“Why, please your majesty’s worship,” said Derrick, making several sea bows, and describing as nearly as he could, the exterior of the worthy Magistrate himself, “he was an elderly gentleman,—Dutch-built, round in the stern, with a white wig and a red nose—very like your majesty, I think;” then, turning to a comrade, he added, “Jack, don’t you think the fellow that wanted to kiss the pretty girl with the lantern t’other night, was very like his worship?”
“By G—, Tom Derrick,” answered the party appealed to, “I believe it is the very man!”
“This is insolence which we can make you repent of, gentlemen!” said the Magistrate, justly irritated at their effrontery; “you have behaved in this town, as if you were in an Indian village at Madagascar. You yourself, Captain, if captain you be, were at the head of another riot, no longer since than yesterday. We will give you no provisions till we know better whom we are supplying. And do not think to bully us; when I shake this handkerchief out at the window, which is at my elbow, your ship goes to the bottom. Remember she lies under the guns of our battery.”
“And how many of these guns are honeycombed, Mr. Mayor?” said Cleveland. He put the question by chance; but instantly perceived, from a sort of confusion which the Provost in vain endeavoured to hide, that the artillery of Kirkwall was not in the best order. “Come, come, Mr. Mayor,” he said, “bullying will go down with us as little as with you. Your guns yonder will do more harm to the poor old sailors who are to work them than to our sloop; and if we bring a broadside to bear on the town, why, your wives’ crockery will be in some danger. And then to talk to us of seamen being a little frolicsome ashore, why, when are they otherwise? You have the Greenland whalers playing the devil among you every now and then; and the very Dutchmen cut capers in the streets of Kirkwall, like porpoises before a gale of wind. I am told you are a man of sense, and I am sure you and I could settle this matter in the course of a five-minutes’ palaver.”
“Well, sir,” said the Provost, “I will hear what you have to say, if you will walk this way.”
Cleveland accordingly followed him into a small interior apartment, and, when there, addressed the Provost thus: “I will lay aside my pistols, sir, if you are afraid of them.”
“D—n your pistols!” answered the Provost, “I have served the King, and fear the smell of powder as little as you do!”
“So much the better,” said Cleveland, “for you will hear me the more coolly.—Now, sir, let us be what perhaps you suspect us, or let us be any thing else, what, in the name of Heaven, can you get by keeping us here, but blows and bloodshed? For which, believe me, we are much better provided than you can pretend to be. The point is a plain one—you are desirous to be rid of us—we are desirous to be gone. Let us have the means of departure, and we leave you instantly.”
“Look ye, Captain,” said the Provost, “I thirst for no man’s blood. You are a pretty fellow, as there were many among the buccaniers in my time—but there is no harm in wishing you a better trade. You should have the stores and welcome, for your money, so you would make these seas clear of you. But then, here lies the rub. The Halcyon frigate is expected here in these parts immediately; when she hears of you she will be at you; for there is nothing the white lapelle loves better than a rover—you are seldom without a cargo of dollars. Well, he comes down, gets you under his stern”——
“Blows us into the air, if you please,” said Cleveland.