“Besides, what might have been found in your own pack, you scoundrel!” said Magnus Troil; an observation which produced a loud laugh. The Udaller could not help joining in the hilarity which applauded his jest; but instantly composing his countenance, he said, in an unusually grave tone, “You may laugh, my friends; but this is a matter which brings both a curse and a shame on the country; and till we learn to regard the rights of them that suffer by the winds and waves, we shall deserve to be oppressed and hag-ridden, as we have been and are, by the superior strength of the strangers who rule us.”
The company hung their heads at the rebuke of Magnus Troil. Perhaps some, even of the better class, might be conscience-struck on their own account; and all of them were sensible that the appetite for plunder, on the part of the tenants and inferiors, was not at all times restrained with sufficient strictness. But Cleveland made answer gaily, “If these honest fellows be my comrades, I will answer for them that they will never trouble the country about a parcel of chests, hammocks, and such trumpery, that the Roost may have washed ashore out of my poor sloop. What signifies to them whether the trash went to Bryce Snailsfoot, or to the bottom, or to the devil? So unbuckle thy pack, Bryce, and show the ladies thy cargo, and perhaps we may see something that will please them.”
“It cannot be his consort,” said Brenda, in a whisper to her sister; “he would have shown more joy at her appearance.”
“It must be the vessel,” answered Minna; “I saw his eye glisten at the thought of being again united to the partner of his dangers.”
“Perhaps it glistened,” said her sister, still apart, “at the thought of leaving Zetland; it is difficult to guess the thought of the heart from the glance of the eye.”
“Judge not, at least, unkindly of a friend’s thought,” said Minna; “and then, Brenda, if you are mistaken, the fault rests not with you.”
During this dialogue, Bryce Snailsfoot was busied in uncoiling the carefully arranged cordage of his pack, which amounted to six good yards of dressed seal-skin, curiously complicated and secured by all manner of knots and buckles. He was considerably interrupted in the task by the Udaller and others, who pressed him with questions respecting the stranger vessel.
“Were the officers often ashore? and how were they received by the people of Kirkwall?” said Magnus Troil.
“Excellently well,” answered Bryce Snailsfoot; “and the Captain and one or two of his men had been at some of the vanities and dances which went forward in the town; but there had been some word about customs, or king’s duties, or the like, and some of the higher folk, that took upon them as magistrates, or the like, had had words with the Captain, and he refused to satisfy them; and then it is like he was more coldly looked on, and he spoke of carrying the ship round to Stromness, or the Langhope, for she lay under the guns of the battery at Kirkwall. But he” (Bryce) “thought she wad bide at Kirkwall till the summer-fair was over, for all that.”
“The Orkney gentry,” said Magnus Troil, “are always in a hurry to draw the Scotch collar tighter round their own necks. Is it not enough that we must pay scat and wattle, which were all the public dues under our old Norse government; but must they come over us with king’s dues and customs besides? It is the part of an honest man to resist these things. I have done so all my life, and will do so to the end of it.”