LEONARD LINDSAY, THE STORY OF A BUCCANEER.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 2499, 30 August 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

LEONARD LINDSAY, THE STORY OF A BUCCANEER.

BT ANGUS B. BEAGH. «. I?* **.*.* * ** lc the* kßt genera tioa. ami, siaoe **>**l uke men, hare their chances, and sometimes •thieve undeserved fame, or suffer unmerited dig* ••ter, **o “ Leonard Lindsay, the Story of a * Brt,, !S? r .*’ b** fallen into a very unjust forgetfulw—a. The tale is one of adventure ;it smacks of aea-oalt a* strongly as one of ipuryai’s ; it draws a PKtane of a perished type of life almost as vividly as •putt himself could ao ; and it tens its stoiT h* an ft»g!ish •» pure and erisp as that of Robert Louis Stevenson. Our readers will have a rare litemry treat in this pi/dure of the davs there was “ no •aoe with Spain beyond tlie line.”} CHATTER I. Or XT BOYHOOD, -VXD HOW BB3XG OABT AWAY AT SEA, I AM CAItBIKD TO THE WEST IXDIKS AOAIKST MT WIIX. Xt was in the fair sunlight of a May morai*g, in the year of Grace 1672, that that great brave ship, the Golden Grove of Leith, Soisted her broad sails, with many a flattering pendant and streamer above ■them, and stood proudly down the Firth ■of Forth, designing- to reach the open ocean, not far from the hill, well known to mariners by the name of the North Berwick Law. On board of the Golden Grove, I, Leonard Lindsay, then in my twenty-seooml S\ wa*j, you must know, a sailor, and I i a bold one. My father waa a fisherman, as I may say, hia coble waa my cradle. Xfany a rough rocking in truth it bestowed upon me, for it was his use even before I tsjujd go alone, to carry me with him a fishing, wrapped up, it may be, in a tattered sail, while my mother, with a creel upon, her baek, journeyed through the landward towns, aud to the houses of the gentry, to sell the spoil ■of hook and net. We fared hard ami worked hard ; for n* more industrious folk lived in the fisher-town of_ Kirk Leslie, a pleasant and goodly spot, J/bag not far from the Fast of Neuk of Fife, than old Davie Lindsay and Jess, his wife and my mother. Many a weary night aud day have come and gone since I beheld that beach whereon I was born ; bat I oan yet shut my eyes and see our cottage and our boat—culled the ‘ ‘ Royal Thistle*’—rocking at the lee of the long- rough pier of unhewn whinstone, gathered from the wild limits around, which ran into the sea and sheltered the little ill*her harbour, formed by the burn of Balweurie, where it joins the waters of its black pools to the salt brine. Opposite our house was a pretty green bourock, as we called it, that is to say, a little hiil, mostly o£ bright green turf, with buneht-a of bont aud kmgT grass, which rustled with a sharp sad sound when the east wind blow gueil, aud creeping cosily info the chimney neuk, wo would listen to the roaring "of the sea. But tlie bourock was oftentimes brown with nets or with wet sails stretched there to dry, aud below it there lay, half-buried in the sand, old boats, mouldering away, and masts and oars all shivered, bleaching like big bones in the sun and the rain. I remember old Davie Lindsay my father well. He was a stern, big man, with a grisly grey heard, shaved but once a month. No fisher on the coast h.id a surer hand for the tiller or a firmer gripe to haul aft the sheet of the Ingsuil in a fresh breeze aud a gathering f-ea. Often when we were rising and falling on the easterly swell, half-a-score miles from Kirk Leslie pier, he loved to tell me oldworld tales and sing old-world songs of the sea. Then would he recount how the Rover sunk the Doll which good abbot Ignatius, of Aberbrot hwick, caused to be plaeed upon the wild Bell ltock, sis a guide to poor mariners ; and how the pirate dreed the weird—that is, underwent, the fate—he had prepared for himself, aud lost with ship aud crew on that very reef. Sometimes, too, lie would drop his voice, and when 1 came close to him, ho would speak of great monsters in the sea ; of the ocean snake, whose head lcoked up at the bridge of Stirling, and whose tail went nine times around the Bass ; of singing mermaids ' who come upon the yellow sands at night, and beguile men with their false lays, till they leave house aud home, being bewitched by the glamour of elfin palaces under the brine ; and, most terrible of all, of phantom ships with crews of ghosts, which sailors see by the pale glimmerings of the moon, when it shines through the driving scad, upon a mirk midnijrht and a roar- ( mg sea. But, then, if I was frightened and cried, my father would straightway change the theme, and burst out with a 1 strong ole ir voice into some loud fishing song, or, what 1 loved better still, into some brave, ancient ballad, about the fair kingdom of * Scotland, and its gallant kings and stalwart knights ; and of such, my favourite was the ] lay of Sir Patrick Spens, for he was both a knight and a sailor. The king sits in Dunfermline tow.:. L>riuking the blude-rod wine, . O whare will I get a. skeely skipper To sail this ship «f mine l Then up and spake an eldein kai-jhi, 1 'Znt at the king's right knee. 1 Sir Vatriek i.-* the best sailor , That ever sailed the sea.

