The Pirate Walter Scott 65191 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Pirate
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this eBook.

Title: The Pirate

Author: Walter Scott

Editor: Andrew Lang

Release date: March 23, 2013 [eBook #42389]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42389

Credits: E-text prepared by sp1nd and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIRATE ***

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pirate, by Sir Walter Scott

Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet
Archive. See https://archive.org/details/thepirate00scotuoft

THE PIRATE.
Nothing in him——
But doth suffer a sea-change.
Tempest.

BIBLIOPHILE EDITION
This Edition of the Works of
Sir Walter Scott, Bart, is
limited to One Thousand
Numbered and Signed Sets, of
which this is
Number ...
University Library
Association

Bibliophile Edition

THE WAVERLEY NOVELS
WITH NEW INTRODUCTIONS, NOTES AND GLOSSARIES
BY ANDREW LANG

THE PIRATE

BY

SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart.
ILLUSTRATED

University Library Association
PHILADELPHIA

Copyright, 1893
By Estes & Lauriat

Andrew Lang Edition.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE PIRATE.

Volume I.
PAGE
Mordaunt in Yellowley’s Cottage Frontispiece
The Sword Dance 234

Volume II.
Minna on the Cliff 103
The Pirate’s Council 208
Minna taking the Pistol 250

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

TO

THE PIRATE.
The circumstances in which “The Pirate” was composed have for the
Editor a peculiar interest. He has many times scribbled at the old bureau in
Chiefswood whereon Sir Walter worked at his novel, and sat in summer
weather beneath the great tree on the lawn where Erskine used to read the
fresh chapters to Lockhart and his wife, while the burn murmured by from
the Rhymer’s Glen. So little altered is the cottage of Chiefswood by the
addition of a gabled wing in the same red stone as the older portion, so
charmed a quiet has the place, in the shelter of Eildon Hill, that there one
can readily beget the golden time again, and think oneself back into the day
when Mustard and Spice, running down the shady glen, might herald the
coming of the Sheriff himself. Happy hours and gone: like that summer of
1821, whereof Lockhart speaks with an emotion the more touching because
it is so rare,—
the first of several seasons, which will ever dwell on my memory as the happiest of my life. We were
near enough Abbotsford to partake as often as we liked of its brilliant society; yet could do so without
being exposed to the worry and exhaustion of spirit which the daily reception of new visitors entailed
upon all the society except Sir Walter himself. But, in truth, even he was not always proof against the
annoyances connected with such a style of open-house-keeping. Even his temper sank sometimes
under the solemn applause of learned dulness, the vapid raptures of painted and periwigged dowagers
the horse-leech avidity with which underbred foreigners urged their questions, and the pompous
simpers of condescending magnates. When sore beset in this way, he would every now and then
discover that he had some very particular business to attend to on an outlying part of his estate, and,
craving the indulgence of his guests overnight, appear at the cabin in the glen before its inhabitants
were astir in the morning. The clatter of Sibyl Grey’s hoofs, the yelping of Mustard and Spice, and
his own joyous shout of reveillée under our window, were the signal that he had burst his bonds, and
meant for that day to take his ease in his inn.... After breakfast he would take possession of a
dressing-room upstairs, and write a chapter of “The Pirate”; and then, having made up and dispatched
his parcel for Mr. Ballantyne, away to join Purdie where the foresters were at work....
The constant and eager delight with which Erskine watched the progress of the tale has left a
deep impression on my memory: and indeed I heard so many of its chapters first read from the MS.

by him, that I can never open the book now without thinking I hear his voice. Sir Walter used to give
him at breakfast the pages he had written that morning, and very commonly, while he was again at
work in his study, Erskine would walk over to Chiefswood, that he might have the pleasure of
reading them aloud to my wife and me under our favourite tree.[1]

“The tree is living yet!” This long quotation from a book but too little
read in general may be excused for its interest, as bearing on the
composition of “The Pirate,” in the early autumn of 1821. In “The Pirate”
Scott fell back on his recollections of the Orcades, as seen by him in a tour
with the Commissioners of Light Houses, in August 1814, immediately
after the publication of “Waverley.” They were accompanied by Mr.
Stevenson, the celebrated engineer, “a most gentlemanlike and modest man,
and well known by his scientific skill.”[2] It is understood that Mr.
Stevenson also kept a diary, and that it is to be published by the care of his
distinguished grandson, Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, author of
“Kidnapped,” “The Master of Ballantrae,” and other novels in which Scott
would have recognised a not alien genius.
Sir Walter’s Diary, read in company with “The Pirate,” offers a most
curious study of his art in composition. It may be said that he scarcely noted
a natural feature, a monument, a custom, a superstition, or a legend in
Zetland and Orkney which he did not weave into the magic web of his
romance. In the Diary all those matters appear as very ordinary; in “The
Pirate” they are transfigured in the light of fancy. History gives Scott the
career of Gow and his betrothal to an island lady: observation gives him a
few headlands, Picts’ houses, ruined towers, and old stone monuments, and
his characters gather about these, in rhythmic array, like the dancers in the
sword-dance. We may conceive that Cleveland, like Gow, was originally
meant to die, and that Minna, like Margaret in the ballad of Clerk Saunders,
was to recover her troth from the hand of her dead lover. But, if Scott
intended this, he was good-natured, and relented.
Taking the incidents in the Diary in company with the novel, we find, in
the very first page of “The Pirate,” mention of the roost, or rost, of
Sumburgh, the running current of tidal water, which he hated so, because it
made him so sea-sick. “All the landsmen sicker than sick, and our Viceroy,
Stevenson, qualmish. It is proposed to have a light on Sumburgh Head.
Fitful Head is higher, but is to the west, from which quarter few vessels
come.” As for Sumburgh Head, Scott climbed it, rolled down a rock from
the summit, and found it “a fine situation to compose an ode to the Genius

of Sumburgh Head, or an Elegy upon a Cormorant—or to have written or
spoken madness of any kind in prose or poetry. But I gave vent to my
excited feelings in a more simple way, and, sitting gently down on the steep
green slope which led to the beach, I e’en slid down a few hundred feet, and
found the exercise quite an adequate vent to my enthusiasm.”
Sir Walter was certainly not what he found Mrs. Hemans, “too
poetical.”
In the first chapter, his Giffords, Scotts (of Scotstarvet, the Fifeshire
house, not of the Border clan), and Mouats are the very gentry who
entertained him on his tour. His “plantie cruives,” in the novel, had been
noted in the Diary (Lockhart, iv. 193). “Pate Stewart,” the oppressive Earl,
is chronicled at length in “the Diary.” “His huge tower remains wild and
desolate—its chambers filled with sand, and its rifted walls and dismantled
battlements giving unrestrained access to the roaring sea-blast.” So Scott
wrote in his last review for the “Quarterly,” a criticism of Pitcairn’s “Scotch
Criminal Trials” (1831). The Trows, or Drows, the fairy dwarfs he studied
on the spot, and connects the name with Dwerg, though Trolls seem rather
to be their spiritual and linguistic ancestors. The affair of the clergyman
who was taken for a Pecht, or Pict, actually occurred during the tour, and
Mr. Stevenson, who had met the poor Pecht before, was able to clear his
character.[3] In the same place the Kraken is mentioned: he had been visible
for nearly a fortnight, but no sailor dared go near him.

He lay in the offing a fortnight or more,
But the devil a Zetlander put from the
shore.
If your Grace thinks I’m writing the thing
that is not,
You may ask at a namesake of ours, Mr.
Scott,

Sir Walter wrote to the Duke of Buccleugh. He paid a visit to an old lady,
who, like Norna, and Æolus in the Odyssey, kept the winds in a bag, and
could sell a fair breeze. “She was a miserable figure, upwards of ninety, she
told me, and dried up like a mummy. A sort of clay-coloured cloak, folded
over her head, corresponded in colour to her corpse-like complexion. Fine
light-blue eyes, and nose and chin that almost met, and a ghastly expression

of cunning gave her quite the effect of Hecate. She told us she remembered
Gow the Pirate, betrothed to a Miss Gordon,”—so here are the germs of
Norna, Cleveland, and Minna, all sown in good ground, to bear fruit in
seven years (1814-1821). Triptolemus Yellowley is entirely derived from
the Diary, and is an anachronism. The Lowland Scots factors and ploughs
were only coming in while Scott was in the isles. He himself saw the absurd
little mills (vol. i. ch. xi.), and the one stilted plough which needed two
women to open the furrows, a feebler plough than the Virgilian specimens
which one still remarks in Tuscany. “When this precious machine was in
motion, it was dragged by four little bullocks, yoked abreast, and as many
ponies harnessed, or rather strung, to the plough by ropes and thongs of raw
hide.... An antiquary might be of opinion that this was the very model of the
original plough invented by Triptolemus,” son of the Eleusinian king, who
sheltered Demeter in her wanderings. The sword-dance was not danced for
Scott’s entertainment, but he heard of the Pupa dancers, and got a copy of
the accompanying chant, and was presented with examples of the flint and
bronze Celts which Norna treasured. All over the world, as in Zetland, they
were regarded as “thunder stones.” (Diary; Lockhart, iv. 220.) The bridal of
Norna, by clasping of hands through Odin’s stone ring, was still practised as
a form of betrothal. (Lockhart, iv. 252.) Some island people were despised,
as by Magnus Troil, as “poor sneaks” who ate limpets, “the last of human
meannesses.” The “wells,” or smooth wave-currents, were also noted, and
the Garland of the whalers often alluded to in the tale. The Stones of
Stennis were visited, and the Dwarfie Stone of Hoy, where Norna, like
some Eskimo Angekok, met her familiar demon. Scott held that the stone
“probably was meant as the temple of some northern edition of the dii
Manes. They conceive that the dwarf may be seen sometimes sitting at the
door of his abode, but he vanishes on a nearer approach.” The dwelling of
Norna, a Pict’s house, with an overhanging story, “shaped like a dice-box,”
is the ancient Castle of Mousa.[4] The strange incantation of Norna, the
dropping of molten lead into water, is also described. Usually the lead was
poured through the wards of a key. In affections of the heart, like Minna’s, a
triangular stone, probably a neolithic arrow-head, was usually employed as
an amulet. (Lockhart, iv. 208.) Even the story of the pirate’s insolent answer
to the Provost is adapted from a recent occurrence. Two whalers were
accused of stealing a sheep. The first denied the charge, but said he had
seen the animal carried off by “a fellow with a red nose and a black wig.

Don’t you think he was like his honour, Tom?” “By God, Jack, I believe it
was the very man.” (Diary; Lockhart, iv. 222; “The Pirate,” vol. ii. ch. xiv.)
The goldless Northern Ophir was also visited—in brief, Scott scarcely made
a remark on his tour which he did not manage to transmute into the rare
metal of his romance. It is no wonder that the Orcadians at once detected
his authorship. A trifling anecdote of the cruise has recently been published.
Scott presented a lady in the isles with a piano, which, it seems, is still
capable of producing a melancholy jingling tune.[5]
Lockhart says, as to the reception of “The Pirate” (Dec. 1821): “The
wild freshness of the atmosphere of this splendid romance, the beautiful
contrast of Minna and Brenda, and the exquisitely drawn character of
Captain Cleveland, found the reception which they deserved.” “The wild
freshness of the atmosphere” is indeed magically transfused, and breathes
across the pages as it blows over the Fitful Head, the skerries, the desolate
moors, the plain of the Standing Stones of Stennis. The air is keen and salt
and fragrant of the sea. Yet Sydney Smith was greatly disappointed. “I am
afraid this novel will depend upon the former reputation of the author, and
will add nothing to it. It may sell, and another may half sell, but that is all,
unless he comes out with something vigorous, and redeems himself. I do
not blame him for writing himself out, if he knows he is doing so, and has
done his best, and his all. If the native land of Scotland will supply no more
scenes and characters, for he is always best in Scotland, though he was very
good in England the (time) he was there; but pray, wherever the scene is
laid, no more Meg Merrilies and Dominie Sampsons—very good the first
and second times, but now quite worn out, and always recurring.”
(“Archibald Constable,” iii. 69.)
It was Smith’s grammar that gave out, and produced no apodosis to his
phrase. Scott could not write himself out, before his brain was affected by
disease. Had his age been miraculously prolonged, with health, it could
never be said that “all the stories have been told,” and he would have
delighted mankind unceasingly.
Scott himself was a little nettled by the criticisms of Norna as a replica
of Meg Merrilies. She is, indeed, “something distinct from the
Dumfriesshire gipsy”—in truth, she rather resembles the Ulrica of
“Ivanhoe.” Like her, she is haunted by the memory of an awful crime, an
insane version of a mere accident; like her, she is a votaress of the dead

gods of the older world, Thor and Odin, and the spirits of the tempest.
Scott’s imagination lived so much in the past that the ancient creeds never
ceased to allure him: like Heine, he felt the fascination of the banished
deities, not of Greece, but of the North. Thus Norna, crazed by her terrible
mischance, dwells among them, worships the Red Beard, as outlying
descendants of the Aztecs yet retain some faith in their old monstrous
Pantheon. Even Minna keeps, in her girlish enthusiasm, some touch of
Freydis in the saga of Eric the Red: for her the old gods and the old years
are not wholly exiled and impotent. All this is most characteristic of the
antiquary and the poet in Scott, who lingers fondly over what has been, and
stirs the last faint embers of fallen fires. It is of a piece with the harmless
Jacobitism of his festivals, when they sang

Here’s to the King, boys!
Ye ken wha I mean, boys.

In the singularly feeble and provincial vulgarities which Borrow
launches, in the appendix to “Lavengro,” against the memory of Scott, the
charge of reviving Catholicism is the most bitter. That rowdy evangelist
might as well have charged Scott with a desire to restore the worship of
Odin, and to sacrifice human victims on the stone altar of Stennis. He saw
in Orkney the ruined fanes of the Norse deities, as at Melrose of the Virgin,
and his loyal heart could feel for all that was old and lost, for all into which
men had put their hearts and faiths, had made, and had unmade, in the
secular quest for the divine. Like a later poet, he might have said:—

Not as their friend or child I speak,
But as on some far Northern strand,
Thinking of his own gods, a Greek
In pity and mournful awe might stand
Beside some fallen Runic stone,
For both were gods, and both are gone.

And surely no creed is more savage, cruel, and worthy of death than
Borrow’s belief in a God who “knew where to strike,” and deliberately
struck Scott by inducing Robinson to speculate in hops, and so bring down
his Edinburgh associate, Constable, and with him Sir Walter! Such was the
religion which Borrow expressed in the style of a writer in a fourth-rate

country newspaper. We might prefer the frank Heathenism of the Red Beard
to the religion of the author of “The Bible in Spain.”
There is no denying that Scott had in his imagination a certain mould of
romance, into which his ideas, when he wrote most naturally, and most for
his own pleasure, were apt to run. It is one of the charms of “The Pirate”
that here he is manifestly writing for his own pleasure, with a certain boyish
eagerness. Had we but the plot of one of the tales which he told, as a lad, to
his friend Irving, we might find that it turned on a romantic mystery, a clue
in the hands of some witch or wise woman, of some one who was always
appearing in the nick of time, was always round the corner when anything
was to be heard. This is a standing characteristic of the tales: now it is Edie
Ochiltree, now Flibbertigibbet, now Meg Merrilies, now Norna, who holds
the thread of the plot, but these characters are all well differentiated. Again,
he had types, especially the pedantic type, which attracted him, but they
vary as much as Yellowley and Dugald Dalgetty, the Antiquary, and
Dominie Sampson. Yellowley is rather more repressed than some of Scott’s
bores; but then he is not the only bore, for Claud Halcro, with all his merits,
is a professed proser. Swift had exactly described the character, the
episodical narrator, in a passage parallel to one in Theophrastus. In writing
to Morritt, Scott says (November 1818): “I sympathise with you for the dole
you are dreeing under the inflictions of your honest proser. Of all the boring
machines ever devised, your regular and determined story-teller is the most
peremptory and powerful in his operations.”
“With what perfect placidity he submitted to be bored even by bores of
the first water!” says Lockhart. The species is one which we all have many
opportunities of studying, but it may be admitted that Scott produced his
studies of bores with a certain complacency. Yet they are all different bores,
and the gay, kind scald Halcro is very unlike Master Mumblasen or
Dominie Sampson.
For a hero Mordaunt may be called almost sprightly and individual. His
mysterious father occasionally suggests the influence of Byron,
occasionally of Mrs. Radcliffe. The Udaller is as individual and genial as
Dandie Dinmont himself; or, again, he is the Cedric of Thule, though much
more sympathetic than Cedric to most readers. His affection for his
daughters is characteristic and deserved. Many a pair of sisters, blonde and
brune, have we met in fiction since Minna and Brenda, but none have been

their peers, and, like Mordaunt in early years, we know not to which of
them our hearts are given. They are “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” of the
North, and it is probable that all men would fall in love with Minna if they
had the chance, and marry Brenda, if they could. Minna is, indeed, the ideal
youth of poetry, and Brenda of the practical life. The innocent illusions of
Minna, her love of all that is old, her championship of the forlorn cause, her
beauty, her tenderness, her truth, her passionate waywardness of sorrow,
make her one of Scott’s most original and delightful heroines. She believes
and trembles not, like Bertram in “Rokeby.” Brenda trembles, but does not
believe in Norna’s magic, and in the spirits of ancient saga. As for
Cleveland, Scott managed to avoid Byron’s Lara-like pirates, and produced
a freebooter as sympathetic as any hostis humani generis can be, while
“Frederick Altamont” (Thackeray borrowed the name for his romantic
crossing-sweeper) has a place among the Marischals and Bucklaws of
romance. Scott’s minute studies in Dryden come to the aid of his local
observations, and so, out of not very promising materials, and out of the
contrast of Lowland Scot and Orcadian, the romance is spun. Probably the
“psychological analysis” which most interested the author is the double
consciousness of Norna, the occasional intrusions of the rational self on her
dreams of supernatural powers. That double consciousness, indeed, exists in
all of us: occasionally the self in which we believe has a vision of the real
underlying self, and shudders from the sight, like the pair “who met
themselves” in the celebrated drawing.
“The Pirate” can scarcely be placed in the front rank of Scott’s novels,
but it has a high and peculiar place in the second, and probably will always
be among the special favourites of those who, being young, are fortunate
enough not to be critical.
Scott’s novels at this time came forth so frequently that the lumbering
“Quarterlies” toiled after them in vain. They adopted the plan of reviewing
them in batches, and the “Quarterly” may be said to have omitted “The
Pirate” altogether. About this time Gifford began to find that the person who
spoke of a “dark dialect of Anglified Erse” was not a competent critic, and
Mr. Senior noticed several of the tales in a more judicious manner. As to
“The Pirate,” the “Edinburgh Review” found “the character and story of
Mertoun at once commonplace and extravagant.” Cleveland disappoints “by
turning out so much better than we had expected, and yet substantially so
ill.” “Nothing can be more beautiful than the description of the sisters.”

“Norna is a new incarnation of Meg Merrilies, and palpably the same in the
spirit ... but far above the rank of a mere imitated or borrowed character.”
“The work, on the whole, opens up a new world to our curiosity, and
affords another proof of the extreme pliability, as well as vigour, of the
author’s genius.”
Andrew Lang.
August 1893.

[1] Lockhart, vi. 388-393. Erskine died before Scott, slain by a silly piece of
gossip, and Mr. Skene says: “I never saw Sir Walter so much affected by any
event, and at the funeral, which he attended, he was quite unable to suppress his
feelings, but wept like a child.” His correspondence with Scott fell into the hands
of a lady, who, seeing that it revealed the secret of Scott’s authorship, most
unfortunately burned all the letters. (Journal, i. 416.)
[2] Scott’s Diary, July 29, 1814. Lockhart, vi. 183.
[3] See Author’s Note No. I.
[4] Diary; Lockhart, iv. 223.
[5] “Atalanta,” December 1892.

INTRODUCTION

TO

THE PIRATE.
“Quoth he, there was a ship.”
This brief preface may begin like the tale of the Ancient Mariner, since
it was on shipboard that the author acquired the very moderate degree of
local knowledge and information, both of people and scenery, which he has
endeavoured to embody in the romance of the Pirate.
In the summer and autumn of 1814, the author was invited to join a
party of Commissioners for the Northern Light-House Service, who
proposed making a voyage round the coast of Scotland, and through its
various groups of islands, chiefly for the purpose of seeing the condition of
the many lighthouses under their direction,—edifices so important, whether
regarding them as benevolent or political institutions. Among the
commissioners who manage this important public concern, the sheriff of
each county of Scotland which borders on the sea, holds ex-officio a place
at the Board. These gentlemen act in every respect gratuitously, but have the
use of an armed yacht, well found and fitted up, when they choose to visit
the lighthouses. An excellent engineer, Mr. Robert Stevenson, is attached to
the Board, to afford the benefit of his professional advice. The author
accompanied this expedition as a guest; for Selkirkshire, though it calls him
Sheriff, has not, like the kingdom of Bohemia in Corporal Trim’s story, a
seaport in its circuit, nor its magistrate, of course, any place at the Board of
Commissioners,—a circumstance of little consequence where all were old
and intimate friends, bred to the same profession, and disposed to
accommodate each other in every possible manner.
The nature of the important business which was the principal purpose of
the voyage, was connected with the amusement of visiting the leading
objects of a traveller’s curiosity; for the wild cape, or formidable shelve,

which requires to be marked out by a lighthouse, is generally at no great
distance from the most magnificent scenery of rocks, caves, and billows.
Our time, too, was at our own disposal, and, as most of us were freshwater
sailors, we could at any time make a fair wind out of a foul one, and run
before the gale in quest of some object of curiosity which lay under our lee.
With these purposes of public utility and some personal amusement in
view, we left the port of Leith on the 26th July, 1814, ran along the east
coast of Scotland, viewing its different curiosities, stood over to Zetland
and Orkney, where we were some time detained by the wonders of a
country which displayed so much that was new to us; and having seen what
was curious in the Ultima Thule of the ancients, where the sun hardly
thought it worth while to go to bed, since his rising was at this season so
early, we doubled the extreme northern termination of Scotland, and took a
rapid survey of the Hebrides, where we found many kind friends. There,
that our little expedition might not want the dignity of danger, we were
favoured with a distant glimpse of what was said to be an American cruiser,
and had opportunity to consider what a pretty figure we should have made
had the voyage ended in our being carried captive to the United States.
After visiting the romantic shores of Morven, and the vicinity of Oban, we
made a run to the coast of Ireland, and visited the Giant’s Causeway, that
we might compare it with Staffa, which we had surveyed in our course. At
length, about the middle of September, we ended our voyage in the Clyde,
at the port of Greenock.
And thus terminated our pleasant tour, to which our equipment gave
unusual facilities, as the ship’s company could form a strong boat’s crew,
independent of those who might be left on board the vessel, which
permitted us the freedom to land wherever our curiosity carried us. Let me
add, while reviewing for a moment a sunny portion of my life, that among
the six or seven friends who performed this voyage together, some of them
doubtless of different tastes and pursuits, and remaining for several weeks
on board a small vessel, there never occurred the slightest dispute or
disagreement, each seeming anxious to submit his own particular wishes to
those of his friends. By this mutual accommodation all the purposes of our
little expedition were obtained, while for a time we might have adopted the
lines of Allan Cunningham’s fine sea-song,

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

But sorrow mixes her memorials with the purest remembrances of
pleasure. On returning from the voyage which had proved so satisfactory, I
found that fate had deprived her country most unexpectedly of a lady,
qualified to adorn the high rank which she held, and who had long admitted
me to a share of her friendship. The subsequent loss of one of those
comrades who made up the party, and he the most intimate friend I had in
the world, casts also its shade on recollections which, but for these
embitterments, would be otherwise so pleasing.
I may here briefly observe, that my business in this voyage, so far as I
could be said to have any, was to endeavour to discover some localities
which might be useful in the “Lord of the Isles,” a poem with which I was
then threatening the public, and was afterwards printed without attaining
remarkable success. But as at the same time the anonymous novel of
“Waverley” was making its way to popularity, I already augured the
possibility of a second effort in this department of literature, and I saw
much in the wild islands of the Orkneys and Zetland, which I judged might
be made in the highest degree interesting, should these isles ever become
the scene of a narrative of fictitious events. I learned the history of Gow the
pirate from an old sibyl, (the subject of a note, p. 326 of this volume,)
whose principal subsistence was by a trade in favourable winds, which she
sold to mariners at Stromness. Nothing could be more interesting than the
kindness and hospitality of the gentlemen of Zetland, which was to me the
more affecting, as several of them had been friends and correspondents of
my father.
I was induced to go a generation or two farther back, to find materials
from which I might trace the features of the old Norwegian Udaller, the
Scottish gentry having in general occupied the place of that primitive race,
and their language and peculiarities of manner having entirely disappeared.
The only difference now to be observed betwixt the gentry of these islands,
and those of Scotland in general, is, that the wealth and property is more
equally divided among our more northern countrymen, and that there exists
among the resident proprietors no men of very great wealth, whose display
of its luxuries might render the others discontented with their own lot. From
the same cause of general equality of fortunes, and the cheapness of living,

which is its natural consequence, I found the officers of a veteran regiment
who had maintained the garrison at Fort Charlotte, in Lerwick,
discomposed at the idea of being recalled from a country where their pay,
however inadequate to the expenses of a capital, was fully adequate to their
wants, and it was singular to hear natives of merry England herself
regretting their approaching departure from the melancholy isles of the
Ultima Thule.
Such are the trivial particulars attending the origin of that publication,
which took place several years later than the agreeable journey from which
it took its rise.
The state of manners which I have introduced in the romance, was
necessarily in a great degree imaginary, though founded in some measure
on slight hints, which, showing what was, seemed to give reasonable
indication of what must once have been, the tone of the society in these
sequestered but interesting islands.
In one respect I was judged somewhat hastily, perhaps, when the
character of Norna was pronounced by the critics a mere copy of Meg
Merrilees. That I had fallen short of what I wished and desired to express is
unquestionable, otherwise my object could not have been so widely
mistaken; nor can I yet think that any person who will take the trouble of
reading the Pirate with some attention, can fail to trace in Norna,—the
victim of remorse and insanity, and the dupe of her own imposture, her
mind, too, flooded with all the wild literature and extravagant superstitions
of the north,—something distinct from the Dumfries-shire gipsy, whose
pretensions to supernatural powers are not beyond those of a Norwood
prophetess. The foundations of such a character may be perhaps traced,
though it be too true that the necessary superstructure cannot have been
raised upon them, otherwise these remarks would have been unnecessary.
There is also great improbability in the statement of Norna’s possessing
power and opportunity to impress on others that belief in her supernatural
gifts which distracted her own mind. Yet, amid a very credulous and
ignorant population, it is astonishing what success may be attained by an
impostor, who is, at the same time, an enthusiast. It is such as to remind us
of the couplet which assures us that

“The pleasure is as great
In being cheated as to cheat.”

Indeed, as I have observed elsewhere, the professed explanation of a
tale, where appearances or incidents of a supernatural character are referred
to natural causes, has often, in the winding up of the story, a degree of
improbability almost equal to an absolute goblin narrative. Even the genius
of Mrs. Radcliffe could not always surmount this difficulty.
Abbotsford,
1st May, 1831.

ADVERTISEMENT.
The purpose of the following Narrative is to give a detailed and accurate
account of certain remarkable incidents which took place in the Orkney
Islands, concerning which the more imperfect traditions and mutilated
records of the country only tell us the following erroneous particulars:—
In the month of January, 1724-5, a vessel, called the Revenge, bearing
twenty large guns, and six smaller, commanded by John Gow, or Goffe, or
Smith, came to the Orkney Islands, and was discovered to be a pirate, by
various acts of insolence and villainy committed by the crew. These were
for some time submitted to, the inhabitants of these remote islands not
possessing arms nor means of resistance; and so bold was the Captain of
these banditti, that he not only came ashore, and gave dancing parties in the
village of Stromness, but before his real character was discovered, engaged
the affections, and received the troth-plight, of a young lady possessed of
some property. A patriotic individual, James Fea, younger of Clestron,
formed the plan of securing the buccanier, which he effected by a mixture
of courage and address, in consequence chiefly of Gow’s vessel having
gone on shore near the harbour of Calfsound, on the Island of Eda, not far
distant from a house then inhabited by Mr. Fea. In the various stratagems by
which Mr. Fea contrived finally, at the peril of his life, (they being well
armed and desperate,) to make the whole pirates his prisoners, he was much
aided by Mr. James Laing, the grandfather of the late Malcolm Laing, Esq.,
the acute and ingenious historian of Scotland during the 17th century.
Gow, and others of his crew, suffered, by sentence of the High Court of
Admiralty, the punishment their crimes had long deserved. He conducted
himself with great audacity when before the Court; and, from an account of
the matter by an eye-witness, seems to have been subjected to some unusual
severities, in order to compel him to plead. The words are these: “John Gow
would not plead, for which he was brought to the bar, and the Judge ordered
that his thumbs should be squeezed by two men, with a whip-cord, till it did
break; and then it should be doubled, till it did again break, and then laid
threefold, and that the executioners should pull with their whole strength;
which sentence Gow endured with a great deal of boldness.” The next

morning, (27th May, 1725,) when he had seen the terrible preparations for
pressing him to death, his courage gave way, and he told the Marshal of
Court, that he would not have given so much trouble, had he been assured
of not being hanged in chains. He was then tried, condemned, and executed,
with others of his crew.
It is said, that the lady whose affections Gow had engaged, went up to
London to see him before his death, and that, arriving too late, she had the
courage to request a sight of his dead body; and then, touching the hand of
the corpse, she formally resumed the troth-plight which she had bestowed.
Without going through this ceremony, she could not, according to the
superstition of the country, have escaped a visit from the ghost of her
departed lover, in the event of her bestowing upon any living suitor the faith
which she had plighted to the dead. This part of the legend may serve as a
curious commentary on the fine Scottish ballad, which begins,
“There came a ghost to Margaret’s door,” &c.(a)[6]
The common account of this incident farther bears, that Mr. Fea, the
spirited individual by whose exertions Gow’s career of iniquity was cut
short, was so far from receiving any reward from Government, that he
could not obtain even countenance enough to protect him against a variety
of sham suits, raised against him by Newgate solicitors, who acted in the
name of Gow, and others of the pirate crew; and the various expenses,
vexatious prosecutions, and other legal consequences, in which his gallant
exploit involved him, utterly ruined his fortune, and his family; making his
memory a notable example to all who shall in future take pirates on their
own authority.
It is to be supposed, for the honour of George the First’s Government,
that the last circumstance, as well as the dates, and other particulars of the
commonly received story, are inaccurate, since they will be found totally
irreconcilable with the following veracious narrative, compiled from
materials to which he himself alone has had access, by
The Author of Waverley.

[6] See Editor’s Notes at the end of the Volume. Wherever a similar reference
occurs, the reader will understand that the same direction applies.

THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER I.
The storm had ceased its wintry roar,
Hoarse dash the billows of the sea;
But who on Thule’s desert shore,
Cries, Have I burnt my harp for thee?
M
acniel.

