eye so bright, and your step so noble.”

“It is indeed a dream!” said Minna, looking down, “and it ill becomes a daughter of Hialtland to look or to move like a freewoman – Our eye should be on the ground, and our step slow and reluctant, as that of one who obeys a taskmaster.”

“There are lands,” said Cleveland, “in which the eye may look bright upon groves of the palm and the cocoa, and where the foot may move light as a galley under sail, over fields carpeted with flowers, and savannahs surrounded by aromatic thickets, and where subjection is unknown, except that of the brave to the bravest, and of all to the most beautiful.”

Minna paused a moment ere she spoke, and then answered, “No, Cleveland. My own rude country has charms for me, even desolate as you think it, and depressed as it surely is, which no other land on earth can offer to me. I endeavour in vain to represent to myself those visions of trees, and of groves, which my eye never saw; but my imagination can conceive no sight in nature more sublime than these waves, when agitated by a storm, or more beautiful, than when they come, as they now do, rolling in calm tranquillity to the shore. Not the fairest scene in a foreign land, – not the brightest sunbeam that ever shone upon the richest landscape, would win my thoughts for a moment from that lofty rock, misty hill, and wide-rolling ocean. Hialtland is the land of my deceased ancestors, and of my living father; and in Hialtland will I live and die.”

“Then in Hialtland,” answered Cleveland, “will I too live and die. I will not go to Kirkwall, – I will not make my existence known to my comrades, from whom it were else hard for me to escape. Your father loves me, Minna; who knows whether long attention, anxious care, might not bring him to receive me into his family? Who would regard the length of a voyage that was certain to terminate in happiness?”

“Dream not of such an issue,” said Minna; “it is impossible. While you live in my father’s house, – while you receive his assistance, and share his table, you will find him the generous friend, and the hearty host; but touch him on what concerns his name and family, and the frank-hearted Udaller will start up before you the haughty and proud descendant of a Norwegian Jarl. See you, – a moment’s suspicion has fallen on Mordaunt Mertoun, and he has banished from his favour the youth whom he so lately loved as a son. No one must ally with his house that is not of untainted northern descent.”

“And mine may be so, for aught that is known to me upon the subject,” said Cleveland.

“How!” said Minna; “have you any reason to believe yourself of Norse descent?”

“I have told you before,” replied Cleveland, “that my family is totally unknown to me. I spent my earliest days upon a solitary plantation in the little island of Tortuga, under the charge of my father, then a different person from what he afterwards became. We were plundered by the Spaniards, and reduced to such extremity of poverty, that my father, in desperation, and in thirst of revenge, took up arms, and having become chief of a little band, who were in the same circumstances, became a buccanier, as it is called, and cruized against Spain, with various vicissitudes of good and bad fortune, until, while he interfered to check some violence of his companions, he fell by their hands – no uncommon fate among the captains of these rovers. But whence my father came, or what was the place of his birth, I know not, fair Minna, nor have I ever had a curious thought on the subject.”

“He was a Briton, at least, your unfortunate father?” said Minna.

“I have no doubt of it,” said Cleveland; “his name, which I have rendered too formidable to be openly spoken, is an English one; and his acquaintance with the English language, and even with English literature, together with the pains which he took, in better days, to teach me both, plainly spoke him to be an Englishman. If the rude bearing which I display towards others is not the genuine character of my mind and manners, it is to my father, Minna, that I owe any share of better thoughts and principles, which may render me worthy, in some small degree, of your notice and approbation. And yet it sometimes seems to me, that I have two different characters; for I cannot bring myself to believe, that I, who now walk this lone beach with the lovely Minna Troil, and am permitted to speak to her of the passion which I have cherished, have ever been the daring leader of the bold band whose name was as terrible as a tornado.”

“You had not been permitted,” said Minna, “to use that bold language towards the daughter of Magnus Troil, had you not been the brave and undaunted leader, who, with so small means, has made his name so formidable. My heart is like that of a maiden of the ancient days, and is to be won, not by fair words, but by gallant deeds.”

“Alas! that heart,” said Cleveland; “and what is it that I may do – what is it that man can do, to win in it the interest which I desire?”

“Rejoin your friends – pursue your fortunes – leave the rest to destiny,” said Minna. “Should you return, the leader of a gallant fleet, who can tell what may befall?”

“And what shall assure me, that, when I return – if return I ever shall – I may not find Minna Troil a bride or a spouse? – No, Minna, I will not trust to destiny the only object worth attaining, which my stormy voyage in life has yet offered me.”

“Hear me,” said Minna. “I will bind myself to you, if you dare accept such an engagement, by the promise of Odin,[73 - Note II. (#n_Note2_2_16_24)– Promise of Odin.] the most sacred of our northern rites which are yet practised among us, that I will never favour another, until you resign the pretensions which I have given to you. – Will that satisfy you? – for more I cannot – more I will not give.”

“Then with that,” said Cleveland, after a moment’s pause, “I must perforce be satisfied; – but remember, it is yourself that throw me back upon a mode of life which the laws of Britain denounce as criminal, and which the violent passions of the daring men by whom it is pursued, have rendered infamous.”

“But I,” said Minna, “am superior to such prejudices. In warring with England, I see their laws in no other light than as if you were engaged with an enemy, who, in fulness of pride and power, has declared he will give his antagonist no quarter. A brave man will not fight the worse for this; – and, for the manners of your comrades, so that they do not infect your own, why should their evil report attach to you?”

