4.
“Enough of woe hast thou wrought on the ocean,
The widows wring their hands on the beach;
Enough of woe hast thou wrought on the land,
The husbandman folds his arms in despair;
Cease thou the waving of thy pinions,
Let the ocean repose in her dark strength;
Cease thou the flashing of thine eye.
Let the thunderbolt sleep in the armoury of Odin;
Be thou still at my bidding, viewless racer of the north-western heaven,
Sleep thou at the voice of Norna the Reim-kennar!”
We have said that Mordaunt was naturally fond of romantic poetry and romantic situation; it is not therefore surprising that he listened with interest to the wild address thus uttered to the wildest wind of the compass, in a tone of such dauntless enthusiasm. But though he had heard so much of the Runic rhyme and of the northern spell, in the country where he had so long dwelt, he was not on this occasion so credulous as to believe that the tempest, which had raged so lately, and which was now beginning to decline, was subdued before the charmed verse of Norna. Certain it was, that the blast seemed passing away, and the apprehended danger was already over; but it was not improbable that this issue had been for some time foreseen by the Pythoness, through signs of the weather imperceptible to those who had not dwelt long in the country, or had not bestowed on the meteorological phenomena the attention of a strict and close observer. Of Norna’s experience he had no doubt, and that went a far way to explain what seemed supernatural in her demeanour. Yet still the noble countenance, half-shaded by dishevelled tresses, the air of majesty with which, in a tone of menace as well as of command, she addressed the viewless spirit of the tempest, gave him a strong inclination to believe in the ascendency of the occult arts over the powers of nature; for, if a woman ever moved on earth to whom such authority over the ordinary laws of the universe could belong, Norna of Fitful-head, judging from bearing, figure, and face, was born to that high destiny.
The rest of the company were less slow in receiving conviction. To Tronda and the jagger none was necessary; they had long believed in the full extent of Norna’s authority over the elements. But Triptolemus and his sister gazed at each other with wondering and alarmed looks, especially when the wind began perceptibly to decline, as was remarkably visible during the pauses which Norna made betwixt the strophes of her incantation. A long silence followed the last verse, until Norna resumed her chant, but with a changed and more soothing modulation of voice and tune.
“Eagle of the far north-western waters,
Thou hast heard the voice of the Reim-kennar,
Thou hast closed thy wide sails at her bidding,
And folded them in peace by thy side.
My blessing be on thy retiring path!
When thou stoopest from thy place on high,
Soft be thy slumbers in the caverns of the unknown ocean,
Rest till destiny shall again awaken thee;
Eagle of the north-west, thou hast heard the voice of the Reim-kennar!”
“A pretty sang that would be to keep the corn from shaking in har’st,” whispered the agriculturist to his sister; “we must speak her fair, Baby—she will maybe part with the secret for a hundred pund Scots.”
“An hundred fules’ heads!” replied Baby—“bid her five merks of ready siller. I never knew a witch in my life but she was as poor as Job.”
Norna turned towards them as if she had guessed their thoughts; it may be that she did so. She passed them with a look of the most sovereign contempt, and walking to the table on which the preparations for Mrs. Barbara’s frugal meal were already disposed, she filled a small wooden quaigh from an earthen pitcher which contained bland, a subacid liquor made out of the serous part of the milk. She broke a single morsel from a barley-cake, and having eaten and drunk, returned towards the churlish hosts. “I give you no thanks,” she said, “for my refreshment, for you bid me not welcome to it; and thanks bestowed on a churl are like the dew of heaven on the cliffs of Foulah, where it finds nought that can be refreshed by its influences. I give you no thanks,” she said again, but drawing from her pocket a leathern purse that seemed large and heavy, she added, “I pay you with what you will value more than the gratitude of the whole inhabitants of Hialtland. Say not that Norna of Fitful-head hath eaten of your bread and drunk of your cup, and left you sorrowing for the charge to which she hath put your house.” So saying, she laid on the table a small piece of antique gold coin, bearing the rude and half-defaced effigies of some ancient northern king.
Triptolemus and his sister exclaimed against this liberality with vehemence; the first protesting that he kept no public, and the other exclaiming, “Is the carline mad? Heard ye ever of ony of the gentle house of Clinkscale that gave meat for siller?”
“Or for love either?” muttered her brother; “haud to that, tittie.”
“What are ye whittie-whattieing about, ye gowk?” said his gentle sister, who suspected the tenor of his murmurs; “gie the ladie back her bonnie-die there, and be blithe to be sae rid on’t—it will be a sclate-stane the morn, if not something worse.”
The honest factor lifted the money to return it, yet could not help being struck when he saw the impression, and his hand trembled as he handed it to his sister.
“Yes,” said the Pythoness again, as if she read the thoughts of the astonished pair, “you have seen that coin before—beware how you use it! It thrives not with the sordid or the mean-souled—it was won with honourable danger, and must be expended with honourable liberality. The treasure which lies under a cold hearth will one day, like the hidden talent, bear witness against its avaricious possessors.”
This last obscure intimation seemed to raise the alarm and the wonder of Mrs. Baby and her brother to the uttermost. The latter tried to stammer out something like an invitation to Norna to tarry with them all night, or at least to take share of the “dinner,” so he at first called it; but looking at the company, and remembering the limited contents of the pot, he corrected the phrase, and hoped she would take some part of the “snack, which would be on the table ere a man could loose a pleugh.”
“I eat not here—I sleep not here,” replied Norna—“nay, I relieve you not only of my own presence, but I will dismiss your unwelcome guests.—Mordaunt,” she added, addressing young Mertoun, “the dark fit is past, and your father looks for you this evening.”
“Do you return in that direction?” said Mordaunt. “I will but eat a morsel, and give you my aid, good mother, on the road. The brooks must be out, and the journey perilous.”
“Our roads lie different,” answered the Sibyl, “and Norna needs not mortal arm to aid her on the way. I am summoned far to the east, by those who know well how to smooth my passage.—For thee, Bryce Snailsfoot,” she continued, speaking to the pedlar, “speed thee on to Sumburgh—the Roost will afford thee a gallant harvest, and worthy the gathering in. Much goodly ware will ere now be seeking a new owner, and the careful skipper will sleep still enough in the deep haaf, and care not that bale and chest are dashing against the shores.”
“Na, na, good mother,” answered Snailsfoot, “I desire no man’s life for my private advantage, and am just grateful for the blessing of Providence on my sma’ trade. But doubtless one man’s loss is another’s gain; and as these storms destroy a’ thing on land, it is but fair they suld send us something by sea. Sae, taking the freedom, like yoursell, mother, to borrow a lump of barley-bread, and a draught of bland, I will bid good-day, and thank you, to this good gentleman and lady, and e’en go on my way to Jarlshof, as you advise.”
“Ay,” replied the Pythoness, “where the slaughter is, the eagles will be gathered; and where the wreck is on the shore, the jagger is as busy to purchase spoil as the shark to gorge upon the dead.”
This rebuke, if it was intended for such, seemed above the comprehension of the travelling merchant, who, bent upon gain, assumed the knapsack and ellwand, and asked Mordaunt, with the familiarity permitted in a wild country, whether he would not take company along with him?
“I wait to eat some dinner with Mr. Yellowley and Mrs. Baby,” answered the youth, “and will set forward in half an hour.”
“Then I’ll just take my piece in my hand,” said the pedlar. Accordingly he muttered a benediction, and, without more ceremony, helped himself to what, in Mrs. Baby’s covetous eyes, appeared to be two-thirds of the bread, took a long pull at the jug of bland, seized on a handful of the small fish called sillocks, which the domestic was just placing on the board, and left the room without farther ceremony.
“My certie,” said the despoiled Mrs. Baby, “there is the chapman’s drouth[27] and his hunger baith, as folk say! If the laws against vagrants be executed this gate—It’s no that I wad shut the door against decent folk,” she said, looking to Mordaunt, “more especially in such judgment-weather. But I see the goose is dished, poor thing.”
This she spoke in a tone of affection for the smoked goose, which, though it had long been an inanimate inhabitant of her chimney, was far more interesting to Mrs. Baby in that state, than when it screamed amongst the clouds. Mordaunt laughed and took his seat, then turned to look for Norna; but she had glided from the apartment during the discussion with the pedlar.
“I am glad she is gane, the dour carline,” said Mrs. Baby, “though she has left that piece of gowd to be an everlasting shame to us.”
“Whisht, mistress, for the love of heaven!” said Tronda Dronsdaughter; “wha kens where she may be this moment?—we are no sure but she may hear us, though we cannot see her.”
Mistress Baby cast a startled eye around, and instantly recovering herself, for she was naturally courageous as well as violent, said, “I bade her aroint before, and I bid her aroint again, whether she sees me or hears me, or whether she’s ower the cairn and awa.—And you, ye silly sumph,” she said to poor Yellowley, “what do ye stand glowering there for?—You a Saunt Andrew’s student!—you studied lair and Latin humanities, as ye ca’ them, and daunted wi’ the clavers of an auld randie wife! Say your best college grace, man, and witch, or nae witch, we’ll eat our dinner, and defy her. And for the value of the gowden piece, it shall never be said I pouched her siller. I will gie it to some poor body—that is, I will test[28] upon it at my death, and keep it for a purse-penny till that day comes, and that’s no using it in the way of spending siller. Say your best college grace, man, and let us eat and drink in the meantime.”
“Ye had muckle better say an oraamus to Saint Ronald, and fling a saxpence ower your left shouther, master,” said Tronda.[29]
“That ye may pick it up, ye jaud,” said the implacable Mistress Baby; “it will be lang or ye win the worth of it ony other gate.—Sit down, Triptolemus, and mindna the words of a daft wife.”
“Daft or wise,” replied Yellowley, very much disconcerted, “she kens more than I would wish she kend. It was awfu’ to see sic a wind fa’ at the voice of flesh and blood like oursells—and then yon about the hearth-stane—I cannot but think”——
“If ye cannot but think,” said Mrs. Baby, very sharply, “at least ye can haud your tongue?”
The agriculturist made no reply, but sate down to their scanty meal, and did the honours of it with unusual heartiness to his new guest, the first of the intruders who had arrived, and the last who left them. The sillocks speedily disappeared, and the smoked goose, with its appendages, took wing so effectually, that Tronda, to whom the polishing of the bones had been destined, found the task accomplished, or nearly so, to her hand. After dinner, the host produced his bottle of brandy; but Mordaunt, whose general habits were as abstinent almost as those of his father, laid a very light tax upon this unusual exertion of hospitality.
During the meal, they learned so much of young Mordaunt, and of his father, that even Baby resisted his wish to reassume his wet garments, and pressed him (at the risk of an expensive supper being added to the charges of the day) to tarry with them till the next morning. But what Norna had said excited the youth’s wish to reach home, nor, however far the hospitality of Stourburgh was extended in his behalf, did the house present any particular temptations to induce him to remain there longer. He therefore accepted the loan of the factor’s clothes, promising to return them, and send for his own; and took a civil leave of his host and Mistress Baby, the latter of whom, however affected by the loss of her goose, could not but think the cost well bestowed (since it was to be expended at all) upon so handsome and cheerful a youth.
[26] The beetle with which the Scottish housewives used to perform the office of the modern mangle, by beating newly-washed linen on a smooth stone for the purpose, called the beetling-stone.
[27] The chapman’s drouth, that is, the pedlar’s thirst, is proverbial in Scotland, because these pedestrian traders were in the use of modestly asking only for a drink of water, when, in fact, they were desirous of food.
[28] Test upon it, i. e., leave it in my will; a mode of bestowing charity, to which many are partial as well as the good dame in the text.
[29] Although the Zetlanders were early reconciled to the reformed faith, some ancient practices of Catholic superstition survived long among them. In very stormy weather a fisher would vow an oramus to Saint Ronald, and acquitted himself of the obligation by throwing a small piece of money in at the window of a ruinous chapel.
CHAPTER VII.
She does no work by halves, yon raving ocean;
Engulfing those she strangles, her wild womb
Affords the mariners whom she hath dealt on,
Their death at once, and sepulchre.
Old Play.
There were ten “lang Scots miles” betwixt Stourburgh and Jarlshof; and though the pedestrian did not number all the impediments which crossed Tam o’ Shanter’s path,—for in a country where there are neither hedges nor stone enclosures, there can be neither “slaps nor stiles,”—yet the number and nature of the “mosses and waters” which he had to cross in his peregrination, was fully sufficient to balance the account, and to render his journey as toilsome and dangerous as Tam o’ Shanter’s celebrated retreat from Ayr. Neither witch nor warlock crossed Mordaunt’s path, however. The length of the day was already considerable, and he arrived safe at Jarlshof by eleven o’clock at night. All was still and dark round the mansion, and it was not till he had whistled twice or thrice beneath Swertha’s window, that she replied to the signal.
At the first sound, Swertha fell into an agreeable dream of a young whale-fisher, who some forty years before used to make such a signal beneath the window of her hut; at the second, she waked to remember that Johnnie Fea had slept sound among the frozen waves of Greenland for this many a year, and that she was Mr. Mertoun’s governante at Jarlshof; at the third, she arose and opened the window.
“Whae is that,” she demanded, “at sic an hour of the night?”
“It is I,” said the youth.
“And what for comena ye in? The door’s on the latch, and there is a gathering peat on the kitchen fire, and a spunk beside it—ye can light your ain candle.”
“All well,” replied Mordaunt; “but I want to know how my father is?”
“Just in his ordinary, gude gentleman—asking for you, Maister Mordaunt; ye are ower far and ower late in your walks, young gentleman.”
“Then the dark hour has passed, Swertha?”
“In troth has it, Maister Mordaunt,” answered the governante; “and your father is very reasonably good-natured for him, poor gentleman. I spake to him twice yesterday without his speaking first; and the first time he answered me as civil as you could do, and the neist time he bade me no plague him; and then, thought I, three times were aye canny, so I spake to him again for luck’s-sake, and he called me a chattering old devil; but it was quite and clean in a civil sort of way.”
“Enough, enough, Swertha,” answered Mordaunt; “and now get up, and find me something to eat, for I have dined but poorly.”
“Then you have been at the new folk’s at Stourburgh; for there is no another house in a’ the Isles but they wad hae gi’en ye the best share of the best they had. Saw ye aught of Norna of the Fitful-head? She went to Stourburgh this morning, and returned to the town at night.”
“Returned!—then she is here? How could she travel three leagues and better in so short a time?”
“Wha kens how she travels?” replied Swertha; “but I heard her tell the Ranzelman wi’ my ain lugs, that she intended that day to have gone on to Burgh-Westra, to speak with Minna Troil, but she had seen that at Stourburgh, (indeed she said at Harfra, for she never calls it by the other name of Stourburgh,) that sent her back to our town. But gang your ways round, and ye shall have plenty of supper—ours is nae toom pantry, and still less a locked ane, though my master be a stranger, and no just that tight in the upper rigging, as the Ranzelman says.”
Mordaunt walked round to the kitchen accordingly, where Swertha’s care speedily accommodated him with a plentiful, though coarse meal, which indemnified him for the scanty hospitality he had experienced at Stourburgh.
In the morning, some feelings of fatigue made young Mertoun later than usual in leaving his bed; so that, contrary to what was the ordinary case, he found his father in the apartment where they eat, and which served them indeed for every common purpose, save that of a bedchamber or of a kitchen. The son greeted the father in mute reverence, and waited until he should address him.
“You were absent yesterday, Mordaunt?” said his father. Mordaunt’s absence had lasted a week and more; but he had often observed that his father never seemed to notice how time passed during the period when he was affected with his sullen vapours. He assented to what the elder Mr. Mertoun had said.
“And you were at Burgh-Westra, as I think?” continued his father.
“Yes, sir,” replied Mordaunt.
The elder Mertoun was then silent for some time, and paced the floor in deep silence, with an air of sombre reflection, which seemed as if he were about to relapse into his moody fit. Suddenly turning to his son, however, he observed, in the tone of a query, “Magnus Troil has two daughters—they must be now young women; they are thought handsome, of course?”
“Very generally, sir,” answered Mordaunt, rather surprised to hear his father making any enquiries about the individuals of a sex which he usually thought so light of, a surprise which was much increased by the next question, put as abruptly as the former.
“Which think you the handsomest?”
“I, sir?” replied his son with some wonder, but without embarrassment—“I really am no judge—I never considered which was absolutely the handsomest. They are both very pretty young women.”
“You evade my question, Mordaunt; perhaps I have some very particular reason for my wish to be acquainted with your taste in this matter. I am not used to waste words for no purpose. I ask you again, which of Magnus Troil’s daughters you think most handsome?”
“Really, sir,” replied Mordaunt—“but you only jest in asking me such a question.”
“Young man,” replied Mertoun, with eyes which began to roll and sparkle with impatience, “I never jest. I desire an answer to my question.”
“Then, upon my word, sir,” said Mordaunt, “it is not in my power to form a judgment betwixt the young ladies—they are both very pretty, but by no means like each other. Minna is dark-haired, and more grave than her sister—more serious, but by no means either dull or sullen.”
“Um,” replied his father; “you have been gravely brought up, and this Minna, I suppose, pleases you most?”
“No, sir, really I can give her no preference over her sister Brenda, who is as gay as a lamb in a spring morning—less tall than her sister, but so well formed, and so excellent a dancer”——
“That she is best qualified to amuse the young man, who has a dull home and a moody father?” said Mr. Mertoun.
Nothing in his father’s conduct had ever surprised Mordaunt so much as the obstinacy with which he seemed to pursue a theme so foreign to his general train of thought, and habits of conversation; but he contented himself with answering once more, “that both the young ladies were highly admirable, but he had never thought of them with the wish to do either injustice, by ranking her lower than her sister—that others would probably decide between them, as they happened to be partial to a grave or a gay disposition, or to a dark or fair complexion; but that he could see no excellent quality in the one that was not balanced by something equally captivating in the other.”
