The pirate

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THE PIRATE

SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart.

I

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THE PIRATE

SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart.

" Nothing in him

But doth suifer a sea-chcinge. "

Tempest.

WITH STEEL PLATES FKOM DESIGNS BY

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, COPLEY FIELDING, AND
OTHER ARTISTS

NEW EDITION, V/ITH THE AUTHOR'S NOTES

LONDON, AND NEW YORK
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS

i8J5

LONDON :
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO,, I'KINTERS, WHITEFRIAKS,

THE PIRATE.

INTRODUCTION.

" Quoth he, there was a ship.''

This brief preface may begin hke 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 Scot-
land, 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 gra-
tuitously, 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 visit-
ing the leading objects of a traveller's curiosity ; for the wild cape,
or formidable shelve, which requires to be marked out by a light-
house, is generally at no great distance from the most magnificent

6 INTRODUCTION TO

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 amuse-
ment in view, we left the port of Leith on the 36th July, 1 814, 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 tbok 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 disagree-
ment, each seeming anxious to submit his own particular wishes to
those of his friends. By this mutual accommodation all the pur-
poses 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 unex-
pectedly of a lady, quaUfied to adorn the high rank which she held.

THE PIRATE. 7

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 after-
wards 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, at end 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 gentle-
men 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 Nor-
wegian 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 Scot-
land 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 conse-
quence, I found the officers of a veteran regiment who had
maintained the garrison at Fort Charlotte, in Lerwick, discom-
posed 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 En-
gland herself regretting their approaching departure from the melan-
choly 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.

3 INTRODUCTION TO THE PIRATE.

The state of manners which I have introduced in the romance,
was necessarily in a great degree imaginary, though founded in
some measure on shght 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 Noma 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 Noma, — 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, — some-
thing distinct from the Dumfries-shire gipsy, whose pretensions
to supernatural powers are not beyond those of a Norwood pro-
phetess. 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
Noma'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 astonish-
ing what success may be attained by an impostor, v/ho 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, h^s often, in tBe 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 sur-
mount this difficulty.

Abeotsford,
1st May, 1 83 1.

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 tra-
ditions 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 adts 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
Jady 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 conse-
quence 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, 17.25,)

10 ADVERTISEMENT.

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 Gowhad 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 phghted 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.

The common account of this incident farther bears, that Mi".
Fea, the spirited individul 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 sKam 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.

THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER I.

The storm had ceased its wintry roar,
Hoarse dash tlie billows of the sea ;

But who on Thule's desert shore,

Cries, Have I burnt my harp for thee ?

Macniel.

That long, narrow, and irregular island, usually called the main-
land 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 pro-
montory 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 tte 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

iz THE PIRATE.

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 sand-
stone, 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
copartments of the mansion-house, containing offices, or sub-
ordinate 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, pro-
duced 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 tree's, 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, per-
haps, of having too much time at liis disposal ; but frank-tempei'ed
and generous to his people, and kind and hospitable to strangers.

THE PIRATE. 13

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 ofj 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 over-
powered 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 un-
pleasing 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 in-
formation 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 con-
fidence, 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 imnortance,
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

14 THE PIRATE.

bullocks, smoked geese, and stockings of lambswool ; and although
Meinheer could only say, that " Meinheer Mertoun hab bay his
bassage like one gentlemans, and hab given a Kreitz-doUar 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 seamed 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 educa-
tion, 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 de-
jection then 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
|)ossible, 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 pecuUarities Mr. Mertoun added another, which was par-
ticularly 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

THE PIRATE. 15

and afflictions whatever. These were remedies to which Mr.
Mertoun never applied ; his drinlv 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-import-
ance 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 or 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 jDf 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 per-
mission 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,
howevet, 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 com-
pany gulls and gannets."

i6 _ THE P[RATE.

" My good friend," replied Mertoun, " if you could have named
a circumstance which would render the residence more eligible to
mc 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 yoa, 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 1 like
you the better for being no Scot, as I trust you are not one. Hither
they Jiave 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, sippirig 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 Schlag-
brenners, 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 con-
tribute 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* of Zetland," he recollected the circumstances of his guest,
and stopped suddenly short. " I do not say all this," he added

THE PIRATE. 17

interrupting himself, " as if I were iinwilling 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 con-
sidered 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, 1 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 cor-
rective 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,* 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 Mor-
daunt ? "

" 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 oiplantie cruive* which they once called a garden, and a right

C

i8 ■ THE PIRATE.

in the scathold, and a sixpenny merk of land, that the tenants may-
fish for you ;— eight lispunds* of butter, and eight shilhngs sterling
yearly, is not too much ? "

Mr. Mertoun agreed to terms so moderate, and from thence-
forward 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.

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.

Anciettt Drama.

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 ex-
actions, 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
philosophicalinstruments, 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 accom-
modations 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 situa-
tion was rather to be mended than rendered worse by his presence ;
and, once relieved from the apprehension of his tyrannizing over

THE PIRATE. 19

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 futm-e efforts at extravagant im-
position.

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 ;* 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 un-
pleasant occasion, Mertoun descended to the scene of contest, and
so suddenly, peremp'torily, 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 over-
charge 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 yiwM. flinch* 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 kawkhen, and hagalef, 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

C 2

20 THE PIRATE.

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 pre-
cipitate rate to the small hamlet, to tell his comrades that if they
provoked Master Mertoun any farther, he would turn an absolute
Pate Stewart* 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 RanzeHaar, " is a decent and moderate profit,
and will bring with it God's blessing and Saint Ronald's."

Proceeding upon the tarifif 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 PIRATE. 21

The conscript fathers of Jarlshof, having settled their own
matters, took next under tlieir 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 pos-
sible. 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 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
aU into pieces, as a finner* would go through a herring-net, and
then, when the fury went off, they were as weak and unstable as
water."*

" 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 tliat 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 particu-
larly recommended, she slipped into the Castle, and presently
resuming the various and numerous occupations which devolved on

22 THE PIRATE.

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 appear-
ance 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 house-
hold, 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 educa-
tion 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 exafcting 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 sen-
timents 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 alono- 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 unob-
served.

THE PIRATE.

23

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 sub-
sistence. 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 man-
sion 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 excur-
sions 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.*

At other times, Mordaunt accompanied Sweyn and other fisher-
men 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

inc/ fiKAiii.

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 dwell-
ing of some noted sorceress.*

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 con-
tained, 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 sup-
posed 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 boatmen saw the horns o^f 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 marihe monsters, and of many
others less known, were then universally received among the Zet-
landers, whose descendants have not as yet by any means aban-
doned faith in them.*

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 preci-
pices 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 oceasionally 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 dispo-

THE PIRATE. 25

sition, these superstitions formed a pleasing and interesting exer-
cise 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 merri-
ment. 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 wherever 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 giie, 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, gtdzards, to visit some neighbouring
Laird, or rich Udaller, it augured well of the expedition if Mor-
daunt Mertoun could be prevailed upon to undertake the office of
sktcdler, 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.

■26 THE PIRATE.

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 loul, 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.

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 ;
Biit Mary Gray's twa pawky een

Have garr'd my fancy falter."

Scots 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 indul-
gence 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,

THE PIRATE. 27

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 corre-
sponded in a peculiar degree with features, which seemed calcu-
lated 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 thefce 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 in-
terested, 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 sur-
rounded, might have wished her whatever could add to her happi-
ness, but could scarce have desired that, graceful as she was in her
natural and unaffected seriousness, she should change that de-
portment 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 measu«red, 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

28 THE PIRATE.

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 inno-
cent 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 opportu-
nities, 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

THE PIRATE.

29

feeling. The information which she acquired by habits of patient
attention, was indehbly riVeted in a naturally powerful memory.
She had also a high feeling for the solitary and melancholy gran-
deur 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 en-
joyments ; and although something in her manners claimed defer-
ence (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

'-0 THE PIRATE.

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 Mor-
daunt 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 beau-
ties, 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 cir-
cumstances 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

THE PIRATE. 31

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 affec-
tion caused to be brought from the English or Scottish capital for
the use of his daughters. And while conversing with them, Mor-
daunt, 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 hirriself 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
pnrase, 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 S9 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 un-
authorized intern) eddler with his family affairs ; and thus stood the
relation of Mordaunt Mertoun to the family of Mr. Troil of Burgli-
Westra, when the following incidents took place.

33 THE PIRATE.

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 taci-
turnity, 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 communica-
tion betwixt his father and others ; and that the second corrobo-
rated 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 Sum-
burgh 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, Ouendale, 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 beliind you ! "

" And the blithe dance at night," added Brenda, in a tone betwixt

TtlE PIRATE. 33

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 con-
versation, 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 moun-
tains. The fowl are winging their way to the shore, and the shell-
drake seems, through the mist, as large as the scart.* 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 cham-
berlain'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 curio sity to see ihe
new inlplements 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
js most probable, I am not likely to be melted in the wetting."

D

34 THE t'IRAl'fi.

« It will not soften into rain alone," said Minna ; " see liow mucli
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 forme, 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^torm blow ever so hard ; there are such matters as bolts
and bars in Scotland, though, thanks to Saint Ronald, they are
unknown here, save that great lock on the old Castle of Scallo-
way, 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 impbnity as if ' it had
been spring-water. Thvis 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 re-
collected 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 them-
selves 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

THE PiRATfi. ^5

■full fury of a northern storm. It was accompanied by showers ot
rain mixed witli 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 ren-
dering 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 whirl-
wind, 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 with-
stand 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 elevat-
ing 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 road-
stead and key. I am more of a cragsman than to mind fii'e 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 circum-
stances to regulate his course. Thus, we repeat, he struggled on-
ward, occasionally standing still, or even lying down, when the gust
was most impetuous ; making way against it when it was some-
what 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 be 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 trousers, the common dress of young
tnen through these isles when on a journey, were thoroughly wet^

i6 THE PIRATE.

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, andYepeatedly
obliged the traveller to perform a considerable circuit, which in the
usual case was unnecessary. Thus repeatedly baffled, notwith-
standing 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 stomi, 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 York-
shire, 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 inconvenienced
arising from a cold soil and a weeping climate. These might havfi
been probably overcome ; but his neighbourhood to the Grampians

THE PIRATK. 37

exposed him eternally to that species of visitation from the plaided
gentry, who dwelt within their skirts, which made young Nerval a
warrior and a hero, but only converted Jasper Yellowley into a
poor man. This was, indeed, balanced in some sort by the im-
pression 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 neighbour-
hood, 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 siti 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 con-
descended 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 have willingly 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 nega-
tive on this advance to intimacy. Indeed she knew how to make
young Deilbelicket, old Dougald Baresword, the Laird of Bandy-
brawl, 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 vi^ay. On this occasion, Mrs. Yellowley
had a remarkable dream, as is the usual practice of teeming mothers
previous to thebirth of an illustrious offspring. She " wasa-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 in-
vestigator into such portents, she sat herself down with her gossips,
to consider what the thing might mean. Honest Jasper ventured^

38. THE PIRATE.

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 ahttle 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'''
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 sail be— sail 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 Glenpros-
ing ; " wad ye hae our cummer's bonny lad-bairn wag the head aff
his shouthers like your godly Mess James Guthrie, that ye hald such
a clavering about ? — Na, na, he sail walk a mair siccar path, and
be a dainty curate — and say he should live to be a bishop, what t;he
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 serv-
ing only like oil to the flame, till Jasper entered with the plough-
staff ; and by the awe of his presence, and the shame of mis-
behaving " 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 that 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 con-
valescent, she was informed, that as it was thought fit the child
should be immediately christened, it had received the name of

THE PIRATE, 39

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.
Yelkwley 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
counteiact the effects it might produce upon the taste and feelmgs
of the nominee, by such an education as might put him above the
slightest thought of sacks, coulters, stilts, mould boards, or any
thing comected 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 ratier take after the jolly Yorkshire yeoman, than the gentle
but somevhat aigre blood of the house of Clinkscale. He re-
marked, with suppressed glee, that the tune which best answered
the purposs 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 brew-
ing, 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
squallng, his father observed that Trip could be always silenced
by jingling a bridle at his ear. From all which symptoms he
used ti swear in private, that tlie boy would prove true Yorkshire,
and mither and mother's kin would have small share of him.

Meaiwhile, and within a year after the birth of Triptolemus,
Mrs. Ydlowley bore a daughter, named after herself Barbara, who,
even injarliest infancy, exhibited the pinched nose and thin lips
by whia the Clinkscale family were distinguished amongst the
inhabitaits of the Mearns ; and as her childhood advanced, the
readines with, which she seized, and the tenacity wherewith she
detainedjthe playthings of Triptolemus, besides a desire to bite,
pinch, aid scratch, on slight, or no provocation, were all considered
by attentire observers as proofs, that Miss Babie would prove " her
mother oer again." Malicious people did not stick to say, that
the acrimmy of the Clinkscale blood had not, on this occasion,
been coold and sweetened by that of Old England ; that young
Deilbelicfet was much about the house, and they could npt but
think it dd that Mrs. Yellowley, who, as the whole world knew,
gave notling for nothing, should be so uncommonly attentive to

40 THE PIRATE.

heap the trencher, and to fill the caup, of an idle blackguard ne'^-
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 DeilbeUcket's delicacy of
taste. _ /_

Meantime young Triptolemus, having received such instructions
as the Curate could give him, (for though Dame Yellowley ac^hered
to the persecuted remnant, her jolly husband, edified by the black
gown and prayer-book, still conformed to the church as 5y law
estabUshed,) was, in due process of time, sent to Saint Ane^ews to
prosecute his studies. He went, it is true ; but with an ey^' turned
back with sad remembrances on his father's plough, his father's
pancakes, and his father's ale, for which the small-be^r of the
college, commonly there termed "thorough-go-nimble," fu/nished a
poor substitute. Yet he advanced in his learning, beiilg found,
however, to show a particular favour to such authors of antiquity
as had made the improvement of the soil the object of their re-
searches. He endured the Bucolics of Virgil — the Georgics he had
by heart — but the .(Eneid he could not away with ; aijd he was
particularly severe upon the celebrated line expressing a charge of
cavalry, because, as he understood the word putrem* lie ojined
that the combatants, in their inconsiderate ardour, galloped o^er a
new-manured ploughed field. Cato, the Roman Censor, wal his
favourite among classical heroes and philosophers, not on ac/ount
of the strictness of his morals, but because of his treatise, le Re
Bustica. He had ever in his mouth the phrase of Cicerolyam
neminem antepones Catoni. He thought well of Palladius, aid of
Terentius Varro, but Columella was his pocket -companion! To
these ancient worthies, he added the more modern Tusser, lirtlib,
and other writers on rural economics, not forgetting the liiubra-
tions of the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and such of thepetter-
informed Philomaths, who, instead of loading their almanaccs with
vain predictions of political events, pretended to see wh^ seeds
would grow and what would not, and direct the attention ?f their
readers to that course of cultivation from which the prodi^tion of
good crops may be safely predicted ; modest sages, in fte, who,
careless of the rise and downfall of empires, content tlilmselves
with pointing out the fit seasons to reap and sow, with a air guess
at the weather which each month will be likely to presen ; as, for
example, that if Heaven pleases, we shall have snow irijanuary,
and the author will stake his reputation that July provis, on the
whole, a month ot sunshine. Now, although the Recto| of Saint
Leonard's was greatly pleased, in general, with the quiet,iaborious,
and studious bent of Triptolemus Yellowley, and deemd him, in

THE PIRATE. 41

SO far, worthy of a name of four syllables having a Latin termina-
tion, 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. Triptclemus 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 ver-
nacular poetry, Triptolemus could scarce be prevailed upon to read
a single couplet, excepting old Tusser, as aforesaid, whose Hun-
dred Points of Good Husbandry he had got by heart ; and except-
ing 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 re-
minding 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 exist-
ence, 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 specula-
tive 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 con-
ference on the exhaustless subject.

Quid faciat tetas 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

42 THE PIRATE.

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 herafflicted
spouse just as disconsolate as was to be expected. The first act of
old Jasper's undivided a.dministration 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 Tripto-
lemus, summoned to carry into practice what he had so fondly
studied in theor/, must have been, to use a simile which he would
have thought lively, lilce a cow entering upon a clover park. Alas,
mistaken thoughts, and decsitfiil 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 pre-
sent 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 those particulars, which, being of no
consequence in actual practice, go, of course, a great way to con-
stitute 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 spn, (whom he Jil'wjiys called

THE PIRATE. 43

Tolimus,) yet, " dang it," added tha Seneca, " nought thrives \vi'
un — nought thrives \vi' 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 Mearns, to try conclusions withal, a
place which seemed to yield everything but what the agriculturist
wanted ; for there were plenty of thistles, which indicates dryland ;
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 wanii, 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 endea-
voured 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 Hun-
dred Points of Good Husbandry, so useful to others of his day,
were never to himself worth as many pennies.*

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 Tripto-
lemus in the present day. He would have got a bank-credit,
manceuvred 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 dclat. 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, not;-

44 THE PIRATE.

withstanding 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 tButh "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 hira
private entree 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 b)fother, 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 accorhplished to
scrape together, and although the dower of their mother was by
degrees expended, or nearly so, in aiding them upon extreme occa-
sions, 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 oi 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.* 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 pro-

The t>IRATE. 45

perty 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 ac-
quaintance 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 Hall-house, 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 securmg 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 prac-
tised 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 YeUowley, 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 termi-
nation 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

45 The pirate;.

might seem fo a regiment of our own army. Yet the lattef dOfl-
quered 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 Archi-
pelago the more simple and docile of the two kindred tribes ; or
perhaps he considered the situation of the house and farm he him-
self 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 plentitude of his authority ; deter-
mined 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.

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 !"

Old 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 exclu-
sion of a stranger, especially during such horrible weather. At
length, finding his noise and vociferation were equally in vain, he

THE PlRATfi. 45i

fell back so far from the front of the house, as was necessary to
enable him to reconoitre 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 M earns,
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 cha-
racter ; and the second of these motives had its effect on Trip-
tolemus 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-preserva-
tion as the first law of nature. These hints may serve as a com-
mentary 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 — veiitis surge7itibics —
and then the groans of the mountains, and the long-reaounding
shores — but where's the woods, Baby .■■ tell me, I say, where we
shall find the nemorian mnrmiir, sister Baby, in these new seats of
ours ? "

" What's your foohsh will ?" said Baby, popping her head from
out of a dark recess in the kitchen, where she was busy about some
jiameless deed of housewifery.

