Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry/Miles Colvine
MILES COLVINE,
THE CUMBERLAND MARINER.
William Glen was our captain's name;
He was a bold and a tall young man,
As brave a sailor as e'er sailed the sea,
And he was bound for New Barbarie.
The first of April we spread our sail,
To a low, a sweet, and a pleasant gale;
With a welcome wind on a sunny sea,
Away we sailed for New Barbarie.
We had not sailed more days than two,
Till the sky waxed dark and the tempest blew;
The lightning flashed, and loud roared the sea,
As we were bound for New Barbarie.
On the Cumberland side of the firth of Solway lies a long line of flat and unelevated coast, where the sea-fowl find refuge from the gun of the fowler, and which, save the barren land and the deep sea, presents but one object to our notice—the ruins of a rude cottage, once the residence of Miles Colvine, the Mariner. The person who built this little house of refuge, a seaman, a soldier, a scholar, and a gentleman, suffered shipwreck on the coast; and it was not known for a time that any one else had escaped from the fatal storm. His vessel was from a foreign land, had no merchandise aboard, nor seemed constructed for traffic; and when the tempest drove her along the Allanbay shore, three persons only were visible on deck. Something mysterious hung over the fate of the vessel and crew. The conduct of Miles Colvine was less likely to remove than confirm suspicion; he was a silent and melancholy man; and when the peasantry who saved him from the storm inquired concerning the history of his ship and seamen, he heard them, but answered them not, and seemed anxious to elude all conversation on the subject. As they stood on the beach, looking at the bursting of the billows, and listening to the howling of the storm, the remains of the ship were shivered to pieces, and a large portion of the deck floated ashore at their feet. The planks seemed stained with blood and with wine; and as the peasants hauled it out to the dry land, one of them asked him if it was wet with the blood of beasts or men. "With the blood of both," was the answer. They left the shore, and sought no further intercourse with him.
Where the vessel was wrecked, there he seemed determined to remain; he built a little hut, fenced it round with a wall of loose stone, and lived in it without molestation from any one. He shunned the fishermen of Allanbay and the seamen of Skinverness, nor seemed pleased when the children of the peasantry carried him little presents of food; he sought and found his subsistence in the water. It was the common remark of the fishermen that no roan dipped a hook or wetted a net, between Skinverness and Saint Bees, with greater skill and success. In this solitude, exposed to every storm that swept the beach from sea or land, amid much seeming wretchedness and privation, he resided during a summer and autumn: winter, a season of great severity on an unsheltered coast, was expected either to destroy or drive him from his dwelling; but he braved every storm, and resisted all offers of food or raiment.
The first winter of his abode was one of prodigious storm and infinite hardship. The snow lay long and deep on the ground, the ice was thick on lake and pool, and the Solway presented one continual scene of commotion and distress. The shore was covered with the wrecks of ships, the eddies choked with drowned men, and the sea itself so rough and boisterous, that the fishermen suspended their customary labours, and sat with their families at the hearth-fire, listening to the sounding of the surge, and relating tales of maritime disaster and shipwreck. But on Miles Colvine the severe and continued storm seemed to have no influence. He ranged the shore, collecting for his fire the wrecks of ships; he committed his nets and hooks to the sea with his usual skill; and having found a drifted boat, which belonged to some unfortunate vessel, he obtained command over the element most congenial to his heart, and wandered about on the bosom of the waters noon and night, more like a troubled spirit than a human being. When the severity of winter had passed away, and sea-birds laid their eggs in the sand, the mariner remitted his excursions at sea, and commenced a labour which surprised many. The sea-shore, or that portion of the coast which lies between the margin of the sea and the cultivated land—a region of shells, drift sand, and pebbles—has ever been regarded as a kind of common; and the right of suspending nets, hauling boats aground, and constructing huts for the summer residence of the fishermen has never been disputed by the owners of those thriftless domains. It was on this debatable ground, between the barren sea and the cultivated field, that the mariner fixed his abode; but it soon appeared that he wished to extend his possessions and augment his household accommodation. He constructed a larger and more substantial house, with equal attention to durability and neatness; he fenced off the sea by a barrier of large stones, and scattered around his dwelling a few of the common flowers which love to blossom near the sea breeze. The smoke of his chimney, and the unremitting clank of his hammer finishing the interior accommodations, were seen and heard from afar. When all this was concluded, he launched his boat and took to the sea again, and became known from the Mull of Galloway to the foot of Annan Water.