That long, narrow, and irregular island, usually called the mainland of
Zetland, because it is by far the largest of that Archipelago, terminates, as is
well known to the mariners who navigate the stormy seas which surround
the Thule of the ancients, in a cliff of immense height, entitled Sumburgh-
Head, which presents its bare scalp and naked sides to the weight of a
tremendous surge, forming the extreme point of the isle to the south-east.
This lofty promontory is constantly exposed to the current of a strong and
furious tide, which, setting in betwixt the Orkney and Zetland Islands, and
running with force only inferior to that of the Pentland Frith, takes its name
from the headland we have mentioned, and is called the Roost of
Sumburgh; roost being the phrase assigned in those isles to currents of this
description.
On the land side, the promontory is covered with short grass, and slopes
steeply down to a little isthmus, upon which the sea has encroached in
creeks, which, advancing from either side of the island, gradually work
their way forward, and seem as if in a short time they would form a
junction, and altogether insulate Sumburgh-Head, when what is now a cape,
will become a lonely mountain islet, severed from the mainland, of which it
is at present the terminating extremity.
Man, however, had in former days considered this as a remote or
unlikely event; for a Norwegian chief of other times, or, as other accounts
said, and as the name of Jarlshof seemed to imply, an ancient Earl of the
Orkneys had selected this neck of land as the place for establishing a
mansion-house. It has been long entirely deserted, and the vestiges only can
be discerned with difficulty; for the loose sand, borne on the tempestuous

gales of those stormy regions, has overblown, and almost buried, the ruins
of the buildings; but in the end of the seventeenth century, a part of the
Earl’s mansion was still entire and habitable. It was a rude building of
rough stone, with nothing about it to gratify the eye, or to excite the
imagination; a large old-fashioned narrow house, with a very steep roof,
covered with flags composed of grey sandstone, would perhaps convey the
best idea of the place to a modern reader. The windows were few, very
small in size, and distributed up and down the building with utter contempt
of regularity. Against the main structure had rested, in former times, certain
smaller co-partments of the mansion-house, containing offices, or
subordinate apartments, necessary for the accommodation of the Earl’s
retainers and menials. But these had become ruinous; and the rafters had
been taken down for fire-wood, or for other purposes; the walls had given
way in many places; and, to complete the devastation, the sand had already
drifted amongst the ruins, and filled up what had been once the chambers
they contained, to the depth of two or three feet.
Amid this desolation, the inhabitants of Jarlshof had contrived, by
constant labour and attention, to keep in order a few roods of land, which
had been enclosed as a garden, and which, sheltered by the walls of the
house itself, from the relentless sea-blast, produced such vegetables as the
climate could bring forth, or rather as the sea-gale would permit to grow;
for these islands experience even less of the rigour of cold than is
encountered on the mainland of Scotland; but, unsheltered by a wall of
some sort or other, it is scarce possible to raise even the most ordinary
culinary vegetables; and as for shrubs or trees, they are entirely out of the
question, such is the force of the sweeping sea-blast.
At a short distance from the mansion, and near to the sea-beach, just
where the creek forms a sort of imperfect harbour, in which lay three or four
fishing-boats, there were a few most wretched cottages for the inhabitants
and tenants of the township of Jarlshof, who held the whole district of the
landlord upon such terms as were in those days usually granted to persons
of this description, and which, of course, were hard enough. The landlord
himself resided upon an estate which he possessed in a more eligible
situation, in a different part of the island, and seldom visited his possessions
at Sumburgh-Head. He was an honest, plain Zetland gentleman, somewhat
passionate, the necessary result of being surrounded by dependents; and
somewhat over-convivial in his habits, the consequence, perhaps, of having

too much time at his disposal; but frank-tempered and generous to his
people, and kind and hospitable to strangers. He was descended also of an
old and noble Norwegian family; a circumstance which rendered him dearer
to the lower orders, most of whom are of the same race; while the lairds, or
proprietors, are generally of Scottish extraction, who, at that early period,
were still considered as strangers and intruders. Magnus Troil, who deduced
his descent from the very Earl who was supposed to have founded Jarlshof,
was peculiarly of this opinion.
The present inhabitants of Jarlshof had experienced, on several
occasions, the kindness and good will of the proprietor of the territory.
When Mr. Mertoun—such was the name of the present inhabitant of the old
mansion—first arrived in Zetland, some years before the story commences,
he had been received at the house of Mr. Troil with that warm and cordial
hospitality for which the islands are distinguished. No one asked him
whence he came, where he was going, what was his purpose in visiting so
remote a corner of the empire, or what was likely to be the term of his stay.
He arrived a perfect stranger, yet was instantly overpowered by a
succession of invitations; and in each house which he visited, he found a
home as long as he chose to accept it, and lived as one of the family,
unnoticed and unnoticing, until he thought proper to remove to some other
dwelling. This apparent indifference to the rank, character, and qualities of
their guest, did not arise from apathy on the part of his kind hosts, for the
islanders had their full share of natural curiosity; but their delicacy deemed
it would be an infringement upon the laws of hospitality, to ask questions
which their guest might have found it difficult or unpleasing to answer; and
instead of endeavouring, as is usual in other countries, to wring out of Mr.
Mertoun such communications as he might find it agreeable to withhold,
the considerate Zetlanders contented themselves with eagerly gathering up
such scraps of information as could be collected in the course of
conversation.
But the rock in an Arabian desert is not more reluctant to afford water,
than Mr. Basil Mertoun was niggard in imparting his confidence, even
incidentally; and certainly the politeness of the gentry of Thule was never
put to a more severe test than when they felt that good-breeding enjoined
them to abstain from enquiring into the situation of so mysterious a
personage.

All that was actually known of him was easily summed up. Mr. Mertoun
had come to Lerwick, then rising into some importance, but not yet
acknowledged as the principal town of the island, in a Dutch vessel,
accompanied only by his son, a handsome boy of about fourteen years old.
His own age might exceed forty. The Dutch skipper introduced him to some
of the very good friends with whom he used to barter gin and gingerbread
for little Zetland bullocks, smoked geese, and stockings of lambs-wool; and
although Meinheer could only say, that “Meinheer Mertoun hab bay his
bassage like one gentlemans, and hab given a Kreitz-dollar beside to the
crew,” this introduction served to establish the Dutchman’s passenger in a
respectable circle of acquaintances, which gradually enlarged, as it
appeared that the stranger was a man of considerable acquirements.
This discovery was made almost per force; for Mertoun was as
unwilling to speak upon general subjects, as upon his own affairs. But he
was sometimes led into discussions, which showed, as it were in spite of
himself, the scholar and the man of the world; and, at other times, as if in
requital of the hospitality which he experienced, he seemed to compel
himself, against his fixed nature, to enter into the society of those around
him, especially when it assumed the grave, melancholy, or satirical cast,
which best suited the temper of his own mind. Upon such occasions, the
Zetlanders were universally of opinion that he must have had an excellent
education, neglected only in one striking particular, namely, that Mr.
Mertoun scarce knew the stem of a ship from the stern; and in the
management of a boat, a cow could not be more ignorant. It seemed
astonishing such gross ignorance of the most necessary art of life (in the
Zetland Isles at least) should subsist along with his accomplishments in
other respects; but so it was.
Unless called forth in the manner we have mentioned, the habits of
Basil Mertoun were retired and gloomy. From loud mirth he instantly fled;
and even the moderated cheerfulness of a friendly party, had the invariable
effect of throwing him into deeper dejection than even his usual demeanour
indicated.
Women are always particularly desirous of investigating mystery, and of
alleviating melancholy, especially when these circumstances are united in a
handsome man about the prime of life. It is possible, therefore, that amongst
the fair-haired and blue-eyed daughters of Thule, this mysterious and

pensive stranger might have found some one to take upon herself the task of
consolation, had he shown any willingness to accept such kindly offices;
but, far from doing so, he seemed even to shun the presence of the sex, to
which in our distresses, whether of mind or body, we generally apply for
pity and comfort.
To these peculiarities Mr. Mertoun added another, which was
particularly disagreeable to his host and principal patron, Magnus Troil.
This magnate of Zetland, descended by the father’s side, as we have already
said, from an ancient Norwegian family, by the marriage of its
representative with a Danish lady, held the devout opinion that a cup of
Geneva or Nantz was specific against all cares and afflictions whatever.
These were remedies to which Mr. Mertoun never applied; his drink was
water, and water alone, and no persuasion or entreaties could induce him to
taste any stronger beverage than was afforded by the pure spring. Now this
Magnus Troil could not tolerate; it was a defiance to the ancient northern
laws of conviviality, which, for his own part, he had so rigidly observed,
that although he was wont to assert that he had never in his life gone to bed
drunk, (that is, in his own sense of the word,) it would have been impossible
to prove that he had ever resigned himself to slumber in a state of actual and
absolute sobriety. It may be therefore asked, What did this stranger bring
into society to compensate the displeasure given by his austere and
abstemious habits? He had, in the first place, that manner and self-
importance which mark a person of some consequence: and although it was
conjectured that he could not be rich, yet it was certainly known by his
expenditure that neither was he absolutely poor. He had, besides, some
powers of conversation, when, as we have already hinted, he chose to exert
them, and his misanthropy or aversion to the business and intercourse of
ordinary life, was often expressed in an antithetical manner, which passed
for wit, when better was not to be had. Above all, Mr. Mertoun’s secret
seemed impenetrable, and his presence had all the interest of a riddle, which
men love to read over and over, because they cannot find out the meaning
of it.
Notwithstanding these recommendations, Mertoun differed in so many
material points from his host, that after he had been for some time a guest at
his principal residence, Magnus Troil was agreeably surprised when, one
evening after they had sat two hours in absolute silence, drinking brandy
and water,—that is, Magnus drinking the alcohol, and Mertoun the element,

—the guest asked his host’s permission to occupy, as his tenant, this
deserted mansion of Jarlshof, at the extremity of the territory called
Dunrossness, and situated just beneath Sumburgh-Head. “I shall be
handsomely rid of him,” quoth Magnus to himself, “and his kill-joy visage
will never again stop the bottle in its round. His departure will ruin me in
lemons, however, for his mere look was quite sufficient to sour a whole
ocean of punch.”
Yet the kind-hearted Zetlander generously and disinterestedly
remonstrated with Mr. Mertoun on the solitude and inconveniences to
which he was about to subject himself. “There were scarcely,” he said,
“even the most necessary articles of furniture in the old house—there was
no society within many miles—for provisions, the principal article of food
would be sour sillocks, and his only company gulls and gannets.”
“My good friend,” replied Mertoun, “if you could have named a
circumstance which would render the residence more eligible to me than
any other, it is that there would be neither human luxury nor human society
near the place of my retreat; a shelter from the weather for my own head,
and for the boy’s, is all I seek for. So name your rent, Mr. Troil, and let me
be your tenant at Jarlshof.”
“Rent?” answered the Zetlander; “why, no great rent for an old house
which no one has lived in since my mother’s time—God rest her!—and as
for shelter, the old walls are thick enough, and will bear many a bang yet.
But, Heaven love you, Mr. Mertoun, think what you are purposing. For one
of us to live at Jarlshof, were a wild scheme enough; but you, who are from
another country, whether English, Scotch, or Irish, no one can tell”——
“Nor does it greatly matter,” said Mertoun, somewhat abruptly.
“Not a herring’s scale,” answered the Laird; “only that I like you the
better for being no Scot, as I trust you are not one. Hither they have come
like the clack-geese—every chamberlain has brought over a flock of his
own name, and his own hatching, for what I know, and here they roost for
ever—catch them returning to their own barren Highlands or Lowlands,
when once they have tasted our Zetland beef, and seen our bonny voes and
lochs. No, sir,” (here Magnus proceeded with great animation, sipping from
time to time the half-diluted spirit, which at the same time animated his
resentment against the intruders, and enabled him to endure the mortifying
reflection which it suggested,)—“No, sir, the ancient days and the genuine

manners of these Islands are no more; for our ancient possessors,—our
Patersons, our Feas, our Schlagbrenners, our Thorbiorns, have given place
to Giffords, Scotts, Mouats, men whose names bespeak them or their
ancestors strangers to the soil which we the Troils have inhabited long
before the days of Turf-Einar, who first taught these Isles the mystery of
burning peat for fuel, and who has been handed down to a grateful posterity
by a name which records the discovery.”
This was a subject upon which the potentate of Jarlshof was usually
very diffuse, and Mertoun saw him enter upon it with pleasure, because he
knew he should not be called upon to contribute any aid to the conversation,
and might therefore indulge his own saturnine humour while the Norwegian
Zetlander declaimed on the change of times and inhabitants. But just as
Magnus had arrived at the melancholy conclusion, “how probable it was,
that in another century scarce a merk—scarce even an ure of land, would be
in the possession of the Norse inhabitants, the true Udallers[7] of Zetland,”
he recollected the circumstances of his guest, and stopped suddenly short. “I
do not say all this,” he added, interrupting himself, “as if I were unwilling
that you should settle on my estate, Mr. Mertoun—But for Jarlshof—the
place is a wild one—Come from where you will, I warrant you will say, like
other travellers, you came from a better climate than ours, for so say you
all. And yet you think of a retreat, which the very natives run away from.
Will you not take your glass?”—(This was to be considered as
interjectional,)—“then here’s to you.”
“My good sir,” answered Mertoun, “I am indifferent to climate; if there
is but air enough to fill my lungs, I care not if it be the breath of Arabia or
of Lapland.”
“Air enough you may have,” answered Magnus, “no lack of that—
somewhat damp, strangers allege it to be, but we know a corrective for that
—Here’s to you, Mr. Mertoun—You must learn to do so, and to smoke a
pipe; and then, as you say, you will find the air of Zetland equal to that of
Arabia. But have you seen Jarlshof?”
The stranger intimated that he had not.
“Then,” replied Magnus, “you have no idea of your undertaking. If you
think it a comfortable roadstead like this, with the house situated on the side
of an inland voe,[8] that brings the herrings up to your door, you are
mistaken, my heart. At Jarlshof you will see nought but the wild waves

tumbling on the bare rocks, and the Roost of Sumburgh running at the rate
of fifteen knots an-hour.”
“I shall see nothing at least of the current of human passions,” replied
Mertoun.
“You will hear nothing but the clanging and screaming of scarts, sheer-
waters, and seagulls, from daybreak till sunset.”
“I will compound, my friend,” replied the stranger, “so that I do not hear
the chattering of women’s tongues.”
“Ah,” said the Norman, “that is because you hear just now my little
Minna and Brenda singing in the garden with your Mordaunt. Now, I would
rather listen to their little voices, than the skylark which I once heard in
Caithness, or the nightingale that I have read of.—What will the girls do for
want of their playmate Mordaunt?”
“They will shift for themselves,” answered Mertoun; “younger or elder
they will find playmates or dupes.—But the question is, Mr. Troil, will you
let to me, as your tenant, this old mansion of Jarlshof?”
“Gladly, since you make it your option to live in a spot so desolate.”
“And as for the rent?” continued Mertoun.
“The rent?” replied Magnus; “hum—why, you must have the bit of
plantie cruive,[9] which they once called a garden, and a right in the
scathold, and a sixpenny merk of land, that the tenants may fish for you;—
eight lispunds[10] of butter, and eight shillings sterling yearly, is not too
much?”
Mr. Mertoun agreed to terms so moderate, and from thenceforward
resided chiefly at the solitary mansion which we have described in the
beginning of this chapter, conforming not only without complaint, but, as it
seemed, with a sullen pleasure, to all the privations which so wild and
desolate a situation necessarily imposed on its inhabitant.

[7] The Udallers are the allodial possessors of Zetland, who hold their
possessions under the old Norwegian law, instead of the feudal tenures
introduced among them from Scotland.
[8] Salt-water lake.
[9] Patch of ground for vegetables. The liberal custom of the country permits
any person, who has occasion for such a convenience, to select out of the
unenclosed moorland a small patch, which he surrounds with a drystone wall,

and cultivates as a kailyard, till he exhausts the soil with cropping, and then he
deserts it, and encloses another. This liberty is so far from inferring an invasion
of the right of proprietor and tenant, that the last degree of contempt is inferred
of an avaricious man, when a Zetlander says he would not hold a plantie cruive
of him.
[10] A lispund is about thirty pounds English, and the value is averaged by
Dr. Edmonston at ten shillings sterling.

CHAPTER II.
’Tis not alone the scene—the man,
Anselmo,
The man finds sympathies in these wild
wastes,
And roughly tumbling seas, which fairer
views
And smoother waves deny him.
A
ncient Arama.

The few inhabitants of the township of Jarlshof had at first heard with
alarm, that a person of rank superior to their own was come to reside in the
ruinous tenement, which they still called the Castle. In those days (for the
present times are greatly altered for the better) the presence of a superior, in
such a situation, was almost certain to be attended with additional burdens
and exactions, for which, under one pretext or another, feudal customs
furnished a thousand apologies. By each of these, a part of the tenants’
hard-won and precarious profits was diverted for the use of their powerful
neighbour and superior, the tacksman, as he was called. But the sub-tenants
speedily found that no oppression of this kind was to be apprehended at the
hands of Basil Mertoun. His own means, whether large or small, were at
least fully adequate to his expenses, which, so far as regarded his habits of
life, were of the most frugal description. The luxuries of a few books, and
some philosophical instruments, with which he was supplied from London
as occasion offered, seemed to indicate a degree of wealth unusual in those
islands; but, on the other hand, the table and the accommodations at
Jarlshof, did not exceed what was maintained by a Zetland proprietor of the
most inferior description.
The tenants of the hamlet troubled themselves very little about the
quality of their superior, as soon as they found that their situation was rather
to be mended than rendered worse by his presence; and, once relieved from
the apprehension of his tyrannizing over them, they laid their heads together

to make the most of him by various petty tricks of overcharge and extortion,
which for a while the stranger submitted to with the most philosophic
indifference. An incident, however, occurred, which put his character in a
new light, and effectually checked all future efforts at extravagant
imposition.
A dispute arose in the kitchen of the Castle betwixt an old governante,
who acted as housekeeper to Mr. Mertoun, and Sweyn Erickson, as good a
Zetlander as ever rowed a boat to the haaf fishing;[11] which dispute, as is
usual in such cases, was maintained with such increasing heat and
vociferation as to reach the ears of the master, (as he was called,) who,
secluded in a solitary turret, was deeply employed in examining the
contents of a new package of books from London, which, after long
expectation, had found its way to Hull, from thence by a whaling vessel to
Lerwick, and so to Jarlshof. With more than the usual thrill of indignation
which indolent people always feel when roused into action on some
unpleasant occasion, Mertoun descended to the scene of contest, and so
suddenly, peremptorily, and strictly, enquired into the cause of dispute, that
the parties, notwithstanding every evasion which they attempted, became
unable to disguise from him, that their difference respected the several
interests to which the honest governante, and no less honest fisherman,
were respectively entitled, in an overcharge of about one hundred per cent
on a bargain of rock-cod, purchased by the former from the latter, for the
use of the family at Jarlshof.
When this was fairly ascertained and confessed, Mr. Mertoun stood
looking upon the culprits with eyes in which the utmost scorn seemed to
contend with awakening passion. “Hark you, ye old hag,” said he at length
to the housekeeper, “avoid my house this instant! and know that I dismiss
you, not for being a liar, a thief, and an ungrateful quean,—for these are
qualities as proper to you as your name of woman,—but for daring, in my
house, to scold above your breath.—And for you, you rascal, who suppose
you may cheat a stranger as you would flinch[12] a whale, know that I am
well acquainted with the rights which, by delegation from your master,
Magnus Troil, I can exercise over you, if I will. Provoke me to a certain
pitch, and you shall learn, to your cost, I can break your rest as easily as you
can interrupt my leisure. I know the meaning of scat, and wattle, and
hawkhen, and hagalef,(b) and every other exaction, by which your lords, in

ancient and modern days, have wrung your withers; nor is there one of you
that shall not rue the day that you could not be content with robbing me of
my money, but must also break in on my leisure with your atrocious
northern clamour, that rivals in discord the screaming of a flight of Arctic
gulls.”
Nothing better occurred to Sweyn, in answer to this objurgation, than
the preferring a humble request that his honour would be pleased to keep
the cod-fish without payment, and say no more about the matter; but by this
time Mr. Mertoun had worked up his passions into an ungovernable rage,
and with one hand he threw the money at the fisherman’s head, while with
the other he pelted him out of the apartment with his own fish, which he
finally flung out of doors after him.
There was so much of appalling and tyrannic fury in the stranger’s
manner on this occasion, that Sweyn neither stopped to collect the money
nor take back his commodity, but fled at a precipitate rate to the small
hamlet, to tell his comrades that if they provoked Master Mertoun any
farther, he would turn an absolute Pate Stewart[13] on their hand, and head
and hang without either judgment or mercy.
Hither also came the discarded housekeeper, to consult with her
neighbours and kindred (for she too was a native of the village) what she
should do to regain the desirable situation from which she had been so
suddenly expelled. The old Ranzellaar of the village, who had the voice
most potential in the deliberations of the township, after hearing what had
happened, pronounced that Sweyn Erickson had gone too far in raising the
market upon Mr. Mertoun; and that whatever pretext the tacksman might
assume for thus giving way to his anger, the real grievance must have been
the charging the rock cod-fish at a penny instead of a half-penny a-pound;
he therefore exhorted all the community never to raise their exactions in
future beyond the proportion of threepence upon the shilling, at which rate
their master at the Castle could not reasonably be expected to grumble,
since, as he was disposed to do them no harm, it was reasonable to think
that, in a moderate way, he had no objection to do them good. “And three
upon twelve,” said the experienced Ranzellaar, “is a decent and moderate
profit, and will bring with it God’s blessing and Saint Ronald’s.”
Proceeding upon the tariff thus judiciously recommended to them, the
inhabitants of Jarlshof cheated Mertoun in future only to the moderate

extent of twenty-five per cent; a rate to which all nabobs, army-contractors,
speculators in the funds, and others, whom recent and rapid success has
enabled to settle in the country upon a great scale, ought to submit, as very
reasonable treatment at the hand of their rustic neighbours. Mertoun at least
seemed of that opinion, for he gave himself no farther trouble upon the
subject of his household expenses.
The conscript fathers of Jarlshof, having settled their own matters, took
next under their consideration the case of Swertha, the banished matron
who had been expelled from the Castle, whom, as an experienced and
useful ally, they were highly desirous to restore to her office of
housekeeper, should that be found possible. But as their wisdom here failed
them, Swertha, in despair, had recourse to the good offices of Mordaunt
Mertoun, with whom she had acquired some favour by her knowledge in
old Norwegian ballads, and dismal tales concerning the Trows or Drows,
(the dwarfs of the Scalds,) with whom superstitious eld had peopled many a
lonely cavern and brown dale in Dunrossness, as in every other district of
Zetland. “Swertha,” said the youth, “I can do but little for you, but you may
do something for yourself. My father’s passion resembles the fury of those
ancient champions, those Berserkars, you sing songs about.”
“Ay, ay, fish of my heart,” replied the old woman, with a pathetic whine;
“the Berserkars(c) were champions who lived before the blessed days of
Saint Olave, and who used to run like madmen on swords, and spears, and
harpoons, and muskets, and snap them all into pieces, as a finner[14] would
go through a herring-net, and then, when the fury went off, they were as
weak and unstable as water.”[15]
“That’s the very thing, Swertha,” said Mordaunt. “Now, my father never
likes to think of his passion after it is over, and is so much of a Berserkar,
that, let him be desperate as he will to-day, he will not care about it to-
morrow. Therefore, he has not filled up your place in the household at the
Castle, and not a mouthful of warm food has been dressed there since you
went away, and not a morsel of bread baked, but we have lived just upon
whatever cold thing came to hand. Now, Swertha, I will be your warrant,
that if you go boldly up to the Castle, and enter upon the discharge of your
duties as usual, you will never hear a single word from him.”
Swertha hesitated at first to obey this bold counsel. She said, “to her
thinking, Mr. Mertoun, when he was angry, looked more like a fiend than

any Berserkar of them all; that the fire flashed from his eyes, and the foam
flew from his lips; and that it would be a plain tempting of Providence to
put herself again in such a venture.”
But, on the encouragement which she received from the son, she
determined at length once more to face the parent; and, dressing herself in
her ordinary household attire, for so Mordaunt particularly recommended,
she slipped into the Castle, and presently resuming the various and
numerous occupations which devolved on her, seemed as deeply engaged in
household cares as if she had never been out of office.
The first day of her return to her duty, Swertha made no appearance in
presence of her master, but trusted that after his three days’ diet on cold
meat, a hot dish, dressed with the best of her simple skill, might introduce
her favourably to his recollection. When Mordaunt had reported that his
father had taken no notice of this change of diet, and when she herself
observed that in passing and repassing him occasionally, her appearance
produced no effect upon her singular master, she began to imagine that the
whole affair had escaped Mr. Mertoun’s memory, and was active in her duty
as usual. Neither was she convinced of the contrary until one day, when,
happening somewhat to elevate her tone in a dispute with the other maid-
servant, her master, who at that time passed the place of contest, eyed her
with a strong glance, and pronounced the single word, Remember! in a tone
which taught Swertha the government of her tongue for many weeks after.
If Mertoun was whimsical in his mode of governing his household, he
seemed no less so in his plan of educating his son. He showed the youth but
few symptoms of parental affection; yet, in his ordinary state of mind, the
improvement of Mordaunt’s education seemed to be the utmost object of his
life. He had both books and information sufficient to discharge the task of
tutor in the ordinary branches of knowledge; and in this capacity was
regular, calm, and strict, not to say severe, in exacting from his pupil the
attention necessary for his profiting. But in the perusal of history, to which
their attention was frequently turned, as well as in the study of classic
authors, there often occurred facts or sentiments which produced an instant
effect upon Mertoun’s mind, and brought on him suddenly what Swertha,
Sweyn, and even Mordaunt, came to distinguish by the name of his dark
hour. He was aware, in the usual case, of its approach, and retreated to an
inner apartment, into which he never permitted even Mordaunt to enter.

Here he would abide in seclusion for days, and even weeks, only coming
out at uncertain times, to take such food as they had taken care to leave
within his reach, which he used in wonderfully small quantities. At other
times, and especially during the winter solstice, when almost every person
spends the gloomy time within doors in feasting and merriment, this
unhappy man would wrap himself in a dark-coloured sea-cloak, and wander
out along the stormy beach, or upon the desolate heath, indulging his own
gloomy and wayward reveries under the inclement sky, the rather that he
was then most sure to wander unencountered and unobserved.
As Mordaunt grew older, he learned to note the particular signs which
preceded these fits of gloomy despondency, and to direct such precautions
as might ensure his unfortunate parent from ill-timed interruption, (which
had always the effect of driving him to fury,) while, at the same time, full
provision was made for his subsistence. Mordaunt perceived that at such
periods the melancholy fit of his father was greatly prolonged, if he chanced
to present himself to his eyes while the dark hour was upon him. Out of
respect, therefore, to his parent, as well as to indulge the love of active
exercise and of amusement natural to his period of life, Mordaunt used
often to absent himself altogether from the mansion of Jarlshof, and even
from the district, secure that his father, if the dark hour passed away in his
absence, would be little inclined to enquire how his son had disposed of his
leisure, so that he was sure he had not watched his own weak moments; that
being the subject on which he entertained the utmost jealousy.
At such times, therefore, all the sources of amusement which the
country afforded, were open to the younger Mertoun, who, in these intervals
of his education, had an opportunity to give full scope to the energies of a
bold, active, and daring character. He was often engaged with the youth of
the hamlet in those desperate sports, to which the “dreadful trade of the
samphire-gatherer” is like a walk upon level ground—often joined those
midnight excursions upon the face of the giddy cliffs, to secure the eggs or
the young of the sea-fowl; and in these daring adventures displayed an
address, presence of mind, and activity, which, in one so young, and not a
native of the country, astonished the oldest fowlers.[16]
At other times, Mordaunt accompanied Sweyn and other fishermen in
their long and perilous expeditions to the distant and deep sea, learning
under their direction the management of the boat, in which they equal, or

exceed, perhaps, any natives of the British empire. This exercise had
charms for Mordaunt, independently of the fishing alone.
At this time, the old Norwegian sagas were much remembered, and
often rehearsed, by the fishermen, who still preserved among themselves
the ancient Norse tongue, which was the speech of their forefathers. In the
dark romance of those Scandinavian tales, lay much that was captivating to
a youthful ear; and the classic fables of antiquity were rivalled at least, if
not excelled, in Mordaunt’s opinion, by the strange legends of Berserkars,
of Sea-kings, of dwarfs, giants, and sorcerers, which he heard from the
native Zetlanders. Often the scenes around him were assigned as the
localities of the wild poems, which, half recited, half chanted by voices as
hoarse, if not so loud, as the waves over which they floated, pointed out the
very bay on which they sailed as the scene of a bloody sea-fight; the scarce-
seen heap of stones that bristled over the projecting cape, as the dun, or
castle, of some potent earl or noted pirate; the distant and solitary grey
stone on the lonely moor, as marking the grave of a hero; the wild cavern,
up which the sea rolled in heavy, broad, and unbroken billows, as the
dwelling of some noted sorceress.[17]
The ocean also had its mysteries, the effect of which was aided by the
dim twilight, through which it was imperfectly seen for more than half the
year. Its bottomless depths and secret caves contained, according to the
account of Sweyn and others, skilled in legendary lore, such wonders as
modern navigators reject with disdain. In the quiet moonlight bay, where
the waves came rippling to the shore, upon a bed of smooth sand
intermingled with shells, the mermaid was still seen to glide along the
waters, and, mingling her voice with the sighing breeze, was often heard to
sing of subterranean wonders, or to chant prophecies of future events. The
kraken, that hugest of living things, was still supposed to cumber the
recesses of the Northern Ocean; and often, when some fog-bank covered
the sea at a distance, the eye of the experienced boatman saw the horns of
the monstrous leviathan welking and waving amidst the wreaths of mist,
and bore away with all press of oar and sail, lest the sudden suction,
occasioned by the sinking of the monstrous mass to the bottom, should drag
within the grasp of its multifarious feelers his own frail skiff. The sea-snake
was also known, which, arising out of the depths of ocean, stretches to the
skies his enormous neck, covered with a mane like that of a war-horse, and

with its broad glittering eyes, raised mast-head high, looks out, as it seems,
for plunder or for victims.
Many prodigious stories of these marine monsters, and of many others
less known, were then universally received among the Zetlanders, whose
descendants have not as yet by any means abandoned faith in them.[18]
Such legends are, indeed, everywhere current amongst the vulgar; but
the imagination is far more powerfully affected by them on the deep and
dangerous seas of the north, amidst precipices and headlands, many
hundred feet in height,—amid perilous straits, and currents, and eddies,—
long sunken reefs of rock, over which the vivid ocean foams and boils,—
dark caverns, to whose extremities neither man nor skiff has ever ventured,
—lonely, and often uninhabited isles,—and occasionally the ruins of
ancient northern fastnesses, dimly seen by the feeble light of the Arctic
winter. To Mordaunt, who had much of romance in his disposition, these
superstitions formed a pleasing and interesting exercise of the imagination,
while, half doubting, half inclined to believe, he listened to the tales chanted
concerning these wonders of nature, and creatures of credulous belief, told
in the rude but energetic language of the ancient Scalds.
But there wanted not softer and lighter amusement, that might seem
better suited to Mordaunt’s age, than the wild tales and rude exercises
which we have already mentioned. The season of winter, when, from the
shortness of the daylight, labour becomes impossible, is in Zetland the time
of revel, feasting, and merriment. Whatever the fisherman has been able to
acquire during summer, was expended, and often wasted, in maintaining the
mirth and hospitality of his hearth during this period; while the landholders
and gentlemen of the island gave double loose to their convivial and
hospitable dispositions, thronged their houses with guests, and drove away
the rigour of the season with jest, glee, and song, the dance, and the wine-
cup.
Amid the revels of this merry, though rigorous season, no youth added
more spirit to the dance, or glee to the revel, than the young stranger,
Mordaunt Mertoun. When his father’s state of mind permitted, or indeed
required, his absence, he wandered from house to house a welcome guest
whereever he came, and lent his willing voice to the song, and his foot to
the dance. A boat, or, if the weather, as was often the case, permitted not
that convenience, one of the numerous ponies, which, straying in hordes

about the extensive moors, may be said to be at any man’s command who
can catch them, conveyed him from the mansion of one hospitable
Zetlander to that of another. None excelled him in performing the warlike
sword-dance, a species of amusement which had been derived from the
habits of the ancient Norsemen. He could play upon the gue, and upon the
common violin, the melancholy and pathetic tunes peculiar to the country;
and with great spirit and execution could relieve their monotony with the
livelier airs of the North of Scotland. When a party set forth as maskers, or,
as they are called in Scotland, guizards, to visit some neighbouring Laird,
or rich Udaller, it augured well of the expedition if Mordaunt Mertoun
could be prevailed upon to undertake the office of skudler, or leader of the
band. Upon these occasions, full of fun and frolic, he led his retinue from
house to house, bringing mirth where he went, and leaving regret when he
departed. Mordaunt became thus generally known and beloved as generally,
through most of the houses composing the patriarchal community of the
Main Isle; but his visits were most frequently and most willingly paid at the
mansion of his father’s landlord and protector, Magnus Troil.
It was not entirely the hearty and sincere welcome of the worthy old
Magnate, nor the sense that he was in effect his father’s patron, which
occasioned these frequent visits. The hand of welcome was indeed received
as eagerly as it was sincerely given, while the ancient Udaller, raising
himself in his huge chair, whereof the inside was lined with well-dressed
sealskins, and the outside composed of massive oak, carved by the rude
graving-tool of some Hamburgh carpenter, shouted forth his welcome in a
tone, which might, in ancient times, have hailed the return of Ioul, the
highest festival of the Goths. There was metal yet more attractive, and
younger hearts, whose welcome, if less loud, was as sincere as that of the
jolly Udaller. But this is matter which ought not to be discussed at the
conclusion of a chapter.

[11] i. e. The deep-sea fishing, in distinction to that which is practised along
shore.
[12] The operation of slicing the blubber from the bones of the whale, is
called, technically, flinching.
[13] Meaning, probably, Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney, executed for
tyranny and oppression practised on the inhabitants of those remote islands, in
the beginning of the seventeenth century.
[14] Finner, small whale.

[15] The sagas of the Scalds are full of descriptions of these champions, and
do not permit us to doubt that the Berserkars, so called from fighting without
armour, used some physical means of working themselves into a frenzy, during
which they possessed the strength and energy of madness. The Indian warriors
are well known to do the same by dint of opium and bang.
[16] Fatal accidents, however, sometimes occur. When I visited the Fair Isle
in 1814, a poor lad of fourteen had been killed by a fall from the rocks about a
fortnight before our arrival. The accident happened almost within sight of his
mother, who was casting peats at no great distance. The body fell into the sea,
and was seen no more. But the islanders account this an honourable mode of
death; and as the children begin the practice of climbing very early, fewer
accidents occur than might be expected.
[17] Note I.—Norse Fragments.
[18] Note II.—Monsters of the Northern Seas.