^a THE PIRATE.

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 housewife-skep .'' "

" 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 some-'
what 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 imico contextic. 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— baud 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 ! "

THE PIRATE, 49

" Go and open it then, Baby," said her brother, glad at anything
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 under-
standing over that of her brother — " Go and open it, said he
indeed ! — is it to lend robbery 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 Highland-
men to harry us here. This is a land of quiet and honesty. O
fortimati nimimn ! "

" 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 m^y be as bad. I
saw sax or seven as ill-looking chields gang past the Place yester-
day, 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 aim 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 with-
out. 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. Tripto-
lemus, in great tribulation, presented the gun which he had not yet

E

so THE PIRATE.

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 Tripto-
lemus, lowering the butt 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 breek-
less loon frae Lochaber tell his mind and his erraJid mair deftly?
— Come, come, friend," she added, addressing herself to Mor-
daunt, " 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 sor-
ners."

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 1 am,
that your clapping your hands and skirling at me like a mad-
woman, 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 Mornaunt; "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

THE PIRATE. 51

nor zeal, nor did circumstances seem at all to warrant the favour-
Eible conclusion of any fray into which he might enter with the
young stranger. The sinewy limbs and graceful form of Mor-
daunt 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 hand-
somely 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] Cauld-
acres."

" 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

E3

S2 THE PIRATE.

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 clink-
ing 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 some-
thing 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 i where to go or
send, and I hope you believe in your Bible, Baby ! "

Baby was silenced by an appeal to Scripture, however mal d
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. Yel-
lowley, 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 with-
out 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, con-
sidering the quarter it came from, Mordaunt answered, he "should
be very glad to have dry clothes, but begged to be excused from
drinking imtil 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 /<y,"* 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

The pirate. S3

she lias 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 sus-
picions confirmed ; for his sister was in the desperate act of con-
signing 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,* but he has rather ower good havings, and he has no
pack." I

" Ye ken as little as aiie of your ain bits o' nowt, man," retorted
sister Baby ; " if ye ken na him, do ye ken Tronda Drons
daughter ? "

" 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

£4 THE PIRATE.

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 sileht woman," said Trip-
tolemus. " 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 no^
altogether above the prejudies 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, " Heiis tibi, Dave ! "

" Adsiim," 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 husbandr)', 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 in-
gathering 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 mid-air between a high-browed cliff and a roarin"-

THE PIRATE. ss

ocean, the rope by which you are sustained seeming scarce stronger
than a silken thread, and the stone on which you have one foot
Sieadied, affording such a breadth as tlie kittywalce might rest
upon — to feel and know all this, with the full confidence that your
ovn 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 amuse-
ment 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
terrzfirma ! But come, here's a goose that is more to the purpose,
wher. 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 gude-
wife in Angus or a' the Mearns boil a goosey while there was sic
things as spits in the warld. — But wha's this neist ! " she added, look-
ing 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
1his ? — 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, and it please you ? "
sle added, turniiag to the stranger, — " a very hallanshaker loon, as
e\er crossed my twa een ! "

" I am a jagger, if it like your ladyship," replied the uninvited
giEst a stout, vulgar, little man, who had indeed the humble ap-
peirance of a pedlar, called jagger in these islands — " never
travelled in a waur day, or was more wiUing to get to harbourage.
— Heaven be praised for fire and house-room ! "

£o saying, he drew a stool to the fire, and sat down without
further ceremony. Dame Baby stared " wild as grey gosshawk,"

56 THE PIRATE.

and was meditating how to express her indignation in something
warmer than words, for which the boiling pot seemed to offer a con-
venient hint, when an old half-starved serving woman — the Troniia
already mentioned— the sharer of Barbara's domestic cares, w^o
had been as yet in some remote corner of the mansion, now hobb^d
into the room, and broke out into exclamations which indicated sotoe
new cause of alarm. I

" O master ! " and " O mistress ! " were the only sounds jhe
could for some time articulate, and then followed them up wp,
" The best in the house— the best in the house — set a' on the bojfd,
and a' will be little aneugh — There is auld Noma of Fitful-head,
the most fearful woman in all the isles ! " !

" Where can she have been wandering ? " said Mordaunt, iot
without some apparent sympathy with the surprise, if not with che
alarm, of the old domestic ; " but it is needless to ask — the vwrse
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 crazV with
vexation. " I'll soon settle her wandering, I sail warrant,if my
brother has but the sauI 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 maUsoij
and mine upon close-handed churls ! " .

" And v/ha are ye, that are sae bauld wi' your blessing and ban
ning in other folk's houses ? What kind of country is this, th^
folk cannot sit quiet for an hour, and serve Heaven, and keep thef
bit gear thegither, without gangrel men and women coming thig-
ging and sorning ane after another, like a string of wil^-
geese ? " /

This speech, the understanding reader will easily saddle in
Mistress Baby, and what effects it might have produced on the list
stranger, can only be matter of conjecture ; for the old servant aiid
Mordaunt appUed themselves at once to the party addressed! in
order to deprecate her resentment ; the former speaking to fier
some words of Norse, in a tone of intercession, and Mordaunt pay-
ing in English, " They are strangers, Noma, and know not jour
name or qualities ; they are unacquainted, too, with the wa4 of

THE PIRATE. 57

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 chim-
ney till Michaelmas, is boiling in the pot for you ; but if we had
twenty geese, I see we are like tg find mouths to eat them every
feather — this must be amended."

"What must be amended, sordid slave?" said the stranger
Noma, turning at once upon him with an emphasis that made him
start — " W/4a/mustbe amended? Bring hither, if thou wilt, thy
newfangled 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 Noma looks forth at the measureless waters, from the crest
of Fitful-head, something is yet left that resembles power of defence.
I f 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 Boa-
dicea 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 di-
shevelled 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 crimsoii 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

58 THE PIRATE.

belt an ambiguous-looking weapon, which might pass for a sacri-
ficing knife, or daggei, 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 Noma of the
Fitful-head, upon whom many of the inhabitants of the island
looked with observance, many with fear, and almost aU 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 per-
secuting, 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 vene-
rated, in the earlier stages of society. As religion and knowledge
increase, they are first held in hatred and horror, and are finally re-
garded 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 nor-
thern 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 Scandina-
vian 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 disem-
bodied spirits, this Noma, 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 pi 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 im-

The pmATE. S5

poster, or whether her imagination waS so deeply impressed with
the mysteries of her supposed art, that she might be in some degree
a behever 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.

CHAPTER VI.

If, by your art, you have

Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. '

Tempest

The storm had somewhat relaxed its rigour just before the
entrance of Noma, 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 anything
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 gaber-
lunzies 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 them-
selves in entreaties to Noma, of which, as they were couched in the
Norse language, the master of the house understood nothing.

6o THE PIRATC.

She listened to them with a haughty and unmoved air, and
rephed 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-com-
mons, 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 ap-
pearances, asked Mordaunt, with a voice which faltered with appre-
hension, whether he 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. Noma 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 Noma can do ? '' said the sibyl j
"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, Noma," 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 superstitions
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 Noma, " 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

THE PIRATE. 6i

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 bear-
ing 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 suchlike 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 Noma directly ; "out
of an honest house, or, shame fa' me, but I'll take the bittle* to
you ! "

Noma 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 jiot provoke Noma of Fitful-head ! You have no
sic woman on the mainland of Scotland — she can ride on one o
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 Noma 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.

Noma 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

62 THE PIRATE.

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 Noma'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 Noma was beneath its roof, held them-
selves ready for a start the instant she should take her depar-
ture.

Having looked on the sky for some time in a fixed attitude, .and
with the most profound silence. Noma 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 Reim-
kennar, though some call it the Song of the Tempest. The follow-
ing 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 : —

" 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 rushmg of thy wings be like the roar of ten thousand

waves.
Yet hear, in thine ire and fhy haste,
Hear thou the voice of the Reim-kennar.

^Thou hast met the pine-trees of Drontheim,

Th^""%".'"^'f V ^^.^^ ''^ prostrate beside their uprooted stems;
Thou hast met the nder of the ocean, ' ^

THE PIRATE, 63

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 bears its crest among the clouds,

The battled massive tower of the Jarl of formej- 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.

" 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.

" 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 ;

Oease thou the waving of thy pinions.

Let the ocean repose in her dark strength ;

Cease thou the flashing of thine eye.

Let the thunderbolt sleeep in the armoury of Odin

Be thou still at my bidding, viewless racer of the north-western

heaven,
Sleep thou at the voice of Noma 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 enthu-
siasm. 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 Noma. Cer-

6< THE PIRATE.

tain it was, that the blast seemed passing away, and the appre-
hended 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 meteorologi-
cal phenomena the attention of a strict and close observer. Of
Noma'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,
Noma 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 Noma'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 Noma
made betwixt the strophes of her incantation. A long silence
followed the last verse, until Noma 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."

THE PIRATE. 65

Noma 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 churUsh 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 inhabi-
tants of Hialtland. Say not that Noma of Fitful-head hath
eaten of your bread and drunk of your cup, and left you sorrow-
ing for the charge to which she hath put your house." So say-
ing, 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 wiU 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 hearsth
will one day, like the hidden talent, bear witness against its avari-
cious possessors."

This last obscure intimation seemed to raise the alarm and
the wonder of Mrs. Baby and her brother to the uttermost. The

F

65 THE PIRATE.

latter tried to stammer out something like an invitation to Noma
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 Noma — "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 Noma 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 petilar,
' 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 free-
dom, 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 com-
prehension 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.

THE PIRATE. 67

Accordingly he muttered a benediction, and, without more cere-
mony, 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 chap-
man's drouth* 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. IBaby in that state, than
when it screamed amongst the clouds. Mordaunt laughed and
•took his seat, then turned to look for Noma ; 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 Drons-
daughter; "whakens where_ she maybe 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 recover-
ing 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 * 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.*

" That ye may pick it up, ye jaud," said the implacable Mistress
Baby ; " it will be iang or ye win the worth of it ony other gate. —
Sit down, Triptolemus, and mindna the words of a daft wife."

F 2

68 THE PIRATE.

" 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 avery
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 Noma 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 temp-
tations 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.

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.

OldPla^.

There were ten " lang Scots miles " betwixt Stourburgh and
Jarlshof ; and though the pedestrian did not number all the im-
pediments which crossed Tarn o' Shanter's path,— for in a country

THE PIRATE. 69

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 a«d 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."

f 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 Noma of the Fitful-
head ? She went to Stourburgh this morning, and returned to the
town at night."

70 THE PIRATE.

" 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, (indee4 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
ate, 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. Mor-
daunt'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 turn-
ing 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 sqrprise 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 embar-
rassment—" I really am no judge— 1 never considered which was

THE PIRATE. 71

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, " 1 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 con-
cerning 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 Mer-
toun 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

72 THE PIRATE.

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 stiU 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 fiUal reverence ; and Mertoun seemed at first so to receive
it, for he took in silence the advantage of the aid thus afforded
him.

THE PIRATE. 73

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, be^an
to mount the acclivity with such long and quick steps, that Mor-
daunt, 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, some-
what 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 ? "

74 THE PIRATE.

"Say no more on't— say no more on't," said Mertoun, ab-
ruptly, "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 Noma of the
Fitful-head."

" What ! the mistress of the potent spell," answered Mertoun,
with a sneer — " she who can change the wind by puUing 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?"*

" I really do not know, sir," said Mordaunt, whom certain re-
collections ■ 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 Noma pursue her
traffic?"

THE PIRATE. 75

" 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 wild 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, de-
tached 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 im-
mediately 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."

76 THE PIRATE.

" It is most probable," said his father, with stem 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 battle-field, 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 im-
planted 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 a^e ? "

" 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 plea-
sure 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 in 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

THE PIRATE. 77

her by pumping, had taken to their boats, and left her to her fate.
All apprehensions were therefore unnecessary, so far as the im-
mediate 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 ihan
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 preci-
pitate 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 stem 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

78 THE PIRATE.

eft 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 inha-
bitants 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 chff, 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 bottoiB 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 pre-
carious state. His arms were still wrapped with a close and con-
vulsive 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 inevi-
table. 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.

THE PIRATE.

79

He rushed into the surf, and fastened on the body, with the same
tenacity, though under a different impulse, witli 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 hfe, 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 inca-
pable 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 rein-
forced. 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 unfor-
tunate 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 upo^n 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.

80 THE PIRATE.

When he did at lengtli approach Mordaunt, it was not to lend
him his aid, but to remonstrate with him on his rashness in under-
taking 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 ?*— 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 Zet-
landers, 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 dis-
interested, 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 o^ 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 appro-
priatmg whatever seemed most portable and of greatest value. At

THE PIRATE. 8i

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 re-
sisted 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 ex-
claimed, " You cold-blooded, inhuman rascal ! either get up in-
stantly 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 hav& 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-errtintry 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 Noma 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,

G

82 THE PIRATE.

mother, your bidding is to be done ; and I would have done Mr=
Mordaunt's bidding too," he added, relaxing from his note of de-
fiance 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, had 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 Noma — "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. Noma took the bottle from the pedlar's
hand, and began to chafe the temples and throat of the ship-
wrecked 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 motibn, 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 Noma, 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 ! 1 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 j " for
he has contie 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

THE PIRATE. S3

till the the next tide sweep it a' doun the Roost, after them that
aught it yesterday morning." '

" Fear not," said Noma, " 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."

Noma, 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 bfif, the
stranger pointed to the chest, and attempted to mutter something,
to which Noma 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 Noma, 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 expedi-
tion. " 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 ? "

G 2

84

THE PIRATE.

" 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 in-
timated 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 inuch notice of her delinquency. "Have you seen my
father ? " he said.

" And that I have," replied Swertha—" The gude gentleman was
ganging to hu-sel 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 ho 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 Noma, 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 wonder-
ful 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." *

THE PIRATE. 85

CHAPTER VIII.

He was a lovely youth, I guess ;
The panther in the wilderness

Was not so fair as he ;
And when he chose to sport -and play,
No dolphin ever was so gay,

Upon the tropic sea.

Wordsworth.

The light foot of Mordaunt Mertoun was not long of bearing
him to Jarlshof. He entered the house hastily, for what he him-
self 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.

" Noma, 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 Swer-
tha's hint, to look out for lint and bandages ; for her speech was of
broken bones."

Mordaimt 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 expe-
dition, 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 lier troth, she might weel tell
Mordaunt his father was puirly, and him looking sae white in the

86 THE PIRATE.

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.* — 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 Noma 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."

THE PIRATE. 87

Mordaunt could no longer forbear laughing at the cunning with
which the old dame proposed to bribe off his evidence by impart-
ing 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 an-
nounced 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 receiye 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 inter-
course 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 re-
member 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 ex-
cited 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 com-
munity ; 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 pro-
bably 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 in-
disputable property.

S8 THE PIRATE.

Margery Bimbister, the worthy spouse of the Ranzehnan, 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 ; observ-
ing, he understood that he had been the means of saving his hfe
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 Mar-
gery, " 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 Mor-
daunt ; " 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 ex-
tensive ; 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 perse-
cuted 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.

THE PIRATE. 89

" Nay, for your part, you have done enough," , said the sailor ;
" but if r 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 boats 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 ToUsell — 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 affecta-
tion 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 —
sh^ 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.

go THE PIRATE.

" No such matter," said Cleveland, undoing a case which con-
tained 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 land-
sharks, I do not mean ruined stock and block. No, here is some-
thing will do more than shoot sea-fowl." So saying, he pulled out
a great ammunition-pouch marked swan-shot, and showed Mor-
daunt, 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 oldj'attler 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 Fran-
cisco — bound for Porto B'ello, 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.

THE PIRATE. 91

bom 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 a bit of a squall, unless she has 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 anybody 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, em-
ployed 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

92 THE PIRATE.

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 lists.' "

" I shall think the better of plays and ballads as long as I live,
for these very words," said Captajin 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 waifs 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 care-
fully removed to the mansion-house at Jarlshof.

THE PIRATE. 93

CHAPTER IX.

This is a gentle trader, and a prudent.

He's no Autolycus, to blear your eye,

With quips of worldly gauds and gamesomeness ;

But seasons all his glittering merchandise

With wholesome doctrines, suited to the use,

As men sauce goose with sage and rosemary.

Old Play.

On the subsequent morning, Mordaunl, 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 him-
self, while under the influence of his mental malady. In the even-
ing 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 him-
self 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 sports-
man 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 Cap-
tain 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 circum-

94 THE PIRATE.

Stances, 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 conver-
sant 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 Snails-
foot, 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 objec-
tions 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.

THE PIRATE. 55

But clays 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 resid-
ing at Burgh-Westra, as one of the family. Mordaunt was some-
what 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 stiU
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 remem-
brance 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 making a change in the
bismars and the lispunds ; * and our worthy Fowd, Magnus Troil,

g6 THE PIRATE.

has sworn, that, sooner than change them for the still-yard, or
aught else, he'll fling Factor Yellowley from Brasga-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 Sum-
burgh-head the tother day, — less daffing served him then."

" Daffing ! dancing every night ! " said Mordaunt, not particu-
larly 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 iife 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 v/as 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 sail warrant, that's to be at Burgh-Westra, on John's
Even, 'ySaunt 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
moveable 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 PIRATE. 97

" The devil take him ! " said Mordaunt, in impatient surprise.

" A' in gude time," replied the jagger ; " hurry no man's cattle—
the devil wiiy^ae 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 waistCQats tliat 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—wV the
grain, andi 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 Jaco-
bus, and bade me keep the change and be d — d ! — poor silly
profane creature, I pity him."

Without enquiring whether the pedlar bestowed his compas-
sion 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 reoeated 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 foUow 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 Jsend freend and

H

08 THE PIRATE,

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 yelikedjto coup* 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."

" Hand a care— haud a care, Maister Mordaunt," exclaimed the
pedlar ; " ye handle it as it were a bale of course wadmaal— ye'll
fray't to bits — ye might weel say my ware is tender — and ye'll mind
the price is four dollars— sail 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 j 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 whisp 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 fowling-piece, 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

THE PIRATE. 99

instant after the customer, who treated his wares with such irre-
verence,

Swertha also looked after him with some surprise. " The callant's
in a creel," quoth ^he.