Oh, I can yet hear my father’s strong voice rising over the dash of the water and the moan of the wind, as he sung the brave voyage of Sir Patrick to Norroway, to bring home the king’s daughter; bnt his tones would sink and grow hoarse and low. when he chanted th 6 storm, and the perishing of all the fair company on the voyage home. O. f<irty mile off Aberdeen ’Tin fifty tnthorn deep, And there li< s g-nde Sir Patrick Spena. Wi’ the Scot* lords at his feet. My father’s long home was also the bottom of the sea. One wild March day, the rob’e left Kirk Leslie pier without me. I staid at home mending a drelge-net with ray mother. The easterly hur was on the coast, that is to suv, thick cold mists and a keen wind. A - rhe sun rose high so did the tempest; we > uld see nought sea - ward, for the grey fog was out upon the water, but every wav came white, over and over the pier, from end to end. My mother went to and fro, wnn. and praying to herself ; as indeed did many another fisherwife, for they had <rr« it cause. The night was awful. I sar cowering beside mv mother, who was rooking herself on a settle with her apron over hr head: or now and then stolo down to ?}. ■ ;K>aeh, to where men stood with lanteij is up n masts to show the harbour mouth to the poor folks at sea. Three boats, with crews pale and worn, made the land before the da v ; an hour after dawn our coble came tossinrr to the outside belt of the surf—but she wa~ upwards. In a month after this, my mother aud I went to her father s. • very old man, and a reverend elder of the kirk. He sent me to school to Dominie Bu ! anan, a learned carle, who by his own account behoved to be o? the race of the great Go oruie Buchanan, oi whom they tell merry tales, which surely are idle and false, for ho was :l severe, grave man, and handled the taa-o unmercifully, as his royal pupil, gentle K'ng Jamie, could in his time well testify. A* -ehool I was diligent, and pleased master and friends. Afterwards, np to my sixteenth birthday, I went much a fishing in the boat of Saunders Braugglefute, my maternal uncle, when desiring to see more of my country than could be descried in our furthest voyages between Kirk Leslie pier and tiie deep-sea fisheries at the back of the Isle of May, I made |:nany coasting trips, for the space of near five years, in the stout brig Jean Livingstone, belonging to Kirkaldy, during which time I twice visited the Thames and the city of London ; plying also once e tch year with a great cargo of herrings to Ant weip, in the Low Countries. But still I wished to see the world further from home, and to this intent preferred rather to go on board the Golden Grove of Leith as a common sailor than to be mate of the Joan Livingstone, a promotion which was offered me by John Swanson, skipper and part owner of the brig. The reason of my coming to think of the Gplden Grove was, that the Jean Livingstone fiaving a cargo of goods from Yarmouth to •Edinburgh, lay while they -were delivered close by the great ship, then preparing at the foot of Leith AVynd for a voyage to Ftaly, and from thera.-e to divers ports on the Moorish Hide of the Mediterranean sea. Now tl 7 t. Waa a which I h.vd long wished to behold as being once the seat of that great people the Romans, some knowledge of the poetry and philosophy of whom, the worthy Dominie Buchanan had not failed, to instil into me, but which I ofttimes felt with pain