It is possible that even the coolness with which Mordaunt made this explanation might not have satisfied his father concerning the subject of investigation; but Swertha at this moment entered with breakfast, and the youth, notwithstanding his late supper, engaged in that meal with an air which satisfied Mertoun that he held it matter of more grave importance than the conversation which they had just had, and that he had nothing more to say upon the subject explanatory of the answers he had already given. He shaded his brow with his hand, and looked long fixedly upon the young man as he was busied with his morning meal. There was neither abstraction nor a sense of being observed in any of his motions; all was frank, natural, and open.
“He is fancy-free,” muttered Mertoun to himself—“so young, so lively, and so imaginative, so handsome and so attractive in face and person, strange, that at his age, and in his circumstances, he should have avoided the meshes which catch all the world beside!”
When the breakfast was over, the elder Mertoun, instead of proposing, as usual, that his son, who awaited his commands, should betake himself to one branch or other of his studies, assumed his hat and staff, and desired that Mordaunt should accompany him to the top of the cliff, called Sumburgh-head, and from thence look out upon the state of the ocean, agitated as it must still be by the tempest of the preceding day. Mordaunt was at the age when young men willingly exchange sedentary pursuits for active exercise, and started up with alacrity to comply with his father’s desire; and in the course of a few minutes they were mounting together the hill, which, ascending from the land side in a long, steep, and grassy slope, sinks at once from the summit to the sea in an abrupt and tremendous precipice.
The day was delightful; there was just so much motion in the air as to disturb the little fleecy clouds which were scattered on the horizon, and by floating them occasionally over the sun, to chequer the landscape with that variety of light and shade which often gives to a bare and unenclosed scene, for the time at least, a species of charm approaching to the varieties of a cultivated and planted country. A thousand flitting hues of light and shade played over the expanse of wild moor, rocks, and inlets, which, as they climbed higher and higher, spread in wide and wider circuit around them.
The elder Mertoun often paused and looked round upon the scene, and for some time his son supposed that he halted to enjoy its beauties; but as they ascended still higher up the hill, he remarked his shortened breath and his uncertain and toilsome step, and became assured, with some feelings of alarm, that his father’s strength was, for the moment, exhausted, and that he found the ascent more toilsome and fatiguing than usual. To draw close to his side, and offer him in silence the assistance of his arm, was an act of youthful deference to advanced age, as well as of filial reverence; and Mertoun seemed at first so to receive it, for he took in silence the advantage of the aid thus afforded him.
It was but for two or three minutes, however, that the father availed himself of his son’s support. They had not ascended fifty yards farther, ere he pushed Mordaunt suddenly, if not rudely, from him; and, as if stung into exertion by some sudden recollection, began to mount the acclivity with such long and quick steps, that Mordaunt, in his turn, was obliged to exert himself to keep pace with him. He knew his father’s peculiarity of disposition; he was aware from many slight circumstances, that he loved him not even while he took much pains with his education, and while he seemed to be the sole object of his care upon earth. But the conviction had never been more strongly or more powerfully forced upon him than by the hasty churlishness with which Mertoun rejected from a son that assistance, which most elderly men are willing to receive from youths with whom they are but slightly connected, as a tribute which it is alike graceful to yield and pleasing to receive. Mertoun, however, did not seem to perceive the effect which his unkindness had produced upon his son’s feelings. He paused upon a sort of level terrace which they had now attained, and addressed his son with an indifferent tone, which seemed in some degree affected.
“Since you have so few inducements, Mordaunt, to remain in these wild islands, I suppose you sometimes wish to look a little more abroad into the world?”
“By my word, sir,” replied Mordaunt, “I cannot say I ever have a thought on such a subject.”
“And why not, young man?” demanded his father; “it were but natural, I think, at your age. At your age, the fair and varied breadth of Britain could not gratify me, much less the compass of a sea-girdled peat-moss.”
“I have never thought of leaving Zetland, sir,” replied the son. “I am happy here, and have friends. You yourself, sir, would miss me, unless indeed”——
“Why, thou wouldst not persuade me,” said his father, somewhat hastily, “that you stay here, or desire to stay here, for the love of me?”
“Why should I not, sir?” answered Mordaunt, mildly; “it is my duty, and I hope I have hitherto performed it.”
“O ay,” repeated Mertoun, in the same tone—“your duty—your duty. So it is the duty of the dog to follow the groom that feeds him.”
“And does he not do so, sir?” said Mordaunt.
“Ay,” said his father, turning his head aside: “but he fawns only on those who caress him.”
“I hope, sir,” replied Mordaunt, “I have not been found deficient?”
“Say no more on’t—say no more on’t,” said Mertoun, abruptly, “we have both done enough by each other—we must soon part—Let that be our comfort—if our separation should require comfort.”
“I shall be ready to obey your wishes,” said Mordaunt, not altogether displeased at what promised him an opportunity of looking farther abroad into the world. “I presume it will be your pleasure that I commence my travels with a season at the whale-fishing.”
“Whale-fishing!” replied Mertoun; “that were a mode indeed of seeing the world! but thou speakest but as thou hast learned. Enough of this for the present. Tell me where you had shelter from the storm yesterday?”
“At Stourburgh, the house of the new factor from Scotland.”
“A pedantic, fantastic, visionary schemer,” said Mertoun—“and whom saw you there?”
“His sister, sir,” replied Mordaunt, “and old Norna of the Fitful-head.”
“What! the mistress of the potent spell,” answered Mertoun, with a sneer—“she who can change the wind by pulling her curch on one side, as King Erick used to do by turning his cap? The dame journeys far from home—how fares she? Does she get rich by selling favourable winds to those who are port-bound?”[30]
“I really do not know, sir,” said Mordaunt, whom certain recollections prevented from freely entering into his father’s humour.
“You think the matter too serious to be jested with, or perhaps esteem her merchandise too light to be cared after,” continued Mertoun, in the same sarcastic tone, which was the nearest approach he ever made to cheerfulness; “but consider it more deeply. Every thing in the universe is bought and sold, and why not wind, if the merchant can find purchasers? The earth is rented, from its surface down to its most central mines;—the fire, and the means of feeding it, are currently bought and sold;—the wretches that sweep the boisterous ocean with their nets, pay ransom for the privilege of being drowned in it. What title has the air to be exempted from the universal course of traffic? All above the earth, under the earth, and around the earth, has its price, its sellers, and its purchasers. In many countries the priests will sell you a portion of heaven—in all countries men are willing to buy, in exchange for health, wealth, and peace of conscience, a full allowance of hell. Why should not Norna pursue her traffic?”
“Nay, I know no reason against it,” replied Mordaunt; “only I wish she would part with the commodity in smaller quantities. Yesterday she was a wholesale dealer—whoever treated with her had too good a pennyworth.”
“It is even so,” said his father, pausing on the verge of the wild promontory which they had attained, where the huge precipice sinks abruptly down on the wide and tempestuous ocean, “and the effects are still visible.”
The face of that lofty cape is composed of the soft and crumbling stone called sand-flag, which gradually becomes decomposed, and yields to the action of the atmosphere, and is split into large masses, that hang loose upon the verge of the precipice, and, detached from it by the violence of the tempests, often descend with great fury into the vexed abyss which lashes the foot of the rock. Numbers of these huge fragments lie strewed beneath the rocks from which they have fallen, and amongst these the tide foams and rages with a fury peculiar to those latitudes.
At the period when Mertoun and his son looked from the verge of the precipice, the wide sea still heaved and swelled with the agitation of yesterday’s storm, which had been far too violent in its effects on the ocean to subside speedily. The tide therefore poured on the headland with a fury deafening to the ear, and dizzying to the eye, threatening instant destruction to whatever might be at the time involved in its current. The sight of Nature, in her magnificence, or in her beauty, or in her terrors, has at all times an overpowering interest, which even habit cannot greatly weaken; and both father and son sat themselves down on the cliff to look out upon that unbounded war of waters, which rolled in their wrath to the foot of the precipice.
At once Mordaunt, whose eyes were sharper, and probably his attention more alert, than that of his father, started up, and exclaimed, “God in Heaven! there is a vessel in the Roost!”
Mertoun looked to the north-westward, and an object was visible amid the rolling tide. “She shows no sail,” he observed; and immediately added, after looking at the object through his spy-glass, “She is dismasted, and lies a sheer hulk upon the water.”
“And is drifting on the Sumburgh-head,” exclaimed Mordaunt, struck with horror, “without the slightest means of weathering the cape!”
“She makes no effort,” answered his father; “she is probably deserted by her crew.”
“And in such a day as yesterday,” replied Mordaunt, “when no open boat could live were she manned with the best men ever handled an oar—all must have perished.”
“It is most probable,” said his father, with stern composure; “and one day, sooner or later, all must have perished. What signifies whether the fowler, whom nothing escapes, caught them up at one swoop from yonder shattered deck, or whether he clutched them individually, as chance gave them to his grasp? What signifies it?—the deck, the battlefield, are scarce more fatal to us than our table and our bed; and we are saved from the one, merely to drag out a heartless and wearisome existence, till we perish at the other. Would the hour were come—that hour which reason would teach us to wish for, were it not that nature has implanted the fear of it so strongly within us! You wonder at such a reflection, because life is yet new to you. Ere you have attained my age, it will be the familiar companion of your thoughts.”
“Surely, sir,” replied Mordaunt, “such distaste to life is not the necessary consequence of advanced age?”
“To all who have sense to estimate that which it is really worth,” said Mertoun. “Those who, like Magnus Troil, possess so much of the animal impulses about them, as to derive pleasure from sensual gratification, may perhaps, like the animals, feel pleasure in mere existence.”
Mordaunt liked neither the doctrine nor the example. He thought a man who discharged his duties towards others as well as the good old Udaller, had a better right to have the sun shine fair on his setting, than that which he might derive from mere insensibility. But he let the subject drop; for to dispute with his father, had always the effect of irritating him; and again he adverted to the condition of the wreck.
The hulk, for it was little better, was now in the very midst of the current, and drifting at a great rate towards the foot of the precipice, upon whose verge they were placed. Yet it was a long while ere they had a distinct view of the object which they had at first seen as a black speck amongst the waters, and then, at a nearer distance, like a whale, which now scarce shows its back-fin above the waves, now throws to view its large black side. Now, however, they could more distinctly observe the appearance of the ship, for the huge swelling waves which bore her forward to the shore, heaved her alternately high upon the surface, and then plunged her into the trough or furrow of the sea. She seemed a vessel of two or three hundred tons, fitted up for defence, for they could see her port-holes. She had been dismasted probably in the gale of the preceding day, and lay water-logged on the waves, a prey to their violence. It appeared certain, that the crew, finding themselves unable either to direct the vessel’s course, or to relieve her by pumping, had taken to their boats, and left her to her fate. All apprehensions were therefore unnecessary, so far as the immediate loss of human lives was concerned; and yet it was not without a feeling of breathless awe that Mordaunt and his father beheld the vessel—that rare masterpiece by which human genius aspires to surmount the waves, and contend with the winds, upon the point of falling a prey to them.
Onward she came, the large black hulk seeming larger at every fathom’s length. She came nearer, until she bestrode the summit of one tremendous billow, which rolled on with her unbroken, till the wave and its burden were precipitated against the rock, and then the triumph of the elements over the work of human hands was at once completed. One wave, we have said, made the wrecked vessel completely manifest in her whole bulk, as it raised her, and bore her onward against the face of the precipice. But when that wave receded from the foot of the rock, the ship had ceased to exist; and the retiring billow only bore back a quantity of beams, planks, casks, and similar objects, which swept out to the offing, to be brought in again by the next wave, and again precipitated upon the face of the rock.
It was at this moment that Mordaunt conceived he saw a man floating on a plank or water-cask, which, drifting away from the main current, seemed about to go ashore upon a small spot of sand, where the water was shallow, and the waves broke more smoothly. To see the danger, and to exclaim, “He lives, and may yet be saved!” was the first impulse of the fearless Mordaunt. The next was, after one rapid glance at the front of the cliff, to precipitate himself—such seemed the rapidity of his movement—from the verge, and to commence, by means of slight fissures, projections, and crevices in the rock, a descent, which, to a spectator, appeared little else than an act of absolute insanity.
“Stop, I command you, rash boy!” said his father; “the attempt is death. Stop, and take the safer path to the left.” But Mordaunt was already completely engaged in his perilous enterprise.
“Why should I prevent him?” said his father, checking his anxiety with the stern and unfeeling philosophy whose principles he had adopted. “Should he die now, full of generous and high feeling, eager in the cause of humanity, happy in the exertion of his own conscious activity, and youthful strength—should he die now, will he not escape misanthropy, and remorse, and age, and the consciousness of decaying powers, both of body and mind?—I will not look upon it however—I will not—I cannot behold his young light so suddenly quenched.”
He turned from the precipice accordingly, and hastening to the left for more than a quarter of a mile, he proceeded towards a riva, or cleft in the rock, containing a path, called Erick’s Steps, neither safe, indeed, nor easy, but the only one by which the inhabitants of Jarlshof were wont, for any purpose, to seek access to the foot of the precipice.
But long ere Mertoun had reached even the upper end of the pass, his adventurous and active son had accomplished his more desperate enterprise. He had been in vain turned aside from the direct line of descent, by the intervention of difficulties which he had not seen from above—his route became only more circuitous, but could not be interrupted. More than once, large fragments to which he was about to intrust his weight, gave way before him, and thundered down into the tormented ocean; and in one or two instances, such detached pieces of rock rushed after him, as if to bear him headlong in their course. A courageous heart, a steady eye, a tenacious hand, and a firm foot, carried him through his desperate attempt; and in the space of seven minutes, he stood at the bottom of the cliff, from the verge of which he had achieved his perilous descent.
The place which he now occupied was the small projecting spot of stones, sand, and gravel, that extended a little way into the sea, which on the right hand lashed the very bottom of the precipice, and on the left, was scarce divided from it by a small wave-worn portion of beach that extended as far as the foot of the rent in the rocks called Erick’s Steps, by which Mordaunt’s father proposed to descend.
When the vessel split and went to pieces, all was swallowed up in the ocean, which had, after the first shock, been seen to float upon the waves, excepting only a few pieces of wreck, casks, chests, and the like, which a strong eddy, formed by the reflux of the waves, had landed, or at least grounded, upon the shallow where Mordaunt now stood. Amongst these, his eager eye discovered the object that had at first engaged his attention, and which now, seen at nigher distance, proved to be in truth a man, and in a most precarious state. His arms were still wrapt with a close and convulsive grasp round the plank to which he had clung in the moment of the shock, but sense and the power of motion were fled; and, from the situation in which the plank lay, partly grounded upon the beach, partly floating in the sea, there was every chance that it might be again washed off shore, in which case death was inevitable. Just as he had made himself aware of these circumstances, Mordaunt beheld a huge wave advancing, and hastened to interpose his aid ere it burst, aware that the reflux might probably sweep away the sufferer.
He rushed into the surf, and fastened on the body, with the same tenacity, though under a different impulse, with that wherewith the hound seizes his prey. The strength of the retiring wave proved even greater than he had expected, and it was not without a struggle for his own life, as well as for that of the stranger, that Mordaunt resisted being swept off with the receding billow, when, though an adroit swimmer, the strength of the tide must either have dashed him against the rocks, or hurried him out to sea. He stood his ground, however, and ere another such billow had returned, he drew up, upon the small slip of dry sand, both the body of the stranger, and the plank to which he continued firmly attached. But how to save and to recall the means of ebbing life and strength, and how to remove into a place of greater safety the sufferer, who was incapable of giving any assistance towards his own preservation, were questions which Mordaunt asked himself eagerly, but in vain.
He looked to the summit of the cliff on which he had left his father, and shouted to him for his assistance; but his eye could not distinguish his form, and his voice was only answered by the scream of the sea-birds. He gazed again on the sufferer. A dress richly laced, according to the fashion of the times, fine linen, and rings upon his fingers, evinced he was a man of superior rank; and his features showed youth and comeliness, notwithstanding they were pallid and disfigured. He still breathed, but so feebly, that his respiration was almost imperceptible, and life seemed to keep such slight hold of his frame, that there was every reason to fear it would become altogether extinguished, unless it were speedily reinforced. To loosen the handkerchief from his neck, to raise him with his face towards the breeze, to support him with his arms, was all that Mordaunt could do for his assistance, whilst he anxiously looked for some one who might lend his aid in dragging the unfortunate to a more safe situation.
At this moment he beheld a man advancing slowly and cautiously along the beach. He was in hopes, at first, it was his father, but instantly recollected that he had not had time to come round by the circuitous descent, to which he must necessarily have recourse, and besides, he saw that the man who approached him was shorter in stature.
As he came nearer, Mordaunt was at no loss to recognise the pedlar whom the day before he had met with at Harfra, and who was known to him before upon many occasions. He shouted as loud as he could, “Bryce, hollo! Bryce, come hither!” But the merchant, intent upon picking up some of the spoils of the wreck, and upon dragging them out of reach of the tide, paid for some time little attention to his shouts.
When he did at length approach Mordaunt, it was not to lend him his aid, but to remonstrate with him on his rashness in undertaking the charitable office. “Are you mad?” said he; “you that have lived sae lang in Zetland, to risk the saving of a drowning man? Wot ye not, if you bring him to life again, he will be sure to do you some capital injury?[31]—Come, Master Mordaunt, bear a hand to what’s mair to the purpose. Help me to get ane or twa of these kists ashore before any body else comes, and we shall share, like good Christians, what God sends us, and be thankful.”
Mordaunt was indeed no stranger to this inhuman superstition, current at a former period among the lower orders of the Zetlanders, and the more generally adopted, perhaps, that it served as an apology for refusing assistance to the unfortunate victims of shipwreck, while they made plunder of their goods. At any rate, the opinion, that to save a drowning man was to run the risk of future injury from him, formed a strange contradiction in the character of these islanders; who, hospitable, generous, and disinterested, on all other occasions, were sometimes, nevertheless, induced by this superstition, to refuse their aid in those mortal emergencies, which were so common upon their rocky and stormy coasts. We are happy to add, that the exhortation and example of the proprietors have eradicated even the traces of this inhuman belief, of which there might be some observed within the memory of those now alive. It is strange that the minds of men should have ever been hardened towards those involved in a distress to which they themselves were so constantly exposed; but perhaps the frequent sight and consciousness of such danger tends to blunt the feelings to its consequences, whether affecting ourselves or others.
