INTRODUCTION TO THE PIRATE

Quoth he, there was a ship.

THIS brief preface may begin like the tale of the Ancient Mariner, since it was on shipboard that the Author acquired the very moderate degree of local knowledge and information, both of people and scenery, which he has endeavoured to embody in the romance of the Pirate.

In the summer and autumn of 1814, the Author was invited to join a party of Commissioners for the Northern Lighthouse Service, who proposed making a voyage round the coast of Scotland, and through its various groups of islands, chiefly for the purpose of seeing the condition of the many lighthouses under their direction-edifices so important whether regarding them as benevolent or political institutions. Among the commissioners who manage this important public concern, the sheriff of each county of Scotland which borders on the sea holds ex officio a place at the Board. These gentlemen act in every respect gratuitously, but have the use of an armed yacht, well found and fitted up, when they choose to visit the lighthouses. An excellent engineer, Mr. Robert Stevenson, is attached to the Board, to afford the benefit of his professional advice. The Author accompanied this expedition as a guest; for Selkirkshire, though it calls him sheriff, has not, like the kingdom of Bohemia in Corporal Trim's story, a seaport in its circuit, nor its magistrate, of course, any place at the Board of Commissioners-a circumstance of little consequence where all were old and intimate friends, bred to the same profession, and disposed to accommodate each other in every possible manner.

The nature of the important business which was the principal purpose of the voyage was connected with the amusement of visiting the leading objects of a traveller's curiosity; for the wild cape or formidable shelve which requires to be marked

out by a lighthouse is generally at no great distance from the most magnificent scenery of rocks, caves, and billows. Our time, too, was at our own disposal, and, as most of us were freshwater sailors, we could at any time make a fair wind out of a foul one, and run before the gale in quest of some object of curiosity which lay under our lee.

With these purposes of public utility, and some personal amusement, in view, we left the port of Leith on the 26th July 1814, ran along the east coast of Scotland, viewing its different curiosities, stood over to Zetland and Orkney, where we were some time detained by the wonders of a country which displayed so much that was new to us; and having seen what was curious in the Ultima Thule of the ancients, where the sun hardly thought it worth while to go to bed, since his rising was at this season so early, we doubled the extreme northern termination of Scotland, and took a rapid survey of the Hebrides, where we found many kind friends. There, that our little expedition might not want the dignity of danger, we were favoured with a distant glimpse of what was said to be an American cruiser, and had opportunity to consider what a pretty figure we should have made had the voyage ended in our being carried captive to the United States. After visiting the romantic shores of Morven and the vicinity of Oban, we made a run to the coast of Ireland and visited the Giant's Causeway, that we might compare it with Staffa, which we had surveyed in our course. At length, about the middle of September, we ended our voyage in the Clyde, at the port of Greenock.*

And thus terminated our pleasant tour, to which our equipment gave unusual facilities, as the ship's company could form a strong boat's crew, independent of those who might be left on board the vessel, which permitted us the freedom to land whereever our curiosity carried us. Let me add, while reviewing for a moment a sunny portion of my life, that among the six or seven friends who performed this voyage together, some of them doubtless of different tastes and pursuits, and remaining for several weeks on board a small vessel, there never occurred the slightest dispute or disagreement, each seeming anxious to submit his own particular wishes to those of his friends. By this mutual accommodation all the purposes of our little expedition were attained, while for a time we might have adopted the lines of Allan Cunningham's fine sea-song,

* [See Lockhart's Life, vol. iv. pp. 180-370.]

The world of waters was our home,
And merry men were we!

But sorrow mixes her memorials with the purest remembrances of pleasure. On returning from the voyage which had proved so satisfactory, I found that fate had deprived her country most unexpectedly of a lady qualified to adorn the high rank which she held, and who had long admitted me to a share of her friendship.* The subsequent loss of one of those comrades who made up the party, and he the most intimate friend I had in the world,† casts also its shade on recollections which, but for these embitterments, would be otherwise so pleasing.

I may here briefly observe, that my business in this voyage, so far as I could be said to have any, was to endeavour to discover some localities which might be useful in the Lord of the Isles, a poem with which I was then threatening the public, and [which] was afterwards printed without attaining remarkable success. But as at the same time the anonymous novel of Waverley was making its way to popularity, I already augured the possibility of a second effort in this department of literature, and I saw much in the wild islands of the Orkneys and Zetland which I judged might be made in the highest degree interesting, should these isles ever become the scene of a narrative of fictitious events. I learned the history of Gow the pirate from an old sibyl (see Note 14, p. 454), whose principal subsistence was by a trade in favourable winds, which she sold to mariners at Stromness. Nothing could be more interesting than the kindness and hospitality of the gentlemen of Zetland, which was to me the more affecting as several of them had been friends and correspondents of my father.

I was induced to go a generation or two farther back to find materials from which I might trace the features of the old Norwegian udaller, the Scottish gentry having in general occupied the place of that primitive race, and their language

* Harriet Katherine, Duchess of Buccleuch, died 24th August 1814 (Laing).

+ William Erskine of Kinedder, son of an Episcopal minister in Perthshire, was educated for the legal profession, and passed advocate 3d July 1790. He was appointed Sheriff-Depute of Orkney 6th June 1809, and in that capacity was accompanied by Scott in the Lighthouse voyage round the coast. He was raised to the bench, and took his seat as Lord Kinedder 29th January 1822. Unfortunately, he did not long enjoy this honour, as he died unexpectedly on the 14th of August following, to the great grief of Sir Walter, who at this very time was wholly occupied with the arrangements connected with George IV.'s visit to Edinburgh. Lord Kinedder, to whom Scott had from boyhood been deeply attached, was a most amiable and accomplished man.

In 1788, when the Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands was first published (which the Wartons thought superior to the other works of Collins, but which Dr. Johnson says, 'no search has yet found '), Mr. Erskine wrote several supplementary stanzas, intended to commemorate some Scottish superstitions omitted by Collins. These verses first appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine for April 1788 (Laing).