I remember, the first time that ever I saw him was in the market-place of Dumfries: his beard seemed of more than a year's growth; his clothes, once rich and fine, were darned and patched; and over the whole he wore a kind of boat-cloak, which, fastened round his neck, descended nigh the ground; but all this penury could not conceal the step and air of other and better days. He seldom looked in the face of any one; man he seemed to regard with an eye of scorn, and even deadly hatred; but on women he looked with softness and regard; and when he happened to meet a mother and child, he gazed on them with an eye of settled sorrow and affection. He once made a full stop, and gazed on a beautiful girl of four or five years old, who was gathering primroses on the margin of the Nith; the child, alarmed at his uncouth appearance, shrieked, and fell, in its fright, into the deep stream; the mariner made but one spring from the bank into the river, saved the child, replaced it in its mother's bosom, and resumed his journey, apparently unconscious that he had done aught remarkable. Ever after this the children of Dumfries pursued him with the hue and cry, "Eh! come and see the wild bearded man, who saved Mary Lawson."
On another occasion, I was hunting on the Scottish mountain of Criffel, and, having reached its summit, I sat down to look around on the fine prospect of sea and land below me, and take some refreshment. At a little distance I saw something like the figure of a human being, bedded in the heath, and lying looking on the Solway from a projecting rock, so still and motionless that it seemed dead. I went near: it was Miles Colvine. He seemed unconscious of my approach, and, looking steadfastly on the sea, remained fixed, and muttering, as long as I continued on the mountain. Indeed, wherever he went, he talked more like a man holding communion with his own mind than one sharing his thoughts with others; and the general purport of such imperfect sentences as could be heard was that he had doomed many men to perish for some irreparable wrong they had offered to a lady. Sometimes he spoke of the lady as his wife, or his love, and the men he had destroyed as the lawless crew of his own vessel. At other times he addressed his seamen as spirits, whom he had sent to be tortured for wrongs done in the body, and his lady as an angel that still visited his daily dreams and his nightly visions. Through the whole of these wayward musings the cry of revenge, and the sense of deep injury, were heard and understood by all.
When Miles Colvine had fairly finished his new residence, and the flowers and fruits had returned to field and tree, he was observed to launch his boat: this was a common occurrence, but a small lair of seal-skins, a jar of water, and some dried fish called kippered salmon by the Scotch, looked like preparation for a long voyage. The voyage was begun, for he was seen scudding away southward by the light of the stars, and no more was seen or heard of him for some time. Day after day his door continued shut, his chimney ceased to smoke, and his nets hung unemployed. At length the revenue cutter from Saint Bees arrived at Allanbay, to land a cargo of fine Holland gin, which the officers had taken from an Irish smuggler, between Carrickfergus and the Isle of Man. They had been terribly alarmed, they said, on their way, by the appearance, about the third watch of the night, of a visionary boat, navigated by a bearded fiend, which scudded with supernatural swiftness along the surface of the water. This tale, with all the variations which a poetical peasantry readily supply, found its way from cottage to hamlet, and from hamlet to hall. Old men shook their heads, and talked of the exploits of the great fiend by sea and land, and wished that good might happen to Old England from the visit of such a circumnavigator. Others, who were willing to believe that the apparition was Miles Colvine on a coasting voyage, seemed no less ready to confound the maritime recluse with an evil being, who had murdered a whole ship's crew, sunk their ship, and dwelt on the coast of "cannie Cumberland," for the express purpose of raising storms, shaking corn, and making unwedded mothers of half the fair damsels between Sarkfoot and Saint Bees. Several misfortunes of the latter kind, which happened about this time, confirmed this suspicion, and his departure from the coast was as welcome as rain to the farmer after a long drought.