CHAPTER III.
“O, Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,
They were twa bonnie lasses;
They biggit a house on yon burn-brae,
And theekit it ower wi’ rashes.

Fair Bessy Bell I looed yestreen,
And thought I ne’er could alter;
But Mary Gray’s twa pawky een
Have garr’d my fancy falter.”(d)
S
cots Song.

We have already mentioned Minna and Brenda, the daughters of
Magnus Troil. Their mother had been dead for many years, and they were
now two beautiful girls, the eldest only eighteen, which might be a year or
two younger than Mordaunt Mertoun, the second about seventeen.—They
were the joy of their father’s heart, and the light of his old eyes; and
although indulged to a degree which might have endangered his comfort
and their own, they repaid his affection with a love, into which even blind
indulgence had not introduced slight regard, or feminine caprice. The
difference of their tempers and of their complexions was singularly striking,
although combined, as is usual, with a certain degree of family
resemblance.
The mother of these maidens had been a Scottish lady from the
Highlands of Sutherland, the orphan of a noble chief, who, driven from his
own country during the feuds of the seventeenth century, had found shelter
in those peaceful islands, which, amidst poverty and seclusion, were thus
far happy, that they remained unvexed by discord, and unstained by civil
broil. The father (his name was Saint Clair) pined for his native glen, his
feudal tower, his clansmen, and his fallen authority, and died not long after
his arrival in Zetland. The beauty of his orphan daughter, despite her
Scottish lineage, melted the stout heart of Magnus Troil. He sued and was

listened to, and she became his bride; but dying in the fifth year of their
union, left him to mourn his brief period of domestic happiness.
From her mother, Minna inherited the stately form and dark eyes, the
raven locks and finely-pencilled brows, which showed she was, on one side
at least, a stranger to the blood of Thule. Her cheek,—

“O call it fair, not pale!”

was so slightly and delicately tinged with the rose, that many thought the
lily had an undue proportion in her complexion. But in that predominance
of the paler flower, there was nothing sickly or languid; it was the true
natural colour of health, and corresponded in a peculiar degree with
features, which seemed calculated to express a contemplative and high-
minded character. When Minna Troil heard a tale of woe or of injustice, it
was then her blood rushed to her cheeks, and showed plainly how warm it
beat, notwithstanding the generally serious, composed, and retiring
disposition, which her countenance and demeanour seemed to exhibit. If
strangers sometimes conceived that these fine features were clouded by
melancholy, for which her age and situation could scarce have given
occasion, they were soon satisfied, upon further acquaintance, that the
placid, mild quietude of her disposition, and the mental energy of a
character which was but little interested in ordinary and trivial occurrences,
was the real cause of her gravity; and most men, when they knew that her
melancholy had no ground in real sorrow, and was only the aspiration of a
soul bent on more important objects than those by which she was
surrounded, might have wished her whatever could add to her happiness,
but could scarce have desired that, graceful as she was in her natural and
unaffected seriousness, she should change that deportment for one more
gay. In short, notwithstanding our wish to have avoided that hackneyed
simile of an angel, we cannot avoid saying there was something in the
serious beauty of her aspect, in the measured, yet graceful ease of her
motions, in the music of her voice, and the serene purity of her eye, that
seemed as if Minna Troil belonged naturally to some higher and better
sphere, and was only the chance visitant of a world that was not worthy of
her.
The scarcely less beautiful, equally lovely, and equally innocent Brenda,
was of a complexion as differing from her sister, as they differed in

character, taste, and expression. Her profuse locks were of that paly brown
which receives from the passing sunbeam a tinge of gold, but darkens again
when the ray has passed from it. Her eye, her mouth, the beautiful row of
teeth, which in her innocent vivacity were frequently disclosed; the fresh,
yet not too bright glow of a healthy complexion, tinging a skin like the
drifted snow, spoke her genuine Scandinavian descent. A fairy form, less
tall than that of Minna, but still more finely moulded into symmetry—a
careless, and almost childish lightness of step—an eye that seemed to look
on every object with pleasure, from a natural and serene cheerfulness of
disposition, attracted even more general admiration than the charms of her
sister, though perhaps that which Minna did excite might be of a more
intense as well as more reverential character.
The dispositions of these lovely sisters were not less different than their
complexions. In the kindly affections, neither could be said to excel the
other, so much were they attached to their father and to each other. But the
cheerfulness of Brenda mixed itself with the every-day business of life, and
seemed inexhaustible in its profusion. The less buoyant spirit of her sister
appeared to bring to society a contented wish to be interested and pleased
with what was going forward, but was rather placidly carried along with the
stream of mirth and pleasure, than disposed to aid its progress by any efforts
of her own. She endured mirth, rather than enjoyed it; and the pleasures in
which she most delighted, were those of a graver and more solitary cast.
The knowledge which is derived from books was beyond her reach. Zetland
afforded few opportunities, in those days, of studying the lessons,
bequeathed

“By dead men to their kind;”

and Magnus Troil, such as we have described him, was not a person within
whose mansion the means of such knowledge were to be acquired. But the
book of nature was before Minna, that noblest of volumes, where we are
ever called to wonder and to admire, even when we cannot understand. The
plants of those wild regions, the shells on the shores, and the long list of
feathered clans which haunt their cliffs and eyries, were as well known to
Minna Troil as to the most experienced fowlers. Her powers of observation
were wonderful, and little interrupted by other tones of feeling. The
information which she acquired by habits of patient attention, was indelibly

riveted in a naturally powerful memory. She had also a high feeling for the
solitary and melancholy grandeur of the scenes in which she was placed.
The ocean, in all its varied forms of sublimity and terror—the tremendous
cliffs that resound to the ceaseless roar of the billows, and the clang of the
sea-fowl, had for Minna a charm in almost every state in which the
changing seasons exhibited them. With the enthusiastic feelings proper to
the romantic race from which her mother descended, the love of natural
objects was to her a passion capable not only of occupying, but at times of
agitating, her mind. Scenes upon which her sister looked with a sense of
transient awe or emotion, which vanished on her return from witnessing
them, continued long to fill Minna’s imagination, not only in solitude, and
in the silence of the night, but in the hours of society. So that sometimes
when she sat like a beautiful statue, a present member of the domestic
circle, her thoughts were far absent, wandering on the wild sea-shore, and
among the yet wilder mountains of her native isles. And yet, when recalled
to conversation, and mingling in it with interest, there were few to whom
her friends were more indebted for enhancing its enjoyments; and although
something in her manners claimed deference (notwithstanding her early
youth) as well as affection, even her gay, lovely, and amiable sister was not
more generally beloved than the more retired and pensive Minna.
Indeed, the two lovely sisters were not only the delight of their friends,
but the pride of those islands, where the inhabitants of a certain rank were
blended, by the remoteness of their situation and the general hospitality of
their habits, into one friendly community. A wandering poet and parcel-
musician, who, after going through various fortunes, had returned to end his
days as he could in his native islands, had celebrated the daughters of
Magnus in a poem, which he entitled Night and Day; and in his description
of Minna, might almost be thought to have anticipated, though only in a
rude outline, the exquisite lines of Lord Byron,—

“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect, and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.”

Their father loved the maidens both so well, that it might be difficult to
say which he loved best; saving that, perchance, he liked his graver damsel
better in the walk without doors, and his merry maiden better by the
fireside; that he more desired the society of Minna when he was sad, and
that of Brenda when he was mirthful; and, what was nearly the same thing,
preferred Minna before noon, and Brenda after the glass had circulated in
the evening.
But it was still more extraordinary, that the affections of Mordaunt
Mertoun seemed to hover with the same impartiality as those of their father
betwixt the two lovely sisters. From his boyhood, as we have noticed, he
had been a frequent inmate of the residence of Magnus at Burgh-Westra,
although it lay nearly twenty miles distant from Jarlshof. The impassable
character of the country betwixt these places, extending over hills covered
with loose and quaking bog, and frequently intersected by the creeks or
arms of the sea, which indent the island on either side, as well as by fresh-
water streams and lakes, rendered the journey difficult, and even dangerous,
in the dark season; yet, as soon as the state of his father’s mind warned him
to absent himself, Mordaunt, at every risk, and under every difficulty, was
pretty sure to be found the next day at Burgh-Westra, having achieved his
journey in less time than would have been employed perhaps by the most
active native.
He was of course set down as a wooer of one of the daughters of
Magnus, by the public of Zetland; and when the old Udaller’s great
partiality to the youth was considered, nobody doubted that he might aspire
to the hand of either of those distinguished beauties, with as large a share of
islets, rocky moorland, and shore-fishings, as might be the fitting portion of
a favoured child, and with the presumptive prospect of possessing half the
domains of the ancient house of Troil, when their present owner should be
no more. This seemed all a reasonable speculation, and, in theory at least,
better constructed than many that are current through the world as
unquestionable facts. But, alas! all that sharpness of observation which
could be applied to the conduct of the parties, failed to determine the main
point, to which of the young persons, namely, the attentions of Mordaunt
were peculiarly devoted. He seemed, in general, to treat them as an
affectionate and attached brother might have treated two sisters, so equally
dear to him that a breath would have turned the scale of affection. Or if at
any time, which often happened, the one maiden appeared the more especial

object of his attention, it seemed only to be because circumstances called
her peculiar talents and disposition into more particular and immediate
exercise.
Both the sisters were accomplished in the simple music of the north, and
Mordaunt, who was their assistant, and sometimes their preceptor, when
they were practising this delightful art, might be now seen assisting Minna
in the acquisition of those wild, solemn, and simple airs, to which scalds
and harpers sung of old the deeds of heroes, and presently found equally
active in teaching Brenda the more lively and complicated music, which
their father’s affection caused to be brought from the English or Scottish
capital for the use of his daughters. And while conversing with them,
Mordaunt, who mingled a strain of deep and ardent enthusiasm with the gay
and ungovernable spirits of youth, was equally ready to enter into the wild
and poetical visions of Minna, or into the lively and often humorous chat of
her gayer sister. In short, so little did he seem to attach himself to either
damsel exclusively, that he was sometimes heard to say, that Minna never
looked so lovely, as when her lighthearted sister had induced her, for the
time, to forget her habitual gravity; or Brenda so interesting, as when she
sat listening, a subdued and affected partaker of the deep pathos of her sister
Minna.
The public of the mainland were, therefore, to use the hunter’s phrase,
at fault in their farther conclusions, and could but determine, after long
vacillating betwixt the maidens, that the young man was positively to marry
one of them, but which of the two could only be determined when his
approaching manhood, or the interference of stout old Magnus, the father,
should teach Master Mordaunt Mertoun to know his own mind. “It was a
pretty thing, indeed,” they usually concluded, “that he, no native born, and
possessed of no visible means of subsistence that is known to any one,
should presume to hesitate, or affect to have the power of selection and
choice, betwixt the two most distinguished beauties of Zetland. If they were
Magnus Troil, they would soon be at the bottom of the matter”—and so
forth. All which remarks were only whispered, for the hasty disposition of
the Udaller had too much of the old Norse fire about it to render it safe for
any one to become an unauthorized intermeddler with his family affairs;
and thus stood the relation of Mordaunt Mertoun to the family of Mr. Troil
of Burgh-Westra, when the following incidents took place.

CHAPTER IV.
This is no pilgrim’s morning—yon grey
mist
Lies upon hill, and dale, and field, and
forest,
Like the dun wimple of a new-made
widow;
And, by my faith, although my heart be
soft,
I’d rather hear that widow weep and sigh,
And tell the virtues of the dear departed,
Than, when the tempest sends his voice
abroad,
Be subject to its fury.
The
Double Nuptials.

The spring was far advanced, when, after a week spent in sport and
festivity at Burgh-Westra, Mordaunt Mertoun bade adieu to the family,
pleading the necessity of his return to Jarlshof. The proposal was combated
by the maidens, and more decidedly by Magnus himself: He saw no
occasion whatever for Mordaunt returning to Jarlshof. If his father desired
to see him, which, by the way, Magnus did not believe, Mr. Mertoun had
only to throw himself into the stern of Sweyn’s boat, or betake himself to a
pony, if he liked a land journey better, and he would see not only his son,
but twenty folk besides, who would be most happy to find that he had not
lost the use of his tongue entirely during his long solitude; “although I must
own,” added the worthy Udaller, “that when he lived among us, nobody
ever made less use of it.”
Mordaunt acquiesced both in what respected his father’s taciturnity, and
his dislike to general society; but suggested, at the same time, that the first
circumstance rendered his own immediate return more necessary, as he was
the usual channel of communication betwixt his father and others; and that

the second corroborated the same necessity, since Mr. Mertoun’s having no
other society whatever seemed a weighty reason why his son’s should be
restored to him without loss of time. As to his father’s coming to Burgh-
Westra, “they might as well,” he said, “expect to see Sumburgh Cape come
thither.”
“And that would be a cumbrous guest,” said Magnus. “But you will stop
for our dinner to-day? There are the families of Muness, Quendale,
Thorslivoe, and I know not who else, are expected; and, besides the thirty
that were in house this blessed night, we shall have as many more as
chamber and bower, and barn and boat-house, can furnish with beds, or
with barley-straw,—and you will leave all this behind you!”
“And the blithe dance at night,” added Brenda, in a tone betwixt
reproach and vexation; “and the young men from the Isle of Paba that are to
dance the sword-dance, whom shall we find to match them, for the honour
of the Main?”
“There is many a merry dancer on the mainland, Brenda,” replied
Mordaunt, “even if I should never rise on tiptoe again. And where good
dancers are found, Brenda Troil will always find the best partner. I must trip
it to-night through the Wastes of Dunrossness.”
“Do not say so, Mordaunt,” said Minna, who, during this conversation,
had been looking from the window something anxiously; “go not, to-day at
least, through the Wastes of Dunrossness.”
“And why not to-day, Minna,” said Mordaunt, laughing, “any more than
to-morrow?”
“O, the morning mist lies heavy upon yonder chain of isles, nor has it
permitted us since daybreak even a single glimpse of Fitful-head, the lofty
cape that concludes yon splendid range of mountains. The fowl are winging
their way to the shore, and the shelldrake seems, through the mist, as large
as the scart.[19] See, the very sheerwaters and bonxies are making to the
cliffs for shelter.”
“And they will ride out a gale against a king’s frigate,” said her father;
“there is foul weather when they cut and run.”
“Stay, then, with us,” said Minna to her friend; “the storm will be
dreadful, yet it will be grand to see it from Burgh-Westra, if we have no
friend exposed to its fury. See, the air is close and sultry, though the season

is yet so early, and the day so calm, that not a windlestraw moves on the
heath. Stay with us, Mordaunt; the storm which these signs announce will
be a dreadful one.”
“I must be gone the sooner,” was the conclusion of Mordaunt, who
could not deny the signs, which had not escaped his own quick observation.
“If the storm be too fierce, I will abide for the night at Stourburgh.”
“What!” said Magnus; “will you leave us for the new chamberlain’s
new Scotch tacksman, who is to teach all us Zetland savages new ways?
Take your own gate, my lad, if that is the song you sing.”
“Nay,” said Mordaunt; “I had only some curiosity to see the new
implements he has brought.”
“Ay, ay, ferlies make fools fain. I would like to know if his new plough
will bear against a Zetland rock?” answered Magnus.
“I must not pass Stourburgh on the journey,” said the youth, deferring to
his patron’s prejudice against innovation, “if this boding weather bring on
tempest; but if it only break in rain, as is most probable, I am not likely to
be melted in the wetting.”
“It will not soften into rain alone,” said Minna; “see how much heavier
the clouds fall every moment, and see these weather-gaws that streak the
lead-coloured mass with partial gleams of faded red and purple.”
“I see them all,” said Mordaunt; “but they only tell me I have no time to
tarry here. Adieu, Minna; I will send you the eagle’s feathers, if an eagle
can be found on Fair-isle or Foulah. And fare thee well, my pretty Brenda,
and keep a thought for me, should the Paba men dance ever so well.”
“Take care of yourself, since go you will,” said both sisters, together.
Old Magnus scolded them formally for supposing there was any danger
to an active young fellow from a spring gale, whether by sea or land; yet
ended by giving his own caution also to Mordaunt, advising him seriously
to delay his journey, or at least to stop at Stourburgh. “For,” said he,
“second thoughts are best; and as this Scottishman’s howf lies right under
your lee, why, take any port in a storm. But do not be assured to find the
door on latch, let the storm blow ever so hard; there are such matters as
bolts and bars in Scotland,(e) though, thanks to Saint Ronald, they are
unknown here, save that great lock on the old Castle of Scalloway, that all
men run to see—may be they make part of this man’s improvements. But

go, Mordaunt, since go you will. You should drink a stirrup-cup now, were
you three years older, but boys should never drink, excepting after dinner; I
will drink it for you, that good customs may not be broken, or bad luck
come of it. Here is your bonally, my lad.” And so saying, he quaffed a
rummer glass of brandy with as much impunity as if it had been spring-
water. Thus regretted and cautioned on all hands, Mordaunt took leave of
the hospitable household, and looking back at the comforts with which it
was surrounded, and the dense smoke that rolled upwards from its
chimneys, he first recollected the guestless and solitary desolation of
Jarlshof, then compared with the sullen and moody melancholy of his
father’s temper the warm kindness of those whom he was leaving, and
could not refrain from a sigh at the thoughts which forced themselves on his
imagination.
The signs of the tempest did not dishonour the predictions of Minna.
Mordaunt had not advanced three hours on his journey, before the wind,
which had been so deadly still in the morning, began at first to wail and
sigh, as if bemoaning beforehand the evils which it might perpetrate in its
fury, like a madman in the gloomy state of dejection which precedes his fit
of violence; then gradually increasing, the gale howled, raged, and roared,
with the full fury of a northern storm. It was accompanied by showers of
rain mixed with hail, that dashed with the most unrelenting rage against the
hills and rocks with which the traveller was surrounded, distracting his
attention, in spite of his utmost exertions, and rendering it very difficult for
him to keep the direction of his journey in a country where there is neither
road, nor even the slightest track to direct the steps of the wanderer, and
where he is often interrupted by brooks as well as large pools of water,
lakes, and lagoons. All these inland waters were now lashed into sheets of
tumbling foam, much of which, carried off by the fury of the whirlwind,
was mingled with the gale, and transported far from the waves of which it
had lately made a part; while the salt relish of the drift which was pelted
against his face, showed Mordaunt that the spray of the more distant ocean,
disturbed to frenzy by the storm, was mingled with that of the inland lakes
and streams.
Amidst this hideous combustion of the elements, Mordaunt Mertoun
struggled forward as one to whom such elemental war was familiar, and
who regarded the exertions which it required to withstand its fury, but as a
mark of resolution and manhood. He felt even, as happens usually to those

who endure great hardships, that the exertion necessary to subdue them, is
in itself a kind of elevating triumph. To see and distinguish his path when
the cattle were driven from the hill, and the very fowls from the firmament,
was but the stronger proof of his own superiority. “They shall not hear of
me at Burgh-Westra,” said he to himself, “as they heard of old doited
Ringan Ewenson’s boat, that foundered betwixt roadstead and key. I am
more of a cragsman than to mind fire or water, wave by sea, or quagmire by
land.” Thus he struggled on, buffeting with the storm, supplying the want of
the usual signs by which travellers directed their progress, (for rock,
mountain, and headland, were shrouded in mist and darkness,) by the
instinctive sagacity with which long acquaintance with these wilds had
taught him to mark every minute object, which could serve in such
circumstances to regulate his course. Thus, we repeat, he struggled onward,
occasionally standing still, or even lying down, when the gust was most
impetuous; making way against it when it was somewhat lulled, by a rapid
and bold advance even in its very current; or, when this was impossible, by
a movement resembling that of a vessel working to windward by short
tacks, but never yielding one inch of the way which he had fought so hard
to gain.
Yet, notwithstanding Mordaunt’s experience and resolution, his situation
was sufficiently uncomfortable, and even precarious; not because his
sailor’s jacket and trowsers, the common dress of young men through these
isles when on a journey, were thoroughly wet, for that might have taken
place within the same brief time, in any ordinary day, in this watery climate;
but the real danger was, that, notwithstanding his utmost exertions, he made
very slow way through brooks that were sending their waters all abroad,
through morasses drowned in double deluges of moisture, which rendered
all the ordinary passes more than usually dangerous, and repeatedly obliged
the traveller to perform a considerable circuit, which in the usual case was
unnecessary. Thus repeatedly baffled, notwithstanding his youth and
strength, Mordaunt, after maintaining a dogged conflict with wind, rain, and
the fatigue of a prolonged journey, was truly happy, when, not without
having been more than once mistaken in his road, he at length found
himself within sight of the house of Stourburgh, or Harfra; for the names
were indifferently given to the residence of Mr. Triptolemus Yellowley, who
was the chosen missionary of the Chamberlain of Orkney and Zetland, a
speculative person, who designed, through the medium of Triptolemus, to

introduce into the Ultima Thule of the Romans, a spirit of improvement,
which at that early period was scarce known to exist in Scotland itself.
At length, and with much difficulty, Mordaunt reached the house of this
worthy agriculturist, the only refuge from the relentless storm which he
could hope to meet with for several miles; and going straight to the door,
with the most undoubting confidence of instant admission, he was not a
little surprised to find it not merely latched, which the weather might
excuse, but even bolted, a thing which, as Magnus Troil has already
intimated, was almost unknown in the Archipelago. To knock, to call, and
finally to batter the door with staff and stones, were the natural resources of
the youth, who was rendered alike impatient by the pelting of the storm, and
by encountering such most unexpected and unusual obstacles to instant
admission. As he was suffered, however, for many minutes to exhaust his
impatience in noise and clamour, without receiving any reply, we will
employ them in informing the reader who Triptolemus Yellowley was, and
how he came by a name so singular.
Old Jasper Yellowley, the father of Triptolemus, (though born at the foot
of Roseberry-Topping,) had been come over by a certain noble Scottish
Earl, who, proving too far north for canny Yorkshire, had persuaded him to
accept of a farm in the Mearns, where, it is unnecessary to add, he found
matters very different from what he had expected. It was in vain that the
stout farmer set manfully to work, to counterbalance, by superior skill, the
inconveniences arising from a cold soil and a weeping climate. These might
have been probably overcome; but his neighbourhood to the Grampians
exposed him eternally to that species of visitation from the plaided gentry,
who dwelt within their skirts, which made young Norval a warrior and a
hero, but only converted Jasper Yellowley into a poor man. This was,
indeed, balanced in some sort by the impression which his ruddy cheek and
robust form had the fortune to make upon Miss Barbara Clinkscale,
daughter to the umquhile, and sister to the then existing, Clinkscale of that
ilk.
This was thought a horrid and unnatural union in the neighbourhood,
considering that the house of Clinkscale had at least as great a share of
Scottish pride as of Scottish parsimony, and was amply endowed with both.
But Miss Babie had her handsome fortune of two thousand marks at her
own disposal, was a woman of spirit who had been major and sui juris, (as

the writer who drew the contract assured her,) for full twenty years; so she
set consequences and commentaries alike at defiance, and wedded the
hearty Yorkshire yeoman. Her brother and her more wealthy kinsmen drew
off in disgust, and almost disowned their degraded relative. But the house of
Clinkscale was allied (like every other family in Scotland at the time) to a
set of relations who were not so nice—tenth and sixteenth cousins, who not
only acknowledged their kinswoman Babie after her marriage with
Yellowley but even condescended to eat beans and bacon (though the latter
was then the abomination of the Scotch as much as of the Jews) with her
husband, and would willingly have cemented the friendship by borrowing a
little cash from him, had not his good lady (who understood trap as well as
any woman in the Mearns) put a negative on this advance to intimacy.
Indeed she knew how to make young Deilbelicket,(f) old Dougald
Baresword, the Laird of Bandybrawl, and others, pay for the hospitality
which she did not think proper to deny them, by rendering them useful in
her negotiations with the lighthanded lads beyond the Cairn, who, finding
their late object of plunder was now allied to “kend folks, and owned by
them at kirk and market,” became satisfied, on a moderate yearly
composition, to desist from their depredations.
This eminent success reconciled Jasper to the dominion which his wife
began to assume over him; and which was much confirmed by her proving
to be—let me see—what is the prettiest mode of expressing it?—in the
family way. On this occasion, Mrs. Yellowley had a remarkable dream, as is
the usual practice of teeming mothers previous to the birth of an illustrious
offspring. She “was a-dreamed,” as her husband expressed it, that she was
safely delivered of a plough, drawn by three yoke of Angus-shire oxen; and
being a mighty investigator into such portents, she sat herself down with her
gossips, to consider what the thing might mean. Honest Jasper ventured,
with much hesitation, to intimate his own opinion, that the vision had
reference rather to things past than things future, and might have been
occasioned by his wife’s nerves having been a little startled by meeting in
the loan above the house his own great plough with the six oxen, which
were the pride of his heart. But the good cummers[20] raised such a hue and
cry against this exposition, that Jasper was fain to put his fingers in his ears,
and to run out of the apartment.

“Hear to him,” said an old whigamore carline—“hear to him, wi’ his
owsen, that are as an idol to him, even as the calf of Bethel! Na, na—it’s
nae pleugh of the flesh that the bonny lad-bairn—for a lad it sall be—sall
e’er striddle between the stilts o’—it’s the pleugh of the spirit—and I trust
mysell to see him wag the head o’ him in a pu’pit; or, what’s better, on a
hill-side.”
“Now the deil’s in your whiggery,” said the old Lady Glenprosing;
“wad ye hae our cummer’s bonny lad-bairn wag the head aff his shouthers
like your godly Mess James Guthrie,(g) that ye hald such a clavering about?
—Na, na, he sall walk a mair siccar path, and be a dainty curate—and say
he should live to be a bishop, what the waur wad he be?”
The gauntlet thus fairly flung down by one sibyl, was caught up by
another, and the controversy between presbytery and episcopacy raged,
roared, or rather screamed, a round of cinnamon-water serving only like oil
to the flame, till Jasper entered with the plough-staff; and by the awe of his
presence, and the shame of misbehaving “before the stranger man,”
imposed some conditions of silence upon the disputants.
I do not know whether it was impatience to give to the light a being
destined to such high and doubtful fates, or whether poor Dame Yellowley
was rather frightened at the hurly-burly which had taken place in her
presence, but she was taken suddenly ill; and, contrary to the formula in
such cases used and provided, was soon reported to be “a good deal worse
than was to be expected.” She took the opportunity (having still all her wits
about her) to extract from her sympathetic husband two promises; first, that
he would christen the child, whose birth was like to cost her so dear, by a
name indicative of the vision with which she had been favoured; and next,
that he would educate him for the ministry. The canny Yorkshireman,
thinking she had a good title at present to dictate in such matters, subscribed
to all she required. A man-child was accordingly born under these
conditions, but the state of the mother did not permit her for many days to
enquire how far they had been complied with. When she was in some
degree convalescent, she was informed, that as it was thought fit the child
should be immediately christened, it had received the name of Triptolemus;
the Curate, who was a man of some classical skill, conceiving that this
epithet contained a handsome and classical allusion to the visionary plough,
with its triple yoke of oxen. Mrs. Yellowley was not much delighted with

the manner in which her request had been complied with; but grumbling
being to as little purpose as in the celebrated case of Tristram Shandy, she
e’en sat down contented with the heathenish name, and endeavoured to
counteract the effects it might produce upon the taste and feelings of the
nominee, by such an education as might put him above the slightest thought
of sacks, coulters, stilts, mould-boards, or any thing connected with the
servile drudgery of the plough.
Jasper, sage Yorkshireman, smiled slyly in his sleeve, conceiving that
young Trippie was likely to prove a chip of the old block, and would rather
take after the jolly Yorkshire yeoman, than the gentle but somewhat aigre
blood of the house of Clinkscale. He remarked, with suppressed glee, that
the tune which best answered the purpose of a lullaby was the
“Ploughman’s Whistle,” and the first words the infant learned to stammer
were the names of the oxen; moreover, that the “bern” preferred home-
brewed ale to Scotch twopenny, and never quitted hold of the tankard with
so much reluctance as when there had been, by some manoeuvre of Jasper’s
own device, a double straik of malt allowed to the brewing, above that
which was sanctioned by the most liberal recipe, of which his dame’s
household thrift admitted. Besides this, when no other means could be
fallen upon to divert an occasional fit of squalling, his father observed that
Trip could be always silenced by jingling a bridle at his ear. From all which
symptoms he used to swear in private, that the boy would prove true
Yorkshire, and mother and mother’s kin would have small share of him.
Meanwhile, and within a year after the birth of Triptolemus, Mrs.
Yellowley bore a daughter, named after herself Barbara, who, even in
earliest infancy, exhibited the pinched nose and thin lips by which the
Clinkscale family were distinguished amongst the inhabitants of the
Mearns; and as her childhood advanced, the readiness with which she
seized, and the tenacity wherewith she detained, the playthings of
Triptolemus, besides a desire to bite, pinch, and scratch, on slight, or no
provocation, were all considered by attentive observers as proofs, that Miss
Babie would prove “her mother over again.” Malicious people did not stick
to say, that the acrimony of the Clinkscale blood had not, on this occasion,
been cooled and sweetened by that of Old England; that young Deilbelicket
was much about the house, and they could not but think it odd that Mrs.
Yellowley, who, as the whole world knew, gave nothing for nothing, should
be so uncommonly attentive to heap the trencher, and to fill the caup, of an

idle blackguard ne’er-do-weel. But when folk had once looked upon the
austere and awfully virtuous countenance of Mrs. Yellowley, they did full
justice to her propriety of conduct, and Deilbelicket’s delicacy of taste.
Meantime young Triptolemus, having received such instructions as the
Curate could give him, (for though Dame Yellowley adhered to the
persecuted remnant, her jolly husband, edified by the black gown and
prayer-book, still conformed to the church as by law established,) was, in
due process of time, sent to Saint Andrews to prosecute his studies. He
went, it is true; but with an eye turned back with sad remembrances on his
father’s plough, his father’s pancakes, and his father’s ale, for which the
small-beer of the college, commonly there termed “thorough-go-nimble,”
furnished a poor substitute. Yet he advanced in his learning, being found,
however, to show a particular favour to such authors of antiquity as had
made the improvement of the soil the object of their researches. He endured
the Bucolics of Virgil—the Georgics he had by heart—but the Æneid he
could not away with; and he was particularly severe upon the celebrated
line expressing a charge of cavalry, because, as he understood the word
putrem,[21] he opined that the combatants, in their inconsiderate ardour,
galloped over a new-manured ploughed field. Cato, the Roman Censor was
his favourite among classical heroes and philosophers, not on account of the
strictness of his morals, but because of his treatise, de Re Rustica. He had
ever in his mouth the phrase of Cicero, Jam neminem antepones Catoni. He
thought well of Palladius, and of Terentius Varro, but Columella was his
pocket-companion. To these ancient worthies, he added the more modern
Tusser, Hartlib, and other writers on rural economics, not forgetting the
lucubrations of the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and such of the better-
informed Philomaths, who, instead of loading their almanacks with vain
predictions of political events, pretended to see what seeds would grow and
what would not, and direct the attention of their readers to that course of
cultivation from which the production of good crops may be safely
predicted; modest sages, in fine, who, careless of the rise and downfall of
empires, content themselves with pointing out the fit seasons to reap and
sow, with a fair guess at the weather which each month will be likely to
present; as, for example, that if Heaven pleases, we shall have snow in
January, and the author will stake his reputation that July proves, on the
whole, a month of sunshine. Now, although the Rector of Saint Leonard’s
was greatly pleased, in general, with the quiet, laborious, and studious bent

of Triptolemus Yellowley, and deemed him, in so far, worthy of a name of
four syllables having a Latin termination, yet he relished not, by any means,
his exclusive attention to his favourite authors. It savoured of the earth, he
said, if not of something worse, to have a man’s mind always grovelling in
mould, stercorated or unstercorated; and he pointed out, but in vain, history,
and poetry, and divinity, as more elevating subjects of occupation.
Triptolemus Yellowley was obstinate in his own course: Of the battle of
Pharsalia, he thought not as it affected the freedom of the world, but dwelt
on the rich crop which the Emathian fields were likely to produce the next
season. In vernacular poetry, Triptolemus could scarce be prevailed upon to
read a single couplet, excepting old Tusser, as aforesaid, whose Hundred
Points of Good Husbandry he had got by heart; and excepting also Piers
Ploughman’s Vision, which, charmed with the title, he bought with avidity
from a packman, but after reading the two first pages, flung it into the fire
as an impudent and misnamed political libel. As to divinity, he summed that
matter up by reminding his instructors, that to labour the earth and win his
bread with the toil of his body and sweat of his brow, was the lot imposed
upon fallen man; and, for his part, he was resolved to discharge, to the best
of his abilities, a task so obviously necessary to existence, leaving others to
speculate as much as they would, upon the more recondite mysteries of
theology.
With a spirit so much narrowed and limited to the concerns of rural life,
it may be doubted whether the proficiency of Triptolemus in learning, or the
use he was like to make of his acquisitions, would have much gratified the
ambitious hope of his affectionate mother. It is true, he expressed no
reluctance to embrace the profession of a clergyman, which suited well
enough with the habitual personal indolence which sometimes attaches to
speculative dispositions. He had views, to speak plainly, (I wish they were
peculiar to himself,) of cultivating the glebe six days in the week, preaching
on the seventh with due regularity, and dining with some fat franklin or
country laird, with whom he could smoke a pipe and drink a tankard after
dinner, and mix in secret conference on the exhaustless subject,
Quid faciat lætas segetes.
Now, this plan, besides that it indicated nothing of what was then called the
root of the matter, implied necessarily the possession of a manse; and the
possession of a manse inferred compliance with the doctrines of prelacy,