" 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, Pryce 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 j " for
that's the gate your good deeds end,"

,jYe sail liae the fixing of the price yourseU ; 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 j and sae we mak
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 onything," said Swertha; "and now that I take another
look at that daft callant's waistcoat piece, I think it is honestly
tvorth four dollars."

H 2

THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER X.

I have possessed the regulation of the weather and the distrihu-
tion 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 suUen and pensive inactivity, stimulates
youth to eager and active exertion ; as if, like the hurt deer, they
endeavoured to drovm 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 Csesar 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 Mordaimt Mertoun, degraded in his own eyes
from the heigl-, jsfhich 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 famihar affec-
tion, that, with the same ease and innocence, there was un-
consciously mixed a shade of deeper though undefined tenderness
than characterises fraternal love, — they also seemed to have for-
gotten 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 favoiu-ed 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

THE PIRATE. lot

had at once lost the smiles of the fair, and the favour of the power-
ful. 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 un-
common 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 occasdoned 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 thiniiaze,
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 grej 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, forebore
their usual flight and screams, and floated in profound tranquillity
upon the silent water.'

Without taking any determined aim — without having any de-
termined 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 waterfowl
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

104 THE PIRATE.

apply to all nature, and all her objects, animate or inanimate, how-
ever 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 for-
gotten 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 un-
expectedly interrupted by some one touching his shoulder. He
looked around, and saw Noma 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 genera-
tions later. He doubted in his own mind the extent, nay, the very
existence, of Noma's supernatural attributes, which was a high
flight of incredulity in the country where they were universally re-
ceived ; 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 apparency
independent of mere earthly considerations. Impressed with these
ideas, which he had imbibed from his youth, it was not without some-
thing 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, accord-
ing 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
Noma suddenly alone, and in a place remote from witnesses ; and
she was supposed, on such occasions, to have been usually a

THE PIRATE. 103

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,* 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 ill the deepest cavern of Brinna-
stir, where the haaf-fish * 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 Noma,
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 Noma, frowning ;
then suddenly changing her tone of displeasure to that of mournful
solemnity, she added, — " Despise therh 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 oi' - 1 mity, 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

104- THE PIRATE

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. Noma 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 pro-
ceeded in a tone in which the imaginary consequence and import-
ance 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 idk and unfruitful laughter — ^it was a time
of causeless and senseless tears ; — and yet, with its follies, and its
sorrows, and its weakijesses, what would Noma 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 neg-
lected isles, — I will be her whose foot the wave wets not, save by
her permission ; aye, 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 tlie tempest iink before
them — Speak, bear me witness ! "

To have contradicted her in this stram of hi^-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 Noma, 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 vic-
torious from Bergen to Palestine — never, for all that the round

THE PIRATE. 103

world contains, do thou barter thy peace of mind for such greatness
as Noma's." She resunred her seat upon the rock, drew the mantle
over her face, rested her head upon upon her hands, and by the
convulsive motion which agitated her bosom, appeared to be
weeping bitterly.

" Good Noma," said Mordaunt, and paused, scarce knowing
what to say • that might console the unhappy woman — " Good
Noma," he again resumed, "if there be aught in your mind that
troubles it, were you not best to go to the worthy minister at Dun-
rossness? 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."

Noma 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 i" — 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 fi^nd 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 Noma, 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 preci-
pice 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 ! "

io6 THE PIRATE.

Moi-daunt, 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 re-assume his seat, and listen to what she had further to say, in
hopes that she would gradually overcome the violence of her agita-
tion. It was not long ere she seemed to have gained the victory
her companion expected, for she addressed him in her usual steady
and autlforitative 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. Noma 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
ihy aid to crush the reptile, and to save the noble brood of the
lord of the north sky ? "

" You must speak more plainly. Noma," 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-
tVestra — the lovely daughters of the generous old UdaUer, 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 Noma, 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,
Noma, 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 Noma. " 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 Noma — "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."

THE PIRATE. icy

" 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 Noma, " 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," rephed Noma, " 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 Noma, 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 1
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 acknow-
ledged 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 Noma 5

io3 THE PIRATE,

we seek our friends when they are sick in health, why not when
they are sick in mind, and surfeited with prosperi{y ? Do not fail
to go— it may be, we shall meet there. Meanwhife 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 Noma, 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.

CHAPTER XI.

All your ancient customs,

Andlong-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, -tfie groom the wall ;
For all old practice will I tuMnaad 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 inuendo, 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 hand their ain— luck never came ofa half-drowned
man, or a half-hanged ane either. Who was't shot Will Paterson
off the Nossi"— 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,'

THE PIRATE. 109

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 ; a^nd 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 anothen 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 ov/n 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 circum-
stances in which he was placed ; yet he felt as if a sort -of spell
were drawn arounji 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 appear-
ance 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 j 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

'lio THE PIRATE.

are about to tread— a fall from the oliffs of Foula were not more
fatal."

iSlay 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 th day that first
opened their qyes upon heaven ! 1 bid you beware of them j 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 Ether'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 femjJes 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 alter-
nately on the injunctions of Noma— on the ominous words of his
father — on the inauspicious auguries of Swertha and the Ranzel-
man 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 cha-
racter, 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 PIRATE. iii

The weather being now serene and undisturbed, Mordaunt made
his way with an ease that formed a striking contrast to the difficul-
ties 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 v/as 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 habi-
tation, as the reader may remember, of the ingenious Mr. Yellow-
ley. 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 gar-
ment, 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 sea-mew'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 deter-
mination.

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 sandy-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 un-
timely fate of the smoked goose was commemorated in the second

112 THE PIRATE.

clause. " I will lajrthe bufden of my life," she instantly added,
" that he is ganging' our gate."

"I am bound for Burgh- Westra, Mrs. Yellowley," said Mor-
daunt.

"And blithe will we.be of your company," she added— "it's
early day to eat ; but H' you liked a barley scone and a drink
of Mand — natheless, it.is ill travelling on a full stomach, besides
quelUng. 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 Triptole-
mus; 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 kettfe; and even the lady herself could not resist the
tenq)t-ation, 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 anything 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 them-
selves.

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 muhiplied 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 thresh-
hold, which, on all ordinary occasions, abhorred the passage of a
guest ; nor was Mr. Yellowley altogether insensible of the pleasure

THE tlRATE.

"3

he promised himself in detaihng 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 accomphshed, 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 alboliih, yet,
like a wise man_, he scrupled not, in the meantime, to avail him-
self 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 pro-
cured 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 ven-
erable antiquity — a mass, as it were, of cushion and padding,
from which depended, on all sides, a housing of ancient tapestry,
which, having been orginally 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 Yel-
lowley, 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

ri4 THE PIRATE.

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 em-
broidery was somewhat frayed and tattered, " it was not sae wasteful
to ane's horse-furniture."

Meanwhile, her brother stepped stoutly to his steed j 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 com-
pletely enveloped in 'drapery than that of his sister. It happened,
moreover, to be an animal of a high and contumacious spirit,
bouncing and curvetting occasionally under the weight of Triptole-
mus, 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 j and, to any who had
viewed Triptolemus under such a persuasion, the gravity, and even
distress, announced in his countenance, must have made a ridicu-
lous 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 dis-
courses 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 pro-
prietor's fingers, Triptolemus had at least the zeal, if not the know-

THE PIRATE. iij

ledge, 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 Mor-
daunt 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
skeoeSj 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 deceive from the higher classes, and especially
"yom 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 hava you build too strongly on that," said Mor-
daunt, by way of cautuj-n ; " Magnus Troll's boat is kittle to trim —
he likes nis 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 ihepte !" said the scholar of St. 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 appella-
tive this iJagnus 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, Tt 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 '^uaVrel with your proposed reforma-
tion, before you can convince him of its advantages."

I 3

Ii6 THE PIRATE.

" 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,*
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 them-
sells 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 Grindlebum, and wi' his very knave too,
about in-town and out-town multures — lock, gowpen, and knave-
ship, 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 inter-
ifupted 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 hor 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 stiU, I say-
wherefore— wherefore — The deil's in the beast, and nae good, I
think ! "

As he wttered 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 sur-
veying ; 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.

THE PIRATE. 117

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 ob-
served, 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, v/ho, conscious he
was now on the eve of approaching Burgh-Westra, employed him-
self 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 lyas more wholesome than strong ale, and
that if her brother had bruised his ankle bone in his tumble, cum-
frey 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, open-
ing 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

Ii8 THE PIRATE.

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 pre-
parations for the festival were not confined to the principal
residence of Magnus himself, but extended through the whole
vicinage.

" My Gertie," said Mrs. Baby Yellowley, " ane wad think the
haill town was on fire ! The very hillside smells of their wasteful-
ness, and a hungry heart wad scarce seek better kitchen* to a
barley scone, than just to waft it in the reek that's rising out of yon
lums."

CHAPTER XII.

Thou has described

A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius,
When love begins to sicken and decay,
It useth an enforced ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.

Julius Casar

If the smell which was wafted from the chimneys of Burgh-
Westra up to the barren hills by which the mansion, was sur-
rounded, 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 con-
nected with jollity and kind welcome. Nor were the sights asso-
ciated 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 th'e usual mode of discharging the cavalry which had
been levied for a day's service. At a small but commodious har-
bour, 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

THE PIRATE. 119

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 vs^elcome 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 oR 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.
T.Iordaunt'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.

120 THE PIRATE.

" Jada 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 speeeh. 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 Troll'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 receiv-
ing and welcoming the numerous guests who successively ap-
proached. 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, ren-
dered 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 greet-
ing all prior arrivals. When he approached Triptolemus Yellow-
ley, 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 ap-
proached to a smile. He then looked full at Mordaunt Mertoun,
and without offering his hand, said, in a tone somewhat broken

THE PIRATE. lEI

by suppressed agitation, "You too are welcome, Master Mor-
daunt."

" Did I not think so,'' said Mordaunt, naturalljj offended by tlie
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 wails, 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 pre-
sent 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 thege revellers the presence of Mordaunt

133 THE PIRATE.

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 frieiids.
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 conse-
quence, 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 execntion employed in fitting up this favourite apart-
ment, and in disposing its ornaments. It was, indeed, during his
last residence at Burgh-Westra, as free to his entrance and occupa-
tion, 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 Cleve-
land, 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, accom-
panying 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 thetwo lovely sisters.

THE PIRATE. 123

The reception the youth met with resembled," in general cha-
racter, 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 ah ordinary acquaintance. But
the blush of the elder was one of those transient evidences of flit-
ting 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, Morda'unt 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 comphment 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 aay distinct difference betwixt these two beautiful and inte-
resting girls, the favour of her, which seemed most absolutely
withdrawn, Ijecame 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 corhpliments to his
preserver, having only delayfed 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 satis-
faction, 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

124 THE PIRATE.

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 observa-
tion, 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 Mertouh — 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 nevw b§ h? will %o\>,^

THE PIRATE. I2S

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?" lie added, addressing the young women, upon whom, as
we have said elsewhere, he had long before bestowed these alle-
gorical 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 Hafcro," 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 any-
where."

" 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 ine, 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 endea-
voured to stop them, making, at the same time, a theatrical gesture,
and exclaimifl?,

126 THE PIRATE.

" 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 anything 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 pojnt, or why a woman
changes her mind. Were I Mr. Mordaunt, I would not ask the
preud 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 tlie 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 hap-
pened 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 provok-
ing. 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

THE PIRATE. 127

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 Cleve-
land, 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 Dryd^
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 iii 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 pro-
motion."

" 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 into practice all the
usual means of prevention, — " The song ? Why I gave a copy of

128 THE PIRATE.

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 tivisted on the watch at mid-
night."

" 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 stiU 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 Linldetter, 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.

THE PIRATE. 129

" Not a bit— not a bit," replied his eulogist, " Tim Thimble-
thwaite (he was a Cumberland-man by birth) had the soul of a
prince — ay, and died with the fortune of one j 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
draw 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, ex-
tricating his button from the gripe of the unmerciful bard's finger
and thumb, " for I have no time to take an observation." So say-
ing, he bolted from the room.

" A silly, iU-bred, conceited fool," said Halcro, looking after him ;
" with as little manners as wit in his empty coxcomb. I wonder
what Magnus and these siUy 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 effect-
ing 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 weairy 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

K

130 THE PIRATE.

under his arm, grappled him more effectually ; to which Mordaunt
submitted, a little moved by the poet's observation upon the un-
kindness of old acquaintances, under which he himself was an in)-
mediate 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 instru-
ment 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 re-
member — 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.

THE PIRATE. 131

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 skiiif 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 can-
not resist it— and he has a heart as impenetrable to poetry g.nd 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.

K 2

132 THE PIRATE.

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.

Odyssey.

The hospitable profusion of Magnus Troll's board, the number
of guests who feasted in the hall, the much greater number of re-
tainers, attendants, humble friends, and domestics of every possible
description, who revelled without, with tlie multitude of the still
poorer, and less honoured assistants, who came from every hamlet
or township within twenty mile's round, to share the bounty of
the munificent Udaller, were such as altogether astonished Trip-
tolemus 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, suf-
ficient 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 quahty, 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

THE PIRATE.

133

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 esteeni 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 civihty 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 annihi-
lated 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 score that he had upon other occasions given pre-
ference 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 render-
ing to his fair neighbours all the usual attentions which society
required, Mordaunt kept up a covert, but accurate and close ob-
servation, 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 hospitahty, 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 at-

134 THE PIRATE.

tentions 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 resent-
ment.

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, in-
timated a degree of the highest favour. He observed this, and his
heart rose against the favourite by whom he had been thus super-
seded, 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

THE PIRATE. 13S

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 j^riori, 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, eyen the handsome
with the handsome ? and, is it not evident, that the degraded castes
of the foolish, the ignorant, the brutal, and the deformed, (com-
prehending, 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 pro-
tection 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 pla9e 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 un-
expected and ill-suited attachments, we have occasion to acknow-
ledge, 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 con
templated. The wise purposes which Providence appears to havj

136 THE PIRATE.

had in view, by permitting such intermixture of dispositions,
tempers, and understandings, in the married state, are not accom-
plished 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 re-
semblance 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
amanas Cleveland, handsome, bold, and animated, — amanwhohad
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 ex-
tensive 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, ap-
peared 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 dis-
appointed 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 Kne of conduct which we allow to seem absolutely un-
natural in such a narrative as the present, though the most common
event in ordinary life ; namely, in Minna's appearing to have over-

THE PIRATE. 137

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 in-
dividual, 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 pre-
tend 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 ob-
serve 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 ex-
pression 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. Noma, he remembered, had
stated that these two amiable young women were in. danger, the nature

138 THE PIRATE.

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 Groat-
settars 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 re-
tiring from table. Minna, with a native grace, and somewhat of
statelin^ss 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 shghtest
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 dis-
pleasure 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 gujssts 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 ofone 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 PIRATE. 139

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 dedi-
cated 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 pro-
posed more concisely by a whiteheaded compeer of Magnus Troil,
in the words, " God open the mouth of the o'rey fish, and keep his
hand about the corn !"*

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 Zet-
landers 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 RoUo 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 exhilara-
tion, 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

I40 THE PIRATE.

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.

CHAPTER XIV.

We'll keep our customs — what is law itself,

But old establish'd custom ? What rehgion,

(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.

Old 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 circum-
navigated 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 some-
thing 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 advan-
tages 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 un-
limited digressions ; so that the story, like a horse on the grand
pas, seemed to be advancing with rapidity, while, in reality, it

THE PIRATE. 141

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 ilinging about, like squibs
knd 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 sherifT-dflicers 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 hap-
pened 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 agricul-

142 THE PIRATE.

turist, " 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 land-
lord.

" 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 YeUowIey— 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, some-
what 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

THE PIRATE. 143

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 hke 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 Thimble-
thwaite 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 readi-
ness 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 ? "

144 THE PIRATE.

" 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 two 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 Black-

THE PIRATE. 14S

more, 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 can-
non 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 Thimble-
thwaite ; but he made such work with his Dumbletalte and Timble-
tate, that I thought his explanation would have lasted '.'

"As long as your own story," thought Mordaunt ; but the narra-
tive 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.

146 THE PIRATE.

" 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 prac-
tice, 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 anything 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 Tripto-
lemus 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 staunch topers, who, taking the option left them by
the Udaller, remained behind to relieve the Jolly Mariner of a fresh
cargo, amidst many pledges to the health of their absent lardlord,
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. Draw-
ing-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 deposi-
tation of merchandise, sometimes for putting aside lumber, and a
thousand other purposes, was well known to all the youth of Dun-
rossness, and of many a district besides, as the scene of the merry

THE PIRATE. 147

dance, which was sustained with so mucn 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 illu-
minated 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 Nep-
tune, 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 afteir 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 ;
tte 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 ilpon 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
hiiown disappointment, which he felt it was neither wise to enter-

L 2

148 THE PIRATE.

tain nor manl^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 dis-
pleased silence, to inform Mordaunt, after thanking him for his
civility, that the hands of her nieces were engaged for that even-
ing ; and, as he continued to watch the party at a little distance,
he had an opportunity of being convinced that the alleged engage-
ment was a mere apology to get rid of him, when he saw the two
good-humoured sisters join in 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 Mer-
toun 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 observa-
tion 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.

Romeo and Juliet.

The youth, says the moralist Johnson, care? 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, never-
theless, think thay did well to be angry if deposed from their usual
place in an assembly of a different kind. There lacked not amuse-
ment, 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

THE PIRATE. i4q

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 transla-
tions 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.*

Half listening, half lost in his own reflections, Mordaunt Mer-
toun 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 :

Cfie Song of J^arolti fl^arfaget.

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-haired 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,
f o the field, ye valiant Norsemen !

" Halt ye not for food or slumber,
View not vantage, count not number ;

ISO THE PIRATE.

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—
yet 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 rnany 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 sough-
ing awa in praise of such bloodthirsty doings, Master Claud
Halcro."

