"Heaven save you, father!" said he, uncovering his head, and speaking in that broken Norwegian dialect which he had acquired among the Shetlanders.
"And what, may I ask, hath procured me a visit from a son of vanity and trumpery like thee?" asked the old man of the rock, surveying Ormiston with a glance approaching to disdain.
"An errand of friendship, good father," replied the other, whose uneasiness was in no way soothed when he saw, by the restless and unearthly aspect of the hermit's eyes, that he was evidently insane; "from one who hath a boon to crave of thee."
"Of me—Ha! ha!" laughed the hermit, and the reverberations of his laughter, that echoed a hundredfold through the fissures of the cavern, seemed to the imaginative ear of Ormiston like that of fiends ringing from an abyss, and, signing the cross, he involuntarily drew back. The wild hermit seemed to enjoy his terror, and laughed louder still.
"What wouldst thou have? a blessing implored upon thy vessel, that neither the mermaids of the moskenstrom nor the water-spirit may bewitch it; nor that Nippen may come in the night and turn thy compass round from north to south, and so lead thee within the folds of the mighty Jormagundr, that great ocean snake which lieth coiled up under the frozen regions of the pole, and one dash of whose tail makes the great whirlpool to boil for a century? Hah!"
"Nay, good father," said Ormiston; "for none of these things have I sought thee, but to crave a blessing and the bands of wedlock for a knight and lady, who choose rather to receive their nuptial benediction from thee, who art a remnant of our ancient faith, (Heaven forgive me this vile blasphemy!) than from one of these newfangled parsons whom King Frederick hath planted in Norway."
"Good," replied the hermit, as a smile spread over his ghastly visage; "and what return will be made me if I concede to your request?"
"Return!" stammered Ormiston, taking a silver chain from his neck, but immediately replacing it, for he saw that he had not to deal with an ordinary man. "Holy father! though the lady is noble, and the knight is both noble and wealthy, they can make no other return than a promise to hold thy name in kind remembrance, and pray for thee daily, in memory of the blessing thou wilt bestow."
"Good again—thou pleasest me; let these strangers approach."
"By what name art thou known, father?"