and other enormities of the time. There was some question how far manse
and glebe, stipend, both victual and money, might have outbalanced the
good lady’s predisposition towards Presbytery; but her zeal was not put to
so severe a trial. She died before her son had completed his studies, leaving
her afflicted spouse just as disconsolate as was to be expected. The first act
of old Jasper’s undivided administration was to recall his son from Saint
Andrews, in order to obtain his assistance in his domestic labours. And here
it might have been supposed that our Triptolemus, summoned to carry into
practice what he had so fondly studied in theory, must have been, to use a
simile which he would have thought lively, like a cow entering upon a
clover park. Alas, mistaken thoughts, and deceitful hopes of mankind!
A laughing philosopher, the Democritus of our day, once, in a moral
lecture, compared human life to a table pierced with a number of holes,
each of which has a pin made exactly to fit it, but which pins being stuck in
hastily, and without selection, chance leads inevitably to the most awkward
mistakes. “For how often do we see,” the orator pathetically concluded,
—“how often, I say, do we see the round man stuck into the three-cornered
hole!” This new illustration of the vagaries of fortune set every one present
into convulsions of laughter, excepting one fat alderman, who seemed to
make the case his own, and insisted that it was no jesting matter. To take up
the simile, however, which is an excellent one, it is plain that Triptolemus
Yellowley had been shaken out of the bag at least a hundred years too soon.
If he had come on the stage in our own time, that is, if he had flourished at
any time within these thirty or forty years, he could not have missed to have
held the office of vice-president of some eminent agricultural society, and to
have transacted all the business thereof under the auspices of some noble
duke or lord, who, as the matter might happen, either knew, or did not
know, the difference betwixt a horse and a cart, and a cart-horse. He could
not have missed such preferment, for he was exceedingly learned in all
those particulars, which, being of no consequence in actual practice, go, of
course, a great way to constitute the character of a connoisseur in any art,
and especially in agriculture. But, alas! Triptolemus Yellowley had, as we
already have hinted, come into the world at least a century too soon; for,
instead of sitting in an arm-chair, with a hammer in his hand, and a bumper
of port before him, giving forth the toast,—“To breeding, in all its
branches,” his father planted him betwixt the stilts of a plough, and invited
him to guide the oxen, on whose beauties he would, in our day, have

descanted, and whose rumps he would not have goaded, but have carved.
Old Jasper complained, that although no one talked so well of common and
several, wheat and rape, fallow and lea, as his learned son, (whom he
always called Tolimus,) yet, “dang it,” added the Seneca, “nought thrives
wi’ un—nought thrives wi’ un!” It was still worse, when Jasper, becoming
frail and ancient, was obliged, as happened in the course of a few years,
gradually to yield up the reins of government to the academical neophyte.
As if Nature had meant him a spite, he had got one of the dourest and
most intractable farms in the Mearns, to try conclusions withal, a place
which seemed to yield every thing but what the agriculturist wanted; for
there were plenty of thistles, which indicates dry land; and store of fern,
which is said to intimate deep land; and nettles, which show where lime
hath been applied; and deep furrows in the most unlikely spots, which
intimated that it had been cultivated in former days by the Peghts, as
popular tradition bore. There was also enough of stones to keep the ground
warm, according to the creed of some farmers, and great abundance of
springs to render it cool and sappy, according to the theory of others. It was
in vain that, acting alternately on these opinions, poor Triptolemus
endeavoured to avail himself of the supposed capabilities of the soil. No
kind of butter that might be churned could be made to stick upon his own
bread, any more than on that of poor Tusser, whose Hundred Points of
Good Husbandry, so useful to others of his day, were never to himself worth
as many pennies.[22]
In fact, excepting an hundred acres of infield, to which old Jasper had
early seen the necessity of limiting his labours, there was not a corner of the
farm fit for any thing but to break plough-graith, and kill cattle. And then,
as for the part which was really tilled with some profit, the expense of the
farming establishment of Triptolemus, and his disposition to experiment,
soon got rid of any good arising from the cultivation of it. “The carles and
the cart-avers,” he confessed, with a sigh, speaking of his farm-servants and
horses, “make it all, and the carles and cart-avers eat it all;” a conclusion
which might sum up the year-book of many a gentleman farmer.
Matters would have soon been brought to a close with Triptolemus in
the present day. He would have got a bank-credit, manoeuvred with wind-
bills, dashed out upon a large scale, and soon have seen his crop and stock
sequestered by the Sheriff; but in those days a man could not ruin himself

so easily. The whole Scottish tenantry stood upon the same level flat of
poverty, so that it was extremely difficult to find any vantage ground, by
climbing up to which a man might have an opportunity of actually breaking
his neck with some eclat. They were pretty much in the situation of people,
who, being totally without credit, may indeed suffer from indigence, but
cannot possibly become bankrupt. Besides, notwithstanding the failure of
Triptolemus’s projects, there was to be balanced against the expenditure
which they occasioned, all the savings which the extreme economy of his
sister Barbara could effect; and in truth her exertions were wonderful. She
might have realized, if any one could, the idea of the learned philosopher,
who pronounced that sleeping was a fancy, and eating but a habit, and who
appeared to the world to have renounced both, until it was unhappily
discovered that he had an intrigue with the cook-maid of the family, who
indemnified him for his privations by giving him private entrée to the
pantry, and to a share of her own couch. But no such deceptions were
practised by Barbara Yellowley. She was up early, and down late, and
seemed, to her over-watched and over-tasked maidens, to be as wakerife as
the cat herself. Then, for eating, it appeared that the air was a banquet to
her, and she would fain have made it so to her retinue. Her brother, who,
besides being lazy in his person, was somewhat luxurious in his appetite,
would willingly now and then have tasted a mouthful of animal food, were
it but to know how his sheep were fed off; but a proposal to eat a child
could not have startled Mistress Barbara more; and, being of a compliant
and easy disposition, Triptolemus reconciled himself to the necessity of a
perpetual Lent, too happy when he could get a scrap of butter to his oaten
cake, or (as they lived on the banks of the Esk) escape the daily necessity of
eating salmon, whether in or out of season, six days out of the seven.
But although Mrs. Barbara brought faithfully to the joint stock all
savings which her awful powers of economy accomplished to scrape
together, and although the dower of their mother was by degrees expended,
or nearly so, in aiding them upon extreme occasions, the term at length
approached when it seemed impossible that they could sustain the conflict
any longer against the evil star of Triptolemus, as he called it himself, or the
natural result of his absurd speculations, as it was termed by others. Luckily
at this sad crisis, a god jumped down to their relief out of a machine. In
plain English, the noble lord, who owned their farm, arrived at his mansion-

house in their neighbourhood, with his coach and six and his running
footmen, in the full splendour of the seventeenth century.
This person of quality was the son of the nobleman who had brought the
ancient Jasper into the country from Yorkshire, and he was, like his father, a
fanciful and scheming man.[23] He had schemed well for himself, however,
amid the mutations of the time, having obtained, for a certain period of
years, the administration of the remote islands of Orkney and Zetland, for
payment of a certain rent, with the right of making the most of whatever
was the property or revenue of the crown in these districts, under the title of
Lord Chamberlain. Now, his lordship had become possessed with a notion,
in itself a very true one, that much might be done to render this grant
available, by improving the culture of the crown lands, both in Orkney and
Zetland; and then having some acquaintance with our friend Triptolemus,
he thought (rather less happily) that he might prove a person capable of
furthering his schemes. He sent for him to the great Hallhouse, and was so
much edified by the way in which our friend laid down the law upon every
given subject relating to rural economy, that he lost no time in securing the
co-operation of so valuable an assistant, the first step being to release him
from his present unprofitable farm.
The terms were arranged much to the mind of Triptolemus, who had
already been taught, by many years’ experience, a dark sort of notion, that
without undervaluing or doubting for a moment his own skill, it would be
quite as well that almost all the trouble and risk should be at the expense of
his employer. Indeed, the hopes of advantage which he held out to his
patron were so considerable, that the Lord Chamberlain dropped every idea
of admitting his dependent into any share of the expected profits; for, rude
as the arts of agriculture were in Scotland, they were far superior to those
known and practised in the regions of Thule, and Triptolemus Yellowley
conceived himself to be possessed of a degree of insight into these
mysteries, far superior to what was possessed or practised even in the
Mearns. The improvement, therefore, which was to be expected, would bear
a double proportion, and the Lord Chamberlain was to reap all the profit,
deducting a handsome salary for his steward Yellowley, together with the
accommodation of a house and domestic farm, for the support of his family.
Joy seized the heart of Mistress Barbara, at hearing this happy termination
of what threatened to be so very bad an affair as the lease of Cauldacres.

“If we cannot,” she said, “provide for our own house, when all is
coming in, and nothing going out, surely we must be worse than infidels!”
Triptolemus was a busy man for some time, huffing and puffing, and
eating and drinking in every changehouse, while he ordered and collected
together proper implements of agriculture, to be used by the natives of these
devoted islands, whose destinies were menaced with this formidable
change. Singular tools these would seem, if presented before a modern
agricultural society; but every thing is relative, nor could the heavy cartload
of timber, called the old Scots plough, seem less strange to a Scottish
farmer of this present day, than the corslets and casques of the soldiers of
Cortes might seem to a regiment of our own army. Yet the latter conquered
Mexico, and undoubtedly the former would have been a splendid
improvement on the state of agriculture in Thule.
We have never been able to learn why Triptolemus preferred fixing his
residence in Zetland, to becoming an inhabitant of the Orkneys. Perhaps he
thought the inhabitants of the latter Archipelago the more simple and docile
of the two kindred tribes; or perhaps he considered the situation of the
house and farm he himself was to occupy, (which was indeed a tolerable
one,) as preferable to that which he had it in his power to have obtained
upon Pomona (so the main island of the Orkneys is entitled). At Harfra, or,
as it was sometimes called, Stourburgh, from the remains of a Pictish fort,
which was almost close to the mansion-house, the factor settled himself, in
the plenitude of his authority; determined to honour the name he bore by his
exertions, in precept and example, to civilize the Zetlanders, and improve
their very confined knowledge in the primary arts of human life.

[19] The cormorant; which may be seen frequently dashing in wild flight
along the roosts and tides of Zetland, and yet more often drawn up in ranks on
some ledge of rock, like a body of the Black Brunswickers in 181.
[20] i. e. Gossips.
[21] Quadrupedumque putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.
[22] This is admitted by the English agriculturist:—

“My music since has been the plough,
Entangled with some care among;
The gain not great, the pain enough,
Hath made me sing another song.”

[23] Government of Zetland.—At the period supposed, the Earls of
Morton held the islands of Orkney and Zetland, originally granted in 1643,
confirmed in 1707, and rendered absolute in 1742. This gave the family much
property and influence, which they usually exercised by factors, named
chamberlains. In 1766 this property was sold by the then Earl of Morton to Sir
Lawrence Dundas, by whose son, Lord Dundas, it is now held.

CHAPTER V.
The wind blew keen frae north and east;
It blew upon the floor.
Quo’ our goodman to our goodwife,
“Get up and bar the door.”

“My hand is in my housewife-skep,
Goodman, as ye may see;
If it shouldna be barr’d this hundred years,
It’s no be barr’d for me!”
O
ld Song.

We can only hope that the gentle reader has not found the latter part of
the last chapter extremely tedious; but, at any rate, his impatience will
scarce equal that of young Mordaunt Mertoun, who, while the lightning
came flash after flash, while the wind, veering and shifting from point to
point, blew with all the fury of a hurricane, and while the rain was dashed
against him in deluges, stood hammering, calling, and roaring at the door of
the old Place of Harfra, impatient for admittance, and at a loss to conceive
any position of existing circumstances, which could occasion the exclusion
of a stranger, especially during such horrible weather. At length, finding his
noise and vociferation were equally in vain, he fell back so far from the
front of the house, as was necessary to enable him to reconnoitre the
chimneys; and amidst “storm and shade,” could discover, to the increase of
his dismay, that though noon, then the dinner hour of these islands, was
now nearly arrived, there was no smoke proceeding from the tunnels of the
vents to give any note of preparation within.
Mordaunt’s wrathful impatience was now changed into sympathy and
alarm; for, so long accustomed to the exuberant hospitality of the Zetland
islands, he was immediately induced to suppose some strange and
unaccountable disaster had befallen the family; and forthwith set himself to
discover some place at which he could make forcible entry, in order to

ascertain the situation of the inmates, as much as to obtain shelter from the
still increasing storm. His present anxiety was, however, as much thrown
away as his late clamorous importunities for admittance had been.
Triptolemus and his sister had heard the whole alarm without, and had
already had a sharp dispute on the propriety of opening the door.
Mrs. Baby, as we have described her, was no willing renderer of the
rites of hospitality. In their farm of Cauldacres, in the Mearns, she had been
the dread and abhorrence of all gaberlunzie men, and travelling packmen,
gipsies, long remembered beggars, and so forth; nor was there one of them
so wily, as she used to boast, as could ever say they had heard the clink of
her sneck. In Zetland, where the new settlers were yet strangers to the
extreme honesty and simplicity of all classes, suspicion and fear joined with
frugality in her desire to exclude all wandering guests of uncertain
character; and the second of these motives had its effect on Triptolemus
himself, who, though neither suspicious nor penurious, knew good people
were scarce, good farmers scarcer, and had a reasonable share of that
wisdom which looks towards self-preservation as the first law of nature.
These hints may serve as a commentary on the following dialogue which
took place betwixt the brother and sister.
“Now, good be gracious to us,” said Triptolemus, as he sat thumbing his
old school-copy of Virgil, “here is a pure day, for the bear seed!—Well
spoke the wise Mantuan—ventis surgentibus—and then the groans of the
mountains, and the long-resounding shores—but where’s the woods, Baby?
tell me, I say, where we shall find the nemorum murmur, sister Baby, in
these new seats of ours?”
“What’s your foolish will?” said Baby, popping her head from out of a
dark recess in the kitchen, where she was busy about some nameless deed
of housewifery.
Her brother, who had addressed himself to her more from habit than
intention, no sooner saw her bleak red nose, keen grey eyes, with the sharp
features thereunto conforming, shaded by the flaps of the loose toy which
depended on each side of her eager face, than he bethought himself that his
query was likely to find little acceptation from her, and therefore stood
another volley before he would resume the topic.
“I say, Mr. Yellowley,” said sister Baby, coming into the middle of the
room, “what for are ye crying on me, and me in the midst of my

housewifeskep?”
“Nay, for nothing at all, Baby,” answered Triptolemus, “saving that I
was saying to myself, that here we had the sea, and the wind, and the rain,
sufficient enough, but where’s the wood? where’s the wood, Baby, answer
me that?”
“The wood?” replied Baby—“Were I no to take better care of the wood
than you, brother, there would soon be no more wood about the town than
the barber’s block that’s on your own shoulders, Triptolemus. If ye be
thinking of the wreck-wood that the callants brought in yesterday, there was
six ounces of it gaed to boil your parritch this morning; though, I trow, a
carefu’ man wad have ta’en drammock, if breakfast he behoved to have,
rather than waste baith meltith and fuel in the same morning.”
“That is to say, Baby,” replied Triptolemus, who was somewhat of a dry
joker in his way, “that when we have fire we are not to have food, and when
we have food we are not to have fire, these being too great blessings to
enjoy both in the same day! Good luck, you do not propose we should
starve with cold and starve with hunger unico contextu. But, to tell you the
truth, I could never away with raw oatmeal, slockened with water, in all my
life. Call it drammock, or crowdie, or just what ye list, my vivers must thole
fire and water.”
“The mair gowk you,” said Baby; “can ye not make your brose on the
Sunday, and sup them cauld on the Monday, since ye’re sae dainty? Mony
is the fairer face than yours that has licked the lip after such a cogfu’.”
“Mercy on us, sister!” said Triptolemus; “at this rate, it’s a finished field
with me—I must unyoke the pleugh, and lie down to wait for the dead-
thraw. Here is that in this house wad hold all Zetland in meal for a
twelvemonth, and ye grudge a cogfu’ of warm parritch to me, that has sic a
charge!”
“Whisht—haud your silly clavering tongue!” said Baby, looking round
with apprehension—“ye are a wise man to speak of what is in the house,
and a fitting man to have the charge of it!—Hark, as I live by bread, I hear a
tapping at the outer yett!”
“Go and open it then, Baby,” said her brother, glad at any thing that
promised to interrupt the dispute.

“Go and open it, said he!” echoed Baby, half angry, half frightened, and
half triumphant at the superiority of her understanding over that of her
brother—“Go and open it, said he, indeed!—is it to lend robbers a chance to
take all that is in the house?”
“Robbers!” echoed Triptolemus, in his turn; “there are no more robbers
in this country than there are lambs at Yule. I tell you, as I have told you an
hundred times, there are no Highlandmen to harry us here. This is a land of
quiet and honesty. O fortunati nimium!”
“And what good is Saint Rinian to do ye, Tolimus?” said his sister,
mistaking the quotation for a Catholic invocation. “Besides, if there be no
Highlandmen, there may be as bad. I saw sax or seven as ill-looking chields
gang past the Place yesterday, as ever came frae beyont Clochna-ben; ill-
fa’red tools they had in their hands, whaaling knives they ca’ed them, but
they looked as like dirks and whingers as ae bit airn can look like anither.
There is nae honest men carry siccan tools.”
Here the knocking and shouts of Mordaunt were very audible betwixt
every swell of the horrible blast which was careering without. The brother
and sister looked at each other in real perplexity and fear. “If they have
heard of the siller,” said Baby, her very nose changing with terror from red
to blue, “we are but gane folk!”
“Who speaks now, when they should hold their tongue?” said
Triptolemus. “Go to the shot-window instantly, and see how many there are
of them, while I load the old Spanish-barrelled duck-gun—go as if you
were stepping on new-laid eggs.”
Baby crept to the window, and reported that she saw only “one young
chield, clattering and roaring as gin he were daft. How many there might be
out of sight, she could not say.”
“Out of sight!—nonsense,” said Triptolemus, laying aside the ramrod
with which he was loading the piece, with a trembling hand. “I will warrant
them out of sight and hearing both—this is some poor fellow catched in the
tempest, wants the shelter of our roof, and a little refreshment. Open the
door, Baby, it’s a Christian deed.”
“But is it a Christian deed of him to come in at the window, then?” said
Baby, setting up a most doleful shriek, as Mordaunt Mertoun, who had
forced open one of the windows, leaped down into the apartment, dripping
with water like a river god. Triptolemus, in great tribulation, presented the

gun which he had not yet loaded, while the intruder exclaimed, “Hold, hold
—what the devil mean you by keeping your doors bolted in weather like
this, and levelling your gun at folk’s heads as you would at a sealgh’s?”
“And who are you, friend, and what want you?” said Triptolemus,
lowering the but of his gun to the floor as he spoke, and so recovering his
arms.
“What do I want!” said Mordaunt; “I want every thing—I want meat,
drink, and fire, a bed for the night, and a sheltie for to-morrow morning to
carry me to Jarlshof.”
“And ye said there were nae caterans or sorners here?” said Baby to the
agriculturist, reproachfully. “Heard ye ever a breekless loon frae Lochaber
tell his mind and his errand mair deftly?—Come, come, friend,” she added,
addressing herself to Mordaunt, “put up your pipes and gang your gate; this
is the house of his lordship’s factor, and no place of reset for thiggers or
sorners.”
Mordaunt laughed in her face at the simplicity of the request. “Leave
built walls,” he said, “and in such a tempest as this? What take you me for?
—a gannet or a scart do you think I am, that your clapping your hands and
skirling at me like a madwoman, should drive me from the shelter into the
storm?”
“And so you propose, young man,” said Triptolemus, gravely, “to stay
in my house, volens nolens—that is, whether we will or no?”
“Will!” said Mordaunt; “what right have you to will any thing about it?
Do you not hear the thunder? Do you not hear the rain? Do you not see the
lightning? And do you not know this is the only house within I wot not how
many miles? Come, my good master and dame, this may be Scottish jesting,
but it sounds strange in Zetland ears. You have let out the fire, too, and my
teeth are dancing a jig in my head with cold; but I’ll soon put that to rights.”
He seized the fire-tongs, raked together the embers upon the hearth,
broke up into life the gathering-peat, which the hostess had calculated
should have preserved the seeds of fire, without giving them forth, for many
hours; then casting his eye round, saw in a corner the stock of drift-wood,
which Mistress Baby had served forth by ounces, and transferred two or
three logs of it at once to the hearth, which, conscious of such unwonted
supply, began to transmit to the chimney such a smoke as had not issued
from the Place of Harfra for many a day.

While their uninvited guest was thus making himself at home, Baby
kept edging and jogging the factor to turn out the intruder. But for this
undertaking, Triptolemus Yellowley felt neither courage nor zeal, nor did
circumstances seem at all to warrant the favourable conclusion of any fray
into which he might enter with the young stranger. The sinewy limbs and
graceful form of Mordaunt Mertoun were seen to great advantage in his
simple sea-dress; and with his dark sparkling eye, finely formed head,
animated features, close curled dark hair, and bold, free looks, the stranger
formed a very strong contrast with the host on whom he had intruded
himself. Triptolemus was a short, clumsy, duck-legged disciple of Ceres,
whose bottle-nose, turned up and handsomely coppered at the extremity,
seemed to intimate something of an occasional treaty with Bacchus. It was
like to be no equal mellay betwixt persons of such unequal form and
strength; and the difference betwixt twenty and fifty years was nothing in
favour of the weaker party. Besides, the factor was an honest good-natured
fellow at bottom, and being soon satisfied that his guest had no other views
than those of obtaining refuge from the storm, it would, despite his sister’s
instigations, have been his last act to deny a boon so reasonable and
necessary to a youth whose exterior was so prepossessing. He stood,
therefore, considering how he could most gracefully glide into the character
of the hospitable landlord, out of that of the churlish defender of his
domestic castle, against an unauthorized intrusion, when Baby, who had
stood appalled at the extreme familiarity of the stranger’s address and
demeanour, now spoke up for herself.
“My troth, lad,” said she to Mordaunt, “ye are no blate, to light on at
that rate, and the best of wood, too—nane of your sharney peats, but good
aik timber, nae less maun serve ye!”
“You come lightly by it, dame,” said Mordaunt, carelessly; “and you
should not grudge to the fire what the sea gives you for nothing. These good
ribs of oak did their last duty upon earth and ocean, when they could hold
no longer together under the brave hearts that manned the bark.”
“And that’s true, too,” said the old woman, softening—“this maun be
awsome weather by sea. Sit down and warm ye, since the sticks are a-low.”
“Ay, ay,” said Triptolemus, “it is a pleasure to see siccan a bonny bleeze.
I havena seen the like o’t since I left Cauldacres.”

“And shallna see the like o’t again in a hurry,” said Baby, “unless the
house take fire, or there suld be a coal-heugh found out.”
“And wherefore should not there be a coal-heugh found out?” said the
factor, triumphantly—“I say, wherefore should not a coal-heugh be found
out in Zetland as well as in Fife, now that the Chamberlain has a far-sighted
and discreet man upon the spot to make the necessary perquisitions? They
are baith fishing-stations, I trow?”
“I tell you what it is, Tolemus Yellowley,” answered his sister, who had
practical reasons to fear her brother’s opening upon any false scent, “if you
promise my Lord sae mony of these bonnie-wallies, we’ll no be weel hafted
here before we are found out and set a-trotting again. If ane was to speak to
ye about a gold mine, I ken weel wha would promise he suld have Portugal
pieces clinking in his pouch before the year gaed by.”
“And why suld I not?” said Triptolemus—“maybe your head does not
know there is a land in Orkney called Ophir, or something very like it; and
wherefore might not Solomon, the wise King of the Jews, have sent thither
his ships and his servants for four hundred and fifty talents? I trow he knew
best where to go or send, and I hope you believe in your Bible, Baby?”
Baby was silenced by an appeal to Scripture, however mal à propos,
and only answered by an inarticulate humph of incredulity or scorn, while
her brother went on addressing Mordaunt.—“Yes, you shall all of you see
what a change shall coin introduce, even into such an unpropitious country
as yours. Ye have not heard of copper, I warrant, nor of iron-stone, in these
islands, neither?” Mordaunt said he had heard there was copper near the
Cliffs of Konigsburgh. “Ay, and a copper scum is found on the Loch of
Swana, too, young man. But the youngest of you, doubtless, thinks himself
a match for such as I am!”
Baby, who during all this while had been closely and accurately
reconnoitring the youth’s person, now interposed in a manner by her brother
totally unexpected. “Ye had mair need, Mr. Yellowley, to give the young
man some dry clothes, and to see about getting something for him to eat,
than to sit there bleezing away with your lang tales, as if the weather were
not windy enow without your help; and maybe the lad would drink some
bland, or sic-like, if ye had the grace to ask him.”
While Triptolemus looked astonished at such a proposal, considering
the quarter it came from, Mordaunt answered, he “should be very glad to

have dry clothes, but begged to be excused from drinking until he had eaten
somewhat.”
Triptolemus accordingly conducted him into another apartment, and
accommodating him with a change of dress, left him to his arrangements,
while he himself returned to the kitchen, much puzzled to account for his
sister’s unusual fit of hospitality. “She must be fey,”[24] he said, “and in that
case has not long to live, and though I fall heir to her tocher-good, I am
sorry for it; for she has held the house-gear well together—drawn the girth
over tight it may be now and then, but the saddle sits the better.”
When Triptolemus returned to the kitchen, he found his suspicions
confirmed; for his sister was in the desperate act of consigning to the pot a
smoked goose, which, with others of the same tribe, had long hung in the
large chimney, muttering to herself at the same time,—“It maun be eaten
sune or syne, and what for no by the puir callant?”
“What is this of it, sister?” said Triptolemus. “You have on the girdle
and the pot at ance. What day is this wi’ you?”
“E’en such a day as the Israelites had beside the flesh-pots of Egypt,
billie Triptolemus; but ye little ken wha ye have in your house this blessed
day.”
“Troth, and little do I ken,” said Triptolemus, “as little as I would ken
the naig I never saw before. I would take the lad for a jagger,[25] but he has
rather ower good havings, and he has no pack.”
“Ye ken as little as ane of your ain bits o’ nowt, man,” retorted sister
Baby; “if ye ken na him, do ye ken Tronda Dronsdaughter?”
“Tronda Dronsdaughter!” echoed Triptolemus—“how should I but ken
her, when I pay her twal pennies Scots by the day, for working in the house
here? I trow she works as if the things burned her fingers. I had better give a
Scots lass a groat of English siller.”
“And that’s the maist sensible word ye have said this blessed morning.
—Weel, but Tronda kens this lad weel, and she has often spoke to me about
him. They call his father the Silent Man of Sumburgh, and they say he’s
uncanny.”
“Hout, hout—nonsense, nonsense—they are aye at sic trash as that,”
said the brother, “when you want a day’s wark out of them—they have
stepped ower the tangs, or they have met an uncanny body, or they have

turned about the boat against the sun, and then there’s nought to be done
that day.”
“Weel, weel, brother, ye are so wise,” said Baby, “because ye knapped
Latin at Saint Andrews; and can your lair tell me, then, what the lad has
round his halse?”
“A Barcelona napkin, as wet as a dishclout, and I have just lent him one
of my own overlays,” said Triptolemus.
“A Barcelona napkin!” said Baby, elevating her voice, and then
suddenly lowering it, as from apprehension of being overheard—“I say a
gold chain!”
“A gold chain!” said Triptolemus.
“In troth is it, hinny; and how like you that? The folk say here, as
Tronda tells me, that the King of the Drows gave it to his father, the Silent
Man of Sumburgh.”
“I wish you would speak sense, or be the silent woman,” said
Triptolemus. “The upshot of it all is, then, that this lad is the rich stranger’s
son, and that you are giving him the goose you were to keep till
Michaelmas!”
“Troth, brother, we maun do something for God’s sake, and to make
friends; and the lad,” added Baby, (for even she was not altogether above
the prejudices of her sex in favour of outward form,) “the lad has a fair face
of his ain.”
“Ye would have let mony a fair face,” said Triptolemus, “pass the door
pining, if it had not been for the gold chain.”
“Nae doubt, nae doubt,” replied Barbara; “ye wadna have me waste our
substance on every thigger or sorner that has the luck to come by the door
in a wet day? But this lad has a fair and a wide name in the country, and
Tronda says he is to be married to a daughter of the rich Udaller, Magnus
Troil, and the marriage-day is to be fixed whenever he makes choice (set
him up) between the twa lasses; and so it wad be as much as our good name
is worth, and our quiet forby, to let him sit unserved, although he does come
unsent for.”
“The best reason in life,” said Triptolemus, “for letting a man into a
house is, that you dare not bid him go by. However, since there is a man of

quality amongst them, I will let him know whom he has to do with, in my
person.” Then advancing to the door, he exclaimed, “Heus tibi, Dave!”
“Adsum,” answered the youth, entering the apartment.
“Hem!” said the erudite Triptolemus, “not altogether deficient in his
humanities, I see. I will try him further.—Canst thou aught of husbandry,
young gentleman?”
“Troth, sir, not I,” answered Mordaunt; “I have been trained to plough
upon the sea, and to reap upon the crag.”
“Plough the sea!” said Triptolemus; “that’s a furrow requires small
harrowing; and for your harvest on the crag, I suppose you mean these
scowries, or whatever you call them. It is a sort of ingathering which the
Ranzelman should stop by the law; nothing more likely to break an honest
man’s bones. I profess I cannot see the pleasure men propose by dangling in
a rope’s-end betwixt earth and heaven. In my case, I had as lief the other
end of the rope were fastened to the gibbet; I should be sure of not falling,
at least.”
“Now, I would only advise you to try it,” replied Mordaunt. “Trust me,
the world has few grander sensations than when one is perched in midair
between a high-browed cliff and a roaring ocean, the rope by which you are
sustained seeming scarce stronger than a silken thread, and the stone on
which you have one foot steadied, affording such a breadth as the kittywake
might rest upon—to feel and know all this, with the full confidence that
your own agility of limb, and strength of head, can bring you as safe off as
if you had the wing of the gosshawk—this is indeed being almost
independent of the earth you tread on!”
Triptolemus stared at this enthusiastic description of an amusement
which had so few charms for him; and his sister, looking at the glancing eye
and elevated bearing of the young adventurer, answered, by ejaculating,
“My certie, lad, but ye are a brave chield!”
“A brave chield?” returned Yellowley,—“I say a brave goose, to be
flichtering and fleeing in the wind when he might abide upon terra firma!
But come, here’s a goose that is more to the purpose, when once it is well
boiled. Get us trenchers and salt, Baby—but in truth it will prove salt
enough—a tasty morsel it is; but I think the Zetlanders be the only folk in
the world that think of running such risks to catch geese, and then boiling
them when they have done.”

“To be sure,” replied his sister, (it was the only word they had agreed in
that day,) “it would be an unco thing to bid ony gudewife in Angus or a’ the
Mearns boil a goose, while there was sic things as spits in the warld.—But
wha’s this neist!” she added, looking towards the entrance with great
indignation. “My certie, open doors, and dogs come in—and wha opened
the door to him?”
“I did, to be sure,” replied Mordaunt; “you would not have a poor devil
stand beating your deaf door-cheeks in weather like this?—Here goes
something, though, to help the fire,” he added, drawing out the sliding bar
of oak with which the door had been secured, and throwing it on the hearth,
whence it was snatched by Dame Baby in great wrath, she exclaiming at the
same time,—
“It’s sea-borne timber, as there’s little else here, and he dings it about as
if it were a fir-clog!—And who be you, an it please you?” she added,
turning to the stranger,—“a very hallanshaker loon, as ever crossed my twa
een!”
“I am a jagger, if it like your ladyship,” replied the uninvited guest, a
stout vulgar, little man, who had indeed the humble appearance of a pedlar,
called jagger in these islands—“never travelled in a waur day, or was more
willing to get to harbourage.—Heaven be praised for fire and house-room!”
So saying, he drew a stool to the fire, and sat down without further
ceremony. Dame Baby stared “wild as grey gosshawk,” and was meditating
how to express her indignation in something warmer than words, for which
the boiling pot seemed to offer a convenient hint, when an old half-starved
serving-woman—the Tronda already mentioned—the sharer of Barbara’s
domestic cares, who had been as yet in some remote corner of the mansion,
now hobbled into the room, and broke out into exclamations which
indicated some new cause of alarm.
“O master!” and “O mistress!” were the only sounds she could for some
time articulate, and then followed them up with, “The best in the house—
the best in the house—set a’ on the board, and a’ will be little aneugh—
There is auld Norna of Fitful-head, the most fearful woman in all the isles!”
“Where can she have been wandering?” said Mordaunt, not without
some apparent sympathy with the surprise, if not with the alarm, of the old
domestic; “but it is needless to ask—the worse the weather, the more likely
is she to be a traveller.”