Bryce was remarkably tenacious of this ancient belief; the more so, perhaps, that the mounting of his pack depended less upon the warehouses of Lerwick or Kirkwall, than on the consequences of such a north-western gale as that of the day preceding; for which (being a man who, in his own way, professed great devotion) he seldom failed to express his grateful thanks to Heaven. It was indeed said of him, that if he had spent the same time in assisting the wrecked seamen, which he had employed in rifling their bales and boxes, he would have saved many lives, and lost much linen. He paid no sort of attention to the repeated entreaties of Mordaunt, although he was now upon the same slip of sand with him. It was well known to Bryce as a place on which the eddy was likely to land such spoils as the ocean disgorged; and to improve the favourable moment, he occupied himself exclusively in securing and appropriating whatever seemed most portable and of greatest value. At length Mordaunt saw the honest pedlar fix his views upon a strong sea-chest, framed of some Indian wood, well secured by brass plates, and seeming to be of a foreign construction. The stout lock resisted all Bryce’s efforts to open it, until, with great composure, he plucked from his pocket a very neat hammer and chisel, and began forcing the hinges.
Incensed beyond patience at his assurance, Mordaunt caught up a wooden stretcher which lay near him, and laying his charge softly on the sand, approached Bryce with a menacing gesture, and exclaimed, “You cold-blooded, inhuman rascal! either get up instantly and lend me your assistance to recover this man, and bear him out of danger from the surf, or I will not only beat you to a mummy on the spot, but inform Magnus Troil of your thievery, that he may have you flogged till your bones are bare, and then banish you from the Mainland!”
The lid of the chest had just sprung open as this rough address saluted Bryce’s ears, and the inside presented a tempting view of wearing apparel for sea and land; shirts, plain and with lace ruffles, a silver compass, a silver-hilted sword, and other valuable articles, which the pedlar well knew to be such as stir in the trade. He was half-disposed to start up, draw the sword, which was a cut-and-thrust, and “darraign battaile,” as Spenser says, rather than quit his prize, or brook interruption. Being, though short, a stout square-made personage, and not much past the prime of life, having besides the better weapon, he might have given Mordaunt more trouble than his benevolent knight-errantry deserved.
Already, as with vehemence he repeated his injunctions that Bryce should forbear his plunder, and come to the assistance of the dying man, the pedlar retorted with a voice of defiance, “Dinna swear, sir; dinna swear, sir—I will endure no swearing in my presence; and if you lay a finger on me, that am taking the lawful spoil of the Egyptians, I will give ye a lesson ye shall remember from this day to Yule!”
Mordaunt would speedily have put the pedlar’s courage to the test, but a voice behind him suddenly said, “Forbear!” It was the voice of Norna of the Fitful-head, who, during the heat of their altercation, had approached them unobserved. “Forbear!” she repeated; “and, Bryce, do thou render Mordaunt the assistance he requires. It shall avail thee more, and it is I who say the word, than all that you could earn to-day besides.”
“It is se’enteen hundred linen,” said the pedlar, giving a tweak to one of the shirts, in that knowing manner with which matrons and judges ascertain the texture of the loom;—“it’s se’enteen hundred linen, and as strong as an it were dowlas. Nevertheless, mother, your bidding is to be done; and I would have done Mr. Mordaunt’s bidding too,” he added, relaxing from his note of defiance into the deferential whining tone with which he cajoled his customers, “if he hadna made use of profane oaths, which made my very flesh grew, and caused me, in some sort, to forget myself.” He then took a flask from his pocket, and approached the shipwrecked man. “It’s the best of brandy,” he said; “and if that doesna cure him, I ken nought that will.” So saying, he took a preliminary gulp himself, as if to show the quality of the liquor, and was about to put it to the man’s mouth, when, suddenly withholding his hand, he looked at Norna—“You ensure me against all risk of evil from him, if I am to render him my help?—Ye ken yoursell what folk say, mother.”
For all other answer, Norna took the bottle from the pedlar’s hand, and began to chafe the temples and throat of the shipwrecked man; directing Mordaunt how to hold his head, so as to afford him the means of disgorging the sea-water which he had swallowed during his immersion.
The pedlar looked on inactive for a moment, and then said, “To be sure, there is not the same risk in helping him, now he is out of the water, and lying high and dry on the beach; and, to be sure, the principal danger is to those that first touch him; and, to be sure, it is a world’s pity to see how these rings are pinching the puir creature’s swalled fingers—they make his hand as blue as a partan’s back before boiling.” So saying, he seized one of the man’s cold hands, which had just, by a tremulous motion, indicated the return of life, and began his charitable work of removing the rings, which seemed to be of some value.
“As you love your life, forbear,” said Norna, sternly, “or I will lay that on you which shall spoil your travels through the isles.”
“Now, for mercy’s sake, mother, say nae mair about it,” said the pedlar, “and I’ll e’en do your pleasure in your ain way! I did feel a rheumatize in my back-spauld yestreen; and it wad be a sair thing for the like of me to be debarred my quiet walk round the country, in the way of trade—making the honest penny, and helping myself with what Providence sends on our coasts.”
“Peace, then,” said the woman—“Peace, as thou wouldst not rue it; and take this man on thy broad shoulders. His life is of value, and you will be rewarded.”
“I had muckle need,” said the pedlar, pensively looking at the lidless chest, and the other matters which strewed the sand; “for he has come between me and as muckle spreacherie as wad hae made a man of me for the rest of my life; and now it maun lie here till the next tide sweep it a’ doun the Roost, after them that aught it yesterday morning.”
“Fear not,” said Norna, “it will come to man’s use. See, there come carrion-crows, of scent as keen as thine own.”
She spoke truly; for several of the people from the hamlet of Jarlshof were now hastening along the beach, to have their share in the spoil. The pedlar beheld them approach with a deep groan. “Ay, ay,” he said, “the folk of Jarlshof, they will make clean wark; they are kend for that far and wide; they winna leave the value of a rotten ratlin; and what’s waur, there isna ane o’ them has mense or sense eneugh to give thanks for the mercies when they have gotten them. There is the auld Ranzelman, Neil Ronaldson, that canna walk a mile to hear the minister, but he will hirple ten if he hears of a ship embayed.”
Norna, however, seemed to possess over him so complete an ascendency, that he no longer hesitated to take the man, who now gave strong symptoms of reviving existence, upon his shoulders; and, assisted by Mordaunt, trudged along the sea-beach with his burden, without farther remonstrance. Ere he was borne off, the stranger pointed to the chest, and attempted to mutter something, to which Norna replied, “Enough. It shall be secured.”
Advancing towards the passage called Erick’s Steps, by which they were to ascend the cliffs, they met the people from Jarlshof hastening in the opposite direction. Man and woman, as they passed, reverently made room for Norna, and saluted her—not without an expression of fear upon some of their faces. She passed them a few paces, and then turning back, called aloud to the Ranzelman, who (though the practice was more common than legal) was attending the rest of the hamlet upon this plundering expedition. “Neil Ronaldson,” she said, “mark my words. There stands yonder a chest, from which the lid has been just prized off. Look it be brought down to your own house at Jarlshof, just as it now is. Beware of moving or touching the slightest article. He were better in his grave that so much as looks at the contents. I speak not for nought, nor in aught will I be disobeyed.”
“Your pleasure shall be done, mother,” said Ronaldson. “I warrant we will not break bulk, since sic is your bidding.”
Far behind the rest of the villagers, followed an old woman, talking to herself, and cursing her own decrepitude, which kept her the last of the party, yet pressing forward with all her might to get her share of the spoil.
When they met her, Mordaunt was astonished to recognise his father’s old housekeeper. “How now,” he said, “Swertha, what make you so far from home?”
“Just e’en daikering out to look after my auld master and your honour,” replied Swertha, who felt like a criminal caught in the manner; for on more occasions than one, Mr. Mertoun had intimated his high disapprobation of such excursions as she was at present engaged in.
But Mordaunt was too much engaged with his own thoughts to take much notice of her delinquency. “Have you seen my father?” he said.
“And that I have,” replied Swertha—“The gude gentleman was ganging to hirsel himsell doun Erick’s Steps, whilk would have been the ending of him, that is in no way a cragsman. Sae I e’en gat him wiled away hame—and I was just seeking you that you may gang after him to the hall-house, for to my thought he is far frae weel.”
“My father unwell?” said Mordaunt, remembering the faintness he had exhibited at the commencement of that morning’s walk.
“Far frae weel—far frae weel,” groaned out Swertha, with a piteous shake of the head—“white o’ the gills—white o’ the gills—and him to think of coming down the riva!”
“Return home, Mordaunt,” said Norna, who was listening to what had passed. “I will see all that is necessary done for this man’s relief, and you will find him at the Ranzelman’s, when you list to enquire. You cannot help him more than you already have done.”
Mordaunt felt this was true, and, commanding Swertha to follow him instantly, betook himself to the path homeward.
Swertha hobbled reluctantly after her young master in the same direction, until she lost sight of him on his entering the cleft of the rock; then instantly turned about, muttering to herself, “Haste home, in good sooth?—haste home, and lose the best chance of getting a new rokelay and owerlay that I have had these ten years? by my certie, na—It’s seldom sic rich godsends come on our shore—no since the Jenny and James came ashore in King Charlie’s time.”
So saying, she mended her pace as well as she could, and, a willing mind making amends for frail limbs, posted on with wonderful dispatch to put in for her share of the spoil. She soon reached the beach, where the Ranzelman, stuffing his own pouches all the while, was exhorting the rest to part things fair, and be neighbourly, and to give to the auld and helpless a share of what was going, which, he charitably remarked, would bring a blessing on the shore, and send them “mair wrecks ere winter.”[32]
[30] [Note III.]—Sale of Winds.
[31] [Note IV.]—Reluctance to Save Drowning Men.
[32] [Note V.]—Mair Wrecks ere Winter.
CHAPTER VIII.
He was a lovely youth, I guess;
The panther in the wilderness
Was not so fair as he;
And when he chose to sport and play,
No dolphin ever was so gay,
Upon the tropic sea.
Wordsworth.
The light foot of Mordaunt Mertoun was not long of bearing him to Jarlshof. He entered the house hastily, for what he himself had observed that morning, corresponded in some degree with the ideas which Swertha’s tale was calculated to excite. He found his father, however, in the inner apartment, reposing himself after his fatigue; and his first question satisfied him that the good dame had practised a little imposition to get rid of them both.
“Where is this dying man, whom you have so wisely ventured your own neck to relieve?” said the elder Mertoun to the younger.
“Norna, sir,” replied Mordaunt, “has taken him under her charge; she understands such matters.”
“And is quack as well as witch?” said the elder Mertoun. “With all my heart—it is a trouble saved. But I hasted home, on Swertha’s hint, to look out for lint and bandages; for her speech was of broken bones.”
Mordaunt kept silence, well knowing his father would not persevere in his enquiries upon such a matter, and not willing either to prejudice the old governante, or to excite his father to one of those excesses of passion into which he was apt to burst, when, contrary to his wont, he thought proper to correct the conduct of his domestic.
It was late in the day ere old Swertha returned from her expedition, heartily fatigued, and bearing with her a bundle of some bulk, containing, it would seem, her share of the spoil. Mordaunt instantly sought her out, to charge her with the deceits she had practised on both his father and himself; but the accused matron lacked not her reply.
“By her troth;” she said, “she thought it was time to bid Mr. Mertoun gang hame and get bandages, when she had seen, with her ain twa een, Mordaunt ganging down the cliff like a wild-cat—it was to be thought broken bones would be the end, and lucky if bandages wad do any good;—and, by her troth, she might weel tell Mordaunt his father was puirly, and him looking sae white in the gills, (whilk, she wad die upon it, was the very word she used,) and it was a thing that couldna be denied by man at this very moment.”
“But, Swertha,” said Mordaunt, as soon as her clamorous defence gave him time to speak in reply, “how came you, that should have been busy with your housewifery and your spinning, to be out this morning at Erick’s Steps, in order to take all this unnecessary care of my father and me?—And what is in that bundle, Swertha? for I fear, Swertha, you have been transgressing the law, and have been out upon the wrecking system.”
“Fair fa’ your sonsy face, and the blessing of Saint Ronald upon you!” said Swertha, in a tone betwixt coaxing and jesting; “would you keep a puir body frae mending hersell, and sae muckle gear lying on the loose sand for the lifting?—Hout, Maister Mordaunt, a ship ashore is a sight to wile the minister out of his very pu’pit in the middle of his preaching, muckle mair a puir auld ignorant wife frae her rock and her tow. And little did I get for my day’s wark—just some rags o’ cambric things, and a bit or twa of coorse claith, and sic like—the strong and the hearty get a’ thing in this warld.”
“Yes, Swertha,” replied Mordaunt, “and that is rather hard, as you must have your share of punishment in this world and the next, for robbing the poor mariners.”
“Hout, callant, wha wad punish an auld wife like me for a wheen duds?—Folk speak muckle black ill of Earl Patrick; but he was a freend to the shore, and made wise laws against ony body helping vessels that were like to gang on the breakers.[33]—And the mariners, I have heard Bryce Jagger say, lose their right frae the time keel touches sand; and, moreover, they are dead and gane, poor souls—dead and gane, and care little about warld’s wealth now—Nay, nae mair than the great Jarls and Sea-kings, in the Norse days, did about the treasures that they buried in the tombs and sepulchres auld langsyne. Did I ever tell you the sang, Maister Mordaunt, how Olaf Tryguarson garr’d hide five gold crowns in the same grave with him?”
“No, Swertha,” said Mordaunt, who took pleasure in tormenting the cunning old plunderer—“you never told me that; but I tell you, that the stranger whom Norna has taken down to the town, will be well enough to-morrow, to ask where you have hidden the goods that you have stolen from the wreck.”
“But wha will tell him a word about it, hinnie?” said Swertha, looking slyly up in her young master’s face—“The mair by token, since I maun tell ye, that I have a bonny remnant of silk amang the lave, that will make a dainty waistcoat to yoursell, the first merry-making ye gang to.”
Mordaunt could no longer forbear laughing at the cunning with which the old dame proposed to bribe off his evidence by imparting a portion of her plunder; and, desiring her to get ready what provision she had made for dinner, he returned to his father, whom he found still sitting in the same place, and nearly in the same posture, in which he had left him.
When their hasty and frugal meal was finished, Mordaunt announced to his father his purpose of going down to the town, or hamlet, to look after the shipwrecked sailor.
The elder Mertoun assented with a nod.
“He must be ill accommodated there, sir,” added his son,—a hint which only produced another nod of assent. “He seemed, from his appearance,” pursued Mordaunt, “to be of very good rank—and admitting these poor people do their best to receive him, in his present weak state, yet”——
“I know what you would say,” said his father, interrupting him; “we, you think, ought to do something towards assisting him. Go to him, then—if he lacks money, let him name the sum, and he shall have it; but, for lodging the stranger here, and holding intercourse with him, I neither can, nor will do so. I have retired to this farthest extremity of the British isles, to avoid new friends, and new faces, and none such shall intrude on me either their happiness or their misery. When you have known the world half a score of years longer, your early friends will have given you reason to remember them, and to avoid new ones for the rest of your life. Go then—why do you stop?—rid the country of the man—let me see no one about me but those vulgar countenances, the extent and character of whose petty knavery I know, and can submit to, as to an evil too trifling to cause irritation.” He then threw his purse to his son, and signed to him to depart with all speed.
Mordaunt was not long before he reached the village. In the dark abode of Neil Ronaldson, the Ranzelman, he found the stranger seated by the peat-fire, upon the very chest which had excited the cupidity of the devout Bryce Snailsfoot, the pedlar. The Ranzelman himself was absent, dividing, with all due impartiality, the spoils of the wrecked vessel amongst the natives of the community; listening to and redressing their complaints of inequality; and (if the matter in hand had not been, from beginning to end, utterly unjust and indefensible) discharging the part of a wise and prudent magistrate, in all the details. For at this time, and probably until a much later period, the lower orders of the islanders entertained an opinion, common to barbarians also in the same situation, that whatever was cast on their shores, became their indisputable property.
Margery Bimbister, the worthy spouse of the Ranzelman, was in the charge of the house, and introduced Mordaunt to her guest, saying, with no great ceremony, “This is the young tacksman—You will maybe tell him your name, though you will not tell it to us. If it had not been for his four quarters, it’s but little you would have said to any body, sae lang as life lasted.”
The stranger arose, and shook Mordaunt by the hand; observing, he understood that he had been the means of saving his life and his chest. “The rest of the property,” he said, “is, I see, walking the plank; for they are as busy as the devil in a gale of wind.”
“And what was the use of your seamanship, then,” said Margery, “that you couldna keep off the Sumburgh-head? It would have been lang ere Sumburgh-head had come to you.”
“Leave us for a moment, good Margery Bimbister,” said Mordaunt; “I wish to have some private conversation with this gentleman.”
“Gentleman!” said Margery, with an emphasis; “not but the man is well enough to look at,” she added, again surveying him, “but I doubt if there is muckle of the gentleman about him.”
Mordaunt looked at the stranger, and was of a different opinion. He was rather above the middle size, and formed handsomely as well as strongly. Mordaunt’s intercourse with society was not extensive; but he thought his new acquaintance, to a bold sunburnt handsome countenance, which seemed to have faced various climates, added the frank and open manners of a sailor. He answered cheerfully the enquiries which Mordaunt made after his health; and maintained that one night’s rest would relieve him from all the effects of the disaster he had sustained. But he spoke with bitterness of the avarice and curiosity of the Ranzelman and his spouse.
“That chattering old woman,” said the stranger, “has persecuted me the whole day for the name of the ship. I think she might be contented with the share she has had of it. I was the principal owner of the vessel that was lost yonder, and they have left me nothing but my wearing apparel. Is there no magistrate, or justice of the peace, in this wild country, that would lend a hand to help one when he is among the breakers?”
