Tom Cringle's Log by Michael Scott

Author:Michael Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McBooks Press
Published: 1999-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

* “Leave me room, countrymen—leave me room, my children.”

† Equivalent to “Pull, you devils, pull.”

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PIRATE’S LEMAN.

“When lovely woman stoops to folly,

And finds too late that men betray,

What charm can soothe her melancholy,

What art can wash her guilt away?

“The only art her guilt to cover,

To hide her shame from every eye,

To give repentance to her lover,

And wring his bosom—is to die.”

Vicar of Wakefield.

“Ay Dios, si sera possible que he ya hallado lugar que pueda servir de escondida sepultura a la carga pesada deste cuerpo, que tan contra mi voluntad sostengo?”

Don Quixote de la Mancha.

THE NEXT morning, after breakfast, I proceeded to Santiago, and landed at the customhouse wharf, where I found everything bustle, dust, and heat. Several of the captains of the English vessels were there, who immediately made up to me, and reported how far advanced in their lading they were, and inquired when we were to give them convoy, the latest news from Kingston, &c. At length I saw our friend Ricardo Campana going along one of the neighbouring streets, and I immediately made sail in chase. He at once recognised me, gave me a cordial shake of the hand, and inquired how he could serve me. I produced two letters which I had brought for him, but which had been forgotten in the bustle of the preceding day; they were introductory, and, although sealed, I had some reason to conjecture that my friend, Mr Pepperpot Wagtail, had done me much more than justice. Campana, with great kindness, immediately invited me to his house. “We foreigners,” said he, “don’t keep your hours; I am just going home to breakfast.” It was past eleven in the forenoon. I was about excusing myself on the plea of having already breakfasted, when he silenced me. “Why, I guessed as much, Mr Lieutenant, but then you have not lunched; so you can call it lunch, you know, if it will ease your conscience.” There was no saying nay to all this civility, so we stumped along the burning streets, through a mile of houses, large massive buildings, but very different in externals from the gay domiciles of Kingston. Aaron Bang afterwards used to say that they looked more like prisons than dwelling-houses, and he was not in this very much out. Most of them were built of brick and plastered over, with large windows, in front of each of which, like the houses in the south of Spain, there was erected a large heavy wooden balcony, projecting far enough from the wall to allow a Spanish chair, such as I have already described, to be placed in it. The front of these verandahs was closed in with a row of heavy balustrades at the bottom, of a variety of shapes, and by clumsy carved woodwork above, which effectually prevented you from seeing into the interior. The whole had a Moorish air, and in the upper part of the town there was a Sabbath-like stillness prevailing, which was only broken now and

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