" It is a heresy," said the animated little poet, bridling and draw-
ing 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

THE PIRATE. 151

himself— ay, and to annoy another. The time has been, that if we
made not good ale and aquavitas, 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 inca-
pable 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 Hailtlanders, that any man would listen to ? "

" Spoken like an angel, most noble poet," said Cleveland, who,
during an interv^J 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, t 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 deliver-
ance 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 laugh-
ing 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

152 THE PIRATE.

had been also attracted by the vehemence of the little bard—
" where would you cruize upon, or against whom ?— we are all sub-
jects of one realm, I trow, and I would have you to remember, that
your voyage may bring you 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 Mon-
trose, when he came here- about the sixteen hundred and fifty-one,
and carried a sort of us off, will ye niU ye, to get our throats ^;ut in
the wilds of Strathnavern* — 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,* 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
gentlemen ; " 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.

THE PIRATE. 153

' 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 Zet-
lander ; " 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 sig-
nified it, — run or fight, 'twas all one ; — they took Montrose, poor
feUow, 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 Cleve-
land, 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 Scandi-
navians that gave us our names and, lineage. — Get ye along, get ye
along to the sword-dance,* that the strangers that are amongst us
may see that our hands and our weapons are not altogether unac-
quainted 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 com-
menced 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 hold-
ing their swords erect, and without much gesture ; but the tune,
and the corresponding motions of the dancers, became gradually

IS4 THE PIRATE.

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 per-
formers, 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 cross-
ing 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 soli-
tude. 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 atten-
tion, 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 accom-
panied 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 ob-
served, for he knew Minna's character well, and with what equa-
nimity 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.

THE PIRATE. 155

" Can it be possible she really loves this stranger ? " was the un-
pleasant 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 considera-
tion 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 cur-
rent, 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 excite-
ment 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 enable those
whose natural capacity and education have enabled them to com-
prehend and relish those difficult and comolicated 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.

IS6 THE PIRATE.

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, re-
peatedly before-mentioned. They had fish-spears, and other em-
blems of their assumed quaUty, 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 Mer-
maidens, were, in some cases, intermixed with real pearls ; and the
appearance, upon the whole, was such as might have done no dis-
credit 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."*
Indeed, had they not left their extremities in their natural s^ate, it
would have been impossible for the Zetland sirens to have executed

THE PIRATE. 157

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 be-
twixt a Nereid or Mermaid, and a Merman or Triton— the males
and females on either part forming a semi-chorus, which accom-
panied and bore burden to the principal singer.

MERMAID.

Fathoms deep beneath the wave,

Stringing beads of glistering peai
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 toUing shroudless seamen's knellj

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,

IS8 THE PIRATE.

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-sheUs, 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 masque. He ob-
served 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 thfe voe, or salt-water lake, now lying full
before them, its small summer-waves glistening and rippling under

THE PIRATE.

1.59

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 ? Noma 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 Noma, it could be only, he thought,
Brenda, who thus singled him out ; and when she had seated her-
self 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 expe-
rienced all the embarrassment of one who finds himself unexpect-
edly 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 suprised, 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 down-
ward, " that it is my father's pleasure ? "
■" No, it is not enough," returned Mertoun. ; " Your father cannot

i6o THE PIRATE.

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 extra-
ordinary 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. Noma 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 Noma's counsel, and more complaisant to her pecu-
liarities 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 Noma's peculiarities showed them-
selves 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 bless-
ings 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 teUing me either the calumny, or
the name of the villainous calumniator ! "

"O, there are more than one," answered Brenda, '-that have

THE PIRATE. i6i

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 exis-
tence ! "

" 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
wiU 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 ijiy 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-fea-
tured 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."

M

,62 THE PIRATE.

"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 busi-
ness 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 youn^ 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 melan-
choly, or so terrible ; and he laughed and danced more."

"And, perhaps, at that time, danced pftener 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 attend^
ing 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,

THE PIRATE. 163

from we know not whence, and may leave it in autumn, to go we
know not where."

" And who may yet entice a ZetlancJ 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 thinlc 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 what-
ever 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 enter-
taining 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 Noma, that I have ven-
tured to make this communication ; and I almost wonder, ' she
added, as she looted around her, " that I have had courage to carry

M a,

i64 THE PIRATE.

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 dis-
cover 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 distaht
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. Noma 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 Moraaunt. 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 recognize 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

THE PIRATE. i6s

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 liquoi^ 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 pains-
taking 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 mices,fitieri."

" 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 Tfiptolemus.
" My brain has more need of draining than of being drenched
with more liquor."

166 THE PIRATE.

" 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 demur-
rage."

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 Dob-
bin, 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 Trip-
tolemus afforded the same sort of amusement which a reveller
might give, bv 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 in-
fluence 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.

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 or 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.

Battle of the Slimmer Islanas.

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 obser/ed 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 retire-

THE PIRATE. 167

ment was afiforded ; 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 Zet-
land — 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 vsi'hatever mighty
potions are resorted to by bans vivans, under the facetious name of
a " hair of the dog that bit you." There was the potent Irish Us-
quebaugh — right Nantz — genuine Schiedamm — AquavitcE 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 beef — 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 pre-
parations 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 occuptaion
of this vacant morning with a formidable recitation of his own verses,
besides telling, at its full length, the whole history of his introduc-
tion 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

i68 THE PIRATE.

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 Scambes-
ter 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 in-
spire. A set of country squires, about to beat for the first wood-
cocks 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 destmction of the
foxes ; 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 ofif to encounter the monster, whom
the sea had sent for their amusement at so opportune a con-
juncture.

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 IVEistress 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

THE PIRATE. iSg

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 therefor^ particularly exposed to the meditated attack. At
this moment the enemy came down upon him. The front rank
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 reconnaissances upon the force and
situation of the enemy, on whom they were about to commence ^
simultaneous attack by land and sea.

This duty, the stout-hearted and experienced general, for so the
Udaller might be termed, would entrust 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 broad-
cloth, 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 flinch-
ing the huge animal which lay before them, — that is, the act of
separating its flesh from its bones. Upon closer examination,
howevei-, 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

J70 THE PIRATE.

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 Yellbwley,
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
biit 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."

The strict principle of equity, which dictated this last arrange-
ment, occasioned laughter among the men, and some slight con-
fusion among the women. The factor, however, thought it shame
to be so easily daunted. " Suum cuiqiic tribuito," said he ; "I
will stand for my lord's right and my own."

" Will you ? " rephed 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

THE PIRATE. 171

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 hke 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 authorative 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 ex-
planation, with a voice in which aijger was qualified by fear, and
both thinly disguised under an attempt to be jocular, and to re-
present 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 in-
flamed 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 anima-
tion. 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 accom-
plished, 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

172 THE PIRATE.

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 your-
selves, 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 resembhng 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 pre-
sided received the shower of brine which the animal spouted aloft;
and the adventurous Triptolemus, who had a full share of the im-
mersion, 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 safei
distance, and now, from these as well as from the shore, the unfor
tunate native of the deep was overwhelmed by all kinds of mis-
siles, — 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 assail-
ants 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 v/ounds upon its huge bulk.

The contest seemed at last pretty well over ; for although the

.1

THE PIRATE. 173

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 con-
siderably, 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 anti-
cipated his purpose ; and Mordaunt Mertoun, eager to distinguish
himself above Cleveland, had, with the whole strength he pos-
sessed, plunged a half-pike into the body of the animal. But
the leviathan, like a nation whose resources appear totally ex-
hausted 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 s'Ky 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 oleitm 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 sense-
less 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

174 THE PIRATE.

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 in-
stantly have brought him more effectual aid, but Eric Scambestcr
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 Mertoim'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 tell-tale 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 acquaint-
ance were not easily forgot, it was, on the whole, candidly ad-
mitted, 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.

THE PIRATE. 175

Whatever interest Mordaunt's condition excited while it, seemed
perilous, began to khate 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 Cleve-
land — 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, an,d something resembling gratified scorn. Claud Halcro
hastened to intimate to Mordaunt, that he owed his life to Cleve-
land ; 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 Cleve-
land, 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

17(5 THE PIRATE.

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 Moi-daunt out of the voe, see if he does not
give him sour siUocks 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 Inelancholy 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 Mor-
daunt 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- Wes-
tra, 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
bhtzen, we were only fit to fish flounders." *

^

^

■<:

THfi MftATie, t^^

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.
I Ancient 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 Halcfo ; " 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
sraa'."

iyS The PIkATfi,

"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 mysell 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
fnake 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 Snails-
foot, " 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 buckleSi
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'

THE PIRATE. 179

Stir ashore without the boatswain go in the boat — as rough a tar-
paulin 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 tanc 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

U 3

l§o THE PIRATE;

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 inter-
rupted in the fask 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, thattook 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 ■kiattle, 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
lionest 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

THE PIRATE. i8i

situation, and subjected to many additional exactions,) than they
had been witli 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 friendships 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

iSa THE PIRATE,

the lore of his earlier days ; " Clod-compeller/ro cloud-compeller,
fiecjjeXrjye^eTa ^€vs — Grcecv7n est,—\TX 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 em-
broideries, of such beauty and curiosity, fringed, flowered, and
worked, with such art and magnificence, upon foreign and arabes-
que 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 cheap-
ness 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 consider-
able 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 re-
membered.

" 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

THE PIRATE. 183

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 com-
pany. 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 twelve-
month 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 coun-
tenance 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 smail 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 consider-
able quantity. But the bard seldom had current coin in promptitude,
find, indeed; in his wandering way of life, had little roccasion for

lS4 THE PIRATE.

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, vcould not allow of his affording credit
to the purchaser. Mordaunt gathered the import of this conversa-
tion 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 maae,
as Cleveland, having turned from Mistress Baby, had become sud-
denly, 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 descrip-
tion, 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
chaplct ; " 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."

THE PIRATE. i8?

'' 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."

The laws of the Udaller in his own house were absolute as those
of the Medes. The two young men, regarding each other with
looks of sullen displeasure, drew off in different directions.

It is seldom that the second day of a prolonged festival equals
the first. The spirits, as well as the limbs, are jaded, and unequal
to the renewed expenditure of animation and exertion ; and the
dance at Burgh- Westra was sustained with much less mirth than
on the preceding evening. It was yet an hour from midnight, when
even the reluctant Magnus Troil, after regretting the degeneracy
of the times, and wishing he could transfuse into the modern
Hialtlanders some of the vigour which still animated his own
frame, found himself compelled to give the signal for general
retreat.

Just as this took place, Halcro, leading Mordaunt Mertoun a
little aside, said he had a message to him from Captain Cleveland.

'A message ! " said Mordaunt, his heart beating somewhat thick
as he spoke — " A challenge, I suppose ? "

" A challenge ! " repeated Halcro ; " who ever heard of a chal-
lenge in our quiet islands ? Do you think that I look like a carrier
of challenges, and to you of all men living ? — I am none of those
fighting fools, as glorious John calls them ; and it was not quite a
message I had to deliver — only thus far — this Captain Cleveland
I find, hath set his heart upon having these articles you looked at."

" He shall not have them, I swear to you," replied Mordaunt
Mertoun.

" Nay, but hear me," said Halcro ; " it seems that, by the marks
or arms that are upon them, he knows that they were formerly his
property. Now, were you to give me the box, as you promised, I
fairly tell you, I should give the man back his own."

" And Brenda might do the like," thought Mordaunt to himself,
and instantly replied aloud, " I have thought better of it, my friend.
Captain Cleveland shall have the toys he sets such store by, but it
is on one sole condition."

" Nay, you will spoil all with your conditions," said Halcro ;
" for, as glorious John says, conditions are but "

" Hear me, I say, with patience.— My condition is, that he keeps

I35 THE PIRATE.

the toys in exchange for the rifle-gun I accepted from him, which
will leave no obligation between us on either side."

" I see where you would be — this is Sebastian and Dorax all
over. Well, you may let the jagger know he is to deliver the
things to Cleveland— I think he is mad to have them— and I will
let Cleveland know the conditions annexed, otherwise honest Bryce
might come by two payments instead of one ; and I believe his
conscience would not choke upon it."

With these words, Halcro went to seek out Cleveland, while
Mordaunt, observing Snailsfoot, who, as a sort of privileged person,
had thrust himself into the crowd at the bottom of the dancing-
room, went up to him, and gave him directions to deliver the dis-
puted articles to Cleveland as soon as he had an opportunity.

" Ye are in the right, Maister Mordaunt," said the jagger ; " ye
are a prudent and a sensible lad — a calm answer turneth away
wrath — and mysell, I sail be willing to please you in ony trifling
matters in my sma' way ; for, between the Udaller of Burgh- Westra
and Captain Cleveland, a man is, as it were, atween the deil and
the deep sea; and it was like that the Udaller, in the end, would
have taken your part in the dispute, for he is a man that loves
justice."

" Which apparently you care very little about. Master Snails-
foot," said Mordaunt, " otherwise there could have been no dispute
whatever, the right being so clearly on my side, if you had pleased
to bear witness according to the dictates of truth."

" Maister Mordaunt," said the jagger, " I must own there was,
as it were, a colouring or shadow of justice on your side ; but then,
the justice that I meddle with, is only justice in the way of trade,
to have an ellwand of due length, if it be not something worn out
with leaning on it in my lang and painful journeys, and to buy and
sell by just weight and measure, twenty-four merks to the lispund ;
but I have nothing to do, to do justice betwixt man and man, like
a Fowd or a Lawright-man at a lawting lang syne."

" No one asked you to do so, but only to give evidence according
to your conscience," replied Mordaunt, not greatly pleased either
with the part the jagger had acted during the dispute, or the con-
struction which he seemed to put on his own motives for yielding
up the point.

But Bryce Snailsfoot wanted not his answer ; " My conscience,"
he said, " Maister Mordaunt, is as tender as ony man's in my de-
gree ; but she is something of a timorsome nature, cannot abide
angry folk, and can never speak above her breath, when there is
aught of a fray going forward. Indeed, she hath at all times 4
small and low voice,"

THE PIRATE. 187

" Which you are not much in the habit of listening to,'' said
Mordaunt.

" There is that on your ain breast that proves the contrary," said
Bryce, resolutely.

" In my breast ? " said Mordaunt, somewhat angrily, — " what
know I of you ? "

" I said on your breast, Maister Mordaunt, and not in it. I am
sure nae eye that looks on that waistcoat upon your own gallant
brisket, but will say, that the merchant who sold such a piece for
four dollars had justice and conscience, and a kind heart to a
customer to the boot of a' that ; sae ye shouldna be sae thrawart
wi' me for having spared the breath of my mouth in a fool's
quarrel."

" I thrawart ! " said Mordaunt ; "pooh, you silly man ! I have
no quarrel with you."

" I am glad of it," said the travelling merchant ; " I will quarrel
with no man, with my will — least of all with an old customer ; and
if you will walk by my advice, you will quarrel nane with Captain
Cleveland. He is like one of yon cutters and slashers that have
come into Kirkwall, that think as little of slicing a man, as we do
of flinching a whale — it's their trade to fight, and they live by it ;
and they have the advantage of the like of you, that only take it up
at your own hand, and in the way of pastime, when you hae nothing
better to do."

The company had now almost all dispersed ; and Mordaunt,
laughing at the jagger's caution, bade him good-night, and went to
his own place of repose, which had been assigned to him by Eric
Scambester, (who acted the part of chamberlain as well as butler,)
in a small room, or rather closet, in one of the out -houses, furnished
for the occasion with the hammock of a sailor.

CHAPTER XIX.

I pass like night from land to land,

I have strange power of speech ;
So soon as e'er his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me.

To him my tale I teach.

Coleridge's Ri7ne of the Ancient Mariner.

The daughters of Magnus Troil shared the same bed, in a
chamber which had been that of their parents before the death

t88 THE PIRATE.

of their mother. Magnus, who suffered grievously under that
dispensation of Providence, had become disgusted with the
apartment. The nuptial chamber was abandoned to the pledges
of his bereaved affection, of whom the eldest was at that period
only four years old, or thereabouts ; and, having been their nursery
in infancy, continued, though now tricked and adorned according
to the best fashion of the islands, and the taste of the lovely sisters
themselves, to be their sleeping-room, or, in the old Norse dialect,
their bower.

It had been for many years the scene of the most intimate con-
iidence, if that could be called confidence, where, in truth, there
was nothing to be confided ; where neither sister had a secret ; and
where every thought that had birth in the bosom of the one, was,
without either hesitation or doubt, confided to the other as
spontaneously as it had arisen. But, since Cleveland abode in the
mansion of Burgh-Westra, each of the lovely sisters had entertained
thoughts which are not lightly or easily communicated, unless she
who listens to them has previously assured herself that the con-
fidence will be kindly received. Minna had noticed what other
and less interested observers had been unable to perceive, that
Cleveland, namely, held a lower rank in Brenda's opinion than in
her own ; and Brenda', on her side, thought that Minna had hastily
and unjustly joined in the prejudices which had been excited against
Mordaunt Mertoun in the mind of their father. Each was sensible
that she was no longer the same to her sister ; and this conviction
was a painful addition to other painful apprehensions which they
supposed they had to struggle with. Their manner towards each
other was, in outward appearances, and in all the little cares by
which affection can be expressed, even more assiduously kind than
before, as if both, conscious that their internal reserve was a breach
of their sisterly union, strove to atone for it by double assiduity in
those external marks of affection, which, at other times, when there
was nothing to hide, might be omitted without inferring any
consequences.

On the night reierred to in particular, the sisters felt more
especially the decay of the confidence which used to exist betwixt
them. The proposed voyage to Kirkwall, and that at the time of
the fair, when persons of every degree in these islands repair thither,
either for business or amusement, was likely to be an important
incident in lives usually so simple and uniform as theirs ; and, a
few months ago, Minna and Brenda would have been awake half
the night, anticipating, in their talk with each other, all that was
likely to happen on so momentous an occasion. But now the
subject was just mentioijed, and suffered to drop, as if the tcpig

THE PIRATE. tSg

Was likely to produce a difference betwixt them, or to call forth a
more open display of their several opinions than either was willing
to make to the other.

Yet such was their natural openness and gentleness of disposition,
that each sister imputed to herself the fault that there was aught
like estrangement existing between them ; and when, having
finished their devotions, and betaken themselves to their common
couch, they folded each other in their arms, and exchanged a
sisterly kiss, and a sisterly good-night, they seemed mutually to ask
pardon, and to exchange forgiveness, although neither said a word
of offence, either offered or received ; and both were soon plunged
in that light and yet profound repose, which is only enjoyed when
§leep sinks down on the eyes of youth and innocence.