About a fortnight after this event, I happened to be on a moonlight excursion by water, as far as the ruined castle of Comlongan. I was accompanied by an idle friend or two, and, on our return, we allowed the receding tide to carry us along the Cumberland coast, till we came nearly opposite the cottage of Miles Colvine. As we directed our boat to the shelter of a small bank, I observed a light glimmering in the mariner's house; and, landing and approaching closer, I saw plainly the shadows of two persons, one tall and manly, the other slim and sylph-like, passing and repassing on the wall. I soon obtained a fairer view. I saw the mariner himself; his dress, once rude and sordid, was replaced by one of the coarsest materials, but remarkably clean; his beard was removed, and his hair, lately matted and wild, now hung orderly about his neck and temples. The natural colour was black, but it had been changed by grief to snow-white; his look was hale, but sorrowful, and he seemed about forty years of age. The figure of the creature that accompanied him was much too tender and beautiful to last long in a situation so rude and unprotected as the cottage of a fisherman. It was a female, richly dressed, and of a beauty so exquisite, and a look so full of sweetness and grace, that the rude scene around was not wanted to exalt her above all other maidens I had ever seen. She glided about the cottage, arranging the various articles of furniture, and passing two white hands, out-rivalling the fairest creations of the sculptor, over the rude chairs and tables, and every moment giving a glance at the mariner, like one who took delight in pleasing him, and seemed to work for his sake. And he was pleased. I saw him smile, and no one had ever seen him smile before; he passed his hand over the long clustering tresses of the maiden, caused her to sit down beside him, and looked on her face, which, outgrowing the child, had not yet grown into woman, with a look of affection, and reverence, and joy.
I was pondering on what I witnessed, and imagining an interview with the unhappy mariner and his beautiful child, for such his companion was, when I observed the latter take out a small musical instrument from a chest. She touched its well ordered strings with a light and a ready hand, and played several of the simple and plaintive airs so common among the peasantry of the Scottish and English coasts. After a pause she resumed her music, and, to an air singularly wild and melancholy, sang the following ballad, which relates, no doubt, to the story of her father's and mother's misfortunes; but the minstrel has observed a mystery in his narrative which excites suspicion rather than gratifies curiosity:—
O MARINER, O MARINER.
O mariner, O mariner,
When will our gallant men
Make our cliffs and woodlands ring
With their homeward hail agen?
Full fifteen paced the stately deck,
And fifteen stood below,
And maidens waved them from the shore,
With hands more white than snow;
All underneath them flashed the wave,
The sun laughed out aboon,
Will they come bounding homeward
By the waning of yon moon?
O maid, the moon shines lovely down,
The stars all brightly burn,
And they may shine till doomsday comes
Ere your true love return;
O'er his white forehead roll the waves,
The wind sighs lowne and low,
And the cry the sea-fowl uttereth
Is one of wail and woe;
So wail they on; I tell thee, maid,
One of thy tresses dark
Is worth all the souls who perished
In that good and gallant bark.
O mariner, O mariner,
It's whispered in the hall,
And sung upon the mountain side
Among our maidens all,
That the waves which fill the measure
Of that wide and fatal flood
Cannot cleanse the decks of thy good ship,
Or wash thy hands from blood;
And sailors meet, and shake their heads,
And, ere they sunder, say,
God keep us from Miles Colvine
On the wide and watery way!
And up then spoke he, Miles Colvine,
His thigh thus smiting soon,
By all that's dark aneath the deep,
By all that's bright aboon,
By all that's blesséd on the earth,
Or blesséd on the flood,
And by my sharp and stalwart blade
That revelled in their blood—
I could not spare them; for there came
My loved one's spirit nigh,
With a shriek of joy at every stroke
That doomed her foes to die.