(13)

to be faarfc fading from my mind. Indeed, I j»u«t tell you that it is to the exertions of that learned man that this narrative is altogether owing, for he, seeing, as he was pleased to say, a more congenial soil in my mind for the seeds of his instructions than

was presented by the other fisher-boys, took great pains to imbue me with a love far the humanities, which has net deserted me entirely until this day. After much pondering upon my prospects, I therefore finally made up my mind to offer myself on board of the Golden Grove, which I did, and was accepted without more ado. My friends would have me pause and think of the dangers of unknown coasts, and pirates and robbers of the sea ; but I knew Captain John Coxoh, of the Golden Grove, to be a stant And experienced seaman, and ©no who was readily toasted with rich freights—while at* to freebooters, when I looked upon the array of culverins, deiai-culverins* and falconets ranged upon the deck©, and also the show ef carabines and patterreroes placed about the masts, with many stout follows to man and wield them, I felt we could bid defiance to any rover who ever sailed out of Sallee.

Therefore, to make a long story short, we completed our cargo, took in provisions and water, and, as has been said, on a fine May mornings Jt do not remember the exact* day, sailed. The wind was so fair that by evenfull we saw St. Abb’s Head.

And here at thO on . of what waa to me so adventurous a voyage, I wou'd dessorihe nay captain my shipmates, as well as the stout vessel herself, the latter being indeed a brave craft, with top-gallant forecastle and high poop, surmounted by three great lanterns ; but, as the reader will shortly perceive, the Golden Grove and I soon parted company, and I never wvr eith n* hex or any ©f her crew again. earned the fair north wind with ua all along the English coast, until passing through the Straits of Dover, we bade farewell to the white cliffs. Then in two days’ time we saw up-.m the larboard bow great rocks which form the cape called La Hogue, in France, and passing to the westward of the islaud of Guernsey, sighted the little isle et' L shaut lying off the port of Brest., whore the X reneh maintain fleets and great naval stores. Hereabouts the wind changed, veering round to the westwai J, and speedily rolling in upon us billows so vast that we could well discern that we were no longer* iu the narrow seas, hut exposed to the great strength aud fierceness of the Atlantic or Y\ estorn Ocean. Notwithstanding, however, we made good progress. The breeze was not sternly, but blew in squalls, making it often necessary to hand topsails, aud raising great seething seas around us, over whioh the Golden Gi*ove rode very gallautly. At nightfall ©n the eighth day «f our voyage, wo lost sight of Ushaat aud. entered into the great Bay of Biscay. The sea hero runs exceedingly high, tumbling into the shore in great ridges of blue water; but with a stout ship, wen mauued, the nature of the waves is not so dangerous as that of the short, bailing surges in the North Sea-. And now I come to the accident which so sadly determined my lot for many a day. morning ©f either the 13th or the j 14th May the weather was squally and un- 1 settled, and the sea irregular and high, j About S o’clock, looking forth to windward, I I saw a great blackness in the sky, which t j took to be tbc prelude of a gnst of no common strength. At the same moment the mato of | the watch ordered the topinou aloft to baud ‘ tlie topsails, we carrying at the moment no higher canvas. My station was upon the leeward fore-topsail yardurm, aud as I clung by the manropes to the great creakiug pieces of timber, grasping the fluttering canvas of the Bail, I thought I had never seen a finer sight than the great rolling ship below, wallowing aud labouring m the white foaming seas, whioh would sometimes strike her and pour heavy masses of clear green water in a flood ©ver the decks. When we were securing the sail, the motion aloft was very -great, we being violently swung from side to side in such wise as might well make giddy even the grizzled head of an old mariner Meantime, the gust to windward was coming fast; the blackness increased, and a rushing sound, as of the chariot wheels of a host, rose above the rude olamour of the sea. Then, axnid great showers of flying whisk it drove before it, the fierce wind struck the Golden Grovo bodily over upon her side. At the same instant I heard a hoarse voice below ! summoning the men from the yards down j upon deck; but as I was about to obey, the tempest grew terrible. There were great clouds of mist above me, through which I could see nought below but tlie white patches of waves breaking over the strong bulwarks of the ship. Suddenly the canvas, which had not been quito secured, was torn open, as it were, with a loud screech by the ! wind, and flapped and banged so that I felt the very mast shake and quiver violently, while I received rude blows from the loose