On the night to which the story relates, both sisters were visited
by dreams, which, though varied by the moods and habits of the
sleepers, bore yet a strange general resemblance to each other.

Minna dreamed that she was in one of the most lonely recesses
of the beach, called Swartaster, where the incessant operation of
the waves, indenting a calcarious rock, has formed a deep halier,
which, in the language of the island, means a subterranean cavern,
into which the tide ebbs and flows. Many of these run to an
extraordinary and unascertained depth under ground, and are the
secure retreat of cormorants and seals, which it is neither easy nor
safe to pursue to their extreme recesses. Amongst these, this halier
of Swartaster was accounted peculiarly inaccessible, and shunned
both by fowlers and by seamen, on account of sharp angles and
turnings in the cave itself, as well as the sunken rocks which
rendered it very dangerous for skiffs or boats to advance far into it,
especially if there was the usual swell of an island tide. From the
dark-browed mouth of this cavern, it seemed to Minna, in her dream,
that she beheld a mermaid issue, not in the classical dress of a
Nereid, as in Claud Halcro's mask of the preceding evening, but
with comb and glass in hand, according to popular belief, and
lashing the waves with that long scaly train, which, in the traditions
of the country, forms so frightful a contrast with the fair face, long
tresses, and displayed bosom, of a human and earthly female, of
surpassing beauty. She seemed to beckon to Minna, while her
wild notes rang sadly in her ear, and denounced, in prophetic
sounds, calamity and woe.

The vision of Brenda was of a different description, yet equally
melancholy. She sat, as she thought, in her favourite bower, sur-
rounded by her father and a party of his most beloved friends,
amongst whom Mordaunt Mertoun was not forgotten. She was
required to sing ; and she strove to entertain them with a lively

iqo THE PIRATE.

ditty, in which she was accounted eminently successful, and
which she sung with such simple, yet natural humour, as seldom
failed to produce shouts of laughter and applause, while all who
could, or who could not sing, were irresistibly compelled to lend
their voices to the chorus. But, on this occasion, it seemed as if
her own voice refused all it^ usual duty, and as if, while she felt
herself unable to express the words of the well-known air, it
assumed, in her own despite, the deep tones and wild and melan-
choly notes of Noma of Fitful-head, for the purpose of chanting
some wild Runic rhyme, resembling those sung by the heathen
priests of old, when the victim (too often human) was bound to the
fatal altar of Odin or of Thor.

At length the two sisters at once started from sleep, and, uttering
a low scream of fear, clasped themselves in each other's arms.
For their fancy had not altogether played them false ; the sounds,
which had suggested their dreams, were real, and sung within their
apartment. They knew the voice well, indeed, and yet, knowing
to whom it belonged, their surprise and fear were scarce the less,
when they saw the well-known Noma of Fitful-head, seated by the
chimney of the apartment, which, during the summer season, con-
tained an iron lamp well trimmed, and, in winter, a fire of wood or
of turf.

She was wrapped in her long and ample garment of wadmaal,
and moved her body slowly to and fro over the pale flame of the
lamp, as she sung lines to the following purport, in a slow, sad, and
almost an unearthly accent : ,

" For leagues along the watery way.
Through gulf and stream my course has been ;

The billows know my Runic lay.
And smooth their crests to silent green.

" The billows know my Runic lay, —
The gulf grows smooth, the stream is still ;

But human hearts, more wild than they.
Know but the rule of wayward will.

" One hour is mine, in all the year.
To tell my woes, — and one alone ;
When gleams this magic lamp, 'tis here, —
When dies the mystic light, 'tis gone.

" Daughters of northern Magnus, hail !

The lamp is lit, the flame is clear, —
To you I come to tell my tale,

Awake, arise, my tale to hear I"

THE PIRATE. 19I

Noma was well known, to the daughters of Troil, but it was not
without emotion, although varied by their respective dispositions,
that they beheld her so unexpectedly^ and at such an hour. Their
opinions with respect to the supernatural attributes to which she
pretended, were extremely different.

Minna, with an unusual intensity of imagination, although
superior in talent to her sister, was more apt to listen to, and
delight in, every tale of wonder, and was at all times more willing
to admit impressions which gave her fancy scope and exercise,
without minutely examining their reality. Brenda, on the other
hand, had, in her gaiety, a slight propensity to satire, and was
often tempted to laugh at the very circumstances upon which
Minna founded her imaginative dreams ; and, like all who love
the ludicrous, she did not readily suffer herself to be imposed upon,
or overawed, by pompous pretensions of any kind whatever. But,
as her nerves were weaker and more irritable than those of her
sister, she often paid involuntary homage, by her fears, to ideas
which her reason disowned ; and hence, Claud Halcro used to say
in reference to many of the traditionary superstitions around Burgh-
Westra, that Minna believed them without trembling, and that
Brenda trembled without believing them. In our own" more
enlightened days, there are few whose undoubting mind and native
courage have not felt Minna's high wrought tone of enthusiasm ;
and perhaps still fewer, who have not, at one time or other, felt,
like Brenda, their nerves confess the influence of terrors which
their reason disowned and despised.

Under the power of such different feelings, Minna, when the first
moment of surprise was over, prepared to spring from her bed, and
go to greet Noma, who, she doubted not, had come on some errand
fraught with fate ; while Brenda, who only beheld in her a woman
partially deranged in her understanding, and who yet, fro;n the
extravagance of her claims, regarded her as an undefined object of
awe, or rather terror, detained her sister by an eager and terrified
grasp, while she whispered in her ear an anxious entreaty that she
would call for assistance. But the soul of Minna was too highly
wrought up by the crisis at which her fate seemed to have arrived,
to permit her to follow the dictates of her sister's fears ; and, extri-
cating herself from Brenda's hold, she hastily threw on a loose
nightgown, and, stepping boldly across the apartment, while her
heart throbbed rather with high excitement than with fear, she
thus addressed her singular visitor:

" Noma, if your mission regards us, as your words seem to
express, there is one of us, at least; who will receive its import with
reverence, but without fear,"

192 THE PIRATE.

"Noma, dear Noma," said the tremulous voice of Brenda, —
who, feehng no safety in the bed after Minna quitted it, had fol-
lowed her, as fugitives crowd into the rear of an advancing army,
because they dare not remain behind, and who now stood half
concealed by her sister, and holding fast by the skirts of her gown, —
Noma, dear Noma," said she, "whatever you are to say, let it be
to-morrow. I will call Euphane Fea, the housekeeper, and she
will find you a bed for the night."

" No bed for me ! " said their nocturnal visitor ; " no closing of
the eyes for me ! They have watched as shelf and stack appeared
and disappeared betwixt Burgh-Westra and Orkney — they have
seen the Man of Hoy sink into the sea, and the Peak of HengcM
arise from it, and yet they have not tasted of slumber ; nor must
they slumber now till my task is ended. Sit down, then, Minna,
and thou, silly trembler, sit down, while I trim my lamp — Don your
clothes, for the tale is long, and ere 'tis done, ye will shiver with
worse than cold."

" For Heaven's sake, then, put it off till daylight, dear Noma ! "
said Brenda ; " the dawn cannot be far distant ; and if you are to
tell us of anything frightful, let it be by daylight, and not by the
dim glimmer of that blue lamp ! "

" Patience, fool ! " said their uninvited guest. " Not by daylight
should Noma tell a tale that might blot the sun out of heaven, and
blight the hopes of the hundred boats that will leave this shore ere
noon, to commence their deep-sea fishing, — ay, and of the hundred
families that will await their return. The demon, whom the sounds
will not fail to awaken, must shake his dark wings over a shipless
and a boatless sea, as he rushes from his mountain to drink the
accents of horror he loves so well to listen to."

" Have pity on Brenda's fears, good Noma," said the elder sister,
" and at least postpone this frightful communication to another
place and hour."

"Maiden, no!" replied Noma, sternly; " it must be told while
that lamp yet bums. Mine is no daylight tale — by that lamp it
must be told, which is framed out of the gibbet-irons of the cruel
Lord of Wodensvoe, who murdered his brother ; and has for its
nourishment — but be that nameless — enough that its food never
came either from the fish or from the fruit ! — See, it waxes dim and
dimmer, nor must my tale last longer than its flame endureth. Sit
ye down there, while I sit here opposite to you, and place the lamp
betwixt us ; for within the sphere of its light the demon dares not
venture."

CThe sisters obeyed, Minna casting a slow awe-struck, yet deter-
mined look all around, as if to see the Being, who, according to the

THE PIRATE, 153

doubtful words of Norna, hovered in their neighbourhood ; while
Brenda's fears were mingled with some share both of anger and of
impatience. Norna paid no attention to eitker, but.- began her
story in the following words : —

" Ye know, my daughters, that your blood is allied to mine, but
in what degree ye know not ; for there was early hostility betwixt
your grandsire and him who had the misfortune to call me daughter.
— Let me term him by his Christian name of Erland, for that which
marks our relation I dare not bestow. Your grandsire Olave, was
the brother of Erland. But when the wide Udal possessions of
their father Rolfe Troil, the most rich and well estated of any who
descended from the old Norse stock, were divided betwixt the
brothers, the Fowd gave to Erland his father's lands in Orkney,
and reserved for Olave those of Hialtland. Discord arose between
the brethren ; for Erland held that he was wronged ; and when the
Lawting,* with the Raddmen and Law-right-men, confirmed the
division, he went in wrath to Orkney, cursing Hialtland and its
inhabitants — cursing his brother and his blood.

" But the love of the rock and of the mountain still wrought on
Erland's mind, and he fixed his dwelling not on the soft hills of
Ophir, or the green plains of Gramesey, but in the wild and moun-
tainous Isle of Hoy, whose summit rises to the sky like the cUffs of
Foulah and of Feroe.* He knew, — that unhappy Erland, — what-
ever of legendary lore Scald and Bard had left behind them ; and
to teach me that knowledge, which was to cost us both so dear, was
the chief occupation of his old age. I learned to visit each lonely
barrow — each lofty cairn — to tell its appropiiate tale, and to sooth
with rhymes in his praise the spirit of the stern warrior who dwelt
within. I knew where the sacrifices were made of yore to Thor
and to Odin, on what stones the blood of the victims flowed —
where stood the dark-browed priest — where the crested chiefs, who
consulted the will of the idol — where the more distant crowd of
inferior worshippers, who looked on in awe or in terror. The
places most shunned by the timid peasants had no terrors for me ;
I dared walk in the fairy circle, and sleep by the magic spring.

" But, for my misfortune, I was chiefly fond to linger about the
Dwarfie Stone, as it is called, a relic of antiquity, which strangers
look on with curiosity, and the natives with awe. It is a huge
fragment of rock, which lies in a broken and rude valley, full of
stones and precipices, in the recesses of the Ward-hill of Hoy.
The inside of the rock has two couches, hewn by no earthly hand,
and having a small passage between them. The doorwav is now
open to the weather ; but beside it lies a large stone, which,
adapted to grooves still visible in the entrance, once bad served to

o

194 THE PIRATE.

open and to close this extraordinary dwelling, which TroUd, a
dwarf famous in the northern Sagas, is said to have framed for his
own favourite residence. The lonely shepherd avoids the place ;
for at sunrise, high noon, or sunset, the misshapen form of the
necromantic owner may sometimes still be seen sitting by the
Dwarfie Stone.* I feared not the apparition, for, Minna, my heart
was as bold, and my hand was as innocent as yours. In my
childish courage, I was even but too presumptuous, and the thirst
after things unattainable led me, like our primitive mother, to
desire increase of knowledge, even by prohibited means. I longed
to possess the power of the Voluspae and divining women of our
ancient race ; to wield, like them, command over the elements ;
and to summon the ghosts of deceased heroes from their caverns,
that they might recite their daring deeds, and impart to me their
hidden treasures Often when watching by the Dwarfie Stone,
with mine eyes fixed on the Ward-hill, which rises above that
gloomy valley, I have distinguished, among the dark rocks, that
wonderful carbuncle,* which gleams ruddy as a furnace to them
who view it from beneath, but has ever become invisible to
him whose daring foot has scaled the precipices from which it
darts its splendour. My vain and youthful bosom burned to inves-
tigate these and an hundred other mysteries, which the Sagas that
I perused, or learned from Erland, rather indicated than explained ;
and in my daring mood, I called on the Lord of the Dwarfie Stone
to aid me in attaining knowledge inaccessible to mere mortals."

"And the evil spirit heard your summons?" said Minna, her
blood curdling as she listened.

" Hush," said Noma, lowering her voice, " vex him not with
reproach — he is with us — he hears us even now."

Brenda started from her seat. — " I will to Euphane Fea's
chamber," she said, " and leave you, Minna and Noma, to finish
your stories of hobgoblins and of dwarfs at your own leisure ; I
care not for them at any time, but I will not endure them at mid-
night, and by this pale lamplight."

She was accordingly in the act of leaving the room, when her
sister detained her.

" Is this the courage," she said, " of her, that disbelieves what-
ever the history of our fathers tells us of supernatural prodigy.'
What Noma has to tell concerns the fate, perhaps, of our father
atid his house ; — if I can listen to it, trusting that God and my
innocence will protect me from all that is malignant, you, Brenda,
who believe not in such influence, have surely no cause to tremble.
Credit me, that for the guiltless there is no fear."

" There may be no danger," said Brenda, unable to suppress her

THE PIRATE.

I9S

natural turn for humour, " but, as the old jest book says, there is
much fear. However, Minna, I will stay with you : — the rather,"
she added, in a whisper, " that I am loath to leave you alone with
this frightful woman, and that I have a dark staircase and long
passage betwixt and Euphane Fea, else I would have her hero ere
I were five minutes older."

" Call no one hither, maiden, upon peril of thy life," said
Noma, "and interrupt not my tale again ; for it cannot and must
not be told after that charmed light has ceased to burn."

"And I thank Heaven," said Brenda to herself, "that the oil
burns low in the cruize ! I am sorely tempted to lend it a puff,
but then Noma would be alone with us in the dark, and that
would be worse."

So saying, she submitted to her fate, and sat down, determined
to listen with all the equanimity which she could command to the
remaining part of Noma's tale, which went on as foUow's : —

" It happened on a hot summer day, and just about the hour of
noon," continued Noma, " as I eat by the Dwarfie Stone, with
my eyes fixed on the Ward-hill, whence the mysterious and ever-
burning carbuncle shed its rays more brightly than usual, and
repined in my heart at the restricted bounds of human know-
ledge, that at length I could not help exclaiming, in the words
of an ancient Saga,

' Dwellers of the mountain, rise,
TroUd the powerful, Hairas the wise !
Ye who taught weak woman's tongue
Words that sway the wise and strong, —
Ye who taught weak woman's hand
How to wield the magic wand,
And wake the gales on Foulah's steep,
Or lull wild Sumburgh's waves to sleep ! —
Still are ye yet? — Not yours the power
Ye knew in Odin's mightier hour.
What are ye now but empty names,
Powerful TroUd, sagacious Haims,
That, lightly spoken, lightly heard.
Float on the air like thistle's beard ? '

" I had scarce uttered these words," proceeded Noma, " era
the sky, which had been till then unusually clear, grew so
suddenly dark around me, that it seemed more like midnight
than noon. A single flash of lightning showed me at once the
desolate landscape of heath, morass, mountain, and precipice,
which lay around ; a single clap of thunder wakened all the
echoes of the Ward-hill, which continued so long to repeat the

o 2

196, THE PIRATE.

sound, that it seemed some rock, rent by the thunderbolt from the
summit, was rolling over cliff and precipice into the valley. Imme-
diately after, fell a burst of rain so violent, that I was fain to shun
its pelting, by creeping into the interior of the mysterious stone.

" I seated myself on the larger stone couch, which is cut at the
farther end of the cavity, and, with my eyes fixed on the smaller
bed, wearied myself with conjectures respecting the origin and
purpose of my singular place of refuge. Had it been really the
work of that powerful Ti'oUd, to whom the poetry of the Scalds
referred it? Or was it the tomb of some Scandinavian chief,
interred with his arms and his wealth, perhaps also with his immo-
lated wife, that what he loved best in life might not in death be
divided from him ? Or was it the abode of penance, chosen by
some devoted anchorite of later days ? Or the idle work of some
wandering mechanic, whom chance, and whim, and leisure, had
thrust upon such an undertaking ? I tell you the thoughts that
then floated through my brain, that ye may know that what ensued
was not the vision of a prejudiced or prepossessed imagination, but
an apparition, as certain as it was awful.

" Sleep had gradually crept on me, amidst my lucubrations, when
I was startled from my slumbers by a second clap of thunder ;
and, when I awoke, I saw, through the dim light which the upper
aperture admitted, the unshapely and indistinct form of TroUd the
dwarf, seated opposite to nie on the lesser couch, which his square
and misshapen bulk seemed absolutely to fill up. I was startled,
but not affrighted ; for the blood of the ancient race of Lochlin
was warm in my veins. He spoke ; and his words were of Norse,
so old, that few, save my father, or I myself, could have compre-
hended their import, — such language as was spoken in these islands
ere Olave planted the cross on the ruins of heathenism. His mean-
ing was dark also and obscure, like that which the Pagan priests
were wont to deliver, in the name of their idols, to the tribes that
assembled at the Helgafels.* This was the import,—

' A thousand winters dark have flown.
Since o'er the threshold of my Stone
A votaress pass'd my power to own.
Visitor bold
Of the mansion of TroUd,

Maiden haughty of heart,
Who hast hither presumed, —
Ungifted, undoom'd,

Thou shalt not depart ;
The power thou dost covet

O'er tempest and wave,

THE PIRAtiJ. to?

Shall be thine, thou proud maiden,
By beach and by cave, —
By stack * and by skerry,* by noup * and by voe,*
By air* and by wick,* and by lielyer* and gio,*
And by every wild shore which the northern winds know,

And the northern tides lave.
But though this shall be given thee, thou desperately orave,
I doom thee that never the gift thou shalt have,

Till thou reave thy life's giver

Of the gift which he gave.'

" I answered him in nearly the same strain ; for the spirit of the
ancient Scalds of our race was upon me, and, far from fearing the
phantom, with whom I sat cooped within so narrow a space, I
felt the impulse of that high courage which thrust the ancient
Champions and Druidesses upon contests with the invisible world,
when they thought that the earth no longer contained enemies
worthy to be subdued by them. Therefore did I answer him
thus : —

' Dark are thy words, and severe.