Mordaunt mentioned Magnus Troil, the principal proprietor, as well as the Fowd, or provincial judge, of the district, as the person from whom he was most likely to obtain redress; and regretted that his own youth, and his father’s situation as a retired stranger, should put it out of their power to afford him the protection he required.
“Nay, for your part, you have done enough,” said the sailor; “but if I had five out of the forty brave fellows that are fishes’ food by this time, the devil a man would I ask to do me the right that I could do for myself!”
“Forty hands!” said Mordaunt; “you were well manned for the size of the ship.”
“Not so well as we needed to be. We mounted ten guns, besides chasers; but our cruise on the main had thinned us of men, and lumbered us up with goods. Six of our guns were in ballast—Hands! if I had had enough of hands, we would never have miscarried so infernally. The people were knocked up with working the pumps, and so took to their boats, and left me with the vessel, to sink or swim. But the dogs had their pay, and I can afford to pardon them—The boat swamped in the current—all were lost—and here am I.”
“You had come north about then, from the West Indies?” said Mordaunt.
“Ay, ay; the vessel was the Good Hope of Bristol, a letter of marque. She had fine luck down on the Spanish main, both with commerce and privateering, but the luck’s ended with her now. My name is Clement Cleveland, captain, and part owner, as I said before—I am a Bristol man born—my father was well known on the Tollsell—old Clem Cleveland of the College-green.”
Mordaunt had no right to enquire farther, and yet it seemed to him as if his own mind was but half satisfied. There was an affectation of bluntness, a sort of defiance, in the manner of the stranger, for which circumstances afforded no occasion. Captain Cleveland had suffered injustice from the islanders, but from Mordaunt he had only received kindness and protection; yet he seemed as if he involved all the neighbourhood in the wrongs he complained of. Mordaunt looked down and was silent, doubting whether it would be better to take his leave, or to proceed farther in his offers of assistance. Cleveland seemed to guess at his thoughts, for he immediately added, in a conciliating manner,—“I am a plain man, Master Mertoun, for that I understand is your name; and I am a ruined man to boot, and that does not mend one’s good manners. But you have done a kind and friendly part by me, and it may be I think as much of it as if I thanked you more. And so before I leave this place, I’ll give you my fowlingpiece; she will put a hundred swan-shot through a Dutchman’s cap at eighty paces—she will carry ball too—I have hit a wild bull within a hundred-and-fifty yards—but I have two pieces that are as good, or better, so you may keep this for my sake.”
“That would be to take my share of the wreck,” answered Mordaunt, laughing.
“No such matter,” said Cleveland, undoing a case which contained several guns and pistols,—“you see I have saved my private arm-chest, as well as my clothes—that the tall old woman in the dark rigging managed for me. And, between ourselves, it is worth all I have lost; for,” he added, lowering his voice, and looking round, “when I speak of being ruined in the hearing of these landsharks, I do not mean ruined stock and block. No, here is something will do more than shoot sea-fowl.” So saying, he pulled out a great ammunition-pouch marked swan-shot, and showed Mordaunt, hastily, that it was full of Spanish pistoles and Portagues (as the broad Portugal pieces were then called.) “No, no,” he added, with a smile, “I have ballast enough to trim the vessel again; and now, will you take the piece?”
“Since you are willing to give it me,” said Mordaunt, laughing, “with all my heart. I was just going to ask you in my father’s name,” he added, showing his purse, “whether you wanted any of that same ballast.”
“Thanks, but you see I am provided—take my old acquaintance, and may she serve you as well as she has served me; but you will never make so good a voyage with her. You can shoot, I suppose?”
“Tolerably well,” said Mordaunt, admiring the piece, which was a beautiful Spanish-barrelled gun, inlaid with gold, small in the bore, and of unusual length, such as is chiefly used for shooting sea-fowl, and for ball-practice.
“With slugs,” continued the donor, “never gun shot closer; and with single ball, you may kill a seal two hundred yards at sea from the top of the highest peak of this iron-bound coast of yours. But I tell you again, that the old rattler will never do you the service she has done me.”
“I shall not use her so dexterously, perhaps,” said Mordaunt.
“Umph!—perhaps not,” replied Cleveland; “but that is not the question. What say you to shooting the man at the wheel, just as we run aboard of a Spaniard? So the Don was taken aback, and we laid him athwart the hawse, and carried her cutlass in hand; and worth the while she was—stout brigantine—El Santo Francisco—bound for Porto Bello, with gold and negroes. That little bit of lead was worth twenty thousand pistoles.”
“I have shot at no such game as yet,” said Mordaunt.
“Well, all in good time; we cannot weigh till the tide makes. But you are a tight, handsome, active young man. What is to ail you to take a trip after some of this stuff?” laying his hand on the bag of gold.
“My father talks of my travelling soon,” replied Mordaunt, who, born to hold men-of-wars-men in great respect, felt flattered by this invitation from one who appeared a thorough-bred seaman.
“I respect him for the thought,” said the Captain; “and I will visit him before I weigh anchor. I have a consort off these islands, and be cursed to her. She’ll find me out somewhere, though she parted company in the bit of a squall, unless she is gone to Davy Jones too.—Well, she was better found than we, and not so deep loaded—she must have weathered it. We’ll have a hammock slung for you aboard, and make a sailor and a man of you in the same trip.”
“I should like it well enough,” said Mordaunt, who eagerly longed to see more of the world than his lonely situation had hitherto permitted; “but then my father must decide.”
“Your father? pooh!” said Captain Cleveland;—“but you are very right,” he added, checking himself; “Gad, I have lived so long at sea, that I cannot imagine any body has a right to think except the captain and the master. But you are very right. I will go up to the old gentleman this instant, and speak to him myself. He lives in that handsome, modern-looking building, I suppose, that I see a quarter of a mile off?”
“In that old half-ruined house,” said Mordaunt, “he does indeed live; but he will see no visitors.”
“Then you must drive the point yourself, for I can’t stay in this latitude. Since your father is no magistrate, I must go to see this same Magnus—how call you him?—who is not justice of peace, but something else that will do the turn as well. These fellows have got two or three things that I must and will have back—let them keep the rest and be d—d to them. Will you give me a letter to him, just by way of commission?”
“It is scarce needful,” said Mordaunt. “It is enough that you are shipwrecked, and need his help;—but yet I may as well furnish you with a letter of introduction.”
“There,” said the sailor, producing a writing-case from his chest, “are your writing-tools.—Meantime, since bulk has been broken, I will nail down the hatches, and make sure of the cargo.”
While Mordaunt, accordingly, was engaged in writing to Magnus Troil a letter, setting forth the circumstances in which Captain Cleveland had been thrown upon their coast, the Captain, having first selected and laid aside some wearing apparel and necessaries enough to fill a knapsack, took in hand hammer and nails, employed himself in securing the lid of his sea-chest, by fastening it down in a workmanlike manner, and then added the corroborating security of a cord, twisted and knotted with nautical dexterity. “I leave this in your charge,” he said, “all except this,” showing the bag of gold, “and these,” pointing to a cutlass and pistols, “which may prevent all further risk of my parting company with my Portagues.”
“You will find no occasion for weapons in this country, Captain Cleveland,” replied Mordaunt; “a child might travel with a purse of gold from Sumburgh-head to the Scaw of Unst, and no soul would injure him.”
“And that’s pretty boldly said, young gentleman, considering what is going on without doors at this moment.”
“O,” replied Mordaunt, a little confused, “what comes on land with the tide, they reckon their lawful property. One would think they had studied under Sir Arthegal, who pronounces—
‘For equal right in equal things doth stand,
And what the mighty sea hath once possess’d,
And plucked quite from all possessors’ hands,
Or else by wrecks that wretches have distress’d,
He may dispose, by his resistless might,
As things at random left, to whom he list.’”
“I shall think the better of plays and ballads as long as I live, for these very words,” said Captain Cleveland; “and yet I have loved them well enough in my day. But this is good doctrine, and more men than one may trim their sails to such a breeze. What the sea sends is ours, that’s sure enough. However, in case that your good folks should think the land as well as the sea may present them with waiffs and strays, I will make bold to take my cutlass and pistols.—Will you cause my chest to be secured in your own house till you hear from me, and use your influence to procure me a guide to show me the way, and to carry my kit?”
“Will you go by sea or land?” said Mordaunt, in reply.
“By sea!” exclaimed Cleveland. “What—in one of these cockleshells, and a cracked cockleshell, to boot? No, no—land, land, unless I knew my crew, my vessel, and my voyage.”
They parted accordingly, Captain Cleveland being supplied with a guide to conduct him to Burgh-Westra, and his chest being carefully removed to the mansion-house at Jarlshof.
[33] This was literally true.
CHAPTER IX.
This is a gentle trader, and a prudent.
He’s no Autolycus, to blear your eye,
With quips of worldly gauds and gamesomeness;
But seasons all his glittering merchandise
With wholesome doctrines, suited to the use,
As men sauce goose with sage and rosemary.
Old Play.
On the subsequent morning, Mordaunt, in answer to his father’s enquiries, began to give him some account of the shipwrecked mariner, whom he had rescued from the waves. But he had not proceeded far in recapitulating the particulars which Cleveland had communicated, when Mr. Mertoun’s looks became disturbed—he arose hastily, and, after pacing twice or thrice across the room, he retired into the inner chamber, to which he usually confined himself, while under the influence of his mental malady. In the evening he re-appeared, without any traces of his disorder; but it may be easily supposed that his son avoided recurring to the subject which had affected him.
Mordaunt Mertoun was thus left without assistance, to form at his leisure his own opinion respecting the new acquaintance which the sea had sent him; and, upon the whole, he was himself surprised to find the result less favourable to the stranger than he could well account for. There seemed to Mordaunt to be a sort of repelling influence about the man. True, he was a handsome man, of a frank and prepossessing manner, but there was an assumption of superiority about him, which Mordaunt did not quite so much like. Although he was so keen a sportsman as to be delighted with his acquisition of the Spanish-barrelled gun, and accordingly mounted and dismounted it with great interest, paying the utmost attention to the most minute parts about the lock and ornaments, yet he was, upon the whole, inclined to have some scruples about the mode in which he had acquired it.
“I should not have accepted it,” he thought; “perhaps Captain Cleveland might give it me as a sort of payment for the trifling service I did him; and yet it would have been churlish to refuse it in the way it was offered. I wish he had looked more like a man whom one would have chosen to be obliged to.”
But a successful day’s shooting reconciled him to his gun, and he became assured, like most young sportsmen in similar circumstances, that all other pieces were but pop-guns in comparison. But then, to be doomed to shoot gulls and seals, when there were Frenchmen and Spaniards to be come at—when there were ships to be boarded, and steersmen to be marked off, seemed but a dull and contemptible destiny. His father had mentioned his leaving these islands, and no other mode of occupation occurred to his inexperience, save that of the sea, with which he had been conversant from his infancy. His ambition had formerly aimed no higher than at sharing the fatigues and dangers of a Greenland fishing expedition; for it was in that scene that the Zetlanders laid most of their perilous adventures. But war was again raging, the history of Sir Francis Drake, Captain Morgan, and other bold adventurers, an account of whose exploits he had purchased from Bryce Snailsfoot, had made much impression on his mind, and the offer of Captain Cleveland to take him to sea, frequently recurred to him, although the pleasure of such a project was somewhat damped by a doubt, whether, in the long run, he should not find many objections to his proposed commander. Thus much he already saw, that he was opinionative, and might probably prove arbitrary; and that, since even his kindness was mingled with an assumption of superiority, his occasional displeasure might contain a great deal more of that disagreeable ingredient than could be palatable to those who sailed under him. And yet, after counting all risks, could his father’s consent be obtained, with what pleasure, he thought, would he embark in quest of new scenes and strange adventures, in which he proposed to himself to achieve such deeds as should be the theme of many a tale to the lovely sisters of Burgh-Westra—tales at which Minna should weep, and Brenda should smile, and both should marvel! And this was to be the reward of his labours and his dangers; for the hearth of Magnus Troil had a magnetic influence over his thoughts, and however they might traverse amid his day-dreams, it was the point where they finally settled.
There were times when Mordaunt thought of mentioning to his father the conversation he had held with Captain Cleveland, and the seaman’s proposal to him; but the very short and general account which he had given of that person’s history, upon the morning after his departure from the hamlet, had produced a sinister effect on Mr. Mertoun’s mind, and discouraged him from speaking farther on any subject connected with it. It would be time enough, he thought, to mention Captain Cleveland’s proposal, when his consort should arrive, and when he should repeat his offer in a more formal manner; and these he supposed events likely very soon to happen.
But days grew to weeks, and weeks were numbered into months, and he heard nothing from Cleveland; and only learned by an occasional visit from Bryce Snailsfoot, that the Captain was residing at Burgh-Westra, as one of the family. Mordaunt was somewhat surprised at this, although the unlimited hospitality of the islands, which Magnus Troil, both from fortune and disposition, carried to the utmost extent, made it almost a matter of course that he should remain in the family until he disposed of himself otherwise. Still it seemed strange he had not gone to some of the northern isles to enquire after his consort; or that he did not rather choose to make Lerwick his residence, where fishing vessels often brought news from the coasts and ports of Scotland and Holland. Again, why did he not send for the chest he had deposited at Jarlshof? and still farther, Mordaunt thought it would have been but polite if the stranger had sent him some sort of message in token of remembrance.
These subjects of reflection were connected with another still more unpleasant, and more difficult to account for. Until the arrival of this person, scarce a week had passed without bringing him some kind greeting, or token of recollection, from Burgh-Westra; and pretences were scarce ever wanting for maintaining a constant intercourse. Minna wanted the words of a Norse ballad; or desired to have, for her various collections, feathers, or eggs, or shells, or specimens of the rarer sea-weeds; or Brenda sent a riddle to be resolved, or a song to be learned; or the honest old Udaller,—in a rude manuscript, which might have passed for an ancient Runic inscription,—sent his hearty greetings to his good young friend, with a present of something to make good cheer, and an earnest request he would come to Burgh-Westra as soon, and stay there as long, as possible. These kindly tokens of remembrance were often sent by special message; besides which, there was never a passenger or a traveller, who crossed from the one mansion to the other, who did not bring to Mordaunt some friendly greeting from the Udaller and his family. Of late, this intercourse had become more and more infrequent; and no messenger from Burgh-Westra had visited Jarlshof for several weeks. Mordaunt both observed and felt this alteration, and it dwelt on his mind, while he questioned Bryce as closely as pride and prudence would permit, to ascertain, if possible, the cause of the change. Yet he endeavoured to assume an indifferent air while he asked the jagger whether there were no news in the country.
“Great news,” the jagger replied; “and a gay mony of them. That crackbrained carle, the new factor, is for making a change in the bismars and the lispunds;[34] and our worthy Fowd, Magnus Troil, has sworn, that, sooner than change them for the still-yard, or aught else, he’ll fling Factor Yellowley from Brassa-craig.”
“Is that all?” said Mordaunt, very little interested.
“All? and eneugh, I think,” replied the pedlar. “How are folks to buy and sell, if the weights are changed on them?”
“Very true,” replied Mordaunt; “but have you heard of no strange vessels on the coast?”
“Six Dutch doggers off Brassa; and, as I hear, a high-quartered galliot thing, with a gaff mainsail, lying in Scalloway Bay. She will be from Norway.”
“No ships of war, or sloops?”
“None,” replied the pedlar, “since the Kite Tender sailed with the impress men. If it was His will, and our men were out of her, I wish the deep sea had her!”
“Were there no news at Burgh-Westra?—Were the family all well?”
“A’ weel, and weel to do—out-taken, it may be, something ower muckle daffing and laughing—dancing ilk night, they say, wi’ the stranger captain that’s living there—him that was ashore on Sumburgh-head the tother day,—less daffing served him then.”
“Daffing! dancing every night!” said Mordaunt, not particularly well satisfied—“Whom does Captain Cleveland dance with?”
“Ony body he likes, I fancy,” said the jagger; “at ony rate, he gars a’ body yonder dance after his fiddle. But I ken little about it, for I am no free in conscience to look upon thae flinging fancies. Folk should mind that life is made but of rotten yarn.”
“I fancy that it is to keep them in mind of that wholesome truth, that you deal in such tender wares, Bryce,” replied Mordaunt, dissatisfied as well with the tenor of the reply, as with the affected scruples of the respondent.
“That’s as muckle as to say, that I suld hae minded you was a flinger and a fiddler yoursell, Maister Mordaunt; but I am an auld man, and maun unburden my conscience. But ye will be for the dance, I sall warrant, that’s to be at Burgh-Westra, on John’s Even, (Saunt John’s, as the blinded creatures ca’ him,) and nae doubt ye will be for some warldly braws—hose, waistcoats, or sic like? I hae pieces frae Flanders.”—With that he placed his movable warehouse on the table, and began to unlock it.
“Dance!” repeated Mordaunt—“Dance on St. John’s Even?—Were you desired to bid me to it, Bryce?”
“Na—but ye ken weel eneugh ye wad be welcome, bidden or no bidden. This captain—how ca’ ye him?—is to be skudler, as they ca’t—the first of the gang, like.”
“The devil take him!” said Mordaunt, in impatient surprise.
“A’ in gude time,” replied the jagger; “hurry no man’s cattle—the devil will hae his due, I warrant ye, or it winna be for lack of seeking. But it’s true I’m telling you, for a’ ye stare like a wild-cat; and this same captain,—I watna his name,—bought ane of the very waistcoats that I am ganging to show ye—purple, wi’ a gowd binding, and bonnily broidered; and I have a piece for you, the neighbour of it, wi’ a green grund; and if ye mean to streek yoursell up beside him, ye maun e’en buy it, for it’s gowd that glances in the lasses’ een now-a-days. See—look till’t,” he added, displaying the pattern in various points of view; “look till it through the light, and till the light through it—wi’ the grain, and against the grain—it shows ony gate—cam frae Antwerp a’ the gate—four dollars is the price; and yon captain was sae weel pleased that he flang down a twenty shilling Jacobus, and bade me keep the change and be d—d!—poor silly profane creature, I pity him.”