“What new tramper is this?” echoed the distracted Baby, whom the
quick succession of guests had driven wellnigh crazy with vexation. “I’ll
soon settle her wandering, I sall warrant, if my brother has but the saul of a
man in him, or if there be a pair of jougs at Scalloway!”
“The iron was never forged on stithy that would hauld her,” said the old
maid-servant. “She comes—she comes—God’s sake speak her fair and
canny, or we will have a ravelled hasp on the yarn-windles!”
As she spoke, a woman, tall enough almost to touch the top of the door
with her cap, stepped into the room, signing the cross as she entered, and
pronouncing, with a solemn voice, “The blessing of God and Saint Ronald
on the open door, and their broad malison and mine upon close-handed
churls!”
“And wha are ye, that are sae bauld wi’ your blessing and banning in
other folk’s houses? What kind of country is this, that folk cannot sit quiet
for an hour, and serve Heaven, and keep their bit gear thegither, without
gangrel men and women coming thigging and sorning ane after another,
like a string of wild-geese?”
This speech, the understanding reader will easily saddle on Mistress
Baby, and what effects it might have produced on the last stranger, can only
be matter of conjecture; for the old servant and Mordaunt applied
themselves at once to the party addressed, in order to deprecate her
resentment; the former speaking to her some words of Norse, in a tone of
intercession, and Mordaunt saying in English, “They are strangers, Norna,
and know not your name or qualities; they are unacquainted, too, with the
ways of this country, and therefore we must hold them excused for their
lack of hospitality.”
“I lack no hospitality, young man,” said Triptolemus, “miseris
succurrere disco—the goose that was destined to roost in the chimney till
Michaelmas, is boiling in the pot for you; but if we had twenty geese, I see
we are like to find mouths to eat them every feather—this must be
amended.”
“What must be amended, sordid slave?” said the stranger Norna, turning
at once upon him with an emphasis that made him start—“What must be
amended? Bring hither, if thou wilt, thy new-fangled coulters, spades, and
harrows, alter the implements of our fathers from the ploughshare to the
mouse-trap; but know thou art in the land that was won of old by the flaxen-

haired Kempions of the North, and leave us their hospitality at least, to
show we come of what was once noble and generous. I say to you beware—
while Norna looks forth at the measureless waters, from the crest of Fitful-
head, something is yet left that resembles power of defence. If the men of
Thule have ceased to be champions, and to spread the banquet for the raven,
the women have not forgotten the arts that lifted them of yore into queens
and prophetesses.”
The woman who pronounced this singular tirade, was as striking in
appearance as extravagantly lofty in her pretensions and in her language.
She might well have represented on the stage, so far as features, voice, and
stature, were concerned, the Bonduca or Boadicea of the Britons, or the
sage Velleda, Aurinia, or any other fated Pythoness, who ever led to battle a
tribe of the ancient Goths. Her features were high and well formed, and
would have been handsome, but for the ravages of time and the effects of
exposure to the severe weather of her country. Age, and perhaps sorrow, had
quenched, in some degree, the fire of a dark-blue eye, whose hue almost
approached to black, and had sprinkled snow on such parts of her tresses as
had escaped from under her cap, and were dishevelled by the rigour of the
storm. Her upper garment, which dropped with water, was of a coarse dark-
coloured stuff, called wadmaal, then much used in the Zetland islands, as
also in Iceland and Norway. But as she threw this cloak back from her
shoulders, a short jacket, of dark-blue velvet, stamped with figures, became
visible, and the vest, which corresponded to it, was of crimson colour, and
embroidered with tarnished silver. Her girdle was plated with silver
ornaments, cut into the shape of planetary signs—her blue apron was
embroidered with similar devices, and covered a petticoat of crimson cloth.
Strong thick enduring shoes, of the half-dressed leather of the country, were
tied with straps like those of the Roman buskins, over her scarlet stockings.
She wore in her belt an ambiguous-looking weapon, which might pass for a
sacrificing knife, or dagger, as the imagination of the spectator chose to
assign to the wearer the character of a priestess or of a sorceress. In her
hand she held a staff, squared on all sides, and engraved with Runic
characters and figures, forming one of those portable and perpetual
calendars which were used among the ancient natives of Scandinavia, and
which, to a superstitious eye, might have passed for a divining rod.
Such were the appearance, features, and attire, of Norna of the Fitful-
head, upon whom many of the inhabitants of the island looked with

observance, many with fear, and almost all with a sort of veneration. Less
pregnant circumstances of suspicion would, in any other part of Scotland,
have exposed her to the investigation of those cruel inquisitors, who were
then often invested with the delegated authority of the Privy Council, for
the purpose of persecuting, torturing, and finally consigning to the flames,
those who were accused of witchcraft or sorcery. But superstitions of this
nature pass through two stages ere they become entirely obsolete. Those
supposed to be possessed of supernatural powers, are venerated in the
earlier stages of society. As religion and knowledge increase, they are first
held in hatred and horror, and are finally regarded as impostors. Scotland
was in the second state—the fear of witchcraft was great, and the hatred
against those suspected of it intense. Zetland was as yet a little world by
itself, where, among the lower and ruder classes, so much of the ancient
northern superstition remained, as cherished the original veneration for
those affecting supernatural knowledge, and power over the elements,
which made a constituent part of the ancient Scandinavian creed. At least if
the natives of Thule admitted that one class of magicians performed their
feats by their alliance with Satan, they devoutly believed that others dealt
with spirits of a different and less odious class—the ancient Dwarfs, called,
in Zetland, Trows, or Drows, the modern fairies, and so forth.
Among those who were supposed to be in league with disembodied
spirits, this Norna, descended from, and representative of, a family, which
had long pretended to such gifts, was so eminent, that the name assigned to
her, which signifies one of those fatal sisters who weave the web of human
fate, had been conferred in honour of her supernatural powers. The name by
which she had been actually christened was carefully concealed by herself
and her parents; for to its discovery they superstitiously annexed some fatal
consequences. In those times, the doubt only occurred, whether her
supposed powers were acquired by lawful means. In our days, it would
have been questioned whether she was an impostor, or whether her
imagination was so deeply impressed with the mysteries of her supposed
art, that she might be in some degree a believer in her own pretensions to
supernatural knowledge. Certain it is, that she performed her part with such
undoubting confidence, and such striking dignity of look and action, and
evinced, at the same time, such strength of language, and energy of purpose,
that it would have been difficult for the greatest sceptic to have doubted the

reality of her enthusiasm, though he might smile at the pretensions to which
it gave rise.

[24] When a person changes his condition suddenly, as when a miser
becomes liberal, or a churl good-humoured, he is said, in Scotch, to be fey; that
is, predestined to speedy death, of which such mutations of humour are received
as a sure indication.
[25] A pedlar.

CHAPTER VI.
——If, by your art, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
Temp
est.

The storm had somewhat relaxed its rigour just before the entrance of
Norna, otherwise she must have found it impossible to travel during the
extremity of its fury. But she had hardly added herself so unexpectedly to
the party whom chance had assembled at the dwelling of Triptolemus
Yellowley, when the tempest suddenly resumed its former vehemence, and
raged around the building with a fury which made the inmates insensible to
any thing except the risk that the old mansion was about to fall above their
heads.
Mistress Baby gave vent to her fears in loud exclamations of “The Lord
guide us—this is surely the last day—what kind of a country of guisards
and gyre-carlines is this!—and you, ye fool carle,” she added, turning on
her brother, (for all her passions had a touch of acidity in them,) “to quit the
bonny Mearns land to come here, where there is naething but sturdy
beggars and gaberlunzies within ane’s house, and Heaven’s anger on the
outside on’t!”
“I tell you, sister Baby,” answered the insulted agriculturist, “that all
shall be reformed and amended,—excepting,” he added, betwixt his teeth,
“the scaulding humours of an ill-natured jaud, that can add bitterness to the
very storm!”
The old domestic and the pedlar meanwhile exhausted themselves in
entreaties to Norna, of which, as they were couched in the Norse language,
the master of the house understood nothing.
She listened to them with a haughty and unmoved air, and replied at
length aloud, and in English—“I will not. What if this house be strewed in
ruins before morning—where would be the world’s want in the crazed
projector, and the niggardly pinch-commons, by which it is inhabited? They

will needs come to reform Zetland customs, let them try how they like a
Zetland storm.—You that would not perish, quit this house!”
The pedlar seized on his little knapsack, and began hastily to brace it on
his back; the old maid-servant cast her cloak about her shoulders, and both
seemed to be in the act of leaving the house as fast as they could.
Triptolemus Yellowley, somewhat commoved by these appearances,
asked Mordaunt, with a voice which faltered with apprehension, whether he
thought there was any, that is, so very much danger?
“I cannot tell,” answered the youth, “I have scarce ever seen such a
storm. Norna can tell us better than any one when it will abate; for no one in
these islands can judge of the weather like her.”
“And is that all thou thinkest Norna can do?” said the sibyl; “thou shalt
know her powers are not bounded within such a narrow space. Hear me,
Mordaunt, youth of a foreign land, but of a friendly heart—Dost thou quit
this doomed mansion with those who now prepare to leave it?”
“I do not—I will not, Norna,” replied Mordaunt; “I know not your
motive for desiring me to remove, and I will not leave, upon these dark
threats, the house in which I have been kindly received in such a tempest as
this. If the owners are unaccustomed to our practice of unlimited hospitality,
I am the more obliged to them that they have relaxed their usages, and
opened their doors in my behalf.”
“He is a brave lad,” said Mistress Baby, whose superstitious feelings
had been daunted by the threats of the supposed sorceress, and who, amidst
her eager, narrow, and repining disposition, had, like all who possess
marked character, some sparks of higher feeling, which made her
sympathize with generous sentiments, though she thought it too expensive
to entertain them at her own cost—“He is a brave lad,” she again repeated,
“and worthy of ten geese, if I had them to boil for him, or roast either. I’ll
warrant him a gentleman’s son, and no churl’s blood.”
“Hear me, young Mordaunt,” said Norna, “and depart from this house.
Fate has high views on you—you shall not remain in this hovel to be
crushed amid its worthless ruins, with the relics of its more worthless
inhabitants, whose life is as little to the world as the vegetation of the
house-leek, which now grows on their thatch, and which shall soon be
crushed amongst their mangled limbs.”

“I—I—I will go forth,” said Yellowley, who, despite of his bearing
himself scholarly and wisely, was beginning to be terrified for the issue of
the adventure; for the house was old, and the walls rocked formidably to the
blast.
“To what purpose?” said his sister. “I trust the Prince of the power of the
air has not yet such-like power over those that are made in God’s image,
that a good house should fall about our heads, because a randy quean” (here
she darted a fierce glance at the Pythoness) “should boast us with her
glamour, as if we were sae mony dogs to crouch at her bidding!”
“I was only wanting,” said Triptolemus, ashamed of his motion, “to
look at the bear-braird, which must be sair laid wi’ this tempest; but if this
honest woman like to bide wi’ us, I think it were best to let us a’ sit doun
canny thegither, till it’s working weather again.”
“Honest woman!” echoed Baby—“Foul warlock thief!—Aroint ye, ye
limmer!” she added, addressing Norna directly; “out of an honest house, or,
shame fa’ me, but I’ll take the bittle[26] to you!”
Norna cast on her a look of supreme contempt; then, stepping to the
window, seemed engaged in deep contemplation of the heavens, while the
old maid-servant, Tronda, drawing close to her mistress, implored, for the
sake of all that was dear to man or woman, “Do not provoke Norna of
Fitful-head! You have no sic woman on the mainland of Scotland—she can
ride on one of these clouds as easily as man ever rode on a sheltie.”
“I shall live to see her ride on the reek of a fat tar-barrel,” said Mistress
Baby; “and that will be a fit pacing palfrey for her.”
Again Norna regarded the enraged Mrs. Baby Yellowley with a look of
that unutterable scorn which her haughty features could so well express,
and moving to the window which looked to the north-west, from which
quarter the gale seemed at present to blow, she stood for some time with her
arms crossed, looking out upon the leaden-coloured sky, obscured as it was
by the thick drift, which, coming on in successive gusts of tempest, left ever
and anon sad and dreary intervals of expectation betwixt the dying and the
reviving blast.
Norna regarded this war of the elements as one to whom their strife was
familiar; yet the stern serenity of her features had in it a cast of awe, and at
the same time of authority, as the cabalist may be supposed to look upon the

spirit he has evoked, and which, though he knows how to subject him to his
spell, bears still an aspect appalling to flesh and blood. The attendants stood
by in different attitudes, expressive of their various feelings. Mordaunt,
though not indifferent to the risk in which they stood, was more curious
than alarmed. He had heard of Norna’s alleged power over the elements,
and now expected an opportunity of judging for himself of its reality.
Triptolemus Yellowley was confounded at what seemed to be far beyond
the bounds of his philosophy; and, if the truth must be spoken, the worthy
agriculturist was greatly more frightened than inquisitive. His sister was not
in the least curious on the subject; but it was difficult to say whether anger
or fear predominated in her sharp eyes and thin compressed lips. The pedlar
and old Tronda, confident that the house would never fall while the
redoubted Norna was beneath its roof, held themselves ready for a start the
instant she should take her departure.
Having looked on the sky for some time in a fixed attitude, and with the
most profound silence, Norna at once, yet with a slow and elevated gesture,
extended her staff of black oak towards that part of the heavens from which
the blast came hardest, and in the midst of its fury chanted a Norwegian
invocation, still preserved in the Island of Uist, under the name of the Song
of the Reimkennar, though some call it the Song of the Tempest. The
following is a free translation, it being impossible to render literally many
of the elliptical and metaphorical terms of expression, peculiar to the
ancient Northern poetry:—

1.

“Stern eagle of the far north-west,
Thou that bearest in thy grasp the
thunderbolt,
Thou whose rushing pinions stir ocean to
madness,
Thou the destroyer of herds, thou the
scatterer of navies,
Thou the breaker down of towers,
Amidst the scream of thy rage,
Amidst the rushing of thy onward wings,
Though thy scream be loud as the cry of a

perishing nation,
Though the rushing of thy wings be like
the roar of ten thousand waves,
Yet hear, in thine ire and thy haste,
Hear thou the voice of the Reim-kennar.

2.

“Thou hast met the pine-trees of
Drontheim,
Their dark-green heads lie prostrate beside
their uprooted stems;
Thou hast met the rider of the ocean,
The tall, the strong bark of the fearless
rover,
And she has struck to thee the topsail
That she had not veiled to a royal armada;
Thou hast met the tower that hears its crest
among the clouds,
The battled massive tower of the Jarl of
former days,
And the cope-stone of the turret
Is lying upon its hospitable hearth;
But thou too shalt stoop, proud compeller
of clouds,
When thou hearest the voice of the Reim-
kennar.

3.

“There are verses that can stop the stag in
the forest,
Ay, and when the dark-coloured dog is
opening on his track;
There are verses can make the wild hawk
pause on the wing,
Like the falcon that wears the hood and the

jesses,
And who knows the shrill whistle of the
fowler.
Thou who canst mock at the scream of the
drowning mariner,
And the crash of the ravaged forest,
And the groan of the overwhelmed
crowds,
When the church hath fallen in the
moment of prayer,
There are sounds which thou also must
list,
When they are chanted by the voice of the
Reim-kennar.

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.
O
ld 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.
Wor
dsworth.

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.
O
ld 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.
Juliu
s 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:

MARY.

Farewell to Northmaven,
Grey Hillswicke, farewell!
To the calms of thy haven,
The storms on thy fell—
To each breeze that can vary
The mood of thy main,
And to thee, bonny Mary!
We meet not again.

Farewell the wild ferry,
Which Hacon could brave,
When the peaks of the Skerry

Were white in the wave.
There’s a maid may look over
These wild waves in vain—
For the skiff of her lover—
He comes not again.

The vows thou hast broke,
On the wild currents fling them;
On the quicksand and rock
Let the mermaidens sing them.
New sweetness they’ll give her
Bewildering strain;
But there’s one who will never
Believe them again.

O were there an island,
Though ever so wild,
Where woman could smile, and
No man be beguiled—
Too tempting a snare
To poor mortals were given,
And the hope would fix there,
That should anchor on heaven!

“I see you are softened, my young friend,” said Halcro, when he had
finished his song; “so are most who hear that same ditty. Words and music
both mine own; and, without saying much of the wit of it, there is a sort of
eh—eh—simplicity and truth about it, which gets its way to most folk’s
heart. Even your father cannot resist it—and he has a heart as impenetrable
to poetry and song as Apollo himself could draw an arrow against. But then
he has had some ill luck in his time with the women-folk, as is plain from
his owing them such a grudge—Ay, ay, there the charm lies—none of us but
has felt the same sore in our day. But come, my dear boy, they are
mustering in the hall, men and women both—plagues as they are, we
should get on ill without them—but before we go, only mark the last turn—
‘And the hope would fix there,’—
that is, in the supposed island—a place which neither was nor will be—

‘That should anchor on heaven.’
Now you see, my good young man, there are here none of your heathenish
rants, which Rochester, Etheridge, and these wild fellows, used to string
together. A parson might sing the song, and his clerk bear the burden—but
there is the confounded bell—we must go now—but never mind—we’ll get
into a quiet corner at night, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

CHAPTER XIII.
Full in the midst the polish’d table shines,
And the bright goblets, rich with generous
wines;
Now each partakes the feast, the wine
prepares,
Portions the food, and each the portion
shares;
Nor till the rage of thirst and hunger
ceased,
To the high host approach’d the sagacious
guest.
O
dyssey.

The hospitable profusion of Magnus Troil’s board, the number of guests
who feasted in the hall, the much greater number of retainers, attendants,
humble friends, and domestics of every possible description, who revelled
without, with the multitude of the still poorer, and less honoured assistants,
who came from every hamlet or township within twenty miles round, to
share the bounty of the munificent Udaller, were such as altogether
astonished Triptolemus Yellowley, and made him internally doubt whether
it would be prudent in him at this time, and amid the full glow of his
hospitality, to propose to the host who presided over such a splendid
banquet, a radical change in the whole customs and usages of his country.
True, the sagacious Triptolemus felt conscious that he possessed in his
own person wisdom far superior to that of all the assembled feasters, to say
nothing of the landlord, against whose prudence the very extent of his
hospitality formed, in Yellowley’s opinion, sufficient evidence. But yet the
Amphitryon with whom one dines, holds, for the time at least, an influence
over the minds of his most distinguished guests; and if the dinner be in
good style and the wines of the right quality, it is humbling to see that
neither art nor wisdom, scarce external rank itself, can assume their natural

and wonted superiority over the distributor of these good things, until coffee
has been brought in. Triptolemus felt the full weight of this temporary
superiority, yet he was desirous to do something that might vindicate the
vaunts he had made to his sister and his fellow-traveller, and he stole a look
at them from time to time, to mark whether he was not sinking in their
esteem from postponing his promised lecture on the enormities of Zetland.
But Mrs. Barbara was busily engaged in noting and registering the
waste incurred in such an entertainment as she had probably never before
looked upon, and in admiring the host’s indifference to, and the guests’
absolute negligence of, those rules of civility in which her youth had been
brought up. The feasters desired to be helped from a dish which was
unbroken, and might have figured at supper, with as much freedom as if it
had undergone the ravages of half-a-dozen guests; and no one seemed to
care—the landlord himself least of all—whether those dishes only were
consumed, which, from their nature, were incapable of re-appearance, or
whether the assault was extended to the substantial rounds of beef, pasties,
and so forth, which, by the rules of good housewifery, were destined to
stand two attacks, and which, therefore, according to Mrs. Barbara’s ideas
of politeness, ought not to have been annihilated by the guests upon the first
onset, but spared, like Outis in the cave of Polyphemus, to be devoured the
last. Lost in the meditations to which these breaches of convivial discipline
gave rise, and in the contemplation of an ideal larder of cold meat which
she could have saved out of the wreck of roast, boiled, and baked, sufficient
to have supplied her cupboard for at least a twelvemonth, Mrs. Barbara
cared very little whether or not her brother supported in its extent the
character which he had calculated upon assuming.
Mordaunt Mertoun also was conversant with far other thoughts, than
those which regarded the proposed reformer of Zetland enormities. His seat
was betwixt two blithe maidens of Thule, who, not taking scorn that he had
upon other occasions given preference to the daughters of the Udaller, were
glad of the chance which assigned to them the attentions of so distinguished
a gallant, who, as being their squire at the feast, might in all probability
become their partner in the subsequent dance. But, whilst rendering to his
fair neighbours all the usual attentions which society required, Mordaunt
kept up a covert, but accurate and close observation, upon his estranged
friends, Minna and Brenda. The Udaller himself had a share of his attention;
but in him he could remark nothing, except the usual tone of hearty and

somewhat boisterous hospitality, with which he was accustomed to animate
the banquet upon all such occasions of general festivity. But in the differing
mien of the two maidens there was much more room for painful remark.
Captain Cleveland sat betwixt the sisters, was sedulous in his attentions
to both, and Mordaunt was so placed, that he could observe all, and hear a
great deal, of what passed between them. But Cleveland’s peculiar regard
seemed devoted to the elder sister. Of this the younger was perhaps
conscious, for more than once her eye glanced towards Mordaunt, and, as
he thought, with something in it which resembled regret for the interruption
of their intercourse, and a sad remembrance of former and more friendly
times; while Minna was exclusively engrossed by the attentions of her
neighbour; and that it should be so, filled Mordaunt with surprise and
resentment.
Minna, the serious, the prudent, the reserved, whose countenance and
manners indicated so much elevation of character—Minna, the lover of
solitude, and of those paths of knowledge in which men walk best without
company—the enemy of light mirth, the friend of musing melancholy, and
the frequenter of fountain-heads and pathless glens—she whose character
seemed, in short, the very reverse of that which might be captivated by the
bold, coarse, and daring gallantry of such a man as this Captain Cleveland,
gave, nevertheless, her eye and ear to him, as he sat beside her at table, with
an interest and a graciousness of attention, which, to Mordaunt, who well
knew how to judge of her feelings by her manner, intimated a degree of the
highest favour. He observed this, and his heart rose against the favourite by
whom he had been thus superseded, as well as against Minna’s indiscreet
departure from her own character.
“What is there about the man,” he said within himself, “more than the
bold and daring assumption of importance which is derived from success in
petty enterprises, and the exercise of petty despotism over a ship’s crew?—
His very language is more professional than is used by the superior officers
of the British navy; and the wit which has excited so many smiles, seems to
me such as Minna would not formerly have endured for an instant. Even
Brenda seems less taken with his gallantry than Minna, whom it should
have suited so little.”
Mordaunt was doubly mistaken in these his angry speculations. In the
first place, with an eye which was, in some respects, that of a rival, he

criticised far too severely the manners and behaviour of Captain Cleveland.
They were unpolished, certainly; which was of the less consequence in a
country inhabited by so plain and simple a race as the ancient Zetlanders.
On the other hand, there was an open, naval frankness in Cleveland’s
bearing—much natural shrewdness—some appropriate humour—an
undoubting confidence in himself—and that enterprising hardihood of
disposition, which, without any other recommendable quality, very often
leads to success with the fair sex. But Mordaunt was farther mistaken, in
supposing that Cleveland was likely to be disagreeable to Minna Troil, on
account of the opposition of their characters in so many material particulars.
Had his knowledge of the world been a little more extensive, he might have
observed, that as unions are often formed betwixt couples differing in
complexion and stature, they take place still more frequently betwixt
persons totally differing in feelings, in taste, in pursuits, and in
understanding; and it would not be saying, perhaps, too much, to aver, that
two-thirds of the marriages around us have been contracted betwixt persons,
who, judging a priori, we should have thought had scarce any charms for
each other.
A moral and primary cause might be easily assigned for these
anomalies, in the wise dispensations of Providence, that the general balance
of wit, wisdom, and amiable qualities of all kinds, should be kept up
through society at large. For, what a world were it, if the wise were to
intermarry only with the wise, the learned with the learned, the amiable
with the amiable, nay, even the handsome with the handsome? and, is it not
evident, that the degraded castes of the foolish, the ignorant, the brutal, and
the deformed, (comprehending, by the way, far the greater portion of
mankind,) must, when condemned to exclusive intercourse with each other,
become gradually as much brutalized in person and disposition as so many
ourang-outangs? When, therefore, we see the “gentle joined to the rude,”
we may lament the fate of the suffering individual, but we must not the less
admire the mysterious disposition of that wise Providence which thus
balances the moral good and evil of life;—which secures for a family,
unhappy in the dispositions of one parent, a share of better and sweeter
blood, transmitted from the other, and preserves to the offspring the
affectionate care and protection of at least one of those from whom it is
naturally due. Without the frequent occurrence of such alliances and unions
—mis-sorted as they seem at first sight—the world could not be that for

which Eternal Wisdom has designed it—a place of mixed good and evil—a
place of trial at once, and of suffering, where even the worst ills are
checkered with something that renders them tolerable to humble and patient
minds, and where the best blessings carry with them a necessary alloy of
embittering depreciation.
When, indeed, we look a little closer on the causes of those unexpected
and ill-suited attachments, we have occasion to acknowledge, that the
means by which they are produced do not infer that complete departure
from, or inconsistency with, the character of the parties, which we might
expect when the result alone is contemplated. The wise purposes which
Providence appears to have had in view, by permitting such intermixture of
dispositions, tempers, and understandings, in the married state, are not
accomplished by any mysterious impulse by which, in contradiction to the
ordinary laws of nature, men or women are urged to an union with those
whom the world see to be unsuitable to them. The freedom of will is
permitted to us in the occurrences of ordinary life, as in our moral conduct;
and in the former as well as the latter case, is often the means of misguiding
those who possess it. Thus it usually happens, more especially to the
enthusiastic and imaginative, that, having formed a picture of admiration in
their own mind, they too often deceive themselves by some faint
resemblance in some existing being, whom their fancy, as speedily as
gratuitously, invests with all the attributes necessary to complete the beau
ideal of mental perfection. No one, perhaps, even in the happiest marriage,
with an object really beloved, ever discovered by experience all the
qualities he expected to possess; but in far too many cases, he finds he has
practised a much higher degree of mental deception, and has erected his
airy castle of felicity upon some rainbow, which owed its very existence
only to the peculiar state of the atmosphere.
Thus, Mordaunt, if better acquainted with life, and with the course of
human things, would have been little surprised that such a man as
Cleveland, handsome, bold, and animated,—a man who had obviously lived
in danger, and who spoke of it as sport, should have been invested, by a girl
of Minna’s fanciful disposition, with an extensive share of those qualities,
which, in her active imagination, were held to fill up the accomplishments
of a heroic character. The plain bluntness of his manner, if remote from
courtesy, appeared at least as widely different from deceit; and, unfashioned
as he seemed by forms, he had enough both of natural sense, and natural

good-breeding, to support the delusion he had created, at least as far as
externals were concerned. It is scarce necessary to add, that these
observations apply exclusively to what are called love-matches; for when
either party fix their attachment upon the substantial comforts of a rental, or
a jointure, they cannot be disappointed in the acquisition, although they
may be cruelly so in their over-estimation of the happiness it was to afford,
or in having too slightly anticipated the disadvantages with which it was to
be attended.
Having a certain partiality for the dark Beauty whom we have
described, we have willingly dedicated this digression, in order to account
for a line of conduct which we allow to seem absolutely unnatural in such a
narrative as the present, though the most common event in ordinary life;
namely, in Minna’s appearing to have over-estimated the taste, talent, and
ability of a handsome young man, who was dedicating to her his whole time
and attention, and whose homage rendered her the envy of almost all the
other young women of that numerous party. Perhaps, if our fair readers will
take the trouble to consult their own bosoms, they will be disposed to allow,
that the distinguished good taste exhibited by any individual, who, when his
attentions would be agreeable to a whole circle of rivals, selects one as their
individual object, entitles him, on the footing of reciprocity, if on no other,
to a large share of that individual’s favourable, and even partial, esteem. At
any rate, if the character shall, after all, be deemed inconsistent and
unnatural, it concerns not us, who record the facts as we find them, and
pretend no privilege for bringing closer to nature those incidents which may
seem to diverge from it; or for reducing to consistence that most
inconsistent of all created things—the heart of a beautiful and admired
female.
Necessity, which teaches all the liberal arts, can render us also adepts in
dissimulation; and Mordaunt, though a novice, failed not to profit in her
school. It was manifest, that, in order to observe the demeanour of those on
whom his attention was fixed, he must needs put constraint on his own, and
appear, at least, so much engaged with the damsels betwixt whom he sat,
that Minna and Brenda should suppose him indifferent to what was passing
around him. The ready cheerfulness of Maddie and Clara Groatsettars, who
were esteemed considerable fortunes in the island, and were at this moment
too happy in feeling themselves seated somewhat beyond the sphere of
vigilance influenced by their aunt, the good old Lady Glowrowrum, met

and requited the attempts which Mordaunt made to be lively and
entertaining; and they were soon engaged in a gay conversation, to which,
as usual on such occasions, the gentleman contributed wit, or what passes
for such, and the ladies their prompt laughter and liberal applause. But,
amidst this seeming mirth, Mordaunt failed not, from time to time, as
covertly as he might, to observe the conduct of the two daughters of
Magnus; and still it appeared as if the elder, wrapt up in the conversation of
Cleveland, did not cast away a thought on the rest of the company; and as if
Brenda, more openly as she conceived his attention withdrawn from her,
looked with an expression both anxious and melancholy towards the group
of which he himself formed a part. He was much moved by the diffidence,
as well as the trouble, which her looks seemed to convey, and tacitly formed
the resolution of seeking a more full explanation with her in the course of
the evening. Norna, he remembered, had stated that these two amiable
young women were in danger, the nature of which she left unexplained, but
which he suspected to arise out of their mistaking the character of this
daring and all-engrossing stranger; and he secretly resolved, that, if
possible, he would be the means of detecting Cleveland, and of saving his
early friends.
As he revolved these thoughts, his attention to the Miss Groatsettars
gradually diminished, and perhaps he might altogether have forgotten the
necessity of his appearing an uninterested spectator of what was passing,
had not the signal been given for the ladies retiring from table. Minna, with
a native grace, and somewhat of stateliness in her manner, bent her head to
the company in general, with a kinder and more particular expression as her
eye reached Cleveland. Brenda, with the blush which attended her slightest
personal exertion when exposed to the eyes of others, hurried through the
same departing salutation with an embarrassment which almost amounted
to awkwardness, but which her youth and timidity rendered at once natural
and interesting. Again Mordaunt thought that her eye distinguished him
amidst the numerous company. For the first time he ventured to encounter
and to return the glance; and the consciousness that he had done so doubled
the glow of Brenda’s countenance, while something resembling displeasure
was blended with her emotion.
When the ladies had retired, the men betook themselves to the deep and
serious drinking, which, according to the fashion of the times, preceded the
evening exercise of the dance. Old Magnus himself, by precept and

example, exhorted them “to make the best use of their time, since the ladies
would soon summon them to shake their feet.” At the same time giving the
signal to a grey-headed domestic, who stood behind him in the dress of a
Dantzic skipper, and who added to many other occupations that of butler,
“Eric Scambester,” he said, “has the good ship the Jolly Mariner of Canton,
got her cargo on board?”
“Chokeful loaded,” answered the Ganymede of Burgh-Westra, “with
good Nantz, Jamaica sugar, Portugal lemons, not to mention nutmeg and
toast, and water taken in from the Shellicoat spring.”
Loud and long laughed the guests at this stated and regular jest betwixt
the Udaller and his butler, which always served as a preface to the
introduction of a punch-bowl of enormous size, the gift of the captain of
one of the Honourable East India Company’s vessels, which, bound from
China homeward, had been driven north-about by stress of weather into
Lerwick-bay, and had there contrived to get rid of part of the cargo, without
very scrupulously reckoning for the King’s duties.
Magnus Troil, having been a large customer, besides otherwise obliging
Captain Coolie, had been remunerated, on the departure of the ship, with
this splendid vehicle of conviviality, at the very sight of which, as old Eric
Scambester bent under its weight, a murmur of applause ran through the
company. The good old toasts dedicated to the prosperity of Zetland, were
then honoured with flowing bumpers. “Death to the head that never wears
hair!” was a sentiment quaffed to the success of the fishing, as proposed by
the sonorous voice of the Udaller. Claud Halcro proposed with general
applause, “The health of their worthy landmaster, the sweet sister meat-
mistresses; health to man, death to fish, and growth to the produce of the
ground.” The same recurring sentiment was proposed more concisely by a
whiteheaded compeer of Magnus Troil, in the words, “God open the mouth
of the grey fish, and keep his hand about the corn!”[40]
Full opportunity was afforded to all to honour these interesting toasts.
Those nearest the capacious Mediterranean of punch, were accommodated
by the Udaller with their portions, dispensed in huge rummer glasses by his
own hospitable hand, whilst they who sat at a greater distance replenished
their cups by means of a rich silver flagon, facetiously called the Pinnace;
which, filled occasionally at the bowl, served to dispense its liquid treasures
to the more remote parts of the table, and occasioned many right merry jests

on its frequent voyages. The commerce of the Zetlanders with foreign
vessels, and homeward-bound West Indiamen, had early served to introduce
among them the general use of the generous beverage, with which the Jolly
Mariner of Canton was loaded; nor was there a man in the archipelago of
Thule more skilled in combining its rich ingredients, than old Eric
Scambester, who indeed was known far and wide through the isles by the
name of the Punch-maker, after the fashion of the ancient Norwegians, who
conferred on Rollo the Walker, and other heroes of their strain, epithets
expressive of the feats of strength or dexterity in which they excelled all
other men.
The good liquor was not slow in performing its office of exhilaration,
and, as the revel advanced, some ancient Norse drinking-songs were sung
with great effect by the guests, tending to show, that if, from want of
exercise, the martial virtues of their ancestors had decayed among the
Zetlanders, they could still actively and intensely enjoy so much of the
pleasures of Valhalla as consisted in quaffing the oceans of mead and brown
ale, which were promised by Odin to those who should share his
Scandinavian paradise. At length, excited by the cup and song, the diffident
grew bold, and the modest loquacious—all became desirous of talking, and
none were willing to listen—each man mounted his own special hobby-
horse, and began eagerly to call on his neighbours to witness his agility.
Amongst others, the little bard, who had now got next to our friend
Mordaunt Mertoun, evinced a positive determination to commence and
conclude, in all its longitude and latitude, the story of his introduction to
glorious John Dryden; and Triptolemus Yellowley, as his spirits arose,
shaking off a feeling of involuntary awe, with which he was impressed by
the opulence indicated in all he saw around him, as well as by the respect
paid to Magnus Troil by the assembled guests, began to broach, to the
astonished and somewhat offended Udaller, some of those projects for
ameliorating the islands, which he had boasted of to his fellow-travellers
upon their journey of the morning.
But the innovations which he suggested, and the reception which they
met with at the hand of Magnus Troil, must be told in the next Chapter.