and flying ropes, insomnch as, beiug half bliued by that and the pelting of the brine, I shat my eyes, and bending down my head grasped the yard firm.fly in my arms, t might have remained thus three or four seconds, when 1 hoard the loud howl of the wind suddenly increase to a sort of eldritch scream. In a moment, the mast gave two violent jerks, and with the third I heard five or six sounding twangs like the breaking of harp-string’s, and immediately a crashing of wood. Then, still clinging to the yard, I was hurried with a mighty rush through the air, aud suddenly plunged down into the choking brine, which rose all gurgling over my head, and I knew at the famo time that the Golden Grove had carried away her fore-topmast, and I was overboard in the boiling sea . By instinct, 1 suppose, J struggled to climb upon the floating wreck so as to get my head and shoulders above water. Then I saw that I was alone in my misery. I have said that my station was at the outer end of the yard, and I conceive that ray shipmate's must have gained, the top, and from tnenee, I hoped, the deck. But as for ino, I saw nought but speedy drowning for my fate. The seas rose iu great foaming peaks and pyramids aronnd me, and the wind drove drenching showers from the crests of the waves down into the hollows. All around gloomy clouds passed swiftly, torn by the squall ; but the pitchy darkness which showed where its strength lay, was far down to leeward, aud looking thereat as I rose upon a higher sea than common, I faintly descried the ship in a crippled plight, but having managed to put her helm up so as to scud before the storm. She was already near a league away, aud leaving me fast, so that tbo bitterness of death rose up in my very heart. For a moment I thought- I might as well die at once, aud letting go my hold of the spars, I allowed mvself to sink backward into the

sea. But God has wisely made man to love life with with a clinging love, and to grapple with death as with a grim enemy. Therefore, as the water closed above me, and I felt suffocating, I could not help making a struggle, which soon replaced me on my desolate seat on the floating wreck. I looked at the spars, and saw that the topmast had broken only about a foot beneath the place to which the yard had been lowered. Nearly the whole of the foret* p and th© top-gallant masts of the Golden Grove, with the fragments of the forctopsail, which had been rent almost into ribbon, and the yard to whioh they were fastened lay therefore in the sea. I clambered in from the end of the yard, and took up my position where tlie mast and it ci'osßed each other; making myself fa6t thereto with one of the numerous ends of broken rope which abounded, and for near an hour sat dismal and almost bx*oken-hearted, unheedful of how the waves tossed me to and fro, or how they sometimes burst over and almost stifled me. I was somewhat roused by a feeliug of warmth, and looking abroad saw that the clouds had broken, and that the snu was shining brightly on the sea. Tlie wind was also abated, and the waves not combing so violently, I was more at ease. Then I heax-d that terrible sound the sound of the sea alone—which no one has listened to save ho who has swum far from any vessel, or who, like myself, has clung to a driving spar. On the beach you hear the surf, where the waves burst upon rock or sand ; on shipboard you hear the dashing of the billows on counter aud prow ; and, above them all, the sigh of the -wind and the groaning of the timbers and mxists. But to hear the sea alone, you must be alone upon the sea. I