Without enquiring whether the pedlar bestowed his compassion on the worldly imprudence or the religious deficiencies of Captain Cleveland, Mordaunt turned from him, folded his arms, and paced the apartment, muttering to himself, “Not asked—A stranger to be king of the feast!”—Words which he repeated so earnestly, that Bryce caught a part of their import.
“As for asking, I am almaist bauld to say, that ye will be asked, Maister Mordaunt.”
“Did they mention my name, then?” said Mordaunt.
“I canna preceesely say that,” said Bryce Snailsfoot;—“but ye needna turn away your head sae sourly, like a sealgh when he leaves the shore; for, do you see, I heard distinctly that a’ the revellers about are to be there; and is’t to be thought they would leave out you, an auld kend freend, and the lightest foot at sic frolics (Heaven send you a better praise in His ain gude time!) that ever flang at a fiddle-squeak, between this and Unst? Sae I consider ye altogether the same as invited—and ye had best provide yourself wi’ a waistcoat, for brave and brisk will every man be that’s there—the Lord pity them!”
He thus continued to follow with his green glazen eyes the motions of young Mordaunt Mertoun, who was pacing the room in a very pensive manner, which the jagger probably misinterpreted, as he thought, like Claudio, that if a man is sad, it must needs be because he lacks money. Bryce, therefore, after another pause, thus accosted him. “Ye needna be sad about the matter, Maister Mordaunt; for although I got the just price of the article from the captain-man, yet I maun deal freendly wi’ you, as a kend freend and customer, and bring the price, as they say, within your purse-mouth—or it’s the same to me to let it lie ower till Martinmas, or e’en to Candlemas. I am decent in the warld, Maister Mordaunt—forbid that I should hurry ony body, far mair a freend that has paid me siller afore now. Or I wad be content to swap the garment for the value in feathers or sea-otters’ skins, or ony kind of peltrie—nane kens better than yoursell how to come by sic ware—and I am sure I hae furnished you wi’ the primest o’ powder. I dinna ken if I tell’d ye it was out o’ the kist of Captain Plunket, that perished on the Scaw of Unst, wi’ the armed brig Mary, sax years syne. He was a prime fowler himself, and luck it was that the kist came ashore dry. I sell that to nane but gude marksmen. And so, I was saying, if ye had ony wares ye liked to coup[35] for the waistcoat, I wad be ready to trock wi’ you, for assuredly ye will be wanted at Burgh-Westra, on Saint John’s Even; and ye wadna like to look waur than the Captain—that wadna be setting.”
“I will be there at least, whether wanted or not,” said Mordaunt, stopping short in his walk, and taking the waistcoat-piece hastily out of the pedlar’s hand; “and, as you say, will not disgrace them.”
“Haud a care—haud a care, Maister Mordaunt,” exclaimed the pedlar; “ye handle it as it were a bale of coarse wadmaal—ye’ll fray’t to bits—ye might weel say my ware is tender—and ye’ll mind the price is four dollars—Sall I put ye in my book for it?”
“No,” said Mordaunt, hastily; and, taking out his purse, he flung down the money.
“Grace to ye to wear the garment,” said the joyous pedlar, “and to me to guide the siller; and protect us from earthly vanities, and earthly covetousness; and send you the white linen raiment, whilk is mair to be desired than the muslins, and cambrics, and lawns, and silks of this world; and send me the talents which avail more than much fine Spanish gold, or Dutch dollars either—and—but God guide the callant, what for is he wrapping the silk up that gate, like a wisp of hay?”
At this moment, old Swertha the housekeeper entered, to whom, as if eager to get rid of the subject, Mordaunt threw his purchase, with something like careless disdain; and, telling her to put it aside, snatched his gun, which stood in the corner, threw his shooting accoutrements about him, and, without noticing Bryce’s attempt to enter into conversation upon the “braw seal-skin, as saft as doe-leather,” which made the sling and cover of his fowlingpiece, he left the apartment abruptly.
The jagger, with those green, goggling, and gain-descrying kind of optics, which we have already described, continued gazing for an instant after the customer, who treated his wares with such irreverence.
Swertha also looked after him with some surprise. “The callant’s in a creel,” quoth she.
“In a creel!” echoed the pedlar; “he will be as wowf as ever his father was. To guide in that gate a bargain that cost him four dollars!—very, very Fifish, as the east-country fisher-folk say.”
“Four dollars for that green rag!” said Swertha, catching at the words which the jagger had unwarily suffered to escape—“that was a bargain indeed! I wonder whether he is the greater fule, or you the mair rogue, Bryce Snailsfoot.”
“I didna say it cost him preceesely four dollars,” said Snailsfoot; “but if it had, the lad’s siller’s his ain, I hope; and he is auld eneugh to make his ain bargains. Mair by token the gudes are weel worth the money, and mair.”
“Mair by token,” said Swertha, coolly, “I will see what his father thinks about it.”
“Ye’ll no be sae ill-natured, Mrs. Swertha,” said the jagger; “that will be but cauld thanks for the bonny owerlay that I hae brought you a’ the way frae Lerwick.”
“And a bonny price ye’ll be setting on’t,” said Swertha; “for that’s the gate your good deeds end.”
“Ye sall hae the fixing of the price yoursell; or it may lie ower till ye’re buying something for the house, or for your master, and it can make a’ ae count.”
“Troth, and that’s true, Bryce Snailsfoot, I am thinking we’ll want some napery sune—for it’s no to be thought we can spin, and the like, as if there was a mistress in the house; and sae we make nane at hame.”
“And that’s what I ca’ walking by the word,” said the jagger. “‘Go unto those that buy and sell;’ there’s muckle profit in that text.”
“There is a pleasure in dealing wi’ a discreet man, that can make profit of ony thing,” said Swertha; “and now that I take another look at that daft callant’s waistcoat piece, I think it is honestly worth four dollars.”
[34] These are weights of Norwegian origin, still used in Zetland.
[35] Barter.
CHAPTER X.
I have possessed the regulation of the weather and the distribution of the seasons. The sun has listened to my dictates, and passed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my command, have poured forth their waters.
Rasselas.
Any sudden cause for anxious and mortifying reflection, which, in advanced age, occasions sullen and pensive inactivity, stimulates youth to eager and active exertion; as if, like the hurt deer, they endeavoured to drown the pain of the shaft by the rapidity of motion. When Mordaunt caught up his gun, and rushed out of the house of Jarlshof, he walked on with great activity over waste and wild, without any determined purpose, except that of escaping, if possible, from the smart of his own irritation. His pride was effectually mortified by the report of the jagger, which coincided exactly with some doubts he had been led to entertain, by the long and unkind silence of his friends at Burgh-Westra.
If the fortunes of Cæsar had doomed him, as the poet suggests, to have been
“But the best wrestler on the green,”
it is nevertheless to be presumed, that a foil from a rival, in that rustic exercise, would have mortified him as much as a defeat from a competitor, when he was struggling for the empery of the world. And even so Mordaunt Mertoun, degraded in his own eyes from the height which he had occupied as the chief amongst the youth of the island, felt vexed and irritated, as well as humbled. The two beautiful sisters, also, whose smiles all were so desirous of acquiring, with whom he had lived on terms of such familiar affection, that, with the same ease and innocence, there was unconsciously mixed a shade of deeper though undefined tenderness than characterises fraternal love,—they also seemed to have forgotten him. He could not be ignorant, that, in the universal opinion of all Dunrossness, nay, of the whole Mainland, he might have had every chance of being the favoured lover of either; and now at once, and without any failure on his part, he was become so little to them, that he had lost even the consequence of an ordinary acquaintance. The old Udaller, too, whose hearty and sincere character should have made him more constant in his friendships, seemed to have been as fickle as his daughters, and poor Mordaunt had at once lost the smiles of the fair, and the favour of the powerful. These were uncomfortable reflections, and he doubled his pace, that he might outstrip them if possible.
Without exactly reflecting upon the route which he pursued, Mordaunt walked briskly on through a country where neither hedge, wall, nor enclosure of any kind, interrupts the steps of the wanderer, until he reached a very solitary spot, where, embosomed among steep heathy hills, which sunk suddenly down on the verge of the water, lay one of those small fresh-water lakes which are common in the Zetland isles, whose outlets form the sources of the small brooks and rivulets by which the country is watered, and serve to drive the little mills which manufacture their grain.
It was a mild summer day; the beams of the sun, as is not uncommon in Zetland, were moderated and shaded by a silvery haze, which filled the atmosphere, and destroying the strong contrast of light and shade, gave even to noon the sober livery of the evening twilight. The little lake, not three-quarters of a mile in circuit, lay in profound quiet; its surface undimpled, save when one of the numerous water-fowl, which glided on its surface, dived for an instant under it. The depth of the water gave the whole that cerulean tint of bluish green, which occasioned its being called the Green Loch; and at present, it formed so perfect a mirror to the bleak hills by which it was surrounded, and which lay reflected on its bosom, that it was difficult to distinguish the water from the land; nay, in the shadowy uncertainty occasioned by the thin haze, a stranger could scarce have been sensible that a sheet of water lay before him. A scene of more complete solitude, having all its peculiarities heightened by the extreme serenity of the weather, the quiet grey composed tone of the atmosphere, and the perfect silence of the elements, could hardly be imagined. The very aquatic birds, who frequented the spot in great numbers, forbore their usual flight and screams, and floated in profound tranquillity upon the silent water.
Without taking any determined aim—without having any determined purpose—without almost thinking what he was about, Mordaunt presented his fowlingpiece, and fired across the lake. The large swan shot dimpled its surface like a partial shower of hail—the hills took up the noise of the report, and repeated it again, and again, and again, to all their echoes; the water-fowl took to wing in eddying and confused wheel, answering the echoes with a thousand varying screams, from the deep note of the swabie, or swartback, to the querulous cry of the tirracke and kittiewake.
Mordaunt looked for a moment on the clamorous crowd with a feeling of resentment, which he felt disposed at the moment to apply to all nature, and all her objects, animate or inanimate, however little concerned with the cause of his internal mortification.
“Ay, ay,” he said, “wheel, dive, scream, and clamour as you will, and all because you have seen a strange sight, and heard an unusual sound. There is many a one like you in this round world. But you, at least, shall learn,” he added, as he reloaded his gun, “that strange sights and strange sounds, ay, and strange acquaintances to boot, have sometimes a little shade of danger connected with them.—But why should I wreak my own vexation on these harmless sea-gulls?” he subjoined, after a moment’s pause; “they have nothing to do with the friends that have forgotten me.—I loved them all so well,—and to be so soon given up for the first stranger whom chance threw on the coast!”
As he stood resting upon his gun, and abandoning his mind to the course of these unpleasant reflections, his meditations were unexpectedly interrupted by some one touching his shoulder. He looked around, and saw Norna of the Fitful-head, wrapped in her dark and ample mantle. She had seen him from the brow of the hill, and had descended to the lake, through a small ravine which concealed her, until she came with noiseless step so close to him that he turned round at her touch.
Mordaunt Mertoun was by nature neither timorous nor credulous, and a course of reading more extensive than usual had, in some degree, fortified his mind against the attacks of superstition; but he would have been an actual prodigy, if, living in Zetland in the end of the seventeenth century, he had possessed the philosophy which did not exist in Scotland generally, until at least two generations later. He doubted in his own mind the extent, nay, the very existence, of Norna’s supernatural attributes, which was a high flight of incredulity in the country where they were universally received; but still his incredulity went no farther than doubts. She was unquestionably an extraordinary woman, gifted with an energy above others, acting upon motives peculiar to herself, and apparently independent of mere earthly considerations. Impressed with these ideas, which he had imbibed from his youth, it was not without something like alarm, that he beheld this mysterious female standing on a sudden so close beside him, and looking upon him with such sad and severe eyes, as those with which the Fatal Virgins, who, according to northern mythology, were called the Valkyriur, or “Choosers of the Slain,” were supposed to regard the young champions whom they selected to share the banquet of Odin.
It was, indeed, reckoned unlucky, to say the least, to meet with Norna suddenly alone, and in a place remote from witnesses; and she was supposed, on such occasions, to have been usually a prophetess of evil, as well as an omen of misfortune, to those who had such a rencontre. There were few or none of the islanders, however familiarized with her occasional appearance in society, that would not have trembled to meet her on the solitary banks of the Green Loch.
“I bring you no evil, Mordaunt Mertoun,” she said, reading perhaps something of this superstitious feeling in the looks of the young man. “Evil from me you never felt, and never will.”
“Nor do I fear any,” said Mordaunt, exerting himself to throw aside an apprehension which he felt to be unmanly. “Why should I, mother? You have been ever my friend.”
“Yet, Mordaunt, thou art not of our region; but to none of Zetland blood, no, not even to those who sit around the hearth-stone of Magnus Troil, the noble descendants of the ancient Jarls of Orkney, am I more a well-wisher, than I am to thee, thou kind and brave-hearted boy. When I hung around thy neck that gifted chain, which all in our isles know was wrought by no earthly artist, but by the Drows,[36] in the secret recesses of their caverns, thou wert then but fifteen years old; yet thy foot had been on the Maiden-skerrie of Northmaven, known before but to the webbed sole of the swartback, and thy skiff had been in the deepest cavern of Brinnastir, where the haaf-fish[37] had before slumbered in dark obscurity. Therefore I gave thee that noble gift; and well thou knowest, that since that day, every eye in these isles has looked on thee as a son, or as a brother, endowed beyond other youths, and the favoured of those whose hour of power is when the night meets with the day.”
“Alas! mother,” said Mordaunt, “your kind gift may have given me favour, but it has not been able to keep it for me, or I have not been able to keep it for myself.—What matters it? I shall learn to set as little by others as they do by me. My father says that I shall soon leave these islands, and therefore, Mother Norna, I will return to you your fairy gift, that it may bring more lasting luck to some other than it has done to me.”
“Despise not the gift of the nameless race,” said Norna, frowning; then suddenly changing her tone of displeasure to that of mournful solemnity, she added,—“Despise them not, but, O Mordaunt, court them not! Sit down on that grey stone—thou art the son of my adoption, and I will doff, as far as I may, those attributes that sever me from the common mass of humanity, and speak with you as a parent with a child.”
There was a tremulous tone of grief which mingled with the loftiness of her language and carriage, and was calculated to excite sympathy, as well as to attract attention. Mordaunt sat down on the rock which she pointed out, a fragment which, with many others that lay scattered around, had been torn by some winter storm from the precipice at the foot of which it lay, upon the very verge of the water. Norna took her own seat on a stone at about three feet distance, adjusted her mantle so that little more than her forehead, her eyes, and a single lock of her grey hair, were seen from beneath the shade of her dark wadmaal cloak, and then proceeded in a tone in which the imaginary consequence and importance so often assumed by lunacy, seemed to contend against the deep workings of some extraordinary and deeply-rooted mental affliction.
“I was not always,” she said, “that which I now am. I was not always the wise, the powerful, the commanding, before whom the young stand abashed, and the old uncover their grey heads. There was a time when my appearance did not silence mirth, when I sympathized with human passion, and had my own share in human joy or sorrow. It was a time of helplessness—it was a time of folly—it was a time of idle and unfruitful laughter—it was a time of causeless and senseless tears;—and yet, with its follies, and its sorrows, and its weaknesses, what would Norna of Fitful-head give to be again the unmarked and happy maiden that she was in her early days! Hear me, Mordaunt, and bear with me; for you hear me utter complaints which have never sounded in mortal ears, and which in mortal ears shall never sound again. I will be what I ought,” she continued, starting up and extending her lean and withered arm, “the queen and protectress of these wild and neglected isles,—I will be her whose foot the wave wets not, save by her permission; ay, even though its rage be at its wildest madness—whose robe the whirlwind respects, when it rends the house-rigging from the roof-tree. Bear me witness, Mordaunt Mertoun,—you heard my words at Harfra—you saw the tempest sink before them—Speak, bear me witness!”
To have contradicted her in this strain of high-toned enthusiasm, would have been cruel and unavailing, even had Mordaunt been more decidedly convinced than he was, that an insane woman, not one of supernatural power, stood before him.
“I heard you sing,” he replied, “and I saw the tempest abate.”
“Abate?” exclaimed Norna, striking the ground impatiently with her staff of black oak; “thou speakest it but half—it sunk at once—sunk in shorter space than the child that is hushed to silence by the nurse.—Enough, you know my power—but you know not—mortal man knows not, and never shall know, the price which I paid to attain it. No, Mordaunt, never for the widest sway that the ancient Norsemen boasted, when their banners waved victorious from Bergen to Palestine—never, for all that the round world contains, do thou barter thy peace of mind for such greatness as Norna’s.” She resumed her seat upon the rock, drew the mantle over her face, rested her head upon her hands, and by the convulsive motion which agitated her bosom, appeared to be weeping bitterly.
“Good Norna,” said Mordaunt, and paused, scarce knowing what to say that might console the unhappy woman—“Good Norna,” he again resumed, “if there be aught in your mind that troubles it, were you not best to go to the worthy minister at Dunrossness? Men say you have not for many years been in a Christian congregation—that cannot be well, or right. You are yourself well known as a healer of bodily disease; but when the mind is sick, we should draw to the Physician of our souls.”
Norna had raised her person slowly from the stooping posture in which she sat; but at length she started up on her feet, threw back her mantle, extended her arm, and while her lip foamed, and her eye sparkled, exclaimed in a tone resembling a scream,—“Me did you speak—me did you bid seek out a priest!—would you kill the good man with horror?—Me in a Christian congregation!—Would you have the roof to fall on the sackless assembly, and mingle their blood with their worship? I—I seek to the good Physician!—Would you have the fiend claim his prey openly before God and man?”
The extreme agitation of the unhappy speaker naturally led Mordaunt to the conclusion, which was generally adopted and accredited in that superstitious country and period. “Wretched woman,” he said, “if indeed thou hast leagued thyself with the Powers of Evil, why should you not seek even yet for repentance? But do as thou wilt, I cannot, dare not, as a Christian, abide longer with you; and take again your gift,” he said, offering back the chain. “Good can never come of it, if indeed evil hath not come already.”