[40] See Hibbert’s Description of the Zetland Islands, p. 470.

CHAPTER XIV.
We’ll keep our customs—what is law
itself,
But old establish’d custom? What religion,
(I mean, with one-half of the men that use
it,)
Save the good use and wont that carries
them
To worship how and where their fathers
worshipp’d?
All things resolve in custom—we’ll keep
ours.
O
ld Play.

We left the company of Magnus Troil engaged in high wassail and
revelry. Mordaunt, who, like his father, shunned the festive cup, did not
partake in the cheerfulness which the ship diffused among the guests as they
unloaded it, and the pinnace, as it circumnavigated the table. But, in low
spirits as he seemed, he was the more meet prey for the story-telling Halcro,
who had fixed upon him, as in a favourable state to play the part of listener,
with something of the same instinct that directs the hooded crow to the sick
sheep among the flock, which will most patiently suffer itself to be made a
prey of. Joyfully did the poet avail himself of the advantages afforded by
Mordaunt’s absence of mind, and unwillingness to exert himself in
measures of active defence. With the unfailing dexterity peculiar to prosers,
he contrived to dribble out his tale to double its usual length, by the exercise
of the privilege of unlimited digressions; so that the story, like a horse on
the grand pas, seemed to be advancing with rapidity, while, in reality, it
scarce was progressive at the rate of a yard in the quarter of an hour. At
length, however, he had discussed, in all its various bearings and relations,
the history of his friendly landlord, the master fashioner in Russel Street,
including a short sketch of five of his relations, and anecdotes of three of

his principal rivals, together with some general observations upon the dress
and fashion of the period; and having marched thus far through the environs
and outworks of his story, he arrived at the body of the place, for so the
Wits’ Coffeehouse might be termed. He paused on the threshold, however,
to explain the nature of his landlord’s right occasionally to intrude himself
into this well-known temple of the Muses.
“It consisted,” said Halcro, “in the two principal points, of bearing and
forbearing; for my friend Thimblethwaite was a person of wit himself, and
never quarrelled with any jest which the wags who frequented that house
were flinging about, like squibs and crackers on a rejoicing night; and then,
though some of the wits—ay, and I daresay the greater number, might have
had some dealings with him in the way of trade, he never was the person to
put any man of genius in unpleasant remembrance of such trifles. And
though, my dear young Master Mordaunt, you may think this is but
ordinary civility, because in this country it happens seldom that there is
either much borrowing or lending, and because, praised be Heaven, there
are neither bailiffs nor sheriff-officers to take a poor fellow by the neck, and
because there are no prisons to put him into when they have done so, yet, let
me tell you, that such a lamblike forbearance as that of my poor, dear,
deceased landlord, Thimblethwaite, is truly uncommon within the London
bills of mortality. I could tell you of such things that have happened even to
myself, as well as others, with these cursed London tradesmen, as would
make your hair stand on end.—But what the devil has put old Magnus into
such note? he shouts as if he were trying his voice against a north-west gale
of wind.”
Loud indeed was the roar of the old Udaller, as, worn out of patience by
the schemes of improvement which the factor was now undauntedly
pressing upon his consideration, he answered him, (to use an Ossianic
phrase,) like a wave upon a rock,
“Trees, Sir Factor—talk not to me of trees! I care not though there never
be one on the island, tall enough to hang a coxcomb upon. We will have no
trees but those that rise in our havens—the good trees that have yards for
boughs, and standing-rigging for leaves.”
“But touching the draining of the lake of Braebaster, whereof I spoke to
you, Master Magnus Troil,” said the persevering agriculturist, “whilk I
opine would be of so much consequence, there are two ways—down the

Linklater glen, or by the Scalmester burn. Now, having taken the level of
both”——
“There is a third way, Master Yellowley,” answered the landlord.
“I profess I can see none,” replied Triptolemus, with as much good faith
as a joker could desire in the subject of his wit, “in respect that the hill
called Braebaster on the south, and ane high bank on the north, of whilk I
cannot carry the name rightly in my head”——
“Do not tell us of hills and banks, Master Yellowley—there is a third
way of draining the loch, and it is the only way that shall be tried in my day.
You say my Lord Chamberlain and I are the joint proprietors—so be it—let
each of us start an equal proportion of brandy, lime-juice, and sugar, into
the loch—a ship’s cargo or two will do the job—let us assemble all the jolly
Udallers of the country, and in twenty-four hours you shall see dry ground
where the loch of Braebaster now is.”
A loud laugh of applause, which for a time actually silenced
Triptolemus, attended a jest so very well suited to time and place—a jolly
toast was given—a merry song was sung—the ship unloaded her sweets—
the pinnace made its genial rounds—the duet betwixt Magnus and
Triptolemus, which had attracted the attention of the whole company from
its superior vehemence, now once more sunk, and merged into the general
hum of the convivial table, and the poet Halcro again resumed his usurped
possession of the ear of Mordaunt Mertoun.
“Whereabouts was I?” he said, with a tone which expressed to his weary
listener more plainly than words could, how much of his desultory tale yet
remained to be told. “O, I remember—we were just at the door of the Wits’
Coffeehouse—it was set up by one”——
“Nay, but, my dear Master Halcro,” said his hearer, somewhat
impatiently, “I am desirous to hear of your meeting with Dryden.”
“What, with glorious John?—true—ay—where was I? At the Wits’
Coffeehouse—Well, in at the door we got—the waiters, and so forth, staring
at me; for as to Thimblethwaite, honest fellow, his was a well-known face.
—I can tell you a story about that”——
“Nay, but John Dryden?” said Mordaunt, in a tone which deprecated
further digression.

“Ay, ay, glorious John—where was I?—Well, as we stood close by the
bar, where one fellow sat grinding of coffee, and another putting up tobacco
into penny parcels—a pipe and a dish cost just a penny—then and there it
was that I had the first peep of him. One Dennis sat near him, who”——
“Nay, but John Dryden—what like was he?” demanded Mordaunt.
“Like a little fat old man, with his own grey hair, and in a full-trimmed
black suit, that sat close as a glove. Honest Thimblethwaite let no one but
himself shape for glorious John, and he had a slashing hand at a sleeve, I
promise you—But there is no getting a mouthful of common sense spoken
here—d—n that Scotchman, he and old Magnus are at it again!”
It was very true; and although the interruption did not resemble a
thunder-clap, to which the former stentorian exclamation of the Udaller
might have been likened, it was a close and clamorous dispute, maintained
by question, answer, retort, and repartee, as closely huddled upon each other
as the sounds which announce from a distance a close and sustained fire of
musketry.
“Hear reason, sir?” said the Udaller; “we will hear reason, and speak
reason too; and if reason fall short, you shall have rhyme to boot.—Ha, my
little friend Halcro!”
Though cut off in the middle of his best story, (if that could be said to
have a middle, which had neither beginning nor end,) the bard bristled up at
the summons, like a corps of light infantry when ordered up to the support
of the grenadiers, looked smart, slapped the table with his hand, and
denoted his becoming readiness to back his hospitable landlord, as becomes
a well-entertained guest. Triptolemus was a little daunted at this
reinforcement of his adversary; he paused, like a cautious general, in the
sweeping attack which he had commenced on the peculiar usages of
Zetland, and spoke not again until the Udaller poked him with the insulting
query, “Where is your reason now, Master Yellowley, that you were
deafening me with a moment since?”
“Be but patient, worthy sir,” replied the agriculturist; “what on earth can
you or any other man say in defence of that thing you call a plough, in this
blinded country? Why, even the savage Highlandmen, in Caithness and
Sutherland, can make more work, and better, with their gascromh, or
whatever they call it.”

“But what ails you at it, sir?” said the Udaller; “let me hear your
objections to it. It tills our land, and what would ye more?”
“It hath but one handle or stilt,” replied Triptolemus.
“And who the devil,” said the poet, aiming at something smart, “would
wish to need a pair of stilts, if he can manage to walk with a single one?”
“Or tell me,” said Magnus Troil, “how it were possible for Neil of
Lupness, that lost one arm by his fall from the crag of Nekbreckan, to
manage a plough with two handles?”
“The harness is of raw seal-skin,” said Triptolemus.
“It will save dressed leather,” answered Magnus Troil.
“It is drawn by four wretched bullocks,” said the agriculturist, “that are
yoked breast-fashion; and two women must follow this unhappy instrument,
and complete the furrows with a couple of shovels.”
“Drink about, Master Yellowley,” said the Udaller; “and, as you say in
Scotland, ‘never fash your thumb.’ Our cattle are too high-spirited to let one
go before the other; our men are too gentle and well-nurtured to take the
working-field without the women’s company; our ploughs till our land—
our land bears us barley; we brew our ale, eat our bread, and make strangers
welcome to their share of it. Here’s to you, Master Yellowley.”
This was said in a tone meant to be decisive of the question; and,
accordingly, Halcro whispered to Mordaunt, “That has settled the matter,
and now we will get on with glorious John.—There he sat in his suit of full-
trimmed black; two years due was the bill, as mine honest landlord
afterwards told me,—and such an eye in his head!—none of your burning,
blighting, falcon eyes, which we poets are apt to make a rout about,—but a
soft, full, thoughtful, yet penetrating glance—never saw the like of it in my
life, unless it were little Stephen Kleancogg’s, the fiddler, at Papastow,
who”——
“Nay, but John Dryden?” said Mordaunt, who, for want of better
amusement, had begun to take a sort of pleasure in keeping the old
gentleman to his narrative, as men herd in a restiff sheep, when they wish to
catch him. He returned to his theme, with his usual phrase of “Ay, true—
glorious John—Well, sir, he cast his eye, such as I have described it, on
mine landlord, and ‘Honest Tim,’ said he, ‘what hast thou got here?’ and all
the wits, and lords, and gentlemen, that used to crowd round him, like the

wenches round a pedlar at a fair, they made way for us, and up we came to
the fireside, where he had his own established chair,—I have heard it was
carried to the balcony in summer, but it was by the fireside when I saw it,—
so up came Tim Thimblethwaite, through the midst of them, as bold as a
lion, and I followed with a small parcel under my arm, which I had taken up
partly to oblige my landlord, as the shop porter was not in the way, and
partly that I might be thought to have something to do there, for you are to
think there was no admittance at the Wits’ for strangers who had no
business there.—I have heard that Sir Charles Sedley said a good thing
about that”——
“Nay, but you forget glorious John,” said Mordaunt.
“Ay, glorious you may well call him. They talk of their Blackmore, and
Shadwell, and such like,—not fit to tie the latchets of John’s shoes—‘Well,’
he said to my landlord, ‘what have you got there?’ and he, bowing, I
warrant, lower than he would to a duke, said he had made bold to come and
show him the stuff which Lady Elizabeth had chose for her nightgown.
—‘And which of your geese is that, Tim, who has got it tucked under his
wing?’—‘He is an Orkney goose, if it please you, Mr. Dryden,’ said Tim,
who had wit at will, ‘and he hath brought you a copy of verses for your
honour to look at.’—‘Is he amphibious?’ said glorious John, taking the
paper,—and methought I could rather have faced a battery of cannon than
the crackle it gave as it opened, though he did not speak in a way to dash
one neither;—and then he looked at the verses, and he was pleased to say,
in a very encouraging way indeed, with a sort of good-humoured smile on
his face, and certainly for a fat elderly gentleman,—for I would not
compare it to Minna’s smile, or Brenda’s,—he had the pleasantest smile I
ever saw,—‘Why, Tim,’ he said, ‘this goose of yours will prove a swan on
your hands.’ With that he smiled a little, and they all laughed, and none
louder than those who stood too far off to hear the jest; for every one knew
when he smiled there was something worth laughing at, and so took it upon
trust; and the word passed through among the young Templars, and the wits,
and the smarts, and there was nothing but question on question who we
were; and one French fellow was trying to tell them it was only Monsieur
Tim Thimblethwaite; but he made such work with his Dumbletate and
Timbletate, that I thought his explanation would have lasted”——

“As long as your own story,” thought Mordaunt; but the narrative was at
length finally cut short, by the strong and decided voice of the Udaller.
“I will hear no more on it, Mr. Factor!” he exclaimed.
“At least let me say something about the breed of horses,” said
Yellowley, in rather a cry-mercy tone of voice. “Your horses, my dear sir,
resemble cats in size, and tigers in devilry!”
“For their size,” said Magnus, “they are the easier for us to get off and
on them—[as Triptolemus experienced this morning, thought Mordaunt to
himself]—and, as for their devilry, let no one mount them that cannot
manage them.”
A twinge of self-conviction, on the part of the agriculturist, prevented
him from reply. He darted a deprecatory glance at Mordaunt, as if for the
purpose of imploring secrecy respecting his tumble; and the Udaller, who
saw his advantage, although he was not aware of the cause, pursued it with
the high and stern tone proper to one who had all his life been
unaccustomed to meet with, and unapt to endure, opposition.
“By the blood of Saint Magnus the Martyr,” he said, “but you are a fine
fellow, Master Factor Yellowley! You come to us from a strange land,
understanding neither our laws, nor our manners, nor our language, and you
propose to become governor of the country, and that we should all be your
slaves!”
“My pupils, worthy sir, my pupils!” said Yellowley, “and that only for
your own proper advantage.”
“We are too old to go to school,” said the Zetlander. “I tell you once
more, we will sow and reap our grain as our fathers did—we will eat what
God sends us, with our doors open to the stranger, even as theirs were open.
If there is aught imperfect in our practice, we will amend it in time and
season; but the blessed Baptist’s holyday was made for light hearts and
quick heels. He that speaks a word more of reason, as you call it, or any
thing that looks like it, shall swallow a pint of sea-water—he shall, by this
hand!—and so fill up the good ship, the Jolly Mariner of Canton, once
more, for the benefit of those that will stick by her; and let the rest have a
fling with the fiddlers, who have been summoning us this hour. I will
warrant every wench is on tiptoe by this time. Come, Mr. Yellowley, no
unkindness, man—why, man, thou feelest the rolling of the Jolly Mariner
still”—(for, in truth, honest Triptolemus showed a little unsteadiness of

motion, as he rose to attend his host)—“but never mind, we shall have thee
find thy land-legs to reel it with yonder bonny belles. Come along,
Triptolemus—let me grapple thee fast, lest thou trip, old Triptolemus—ha,
ha, ha!”
So saying, the portly though weatherbeaten hulk of the Udaller sailed
off like a man-of-war that had braved a hundred gales, having his guest in
tow like a recent prize. The greater part of the revellers followed their
leader with loud jubilee, although there were several stanch topers, who,
taking the option left them by the Udaller, remained behind to relieve the
Jolly Mariner of a fresh cargo, amidst many a pledge to the health of their
absent landlord, and to the prosperity of his roof-tree, with whatsoever other
wishes of kindness could be devised, as an apology for another pint-bumper
of noble punch.
The rest soon thronged the dancing-room, an apartment which partook
of the simplicity of the time and of the country. Drawing-rooms and saloons
were then unknown in Scotland, save in the houses of the nobility, and of
course absolutely so in Zetland; but a long, low, anomalous store-room,
sometimes used for the depositation of merchandise, sometimes for putting
aside lumber, and a thousand other purposes, was well known to all the
youth of Dunrossness, and of many a district besides, as the scene of the
merry dance, which was sustained with so much glee when Magnus Troil
gave his frequent feasts.
The first appearance of this ball-room might have shocked a fashionable
party, assembled for the quadrille or the waltz. Low as we have stated the
apartment to be, it was but imperfectly illuminated by lamps, candles, ship-
lanterns, and a variety of other candelabra, which served to throw a dusky
light upon the floor, and upon the heaps of merchandise and miscellaneous
articles which were piled around; some of them stores for the winter; some,
goods destined for exportation; some, the tribute of Neptune, paid at the
expense of shipwrecked vessels, whose owners were unknown; some,
articles of barter received by the proprietor, who, like most others at the
period, was somewhat of a merchant as well as a landholder, in exchange
for the fish, and other articles, the produce of his estate. All these, with the
chests, boxes, casks, &c., which contained them, had been drawn aside, and
piled one above the other, in order to give room for the dancers, who, light

and lively as if they had occupied the most splendid saloon in the parish of
St. James’s, executed their national dances with equal grace and activity.
The group of old men who looked on, bore no inconsiderable
resemblance to a party of aged tritons, engaged in beholding the sports of
the sea-nymphs; so hard a look had most of them acquired by contending
with the elements, and so much did the shaggy hair and beards, which many
of them cultivated after the ancient Norwegian fashion, give their heads the
character of these supposed natives of the deep. The young people, on the
other hand, were uncommonly handsome, tall, well-made, and shapely; the
men with long fair hair, and, until broken by the weather, a fresh ruddy
complexion, which, in the females, was softened into a bloom of infinite
delicacy. Their natural good ear for music qualified them to second to the
utmost the exertions of a band, whose strains were by no means
contemptible; while the elders, who stood around or sat quiet upon the old
sea-chests, which served for chairs, criticised the dancers, as they compared
their execution with their own exertions in former days; or, warmed by the
cup and flagon, which continued to circulate among them, snapped their
fingers, and beat time with their feet to the music.
Mordaunt looked upon this scene of universal mirth with the painful
recollection, that he, thrust aside from his pre-eminence, no longer
exercised the important duties of chief of the dancers, or office of leader of
the revels, which had been assigned to the stranger Cleveland. Anxious,
however, to suppress the feelings of his own disappointment, which he felt
it was neither wise to entertain nor manly to display, he approached his fair
neighbours, to whom he had been so acceptable at table, with the purpose of
inviting one of them to become his partner in the dance. But the awfully
ancient old lady, even the Lady Glowrowrum, who had only tolerated the
exuberance of her nieces’ mirth during the time of dinner, because her
situation rendered it then impossible for her to interfere, was not disposed to
permit the apprehended renewal of the intimacy implied in Mertoun’s
invitation. She therefore took upon herself, in the name of her two nieces,
who sat pouting beside her in displeased silence, to inform Mordaunt, after
thanking him for his civility, that the hands of her nieces were engaged for
that evening; and, as he continued to watch the party at a little distance, he
had an opportunity of being convinced that the alleged engagement was a
mere apology to get rid of him, when he saw the two good-humoured sisters
join the dance, under the auspices of the next young men who asked their

hands. Incensed at so marked a slight, and unwilling to expose himself to
another, Mordaunt Mertoun drew back from the circle of dancers, shrouded
himself amongst the mass of inferior persons who crowded into the bottom
of the room as spectators, and there, concealed from the observation of
others, digested his own mortification as well as he could—that is to say,
very ill—and with all the philosophy of his age—that is to say, with none at
all.

CHAPTER XV.
A torch for me—let wantons, light of
heart,
Tickle the useless rushes with their heels:
For I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase
—
I’ll be a candle-holder, and look on.
Rome
o and Juliet.

The youth, says the moralist Johnson, cares not for the boy’s
hobbyhorse, nor the man for the youth’s mistress; and therefore the distress
of Mordaunt Mertoun, when excluded from the merry dance, may seem
trifling to many of my readers, who would, nevertheless, think they did well
to be angry if deposed from their usual place in an assembly of a different
kind. There lacked not amusement, however, for those whom the dance did
not suit, or who were not happy enough to find partners to their liking.
Halcro, now completely in his element, had assembled round him an
audience, to whom he was declaiming his poetry with all the enthusiasm of
glorious John himself, and receiving in return the usual degree of applause
allowed to minstrels who recite their own rhymes—so long at least as the
author is within hearing of the criticism. Halcro’s poetry might indeed have
interested the antiquary as well as the admirer of the Muses, for several of
his pieces were translations or imitations from the Scaldic sagas, which
continued to be sung by the fishermen of those islands even until a very late
period; insomuch, that when Gray’s poems first found their way to Orkney,
the old people recognised at once, in the ode of the “Fatal Sisters,” the
Runic rhymes which had amused or terrified their infancy under the title of
the “Magicians,” and which the fishers of North Ronaldshaw, and other
remote isles, used still to sing when asked for a Norse ditty.[41]
Half listening, half lost in his own reflections, Mordaunt Mertoun stood
near the door of the apartment, and in the outer ring of the little circle
formed around old Halcro, while the bard chanted to a low, wild,

monotonous air, varied only by the efforts of the singer to give interest and
emphasis to particular passages, the following imitation of a Northern war-
song:

THE SONG OF HAROLD HARFAGER.

The sun is rising dimly red,
The wind is wailing low and dread;
From his cliff the eagle sallies,
Leaves the wolf his darksome valleys;
In the midst the ravens hover,
Peep the wild-dogs from the cover,
Screaming, croaking, baying, yelling,
Each in his wild accents telling,
“Soon we feast on dead and dying,
Fair-hair’d Harold’s flag is flying.”

Many a crest in air is streaming,
Many a helmet darkly gleaming,
Many an arm the axe uprears,
Doom’d to hew the wood of spears.
All along the crowded ranks,
Horses neigh and armour clanks;
Chiefs are shouting, clarions ringing,
Louder still the bard is singing,
“Gather, footmen,—gather, horsemen,
To the field, ye valiant Norsemen!

“Halt ye not for food or slumber,
View not vantage, count not number;
Jolly reapers, forward still;
Grow the crop on vale or hill,
Thick or scatter’d, stiff or lithe,
It shall down before the scythe.
Forward with your sickles bright,
Reap the harvest of the fight—
Onward, footmen,—onward, horsemen,

To the charge, ye gallant Norsemen!

“Fatal Choosers of the Slaughter,
O’er you hovers Odin’s daughter;
Hear the voice she spreads before ye,—
Victory, and wealth, and glory;
Or old Valhalla’s roaring hail,
Her ever-circling mead and ale,
Where for eternity unite
The joys of wassail and of fight.
Headlong forward, foot and horsemen,
Charge and fight, and die like Norsemen!”

“The poor unhappy blinded heathens!” said Triptolemus, with a sigh
deep enough for a groan; “they speak of their eternal cups of ale, and I
question if they kend how to manage a croft land of grain!”
“The cleverer fellows they, neighbour Yellowley,” answered the poet,
“if they made ale without barley.”
“Barley!—alack-a-day!” replied the more accurate agriculturist, “who
ever heard of barley in these parts? Bear, my dearest friend, bear is all they
have, and wonderment it is to me that they ever see an awn of it. Ye scart
the land with a bit thing ye ca’ a pleugh—ye might as weel give it a ritt with
the teeth of a redding-kame. O, to see the sock, and the heel, and the sole-
clout of a real steady Scottish pleugh, with a chield like a Samson between
the stilts, laying a weight on them would keep down a mountain; twa stately
owsen, and as many broad-breasted horse in the traces, going through soil
and till, and leaving a fur in the ground would carry off water like a
causeyed syver! They that have seen a sight like that, have seen something
to crack about in another sort, than those unhappy auld-warld stories of war
and slaughter, of which the land has seen even but too mickle, for a’ your
singing and soughing awa in praise of such bloodthirsty doings, Master
Claud Halcro.”
“It is a heresy,” said the animated little poet, bridling and drawing
himself up, as if the whole defence of the Orcadian Archipelago rested on
his single arm—“It is a heresy so much as to name one’s native country, if a
man is not prepared when and how to defend himself—ay, and to annoy
another. The time has been, that if we made not good ale and aquavitæ, we

knew well enough where to find that which was ready made to our hand;
but now the descendants of Sea-kings, and Champions, and Berserkars, are
become as incapable of using their swords, as if they were so many women.
Ye may praise them for a strong pull on an oar, or a sure foot on a skerry;
but what else could glorious John himself say of ye, my good Hialtlanders,
that any man would listen to?”
“Spoken like an angel, most noble poet,” said Cleveland, who, during
an interval of the dance, stood near the party in which this conversation was
held. “The old champions you talked to us about yesternight, were the men
to make a harp ring—gallant fellows, that were friends to the sea, and
enemies to all that sailed on it. Their ships, I suppose, were clumsy enough;
but if it is true that they went upon the account as far as the Levant, I scarce
believe that ever better fellows unloosed a topsail.”
“Ay,” replied Halcro, “there you spoke them right. In those days none
could call their life and means of living their own, unless they dwelt twenty
miles out of sight of the blue sea. Why, they had public prayers put up in
every church in Europe, for deliverance from the ire of the Northmen. In
France and England, ay, and in Scotland too, for as high as they hold their
head now-a-days, there was not a bay or a haven, but it was freer to our
forefathers than to the poor devils of natives; and now we cannot, forsooth,
so much as grow our own barley without Scottish help”—(here he darted a
sarcastic glance at the factor)—“I would I saw the time we were to measure
arms with them again!”
“Spoken like a hero once more,” said Cleveland.
“Ah!” continued the little bard, “I would it were possible to see our
barks, once the water-dragons of the world, swimming with the black raven
standard waving at the topmast, and their decks glimmering with arms,
instead of being heaped up with stockfish—winning with our fearless hands
what the niggard soil denies—paying back all old scorn and modern injury
—reaping where we never sowed, and felling what we never planted—
living and laughing through the world, and smiling when we were
summoned to quit it!”
So spoke Claud Halcro, in no serious, or at least most certainly in no
sober mood, his brain (never the most stable) whizzing under the influence
of fifty well-remembered sagas, besides five bumpers of usquebaugh and

brandy; and Cleveland, between jest and earnest, clapped him on the
shoulder, and again repeated, “Spoken like a hero!”
“Spoken like a fool, I think,” said Magnus Troil, whose attention had
been also attracted by the vehemence of the little bard—“where would you
cruize upon, or against whom?—we are all subjects of one realm, I trow,
and I would have you to remember, that your voyage may bring up at
Execution-dock.—I like not the Scots—no offence, Mr. Yellowley—that is,
I would like them well enough if they would stay quiet in their own land,
and leave us at peace with our own people, and manners, and fashions; and
if they would but abide there till I went to harry them like a mad old
Berserkar, I would leave them in peace till the day of judgment. With what
the sea sends us, and the land lends us, as the proverb says, and a set of
honest neighbourly folks to help us to consume it, so help me, Saint
Magnus, as I think we are even but too happy!”
“I know what war is,” said an old man, “and I would as soon sail
through Sumburgh-roost in a cockle-shell, or in a worse loom, as I would
venture there again.”
“And, pray, what wars knew your valour?” said Halcro, who, though
forbearing to contradict his landlord from a sense of respect, was not a whit
inclined to abandon his argument to any meaner authority.
“I was pressed,” answered the old Triton, “to serve under Montrose,
when he came here about the sixteen hundred and fifty-one, and carried a
sort of us off, will ye nill ye, to get our throats cut in the wilds of
Strathnavern[42](k)—I shall never forget it—we had been hard put to it for
victuals—what would I have given for a luncheon of Burgh-Westra beef—
ay, or a mess of sour sillocks?—When our Highlandmen brought in a dainty
drove of kyloes, much ceremony there was not, for we shot and felled, and
flayed, and roasted, and broiled, as it came to every man’s hand; till, just as
our beards were at the greasiest, we heard—God preserve us—a tramp of
horse, then twa or three drapping shots,—then came a full salvo,—and then,
when the officers were crying on us to stand, and maist of us looking which
way we might run away, down they broke, horse and foot, with old John
Urry, or Hurry,[43] or whatever they called him—he hurried us that day, and
worried us to boot—and we began to fall as thick as the stots that we were
felling five minutes before.”

“And Montrose,” said the soft voice of the graceful Minna; “what
became of Montrose, or how looked he?”
“Like a lion with the hunters before him,” answered the old gentleman;
“but I looked not twice his way, for my own lay right over the hill.”
“And so you left him?” said Minna, in a tone of the deepest contempt.
“It was no fault of mine, Mistress Minna,” answered the old man,
somewhat out of countenance; “but I was there with no choice of my own;
and, besides, what good could I have done?—all the rest were running like
sheep, and why should I have staid?”
“You might have died with him,” said Minna.
“And lived with him to all eternity, in immortal verse!” added Claud
Halcro.
“I thank you, Mistress Minna,” replied the plain-dealing Zetlander; “and
I thank you, my old friend Claud;—but I would rather drink both your
healths in this good bicker of ale, like a living man as I am, than that you
should be making songs in my honour, for having died forty or fifty years
agone. But what signified it,—run or fight, ’twas all one;—they took
Montrose, poor fellow, for all his doughty deeds, and they took me that did
no doughty deeds at all; and they hanged him, poor man, and as for
me”——
“I trust in Heaven they flogged and pickled you,” said Cleveland, worn
out of patience with the dull narrative of the peaceful Zetlander’s
poltroonery, of which he seemed so wondrous little ashamed.
“Flog horses, and pickle beef,” said Magnus; “Why, you have not the
vanity to think, that, with all your quarterdeck airs, you will make poor old
neighbour Haagen ashamed that he was not killed some scores of years
since? You have looked on death yourself, my doughty young friend, but it
was with the eyes of a young man who wishes to be thought of; but we are a
peaceful people,—peaceful, that is, as long as any one should be peaceful,
and that is till some one has the impudence to wrong us, or our neighbours;
and then, perhaps, they may not find our northern blood much cooler in our
veins than was that of the old Scandinavians that gave us our names and
lineage.—Get ye along, get ye along to the sword-dance,[44] that the
strangers that are amongst us may see that our hands and our weapons are
not altogether unacquainted even yet.”

