The Red Rover | Page 7

we have both been actors; and then I humbly hope his sacred Majesty will have leisure to turn his royal mind to the pirates who infest the coast, and to order some of his stout naval captains to mete out to the rogues the treatment they are so fond of giving unto others. It would be a joyful sight to my old eyes to see the famous and long-hunted Red Rover brought into this very port, towing at the poop of a King's cruiser."
"And is it a desperate villain, he of whom you now make mention?"
"He! There are many he's in that one, lawless ship, and bloody-minded and nefarious thieves are they, to the smallest boy. It is heart-searching and grievous, Pardy, to hear of their evil-doings on the high seas of the King!"
"I have often heard mention made of the Rover," returned the countryman; "but never to enter into any of the intricate particulars of his knavery."
"How should you, boy, who live up in the country, know so much of what is passing on the great deep, as we who dwell in a port that is so much resorted to by mariners! I am fearful you'll be making it late home, Pardon," he added, glancing his eye at certain lines drawn on his shop-board, by the aid of which he was enabled to note the progress of the setting sun. "It is drawing towards the hour of five, and you have twice that number of miles to go, before you can, by any manner of means, reach the nearest boundary of your father's farm."
"The road is plain, and the people honest," returned the countryman, who cared not if it were midnight, provided he could be the bearer of tidings of some dreadful sea robbery to the ears of those whom he well knew would throng around him, at his return, to hear the tidings from the port. "And is he, in truth, so much feared and sought for, as people say?"
"Is he sought for! Is Tophet sought by a praying Christian? Few there are on the mighty deep, let them even be as stout for, battle as was Joshua the great Jewish captain, that would not rather behold the land than see the top-gallants of that wicked pirate! Men fight for glory, Pardon, as I may say I have seen, after living through so many wars, but none love to meet an enemy who hoists a bloody flag at the first blow, and who is ready to cast both parties into the air, when he finds the hand of Satan has no longer power to help him."
"If the rogue is so desperate," returned the youth straightening his powerful limbs, with a look of rising pride, "why do not the Island and the Plantations fit out a coaster in order to bring him in, that he might get a sight of a wholesome gibbet? Let the drum beat on such a message through our neighbourhood and I'll engage that it don't leave it without one volunteer at least."
"So much for not having seen war! Of what use would flails and pitch-forks prove against men who have sold themselves to the devil? Often has the Rover been seen at night, or just as the sun has been going down, by the King's cruisers, who, having fairly surrounded the thieves, had good reason to believe that they had them already in the bilboes; but, when the morning has come, the prize was vanished, by fair means or by foul!"
"And are the villains so bloody-minded that they are called 'Red?'"
"Such is the title of their leader," returned the worthy tailor, who by this time was swelling with the importance of possessing so interesting a legend to communicate; "and such is also the name they give to his vessel; because no man, who has put foot on board her, has ever come back to say that she has a better or a worse; that is, no honest mariner or lucky voyager. The ship is of the size of a King's sloop, they say, and of like equipments and form; but she has miraculously escaped from the hands of many a gallant frigate; and once, it is whispered for no loyal subject would like to say such a scandalous thing openly, Pardon, that she lay under the guns of a fifty for an hour, and seemingly, to all eyes, she sunk like hammered lead to the bottom. But, just as every body was shaking hands, and wishing his neighbour joy at so happy a punishment coming over the knaves, a West-Indiaman came into port, that had been robbed by the Rover on the morning after the night in which it was thought they had all gone into eternity together. And what makes the matter worse,