■ j will Efllyou of the not-t: it is a* of a ei-eat : j multitudinous hiss, rising universally about j, you-—the buzz of tho fermenting and yeasty 1 . wares. There are no deep, hollow rumblings. Except for that hissing, seething* sound, the great billows rise and sink in silence; and you look -over a tumbling waste of blue or green water, all laoed and dashed, and variegated with a thousand stripes, and streaks, and veins of whit© glancing froth, which embroider as it were with lace, the dark masses of hearing and falling ©cean. Hearing this sound, and seeing this I tossed until the sun got high and warm. I felt no very poignant anguish, for my soul was clothed, as it were, in a species *f lethargy—the livery of despair. Sometimes only I tried to ; prey, hut thoughts and tongao would grow benumbed together. o*o©, indeed, I was for a time aroused. I heard a sharp little dash im the vrater, aud a soft quaokle, as of a sea-fowl. Lpoking ire, I descried beside me two dutka of that species which we, in the Scottish seas, called marrots ; they are white en the breast and neek, and brown above,, and have very bright, glancing, ytllew eyes. Moreover, they oxve, and use their short wings- under water, aa ether fowls do theirs In flying. ‘ By tho appearance of these creatui'cs I knew that i land was, at farthest, within two ; days’ sail. There—tilting gayly over each • sea—they swam for hours, seeming to look at me ; .sometimes they would dive, but they • never went far from the wreck, always ; coming up and riding head to wind., with i their keen yellow eyes fixed, as I thought, j upon the poor drownihg mariner. They j seamed tarae and fearless—for, Indeed, what j should they dread from me ? Onoo, in a , sort of melancholy mirth, T raised my arm | threateningly, but they stirred neither wing ! nor leg to flee, lifting over seas which would | make a great man-of-war work and groan to j her veiy keel, but which these’ feathered ships, built by God, could outride without a film of down being washed aside from their white bi-eaats. The auu, having attained its zenith, began to descend the westexly skies, and the afternoon was fair and warm, the wind now blowing but a summer breeze, j Son etimes when ou tlie exeat of a swell, I \ looked anxiously for a sail, bnt 1 saw nought save the bright horizon, against which the sharp outlines of the waves rose and fell in varying curves and ridges, ao that now again I resigned myself to death, and, covering my face with my hands, I, as it were, moaned, rather than sung inwardly to myself, many verses of psalms, which, when I was but a little child, I had re pea ted at my mother’s kuee. Meantime, 1 began to feel a stiffening and a heavy drowsiue s over all ray limbs and upon my soul. When I opened my eyes the heaving waters turned into divers colours before my sight, so that I knew that imj brain was wandering-, arid that my soul was departing. Howbeit. a holy tranquility eamo down upon me. The blue «ea appeared to melt away, and I saw—but dimly—the groen bomixck and the sweet, soft swarded Huks of tho Balwearie burn, with the brown herring nets drying on the windy grass. The place seemed holy and still ; the sun was hot, and none wore stirring, and presently I knew it was a summer Sabbath day, for Jrom out. the epeu windows of the gxey old kirk there came a low sound of psalmody, and I heax-d, as it were, in my brain, the;, oLthe congregation, as they sang— In .luduU’s laud Ood is well kLoyn.W II is name in Israel’s grea-t, In Salem is his tabeiuael®. In Zion is His seat. After this, there carao on me silence and darkness, I haring gi’adually fallen into a fit or trance. I was roused by rude shocks and palls, and a confused clamour of voioos. Opening mr eyes with effort, I saw surging upon the broken water, close to the spars, a ship’s boat with men, one of whom—he wlio re wed the boat ear—had grasped the cellar of my eea doublet, aud was hauling me into the pinnace, in which effort he succeeded, ere I could well make out whereabouts I was. Atthe same time several voices asked, in two different languages, what was my name and country, and how I came there. Now, of both of these tongues I had some smattering, the one being French and the other Low Dutch, of which I Lad heard a*»d picked up somewhat in ray several voyages up the river Scheldt to Antwerp. I therefoi-a, trying to muster ray senses, replied truthfully that my narao was Leonard Lindsay—that I was a Scotsman, a mariner of the ship Golden Grove, ©f Leith, whei’efrom I had fallen overboard, th© spar to which I dung having been, as, indeed, they might perceive, blowoi away in tempestuous weather.