Thou dweller in the stone ;
But trembling and fear

To her are unknown.
Who hath sought thee here.

In thy dwelling lone.
Come what comes soever,

The worst I can endure ;
Life is but a short fever.

And Death is the cure.'

" The Demon scowled at me, as if at once incensed and over-
awed ; and then coiling himself up in a thick and sulphureous
vapour, he disappeared from his place. I did not, till that
moment, feel the influence of fright, but then it seized me. I
rushed into the open air, where the tempest had passed away, and
all was pure and serene. After a moment's breathless pause, I
hasted home, musing by the way on the words of the phantom,
which I could not, as often happens, recall so distinctly to memory
at the time, as I have been able to do since.

" It may seem strange that such an apparition should, in time,
have glided from my mind, like a vision of the night — but so it
was. I brought myself to believe it the work of fancy— I thought
I had lived too much in solitude, and had given way too much to
the feelings inspired by my favourite studies. I abandoned them
for a time, and I mixed with the youth of my age. I was upon a

ijs The pirAtE.

visit at Kirkwall when I learned to know your father, whom busi-
ness had brought thither. He easily found access to the relation
with whom I lived, who was anxious to compose, if possible, the
feud which divided our families. Your father, maidens, has been
rather hardened than changed by years— he had the same manly
form, the same old Norse frankness of manner and of heart, the
same upright courage and honesty of disposition, with more of the
gentle ingenuousness of youth, an eager desire to please, a willing-
ness to be pleased, and a vivacity of spirits which survives not our
early years. But though he was thus worthy of love, and though
Erland wrote to me, authorizing his attachment, there was another—
a stranger, Minna, a fatal stranger — full of arts unknown to us, and
graces which to the plain manners of your father were, unknown.
Yes, he walked, indeed, among us like a being of another and of a
superior race. — Ye look on me as if it were strange that I should
have had attractions for such a lover ; but I present nothing that
can remind you that Noma of the Fitful-head was once admired
and loved as UUa Troil — the change betwixt the animated body
and the corpse after decease, is scarce more awful and abso-
lute than I have sustained, while I yet linger on earth. Look
on me, maidens — look on me by this glimmering light — Can ye
believe that these haggard and weather->yasted features — these
eyes, which have been almost converted to stone, by looking upon
sights of terror — these locks, that, mingled with grey, now stream
out, the shattered pennons of a sinking vessel — that these, and she
to whom they belong, could once be the objects of fond affection?
— But the waning lamp sinks fast, and let it sink while I tell my
infamy. — We loved in secret, we met in secret, till I gave the last
proof of fatal and of guilty passion ! — And now beam out, thou
magic glimmer — shine out a little space, thou flame so powerful
even in thy feebleness — bid him who hovers near us, keep his dark
pinions aloof from the circle thou dost illuminate — live but a little
till the worst be told, and then sink when thou wilt into darkness,
as black as my guilt and sorrow !

While she spoke thus, she drew together the remaining nutri-
ment ot the lamp, and trimmed its decaying flame ; then again,
with a hollow voice, and in broken sentences, pursued her
narrative.

" I must waste little time in words. My love was discovered,
but not my guilt. Erland came to Pomona in anger, and tran-
sported me to our solitary dwelling in Hoy. He commanded me
to see my lover no more, and to receive Magnus, in whom he was
willing to forgive the offences of his father, as my future husband.
Alas, I no longer deserved his attachment — my only wish was to

THE PIRATE. 199

escape from my father's dwelling, to conceal my shame in my lover's
arms. Let me do him justice — he was faithful — too, too faithful —
his perfidy would have bereft me of my senses ; but the fatal con-
sequences of his fidelity have done me a tenfold injury."

She paused, and then resumed, with the wild tone of insanity,
" It has made me the powerful and the despairing Sovereign of the
Seas and Winds ! "

She paused a second time after this wild exclamation, and
resumed her narrative in a more composed manner.

" My lover came in secret to Hoy, to concert measures for my
flight, and I agreed to meet him, that we might fix the time when
his vessel should come into the Sound. I left the house at mid-
night."

Here she appeared to gasp with agony, and went on with her
tale by broken and interrupted sentences. " I left the house at
midnight — I had to pass my father's door, and I perceived it was
open — I thought hewatched us ; and, that the sound of my steps
might not break his slumbers, I closed the fatal door — a light and
trivial action — but, God in Heaven, what were the consequences !
— At morn, the room was full of suffocating vapour — my father was
dead — dead through my act— dead through my disobedience — dead
through my infamy ! All that follows is mist and darkness — a
choking, suffocating, stifling mist envelopes all that I said and did,
all that was said and done, until I became assured that my doom
was accomplished, and walked forth the calm and terrible being
you now behold me — the Queen of the Elements — the sharer in
the power of those beings to whom man and his passions give such
sport as the tortures of the dog-fish afford the fisherman, when
he pierces his eyes with thorns', and turns him once more into his
native element, to traverse the waves in blindness and agony.*
No, maidens, she whom you see before you is impassive to the
follies of which your minds are the sport. I am she that have
made the offering — I am she that bereaved the giver of the gift of
life which he gave me — the dark saying has been interpreted by
my deed, and I am taken from humanity, to be something pre-
eminently powerful, pre-eminently wretched ! "

As she spoke thus, the light, which had been long quivering,
leaped high for an instant, and seemed about to expire, when
Noma, interrupting herself, said hastily, " No more now — he
comes— he comes — Enough that ye know me, and the right I have
to advise and command you. — Approach now, proud Spirit ! if thou
wilt."

So saying, she extinguished the lamp, and passed out of the
apartment with her usual loftiness of step, as Minna could observe
from its measured cadence.

THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER XX.

Is all the counsel that we two have shared —
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us — O, and is all forgot ?

{Midsummer-Night's Dream.

The attention of Minna was powerfully arrested by this tale of
terror, which accorded with and explained many broken hints
respecting Noma, which she had heard from her father and other
near relations, and she was for a time so lost in surprise, not
unmingled with horror, that she did not even attempt to speak
to her sister Brenda. When, at length, she called hei; by her
name, she received no answer, and, on touching her hand, she
found it cold as ice. Alarmed to the uttermost, she threw open
the lattice and the window-shutters, and admitted at once the
free air and the pale glimmer of the hyperborean summer night.
She then became sensible that her sister was in a swoon. All
thoughts concerning Noma, her frightful tale, and her mysterious
connexion with the invisible world, at once vanished from Minna's
thoughts, and she hastily ran to the apartment of the old house-
keeper, to summon her aid, without reflecting for a moment what
sights she might encounter in the long dark passages which she had
to traverse.

The old woman hastened to Brenda's assistance, and instantly
applied such remedies as her experience suggested ; but the poor
girl's nervous system had been so much agitated . by the horrible
tale she had just heard, that, when recovered from her swoon, her
utmost endeavours to compose her mind not could prevent her
falling into a hysterical fit of some duration. This also was sub-
dued by the experience of old Euphane Fea, who was well versed
in all the simple pharmacy used by the natives of Zetland, and who,
after administering a composing draught, distilled from simples
and wild flowers, at length saw her patient resigned to sleep. Minna
stretched herself beside her sister, kissed her cheek, and courted
slumber in her turn ; but the more she invoked it, the farther
it seemed to fly from her eyelids ; and if at times she was dis-
posed to sink into repose, the voice of the involuntary parricide
seemed again to sound in her ears, and startled her into con-
sciousness.

The early morning hour at which they were accustomed to rise

THE PIRATE. 201

found the state of the sisters different from what might have been
expected. A sound sleep had restored the spirit of Brenda's hglit-
some eye, and the rose on her laughing cheek ; the transient in-
disposition of the preceding night having left as little trouble on
her look, as the fantastic terrors of Noma's tale had been able to
impress on her imagination. The looks of Minna, on the contrary,
were melancholy, downcast, and apparently exhausted by watching
and anxiety. They said at first little to each other, as if afraid of
touching a subject so fraught with emotion as the scene of the pre-
ceding night. It was not until they had performed together their
devotions, as usual, that Brenda, while lacing Minna's boddice, (for
they rendered the services of the toilet to each other reciprocally,)
became aware of the paleness of her sister's looks ; and having
ascertained, by a glance at the mirror, that her own did not wear
the same dejection, she kissed Minna's cheek, and said affec-
tionately, " Claud Halcro was right, my dearest sister, when his
poetical folly gave us these names of Night and Day."
" And wherefore should you say so now ? " said Minna.
" Because we each are bravest in the season that we take
our name from ; I was frightened wellnigh to death, by hearing
those things last night, which you endured with courageous firm-
ness ; and now, when it is broad light, I can think of them with
composure, while you look as pale as a spirit who is surprised by
sunrise."

" You are lucky, Brenda," said her sister, gravely, " who can so
soon forget such a tale of wonder and horror."

" The horror," said Brenda, " is never to be forgotten, unless one
could hope that the unfortunate woman's excited imagination,
which shows itself so active in conjuring up apparitions, may have
fixed on her an imaginary crime."

" You believe nothing, then," said Minna, "of her interview at the
Dwarfie Stone, that wondrous place, of which so many tales are
told, and which, for so many centuries, has been reverenced as the.
work of a demon, and as his abode ? "

" I believe," said Brenda, " that our unhappy relative is no im-
postor, — and therefore I believe that she was at the Dwarfie Stone
during a thunder-storm, that she sought shelter in it, and that,
during a swoon, or during sleep perhaps, some dream visited her
concerned with the popular traditions with which she was so con-
versant ; but I cannot easily believe more."

" And yet the event," said Minna, " corresponded to the dark
intimations of the vision."

" Pardon me," said Brenda, " I rather think the dream would
never have been put into shape, or perhaps remembered at all, but

202 THE PIRATE.

for the event. She tald us herself she had nearly forgot the vision,
till after her father's dreadful death,— and who shall warrant how
much of what she then supposed herself to remember was not the
creation of her own fancy, disordered as it naturally was by the
horrid accident ? Had she really seen and conversed with a necro-
mantic dwarf, she was likely to remember the conversation long
enough — at least I am sure I should."

"Brenda," replied Minna, "you have heard the good minister
of the Cross-Kirk say, that human wisdom was worse than folly,
when it was applied to mysteries beyond its comprehension ; and
that, if we believed no more than we could understand, we should
resist the evidence of our senses, which presented us, at every turn,
circumstances as certain as they were unintelligible."

" You are too learned yourself, sister," answered Brenda, " to
need the assistance of the good minister of Cross-Kirk ; but I
think his doctrine only related to the mysteries of our religion,
which it is our duty to receive without investigation or doubt — but
in things occurring in common life, as God has bestowed reason
upon us, we cannot act wrong in employing it. But you, my dear
Minna, have a warmer fancy than mine, and are willing to receive
all those wonderful stories for truth, because you love to think of
sorcerers, and dwarfs, and water-spirits, and would like much to
have a little trow, or fairy, as the Scotch call them, with a green
coat, and a pair of wings as brilliant as the hues of the starling's
neck, specially to attend on you."

" It would spare you at least the trouble of lacing my boddice,"
said Minna, " and of lacing it wrong, too ; for in the heat of your
argument you have missed two eyelet-holes."

" That error shall be presently mended," said Brenda ; " and
then, as one of our friends might say, I will haul tight and belay —
but you draw your breath so deeply, that it will be a difficult matter.''

" I only sighed," said Minna, in some confusion, " to think.how
soon you can trifle with and ridicule the misfortunes of this extra-
ordinary woman."

" I do not ridicule them, God knows ! " replied Brenda, some-
what angrily ; " it is you, Minna, who turn all I say in truth and
kindness, to something harsh or wicked. I look on Noma as a
woman of very extraordinary abilities, which are very often united
with a strong cast of insanity ; and I consider her as better skilled
in the signs of the weather than any woman in Zetland. But that
she has any power over the elements, I no more believe, than I do
ill the nursery stories of King Erick, who could make the wind
blow from the point he set his cap to."

Minna, somewhat nettled with the obstinate incredulity of her

THE PIRATE. 203

sister, replied sharply, " And yet, Brenda, this woman — half-mad
woman, and the veriest impostor — is the person by whom you
choose to be advised in the matter next your own heart at this
moment ! "

" I do not know what you mean," said Brenda, colouring deeply,
and shifting to get away from her sister. But as she was now
undergoing the ceremony of being laced in her turn, her sister had
the means of holding her fast by the silken string with which she
was fastening the boddice, and, tapping* her on the neck, which
expressed, by its sudden writhe, and sudden change to a scarlet
hue, as much pettish confusion as she had desired to provoke, she
added, more mildly, " Is it not strange, Brenda, that, used as we
have been by the stranger Mordaunt Mertoun, whose assurance
has brought him uninvited to a house where his presence is so
unacceptable, you should still look or think of him with favour ?
Surely, that you do so should be a proof to you, that there are such
things as spells in the country, and that you yourself labour under
them. It is not for nought that Mordaunt wears a chain of elfin
gold — ^look to it, Brenda, and be wise in time."

" I have nothing to do with Mordaunt Mertoun," answered
Brenda, hastily, " nor do I know or care what he or any other
young man wears about his neck. I could see all the gold chains
of all the bailies of Edinburgh, that Lady Glowrowrum speaks so
much of, without falling in fancy with one of the wearers." And,
having thus complied with the female rule of pleading not guilty
in general to such an indictment, she immediately resumed, in a
different tone, " But, to say the truth, Minna, I think you, and all
of you, have judged far too hastily about this young friend of ours,
who has been so long our most intimate companion. Mind, Mor-
daunt Mertoun is no more to me than he is to you — who best
know how little difference he made betwixt us ; and that, chain or
no chain, he lived with us like a brother with two sisters ; and yet
you can turn him off at once, because a wandering seaman, of
whom we know nothing, and a peddling jagger, whom we do know
to be a thief, a cheat, and a liar, speak words and carry tales in his
disfavour ! I do not believe he ever said he could have his choice
of either of us, and only waited to see which was to have Burgh-
Westra and Bredness Voe — I do not believe he ever spoke such a
woi-d, or harboured such a thought, as that of making a choice
between us."

" Perhaps," said Minna, coldly, " you may have had reason to
know that his choice was already determined."

" I will not endure this ! " said Brenda, giving way to her natural
vivacity, and springing from between her sister's hands ; then

204 THE PIRATE.

turning round and facing her, While her glowing cheek was rivalled
in the deepness of its crimson, by as much of her neck and bosom
as the upper part of the half- laced boddice permitted to be visible,
— " Even from you, Minna," she said, " I will not endure this !
You knovif that all my life I have spoken the truth, and that I love
the truth ; and I tell you that Mordaunt Mertoun never in his life
made distinction betwixt you and me, until "

Here some feeling of consciousness stopped her short, and her
sister replied, with a smile, " Until when, Brenda ? Methinks, your
love of truth seems choked with the sentence you were bringing out.

" Until you ceased to do him the justice he deserves," said
Brenda, firmly, " since I must speak out. I have little doubt that
he will not long throw away his friendship on you, who hold it so
lightly."

" Be it so," said Minna ; " you are secure from my rivalry, either
in his friendship or love. But bethink you better, Brenda — this
is no scandal of Cleveland's — Cleveland is incapable of slander —
no falsehood of Bryce Snailsfoot — not one of our friends or
acquaintance but says it has been the common talk of the island,
that the daughters of Magnus Troil were patiently awaiting the
choice of the nameless and birthless stranger, Mordaunt Mertoun.
Is it fitting that this should be said of us, the descendants of a
Norwegian Jarl, and the daughters of the first Udaller in Zet-
land ? or, would it be modest or maidenly to submit to it unre-
sented, were we the meanest lasses that ever lifted a milk-pail ? "

" The tongues of fools are no reproach," replied Brenda, warmly ;
" I will never quit my own thoughts of an innocent friend for the
gossip of the island, which can put the worst meaning on the most
innocent actions."

" Hear but what our friends say," repeated Minna ; " hear but
the Lady Glowrowrum ; hear but Maddie and Clara Groatsettar."

" If I were to hear Lady Glowrowrum," said Brenda, steadily,
" I should listen to the worst tongue in Zetland ; and as for Maddie
and Clara Groatsettar, they were both blythe enough to get Mor-
daunt to sit betwixt them at dinner the day before yesterday, as
you might have observed yourself, but that your ear was better
engaged."

" Your eyes, at least, have been but indifferently engaged,
Brenda," retorted the eldest sister, " since they vifere fixed on a
young man, whom all the world but y(5urself believes to have talked
of us with the most insolent presumption ; and even if he be inno-
cently charged. Lady Glowrowrum says it is unmaidenly and bold
of you even to look in the direction where he sits, knowing it must
confirm such reports."

THE PIRATE,

20S

" I will look which way I please,'' said Brenda, growing still
warmer ; " Lady Glowrowrum shall neither rule my thoughts, nor
my words, nor my eyes. I hold Mordaunt Mertoun to be innocent,
— I will look at him as such, — I will speak of him as such ; and if
I did not speak to him also, and behave to him as usual, it is in
obedience to my father, and not for what Lady Glowrowrum, and
all her nieces, had she twenty instead of two, could think, wink,
nod, or tattle, about the matter that concerns them not."

" Alas ! Brenda," answered Minna, with calmness, " this vivacity
is more than is required for the defence of the character of a mere
friend ! — Beware — He who ruined Noma's peace for ever, was a
stranger, admitted to her affections against the will of her family."

" He was a stranger," replied Brenda, with emphasis, " not only
in birth, but in manners. She had not been bred up with him from
her youth, — she had not known the gentleness, the frankness, of
his disposition, by an intimacy of many years. He was indeed a
stranger, in character, temper, birth, manners, and morals, — some
wandering adventurer, perhaps, whom chance or tempest had
thrown upon the islands, and who knew how to mask a false heart
with a frank brow. My good sister, take home your own warning.
There are other strangers at Burgh-Westra besides this poor Mor-
daunt Mertoun."

Minna seemed for a moment overwhelmed with the rapidity with
which her sister retorted her suspicion and her caution. But her
natural loftiness of disposition enabled her to reply with assumed
composure.

" Were I to treat you, Brenda, with the want of confidence you
show towards me, I might reply that Cleveland is no more to me
than Mordaunt was ; or than young Swartaster, or Lawrence Eric-
son, or any other favourite guest of my father's, now is. But I
scorn to deceive you, or to disguise my thoughts. — I love Clement
Cleveland."

