Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/154

150. I lay down, with my two companions, behind a small hillock covered with furze, to see the issue of this visit; for at that time I imagined the mariner maintained some mysterious correspondence with these fierce and lawless men.

"Open the door," said one, in a strong Irish accent, "or by the powers, I'll blow your cabin to peelings of potatoes about your ears, my darlings."

"Hout, Patrick, or what's your name," said one of his comrades, in Lowland Scotch, "ye mauna gang that rough way to wark; we maun speak kindly and cannilie, man, till we get in our hand, and then we can take it a' our ain way, like Willie Wilson's sow, when she ran off with the knife in her neck."

The mariner, on hearing this dialogue, prepared himself for resistance, like one perfectly well acquainted with such rencounters. With a sword in one hand, a cocked pistol in the other, and a brace in his belt, he posted himself behind the door, and, in a low voice, admonished his daughter to retire to a little chamber constructed for her accommodation. With a voice which, though quivering with emotion, lost nothing of its native sweetness, the young maiden answered, "Oh, let me be near you!—let me but be near you!"

Her low and gentle voice was drowned in the wild exclamations of one of the smugglers. "Och, my dears, let us break the door, and clap a red turf to the roof, and all to give me light to see to kiss this maiden with the sweet voice. By the holy poker that stirred the turf fire beneath the first potato, I have not been within seven acres broad of a woman since we sailed with Miles Colvine's lady. And, by the bagpiper, she was a bouncer; and a pretty din she made about it, after all, and took it into her head to shriek till the shores rang, and pray till the saints grew deaf. Ah, my hearties, it wouldn't do. What the devil holds this door? Stand by till I show you how handsomely I'll pitch it against the wall. Ah, I wish you had seen me when I upset the house of Ranald Mullagen, in Lurgen, and made the bonniest blaze you ever saw in the wide world, at all, at all."

And, setting his shoulders to the door, he thrust with all his might; but, though seconded by his comrades, who seemed all alike eager for violence, the door resisted his utmost efforts.