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.”