Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/632

23, 1860.] stepped on to her bulwarks. Usually, when a vessel returns to her port after a voyage, there are those at hand to give the tempest-tossed mariners a cheery welcome home. Some few stragglers had joined us, but, save an odd cry of recognition, her dripping and startled-looking crew were grouped forward in sullen silence: no joyous outburst welcomed the wanderers of the deep; no triumphant cheer acknowledged the gallant battle for life that had been fought and won. No: a deep and ominous gloom appeared to hang over the ship and her crew. At this moment the appearance and movements of the captain of the Gipsy Bride arrested my attention. He was a man in the prime of life, of colossal stature, powerful and athletic frame, but withal of a stern, gloomy, and forbidding aspect; and if ever the face of man gave index of the mind, his might be read without envy. His swarthy features were convulsed in a manner fearful to behold: hatred, rage, fear, despair, all the evil passions which crime entails upon its followers, reigned in turn: the veins upon his forehead stood out like knotted rope yarns; his powerful grasp clutched at everything within reach as though he fevered to grapple with a deadly foe. The struggle for mastery over his feelings were terrible. The short quick walk along the quarter-deck ceased the moment he caught sight of that kneeling woman. He stood glaring like some ferocious beast about to spring upon his prey. A howl of torture—the pent-up cry of racking mental agony—burst from his lips. It increased into a half-shriek, half-roar. His hand shook like a man’s with ague, as, pointing to the form which bent over him from the rocky platform, like that of an avenging angel, with a burst of fearful imprecations, he thundered forth:

“Eternal fires! will no one strike that old hag from my sight!”

It was a solemn sight, accompanied by fearful sounds! That ship and her crew just gliding into the safe and sheltered haven, escaped as by a marvel of Providence from a horrible death, and instead of voices upraised in glad thanksgiving for mercy vouchsafed, to hear that awful shout of ribald blasphemy rising high above the roaring of the sea and the howling of the wind! And then that weird-looking kneeling woman, wrapped in her graveyard garments of woe, muttering forth incoherent ejaculations, in which invocations of Heaven’s wrath were strangely mingled with supplications for mercy! The visitation that destroyeth the body and the soul was prayed for in the same breath as the exemption of the innocent from the doom of the guilty! By the night or by the day, in the calm or in the storm, by the land or by the sea, sleeping or waking, in health or in sickness, that “the worm which dieth not, and the fire which is never quenched,” might prey upon the spirit, blast the hope, wither the strong frame, and dry up the life’s blood of William Gardiner—the outcast of God and of man!

The close of that eventful day saw the storm unabated, the good ship the Gipsy Bride safely moored, her captain bestowed wherever his evil spirit could best find a resting-place; the mysterious visitant of the pier, I trust, where her broken heart and fevered mind were lulled into forgetfulness of the terrible past, and myself awaiting the pilot and his promised yarn; at length, having satisfied his craving for a pipe of Maryland, he made his appearance aft.

“I’m thinking yer honer is aiger to hear the story of poor Letty Lorimer?”

“Perhaps, Murtagh, your memory, like an old hat, would be refreshed by damping!” handing him as I spoke a stiff compound of Admiral Vernon’s favourite mixture.

“Ough-ah!” coughed the old pilot, making the cabin to resound again, “bedad, its curious yer honer, that two of uz should be thinking the same thing!”

“Now, then, pilot!” I exclaimed, “to develope this mystery that has puzzled me all day.”

“Ay, yer honer. It’s now many a long year since ould Clement Lorimer was a big man, an’ a sthrong shipowner in this same port of L. He owned ships that wint to a great many places beyant the say, an’ his word was as good as another man’s bond. Well, Clement had a daughter, the poor wake craythur yer honer seen to-day, an’ och! weary me! ids myself that remimbers poor Letty Lorimer, the purtiest Colleen Dhas that every tossed a spidthers-web from a grass-brake on a May mornin’, an’ becoorse all the gay young chaps about these parts used to be cocking their caubeens at her, but Letty id have none of ’em; she was grand-like in her idayies, an’ was given to readin’ about great men that wint across the says, an’ med great fortins. Well, there were two apprentices sint to ould Clement—the sons of marchints he used to have dalins wid—one was a fine dashin’ young Scotchman, none uv yer hard-lined, skin-the-cat sort of chaps, bud a great, big-hearted, jovial chap; och! shure, they said he was descinded from the great King Robert the Bruce; anyhow no matther who was at the beginning of him, he was a raale fine, handsome, slashin’ sailor, an’ no two ways about him; to’ther fellow, they said, was a side-wind from Spain, bud he’d an English name at all events, an’ was a great big-limbed, dark-lookin’ customer,—morose and self-given like—nobody fancied him, but bonny Donald Blair was in everybody’s mouth; an’ the way he’d dance the reel of Tullogorum, an’ sing the Laird o’ Co’pen, bedad it id bring the tears into yer eyes wid fair delight. William Gardiner was ould Lorimer’s favourite, at all events; whether his people had more money nor Donald’s nobody knew rightly, bud people said that Letty was to be married to him whin he was out uv his time. Ther’s always two voices to a bargain, and although Letty wasn’t much consulted at first, bedad she was daytermined she’d have her own way; so the very day Donald Blair was out uv his time the two uv them sets off an’ gets married hard an’ fast, an’ may-be there wasn’t the devil’s own rooksun about it; however, Clement, sinsible-like, med the best uv the bargain his daughter got, an’ had them home, an’ daycently married, an’ a powerful jollification ther’ was; everybody got dhrunk uv coorse, for Donald was such a favourite that nobody envied him but one, that one was Will Gardiner; next or near the weddin’ he never kem, but was black