“Be still and hear me, thou foolish boy,” said Norna, calmly, as if she had been restored to reason by the alarm and horror which she perceived in Mordaunt’s countenance;—“hear me, I say. I am not of those who have leagued themselves with the Enemy of Mankind, or derive skill or power from his ministry. And although the unearthly powers were propitiated by a sacrifice which human tongue can never utter, yet, God knows, my guilt in that offering was no more than that of the blind man who falls from the precipice which he could neither see nor shun. O, leave me not—shun me not—in this hour of weakness! Remain with me till the temptation be passed, or I will plunge myself into that lake, and rid myself at once of my power and my wretchedness!”
Mordaunt, who had always looked up to this singular woman with a sort of affection, occasioned no doubt by the early kindness and distinction which she had shown to him, was readily induced to reassume his seat, and listen to what she had further to say, in hopes that she would gradually overcome the violence of her agitation. It was not long ere she seemed to have gained the victory her companion expected, for she addressed him in her usual steady and authoritative manner.
“It was not of myself, Mordaunt, that I purposed to speak, when I beheld you from the summit of yonder grey rock, and came down the path to meet with you. My fortunes are fixed beyond change, be it for weal or for woe. For myself I have ceased to feel much; but for those whom she loves, Norna of the Fitful-head has still those feelings which link her to her kind. Mark me. There is an eagle, the noblest that builds in these airy precipices, and into that eagle’s nest there has crept an adder—wilt thou lend thy aid to crush the reptile, and to save the noble brood of the lord of the north sky?”
“You must speak more plainly, Norna,” said Mordaunt, “if you would have me understand or answer you. I am no guesser of riddles.”
“In plain language, then, you know well the family of Burgh-Westra—the lovely daughters of the generous old Udaller, Magnus Troil,—Minna and Brenda, I mean? You know them, and you love them?”
“I have known them, mother,” replied Mordaunt, “and I have loved them—none knows it better than yourself.”
“To know them once,” said Norna, emphatically, “is to know them always. To love them once, is to love them for ever.”
“To have loved them once, is to wish them well for ever,” replied the youth; “but it is nothing more. To be plain with you, Norna, the family at Burgh-Westra have of late totally neglected me. But show me the means of serving them, I will convince you how much I have remembered old kindness, how little I resent late coldness.”
“It is well spoken, and I will put your purpose to the proof,” replied Norna. “Magnus Troil has taken a serpent into his bosom—his lovely daughters are delivered up to the machinations of a villain.”
“You mean the stranger, Cleveland?” said Mordaunt.
“The stranger who so calls himself,” replied Norna—“the same whom we found flung ashore, like a waste heap of sea-weed, at the foot of the Sumburgh-cape. I felt that within me, that would have prompted me to let him lie till the tide floated him off, as it had floated him on shore. I repent me I gave not way to it.”
“But,” said Mordaunt, “I cannot repent that I did my duty as a Christian man. And what right have I to wish otherwise? If Minna, Brenda, Magnus, and the rest, like that stranger better than me, I have no title to be offended; nay, I might well be laughed at for bringing myself into comparison.”
“It is well, and I trust they merit thy unselfish friendship.”
“But I cannot perceive,” said Mordaunt, “in what you can propose that I should serve them. I have but just learned by Bryce the jagger, that this Captain Cleveland is all in all with the ladies at Burgh-Westra, and with the Udaller himself. I would like ill to intrude myself where I am not welcome, or to place my home-bred merit in comparison with Captain Cleveland’s. He can tell them of battles, when I can only speak of birds’ nests—can speak of shooting Frenchmen, when I can only tell of shooting seals—he wears gay clothes, and bears a brave countenance; I am plainly dressed, and plainly nurtured. Such gay gallants as he can noose the hearts of those he lives with, as the fowler nooses the guillemot with his rod and line.”
“You do wrong to yourself,” replied Norna, “wrong to yourself, and greater wrong to Minna and Brenda. And trust not the reports of Bryce—he is like the greedy chaffer-whale, that will change his course and dive for the most petty coin which a fisher can cast at him. Certain it is, that if you have been lessened in the opinion of Magnus Troil, that sordid fellow hath had some share in it. But let him count his vantage, for my eye is upon him.”
“And why, mother,” said Mordaunt, “do you not tell to Magnus what you have told to me?”
“Because,” replied Norna, “they who wax wise in their own conceit must be taught a bitter lesson by experience. It was but yesterday that I spoke with Magnus, and what was his reply?—‘Good Norna, you grow old.’ And this was spoken by one bounden to me by so many and such close ties—by the descendant of the ancient Norse earls—this was from Magnus Troil to me; and it was said in behalf of one, whom the sea flung forth as wreck-weed! Since he despises the counsel of the aged, he shall be taught by that of the young; and well that he is not left to his own folly. Go, therefore, to Burgh-Westra, as usual, upon the Baptist’s festival.”
“I have had no invitation,” said Mordaunt; “I am not wanted, not wished for, not thought of—perhaps I shall not be acknowledged if I go thither; and yet, mother, to confess the truth, thither I had thought to go.”
“It was a good thought, and to be cherished,” replied Norna; “we seek our friends when they are sick in health, why not when they are sick in mind, and surfeited with prosperity? Do not fail to go—it may be, we shall meet there. Meanwhile our roads lie different. Farewell, and speak not of this meeting.”
They parted, and Mordaunt remained standing by the lake, with his eyes fixed on Norna, until her tall dark form became invisible among the windings of the valley down which she wandered, and Mordaunt returned to his father’s mansion, determined to follow counsel which coincided so well with his own wishes.
[36] The Drows, or Trows, the legitimate successors of the northern duergar, and somewhat allied to the fairies, reside, like them, in the interior of green hills and caverns, and are most powerful at midnight. They are curious artificers in iron, as well as in the precious metals, and are sometimes propitious to mortals, but more frequently capricious and malevolent. Among the common people of Zetland, their existence still forms an article of universal belief. In the neighbouring isles of Feroe, they are called Foddenskencand, or subterranean people; and Lucas Jacobson Debes,[(h)] well acquainted with their nature, assures us that they inhabit those places which are polluted with the effusion of blood, or the practice of any crying sin. They have a government, which seems to be monarchical.
[37] The larger seal, or sea-calf, which seeks the most solitary recesses for its abode. See Dr. Edmonstone’s Zetland, vol. ii., p. 294.
CHAPTER XI.
——All your ancient customs,
And long-descended usages, I’ll change.
Ye shall not eat, nor drink, nor speak, nor move,
Think, look, or walk, as ye were wont to do.
Even your marriage-beds shall know mutation;
The bride shall have the stock, the groom the wall;
For all old practice will I turn and change,
And call it reformation—marry will I!
’Tis Even that we’re at Odds.
The festal day approached, and still no invitation arrived for that guest, without whom, but a little space since, no feast could have been held in the island; while, on the other hand, such reports as reached them on every side spoke highly of the favour which Captain Cleveland enjoyed in the good graces of the old Udaller of Burgh-Westra. Swertha and the Ranzelman shook their heads at these mutations, and reminded Mordaunt, by many a half-hint and innuendo, that he had incurred this eclipse by being so imprudently active to secure the safety of the stranger, when he lay at the mercy of the next wave beneath the cliffs of Sumburgh-head. “It is best to let saut water take its gate,” said Swertha; “luck never came of crossing it.”
“In troth,” said the Ranzelman, “they are wise folks that let wave and withy haud their ain—luck never came of a half-drowned man, or a half-hanged ane either. Who was’t shot Will Paterson off the Noss?—the Dutchman that he saved from sinking, I trow. To fling a drowning man a plank or a tow, may be the part of a Christian; but I say, keep hands aff him, if ye wad live and thrive free frae his danger.”
“Ye are a wise man, Ranzelman, and a worthy,” echoed Swertha, with a groan, “and ken how and whan to help a neighbour, as well as ony man that ever drew a net.”
“In troth, I have seen length of days,” answered the Ranzelman, “and I have heard what the auld folk said to each other anent sic matters; and nae man in Zetland shall go farther than I will in any Christian service to a man on firm land; but if he cry ‘Help!’ out of the saut waves, that’s another story.”
“And yet, to think of this lad Cleveland standing in our Maister Mordaunt’s light,” said Swertha, “and with Magnus Troil, that thought him the flower of the island but on Whitsunday last, and Magnus, too, that’s both held (when he’s fresh, honest man) the wisest and wealthiest of Zetland!”
“He canna win by it,” said the Ranzelman, with a look of the deepest sagacity. “There’s whiles, Swertha, that the wisest of us (as I am sure I humbly confess mysell not to be) may be little better than gulls, and can no more win by doing deeds of folly than I can step over Sumburgh-head. It has been my own case once or twice in my life. But we shall see soon what ill is to come of all this, for good there cannot come.”
And Swertha answered, with the same tone of prophetic wisdom, “Na, na, gude can never come on it, and that is ower truly said.”
These doleful predictions, repeated from time to time, had some effect upon Mordaunt. He did not indeed suppose, that the charitable action of relieving a drowning man had subjected him, as a necessary and fatal consequence, to the unpleasant circumstances in which he was placed; yet he felt as if a sort of spell were drawn around him, of which he neither understood the nature nor the extent;—that some power, in short, beyond his own control, was acting upon his destiny, and, as it seemed, with no friendly influence. His curiosity, as well as his anxiety, was highly excited, and he continued determined, at all events, to make his appearance at the approaching festival, when he was impressed with the belief that something uncommon was necessarily to take place, which should determine his future views and prospects in life.
As the elder Mertoun was at this time in his ordinary state of health, it became necessary that his son should intimate to him his intended visit to Burgh-Westra. He did so; and his father desired to know the especial reason of his going thither at this particular time.
“It is a time of merry-making,” replied the youth, “and all the country are assembled.”
“And you are doubtless impatient to add another fool to the number.—Go—but beware how you walk in the path which you are about to tread—a fall from the cliffs of Foulah were not more fatal.”
“May I ask the reason of your caution, sir?” replied Mordaunt, breaking through the reserve which ordinarily subsisted betwixt him and his singular parent.
“Magnus Troil,” said the elder Mertoun, “has two daughters—you are of the age when men look upon such gauds with eyes of affection, that they may afterwards learn to curse the day that first opened their eyes upon heaven! I bid you beware of them; for, as sure as that death and sin came into the world by woman, so sure are their soft words, and softer looks, the utter destruction and ruin of all who put faith in them.”
Mordaunt had sometimes observed his father’s marked dislike to the female sex, but had never before heard him give vent to it in terms so determined and precise. He replied, that the daughters of Magnus Troil were no more to him than any other females in the islands; “they were even of less importance,” he said, “for they had broken off their friendship with him, without assigning any cause.”
“And you go to seek the renewal of it?” answered his father. “Silly moth, that hast once escaped the taper without singeing thy wings, are you not contented with the safe obscurity of these wilds, but must hasten back to the flame, which is sure at length to consume thee? But why should I waste arguments in deterring thee from thy inevitable fate?—Go where thy destiny calls thee.”
On the succeeding day, which was the eve of the great festival, Mordaunt set forth on his road to Burgh-Westra, pondering alternately on the injunctions of Norna—on the ominous words of his father—on the inauspicious auguries of Swertha and the Ranzelman of Jarlshof—and not without experiencing that gloom with which so many concurring circumstances of ill omen combined to oppress his mind.
“It bodes me but a cold reception at Burgh-Westra,” said he; “but my stay shall be the shorter. I will but find out whether they have been deceived by this seafaring stranger, or whether they have acted out of pure caprice of temper, and love of change of company. If the first be the case, I will vindicate my character, and let Captain Cleveland look to himself;—if the latter, why, then, good-night to Burgh-Westra and all its inmates.”
As he mentally meditated this last alternative, hurt pride, and a return of fondness for those to whom he supposed he was bidding farewell for ever, brought a tear into his eye, which he dashed off hastily and indignantly, as, mending his pace, he continued on his journey.
The weather being now serene and undisturbed, Mordaunt made his way with an ease that formed a striking contrast to the difficulties which he had encountered when he last travelled the same route; yet there was a less pleasing subject for comparison, within his own mind.
“My breast,” he said to himself, “was then against the wind, but my heart within was serene and happy. I would I had now the same careless feelings, were they to be bought by battling with the severest storm that ever blew across these lonely hills!”
With such thoughts, he arrived about noon at Harfra, the habitation, as the reader may remember, of the ingenious Mr. Yellowley. Our traveller had, upon the present occasion, taken care to be quite independent of the niggardly hospitality of this mansion, which was now become infamous on that account through the whole island, by bringing with him, in his small knapsack, such provisions as might have sufficed for a longer journey. In courtesy, however, or rather, perhaps, to get rid of his own disquieting thoughts, Mordaunt did not fail to call at the mansion, which he found in singular commotion. Triptolemus himself, invested with a pair of large jack-boots, went clattering up and down stairs, screaming out questions to his sister and his serving-woman Tronda, who replied with shriller and more complicated screeches. At length, Mrs. Baby herself made her appearance, her venerable person endued with what was then called a joseph, an ample garment, which had once been green, but now, betwixt stains and patches, had become like the vesture of the patriarch whose name it bore—a garment of divers colours. A steeple-crowned hat, the purchase of some long-past moment, in which vanity had got the better of avarice, with a feather which had stood as much wind and rain as if it had been part of a seamew’s wing, made up her equipment, save that in her hand she held a silver-mounted whip of antique fashion. This attire, as well as an air of determined bustle in the gait and appearance of Mrs. Barbara Yellowley, seemed to bespeak that she was prepared to take a journey, and cared not, as the saying goes, who knew that such was her determination.
She was the first that observed Mordaunt on his arrival, and she greeted him with a degree of mingled emotion. “Be good to us!” she exclaimed, “if here is not the canty callant that wears yon thing about his neck, and that snapped up our goose as light as if it had been a sandie-lavrock!” The admiration of the gold chain, which had formerly made so deep an impression on her mind, was marked in the first part of her speech, the recollection of the untimely fate of the smoked goose was commemorated in the second clause. “I will lay the burden of my life,” she instantly added, “that he is ganging our gate.”
“I am bound for Burgh-Westra, Mrs. Yellowley,” said Mordaunt.
“And blithe will we be of your company,” she added—“it’s early day to eat; but if you liked a barley scone and a drink of bland—natheless, it is ill travelling on a full stomach, besides quelling your appetite for the feast that is biding you this day; for all sort of prodigality there will doubtless be.”
Mordaunt produced his own stores, and, explaining that he did not love to be burdensome to them on this second occasion, invited them to partake of the provisions he had to offer. Poor Triptolemus, who seldom saw half so good a dinner as his guest’s luncheon, threw himself upon the good cheer, like Sancho on the scum of Camacho’s kettle, and even the lady herself could not resist the temptation, though she gave way to it with more moderation, and with something like a sense of shame. “She had let the fire out,” she said, “for it was a pity wasting fuel in so cold a country, and so she had not thought of getting any thing ready, as they were to set out so soon; and so she could not but say, that the young gentleman’s nacket looked very good; and besides, she had some curiosity to see whether the folks in that country cured their beef in the same way they did in the north of Scotland.” Under which combined considerations, Dame Baby made a hearty experiment on the refreshments which thus unexpectedly presented themselves.
When their extemporary repast was finished, the factor became solicitous to take the road; and now Mordaunt discovered, that the alacrity with which he had been received by Mistress Baby was not altogether disinterested. Neither she nor the learned Triptolemus felt much disposed to commit themselves to the wilds of Zetland, without the assistance of a guide; and although they could have commanded the aid of one of their own labouring folks, yet the cautious agriculturist observed, that it would be losing at least one day’s work; and his sister multiplied his apprehensions by echoing back, “One day’s work?—ye may weel say twenty—for, set ane of their noses within the smell of a kail-pot, and their lugs within the sound of a fiddle, and whistle them back if ye can!”
Now the fortunate arrival of Mordaunt, in the very nick of time, not to mention the good cheer which he brought with him, made him as welcome as any one could possibly be to a threshold, which, on all ordinary occasions, abhorred the passage of a guest; nor was Mr. Yellowley altogether insensible of the pleasure he promised himself in detailing his plans of improvement to his young companion, and enjoying what his fate seldom assigned him—the company of a patient and admiring listener.
As the factor and his sister were to prosecute their journey on horseback, it only remained to mount their guide and companion; a thing easily accomplished, where there are such numbers of shaggy, long-backed, short-legged ponies, running wild upon the extensive moors, which are the common pasturage for the cattle of every township, where shelties, geese, swine, goats, sheep, and little Zetland cows, are turned out promiscuously, and often in numbers which can obtain but precarious subsistence from the niggard vegetation. There is, indeed, a right of individual property in all these animals, which are branded or tattooed by each owner with his own peculiar mark; but when any passenger has occasional use for a pony, he never scruples to lay hold of the first which he can catch, puts on a halter, and, having rode him as far as he finds convenient, turns the animal loose to find his way back again as he best can—a matter in which the ponies are sufficiently sagacious.
Although this general exercise of property was one of the enormities which in due time the factor intended to abolish, yet, like a wise man, he scrupled not, in the meantime, to avail himself of so general a practice, which, he condescended to allow, was particularly convenient for those who (as chanced to be his own present case) had no ponies of their own on which their neighbours could retaliate. Three shelties, therefore, were procured from the hill—little shagged animals, more resembling wild bears than any thing of the horse tribe, yet possessed of no small degree of strength and spirit, and able to endure as much fatigue and indifferent usage as any creatures in the world.
Two of these horses were already provided and fully accoutred for the journey. One of them, destined to bear the fair person of Mistress Baby, was decorated with a huge side-saddle of venerable antiquity—a mass, as it were, of cushion and padding, from which depended, on all sides, a housing of ancient tapestry, which, having been originally intended for a horse of ordinary size, covered up the diminutive palfrey over which it was spread, from the ears to the tail, and from the shoulder to the fetlock, leaving nothing visible but its head, which looked fiercely out from these enfoldments, like the heraldic representation of a lion looking out of a bush. Mordaunt gallantly lifted up the fair Mistress Yellowley, and at the expense of very slight exertion, placed her upon the summit of her mountainous saddle. It is probable, that, on feeling herself thus squired and attended upon, and experiencing the long unwonted consciousness that she was attired in her best array, some thoughts dawned upon Mistress Baby’s mind, which checkered, for an instant, those habitual ideas about thrift, that formed the daily and all-engrossing occupation of her soul. She glanced her eye upon her faded joseph, and on the long housings of her saddle, as she observed, with a smile, to Mordaunt, that “travelling was a pleasant thing in fine weather and agreeable company, if,” she added, glancing a look at a place where the embroidery was somewhat frayed and tattered, “it was not sae wasteful to ane’s horse-furniture.”
