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"How dare you oppose your opinion to mine, youngster?" exclaimed Rhymer. "As you claim the credit of saving his life, you think it necessary to praise him; but if any of us fall into his power, he'd show his gratitude by cutting our throats with as little compunction as any other Arab would have."
No smooth array of phrase, Artfully sought and ordered though it be, Which the cold rhymer lays Upon his page languid industry Can wake the listless pulse to livelier speed. * The secret wouldst thou know To touch the heart or fire the blood at will? Let thine own eyes o'erflow; Let thy lips quiver with the passionate thrill.
"And I, and I, and I," added others, until the whole boat's crew volunteered. At last Rhymer, feeling that he might be accused of deserting the midshipman, consented, allowing Morgan with three other men to accompany Charley. The boat accordingly returned to the shore.
"Here," said he, pausing, "is Huntley Bank, on which Thomas the Rhymer lay musing and sleeping when he saw, or dreamt he saw, the queen of Elfland: "'True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank; A ferlie he spied wi' his e'e; And there he saw a ladye bright, Come riding down by the Eildon tree.
"'I am, replied the vision, 'that celebrated Thomas the Rhymer, by some called Thomas of Erceldoun, or Thomas the True Speaker.
"Very well, then, Rhymer, I will give you the necessary directions for your guidance; but remember you will on no account allow your men to sleep on shore on the mainland, and you must avoid remaining at night up any river into which you may chase a dhow." Rhymer, of course, undertook to act according to the commander's directions.
But Spenser was silent awhile, and then, "Because I was thinking rather of the rhymer than the rhyme. Good heaven! how that brave lad shames me, singing here the hymns which his mother taught him, before the very muzzles of Spanish guns; instead of bewailing unmanly, as I have done, the love which he held, I doubt not, as dear as I did even my Rosalind.
"Slaves, to be sure; they are brought here to be sold," answered Rhymer. "Let's go on, it will be some fun to watch them." Rhymer led the way round the square, examining the different groups of slaves. Although the greater number looked very squalid and wretched, others had evidently been taken care of.
He is here under pretence of making some researches after the writings of Thomas of Erceldoun, called the Rhymer, which he says are infinitely curious, and of which there is a volume in the old Baron's study, saved somehow from the flames at the last conflagration.
But in the days of William the Third such versification was rare; and a rhymer who had any skill in it passed for a great poet, just as in the dark ages a person who could write his name passed for a great clerk.
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