O mariner, O mariner,
There was a lovely dame,
Went down with thee unto the deep,
And left her father's hame.
His dark eyes, like a thunder cloud,
Did rain and lighten fast,
And, oh! his bold and martial face
All grimly grew and ghast:
I loved her, and those evil men
Wronged her as far we ranged;
But were ever woman's woes and wrongs
More fearfully avenged?
The ballad had proceeded thus far, when a band of smugglers, from the coasts of Ireland and Scotland, uniting the reckless desperation of the former with the craft and tact of the latter, attracted by the secure and naked coast, and perhaps by the lonely house, which presented hope of plunder with little appearance of resistance, landed, to the number of seven, and, leaping over the exterior wall, seized the door and shook it violently, calling loudly for admittance. 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.
"Stand back, my darlings," said the miscreant; "I'll show you a trick worth two of this; I'll teach you how we bring out a bonnie lass from a bolted chamber in little Ireland."
So saying, he proceeded to prime a pistol, having previously hammered the flint with a little steel cross, curiously chased and ornamented, which he took from his bosom. "Ah!" said he, "may the devil cork me up in a stone bottle, and send me to seek out the latitude of the lake of darkness, if I don't carve up that old he-goat into relics! Now, come on, my early boys—my souls of boys! the boy that won't do as I do deserves to be whipped through Purgatory with the tail of St. Patrick's ass. Thack and thunder! Hell's to hinder us when I snap my pistol under the thatch."
In a moment the door opened. Miles Colvine stood on the threshold, a cocked pistol in his right hand, his sword gleaming in his left, his eyes shooting from them a fierce dark light, but his manner perfectly calm and collected. Behind him came the beautiful form of his daughter, with a pistol in her hand, and shuddering from head to foot at the immediate peril which seemed to beset her father. These maritime desperadoes started back at this sudden apparition of an armed man; and even their miscreant leader, forward as he was, recoiled a pace or two. The mariner eyed him for a moment, and said, "Did my sword then do its work slovenly, and did the deep sea not devour thee, thou immeasurable villain? But God has given thee back to earth, to become a warning how sure and how certain just vengeance is." And leaping on him as he spoke, I saw the pistol flash, and the gleam of the descending sword, in almost the same instant. I instantly started up with my companions, and the smugglers, perceiving this reinforcement, carried off their companion, groaning and cursing, and praying; and pushing their boat from the shore, vanished along the misty bosom of the summer sea.
I found Miles Colvine standing on the threshold of his house, and his daughter on her knees beside him. He knew me, for we had often passed each other on the beach and on the sea, and he was aware that I was a friend, for I had endeavoured in vain to oblige him in his forlorn state with little acts of kindness.
"Come hither, sir," said the mariner; "I have to thank you for aid this night." He paused for a moment, and then said, in a lower tone: "I know your faith is not my faith, and that your life is not embittered with what has embittered mine. But tell me, sir, tell me—do you believe that the events of our life are ordained? For what hath happened to-night seems of a wise Being's ordering."
"Surely, sir," I said, "God knoweth all things, present and to come; but, whether he permits evil deeds to be wrought, or ordains good ones to be done"
"Enough, enough," said the mariner. "May Colvine, my love, trim thy father's shealing, and set the supper-table in array, for it is ordained that our deliverers shall rest with us, and break bread at our board; so come in."
And into the mariner's cottage we walked, not unawed by the presence of a being of whose temper and courage we had seen such a proof.