Cleveland gazed at her as she spoke, with a degree of wondering admiration, in which, at the same time, there lurked a smile at her simplicity.

“I could not,” he said, “have believed, that such high courage could have been found united with such ignorance of the world, as the world is now wielded. For my manners, they who best know me will readily allow, that I have done my best, at the risk of my popularity, and of my life itself, to mitigate the ferocity of my mates; but how can you teach humanity to men burning with vengeance against the world by whom they are proscribed, or teach them temperance and moderation in enjoying the pleasures which chance throws in their way, to vary a life which would be otherwise one constant scene of peril and hardship? – But this promise, Minna – this promise, which is all I am to receive in guerdon for my faithful attachment – let me at least lose no time in claiming that.”

“It must not be rendered here, but in Kirkwall. – We must invoke, to witness the engagement, the Spirit which presides over the ancient Circle of Stennis. But perhaps you fear to name the ancient Father of the Slain too, the Severe, the Terrible?”

Cleveland smiled.

“Do me the justice to think, lovely Minna, that I am little subject to fear real causes of terror; and for those which are visionary, I have no sympathy whatever.”

“You believe not in them, then?” said Minna, “and are so far better suited to be Brenda’s lover than mine.”

“I will believe,” replied Cleveland, “in whatever you believe. The whole inhabitants of that Valhalla, about which you converse so much with that fiddling, rhyming fool, Claud Halcro – all these shall become living and existing things to my credulity. But, Minna, do not ask me to fear any of them.”

“Fear! no – not to fear them, surely,” replied the maiden; “for, not before Thor or Odin, when they approached in the fulness of their terrors, did the heroes of my dauntless race yield one foot in retreat. Nor do I own them as Deities – a better faith prevents so foul an error. But, in our own conception, they are powerful spirits for good or evil. And when you boast not to fear them, bethink you that you defy an enemy of a kind you have never yet encountered.”

“Not in these northern latitudes,” said the lover, with a smile, “where hitherto I have seen but angels; but I have faced, in my time, the demons of the Equinoctial Line, which we rovers suppose to be as powerful, and as malignant, as those of the North.”

“Have you, then, witnessed those wonders that are beyond the visible world?” said Minna, with some degree of awe.

Cleveland composed his countenance, and replied, – “A short while before my father’s death, I came, though then very young, into the command of a sloop, manned with thirty as desperate fellows as ever handled a musket. We cruized for a long while with bad success, taking nothing but wretched small-craft, which were destined to catch turtle, or otherwise loaded with coarse and worthless trumpery. I had much ado to prevent my comrades from avenging upon the crews of those baubling shallops the disappointment which they had occasioned to us. At length, we grew desperate, and made a descent on a village, where we were told we should intercept the mules of a certain Spanish governor, laden with treasure. We succeeded in carrying the place; but while I endeavoured to save the inhabitants from the fury of my followers, the muleteers, with their precious cargo, escaped into the neighbouring woods. This filled up the measure of my unpopularity. My people, who had been long discontented, became openly mutinous. I was deposed from my command in solemn council, and condemned, as having too little luck and too much humanity for the profession I had undertaken, to be marooned,[74 - To maroon a seaman, signified to abandon him on a desolate coast or island – a piece of cruelty often practised by Pirates and Buccaniers.] as the phrase goes, on one of those little sandy, bushy islets, which are called, in the West Indies, keys, and which are frequented only by turtle and by sea-fowl. Many of them are supposed to be haunted – some by the demons worshipped by the old inhabitants – some by Caciques and others, whom the Spaniards had put to death by torture, to compel them to discover their hidden treasures, and others by the various spectres in which sailors of all nations have implicit faith.[75 - An elder brother, now no more, who was educated in the navy, and had been a midshipman in Rodney’s squadron in the West Indies, used to astonish the author’s boyhood with tales of those haunted islets. On one of them, called, I believe, Coffin-key, the seamen positively refused to pass the night, and came off every evening while they were engaged in completing the watering of the vessel, returning the following sunrise.] My place of banishment, called Coffin-key, about two leagues and a half to the south-east of Bermudas, was so infamous as the resort of these supernatural inhabitants, that I believe the wealth of Mexico would not have persuaded the bravest of the scoundrels who put me ashore there, to have spent an hour on the islet alone, even in broad daylight; and when they rowed off, they pulled for the sloop like men that dared not cast their eyes behind them. And there they left me, to subsist as I might, on a speck of unproductive sand, surrounded by the boundless Atlantic, and haunted, as they supposed, by malignant demons.”

“And what was the consequence?” said Minna, eagerly.

“I supported life,” said the adventurer, “at the expense of such sea-fowl, aptly called boobies, as were silly enough to let me approach so near as to knock them down with a stick; and by means of turtle-eggs, when these complaisant birds became better acquainted with the mischievous disposition of the human species, and more shy of course of my advances.”

“And the demons of whom you spoke?” – continued Minna.

“I had my secret apprehensions upon their account,” said Cleveland: “In open daylight, or in absolute darkness, I did not greatly apprehend their approach; but in the misty dawn of the morning, or when evening was about to fall, I saw, for the first week of my abode on the key, many a dim and undefined spectre, now resembling a Spaniard, with his capa wrapped around him, and his huge sombrero, as large as an umbrella, upon his head, – now a Dutch sailor, with his rough cap and trunk-hose, – and now an Indian Cacique, with his feathery crown and long lance of cane.”