A dozen cutlasses, selected hastily from an old arm-chest, and whose
rusted hue bespoke how seldom they left the sheath, armed the same
number of young Zetlanders, with whom mingled six maidens, led by
Minna Troil; and the minstrelsy instantly commenced a tune appropriate to
the ancient Norwegian war-dance, the evolutions of which are perhaps still
practised in those remote islands.
The first movement was graceful and majestic, the youths holding their
swords erect, and without much gesture; but the tune, and the corresponding
motions of the dancers, became gradually more and more rapid,—they
clashed their swords together, in measured time, with a spirit which gave
the exercise a dangerous appearance in the eye of the spectator, though the
firmness, justice, and accuracy, with which the dancers kept time with the
stroke of their weapons, did, in truth, ensure its safety. The most singular
part of the exhibition was the courage exhibited by the female performers,
who now, surrounded by the swordsmen, seemed like the Sabine maidens in
the hands of their Roman lovers; now, moving under the arch of steel which
the young men had formed, by crossing their weapons over the heads of
their fair partners, resembled the band of Amazons when they first joined in
the Pyrrhic dance with the followers of Theseus. But by far the most
striking and appropriate figure was that of Minna Troil, whom Halcro had
long since entitled the Queen of Swords, and who, indeed, moved amidst

the swordsmen with an air, which seemed to hold all the drawn blades as
the proper accompaniments of her person, and the implements of her
pleasure. And when the mazes of the dance became more intricate, when
the close and continuous clash of the weapons made some of her
companions shrink, and show signs of fear, her cheek, her lip, and her eye,
seemed rather to announce, that, at the moment when the weapons flashed
fastest, and rung sharpest around her, she was most completely self-
possessed, and in her own element. Last of all, when the music had ceased,
and she remained for an instant upon the floor by herself, as the rule of the
dance required, the swordsmen and maidens, who departed from around
her, seemed the guards and the train of some princess, who, dismissed by
her signal, were leaving her for a time to solitude. Her own look and
attitude, wrapped, as she probably was, in some vision of the imagination,
corresponded admirably with the ideal dignity which the spectators ascribed
to her; but, almost immediately recollecting herself, she blushed, as if
conscious she had been, though but for an instant, the object of undivided
attention, and gave her hand gracefully to Cleveland, who, though he had
not joined in the dance, assumed the duty of conducting her to her seat.
As they passed, Mordaunt Mertoun might observe that Cleveland
whispered into Minna’s ear, and that her brief reply was accompanied with
even more discomposure of countenance than she had manifested when
encountering the gaze of the whole assembly. Mordaunt’s suspicions were
strongly awakened by what he observed, for he knew Minna’s character
well, and with what equanimity and indifference she was in the custom of
receiving the usual compliments and gallantries with which her beauty and
her situation rendered her sufficiently familiar.
“Can it be possible she really loves this stranger?” was the unpleasant
thought that instantly shot across Mordaunt’s mind;—“And if she does,
what is my interest in the matter?” was the second; and which was quickly
followed by the reflection, that though he claimed no interest at any time
but as a friend, and though that interest was now withdrawn, he was still, in
consideration of their former intimacy, entitled both to be sorry and angry at
her for throwing away her affections on one he judged unworthy of her. In
this process of reasoning, it is probable that a little mortified vanity, or some
indescribable shade of selfish regret, might be endeavouring to assume the
disguise of disinterested generosity; but there is so much of base alloy in
our very best (unassisted) thoughts, that it is melancholy work to criticise

too closely the motives of our most worthy actions; at least we would
recommend to every one to let those of his neighbours pass current,
however narrowly he may examine the purity of his own.
The sword-dance was succeeded by various other specimens of the
same exercise, and by songs, to which the singers lent their whole soul,
while the audience were sure, as occasion offered, to unite in some
favourite chorus. It is upon such occasions that music, though of a simple
and even rude character, finds its natural empire over the generous bosom,
and produces that strong excitement which cannot be attained by the most
learned compositions of the first masters, which are caviare to the common
ear, although, doubtless, they afford a delight, exquisite in its kind, to those
whose natural capacity and education have enabled them to comprehend
and relish those difficult and complicated combinations of harmony.
It was about midnight when a knocking at the door of the mansion, with
the sound of the Gue and the Langspiel, announced, by their tinkling chime,
the arrival of fresh revellers, to whom, according to the hospitable custom
of the country, the apartments were instantly thrown open.

[41] See Note I.—Norse Fragments.
[42] Montrose, in his last and ill-advised attempt to invade Scotland,
augmented his small army of Danes and Scottish Royalists, by some bands of
raw troops, hastily levied, or rather pressed into his service, in the Orkney and
Zetland Isles, who, having little heart either to the cause or manner of service,
behaved but indifferently when they came into action.
[43] Here, as afterwards remarked in the text, the Zetlander’s memory
deceived him grossly. Sir John Urry, a brave soldier of fortune, was at that time
in Montrose’s army, and made prisoner along with him. He had changed so often
that the mistake is pardonable. After the action, he was executed by the
Covenanters; and
“Wind-changing Warwick then could change no more”
Strachan commanded the body by which Montrose was routed.
[44] Note VII.—The Sword-Dance.(l)

CHAPTER XVI.
————My mind misgives,
Some consequence, yet hanging in the
stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels.
Romeo and
Juliet.

The new-comers were, according to the frequent custom of such
frolickers all over the world, disguised in a sort of masquing habits, and
designed to represent the Tritons and Mermaids, with whom ancient
tradition and popular belief have peopled the northern seas. The former,
called by Zetlanders of that time, Shoupeltins, were represented by young
men grotesquely habited, with false hair, and beards made of flax, and
chaplets composed of sea-ware interwoven with shells, and other marine
productions, with which also were decorated their light-blue or greenish
mantles of wadmaal, repeatedly before-mentioned. They had fish-spears,
and other emblems of their assumed quality, amongst which the classical
taste of Claud Halcro, by whom the masque was arranged, had not forgotten
the conch-shells, which were stoutly and hoarsely winded, from time to
time, by one or two of the aquatic deities, to the great annoyance of all who
stood near them.
The Nereids and Water-nymphs who attended on this occasion,
displayed, as usual, a little more taste and ornament than was to be seen
amongst their male attendants. Fantastic garments of green silk, and other
materials of superior cost and fashion, had been contrived, so as to imitate
their idea of the inhabitants of the waters, and, at the same time, to show the
shape and features of the fair wearers to the best advantage. The bracelets
and shells, which adorned the neck, arms, and ankles of the pretty
Mermaidens, were, in some cases, intermixed with real pearls; and the
appearance, upon the whole, was such as might have done no discredit to
the court of Amphitrite, especially when the long bright locks, blue eyes,

fair complexions, and pleasing features of the maidens of Thule, were taken
into consideration. We do not indeed pretend to aver, that any of these
seeming Mermaids had so accurately imitated the real siren, as
commentators have supposed those attendant on Cleopatra did, who,
adopting the fish’s train of their original, were able, nevertheless, to make
their “bends,” or “ends,” (said commentators cannot tell which,)
“adornings.”[45] Indeed, had they not left their extremities in their natural
state, it would have been impossible for the Zetland sirens to have executed
the very pretty dance, with which they rewarded the company for the ready
admission which had been granted to them.
It was soon discovered that these masquers were no strangers, but a part
of the guests, who, stealing out a little time before, had thus disguised
themselves, in order to give variety to the mirth of the evening. The muse of
Claud Halcro, always active on such occasions, had supplied them with an
appropriate song, of which we may give the following specimen. The song
was alternate betwixt a Nereid or Mermaid, and a Merman or Triton—the
males and females on either part forming a semi-chorus, which
accompanied and bore burden to the principal singer.

I.
MERMAID.

Fathoms deep beneath the wave,
Stringing beads of glistering pearl,
Singing the achievements brave
Of many an old Norwegian earl;
Dwelling where the tempest’s raving
Falls as light upon our ear,
As the sigh of lover, craving
Pity from his lady dear,
Children of wild Thule, we,
From the deep caves of the sea,
As the lark springs from the lea,
Hither come, to share your glee.

II.
MERMAN.

From reining of the water-horse,
That bounded till the waves were
foaming,
Watching the infant tempest’s course,
Chasing the sea-snake in his roaming;
From winding charge-notes on the shell,
When the huge whale and sword-fish
duel,
Or tolling shroudless seamen’s knell,
When the winds and waves are cruel;
Children of wild Thule, we
Have plough’d such furrows on the sea
As the steer draws on the lea,
And hither we come to share your glee.

III.
MERMAIDS AND MERMEN.

We heard you in our twilight caves,
A hundred fathom deep below,
For notes of joy can pierce the waves,
That drown each sound of war and woe.
Those who dwell beneath the sea
Love the sons of Thule well;
Thus, to aid your mirth, bring we
Dance, and song, and sounding shell.
Children of dark Thule, know,
Those who dwell by haaf and voe,
Where your daring shallops row,
Come to share the festal show.

The final chorus was borne by the whole voices, excepting those
carrying the conch-shells, who had been trained to blow them in a sort of
rude accompaniment, which had a good effect. The poetry, as well as the

performance of the masquers, received great applause from all who
pretended to be judges of such matters; but above all, from Triptolemus
Yellowley, who, his ear having caught the agricultural sounds of plough and
furrow, and his brain being so well drenched that it could only construe the
words in their most literal acceptation, declared roundly, and called
Mordaunt to bear witness, that, though it was a shame to waste so much
good lint as went to form the Tritons’ beards and periwigs, the song
contained the only words of common sense which he had heard all that long
day.
But Mordaunt had no time to answer the appeal, being engaged in
attending with the utmost vigilance to the motions of one of the female
masquers, who had given him a private signal as they entered, which
induced him, though uncertain who she might prove to be, to expect some
communication from her of importance. The siren who had so boldly
touched his arm, and had accompanied the gesture with an expression of
eye which bespoke his attention, was disguised with a good deal more care
than her sister-masquers, her mantle being loose, and wide enough to
conceal her shape completely, and her face hidden beneath a silk mask. He
observed that she gradually detached herself from the rest of the masquers,
and at length placed herself, as if for the advantage of the air, near the door
of a chamber which remained open, looked earnestly at him again, and then
taking an opportunity, when the attention of the company was fixed upon
the rest of her party, she left the apartment.
Mordaunt did not hesitate instantly to follow his mysterious guide, for
such we may term the masquer, as she paused to let him see the direction
she was about to take, and then walked swiftly towards the shore of the voe,
or salt-water lake, now lying full before them, its small summer-waves
glistening and rippling under the influence of a broad moonlight, which,
added to the strong twilight of those regions during the summer solstice, left
no reason to regret the absence of the sun, the path of whose setting was
still visible on the waves of the west, while the horizon on the east side was
already beginning to glimmer with the lights of dawn.
Mordaunt had therefore no difficulty in keeping sight of his disguised
guide, as she tripped it over height and hollow to the sea-side, and, winding
among the rocks, led the way to the spot where his own labours, during the
time of his former intimacy at Burgh-Westra, had constructed a sheltered

and solitary seat, where the daughters of Magnus were accustomed to
spend, when the weather was suitable, a good deal of their time. Here, then,
was to be the place of explanation; for the masquer stopped, and, after a
moment’s hesitation, sat down on the rustic settle. But, from the lips of
whom was he to receive it? Norna had first occurred to him; but her tall
figure and slow majestic step were entirely different from the size and gait
of the more fairy-formed siren, who had preceded him with as light a trip as
if she had been a real Nereid, who, having remained too late upon the shore,
was, under the dread of Amphitrite’s displeasure, hastening to regain her
native element. Since it was not Norna, it could be only, he thought,
Brenda, who thus singled him out; and when she had seated herself upon
the bench, and taken the mask from her face, Brenda it accordingly proved
to be. Mordaunt had certainly done nothing to make him dread her
presence; and yet, such is the influence of bashfulness over the ingenuous
youth of both sexes, that he experienced all the embarrassment of one who
finds himself unexpectedly placed before a person who is justly offended
with him. Brenda felt no less embarrassment; but as she had sought this
interview, and was sensible it must be a brief one, she was compelled, in
spite of herself, to begin the conversation.
“Mordaunt,” she said, with a hesitating voice; then correcting herself,
she proceeded—“You must be surprised, Mr. Mertoun, that I should have
taken this uncommon freedom.”
“It was not till this morning, Brenda,” replied Mordaunt, “that any mark
of friendship or intimacy from you or from your sister could have surprised
me. I am far more astonished that you should shun me without reason for so
many hours, than that you should now allow me an interview. In the name
of Heaven, Brenda, in what have I offended you? or why are we on these
unusual terms?”
“May it not be enough to say,” replied Brenda, looking downward, “that
it is my father’s pleasure?”
“No, it is not enough,” returned Mertoun. “Your father cannot have so
suddenly altered his whole thoughts of me, and his whole actions towards
me, without acting under the influence of some strong delusion. I ask you
but to explain of what nature it is; for I will be contented to be lower in your
esteem than the meanest hind in these islands, if I cannot show that his

change of opinion is only grounded upon some infamous deception, or
some extraordinary mistake.”
“It may be so,” said Brenda—“I hope it is so—that I do hope it is so,
my desire to see you thus in private may well prove to you. But it is
difficult—in short, it is impossible for me to explain to you the cause of my
father’s resentment. Norna has spoken with him concerning it boldly, and I
fear they parted in displeasure; and you well know no light matter could
cause that.”
“I have observed,” said Mordaunt, “that your father is most attentive to
Norna’s counsel, and more complaisant to her peculiarities than to those of
others—this I have observed, though he is no willing believer in the
supernatural qualities to which she lays claim.”
“They are related distantly,” answered Brenda, “and were friends in
youth—nay, as I have heard, it was once supposed they would have been
married; but Norna’s peculiarities showed themselves immediately on her
father’s death, and there was an end of that matter, if ever there was any
thing in it. But it is certain my father regards her with much interest; and it
is, I fear, a sign how deeply his prejudices respecting you must be rooted,
since they have in some degree quarrelled on your account.”
“Now, blessings upon you, Brenda, that you have called them
prejudices,” said Mertoun, warmly and hastily—“a thousand blessings on
you! You were ever gentle-hearted—you could not have maintained even
the show of unkindness long.”
“It was indeed but a show,” said Brenda, softening gradually into the
familiar tone in which they had conversed from infancy; “I could never
think, Mordaunt,—never, that is, seriously believe, that you could say aught
unkind of Minna or of me.”
“And who dares to say I have?” said Mordaunt, giving way to the
natural impetuosity of his disposition—“Who dares to say that I have, and
ventures at the same time to hope that I will suffer his tongue to remain in
safety betwixt his jaws? By Saint Magnus the Martyr, I will feed the hawks
with it!”
“Nay, now,” said Brenda, “your anger only terrifies me, and will force
me to leave you.”

“Leave me,” said he, “without telling me either the calumny, or the
name of the villainous calumniator!”
“O, there are more than one,” answered Brenda, “that have possessed
my father with an opinion—which I cannot myself tell you—but there are
more than one who say”——
“Were they hundreds, Brenda, I will do no less to them than I have said
—Sacred Martyr!—to accuse me of speaking unkindly of those whom I
most respected and valued under Heaven—I will back to the apartment this
instant, and your father shall do me right before all the world.”
“Do not go, for the love of Heaven!” said Brenda; “do not go, as you
would not render me the most unhappy wretch in existence!”
“Tell me then, at least, if I guess aright,” said Mordaunt, “when I name
this Cleveland for one of those who have slandered me?”
“No, no,” said Brenda, vehemently, “you run from one error into
another more dangerous. You say you are my friend:—I am willing to be
yours:—be but still for a moment, and hear what I have to say;—our
interview has lasted but too long already, and every additional moment
brings additional danger with it.”
“Tell me, then,” said Mertoun, much softened by the poor girl’s extreme
apprehension and distress, “what it is that you require of me; and believe
me, it is impossible for you to ask aught that I will not do my very uttermost
to comply with.”
“Well, then—this Captain,” said Brenda, “this Cleveland”——
“I knew it, by Heaven!” said Mordaunt; “my mind assured me that that
fellow was, in one way or other, at the bottom of all this mischief and
misunderstanding!”
“If you cannot be silent, and patient, for an instant,” replied Brenda, “I
must instantly quit you: what I meant to say had no relation to you, but to
another,—in one word, to my sister Minna. I have nothing to say
concerning her dislike to you, but an anxious tale to tell concerning his
attention to her.”
“It is obvious, striking, and marked,” said Mordaunt; “and, unless my
eyes deceive me, it is received as welcome, if, indeed, it is not returned.”
“That is the very cause of my fear,” said Brenda. “I, too, was struck
with the external appearance, frank manners, and romantic conversation of

this man.”
“His appearance!” said Mordaunt; “he is stout and well-featured
enough, to be sure; but, as old Sinclair of Quendale said to the Spanish
admiral, ‘Farcie on his face! I have seen many a fairer hang on the
Borough-moor.’—From his manners, he might be captain of a privateer;
and by his conversation, the trumpeter to his own puppetshow; for he
speaks of little else than his own exploits.”
“You are mistaken,” answered Brenda; “he speaks but too well on all
that he has seen and learned; besides, he has really been in many distant
countries, and in many gallant actions, and he can tell them with as much
spirit as modesty. You would think you saw the flash and heard the report of
the guns. And he has other tones of talking too—about the delightful trees
and fruits of distant climates; and how the people wear no dress, through
the whole year, half so warm as our summer gowns, and, indeed, put on
little except cambric and muslin.”
“Upon my word, Brenda, he does seem to understand the business of
amusing young ladies,” replied Mordaunt.
“He does, indeed,” said Brenda, with great simplicity. “I assure you
that, at first, I liked him better than Minna did; and yet, though she is so
much cleverer than I am, I know more of the world than she does; for I have
seen more of cities, having been once at Kirkwall; besides that I was thrice
at Lerwick, when the Dutch ships were there, and so I should not be very
easily deceived in people.”
“And pray, Brenda,” said Mertoun, “what was it that made you think
less favourably of this young fellow, who seems to be so captivating?”
“Why,” said Brenda, after a moment’s reflection, “at first he was much
livelier; and the stories he told were not quite so melancholy, or so terrible;
and he laughed and danced more.”
“And, perhaps, at that time, danced oftener with Brenda than with her
sister?” added Mordaunt.
“No—I am not sure of that,” said Brenda; “and yet, to speak plain, I
could have no suspicion of him at all while he was attending quite equally
to us both; for you know that then he could have been no more to us than
yourself, Mordaunt Mertoun, or young Swaraster, or any other young man
in the islands.”

“But, why then,” said Mordaunt, “should you not see him, with
patience, become acquainted with your sister?—He is wealthy, or seems to
be so at least. You say he is accomplished and pleasant;—what else would
you desire in a lover for Minna?”
“Mordaunt, you forget who we are,” said the maiden, assuming an air of
consequence, which sat as gracefully upon her simplicity, as did the
different tone in which she had spoken hitherto. “This is a little world of
ours, this Zetland, inferior, perhaps, in soil and climate to other parts of the
earth, at least so strangers say; but it is our own little world, and we, the
daughters of Magnus Troil, hold a first rank in it. It would I think, little
become us, who are descended from Sea-kings and Jarls, to throw ourselves
away upon a stranger, who comes to our coast, like the eider-duck in spring,
from we know not whence, and may leave it in autumn, to go we know not
where.”
“And who may yet entice a Zetland golden-eye to accompany his
migration,” said Mertoun.
“I will hear nothing light on such a subject,” replied Brenda,
indignantly; “Minna, like myself, is the daughter of Magnus Troil, the
friend of strangers, but the Father of Hialtland. He gives them the
hospitality they need; but let not the proudest of them think that they can, at
their pleasure, ally with his house.”
She said this in a tone of considerable warmth, which she instantly
softened, as she added, “No, Mordaunt, do not suppose that Minna Troil is
capable of so far forgetting what she owes to her father and her father’s
blood, as to think of marrying this Cleveland; but she may lend an ear to
him so long as to destroy her future happiness. She has that sort of mind,
into which some feelings sink deeply;—you remember how Ulla Storlson
used to go, day by day, to the top of Vossdale-head, to look for her lover’s
ship that was never to return? When I think of her slow step, her pale cheek,
her eye, that grew dimmer and dimmer, like the lamp that is half
extinguished for lack of oil,—when I remember the fluttered look, of
something like hope, with which she ascended the cliff at morning, and the
deep dead despair which sat on her forehead when she returned,—when I
think on all this, can you wonder that I fear for Minna, whose heart is
formed to entertain, with such deep-rooted fidelity, any affection that may
be implanted in it?”

“I do not wonder,” said Mordaunt, eagerly sympathizing with the poor
girl; for, besides the tremulous expression of her voice, the light could
almost show him the tear which trembled in her eye, as she drew the picture
to which her fancy had assimilated her sister,—“I do not wonder that you
should feel and fear whatever the purest affection can dictate; and if you
can but point out to me in what I can serve your sisterly love, you shall find
me as ready to venture my life, if necessary, as I have been to go out on the
crag to get you the eggs of the guillemot; and, believe me, that whatever has
been told to your father or yourself, of my entertaining the slightest
thoughts of disrespect or unkindness, is as false as a fiend could devise.”
“I believe it,” said Brenda, giving him her hand; “I believe it, and my
bosom is lighter, now I have renewed my confidence in so old a friend.
How you can aid us, I know not; but it was by the advice, I may say by the
commands, of Norna, that I have ventured to make this communication; and
I almost wonder,” she added, as she looked around her, “that I have had
courage to carry me through it. At present you know all that I can tell you of
the risk in which my sister stands. Look after this Cleveland—beware how
you quarrel with him, since you must so surely come by the worst with an
experienced soldier.”
“I do not exactly understand,” said the youth, “how that should so
surely be. This I know, that with the good limbs and good heart that God
hath given me, ay, and with a good cause to boot—I am little afraid of any
quarrel which Cleveland can fix upon me.”
“Then, if not for your own sake, for Minna’s sake,” said Brenda—“for
my father’s—for mine—for all our sakes, avoid any strife with him, but be
contented to watch him, and, if possible, to discover who he is, and what
are his intentions towards us. He has talked of going to Orkney, to enquire
after the consort with whom he sailed; but day after day, and week after
week passes, and he goes not; and while he keeps my father company over
the bottle, and tells Minna romantic stories of foreign people, and distant
wars, in wild and unknown regions, the time glides on, and the stranger, of
whom we know nothing except that he is one, becomes gradually closer and
more inseparably intimate in our society.—And now, farewell. Norna hopes
to make your peace with my father, and entreats you not to leave Burgh-
Westra to-morrow, however cold he and my sister may appear towards you.
I too,” she said, stretching her hand towards him, “must wear a face of cold

friendship as towards an unwelcome visitor, but at heart we are still Brenda
and Mordaunt. And now separate quickly, for we must not be seen
together.”
She stretched her hand to him, but withdrew it in some slight confusion,
laughing and blushing, when, by a natural impulse, he was about to press it
to his lips. He endeavoured for a moment to detain her, for the interview
had for him a degree of fascination, which, as often as he had before been
alone with Brenda, he had never experienced. But she extricated herself
from him, and again signing an adieu, and pointing out to him a path
different from that which she was herself about to take, tripped towards the
house, and was soon hidden from his view by the acclivity.
Mordaunt stood gazing after her in a state of mind, to which, as yet, he
had been a stranger. The dubious neutral ground between love and
friendship may be long and safely trodden, until he who stands upon it is
suddenly called upon to recognise the authority of the one or the other
power; and then it most frequently happens, that the party who for years
supposed himself only a friend, finds himself at once transformed into a
lover. That such a change in Mordaunt’s feelings should take place from
this date, although he himself was unable exactly to distinguish its nature,
was to be expected. He found himself at once received, with the most
unsuspicious frankness, into the confidence of a beautiful and fascinating
young woman, by whom he had, so short a time before, imagined himself
despised and disliked; and, if any thing could make a change, in itself so
surprising and so pleasing, yet more intoxicating, it was the guileless and
open-hearted simplicity of Brenda, that cast an enchantment over every
thing which she did or said. The scene, too, might have had its effect,
though there was little occasion for its aid. But a fair face looks yet fairer
under the light of the moon, and a sweet voice sounds yet sweeter among
the whispering sounds of a summer night. Mordaunt, therefore, who had by
this time returned to the house, was disposed to listen with unusual patience
and complacency to the enthusiastic declamation pronounced upon
moonlight by Claud Halcro, whose ecstasies had been awakened on the
subject by a short turn in the open air, undertaken to qualify the vapours of
the good liquor, which he had not spared during the festival.
“The sun, my boy,” he said, “is every wretched labourer’s day-lantern—
it comes glaring yonder out of the east, to summon up a whole world to

labour and to misery; whereas the merry moon lights all of us to mirth and
to love.”
“And to madness, or she is much belied,” said Mordaunt, by way of
saying something.
“Let it be so,” answered Halcro, “so she does not turn us melancholy-
mad.—My dear young friend, the folks of this painstaking world are far too
anxious about possessing all their wits, or having them, as they say, about
them. At least I know I have been often called half-witted, and I am sure I
have gone through the world as well as if I had double the quantity. But
stop—where was I? O, touching and concerning the moon—why, man, she
is the very soul of love and poetry. I question if there was ever a true lover
in existence who had not got at least as far as ‘O thou,’ in a sonnet in her
praise.”
“The moon,” said the factor, who was now beginning to speak very
thick, “ripens corn, at least the old folk said so—and she fills nuts also,
whilk is of less matter—sparge nuces, pueri.”
“A fine, a fine,” said the Udaller, who was now in his altitudes; “the
factor speaks Greek—by the bones of my holy namesake, Saint Magnus, he
shall drink off the yawl full of punch, unless he gives us a song on the
spot!”
“Too much water drowned the miller,” answered Triptolemus. “My
brain has more need of draining than of being drenched with more liquor.”
“Sing, then,” said the despotic landlord, “for no one shall speak any
other language here, save honest Norse, jolly Dutch, or Danske, or broad
Scots, at the least of it. So, Eric Scambester, produce the yawl, and fill it to
the brim, as a charge for demurrage.”
Ere the vessel could reach the agriculturist, he, seeing it under way, and
steering towards him by short tacks, (for Scambester himself was by this
time not over steady in his course,) made a desperate effort, and began to
sing, or rather to croak forth, a Yorkshire harvest-home ballad, which his
father used to sing when he was a little mellow, and which went to the tune
of “Hey Dobbin, away with the waggon.” The rueful aspect of the singer,
and the desperately discordant tones of his voice, formed so delightful a
contrast with the jollity of the words and tune, that honest Triptolemus
afforded the same sort of amusement which a reveller might give, by
appearing on a festival-day in the holyday-coat of his grandfather. The jest

concluded the evening, for even the mighty and strong-headed Magnus
himself had confessed the influence of the sleepy god. The guests went off
as they best might, each to his separate crib and resting place, and in a short
time the mansion, which was of late so noisy, was hushed into perfect
silence.

[45] See some admirable discussion on this passage, in the Variorum
Shakspeare.

CHAPTER XVII.
They man their boats, and all the young
men arm,
With whatsoever might the monsters harm;
Pikes, halberds, spits, and darts, that
wound afar,
The tools of peace, and implements of war.
Now was the time for vigorous lads to
show
What love or honour could incite them to;
—
A goodly theatre, where rocks are round
With reverend age and lovely lasses
crown’d.
Battl
e of the Summer Islands.

The morning which succeeds such a feast as that of Magnus Troil,
usually lacks a little of the zest which seasoned the revels of the preceding
day, as the fashionable reader may have observed at a public breakfast
during the race-week in a country town; for, in what is called the best
society, these lingering moments are usually spent by the company, each
apart in their own dressing-rooms. At Burgh-Westra, it will readily be
believed, no such space for retirement was afforded; and the lasses, with
their paler cheeks, the elder dames, with many a wink and yawn, were
compelled to meet with their male companions (headaches and all) just
three hours after they had parted from each other.
Eric Scambester had done all that man could do to supply the full means
of diverting the ennui of the morning meal. The board groaned with rounds
of hung beef, made after the fashion of Zetland—with pasties—with baked
meats—with fish, dressed and cured in every possible manner; nay, with the
foreign delicacies of tea, coffee, and chocolate; for, as we have already had
occasion to remark, the situation of these islands made them early

acquainted with various articles of foreign luxury, which were, as yet, but
little known in Scotland, where, at a much later period than that we write of,
one pound of green tea was dressed like cabbage, and another converted
into a vegetable sauce for salt beef, by the ignorance of the good
housewives to whom they had been sent as rare presents.
Besides these preparations, the table exhibited whatever mighty potions
are resorted to by bons vivans, under the facetious name of a “hair of the
dog that bit you.” There was the potent Irish Usquebaugh—right Nantz—
genuine Schiedamm—Aquavitæ from Caithness—and Golden Wasser from
Hamburgh; there was rum of formidable antiquity, and cordials from the
Leeward Islands. After these details, it were needless to mention the stout
home-brewed ale—the German mum, and Schwartz beer—and still more
would it be beneath our dignity to dwell upon the innumerable sorts of
pottage and flummery, together with the bland, and various preparations of
milk, for those who preferred thinner potations.
No wonder that the sight of so much good cheer awakened the appetite
and raised the spirits of the fatigued revellers. The young men began
immediately to seek out their partners of the preceding evening, and to
renew the small talk which had driven the night so merrily away; while
Magnus, with his stout old Norse kindred, encouraged, by precept and
example, those of elder days and graver mood, to a substantial flirtation
with the good things before them. Still, however, there was a long period to
be filled up before dinner; for the most protracted breakfast cannot well last
above an hour; and it was to be feared that Claud Halcro meditated the
occupation of this vacant morning with a formidable recitation of his own
verses, besides telling, at its full length, the whole history of his
introduction to glorious John Dryden. But fortune relieved the guests of
Burgh-Westra from this threatened infliction, by sending them means of
amusement peculiarly suited to their taste and habits.
Most of the guests were using their toothpicks, some were beginning to
talk of what was to be done next, when, with haste in his step, fire in his
eye, and a harpoon in his hand, Eric Scambester came to announce to the
company, that there was a whale on shore, or nearly so, at the throat of the
voe! Then you might have seen such a joyous, boisterous, and universal
bustle, as only the love of sport, so deeply implanted in our nature, can
possibly inspire. A set of country squires, about to beat for the first

woodcocks of the season, were a comparison as petty, in respect to the glee,
as in regard to the importance of the object; the battue, upon a strong cover
in Ettrick Forest, for the destruction of the foxes;(m) the insurrection of the
sportsmen of the Lennox, when one of the Duke’s deer gets out from Inch-
Mirran; nay, the joyous rally of the fox-chase itself, with all its blithe
accompaniments of hound and horn, fall infinitely short of the animation
with which the gallant sons of Thule set off to encounter the monster, whom
the sea had sent for their amusement at so opportune a conjuncture.
The multifarious stores of Burgh-Westra were rummaged hastily for all
sorts of arms, which could be used on such an occasion. Harpoons, swords,
pikes, and halberds, fell to the lot of some; others contented themselves
with hay-forks, spits, and whatever else could be found, that was at once
long and sharp. Thus hastily equipped, one division, under the command of
Captain Cleveland, hastened to man the boats which lay in the little haven,
while the rest of the party hurried by land to the scene of action.
Poor Triptolemus was interrupted in a plan, which he, too, had formed
against the patience of the Zetlanders, and which was to have consisted in a
lecture upon the agriculture, and the capabilities of the country, by this
sudden hubbub, which put an end at once to Halcro’s poetry, and to his no
less formidable prose. It may be easily imagined, that he took very little
interest in the sport which was so suddenly substituted for his lucubrations,
and he would not even have deigned to have looked upon the active scene
which was about to take place, had he not been stimulated thereunto by the
exhortations of Mistress Baby. “Pit yoursell forward, man,” said that
provident person, “pit yoursell forward—wha kens whare a blessing may
light?—they say that a’ men share and share equals-aquals in the creature’s
ulzie, and a pint o’t wad be worth siller, to light the cruise in the lang dark
nights that they speak of. Pit yoursell forward, man—there’s a graip to ye—
faint heart never wan fair lady—wha kens but what, when it’s fresh, it may
eat weel eneugh, and spare butter?”
What zeal was added to Triptolemus’s motions, by the prospect of
eating fresh train-oil, instead of butter, we know not; but, as better might
not be, he brandished the rural implement (a stable-fork) with which he was
armed, and went down to wage battle with the whale.
The situation in which the enemy’s ill fate had placed him, was
particularly favourable to the enterprise of the islanders. A tide of unusual

height had carried the animal over a large bar of sand, into the voe or creek
in which he was now lying. So soon as he found the water ebbing, he
became sensible of his danger, and had made desperate efforts to get over
the shallow water, where the waves broke on the bar; but hitherto he had
rather injured than mended his condition, having got himself partly
aground, and lying therefore particularly exposed to the meditated attack.
At this moment the enemy came down upon him. The front ranks consisted
of the young and hardy, armed in the miscellaneous manner we have
described; while, to witness and animate their efforts, the young women,
and the elderly persons of both sexes, took their place among the rocks,
which overhung the scene of action.
As the boats had to double a little headland, ere they opened the mouth
of the voe, those who came by land to the shores of the inlet, had time to
make the necessary reconnoissances upon the force and situation of the
enemy, on whom they were about to commence a simultaneous attack by
land and sea.
This duty, the stout-hearted and experienced general, for so the Udaller
might be termed, would intrust to no eyes but his own; and, indeed, his
external appearance, and his sage conduct, rendered him alike qualified for
the command which he enjoyed. His gold-laced hat was exchanged for a
bearskin cap, his suit of blue broadcloth, with its scarlet lining, and loops,
and frogs of bullion, had given place to a red flannel jacket, with buttons of
black horn, over which he wore a seal-skin shirt curiously seamed and
plaited on the bosom, such as are used by the Esquimaux, and sometimes by
the Greenland whale-fishers. Sea-boots of a formidable size completed his
dress, and in his hand he held a large whaling-knife, which he brandished,
as if impatient to employ it in the operation of flinching the huge animal
which lay before them,—that is, the act of separating its flesh from its
bones. Upon closer examination, however, he was obliged to confess, that
the sport to which he had conducted his friends, however much it
corresponded with the magnificent scale of his hospitality, was likely to be
attended with its own peculiar dangers and difficulties.
The animal, upwards of sixty feet in length, was lying perfectly still, in
a deep part of the voe into which it had weltered, and where it seemed to
await the return of tide, of which it was probably assured by instinct. A
council of experienced harpooners was instantly called, and it was agreed

that an effort should be made to noose the tail of this torpid leviathan, by
casting a cable around it, to be made fast by anchors to the shore, and thus
to secure against his escape, in case the tide should make before they were
able to dispatch him. Three boats were destined to this delicate piece of
service, one of which the Udaller himself proposed to command, while
Cleveland and Mertoun were to direct the two others. This being decided,
they sat down on the strand, waiting with impatience until the naval part of
the force should arrive in the voe. It was during this interval, that
Triptolemus Yellowley, after measuring with his eyes the extraordinary size
of the whale, observed, that in his poor mind, “A wain with six owsen, or
with sixty owsen either, if they were the owsen of the country, could not
drag siccan a huge creature from the water, where it was now lying, to the
sea-beach.”
Trifling as this remark may seem to the reader, it was connected with a
subject which always fired the blood of the old Udaller, who, glancing upon
Triptolemus a quick and stern look, asked him what the devil it signified,
supposing a hundred oxen could not drag the whale upon the beach? Mr.
Yellowley, though not much liking the tone with which the question was
put, felt that his dignity and his profit compelled him to answer as follows:
—“Nay, sir—you know yoursell, Master Magnus Troil, and every one
knows that knows any thing, that whales of siccan size as may not be
masterfully dragged on shore by the instrumentality of one wain with six
owsen, are the right and property of the Admiral, who is at this time the
same noble lord who is, moreover, Chamberlain of these isles.”
“And I tell you, Mr. Triptolemus Yellowley,” said the Udaller, “as I
would tell your master if he were here, that every man who risks his life to
bring that fish ashore, shall have an equal share and partition, according to
our ancient and loveable Norse custom and wont; nay, if there is so much as
a woman looking on, that will but touch the cable, she will be partner with
us; ay, and more than all that, if she will but say there is a reason for it, we
will assign a portion to the babe that is unborn.”(n)
The strict principle of equity, which dictated this last arrangement,
occasioned laughter among the men, and some slight confusion among the
women. The factor, however, thought it shame to be so easily daunted.
“Suum cuique tribuito,” said he; “I will stand for my lord’s right and my
own.”