If the exterior of the cottage was rude and unskilfully built, the interior was wonderfully commodious and neat. The floor was laid of drifted ship-timber, and the walls were hung with nets as with tapestry; and fish-spears, and gaff-hooks of steel, sharp and bright, were grouped like weapons for battle in a chieftain's hall of old. The fruits of the fisherman's skill were everywhere visible: the chimney-mantel, a beam of wood which extended from side to side of the cottage, was covered with kippered salmon, large, and red, and savoury, and various kegs were filled with salted fish of the many excellent kinds which the Solway affords. A small bed stood near the chimney, swelled with the feathers of sea-fowl, and hillocked high with quilts and mantles, from beneath which some linen looked out, only rivalled in whiteness by the snow. A very small chamber was constructed at the farther end, into which May Colvine disappeared for a moment to readjust her dress, and, perhaps, add some other of those artificial attractions which women always bring in to the aid of their natural charms. The mariner seated himself, motioned me to a seat, over which a sealskin was thrown, while a lamp, fed plentifully with oil, and suspended from the roof, diffused light over the apartment. Nor was the place devoted to brute comfort alone: several books, among which I observed "Robinson Crusoe," and Homer's "Odyssey" in Greek, with a curious collection of Northern legendary ballads, were scattered about, and a shepherd's pipe and a fiddle were there to bring music to assist in the dissipation of melancholy thought.
May Colvine now came forth from her little chamber, with an increase of loveliness, such as a rose appears when refreshed in dew. She had laid aside the snood of silk and pearl which enclosed her hair, and the curling luxuriance of her ringlets descended over her shoulders, while her white temples, and whiter neck, were seen through the waving fleece which fell so profusely over them. Her father gazed on her like one who recalls the lovely past in the beautiful present; and his thoughts had flitted to other days and remoter climes, for after a brief reverie he said: "Come, my love, the vessel is ready, the mariners aboard, the sails spread to the wind, and we must pass the haunted headland before the moon goes down."
The maiden meanwhile had filled the supper-board with such coarse fare as the cabin afforded, and addressing her father, said: "Sir, the table is prepared, your guests are waiting, and will expect you to bless the fare which is set before them."
The mariner laid his hat aside, and sitting in his place, after the manner of the Presbyterians, said: "Thou who spreadest thy table on the deep waters, and rainest down abundance in the desert places, make this coarse food seem savoury and delicate unto these three men and this tender virgin; but my hands, on which the blood of man yet reeks unatoned for, may not presume to touch blessed food." And spreading the fold of his mantle over his face, and stooping down, he appeared to busy himself in mental devotion, while, tasting the supper set before us, and obeying the mute invitation of the maiden to a glass of water, we complied with all the forms which this extraordinary audience seemed to impose upon us.
After this was past, the young woman took up one of the instruments, and singing as she played, with inexpressible sweetness and grace, her father gradually uncovered his face—his looks began to brighten, and, uttering a deep sigh, he waved his hand, the minstrelsy ceased, and he thus addressed us:
"I was not always an unhappy man—I had fair domains, a stately house, a beauteous wife, and a sweet daughter; but it is not what we have, but what we enjoy, that blesseth man's heart, and makes him as one of the angels. I dwelt on a wild sea-coast, far from here, full of woods and caverns, the haunt of a banditti of smugglers—those fierce and vulgar and intractable spirits who find subsistence in fraud and violence, and from a continued perseverance in hostility to human law, become daily more hardened of heart and fierce of nature. I was young and romantic; and, though I did not approve of the course of these men's lives, there appeared glimpses of generosity and courage and fortitude about them, which shed a halo over a life of immorality and crime. I protected them not, neither did I associate with them; but they soon saw in the passive manner in which I regarded their nocturnal intercourse with the coast, and the ready and delighted ear which I lent to the narratives of their adventures by sea and land, that they had nothing to fear and much to hope. Their confidence increased, and their numbers augmented; and they soon found a leader capable of giving an aim to all their movements, and who brought something like regular craft and ability to their counsels.