Meanwhile, her brother stepped stoutly to his steed; and as he chose, notwithstanding the serenity of the weather, to throw a long red cloak over his other garments, his pony was even more completely enveloped in drapery than that of his sister. It happened, moreover, to be an animal of an high and contumacious spirit, bouncing and curvetting occasionally under the weight of Triptolemus, with a vivacity which, notwithstanding his Yorkshire descent, rather deranged him in the saddle; gambols which, as the palfrey itself was not visible, except upon the strictest inspection, had, at a little distance, an effect as if they were the voluntary movements of the cloaked cavalier, without the assistance of any other legs than those with which nature had provided him; and, to any who had viewed Triptolemus under such a persuasion, the gravity, and even distress, announced in his countenance, must have made a ridiculous contrast to the vivacious caprioles with which he piaffed along the moor.
Mordaunt kept up with this worthy couple, mounted, according to the simplicity of the time and country, on the first and readiest pony which they had been able to press into the service, with no other accoutrement of any kind than the halter which served to guide him; while Mr. Yellowley, seeing with pleasure his guide thus readily provided with a steed, privately resolved, that this rude custom of helping travellers to horses, without leave of the proprietor, should not be abated in Zetland, until he came to possess a herd of ponies belonging in property to himself, and exposed to suffer in the way of retaliation.
But to other uses or abuses of the country, Triptolemus Yellowley showed himself less tolerant. Long and wearisome were the discourses he held with Mordaunt, or (to speak much more correctly) the harangues which he inflicted upon him, concerning the changes which his own advent in these isles was about to occasion. Unskilled as he was in the modern arts by which an estate may be improved to such a high degree that it shall altogether slip through the proprietor’s fingers, Triptolemus had at least the zeal, if not the knowledge, of a whole agricultural society in his own person; nor was he surpassed by any who has followed him, in that noble spirit which scorns to balance profit against outlay, but holds the glory of effecting a great change on the face of the land, to be, like virtue, in a great degree its own reward.
No part of the wild and mountainous region over which Mordaunt guided him, but what suggested to his active imagination some scheme of improvement and alteration. He would make a road through yon scarce passable glen, where at present nothing but the sure-footed creatures on which they were mounted could tread with any safety. He would substitute better houses for the skeoes, or sheds built of dry stones, in which the inhabitants cured or manufactured their fish—they should brew good ale instead of bland—they should plant forests where tree never grew, and find mines of treasure where a Danish skilling was accounted a coin of a most respectable denomination. All these mutations, with many others, did the worthy factor resolve upon, speaking at the same time with the utmost confidence of the countenance and assistance which he was to receive from the higher classes, and especially from Magnus Troil.
“I will impart some of my ideas to the poor man,” he said, “before we are both many hours older; and you will mark how grateful he will be to the instructor who brings him knowledge, which is better than wealth.”
“I would not have you build too strongly on that,” said Mordaunt, by way of caution; “Magnus Troil’s boat is kittle to trim—he likes his own ways, and his country-ways, and you will as soon teach your sheltie to dive like a sealgh, as bring Magnus to take a Scottish fashion in the place of a Norse one; and yet, if he is steady to his old customs, he may perhaps be as changeable as another in his old friendships.”
“Heus, tu inepte!” said the scholar of Saint Andrews, “steady or unsteady, what can it matter?—am not I here in point of trust, and in point of power? and shall a Fowd, by which barbarous appellative this Magnus Troil still calls himself, presume to measure judgment and weigh reasons with me, who represent the full dignity of the Chamberlain of the islands of Orkney and Zetland?”
“Still,” said Mordaunt, “I would advise you not to advance too rashly upon his prejudices. Magnus Troil, from the hour of his birth to this day, never saw a greater man than himself, and it is difficult to bridle an old horse for the first time. Besides, he has at no time in his life been a patient listener to long explanations, so it is possible that he may quarrel with your purposed reformation, before you can convince him of its advantages.”
“How mean you, young man?” said the factor. “Is there one who dwells in these islands, who is so wretchedly blind as not to be sensible of their deplorable defects? Can a man,” he added, rising into enthusiasm as he spoke, “or even a beast, look at that thing there, which they have the impudence to call a corn-mill,[38] without trembling to think that corn should be intrusted to such a miserable molendinary? The wretches are obliged to have at least fifty in each parish, each trundling away upon its paltry mill-stone, under the thatch of a roof no bigger than a bee-skep, instead of a noble and seemly baron’s mill, of which you would hear the clack through the haill country, and that casts the meal through the mill-eye by forpits at a time!”
“Ay, ay, brother,” said his sister, “that’s spoken like your wise sell. The mair cost the mair honour—that’s your word ever mair. Can it no creep into your wise head, man, that ilka body grinds their ain nievefu’ of meal in this country, without plaguing themsells about barons’ mills, and thirls, and sucken, and the like trade? How mony a time have I heard you bell-the-cat with auld Edie Netherstane, the miller at Grindleburn, and wi’ his very knave too, about in-town and out-town multures—lock, gowpen, and knaveship,[(i)] and a’ the lave o’t; and now naething less will serve you than to bring in the very same fashery on a wheen puir bodies, that big ilk ane a mill for themselves, sic as it is?”
“Dinna tell me of gowpen and knaveship!” exclaimed the indignant agriculturist; “better pay the half of the grist to the miller, to have the rest grund in a Christian manner, than put good grain into a bairn’s whirligig. Look at it for a moment, Baby—Bide still, ye cursed imp!” This interjection was applied to his pony, which began to be extremely impatient, while its rider interrupted his journey, to point out all the weak points of the Zetland mill—“Look at it, I say—it’s just one degree better than a hand-quern—it has neither wheel nor trindle—neither cog nor happer—Bide still, there’s a canny beast—it canna grind a bickerfu’ of meal in a quarter of an hour, and that will be mair like a mash for horse than a meltith for man’s use—Wherefore—Bide still, I say—wherefore—wherefore—The deil’s in the beast, and nae good, I think!”
As he uttered the last words, the shelty, which had pranced and curvetted for some time with much impatience, at length got its head betwixt its legs, and at once canted its rider into the little rivulet, which served to drive the depreciated engine he was surveying; then emancipating itself from the folds of the cloak, fled back towards its own wilderness, neighing in scorn, and flinging out its heels at every five yards.
Laughing heartily at his disaster, Mordaunt helped the old man to arise; while his sister sarcastically congratulated him on having fallen rather into the shallows of a Zetland rivulet than the depths of a Scottish mill-pond. Disdaining to reply to this sarcasm, Triptolemus, so soon as he had recovered his legs, shaken his ears, and found that the folds of his cloak had saved him from being much wet in the scanty streamlet, exclaimed aloud, “I will have cussers from Lanarkshire—brood mares from Ayrshire—I will not have one of these cursed abortions left on the islands, to break honest folk’s necks—I say, Baby, I will rid the land of them.”
“Ye had better wring your ain cloak, Triptolemus,” answered Baby.
Mordaunt meanwhile was employed in catching another pony, from a herd which strayed at some distance; and, having made a halter out of twisted rushes, he seated the dismayed agriculturist in safety upon a more quiet, though less active steed, than that which he had at first bestrode.
But Mr. Yellowley’s fall had operated as a considerable sedative upon his spirits, and, for the full space of five miles’ travel, he said scarce a word, leaving full course to the melancholy aspirations and lamentations which his sister Baby bestowed on the old bridle, which the pony had carried off in its flight, and which, she observed, after having lasted for eighteen years come Martinmas, might now be considered as a castaway thing. Finding she had thus the field to herself, the old lady launched forth into a lecture upon economy, according to her own idea of that virtue, which seemed to include a system of privations, which, though observed with the sole purpose of saving money, might, if undertaken upon other principles, have ranked high in the history of a religious ascetic.
She was but little interrupted by Mordaunt, who, conscious he was now on the eve of approaching Burgh-Westra, employed himself rather in the task of anticipating the nature of the reception he was about to meet with there from two beautiful young women, than with the prosing of an old one, however wisely she might prove that small-beer was more wholesome than strong ale, and that if her brother had bruised his ankle bone in his tumble, cumfrey and butter was better to bring him round again, than all the doctor’s drugs in the world.
But now the dreary moorlands, over which their path had hitherto lain, were exchanged for a more pleasant prospect, opening on a salt-water lake, or arm of the sea, which ran up far inland, and was surrounded by flat and fertile ground, producing crops better than the experienced eye of Triptolemus Yellowley had as yet witnessed in Zetland. In the midst of this Goshen stood the mansion of Burgh-Westra, screened from the north and east by a ridge of heathy hills which lay behind it, and commanding an interesting prospect of the lake and its parent ocean, as well as the islands, and more distant mountains. From the mansion itself, as well as from almost every cottage in the adjacent hamlet, arose such a rich cloud of vapoury smoke, as showed, that the preparations for the festival were not confined to the principal residence of Magnus himself, but extended through the whole vicinage.
“My certie,” said Mrs. Baby Yellowley, “ane wad think the haill town was on fire! The very hill-side smells of their wastefulness, and a hungry heart wad scarce seek better kitchen[39] to a barley scone, than just to waft it in the reek that’s rising out of yon lums.”
[38] [Note VI.]—Zetland Corn-mills.
[39] What is eat by way of relish to dry bread is called kitchen in Scotland, as cheese, dried fish, or the like relishing morsels.
CHAPTER XII.
——Thou hast described
A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius,
When love begins to sicken and decay,
It useth an enforced ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.
Julius Cæsar.
If the smell which was wafted from the chimneys of Burgh-Westra up to the barren hills by which the mansion was surrounded, could, as Mistress Barbara opined, have refreshed the hungry, the noise which proceeded from thence might have given hearing to the deaf. It was a medley of all sounds, and all connected with jollity and kind welcome. Nor were the sights associated with them less animating.
Troops of friends were seen in the act of arriving—their dispersed ponies flying to the moors in every direction, to recover their own pastures in the best way they could;—such, as we have already said, being the usual mode of discharging the cavalry which had been levied for a day’s service. At a small but commodious harbour, connected with the house and hamlet, those visitors were landing from their boats, who, living in distant islands, and along the coast, had preferred making their journey by sea. Mordaunt and his companions might see each party pausing frequently to greet each other, and strolling on successively to the house, whose ever open gate received them alternately in such numbers, that it seemed the extent of the mansion, though suited to the opulence and hospitality of the owner, was scarce, on this occasion, sufficient for the guests.
Among the confused sounds of mirth and welcome which arose at the entrance of each new company, Mordaunt thought he could distinguish the loud laugh and hearty salutation of the Sire of the mansion, and began to feel more deeply than before, the anxious doubt, whether that cordial reception, which was distributed so freely to all others, would be on this occasion extended to him. As they came on, they heard the voluntary scrapings and bravura effusions of the gallant fiddlers, who impatiently flung already from their bows those sounds with which they were to animate the evening. The clamour of the cook’s assistants, and the loud scolding tones of the cook himself, were also to be heard—sounds of dissonance at any other time, but which, subdued with others, and by certain happy associations, form no disagreeable part of the full chorus which always precedes a rural feast.
Meanwhile, the guests advanced, each full of their own thoughts. Mordaunt’s we have already noticed. Baby was wrapt up in the melancholy grief and surprise excited by the positive conviction, that so much victuals had been cooked at once as were necessary to feed all the mouths which were clamouring around her—an enormity of expense, which, though she was no way concerned in bearing it, affected her nerves, as the beholding a massacre would touch those of the most indifferent spectator, however well assured of his own personal safety. She sickened, in short, at the sight of so much extravagance, like Abyssinian Bruce, when he saw the luckless minstrels of Gondar hacked to pieces by the order of Ras Michael. As for her brother, they being now arrived where the rude and antique instruments of Zetland agriculture lay scattered in the usual confusion of a Scottish barn-yard, his thoughts were at once engrossed in the deficiencies of the one-stilted plough—of the twiscar, with which they dig peats—of the sledges, on which they transport commodities—of all and every thing, in short, in which the usages of the islands differed from those of the mainland of Scotland. The sight of these imperfect instruments stirred the blood of Triptolemus Yellowley, as that of the bold warrior rises at seeing the arms and insignia of the enemy he is about to combat; and, faithful to his high emprise, he thought less of the hunger which his journey had occasioned, although about to be satisfied by such a dinner as rarely fell to his lot, than upon the task which he had undertaken, of civilizing the manners, and improving the cultivation, of Zetland.
“Jacta est alea,” he muttered to himself; “this very day shall prove whether the Zetlanders are worthy of our labours, or whether their minds are as incapable of cultivation as their peat-mosses. Yet let us be cautious, and watch the soft time of speech. I feel, by my own experience, that it were best to let the body, in its present state, take the place of the mind. A mouthful of that same roast-beef, which smells so delicately, will form an apt introduction to my grand plan for improving the breed of stock.”
By this time the visitors had reached the low but ample front of Magnus Troil’s residence, which seemed of various dates, with large and ill-imagined additions, hastily adapted to the original building, as the increasing estate, or enlarged family, of successive proprietors, appeared to each to demand. Beneath a low, broad, and large porch, supported by two huge carved posts, once the head-ornaments of vessels which had found shipwreck upon the coast, stood Magnus himself, intent on the hospitable toil of receiving and welcoming the numerous guests who successively approached. His strong portly figure was well adapted to the dress which he wore—a blue coat of an antique cut, lined with scarlet, and laced and looped with gold down the seams and button-holes, and along the ample cuffs. Strong and masculine features, rendered ruddy and brown by frequent exposure to severe weather—a quantity of most venerable silver hair, which fell in unshorn profusion from under his gold-laced hat, and was carelessly tied with a ribbon behind, expressed at once his advanced age, his hasty, yet well-conditioned temper, and his robust constitution. As our travellers approached him, a shade of displeasure seemed to cross his brow, and to interrupt for an instant the honest and hearty burst of hilarity with which he had been in the act of greeting all prior arrivals. When he approached Triptolemus Yellowley, he drew himself up, so as to mix, as it were, some share of the stately importance of the opulent Udaller with the welcome afforded by the frank and hospitable landlord.
“You are welcome, Mr. Yellowley,” was his address to the factor; “you are welcome to Westra—the wind has blown you on a rough coast, and we that are the natives must be kind to you as we can. This, I believe, is your sister—Mistress Barbara Yellowley, permit me the honour of a neighbourly salute.”—And so saying, with a daring and self-devoted courtesy, which would find no equal in our degenerate days, he actually ventured to salute the withered cheek of the spinster, who relaxed so much of her usual peevishness of expression, as to receive the courtesy with something which approached to a smile. He then looked full at Mordaunt Mertoun, and without offering his hand, said, in a tone somewhat broken by suppressed agitation, “You too are welcome, Master Mordaunt.”
“Did I not think so,” said Mordaunt, naturally offended by the coldness of his host’s manner, “I had not been here—and it is not yet too late to turn back.”
“Young man,” replied Magnus, “you know better than most, that from these doors no man can turn, without an offence to their owner. I pray you, disturb not my guests by your ill-timed scruples. When Magnus Troil says welcome, all are welcome who are within hearing of his voice, and it is an indifferent loud one.—Walk on, my worthy guests, and let us see what cheer my lasses can make you within doors.”
So saying, and taking care to make his manner so general to the whole party, that Mordaunt should not be able to appropriate any particular portion of the welcome to himself, nor yet to complain of being excluded from all share in it, the Udaller ushered the guests into his house, where two large outer rooms, which, on the present occasion, served the purpose of a modern saloon, were already crowded with guests of every description.
The furniture was sufficiently simple, and had a character peculiar to the situation of those stormy islands. Magnus Troil was, indeed, like most of the higher class of Zetland proprietors, a friend to the distressed traveller, whether by sea or land, and had repeatedly exerted his whole authority in protecting the property and persons of shipwrecked mariners; yet so frequent were wrecks upon that tremendous coast, and so many unappropriated articles were constantly flung ashore, that the interior of the house bore sufficient witness to the ravages of the ocean, and to the exercise of those rights which the lawyers term Flotsome and Jetsome. The chairs, which were arranged around the walls, were such as are used in cabins, and many of them were of foreign construction; the mirrors and cabinets, which were placed against the walls for ornament or convenience, had, it was plain from their form, been constructed for ship-board, and one or two of the latter were of strange and unknown wood. Even the partition which separated the two apartments, seemed constructed out of the bulkhead of some large vessel, clumsily adapted to the service which it at present performed, by the labour of some native joiner. To a stranger, these evident marks and tokens of human misery might, at the first glance, form a contrast with the scene of mirth with which they were now associated; but the association was so familiar to the natives, that it did not for a moment interrupt the course of their glee.
To the younger part of these revellers the presence of Mordaunt was like a fresh charm of enjoyment. All came around him to marvel at his absence, and all, by their repeated enquiries, plainly showed that they conceived it had been entirely voluntary on his side. The youth felt that this general acceptation relieved his anxiety on one painful point. Whatever prejudice the family of Burgh-Westra might have adopted respecting him, it must be of a private nature; and at least he had not the additional pain of finding that he was depreciated in the eyes of society at large; and his vindication, when he found opportunity to make one, would not require to be extended beyond the circle of a single family. This was consoling; though his heart still throbbed with anxiety at the thought of meeting with his estranged, but still beloved friends. Laying the excuse of his absence on his father’s state of health, he made his way through the various groups of friends and guests, each of whom seemed willing to detain him as long as possible, and having, by presenting them to one or two families of consequence, got rid of his travelling companions, who at first stuck fast as burs, he reached at length the door of a small apartment, which, opening from one of the large exterior rooms we have mentioned, Minna and Brenda had been permitted to fit up after their own taste, and to call their peculiar property.