“Will you?” replied Magnus; “then, by the Martyr’s bones, you shall
have no law of partition but that of God and Saint Olave, which we had
before either factor, or treasurer, or chamberlain were heard of!—All shall
share that lend a hand, and never a one else. So you, Master Factor, shall be
busy as well as other folk, and think yourself lucky to share like other folk.
Jump into that boat,” (for the boats had by this time pulled round the
headland,) “and you, my lads, make way for the factor in the stern-sheets—
he shall be the first man this blessed day that shall strike the fish.”
The loud authoritative voice, and the habit of absolute command
inferred in the Udaller’s whole manner, together with the conscious want of
favourers and backers amongst the rest of the company, rendered it difficult
for Triptolemus to evade compliance, although he was thus about to be
placed in a situation equally novel and perilous. He was still, however,
hesitating, and attempting an explanation, with a voice in which anger was
qualified by fear, and both thinly disguised under an attempt to be jocular,
and to represent the whole as a jest, when he heard the voice of Baby
maundering in his ear,—“Wad he lose his share of the ulzie, and the lang
Zetland winter coming on, when the lightest day in December is not so
clear as a moonless night in the Mearns?”
This domestic instigation, in addition to those of fear of the Udaller, and
shame to seem less courageous than others, so inflamed the agriculturist’s
spirits, that he shook his graip aloft, and entered the boat with the air of
Neptune himself, carrying on high his trident.
The three boats destined for this perilous service, now approached the
dark mass, which lay like an islet in the deepest part of the voe, and
suffered them to approach without showing any sign of animation. Silently,
and with such precaution as the extreme delicacy of the operation required,
the intrepid adventurers, after the failure of their first attempt, and the
expenditure of considerable time, succeeded in casting a cable around the
body of the torpid monster, and in carrying the ends of it ashore, when an
hundred hands were instantly employed in securing them. But ere this was
accomplished, the tide began to make fast, and the Udaller informed his
assistants, that either the fish must be killed, or at least greatly wounded, ere
the depth of water on the bar was sufficient to float him; or that he was not
unlikely to escape from their joint prowess.

“Wherefore,” said he, “we must set to work, and the factor shall have
the honour to make the first throw.”
The valiant Triptolemus caught the word; and it is necessary to say that
the patience of the whale, in suffering himself to be noosed without
resistance, had abated his terrors, and very much lowered the creature in his
opinion. He protested the fish had no more wit, and scarcely more activity,
than a black snail; and, influenced by this undue contempt of the adversary,
he waited neither for a further signal, nor a better weapon, nor a more
suitable position, but, rising in his energy, hurled his graip with all his force
against the unfortunate monster. The boats had not yet retreated from him to
the distance necessary to ensure safety, when this injudicious
commencement of the war took place.
Magnus Troil, who had only jested with the factor, and had reserved the
launching the first spear against the whale to some much more skilful hand,
had just time to exclaim, “Mind yourselves, lads, or we are all swamped!”
when the monster, roused at once from inactivity by the blow of the factor’s
missile, blew, with a noise resembling the explosion of a steam-engine, a
huge shower of water into the air, and at the same time began to lash the
waves with his tail in every direction. The boat in which Magnus presided
received the shower of brine which the animal spouted aloft; and the
adventurous Triptolemus, who had a full share of the immersion, was so
much astonished and terrified by the consequences of his own valorous
deed, that he tumbled backwards amongst the feet of the people, who, too
busy to attend to him, were actively engaged in getting the boat into shoal
water, out of the whale’s reach. Here he lay for some minutes, trampled on
by the feet of the boatmen, until they lay on their oars to bale, when the
Udaller ordered them to pull to shore, and land this spare hand, who had
commenced the fishing so inauspiciously.
While this was doing, the other boats had also pulled off to safer
distance, and now, from these as well as from the shore, the unfortunate
native of the deep was overwhelmed by all kinds of missiles,—harpoons
and spears flew against him on all sides—guns were fired, and each various
means of annoyance plied which could excite him to exhaust his strength in
useless rage. When the animal found that he was locked in by shallows on
all sides, and became sensible, at the same time, of the strain of the cable on
his body, the convulsive efforts which he made to escape, accompanied

with sounds resembling deep and loud groans, would have moved the
compassion of all but a practised whale-fisher. The repeated showers which
he spouted into the air began now to be mingled with blood, and the waves
which surrounded him assumed the same crimson appearance. Meantime
the attempts of the assailants were redoubled; but Mordaunt Mertoun and
Cleveland, in particular, exerted themselves to the uttermost, contending
who should display most courage in approaching the monster, so
tremendous in its agonies, and should inflict the most deep and deadly
wounds upon its huge bulk.
The contest seemed at last pretty well over; for although the animal
continued from time to time to make frantic exertions for liberty, yet its
strength appeared so much exhausted, that, even with the assistance of the
tide, which had now risen considerably, it was thought it could scarcely
extricate itself.
Magnus gave the signal to venture nearer to the whale, calling out at the
same time, “Close in, lads, he is not half so mad now—The Factor may
look for a winter’s oil for the two lamps at Harfra—Pull close in, lads.”
Ere his orders could be obeyed, the other two boats had anticipated his
purpose; and Mordaunt Mertoun, eager to distinguish himself above
Cleveland, had, with the whole strength he possessed, plunged a half-pike
into the body of the animal. But the leviathan, like a nation whose resources
appear totally exhausted by previous losses and calamities, collected his
whole remaining force for an effort, which proved at once desperate and
successful. The wound, last received, had probably reached through his
external defences of blubber, and attained some very sensitive part of the
system; for he roared aloud, as he sent to the sky a mingled sheet of brine
and blood, and snapping the strong cable like a twig, overset Mertoun’s
boat with a blow of his tail, shot himself, by a mighty effort, over the bar,
upon which the tide had now risen considerably, and made out to sea,
carrying with him a whole grove of the implements which had been planted
in his body, and leaving behind him, on the waters, a dark red trace of his
course.
“There goes to sea your cruise of oil, Master Yellowley,” said Magnus,
“and you must consume mutton suet, or go to bed in the dark.”
“Operam et oleum perdidi,” muttered Triptolemus; “but if they catch me
whale-fishing again, I will consent that the fish shall swallow me as he did

Jonah.”
“But where is Mordaunt Mertoun all this while?” exclaimed Claud
Halcro; and it was instantly perceived that the youth, who had been stunned
when his boat was stove, was unable to swim to shore as the other sailors
did, and now floated senseless upon the waves.
We have noticed the strange and inhuman prejudice, which rendered the
Zetlanders of that period unwilling to assist those whom they saw in the act
of drowning, though that is the calamity to which the islanders are most
frequently exposed. Three men, however, soared above this superstition.
The first was Claud Halcro, who threw himself from a small rock headlong
into the waves, forgetting, as he himself afterwards stated, that he could not
swim, and, if possessed of the harp of Arion, had no dolphins in attendance.
The first plunge which the poet made in deep water, reminding him of these
deficiencies, he was fain to cling to the rock from which he had dived, and
was at length glad to regain the shore, at the expense of a ducking.
Magnus Troil, whose honest heart forgot his late coolness towards
Mordaunt, when he saw the youth’s danger, would instantly have brought
him more effectual aid, but Eric Scambester held him fast.
“Hout, sir—hout,” exclaimed that faithful attendant—“Captain
Cleveland has a grip of Mr. Mordaunt—just let the twa strangers help ilk
other, and stand by the upshot. The light of the country is not to be
quenched for the like of them. Bide still, sir, I say—Bredness Voe is not a
bowl of punch, that a man can be fished out of like a toast with a long
spoon.”
This sage remonstrance would have been altogether lost upon Magnus,
had he not observed that Cleveland had in fact jumped out of the boat, and
swum to Mertoun’s assistance, and was keeping him afloat till the boat
came to the aid of both. As soon as the immediate danger which called so
loudly for assistance was thus ended, the honest Udaller’s desire to render
aid terminated also; and recollecting the cause of offence which he had, or
thought he had, against Mordaunt Mertoun, he shook off his butler’s hold,
and turning round scornfully from the beach, called Eric an old fool for
supposing that he cared whether the young fellow sank or swam.
Still, however, amid his assumed indifference, Magnus could not help
peeping over the heads of the circle, which, surrounding Mordaunt as soon
as he was brought on shore, were charitably employed in endeavouring to

recall him to life; and he was not able to attain the appearance of absolute
unconcern, until the young man sat up on the beach, and showed plainly
that the accident had been attended with no material consequences. It was
then first that, cursing the assistants for not giving the lad a glass of brandy,
he walked sullenly away, as if totally unconcerned in his fate.
The women, always accurate in observing the telltale emotions of each
other, failed not to remark, that when the sisters of Burgh-Westra saw
Mordaunt immersed in the waves, Minna grew as pale as death, while
Brenda uttered successive shrieks of terror. But though there were some
nods, winks, and hints that auld acquaintance were not easily forgot, it was,
on the whole, candidly admitted, that less than such marks of interest could
scarce have been expected, when they saw the companion of their early
youth in the act of perishing before their eyes.
Whatever interest Mordaunt’s condition excited while it seemed
perilous, began to abate as he recovered himself; and when his senses were
fully restored, only Claud Halcro, with two or three others, were standing
by him. About ten paces off stood Cleveland—his hair and clothes dropping
water, and his features wearing so peculiar an expression, as immediately to
arrest the attention of Mordaunt. There was a suppressed smile on his
cheek, and a look of pride in his eye, that implied liberation from a painful
restraint, and something resembling gratified scorn. Claud Halcro hastened
to intimate to Mordaunt, that he owed his life to Cleveland; and the youth,
rising from the ground, and losing all other feelings in those of gratitude,
stepped forward with his hand stretched out, to offer his warmest thanks to
his preserver. But he stopped short in surprise, as Cleveland, retreating a
pace or two, folded his arms on his breast, and declined to accept his
proffered hand. He drew back in turn, and gazed with astonishment at the
ungracious manner, and almost insulting look, with which Cleveland, who
had formerly rather expressed a frank cordiality, or at least openness of
bearing, now, after having thus rendered him a most important service,
chose to receive his thanks.
“It is enough,” said Cleveland, observing his surprise, “and it is
unnecessary to say more about it. I have paid back my debt, and we are now
equal.”
“You are more than equal with me, Captain Cleveland,” answered
Mertoun, “because you endangered your life to do for me what I did for you

without the slightest risk;—besides,” he added, trying to give the discourse
a more pleasant turn, “I have your rifle-gun to boot.”
“Cowards only count danger for any point of the game,” said Cleveland.
“Danger has been my consort for life, and sailed with me on a thousand
worse voyages;—and for rifles, I have enough of my own, and you may
see, when you will, which can use them best.”
There was something in the tone with which this was said, that struck
Mordaunt strongly; it was miching malicho, as Hamlet says, and meant
mischief. Cleveland saw his surprise, came close up to him, and spoke in a
low tone of voice:—“Hark ye, my young brother. There is a custom among
us gentlemen of fortune, that when we follow the same chase, and take the
wind out of each other’s sails, we think sixty yards of the sea-beach, and a
brace of rifles, are no bad way of making our odds even.”
“I do not understand you, Captain Cleveland,” said Mordaunt.
“I do not suppose you do,—I did not suppose you would,” said the
Captain; and, turning on his heel, with a smile that resembled a sneer,
Mordaunt saw him mingle with the guests, and very soon beheld him at the
side of Minna, who was talking to him with animated features, that seemed
to thank him for his gallant and generous conduct.
“If it were not for Brenda,” thought Mordaunt, “I almost wish he had
left me in the voe, for no one seems to care whether I am alive or dead.—
Two rifles and sixty yards of sea-beach—is that what he points at?—It may
come,—but not on the day he has saved my life with risk of his own.”
While he was thus musing, Eric Scambester was whispering to Halcro,
“If these two lads do not do each other a mischief, there is no faith in freits.
Master Mordaunt saves Cleveland,—well.—Cleveland, in requital, has
turned all the sunshine of Burgh-Westra to his own side of the house; and
think what it is to lose favour in such a house as this, where the punch-
kettle is never allowed to cool! Well, now that Cleveland in his turn has
been such a fool as to fish Mordaunt out of the voe, see if he does not give
him sour sillocks for stock-fish.”
“Pshaw, pshaw!” replied the poet, “that is all old women’s fancies, my
friend Eric; for what says glorious Dryden—sainted John,—

‘The yellow gall that in your bosom floats,
Engenders all these melancholy

thoughts.’”

“Saint John, or Saint James either, may be mistaken in the matter,” said
Eric; “for I think neither of them lived in Zetland. I only say, that if there is
faith in old saws, these two lads will do each other a mischief; and if they
do, I trust it will light on Mordaunt Mertoun.”
“And why, Eric Scambester,” said Halcro, hastily and angrily, “should
you wish ill to that poor young man, that is worth fifty of the other?”
“Let every one roose the ford as he finds it,” replied Eric; “Master
Mordaunt is all for wan water, like his old dog-fish of a father; now Captain
Cleveland, d’ye see, takes his glass, like an honest fellow and a gentleman.”
“Rightly reasoned, and in thine own division,” said Halcro; and
breaking off their conversation, took his way back to Burgh-Westra, to
which the guests of Magnus were now returning, discussing as they went,
with much animation, the various incidents of their attack upon the whale,
and not a little scandalized that it should have baffled all their exertions.
“I hope Captain Donderdrecht of the Eintracht of Rotterdam will never
hear of it,” said Magnus; “he would swear, donner and blitzen, we were
only fit to fish flounders.”[46]

[46] The contest about the whale will remind the poetical reader of Waller’s
Battle of the Summer Islands.

CHAPTER XVIII.
And helter-skelter have I rode to thee,
And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,
And golden times, and happy news of
price.
Ancie
nt Pistol.

Fortune, who seems at times to bear a conscience, owed the hospitable
Udaller some amends, and accordingly repaid to Burgh-Westra the
disappointment occasioned by the unsuccessful whale-fishing, by sending
thither, on the evening of the day in which that incident happened, no less a
person than the jagger, or travelling merchant, as he styled himself, Bryce
Snailsfoot, who arrived in great pomp, himself on one pony, and his pack of
goods, swelled to nearly double its usual size, forming the burden of
another, which was led by a bare-headed bare-legged boy.
As Bryce announced himself the bearer of important news, he was
introduced to the dining apartment, where (for that primitive age was no
respecter of persons) he was permitted to sit down at a side-table, and
amply supplied with provisions and good liquor; while the attentive
hospitality of Magnus permitted no questions to be put to him, until, his
hunger and thirst appeased, he announced, with the sense of importance
attached to distant travels, that he had just yesterday arrived at Lerwick
from Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney, and would have been here yesterday,
but it blew hard off the Fitful-head.
“We had no wind here,” said Magnus.
“There is somebody has not been sleeping, then,” said the pedlar, “and
her name begins with N; but Heaven is above all.”
“But the news from Orkney, Bryce, instead of croaking about a capful
of wind?”
“Such news,” replied Bryce, “as has not been heard this thirty years—
not since Cromwell’s time.”

“There is not another Revolution, is there?” said Halcro; “King James
has not come back, as blithe as King Charlie did, has he?”
“It’s news,” replied the pedlar, “that are worth twenty kings, and
kingdoms to boot of them; for what good did the evolutions ever do us? and
I dare say we have seen a dozen, great and sma’.”
“Are any Indiamen come north about?” said Magnus Troil.
“Ye are nearer the mark, Fowd,” said the jagger; “but it is nae Indiaman,
but a gallant armed vessel, chokeful of merchandise, that they part with so
easy that a decent man like my sell can afford to give the country the best
pennyworths you ever saw; and that you will say, when I open that pack, for
I count to carry it back another sort lighter than when I brought it here.”
“Ay, ay, Bryce,” said the Udaller, “you must have had good bargains if
you sell cheap; but what ship was it?”
“Cannot justly say—I spoke to nobody but the captain, who was a
discreet man; but she had been down on the Spanish Main, for she has silks
and satins, and tobacco, I warrant you, and wine, and no lack of sugar, and
bonny-wallies baith of silver and gowd, and a bonnie dredging of gold dust
into the bargain.”
“What like was she?” said Cleveland, who seemed to give much
attention.
“A stout ship,” said the itinerant merchant, “schooner-rigged, sails like a
dolphin, they say, carries twelve guns, and is pierced for twenty.”
“Did you hear the captain’s name?” said Cleveland, speaking rather
lower than his usual tone.
“I just ca’d him the Captain,” replied Bryce Snailsfoot; “for I make it a
rule never to ask questions of them I deal with in the way of trade; for there
is many an honest captain, begging your pardon, Captain Cleveland, that
does not care to have his name tacked to his title; and as lang as we ken
what bargains we are making, what signifies it wha we are making them
wi’, ye ken?”
“Bryce Snailsfoot is a cautious man,” said the Udaller, laughing; “he
knows a fool may ask more questions than a wise man cares to answer.”
“I have dealt with the fair traders in my day,” replied Snailsfoot, “and I
ken nae use in blurting braid out with a man’s name at every moment; but I
will uphold this gentleman to be a gallant commander—ay, and a kind one

too; for every one of his crew is as brave in apparel as himself nearly—the
very foremast-men have their silken scarfs; I have seen many a lady wear a
warse, and think hersell nae sma’ drink—and for siller buttons, and buckles,
and the lave of sic vanities, there is nae end of them.”
“Idiots!” muttered Cleveland between his teeth; and then added, “I
suppose they are often ashore, to show all their bravery to the lasses of
Kirkwall?”
“Ne’er a bit of that are they. The Captain will scarce let them stir ashore
without the boatswain go in the boat—as rough a tarpaulin as ever swabb’d
a deck—and you may as weel catch a cat without her claws, as him without
his cutlass and his double brace of pistols about him; every man stands as
much in awe of him as of the commander himsell.”
“That must be Hawkins, or the devil,” said Cleveland.
“Aweel, Captain,” replied the jagger, “be he the tane or the tither, or a
wee bit o’ baith, mind it is you that give him these names, and not I.”
“Why, Captain Cleveland,” said the Udaller, “this may prove the very
consort you spoke of.”
“They must have had some good luck, then,” said Cleveland, “to put
them in better plight than when I left them.—Did they speak of having lost
their consort, pedlar?”
“In troth did they,” said Bryce; “that is, they said something about a
partner that had gone down to Davie Jones in these seas.”
“And did you tell them what you knew of her?” said the Udaller.
“And wha the deevil wad hae been the fule, then,” said the pedlar, “that
I suld say sae? When they kend what came of the ship, the next question
wad have been about the cargo,—and ye wad not have had me bring down
an armed vessel on the coast, to harrie the poor folk about a wheen rags of
duds that the sea flung upon their shores?”
“Besides, what might have been found in your own pack, you
scoundrel!” said Magnus Troil; an observation which produced a loud
laugh. The Udaller could not help joining in the hilarity which applauded
his jest; but instantly composing his countenance, he said, in an unusually
grave tone, “You may laugh, my friends; but this is a matter which brings
both a curse and a shame on the country; and till we learn to regard the
rights of them that suffer by the winds and waves, we shall deserve to be

oppressed and hag-ridden, as we have been and are, by the superior strength
of the strangers who rule us.”
The company hung their heads at the rebuke of Magnus Troil. Perhaps
some, even of the better class, might be conscience-struck on their own
account; and all of them were sensible that the appetite for plunder, on the
part of the tenants and inferiors, was not at all times restrained with
sufficient strictness. But Cleveland made answer gaily, “If these honest
fellows be my comrades, I will answer for them that they will never trouble
the country about a parcel of chests, hammocks, and such trumpery, that the
Roost may have washed ashore out of my poor sloop. What signifies to
them whether the trash went to Bryce Snailsfoot, or to the bottom, or to the
devil? So unbuckle thy pack, Bryce, and show the ladies thy cargo, and
perhaps we may see something that will please them.”
“It cannot be his consort,” said Brenda, in a whisper to her sister; “he
would have shown more joy at her appearance.”
“It must be the vessel,” answered Minna; “I saw his eye glisten at the
thought of being again united to the partner of his dangers.”
“Perhaps it glistened,” said her sister, still apart, “at the thought of
leaving Zetland; it is difficult to guess the thought of the heart from the
glance of the eye.”
“Judge not, at least, unkindly of a friend’s thought,” said Minna; “and
then, Brenda, if you are mistaken, the fault rests not with you.”
During this dialogue, Bryce Snailsfoot was busied in uncoiling the
carefully arranged cordage of his pack, which amounted to six good yards
of dressed seal-skin, curiously complicated and secured by all manner of
knots and buckles. He was considerably interrupted in the task by the
Udaller and others, who pressed him with questions respecting the stranger
vessel.
“Were the officers often ashore? and how were they received by the
people of Kirkwall?” said Magnus Troil.
“Excellently well,” answered Bryce Snailsfoot; “and the Captain and
one or two of his men had been at some of the vanities and dances which
went forward in the town; but there had been some word about customs, or
king’s duties, or the like, and some of the higher folk, that took upon them
as magistrates, or the like, had had words with the Captain, and he refused

to satisfy them; and then it is like he was more coldly looked on, and he
spoke of carrying the ship round to Stromness, or the Langhope, for she lay
under the guns of the battery at Kirkwall. But he” (Bryce) “thought she wad
bide at Kirkwall till the summer-fair was over, for all that.”
“The Orkney gentry,” said Magnus Troil, “are always in a hurry to draw
the Scotch collar tighter round their own necks. Is it not enough that we
must pay scat and wattle, which were all the public dues under our old
Norse government; but must they come over us with king’s dues and
customs besides? It is the part of an honest man to resist these things. I have
done so all my life, and will do so to the end of it.”
There was a loud jubilee and shout of applause among the guests, who
were (some of them at least) better pleased with Magnus Troil’s
latitudinarian principles with respect to the public revenue, (which were
extremely natural to those living in so secluded a situation, and subjected to
many additional exactions,) than they had been with the rigour of his
judgment on the subject of wrecked goods. But Minna’s inexperienced
feelings carried her farther than her father, while she whispered to Brenda,
not unheard by Cleveland, that the tame spirit of the Orcadians had missed
every chance which late incidents had given them to emancipate these
islands from the Scottish yoke.
“Why,” she said, “should we not, under so many changes as late times
have introduced, have seized the opportunity to shake off an allegiance
which is not justly due from us, and to return to the protection of Denmark,
our parent country? Why should we yet hesitate to do this, but that the
gentry of Orkney have mixed families and friendship so much with our
invaders, that they have become dead to the throb of the heroic Norse
blood, which they derived from their ancestors?”
The latter part of this patriotic speech happened to reach the astonished
ears of our friend Triptolemus, who, having a sincere devotion for the
Protestant succession, and the Revolution as established, was surprised into
the ejaculation, “As the old cock crows the young cock learns—hen I
should say, mistress, and I crave your pardon if I say any thing amiss in
either gender. But it is a happy country where the father declares against the
king’s customs, and the daughter against the king’s crown! and, in my
judgment, it can end in naething but trees and tows.”

“Trees are scarce among us,” said Magnus; “and for ropes, we need
them for our rigging, and cannot spare them to be shirt-collars.”
“And whoever,” said the Captain, “takes umbrage at what this young
lady says, had better keep his ears and tongue for a safer employment than
such an adventure.”
“Ay, ay,” said Triptolemus, “it helps the matter much to speak truths,
whilk are as unwelcome to a proud stomach as wet clover to a cow’s, in a
land where lads are ready to draw the whittle if a lassie but looks awry. But
what manners are to be expected in a country where folk call a pleugh-sock
a markal?”
“Hark ye, Master Yellowley,” said the Captain, smiling, “I hope my
manners are not among those abuses which you come hither to reform; any
experiment on them may be dangerous.”
“As well as difficult,” said Triptolemus, dryly; “but fear nothing,
Captain Cleveland, from my remonstrances. My labours regard the men and
things of the earth, and not the men and things of the sea,—you are not of
my element.”
“Let us be friends, then, old clod-compeller,” said the Captain.
“Clod-compeller!” said the agriculturist, bethinking himself of the lore
of his earlier days; “Clod-compeller pro cloud-compeller, Νεφεληγερέτα
Ζευς(o)—Græcum est,—in which voyage came you by that phrase?”
“I have travelled books as well as seas in my day,” said the Captain;
“but my last voyages have been of a sort to make me forget my early
cruizes through classic knowledge.—But come here, Bryce,—hast cast off
the lashing?—Come all hands, and let us see if he has aught in his cargo
that is worth looking upon.”
With a proud, and, at the same time, a wily smile, did the crafty pedlar
display a collection of wares far superior to those which usually filled his
packages, and, in particular, some stuffs and embroideries, of such beauty
and curiosity, fringed, flowered, and worked, with such art and
magnificence, upon foreign and arabesque patterns, that the sight might
have dazzled a far more brilliant company than the simple race of Thule. All
beheld and admired, while Mistress Baby Yellowley, holding up her hands,
protested it was a sin even to look upon such extravagance, and worse than
murder so much as to ask the price of them.

Others, however, were more courageous; and the prices demanded by
the merchant, if they were not, as he himself declared, something just more
than nothing—short only of an absolute free gift of his wares, were
nevertheless so moderate, as to show that he himself must have made an
easy acquisition of the goods, judging by the rate at which he offered to part
with them. Accordingly, the cheapness of the articles created a rapid sale;
for in Zetland, as well as elsewhere, wise folk buy more from the prudential
desire to secure a good bargain, than from any real occasion for the
purchase. The Lady Glowrowrum bought seven petticoats and twelve
stomachers on this sole principle, and other matrons present rivalled her in
this sagacious species of economy. The Udaller was also a considerable
purchaser; but the principal customer for whatever could please the eye of
beauty, was the gallant Captain Cleveland, who rummaged the jagger’s
stores in selecting presents for the ladies of the party, in which Minna and
Brenda Troil were especially remembered.
“I fear,” said Magnus Troil, “that the young women are to consider
these pretty presents as keepsakes, and that all this liberality is only a sure
sign we are soon to lose you?”
This question seemed to embarrass him to whom it was put.
“I scarce know,” he said with some hesitation, “whether this vessel is
my consort or no—I must take a trip to Kirkwall to make sure of that
matter, and then I hope to return to Dunrossness to bid you all farewell.”
“In that case,” said the Udaller, after a moment’s pause, “I think I may
carry you thither. I should be at the Kirkwall fair, to settle with the
merchants I have consigned my fish to, and I have often promised Minna
and Brenda that they should see the fair. Perhaps also your consort, or these
strangers, whoever they be, may have some merchandise that will suit me. I
love to see my rigging-loft well stocked with goods, almost as much as to
see it full of dancers. We will go to Orkney in my own brig, and I can offer
you a hammock, if you will.”
The offer seemed so acceptable to Cleveland, that, after pouring himself
forth in thanks, he seemed determined to mark his joy by exhausting Bryce
Snailsfoot’s treasures in liberality to the company. The contents of a purse
of gold were transferred to the jagger, with a facility and indifference on the
part of its former owner which argued either the greatest profusion, or
consciousness of superior and inexhaustible wealth; so that Baby whispered

to her brother, that, “if he could afford to fling away money at this rate, the
lad had made a better voyage in a broken ship, than all the skippers of
Dundee had made in their haill anes for a twelvemonth past.”
But the angry feeling in which she made this remark was much
mollified, when Cleveland, whose object it seemed that evening to be, to
buy golden opinions of all sorts of men, approached her with a garment
somewhat resembling in shape the Scottish plaid, but woven of a sort of
wool so soft, that it felt to the touch as if it were composed of eider-down.
“This,” he said, “was a part of a Spanish lady’s dress, called a mantilla; as it
would exactly fit the size of Mrs. Baby Yellowley, and was very well suited
for the fogs of the climate of Zetland, he entreated her to wear it for his
sake.” The lady, with as much condescending sweetness as her countenance
was able to express, not only consented to receive this mark of gallantry,
but permitted the donor to arrange the mantilla upon her projecting and
bony shoulder-blades, where, said Claud Halcro, “it hung, for all the world,
as if it had been stretched betwixt a couple of cloak-pins.”
While the Captain was performing this piece of courtesy, much to the
entertainment of the company, which, it may be presumed, was his principal
object from the beginning, Mordaunt Mertoun made purchase of a small
golden chaplet, with the private intention of presenting it to Brenda, when
he should find an opportunity. The price was fixed, and the article laid
aside. Claud Halcro also showed some desire of possessing a silver box of
antique shape, for depositing tobacco, which he was in the habit of using in
considerable quantity. But the bard seldom had current coin in promptitude,
and, indeed, in his wandering way of life, had little occasion for any; and
Bryce, on the other hand, his having been hitherto a ready-money trade,
protested, that his very moderate profits upon such rare and choice articles,
would not allow of his affording credit to the purchaser. Mordaunt gathered
the import of this conversation from the mode in which they whispered
together, while the bard seemed to advance a wishful finger towards the box
in question, and the cautious pedlar detained it with the weight of his whole
hand, as if he had been afraid it would literally make itself wings, and fly
into Claud Halcro’s pocket. Mordaunt Mertoun at this moment, desirous to
gratify an old acquaintance, laid the price of the box on the table, and said
he would not permit Master Halcro to purchase that box, as he had settled in
his own mind to make him a present of it.

“I cannot think of robbing you, my dear young friend,” said the poet;
“but the truth is, that that same box does remind me strangely of glorious
John’s, out of which I had the honour to take a pinch at the Wits’
Coffeehouse, for which I think more highly of my right-hand finger and
thumb than any other part of my body; only you must allow me to pay you
back the price when my Urkaster stock-fish come to market.”
“Settle that as you like betwixt you,” said the jagger, taking up
Mordaunt’s money; “the box is bought and sold.”
“And how dare you sell over again,” said Captain Cleveland, suddenly
interfering, “what you already have sold to me?”
All were surprised at this interjection, which was hastily made, as
Cleveland, having turned from Mistress Baby, had become suddenly, and,
as it seemed, not without emotion, aware what articles Bryce Snailsfoot was
now disposing of. To this short and fierce question, the jagger, afraid to
contradict a customer of his description, answered only by stammering, that
the “Lord knew he meant nae offence.”
“How, sir! no offence!” said the seaman, “and dispose of my property?”
extending his hand at the same time to the box and chaplet; “restore the
young gentleman’s money, and learn to keep your course on the meridian of
honesty.”
The jagger, confused and reluctant, pulled out his leathern pouch to
repay to Mordaunt the money he had just deposited in it; but the youth was
not to be so satisfied.
“The articles,” he said, “were bought and sold—these were your own
words, Bryce Snailsfoot, in Master Halcro’s hearing; and I will suffer
neither you nor any other to deprive me of my property.”
“Your property, young man?” said Cleveland; “It is mine,—I spoke to
Bryce respecting them an instant before I turned from the table.”
“I—I—I had not just heard distinctly,” said Bryce, evidently unwilling
to offend either party.
“Come, come,” said the Udaller, “we will have no quarrelling about
baubles; we shall be summoned presently to the rigging-loft,”—so he used
to call the apartment used as a ball-room,—“and we must all go in good-
humour. The things shall remain with Bryce for to-night, and to-morrow I
will myself settle whom they shall belong to.”