"I was reputed rich, and was rich; my treasures were mostly of gold and silver plate, and bars of the former metal, the gain of a relative who had shared with the Buccaneers in the plunder of Panama. I had also been wedded for a number of years, my wife was young and beautiful, and our daughter, an only child, my own May Colvine, here where she sits, was in her thirteenth year, with a frame that seemed much too delicate to survive the disasters she has since been doomed to meet. We were counselled to carry her to warmer climates, and were preparing for our voyage, and my wife was ready to accompany me, when a large smuggling cutter cast anchor in a deep woody bay which belonged to my estate, and, as I sat on the top of my house, looking towards the sea, a person in a naval dress came and accosted me. He was, he said, the captain of the freetrader lying in the bay, with a cargo of choice wine, and his mariners, bold lads and true, had periled themselves freely by land and water, and often experienced the protection of Miles Colvine's bay and the hospitality of his menials. They had heard of my intention to carry my wife and daughter to a more genial climate; and, if we wished to touch at Lisbon, or to go to any of the islands where Europeans seek for health, they would give us a passage, for they honoured us next to commerce without law or restraint.
"But I must tell you that the chief of this band, knowing my love for marvellous tales, hinted that he had men on board who, to the traditionary lore of their maritime ancestors, added their own adventures and deeds; and could, with the romantic ballads of Denmark and Sweden, mingle the Troubadour tales of France, the Moorish legends of Spain, and the singular narratives which survive among the peasantry on my native coast. To soothe and propitiate my wife, he had recourse to another charm; from the pocket of a long boat-cloak he produced a mantle of the most precious fabric, and spreading it out before her, with all its rich variety of colour and Eastern profusion of ornament, offered it as a humble present from himself and his mariners. I need not prolong this part of my narrative; we embarked at twilight, and, standing out of the bay, dropped anchor till morning dawn. The captain sat armed beside us; this excited no suspicion, for he went commonly armed, and related adventures of a daring and remarkable kind which had befallen him on foreign shores, with a liveliness, and a kind of maritime grace, which were perfectly captivating. All night we heard overhead the tramp and the din of sailors passing and repassing, and with the grey of the morning we plucked up our anchor, spread our sails to a shrill wind, shot away seaward, and my native land vanished from my view. All was life and gladness; we danced and we sang on deck, and drained cups of the purest wine, while the breeze favoured us and the sky remained unclouded and serene.
"When the spice groves of one of the Portuguese islands appeared before us, the sun was setting, and it was resolved we should remain at the entrance of a bay till daylight. We were crowded on the deck, looking on the green and beauteous land, and a gentle seaward wind wafted the perfume of the forest about us. My wife was in the bloom of youth and beauty, full of health, and life, and love; and as she stood leaning on my arm, the sailors smoothed their rough looks and refrained from curses, so much were they touched by her beauty; but this awe lasted but a little while. The captain was merry far beyond his usual measure of delight, and drained one wine cup after another to my wife's health and mine; he vowed I was as a god among his men, and that my wife was reverenced as a divinity 'But come,' said he, 'Miles Colvine, I have a curious and a cunning thing to show you, which you alone deserve to see; I got it among the Moors, so come, and come alone.'
"I rose, and followed him, for my curiosity was unbounded; he conducted me below, and, opening a small wicket in the wall of his cabin with a key, ushered me in, and closing it suddenly upon me, locked it; and then I heard him bounding up the stair to the deck. I stood half imagining this to be a jest, or something, at least, of a light nature; but shriek after shriek of my wife, uttered in the piercing agony of anguish and despair, soon undeceived me. I called, I entreated, I used force, and, though I was armed by anger and despair with almost supernatural might, the door withstood all my efforts. But why should I dwell upon a scene of such unutterable misery? What I endured, and what the woman I loved and adored suffered, are fit only to be imagined—not, surely, to be spoken. Her wrongs were remembered, and her shrieks numbered, by a Power far more terrible than man; and a certain doom and deplorable death was pronounced against them, at the moment their joy was fullest.