At this they consulted ia a low tone amongst themselves. They were all seafaring men, mostly very swarthy, and tanned by the aim and tho wind. They wore long black hair, and silver and gold earirnge, which glanced amid their greasy curls. Only two were fair and blue-eyed—namely, the men who first addressed me in Flemish or Dutch. After remaining for a brief time beside tho spars, and seeming to consult as to whether they were worthy- to be made a prize of, they decided in the negative, and dipping their ours into th® rowed away, the steersman narrowly watching the run of the seas, so to avoid being broached : to and swamped, in tho meantime, 1 had clambered from the bottom of the boat, and looking orei* the bows, saw, not more than a third ©f a mile from us, a bark, which appeared to be both small and frail to contend with such a sea. The manner of her rig was new and strange to me, for she carried two masts, both vei’y stout and short, and above them were two great supple yai*ds. upon which was spread a good show of canvas, each sail being of that trinagular form, called by the seamen who use them, lateen. In fine, the ship belonged to a port, on the Mediterranean coast of France, and was of tho class named feluccas. It was necessary to approach the vessel with great caution, inasmuch as she rolled and surged excessively. We therefore came slowly up, under her Ice quarter, and a man. of very clax’k complexion, and the fieryest eyes I ever saw, jumped up upon the gunwale, and hailed the boat iu French, but talking so rapidly, that I could make nothing of it. Then, a line having been thrown on board, it was made fast to me, and without more axlo, I was soused into the sea, and dragged on boai’d the felucca, where I lay panting on tho deck, while the crew—very wild and fierce-looking sailors—amused themselves with my wretched appearance. Presently, however, the man who had hailed the boat, and who seemed to have great authority on board, came up to me, and putting the rest aside, said more deliberately than before, but still in French, and with a peculiar accent—- “ You are not, then, a Spaniard?’* I mustered my few words of-French, and answered, that— 1 L was not, but a SootsWithout more ado, he stooped ovex - ’ me, and searched my pockets. They contained somo small English coins, being groat?? and silver pennies, and also a letter, which Captain Swanson, of the Jean Livingstone, had written to me to Leith. The sight of these things appeared to qatisfy his doubts, for he spoke a few words in a kinder tone to those about him, and presently I earing me, a man dressed in a tarnished livery, like a lackey, brought me a great cup of hot distilled waters, which I greedily swallowed, and found myself comforted "and refreshed. Being, however, much exhausted from the length of time which I had passed in tho water, I laid me down upon a heap of sails in the forecastle, and being taken but little notice of, thanked God, inwardly, for mv deliverance, and began to drop off to sleep. Only beforehand, like a sailor, I observed the course of tho ship. The wind being westerly, and she being close-hauled, and labouring heavily to windward, I deemed, and with truth, that her destination must be aci’oss the Atlantic. But whithersoever she went, with my then feelings, mattered little. I was saved from an early death, ar d grateful for my escape, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. When I wakened it was dark night, and the first watch was set. As the wind, however, was now very steady, aud the sea not only lower but x*egular, the men were mostly lying and dozing about the deck, except he ! that conned and he that steered. Seeing me starring, a sailor presently came to me with a

lantern in hi» hand, ftncL to my great joy, addressed me m English t asking me from from whence I came, and the particulars of my disaster. Having shoitly informed him, 1 requested that he would tell me what the ship was which had rescued me, and what manner of treatment I might expect at the hands of tlie captain and crew. At first, he made as if he would put off talking of these matters, bnt as I was importunate, he asked me in turn, whether I had not heard of the great association of men of all nations, but principally Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Hollanders, who carried on a constant warfare with the Spaniards among the islands of th« West Indies, and, along the coast of Darien, sometimes even crossing that narrow neck of land, and descending with fire and swqrd upon Panama and other towns of the South Sea. To this I replied, that certainty I Dad heard of these companies, but only very partially and nothing distinctly, riiat they were, I suppose, the adventurers called Flibustiers or Buccaneers, and more anciently th© ‘ ‘ Brethren of the Coast.” My new friend made answer moodily, tlxat I should most probably have ample means of learning of these Freebooters ere I put my foot on Biittsh ground again—“ That is,” says he, <c after you have either escaped or served your time.'’ These phrases naturally threw me into great trouble and I earnestly asked what he signified by them. ‘•Why,” he replied, “that you will be sold as an apprentice, or in other’words, as a slave, to the French "West India Company, in the Isle of Tortugas, on the northern coaßfc of Hispaniola, whither wc are bound.” At these words I grew sick at heart. “ Better,* ? I said, “to have alio wed me drown iu that sea than to have rescued me only to sell me infcv^ slavery.” ** bo,’’ answered my companion, something sternly. “ You are young, and have a thousand hopes before you. The hand that miraculously preserved you this day is ever stretched out in wisdom and merey, readier to help than to chastise.” vTO BE 60NTJXVEJ}.)