Norna.
“Gold is ruddy, fair, and free,
Blood is crimson, and dark to see;—
I look’d out on Saint Magnus Bay,
And I saw a falcon that struck her prey,—
A gobbet of flesh in her beak she bore,
And talons and singles are dripping with gore;
Let him that asks after them look on his hand,
And if there is blood on’t, he’s one of their band.”
Cleveland smiled scornfully, and held out his hand,—“Few men have been on the Spanish main as often as I have, without having had to do with the Guarda Costas once and again; but there never was aught like a stain on my hand that a wet towel would not wipe away.”
The Udaller added his voice potential—“There is never peace with Spaniards beyond the Line,—I have heard Captain Tragendeck and honest old Commodore Rummelaer say so an hundred times, and they have both been down in the Bay of Honduras, and all thereabouts.—I hate all Spaniards, since they came here and reft the Fair Isle men of their vivers in 1558.[4] I have heard my grandfather speak of it; and there is an old Dutch history somewhere about the house, that shows what work they made in the Low Countries long since. There is neither mercy nor faith in them.”
“True—true, my old friend,” said Cleveland; “they are as jealous of their Indian possessions as an old man of his young bride; and if they can catch you at disadvantage, the mines for your life is the word,—and so we fight them with our colours nailed to the mast.”
“That is the way,” shouted the Udaller; “the old British jack should never down! When I think of the wooden walls, I almost think myself an Englishman, only it would be becoming too like my Scottish neighbours;—but come, no offence to any here, gentlemen—all are friends, and all are welcome.—Come, Brenda, go on with the play—do you speak next, you have Norse rhymes enough, we all know.”
“But none that suit the game we play at, father,” said Brenda, drawing back.
“Nonsense!” said her father, pushing her onward, while Halcro seized on her reluctant hand; “never let mistimed modesty mar honest mirth—Speak for Brenda, Halcro—it is your trade to interpret maidens’ thoughts.”
The poet bowed to the beautiful young woman, with the devotion of a poet and the gallantry of a traveller, and having, in a whisper, reminded her that she was in no way responsible for the nonsense he was about to speak, he paused, looked upward, simpered as if he had caught a sudden idea, and at length set off in the following verses:
Claud Halcro.