"The evening passed away, and morning came; and, through a little wicket which looked upon the sea, the light showed me that my chamber was the treasure-room of the pirates, for such they were, as well as smugglers. At the same moment a hole opened above, and a piece of bread and an antique silver cup filled with wine were lowered down. Amid the misery of my situation it seemed but a light evil that I recognized the silver vessel to be part of the treasure I had left at home; and, in seeking for a weapon to force the wicket, I found that my whole riches, in gold as well as silver, had been seized and put on board. I could now measure the extent of my calamity, and prepared myself for a fate, which, among such miscreants, could not be deemed far distant. The morning was not much advanced when the sun dipped at once into a dark and tempestuous ocean of clouds, the wind began to whistle shriller and shriller among our sails, and the sea, upturned by sudden and heavy gusts of wind, showed, as far as the eye could reach, those dark and tremendous furrows so fatal to mariners. The wind was from the land, and I could both see and feel that the vessel was unable to gain the harbour, and had sought security from the approaching tempest by standing out to sea. I heard the wind wax louder, and saw the billows roll, with a joy that arises from the hope of revenge: the sky became darker, the sea flashed over the decks, and the tempest hurried the ship onward with a rapidity which alarmed the sailors, accustomed as they were to the element. The seams of the vessel began to admit the sea, and everywhere symptoms appeared of her immediate destruction.
"I heard a conversation overhead I shall never forget. 'I tell you,' said a voice in Lowland Scotch, 'good can never come of such evil as your captain and you have wrought; had you taken Miles Colvine's gold and silver alone, the sin had been but little, and a grey-headed repentance might have mended all. But the bonnie lady! Her voice has been heard to-day, and tremble all you that touched her sweet body, for here has come an avenging tempest. The sea will soon devour us, and hot hell will hold us; and the mother who bore, and the wife who loved me, and the bonnie babes I have nursed on my knee will behold me no more; and all for being in company with such hell-hounds as you.'
"A voice replied to all this, in a tone too low and suppressed to be audible; and the Scotchman answered again: 'Lo, look! Did ever eyes behold such a sight? All around us the sea is smooth as glass, and other ships pass by us under a gentle breeze, without a wetted sail; but we!—the anger of Heaven has found us, for on us the thick tempest beats, and the evil one is pursuing us to destruction. O thou eternal villain—captain shall I call thee no more—and you!—you fifteen wretches, who shared with him in his crime, make you ready, for that storm will neither leave you, nor forsake you, till you are buried in the ocean.'
"At the very moment when ruin seemed inevitable the tempest ceased, the clouds passed away, and the descending sun shone brightly down, making the shoreless waters sparkle as far as the eye could reach. No bounds were now set to the joy of the crew; they crowded the deck, made a circle round several vessels of wine and baskets of biscuit; and, before the twilight had passed away, a few only were capable of guiding the vessel. The night grew very dark, and, as I sat in utter despair, I heard the same friendly voice that I had so lately heard, say, 'Miles Colvine, put your trust in Him who can still the tempest; thy time is come.'
"In a moment the wicket opened, and the same voice said, 'Take this sword, and come with me. If you have courage to avenge the miseries and the death of your beautiful and wretched wife, come, for the hour is at hand, and, as sure as I hate sin and love immortal happiness, I shall help you.'
"I took the sword, followed in silence, and, coming on deck, I beheld a scene which the hope of sure and immediate revenge rendered inexpressibly sweet. The captain and five sailors, though nearly overcome with wine, were seated on deck; the remainder of the crew had retired below; some shouted, some sang, all blasphemed, and one loud din of cursing and carousal echoed far and wide: the mingled clamour that ascended from this scene of wickedness and debauchery partook of all the evil qualities of debased minds and the most infamous pursuits, and cannot be described. Discord had its full share in the conference on deck between the captain and his confederates; they were debating about their shares in the plunder of my house.
"'Share! By my saul, man,' said a Scottish sailor to the captain, 'your share in Miles Colvine's pure gold can be but small; one hour of his sweet lady, a hundred leagues from land, was worth all the gold that ever shone.'