" Do not say so, my dearest sister," said Brenda, abandoning at
once the air of acrimony with which the conversation had been
latterly conducted, and throwing her arms round her sister's neck,
with looks, and with a tone, of the most earnest affection, — " do not
say so, I implore you ! I will renounce Mordaunt Mertoun, — I
will swear never to speak to him again ; but do not repeat that you
love this Cleveland ! "

" And why should I not repeat," said Minna, disengaging hersel!
gently from her sister's grasp, " a sentiment in which I glory ? The
boldness, the strength and energy, of his character, to which com-
mand is natural, and fear unknown, — these very properties, which
alarm you for my happiness, are the qualities which ensure it.

2o6 THE PIRATE,

Remember, Brenda, that when your foot loved the calm smooth
sea-beach of the summer sea, mine ever delighted in the summit of
the precipice, when the waves are in fury."

" And it is even that which I dread," said Brenda ; " it is even
that adventurous disposition which now is urging you to the brink
of a precipice more dangerous than ever was washed by a spring-
tide. This man, — do not frown, I will say no slander of him, — but
is he not, even m your own partial judgment, stern and overbear-
ing ? accustomed, as you say, to command ; but, for that very
reason, commanding where he has no right to do so, and leading
whom it would most become him to follow ? rushing on danger,
rather for its own sake, than for any other object ? And can you
think of being yoked with a spirit so unsettled and stormy, whose
life has hitherto been led in scenes of death and peril, and who,
even while sitting by your side, cannot disguise his impatience
again to engage in them? A lover, methinks, should love his
mistress better than his own life ; but yours, my dear Minna, loves
her less than the pleasure of inflicting death on others."

" And it is even for that I love him," said Minna. " I am a
daughter of the old dames of Norway, who could send their lovers
to battle with a smile, and slay them, with their own hands, if
they returned with dishonour. My lover must scorn the mockeries
by which our degraded race strive for distinction, or must practise
them only in sport, and in earnest of nobler dangers. No whale-
striking, bird-nesting favourite for me ; my lover must be a Sea-
king, or what else modern times may give that draws near to that
lofty character."

"Alas, my sister !", said Brenda, "it is now that I must in
earnest begin to beheve the force of spells and of charms. You
remember the Spanish story which you took from me long since,
because I said, in your admiration of the chivalry of the olden
times of Scandinavia, you rivalled the extravagance of the hero.—
Ah, Minna, your colour shows that your conscience checks you,
and reminds you of the book I mean ; — is it more wise, think you,
to mistake a windmill for a giant, or the commander of a paltry
corsair for a Kiempe, or a Vi-king ? "

Minna did indeed colour with anger at this insinuation, of which^
perhaps, she felt in some degree the truth.

" You have a right," she said, " to insult me, because you arc
possessed of my secret."

Brenda's soft heart could not resist this charge of unkindness ;
she adjured her sister to pardon her, and the natural gentleness o
Minna's feeUngs could not resist her entreaties.

"We are unhappy," she said, as she dried her sister's tears.

THE PIRATE. sq7

" that we cannot see with the same eyes — let us not make each
other more so by mutual insult and unkindness. You have my
secret— it will not, perhaps, long be one, for my father shall have
the confidence to which he is entitled, so soon as certain circum-
stances will permit me to offer it. Meantime, I jrepeat, you have
my secret, and I more than suspect that I have yours in exchange,
though you refuse to own it."

" How, Minna ! " said Brenda ; " would you have me acknow-
ledge for any one such feelings as you allude to, ere he has said
the least word that could justify such a confession ? "

" Surely not ; but a hidden fire may be distinguished by heat as
well as flame."

"You understand these signs, Minna,'' said Brenda, hanging
down her head, and in vain endeavouring to suppress the tempta-
tion to repartee which her sister's remark offered ; " but I can only
say, that, if ever I love at all, it shall not ,be until I have been
asked to do so once or twice at least, which has not yet chanced to
me. But do not let us renew our quarrel, and rather let us think
why Noma should have told us that horrible tale, and to what she
expects it should lead."

" It must have been as a caution," replied Minna — " a caution
which our situation, and, I will not deny it, which mine in particular,
might seem to her to call for ; — ^but I am alike strong in my own
innocence, and in the honour of Cleveland."

Brenda would fain have replied, that she did not confide "so
absolutely in the latter security as in the first ; but she was pru-
dent, and, forbearing to awaken the former painful discussion, only
replied, " It is strange that Noma should have said nothing more
of her lover. Surely he could not desert her in the extremity of
misery to which he had reduced her ? "

" There may be agonies of distress," said Minna, after a pause,
" in which the mind is so much jarred, that it ceases to be respon-
sive even to the feelings which have most engrossed it ; — her sor-
row for her lover may have been swallowed up in horror and
despair."

" Or he might have fled from the islands, in fear of our father's
vengeance," replied Brenda.

" If for fear, or faintness of heart," said Minna, looking upwards,
" he was capable of flying from the ruin which he had occasioned,
I trust he has long ere this sustained the punishment which Heaven
reserves for the most base and dastardly of traitors and of cowards.
— Come, sister, we are ere this expected at the breakfast board."

And they went thither, arm in arm, with much more of confi-
dence than had lately subsisted between them ; the little quarrel

2d8 the pirate.

which had taken place having served the purpose of a botirasgue,
or sudden squall, which dispels mists and vapours, and leaves fair
weather behind it.

On their way to the breakfast apartment, they agreed that it was
unnecessary, and might be imprudent, to communicate to their father
the circumstance of the nocturhal visit, or to let him observe that
they now knew more than formerly of the melancholy history of
Noma.

CHAPTER XXI.

But lost to me, for ever lost those joys,
Which reason scatters, and which time destroys.
No more the midnight fairy-train I view.
All in the merry moonlight tippling dew.
Even the last lingering fiction of the brain,
The churchyard ghost, is now at rest again.

The Library.

The moral bard, from whom we borrow the motto of this chapter,
has touched a theme with which most readers have some feelings
that vibrate unconsciously. Superstition, when not arrayed in her
full horrors, but laying a gentle hand only on her suppliant's head,
had charms 'which we fail not to regret, even in those stages of
society from which her influence is wellnigh banished by the light of
reason and general education. At least, in more ignorant periods, her
system of ideal terrors had something in them interesting to minds
which had few means of excitement. This is more especially true
of those lighter modificatioHS of superstitious feelings and practices
which mingle in the amusements of the ruder ages, and are, like
the auguries of Hallow-e'en in Scotland, considered partly as matter
of merriment, partly as sad and prophetic earnest. And, with
similar feelings, people even of tolerable education have, in our
times, sought the cell of a fortune-teller, upon a frolic, as it is
termed, and yet not always in a disposition absolutely sceptical
towards the responses they receive.

When the sisters of Burgh-Westra arrived in the apartment des-
tined for a breakfast, as ample as that which we have described on
the preceding morning, and had undergone a jocular rebuke from
the Udaller for their late attendance, they found the company,
most of whom had already breakfasted, engaged in an ancient
Norwegian custom, of the character which we have just described.

THE PIRATE. 209

It seems to have been borrowed from those poems of the Scalds,
in which champions and heroines are so often represented as seeking
to know their destiny from some sorceress or prophetess, who, as
in the legend called by Gray the Descent of Odin, awakens by the
force of Runic rhyme the unwilling revealer of the doom of fate,
and compels from her answers, often of dubious import, but which
were then believed to express some shadow of the events of
futurity.

An old sibyl, Euphane Fea, the housekeeper we have already men-
tioned, was installed in the recess of a large window, studiously dark-
ened by bear-skins and other miscellaneous drapery, so as to give it
something the appearance of a Laplander's hut, and accommodated,
like a confessional chair, with an aperture, which permitted the person
within to hear with ease whatever questions should be put, though
not to see the querist. Here seated, the voluspa, or sibyl, was to
listen to the rhythmical enquiries which should be made to her, and
return an extemporaneous answer. The drapery was supposed to
prevent her from seeing by what individuals she was consulted, and
the intended or accidental reference which the answer given under
such circumstances bore to the situation of the person by whom the
question was asked, often furnished food for laughter, and some-
times, as it happened, for more serious reflection. The sibyl was
usually chosen from her possessing the talent of improvisation in
the Norse poetry ; no unusual accomplishment, where the minds
of many were stored with old verses, and where the rules of metrical
composition are uncommonly simple. The questions were also put
in verse ; but as this power of extemporaneous composition, though
common, could not be supposed universal, the medium of an inter-
preter might be used by any querist, which interpreter, holding the
consulter of the oracle by the hand, and standing by the plage from
which the oracles were issued, had the task of rendering into verse
the subject of enquiry.

On the present occasion, Claud Halcro was summoned, by tjie
universal voice, to perform the part of interpreter ; and, after
shaking his head, and muttering some apology for decay of memory
and poetical powers, contradicted at once by his own conscious
smile of confidence and by the general shout of the company, the
lighthearted old man came forward to play his part in the pro-
posed entertainment.

But just as it was about to commence, the arrangement of parts
was singularly altered. Noma of the Fitful-head, whom every one
excepting the two sisters believed to be at the distance of many
miles, suddenly, and without greeting, entered the apartment,
walked majestically up to the bearskin tabernacle, and signed to

P

=10 THE PIRATE.

the female who was there seated to abdicate her sanctuary. The
old woman came forth, shaking her head, and looking like one
overwhelmed with fear ;*nor, indeed, were there many in the com-
pany who saw with absolute composure the sudden appearance of a
person, so w ell known and so generally dreaded as Noma.

She paused a moment at the entrance of the tent ; and, as she
raised the skin which formed the entrance, she looked up to the
north, as if imploring from that quarter a strain of inspiration ; then
signing to the surprised guests that they might approach in suc-
cession the shrine in which she was about to install herself, she
entered the tent, and was shrouded from their sight.

But this was a different sport from what the company had
meditated, and to most of them seemed to present so much more
of earnest than of game, that there was no alacrity shown to consult
the oracle. The character and pretensions, of Noma seemed, to
almost all present, too serious for the part which she had assumed ;
the men whispered to each other, and the women, according to
Claud Halcro, realized the description of glorious John Dryden, —

" With horror shuddering, in a heap they ran."

The pause was interrupted by the loud manly voice of the
Udaller. " Why does the game stand still, my masters ? Are you
afraid because my kinswoman is to play our voluspa ? It is kindly
done in her, to do for us what none in the isles can do so well ; and
we will not baulk our sport for it, but rather go on the merrier.

There was still a pause in the company, and Magnus Troil
added, " It shall never be said that my kinswoman sat in her bower
unhalsed, as if she were some of the old mountain-giantesses, and
all from faint heart. I will speak first myself; but the rhyme
comes worse from" my tongue than when I was a score of years
younger. — >Claud Halcro, you must stand by me."

Hand in hand they approached the shrine of the supposed sibyl,
and after a moment's consultation together, Halcro thus expressed
the query of his friend and patron. Now, the Udaller, like many
persons of consequence in Zetland, who, as Sir -Robert Sibbald
has testified for them, had begun thus early to apply both to com-
merce and navigation, was concerned to some extent in the whale
fishery of the season, and the bard had been directed to put into
his halting verse an enquiry concerning its success.

Claud Halcro.

" Mother darksome, Mother dread-
Dweller on the Fitful-head,

THE PIRATE. Sil

Thou canst see what deeds are done

Under the never-setting sun.

Look through sleet, and look through frost,

Look to Greenland's caves and coast, —

By the iceberg is a sail

Chasing of the swarthy whale ;

Mother doubtful, Mother dread.

Tell us, has the good ship sped ? "

. The jest seemed to turn to earnest, as all, bending their heads
around, listened to the voice of Noma, who, without a moment's
hesitation, answered from the recesses of the tent in which she
was enclosed : —

NORNA.

" The thought of the aged is ever on gear, —
On his fishing, his furrow, his flock, and his steer ;
But thrive may his fishing, flock, furrow, and herd,
While the aged for anguish shall tear his grey beard."

There was a momentary pause, during which Triptolemus had
time to whisper, "If ten witches and as many warlocks were to
swear it, I will never believe that a decent man will either fash
"his beard or himself about any thing, so long as stock and crop
goes as it should do."

But the voice from within the tent resumed its low monoton-
ous tone of recitation^ and, interrupting farther commentary,
proceeded as follows ;—

NORNA.

" The ship, well-laden as bark need be.

Lies deep in the furrow of the Iceland sea ; —

The breeze for Zetland blows fair and soft.

And gaily the garland "' is fluttering aloft :

Seven good fishes have spouted their last.

And their jaw-bones are hanging to yard and mast ; *

Two are for Lerwick, and two for Kirkwall, —

And three for Burgh- Westra, the choicest of all."

" Now the powers above look down and protect us ! " said
Bryce Snailsfoot ; " for it is mair than woman's wit that has spaed
out that ferly. I saw them at North Ronaldshaw, that had seen
the good bark, the Olave of Lerwick, that our worthy patron has
such a great share in that she may be called his own in a
manner, and they had broomed * the ship, and, as sure as there

V 2

212 THE PIRATE.

are stars in heaven, she answered them for seven fish, exact as
Noma has telled us in her rhyme !"

"Umph— seven fish exactly? and you heard it at North Ron-
aldshaw?" said Captain Cleveland, "and I suppose told it as a
good piece of news when you came hither ? "

" It never crossed my tongue, Captain,'' answered the pedlar ;
" I have kend mony chapmen, travelling merchants, and such
like, neglect their goods to carry clashes and clavers up and down,
from one countryside to another ; but that is no traffic of mine.
I dinna believe I have mentioned the Olave's having made up
her cargo to three folks since I crossed to Dunrossness."

" But if one of those three had spoken the news over again,
and it is two to one that such a thing happened, the old lady
prophesies upon velvet."

Such was the speech of Cleveland, addressed to Magnus Troil,
and heard without any applause. The Udaller's respect for his
country extended to its superstitions, and so did the interest which
he took in his unfortunate kinswoman. If he never rendered a
precise assent to her high supernatural pretensions, he was not at
least desirous of hearing them disputed by others.

"Noma," he said, "his cousin," (an emphasis on the word,)
" held no communication with Bryce Snailsfoot, or his acquaint-
ances. He did not pretend to explain how she came by her infor-
mation ; but he had always remarked that Scotsmen, and indeed
strangers in general, when they, came to Zetland, were ready to
find reasons for things which remained sufficiently obscure to those
whose ancestors had dwelt there for ages."

Captain Cleveland took the hint, and bowed, without attempting
to defend his own scepticism.

" And now forward, my brave hearts," said the Udaller ; " and
may all have as good tidings as I have ! Three whales cannot but
yield — let me think how many hogsheads "

There was an obvious reluctance on the part of the guests to be
the next in consulting the oracle of the tent.

" Gude news are welcome to some folks, if they came frae the
deil himsell," said Mistress Baby Yellowley, addressing the Lady
Glowrowrum, — for a similarity of disposition in some respects had
made a sort of intimacy betwixt them — " but I think, my leddy,
that this has ower mickle of rank witchcraft in it to have the
countenance of douce Christian folks like you and me, my leddy."

" There may be something in what you say, my dame," replied
the good Lady Glowrowrum ; " but we Hialtlanders are no just like
other folks ; and this woman, if she be a witch, being the Fowd's
friend and near kinswoman, it will be ill taen if we hacna our

THE PIRATE. 213

fortunes spaed like a' the rest of them ; and sae my nieces may
e'en step forward in their turn, and nae harm dune. They will hae
time to repent, ye ken, in the course of nature, if there be ony
thing wrang in it, Mistress Yellowley."

While others remained under similar uncertainty and apprehen-
sion, Halcro, who saw by the knitting of the old Udaller's brows,
and by a certain impatient shuffle of his right foot, like the motion,
of a man who with difficulty refrains from stamping, that his
patience began to wax rather thin, gallantly declared, that he him-
self would, in his own person, and not as a procurator for others,
put the next query to the Pythoness. He paused a minute —
collected his rhymes, and thus addressed her :

Claud Halcro.

" Mother doubtful, Mother dread,
Dweller of the Fitful-head,
Thou hast conn'd full many a rhyme,
That lives upon the surge of time :
Tell me, shall my lays be sung.
Like Hacon's of the golden tongue.
Long after Halcro's dead and gone ?
Or, shall Hialtland's minstrel own
One note to rival glorious John ?"

The voice of the sibyl immediately replied, from her sanctuary,

NORNA.

" The infant loves the rattle's noise ;
Age, double childhood, hath its toys ;
But different far the descant rings.
As strikes a different hand the strings.
The eagle mounts the polar sky —
The Imber-goose, unskill'd to fly,
Must be content to glide along,
Where seal and sea-dog list his song.''

Halcro bit his lip, shrugged his shoulders, and then, instantly
recovering his good-humour, and the ready, though slovenly power
of extemporaneous composition, with which long habit had invested
him, he gallantly rejoined,

Claud Halcro.

" Be mine the Imber-goose to play,
And haunt lone cave and silent bay ; —

214 THE PIRATE.

The archer's aim so shall I shun —
So shall I 'scape the levell'd gua —
Content my verse's tuneless jingle,
With Thule's soundihg tides to mingle,
While, to the ear of wandering wight,
Upon the distant headland's height,
Soften'd by murmur of the sea,
The rude sounds seem like harmony ! "

As the little b^rd stepped back, with an alert gait, and satisfied
air, general applause followed the spirited manner in which he had
acquiesced in the doom which levelled him with an Imber-goose.
But his resigned and courageous submission did not even yet
encourage any other person to consult the redoubted Noma.

" The coward fools ! " said the Udaller. " Are you too afraid,
Captain Cleveland, to speak to an old woman? — Ask her any thing
— ask her whether the twelve-gun sloop at Kirkwall be your consort
or no."

Cleveland looked at Minna, and probably conceiving that she
watched with anxiety his answer to her father's question, he col-
lected himself, after a moment's hesitation.

" I never was afraid of man or woman. — Master Halcro, you
have heard the question which our host desires me to ask — put it
in my name, and in your own way — I pretend to as little skill in
poetry as I do in witchcraft."

