Part 54 (1/2)
”Be so then for a little longer,” said Cleveland; ”I know, Jack, that you really love me; and, since we have come thus far in this talk, I will trust you entirely. Now tell me, why should I be refused the benefit of this gracious proclamation? I have borne a rough outside, as thou knowest; but, in time of need, I can show the numbers of lives which I have been the means of saving, the property which I have restored to those who owned it, when, without my intercession, it would have been wantonly destroyed. In short, Bunce, I can show”----
”That you were as gentle a thief as Robin Hood himself,” said Bunce; ”and, for that reason, I, Fletcher, and the better sort among us, love you, as one who saves the character of us Gentlemen Rovers from utter reprobation.--Well, suppose your pardon made out, what are you to do next?--what cla.s.s in society will receive you?--with whom will you a.s.sociate? Old Drake, in Queen Bess's time, could plunder Peru and Mexico without a line of commission to show for it, and, blessed be her memory! he was knighted for it on his return. And there was Hal Morgan, the Welshman, nearer our time, in the days of merry King Charles, brought all his gettings home, had his estate and his country-house, and who but he? But that is all ended now--once a pirate, and an outcast for ever. The poor devil may go and live, shunned and despised by every one, in some obscure seaport, with such part of his guilty earnings as courtiers and clerks leave him--for pardons do not pa.s.s the seals for nothing;--and, when he takes his walk along the pier, if a stranger asks, who is the down-looking, swarthy, melancholy man, for whom all make way, as if he brought the plague in his person, the answer shall be, that is such a one, the pardoned pirate!--No honest man will speak to him, no woman of repute will give him her hand.”
”Your picture is too highly coloured, Jack,” said Cleveland, suddenly interrupting his friend; ”there are women--there is one at least, that would be true to her lover, even if he were what you have described.”
Bunce was silent for a s.p.a.ce, and looked fixedly at his friend. ”By my soul!” he said, at length, ”I begin to think myself a conjurer. Unlikely as it all was, I could not help suspecting from the beginning that there was a girl in the case. Why, this is worse than Prince Volscius in love, ha! ha! ha!”
”Laugh as you will,” said Cleveland, ”it is true;--there is a maiden who is contented to love me, pirate as I am; and I will fairly own to you, Jack, that, though I have often at times detested our roving life, and myself for following it, yet I doubt if I could have found resolution to make the break which I have now resolved on, but for her sake.”
”Why, then, G.o.d-a-mercy!” replied Bunce, ”there is no speaking sense to a madman; and love in one of our trade, Captain, is little better than lunacy. The girl must be a rare creature, for a wise man to risk hanging for her. But, harkye, may she not be a little touched, as well as yourself?--and is it not sympathy that has done it? She cannot be one of our ordinary c.o.c.katrices, but a girl of conduct and character.”
”Both are as undoubted as that she is the most beautiful and bewitching creature whom the eye ever opened upon,” answered Cleveland.
”And she loves thee, knowing thee, most n.o.ble Captain, to be a commander among those gentlemen of fortune, whom the vulgar call pirates?”
”Even so--I am a.s.sured of it,” said Cleveland.
”Why, then,” answered Bunce, ”she is either mad in good earnest, as I said before, or she does not know what a pirate is.”
”You are right in the last point,” replied Cleveland. ”She has been bred in such remote simplicity, and utter ignorance of what is evil, that she compares our occupation with that of the old Nors.e.m.e.n, who swept sea and haven with their victorious galleys, established colonies, conquered countries, and took the name of Sea-Kings.”
”And a better one it is than that of pirate, and comes much to the same purpose, I dare say,” said Bunce. ”But this must be a mettled wench!--why did you not bring her aboard? methinks it was pity to baulk her fancy.”
”And do you think,” said Cleveland, ”that I could so utterly play the part of a fallen spirit as to avail myself of her enthusiastic error, and bring an angel of beauty and innocence acquainted with such a h.e.l.l as exists on board of yonder infernal s.h.i.+p of ours?--I tell you, my friend, that, were all my former sins doubled in weight and in dye, such a villainy would have outglared and outweighed them all.”
”Why, then, Captain Cleveland,” said his confident, ”methinks it was but a fool's part to come hither at all. The news must one day have gone abroad, that the celebrated pirate Captain Cleveland, with his good sloop the Revenge, had been lost on the Mainland of Zetland, and all hands perished; so you would have remained hid both from friend and enemy, and might have married your pretty Zetlander, and converted your sash and scarf into fis.h.i.+ng-nets, and your cutla.s.s into a harpoon, and swept the seas for fish instead of florins.”
”And so I had determined,” said the Captain; ”but a Jagger, as they call them here, like a meddling, peddling thief as he is, brought down intelligence to Zetland of your lying here, and I was fain to set off, to see if you were the consort of whom I had told them, long before I thought of leaving the roving trade.”
”Ay,” said Bunce, ”and so far you judged well. For, as you had heard of our being at Kirkwall, so we should have soon learned that you were at Zetland; and some of us for friends.h.i.+p, some for hatred, and some for fear of your playing Harry Glasby upon us, would have come down for the purpose of getting you into our company again.”
”I suspected as much,” said the Captain, ”and therefore was fain to decline the courteous offer of a friend, who proposed to bring me here about this time. Besides, Jack, I recollected, that, as you say, my pardon will not pa.s.s the seals without money, my own was waxing low--no wonder, thou knowest I was never a churl of it--And so”----
”And so you came for your share of the cobs?” replied his friend--”It was wisely done; and we shared honourably--so far Goffe has acted up to articles, it must be allowed. But keep your purpose of leaving him close in your breast, for I dread his playing you some dog's trick or other; for he certainly thought himself sure of your share, and will hardly forgive your coming alive to disappoint him.”
”I fear him not,” said Cleveland, ”and he knows that well. I would I were as well clear of the consequences of having been his comrade, as I hold myself to be of all those which may attend his ill-will. Another unhappy job I may be troubled with--I hurt a young fellow, who has been my plague for some time, in an unhappy brawl that chanced the morning I left Zetland.”
”Is he dead?” asked Bunce: ”It is a more serious question here, than it would be on the Grand Caimains or the Bahama Isles, where a brace or two of fellows may be shot in a morning, and no more heard of, or asked about them, than if they were so many wood-pigeons. But here it may be otherwise; so I hope you have not made your friend immortal.”
”I hope not,” said the Captain, ”though my anger has been fatal to those who have given me less provocation. To say the truth, I was sorry for the lad notwithstanding, and especially as I was forced to leave him in mad keeping.”
”In mad keeping?” said Bunce; ”why, what means that?”
”You shall hear,” replied his friend. ”In the first place, you are to know, this young man came suddenly on me while I was trying to gain Minna's ear for a private interview before I set sail, that I might explain my purpose to her. Now, to be broken in on by the accursed rudeness of this young fellow at such a moment”----
”The interruption deserved death,” said Bunce, ”by all the laws of love and honour!”
”A truce with your ends of plays, Jack, and listen one moment.--The brisk youth thought proper to retort, when I commanded him to be gone. I am not, thou knowest, very patient, and enforced my commands with a blow, which he returned as roundly. We struggled, till I became desirous that we should part at any rate, which I could only effect by a stroke of my poniard, which, according to old use, I have, thou knowest, always about me. I had scarce done this when I repented; but there was no time to think of any thing save escape and concealment, for, if the house rose on me, I was lost; as the fiery old man, who is head of the family, would have done justice on me had I been his brother. I took the body hastily on my shoulders to carry it down to the sea-sh.o.r.e, with the purpose of throwing it into a _riva_, as they call them, or chasm of great depth, where it would have been long enough in being discovered.