"'I shall share all fairly,' said the captain, laying his hand on the hilt of his cutlass; 'and first I shall share thy scoundrel carcass among the fishes of the sea, if I hear such a word again. Did I plan the glorious plot of carrying away the fair lady and her lord's treasure, to share either with such a Scotch sawney as thee?'
"The wrath of the Scotchman burnt on his brow far redder than the flush of the wine he had drunk. 'Fiend seethe my saul in his chief caldron, if ye taste na' cauld iron for this!' And out came his cutlass as he spoke.
"'That's my hearty Caledonian,' said one of his comrades; 'give him a touch of the toasting iron. Didn't he give a blow on the head to my mother's own son, this blessed morning, for only playing pluck at the lady's garment. Ah, give him the cold piece of steel, my hearty.'
"A blow from the 'captain's cutlass was the answer to this; several drunkards drew their swords, and ill-directed blows and ineffectual stabs were given and received in the dark. 'Now,' said my sailor, laying his hand on mine, to stay me till I received his admonition, 'say not one word, for words slay not, but glide in among them like a spirit; thrust your blade, for anger strikes, but revenge stabs; and I will secure the gangway, and fight along with you.'
"I heard and obeyed, and, gliding among them, thrust one of them through and through; a second and a third dropped, ere they saw who was among them. The captain attempted to draw a pistol, but my sword and my friend's entered at back and bosom; and, though two yet remained unhurt, I struck my sword a second time through the bosom of my mortal enemy, as he lay beneath me, and the last expiring glance of his eye was a look worth remembering. Ere this was accomplished, the other two were both lying with their companions. I have frequently imagined that a firmness and strength more than my own were given me during this desperate encounter. Meanwhile the remainder of the crew below set no bounds to their merriment and shouting, and seemed, as my Scottish friend remarked, ordained to die by my hand, since their clamour, by drowning the groans of their comrades, prevented them from providing for their safety. We fastened the cabin door and barricaded the gangway, keeping watch for many days with pistol and sword, with the hope of seeing some friendly shore, or a compassionate sail; while the vessel, urged onward by a strong wind, scudded with supernatural swiftness through the midnight waters. We had entered the Solway sea, when a storm came on, which, augmenting every moment, carried us rapidly along. When opposite Allanbay, a whirlwind, seizing our ship by the rigging, whirled her fairly round, and dashed her against a sandbank. As the planks sundered, and the waters rushed in, I beheld an armed man, one of the band of wretches from below, rise up before me with a look of fury which a fiend might envy. Our hatred was superior to the tempest and the scene of desolation around, and, drawing, our cutlasses, we sought each other's bosom. There is a fate in all things—the planks parted beneath our feet, and the sea broke over us, and he escaped me then, to perish by my hand to-night. Revenge is sweetest when it comes unhoped for. As we sank in the waves, a passing vessel, it seems, saved my sweet May Colvine, while the remainder of the crew went to the bottom, without the chance of swimming for an existence they deserved not to prolong. Such is my story."
Little more is known with certainty of the life of this remarkable man. He forsook his house soon after, and went to another—perhaps his native land. The peasantry and the fishermen, from awe as well as respect to his fortitude and misfortunes, permitted his cottage to remain untouched; and the seamen, as they sailed by, looked with something of a superstitious regard on the residence of Miles Colvine. Many years afterwards, on a summer morning, a peasant went to the sea, to examine his nets and lines. The sun had just risen, and was slanting his first beams over the green hills behind—a few long and narrow lines of dewy light fell across the Solway, and the mountains on the Scottish side were brightened from their summits midway down. He saw a man seated by the door of the mariner's cottage, dressed in a garb resembling that of a pilgrim, and leaning over a staff. He went closer, and addressed him—no answer was returned. The stranger was cold and dead—his hands were clasped together on the head of his staff, and his eyes were wide open, and looking seaward. Some old men came, and said, "A woeful man was Miles Colvine, the Mariner," and interred him among their ancestors in the parish churchyard.