Mordaunt had contributed no small share of the invention and mechanical execution employed in fitting up this favourite apartment, and in disposing its ornaments. It was, indeed, during his last residence at Burgh-Westra, as free to his entrance and occupation, as to its proper mistresses. But now, so much were times altered, that he remained with his finger on the latch, uncertain whether he should take the freedom to draw it, until Brenda’s voice pronounced the words, “Come in, then,” in the tone of one who is interrupted by an unwelcome disturber, who is to be heard and dispatched with all the speed possible.
At this signal Mertoun entered the fanciful cabinet of the sisters, which by the addition of many ornaments, including some articles of considerable value, had been fitted up for the approaching festival. The daughters of Magnus, at the moment of Mordaunt’s entrance, were seated in deep consultation with the stranger Cleveland, and with a little slight-made old man, whose eye retained all the vivacity of spirit, which had supported him under the thousand vicissitudes of a changeful and precarious life, and which, accompanying him in his old age, rendered his grey hairs less awfully reverend perhaps, but not less beloved, than would a more grave and less imaginative expression of countenance and character. There was even a penetrating shrewdness mingled in the look of curiosity, with which, as he stepped for an instant aside, he seemed to watch the meeting of Mordaunt with the two lovely sisters.
The reception the youth met with resembled, in general character, that which he had experienced from Magnus himself; but the maidens could not so well cover their sense of the change of circumstances under which they met. Both blushed, as, rising, and without extending the hand, far less offering the cheek, as the fashion of the times permitted, and almost exacted, they paid to Mordaunt the salutation due to an ordinary acquaintance. But the blush of the elder was one of those transient evidences of flitting emotion, that vanish as fast as the passing thought which excites them. In an instant she stood before the youth calm and cold, returning, with guarded and cautious courtesy, the usual civilities, which, with a faltering voice, Mordaunt endeavoured to present to her. The emotion of Brenda bore, externally at least, a deeper and more agitating character. Her blush extended over every part of her beautiful skin which her dress permitted to be visible, including her slender neck, and the upper region of a finely formed bosom. Neither did she even attempt to reply to what share of his confused compliment Mordaunt addressed to her in particular, but regarded him with eyes, in which displeasure was evidently mingled with feelings of regret, and recollections of former times. Mordaunt felt, as it were, assured upon the instant, that the regard of Minna was extinguished, but that it might be yet possible to recover that of the milder Brenda; and such is the waywardness of human fancy, that though he had never hitherto made any distinct difference betwixt these two beautiful and interesting girls, the favour of her, which seemed most absolutely withdrawn, became at the moment the most interesting in his eyes.
He was disturbed in these hasty reflections by Cleveland, who advanced, with military frankness, to pay his compliments to his preserver, having only delayed long enough to permit the exchange of the ordinary salutation betwixt the visitor and the ladies of the family. He made his approach with so good a grace, that it was impossible for Mordaunt, although he dated his loss of favour at Burgh-Westra from this stranger’s appearance on the coast, and domestication in the family, to do less than return his advances as courtesy demanded, accept his thanks with an appearance of satisfaction, and hope that his time had past pleasantly since their last meeting.
Cleveland was about to answer, when he was anticipated by the little old man, formerly noticed, who now thrusting himself forward, and seizing Mordaunt’s hand, kissed him on the forehead; and then at the same time echoed and answered his question—“How passes time at Burgh-Westra? Was it you that asked it, my prince of the cliff and of the scaur? How should it pass, but with all the wings that beauty and joy can add to help its flight!”
“And wit and song, too, my good old friend,” said Mordaunt, half-serious, half-jesting, as he shook the old man cordially by the hand.—“These cannot be wanting, where Claud Halcro comes!”
“Jeer me not, Mordaunt, my good lad,” replied the old man; “When your foot is as slow as mine, your wit frozen, and your song out of tune”——
“How can you belie yourself, my good master?” answered Mordaunt, who was not unwilling to avail himself of his old friend’s peculiarities to introduce something like conversation, break the awkwardness of this singular meeting, and gain time for observation, ere requiring an explanation of the change of conduct which the family seemed to have adopted towards him. “Say not so,” he continued. “Time, my old friend, lays his hand lightly on the bard. Have I not heard you say, the poet partakes the immortality of his song? and surely the great English poet, you used to tell us of, was elder than yourself when he pulled the bow-oar among all the wits of London.”
This alluded to a story which was, as the French term it, Halcro’s cheval de bataille, and any allusion to which was certain at once to place him in the saddle, and to push his hobby-horse into full career.
His laughing eye kindled with a sort of enthusiasm, which the ordinary folk of this world might have called crazed, while he dashed into the subject which he best loved to talk upon. “Alas, alas, my dear Mordaunt Mertoun—silver is silver, and waxes not dim by use—and pewter is pewter, and grows the longer the duller. It is not for poor Claud Halcro to name himself in the same twelvemonth with the immortal John Dryden. True it is, as I may have told you before, that I have seen that great man, nay I have been in the Wits’ Coffeehouse, as it was then called, and had once a pinch out of his own very snuff-box. I must have told you all how it happened, but here is Captain Cleveland who never heard it.—I lodged, you must know, in Russel Street—I question not but you know Russel Street, Covent Garden, Captain Cleveland?”
“I should know its latitude pretty well, Mr. Halcro,” said the Captain, smiling; “but I believe you mentioned the circumstance yesterday, and besides we have the day’s duty in hand—you must play us this song which we are to study.”
“It will not serve the turn now,” said Halcro, “we must think of something that will take in our dear Mordaunt, the first voice in the island, whether for a part or solo. I will never be he will touch a string to you, unless Mordaunt Mertoun is to help us out.—What say you, my fairest Night?—what think you, my sweet Dawn of Day?” he added, addressing the young women, upon whom, as we have said elsewhere, he had long before bestowed these allegorical names.
“Mr. Mordaunt Mertoun,” said Minna, “has come too late to be of our band on this occasion—it is our misfortune, but it cannot be helped.”
“How? what?” said Halcro, hastily—“too late—and you have practised together all your lives? take my word, my bonny lasses, that old tunes are sweetest, and old friends surest. Mr. Cleveland has a fine bass, that must be allowed; but I would have you trust for the first effect to one of the twenty fine airs you can sing where Mordaunt’s tenor joins so well with your own witchery—here is my lovely Day approves of the change in her heart.”
“You were never in your life more mistaken, father Halcro,” said Brenda, her cheeks again reddening, more with displeasure, it seemed, than with shame.
“Nay, but how is this?” said the old man, pausing, and looking at them alternately. “What have we got here?—a cloudy night and a red morning?—that betokens rough weather.—What means all this, young women?—where lies the offence?—In me, I fear; for the blame is always laid upon the oldest when young folk like you go by the ears.”
“The blame is not with you, father Halcro,” said Minna, rising, and taking her sister by the arm, “if indeed there be blame anywhere.”
“I should fear then, Minna,” said Mordaunt, endeavouring to soften his tone into one of indifferent pleasantry, “that the new comer has brought the offence along with him.”
“When no offence is taken,” replied Minna, with her usual gravity, “it matters not by whom such may have been offered.”
“Is it possible, Minna!” exclaimed Mordaunt, “and is it you who speak thus to me?—And you too, Brenda, can you too judge so hardly of me, yet without permitting me one moment of honest and frank explanation?”
“Those who should know best,” answered Brenda, in a low but decisive tone of voice, “have told us their pleasure, and it must be done.—Sister, I think we have staid too long here, and shall be wanted elsewhere—Mr. Mertoun will excuse us on so busy a day.”
The sisters linked their arms together. Halcro in vain endeavoured to stop them, making, at the same time, a theatrical gesture, and exclaiming,
“Now, Day and Night, but this is wondrous strange!”
Then turned to Mordaunt Mertoun, and added—“The girls are possessed with the spirit of mutability, showing, as our master Spenser well saith, that
‘Among all living creatures, more or lesse,
Change still doth reign, and keep the greater sway.’
Captain Cleveland,” he continued, “know you any thing that has happened to put these two juvenile Graces out of tune?”
“He will lose his reckoning,” answered Cleveland, “that spends time in enquiring why the wind shifts a point, or why a woman changes her mind. Were I Mr. Mordaunt, I would not ask the proud wenches another question on such a subject.”
“It is a friendly advice, Captain Cleveland,” replied Mordaunt, “and I will not hold it the less so that it has been given unasked. Allow me to enquire if you are yourself as indifferent to the opinion of your female friends, as it seems you would have me to be?”
“Who, I?” said the Captain, with an air of frank indifference, “I never thought twice upon such a subject. I never saw a woman worth thinking twice about after the anchor was a-peak—on shore it is another thing; and I will laugh, sing, dance, and make love, if they like it, with twenty girls, were they but half so pretty as those who have left us, and make them heartily welcome to change their course in the sound of a boatswain’s whistle. It will be odds but I wear as fast as they can.”
A patient is seldom pleased with that sort of consolation which is founded on holding light the malady of which he complains; and Mordaunt felt disposed to be offended with Captain Cleveland, both for taking notice of his embarrassment, and intruding upon him his own opinion; and he replied, therefore, somewhat sharply, “that Captain Cleveland’s sentiments were only suited to such as had the art to become universal favourites wherever chance happened to throw them, and who could not lose in one place more than their merit was sure to gain for them in another.”
This was spoken ironically; but there was, to confess the truth, a superior knowledge of the world, and a consciousness of external merit at least, about the man, which rendered his interference doubly disagreeable. As Sir Lucius O’Trigger says, there was an air of success about Captain Cleveland which was mighty provoking. Young, handsome, and well assured, his air of nautical bluntness sat naturally and easily upon him, and was perhaps particularly well fitted to the simple manners of the remote country in which he found himself; and where, even in the best families, a greater degree of refinement might have rendered his conversation rather less acceptable. He was contented, in the present instance, to smile good-humouredly at the obvious discontent of Mordaunt Mertoun, and replied, “You are angry with me, my good friend, but you cannot make me angry with you. The fair hands of all the pretty women I ever saw in my life would never have fished me up out of the Roost of Sumburgh. So, pray, do not quarrel with me; for here is Mr. Halcro witness that I have struck both jack and topsail, and should you fire a broadside into me, cannot return a single shot.”
“Ay, ay,” said Halcro, “you must be friends with Captain Cleveland, Mordaunt. Never quarrel with your friend, because a woman is whimsical. Why, man, if they kept one humour, how the devil could we make so many songs on them as we do? Even old Dryden himself, glorious old John, could have said little about a girl that was always of one mind—as well write verses upon a mill-pond. It is your tides and your roosts, and your currents and eddies, that come and go, and ebb and flow, (by Heaven! I run into rhyme when I so much as think upon them,) that smile one day, rage the next, flatter and devour, delight and ruin us, and so forth—it is these that give the real soul of poetry. Did you never hear my Adieu to the Lass of Northmaven—that was poor Bet Stimbister, whom I call Mary for the sound’s sake, as I call myself Hacon after my great ancestor Hacon Goldemund, or Haco with the golden mouth, who came to the island with Harold Harfager, and was his chief Scald?—Well, but where was I?—O ay—poor Bet Stimbister, she (and partly some debt) was the cause of my leaving the isles of Hialtland, (better so called than Shetland, or Zetland even,) and taking to the broad world. I have had a tramp of it since that time—I have battled my way through the world, Captain, as a man of mold may, that has a light head, a light purse, and a heart as light as them both—fought my way, and paid my way—that is, either with money or wit—have seen kings changed and deposed as you would turn a tenant out of a scathold—knew all the wits of the age, and especially the glorious John Dryden—what man in the islands can say as much, barring lying?—I had a pinch out of his own snuff-box—I will tell you how I came by such promotion.”
“But the song, Mr. Halcro,” said Captain Cleveland.
“The song?” answered Halcro, seizing the Captain by the button,—for he was too much accustomed to have his audience escape from him during recitation, not to put in practice all the usual means of prevention,—“The song? Why I gave a copy of it, with fifteen others, to the immortal John. You shall hear it—you shall hear them all, if you will but stand still a moment; and you too, my dear boy, Mordaunt Mertoun, I have scarce heard a word from your mouth these six months, and now you are running away from me.” So saying, he secured him with his other hand.
“Nay, now he has got us both in tow,” said the seaman, “there is nothing for it but hearing him out, though he spins as tough a yarn as ever an old man-of-war’s-man twisted on the watch at midnight.”
“Nay, now, be silent, be silent, and let one of us speak at once,” said the poet, imperatively; while Cleveland and Mordaunt, looking at each other with a ludicrous expression of resignation to their fate, waited in submission for the well-known and inevitable tale. “I will tell you all about it,” continued Halcro. “I was knocked about the world like other young fellows, doing this, that, and t’other for a livelihood; for, thank God, I could turn my hand to any thing—but loving still the Muses as much as if the ungrateful jades had found me, like so many blockheads, in my own coach and six. However, I held out till my cousin, old Lawrence Linkletter, died, and left me the bit of an island yonder; although, by the way, Cultmalindie was as near to him as I was; but Lawrence loved wit, though he had little of his own. Well, he left me the wee bit island—it is as barren as Parnassus itself. What then?—I have a penny to spend, a penny to keep my purse, a penny to give to the poor—ay, and a bed and a bottle for a friend, as you shall know, boys, if you will go back with me when this merriment is over.—But where was I in my story?”
“Near port, I hope,” answered Cleveland; but Halcro was too determined a narrator to be interrupted by the broadest hint.
“O ay,” he resumed, with the self-satisfied air of one who has recovered the thread of a story, “I was in my old lodgings in Russel Street, with old Timothy Thimblethwaite, the Master Fashioner, then the best-known man about town. He made for all the wits, and for the dull boobies of fortune besides, and made the one pay for the other. He never denied a wit credit save in jest, or for the sake of getting a repartee; and he was in correspondence with all that was worth knowing about town. He had letters from Crowne, and Tate, and Prior, and Tom Brown, and all the famous fellows of the time, with such pellets of wit, that there was no reading them without laughing ready to die, and all ending with craving a further term for payment.”
“I should have thought the tailor would have found that jest rather serious,” said Mordaunt.
“Not a bit—not a bit,” replied his eulogist, “Tim Thimblethwaite (he was a Cumberland-man by birth) had the soul of a prince—ay, and died with the fortune of one; for woe betide the custard-gorged alderman that came under Tim’s goose, after he had got one of those letters—egad, he was sure to pay the kain! Why, Thimblethwaite was thought to be the original of little Tom Bibber, in glorious John’s comedy of the Wild Gallant; and I know that he has trusted, ay, and lent John money to boot out of his own pocket, at a time when all his fine court friends blew cold enough. He trusted me too, and I have been two months on the score at a time for my upper room. To be sure, I was obliging in his way—not that I exactly could shape or sew, nor would that have been decorous for a gentleman of good descent; but I—eh, eh—I drew bills—summed up the books”——
“Carried home the clothes of the wits and aldermen, and got lodging for your labour?” interrupted Cleveland.
“No, no—damn it, no,” replied Halcro; “no such thing—you put me out in my story—where was I?”
“Nay, the devil help you to the latitude,” said the Captain, extricating his button from the gripe of the unmerciful bard’s finger and thumb, “for I have no time to take an observation.” So saying, he bolted from the room.
“A silly, ill-bred, conceited fool,” said Halcro, looking after him; “with as little manners as wit in his empty coxcomb. I wonder what Magnus and these silly wenches can see in him—he tells such damnable long-winded stories, too, about his adventures and sea-fights—every second word a lie, I doubt not. Mordaunt, my dear boy, take example by that man—that is, take warning by him—never tell long stories about yourself. You are sometimes given to talk too much about your own exploits on crags and skerries, and the like, which only breaks conversation, and prevents other folk from being heard. Now I see you are impatient to hear out what I was saying—Stop, whereabouts was I?”
“I fear we must put it off, Mr. Halcro, until after dinner,” said Mordaunt, who also meditated his escape, though desirous of effecting it with more delicacy towards his old acquaintance than Captain Cleveland had thought it necessary to use.
“Nay, my dear boy,” said Halcro, seeing himself about to be utterly deserted, “do not you leave me too—never take so bad an example as to set light by old acquaintance, Mordaunt. I have wandered many a weary step in my day; but they were always lightened when I could get hold of the arm of an old friend like yourself.”
So saying, he quitted the youth’s coat, and sliding his hand gently under his arm, grappled him more effectually; to which Mordaunt submitted, a little moved by the poet’s observation upon the unkindness of old acquaintances, under which he himself was an immediate sufferer. But when Halcro renewed his formidable question, “Whereabouts was I?” Mordaunt, preferring his poetry to his prose, reminded him of the song which he said he had written upon his first leaving Zetland,—a song to which, indeed, the enquirer was no stranger, but which, as it must be new to the reader, we shall here insert as a favourable specimen of the poetical powers of this tuneful descendant of Haco the Golden-mouthed; for, in the opinion of many tolerable judges, he held a respectable rank among the inditers of madrigals of the period, and was as well qualified to give immortality to his Nancies of the hills or dales, as many a gentle sonnetteer of wit and pleasure about town. He was something of a musician also, and on the present occasion seized upon a sort of lute, and, quitting his victim, prepared the instrument for an accompaniment, speaking all the while that he might lose no time.
“I learned the lute,” he said, “from the same man who taught honest Shadwell—plump Tom, as they used to call him—somewhat roughly treated by the glorious John, you remember—Mordaunt, you remember—
‘Methinks I see the new Arion sail,
The lute still trembling underneath thy nail;
At thy well sharpen’d thumb, from shore to shore,
The trebles squeak for fear, the basses roar.’
Come, I am indifferently in tune now—what was it to be?—ay, I remember—nay, The Lass of Northmaven is the ditty—poor Bet Stimbister! I have called her Mary in the verses. Betsy does well for an English song; but Mary is more natural here.” So saying, after a short prelude, he sung, with a tolerable voice and some taste, the following verses: