“I should have thought you more nearly connected with the Svinhöved family,” said the Parson; “but depend upon it, unless you men of the north can make up your quarrels, the White Bear will chop you up in detail, and us after you.”
Birger, who, in some incomprehensible way, traced his descent from the founder of Stockholm, the great and terrible Earl Birger, was a smart young subaltern in the Royal Guards, and though his present dress—a modest and unpretending blouse—was anything but military, his well-set-up figure, firm step, and jaunty little forage cap stuck on one side of his head, sufficiently revealed his profession. From his earliest youth he had discovered a decided talent for drawing, and in accordance with a most praiseworthy custom in the Swedish service, he had been travelling for the last twelvemonth at the expense of the Government, and was now returning to the “Kongs Ofver Commandant’s Expedition,” with a portfolio filled with valuable sketches, and a mind no less well stored with military knowledge, which he had collected from every nation in Europe. The Captain had fallen in with him at the Swedish ambassador’s, and, being himself something of an artist, had struck up on the spot a sort of professional friendship with him. The pleasant little subaltern was thus, from that time forward, enrolled among their party; and though their acquaintance was not yet of twenty-four hours’ standing, was at that moment talking and chatting with all the familiarity of old and tried friendship.
“Here come those precious rascals at last,” said he, breaking off the conversation, as a train of at least half-a-dozen carriages rattled down to the landing-place, and counts, countesses, tutors, barons, children, dogs, governesses, portmanteaus, bags, boxes, and trunks were tumbled out indiscriminately on the landing-place. “Heaven and earth! if they have not impedimenta enough for an army! and this is only their light marching baggage either. All their heavy articles came on board yesterday, and are stowed under hatches. I’ll be bound we draw an additional foot of water for them. Hang the fellows! they are as bad as Junot, they are carrying off the plunder of half the country.”
“Like the Swedes under Oxenstjerna,” said the Parson; “but what need you care for that? The plunder—if it is plunder—comes from England, not Sweden.”
“It will lumber up the whole cabin, whether it comes from the one or the other,” said Birger; “we shall not have room to swing a cat.”
“We don’t want to swing a cat,” said the Parson; “that is a Russian amusement rather than an English or a Swedish one, if all tales be true; and you may depend upon it we shall fare all the better for their presence: our skipper could never think of setting anything short of turtle and venison before such very magnificent three-tailed bashaws.”
“Yes,” said Birger, “they are going to Petersburgh, too, where the chances are, the bashaws will find some good opportunity of squaring accounts with the skipper for any ill-treatment, before the steamer is permitted to sail.”
All the while this conversation was going on, the illustrious passengers were rapidly accomplishing the short passage from the shore to the steamer, a whole flotilla of boats being employed in the service, while the hurried click of the pauls, and the quick revolutions of the windlass, as the chain-cable was hove short, showed that in the Captain’s opinion, as well as that of the Mate, quite time enough had been wasted already.
But the golden opportunity had been lost. English tides respect no man, not even Russian ambassadors, and old Father Thames was yet to read them a lesson on the text—
If you will not, when you may,