Halcro did not wait to be invited twice, but, grasping Captain
Cleveland's hand in his, according to the form which the game
prescribed, he put the query which the Udaller had dictated to the
stranger, in the following words : —

Claud Halcro.

" Mother doubtful. Mother dread.

Dweller of the Fitful-head,

A gallant bark from far abroad,

Saint Magnus hath her in his road,

With guns and firelocks not a few —

A silken and a scarlet crew,

Deep stored with precious merchandise.

Of gold, and goods of rare device —

What interest hath our comrade bold

In bark and crew, in goods and gold ? "

There was a pause of unusual duration ere the oracle would
return any answer ; and when sh? i-^Dlied, it was in a lower, though

THE PIRATE. 21S

an equally decided tone, with that which she had hitherto em-
ployed : —

NORNA.

" Gold is ruddy, fair, and free,

Blood is crimson, and dark to see ; —

I look'd out on Saint Magnus Bay,

And I saw a falcon that struck her prey. —

A gobbet of flesh in her beak she bore,

And talons and singles are dripping with gore ;

Let him that asks after them look on his hand,

And if there is blood on't, he's one of their band."

Cleveland smiled scornfully, and held out his hand,— " Few men
have been on the Spanish main as often as I have, without having
had to do with the Guarda Castas once and again ; but there never
was aught like a stain on my hand that a wet towel would not
wipe away."

The Udaller added his voice potential — " There is never peace
with Spaniards beyond the Line, — I have heard Captain Tragen-
deck and honest old Commodore Rummelaer say so an hundred
times, and they have both been down in the Bay of Honduras, and
all thereabouts. — I hate all Spaniards, since they came here and
reft the Fair Isle men of their vivers in 1558.* I have heard my
grandfather speak of it ; and there is an old Dutch history some-
where about the house, that shows what work they made in the
Low Countries long since. There is neither mercy nor faith in
them."

"True — true, my old friend," said Cleveland; "they are as
jealous of their Indian possessions as an old man of his young
bride ; and if they can catch you at disadvantage, the mines for
your life is the word, — and so we fight them with our colours nailed
to the mast." . ' •

"That is the way," shouted the Udaller ; "the old British Jack
should never down ! When I think of the wooden walls, I almost
think myself an Englishman, only it would be becoming too like
my Scottish neighbours ; — but come, no offence to any here, gen-
tlemen — all are friends, and all are welcome. Come, Brenda, go
on with the play — do you speak next, you have Norse rhymes
enough, we all know."

" But none that suit the game we play at, father," said Brenda,
drawing back.

" Nonsense ! " s?iid her father, pushing her onward, while Halcro
seized on her reluctant hand ; " never let mistimed modesty mar

2i6 THE PIRATE.

honest mirth— Speak for Brenda, Halcro— it is your trade to inter-
pret maidens' thoughts."

The poet bowed to the beautiful young woman, with the devotion
of a poet and the gallantry of a travelleri and having, in a whisper,
reminded her that she was in no way responsible for the nonsense
he was about to speak, he paused, looked upward, simpered as if
he had caught a sudden idea, and at length set off in the following
verses :

Claud Halcro.

" Mother doubtful, kother dread-
Dweller of the Fitful-head,
Well thou know'st it is thy task
To tell what beauty will not ask ;
Then steep thy words in wine and milk.
And weave a doom of gold and silk, —
For we would know, shall Brenda prove
In love, and happy in Irer love ? "

The prophetess replied almost immediately from behind her
curtain : —

NoRNA.

" Untouch'd by love, the maiden's breast

Is like the snow on Rona's crest,

High seated in the ihiddle sky,

In bright and barren purity ;

But by the sunbeam gently kiss'd.

Scarce by the gazing eye 'tis miss'd.

Ere down the lonely valley stealing.

Fresh grass and growth its course revealing,

It cheers the flock, revives the flower.

And decks some happy shepherd's bower."

" A comfortable doctrine, and piost justly spoken," said the
Udaller, seizing the blushing Brenda, as she was endeavouring to
escape — " Never think shame for the matter, my girl. To be the
mistress of some honest man's house, and the means of maintain-
ing some old Norse name, making neighbours happy, the poor
easy, and relieving strangers, is the most creditable lot a young
woman can look to, and I heartily wish it to all here. — Come, who
speaks next? — good husbands are going — Maddie Groatsettar —
my pretty Clara, come and have your share."

The Lady Glowrowrum shook her head, and " could not," she
said, "altogether approve"

" Enough said — enough said," replied Magnus ; " no compul-

THE PIRATE. 217

sion ; but the play shall go on till we are tired of it. Here, Minna—
I have got you at command. Stand forth, my girl— there are plenty
of things to be ashamed of besides old-fashioned and innocent
pleasantry. — Come, I will speak for you myself— though I am not
sure I can remember rhyme enough for it."

There was a slight colour which passed rapidly over Minna's
face, but she instantly regained her composure, and stood erect by
her father, as one superior to any little jest to which her situation
might give rise.

Her father, after some rubbing of his brow, and other mechanical
efforts to assist his memory, at length recovered verse sufficient to
put the following query, though in less gallant strains than those of
Halcro : —

Magnus Troil.

" Mother, speak, and do not tarry.
Here's a maiden fain would marry.
Shall she marry, ay or not .■'
If she marry, what's her lot ? "

A deep sigh was uttered within the tabernacle of the soothsayer,
as if she compassionated the subject of the doom which she
was obliged to pronounce. She then, as usual, returned her
response : —

NORNA.

" Untouch'd by love, the maiden's breast
Is like the snow on Rona's crest ;
So pure, so free from earthly dye,
It seems, whilst leaning on the sky.
Part of the heaven to which 'tis nigh ;
But passion, like the wild March rain,
May soil the wreath with many a stain.
We gaze — the lovely vision's gone —
A torrent fills the bed of stone,
That, hurrying to destruction's shock,
Leaps headlong from the lofty rock."

The Udaller heard this reply with high resentment. " By the
bones of the Martyr," he said, his bold visage becoming suddenly
ruddy, " this is an abuse of courtesy ! and, were it any but yourself
that had classed my daughter's name and the word destruction
together, they had better have left the word unspoken. But come
forth of the tent, thou old galdragon," * he added, with a smile—
" I should have known that thou canst not long joy in any thing

fti8 THE PIRATE.

that smacks of mirth, God help thee ! " His summons received
no answer ; and, after waiting a moment, he again addressed her
— " Nay, never be sullen with me, kinswoman, though I did speak
a hasty word — thou knowest I bear malice to no one, least of all
to thee — so come forth, and let us shake hands.^-Thou mightst
have foretold the wreck of my ship and boats, or a bad herring-
fisherj', and I should have said never a word ; but Minna or
Brenda, you know, are things which touch me nearer. But come
out, shake hands, and there let there be an end' on't."

Noma returned no answer whatever to his repeated invocations,
and the company began to look upon each other with some surprise,
when the Udaller, raising the skin which covered the entrance of
the tent, discovered that the interior was empty. The wonder was
now general, and not unmixed with fear ; for it seemed impossible
that Noma could have, in any manner, escaped from the tabernacle
in which she was enclosed, without having been discovered by the
company. Gone, however, she was, and the Udallar, after a
moment's consideration, dropt the skin-curtain again over the
entrance of the tent.

" My friends," he said, with a cheerful countenance, " we have
long known my kinswoman, and that her ways are not like those
of the ordinary folks of this world. But she means well by Hialt-
land, and hath the love of a sister for me, and for my house ; and
no guest of mine needs either to fear evil, or to take offence at her
hand. I have little doubt she will be with us at dinner-time."

" Now, Heaven forbid ! " said Mrs. ^aby Yellowley — " for, my
gude Leddy Glowrowrum, to tell your leddyship the truth, I likena
cummers that can cum and gae like a glance of the sun, or the
whisk of a whirlwind."

" Speak lower, speak lower," said the Lady Glowrowrum, " and
be thankful that yon carlin hasna taen the liouse-side away wi'
her. The like of her have played warse pranks, and so has she
hersell, unless she is the sairer lied on."

Similar murmurs ran through the rest of the company, until the
Udaller uplifted his stentorian and imperative voice to put them to
silence, and invited, or rather commanded, the attendance of his
guests to behold the boats set off for the haaf or deep-sea fishing.

" The wind has been high since sunrise," he said, " and had kept
the boats in the bay ; but now it was favourable, and they would
sail immediately."

This sudden alteration of the weather occasioned sundry nods
and winks amongst the guests, who were not indisposed to connect
it with Noma's sudden disappearance ; but without giving vent to
observations which could not but be disagreeable to their host.

THE PIRATE. 219

they followed his stately step to the shore, as the herd of deer
follows the leading stag, with aU manner of respectful ob-
servance.*

CHAPTER XXII.

There was a laughing devil in his sneer,
That raised emotions both of rage and fear ;
And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,
Hope withering fled — and Mercy sigh'd farewell.

The Corsair, Canto I.

The ling or white fishery is the principal employment of the
natives of Zetland, and was formerly that upon which the gentry
chiefly depended for their income, and the poor for their subsistence.
The fishing season is therefore, like the harvest of an agricultural
country, the busiest and most important, as well as the most
animating, period of the year.

The fishermen of each district assemble at particular stations,
with their boats and crews, and erect upon the shore small huts,
composed of shingle and covered with turf, for their temporary
lodging, and skeos, or drying-houses, for the fish ; so that the lonely
beach at once assumes the appearance of an Indian town. The
banks to which they repair for the Haaf fishing, are often many
miles distant from the station where the fish is dried ; so that they
are always twenty or thirty hours absent, frequently longer ; and
under unfavourable circumstances of wind and tide, they remain at
sea, with a very small stock of provisions, and in a boat of a con-
struction which seems extremely slender, for two or three days, and
are sometimes heard of no more. The departure of the fishers,
therefore, on this occupation, has in it a character of danger and
of suffering, which renders it dignified, and the anxiety of the
females who remain on the beach, watching the departure of the
lessening boat, or anxiously looking out for its return gives pathos
to the scene.*

The scene, therefore, was in busy and anxious animation, when
the Udaller and his friends appeared on the beach. The various
crews of about thirty boats, amounting each to from three to five or
six men, were taking leave of their wives and female relatives, and
jumping on board their long Norway skiffs, where their lines and
tackle lay ready stowed. Magnus was not an idle spectator of the
scene ; he went from one place to another, enquiring into the state

Z20 THE PIRATE.

of their provisions for the voyage, and their preparations for the
fishing— now and then, with a rough Dutch or Norse oath, abusing
them for blockheads, for going to sea with their boats indifferently
found, but always ending by ordering from his own stores a gallon of
gin, a hspund of meal, or some similar essential addition to their
sea-stores. The hardy sailors, on receiving siich favours, expressed
their thanks in the brief gruff manner which their landlord best
approved ; but the women were more clamorous in their gratitude,
which Magnus was often obliged to silence by cursing all female
tongues from Eve's downwards.

At length all were on board and ready, the sails were hoisted,
the signal for departure given, the rowers began to pull, and all
started from the shore, in strong emulation to get first to the fishing
ground, and to have their lines set before the rest ; an exploit to
which no little consequence was attached by the boat's crew who
should be happy enough to perform it.

While they were yet within hearing of the shore, they chanted an
ancient Norse ditty, appropriate to the occasion, of which Claud
Halcro had executed the following literal translation ; —

" Farewell, merry maidens, to song, and to laugh,
For the brave lads of Westra are bound to the Haaf ;
And we must have labour, and hunger, and pain.
Ere we dance with the maids of Dunrossness again.

" For now, in our trim boats of Noroway deal.

We must dance on the waves, with the porpoise and seal ;

The breeze it shall pipe, so it pipe not too high,

And the gull be our songstress whene'er she flits by.

" Sing on, my brave bird, while we follow, like thee.
By bank, shoal, and quicksand, the swarms of the sea ;
And when twenty score fishes are straining our line,
Sing louder, brave bird, for their spoils shall be thine.

" We'll sing while we bait, and we'll sing when we haul,
For the deeps of the Haaf have enough for us all :
There is torsk for the gentle, and skate for the carle,
And there's wealth for bold Magnus, the son of the earl.

" Huzza ! my brave comrades, give way for the Haaf,
We shall sooner come back to the dance and the laugh ;
For life without mirth is a lamp without oil ;
Then, mirth and long life to the bold Magnus Troil ! "

THE PIRATE 221'

The rude words of the song were soon drowned in the ripple of
tne waves, but the tune continued long to mingle with the sound of
wind and sea, and the boats were like so many black specks on the
surface of the ocean, diminishing by degrees as they bore far and
farther seaward ; while the ear could distinguish touches of the
human voice, almost drowned amid that of the elements.

The fishermen's wives looked their last after the parting sails,
and were now departing slowly, with downcast and anxious looks,
towards the huts in which they were to make arrangements for pre-
paring and drying the fish, with which they hoped to see their
ilusbands and friends return deeply laden. Here and there an
old sibyl displayed the superior importance of her experience, by
predicting, from the appearance of the atmosphere, that the wind
would be fair or foul, while others recommended a vow to the Kirk
of St. Ninian's for the safety of their men and boats, (an ancient
Catholic superstition, not yet wholly abolished,) and others, but in
a low and timorous tone, regretted to their companions, that Noma
of Fitful-head had been suffered to depart in discontent that
morning from Burgh- Westra, " and, of all days in the year, that
they suld have contrived to give her displeasure on the first day of
the white fishing ! "

The gentry, guests of Magnus Troil, having whiled away as much
time as could be so disposed of, in viewing the little armament set
sail, and in conversing with the poor women who had seen their
friends embark in it, began now to separate into various groups
and parties, which strolled in different directions, as fancy led them,
to enjoy'whatmaybe called the clair-obscure of a Zetland summer,
day, which, though without the brilliant sunshine that cheers other
countries during the fine season, has a mild and pleasing character
of its own, that softens while it saddens landscapes, which, in their
own lonely, bare, and monotonous tone, have something in them
stern as well as barren.

In one of the loneliest recesses of the coast, where a deep in-
denture of the rocks gave the tide access to the cavern, or, as it is
called, the Helyer, of Swartaster, Minna Troil was walking with
Captain Cleveland. They had probably chosen that walk, as being
little liable to interruption from others ; for, as the force of the tide
rendered the place unfit either for fishing or sailing, so it was not
the ordinary resort of walkers, on account of its being the siipposed
habitation of a Mermaid, a race which Norwegian superstition in-
vests with magical, as well as mischievous qualities. Here, there-
fore, Minna wandered with her lover.

A small spot of milk-white sand, that stretched beneath one of
the precipices which walled in the creek on either side, afforded

222 THE PIRATE.

them space for a dry, firm, and pleasant walk of about an hundred
yards, terminated at one extremity by a dark stretch of the bay,
which, scarce touched by the wind, seemed almost as smooth as
glass, aiid which was seen from between two lofty rocks, the jaws
of the creek, or indenture, that approached each other above, as if
they wished to meet over the dark tide that separated them. The
other end of their promenade was closed by a lofty and almost un-
scaleable precipice, the abode of hundreds of sea-fowl of different
kinds, in the bottom of which the huge helyer, or sea-cave, itself
yawned, as if for the purpose of swallowing up the advancing tide,
which it seemed to receive into an abyss of immeasurable depth-
and extent. The entrance to this dismal cavern consisted not in
a single arch, as usual, but was divided into two, by a huge pillar
of natural rock, which, rising out of the sea, and extending to the
top of the cavern, seemed to lend its support to the roof, and thus
formed a double portal to the helyer, on which the fishermen and
peasants had bestowed the rude name of the Devil's Nostrils. In
this wild scene, lonely and undisturbed but by the clang of the sea-
fowl, Cleveland had already met with Minna Troil more than once ;
for with her it was a favourite walk, as the objects which it presented
agreed peculiarly with the love of the wild, the melancholy, and the
wonderful. But now the conversation in which she was earnestly
engaged, was such as entirely to withdraw her attention, as well as
that of her companion, from the scenery around them.

" You cannot deny it," she said ; " you have given way to feelings
respecting this yourig man, which indicate prejudice and violence, —
the prejudice unmerited, as far as you are concerned at least, and
the violence equally imprudent and unjustifiable."

" I should have thought," replied Cleveland, " that the service I
rendered him yesterday might have freed me from such a charge.
I do not talk of my own risk, for I have lived in danger, and love it ;
it is not every one, however, would have ventured so near the
furious animal to save one with whom they had no connexion."

" It is not every one, indeed, who could have saved him,"
answered Minna, gravely ; " but every one who has courage and
generosity would have attempted it. The giddy-brained Claud
Halcro would have done as much as you, had his strength been
equal to his courage, — my father would have done as much, though
having such just cause of resentment against the young man, for
his vain and braggart abuse of our hospitality. Do not, therefore,
boast of your exploit too much, my good friend, lest you should make
me think that it required too great an effort. I know you love not
Mordaunt Mertoun, though you exposed your own life to save his."

" Will you allow nothing, then," said Cleveland, " for the long

THE PIRATE. 223

misery I was made to endure from the common and prevailing
report, that this beardless bird-hunter stood betwixt me a,nd what I
on earth coveted most — the affections of Minna Troil ? "

He spoke in a tone at once impassioned and insinuating, and his
whole language and manner seemed to express a grace and elegance,
which formed the most striking contrast with the speech and
gesture of the unpolished seaman, which he usually affected or
exhibited. But his apology was unsatisfactory to Minna.

" You have known," she said, " perhaps too soon, and loo well,
how little you had to fear, — if you indeed feared, — that Mertoun,
or any other, had interest with Minna Troil. — Nay, truce to thanks
and protestations ; I would accept it as the best proof of gratitude,
that you would be reconciled with this youth, or at least avoid every
quarrel with him."

" That we stould be friends, Minna, is impossible," replied Cleve-
land ; " even the love I bear you, the most powerful emotion that
my heart ever knew, cannot work that miracle."

" And why, I pray you ? " said Minna ; " there have been no evil
offences between you, but rather an exchange of mutual services ;
why can you not be friends .' — I have many reasons to wish it."

" And can you, then, forget the slights which he has cast upon
Brenda, and, on yourself, and on your father's house ? "

" I can forgive them all," said Minna ; — " can you not say so
much, who have in truth received no offence ? "

Cleveland looked down, and paused for an instant ; then raised
his head and replied, " I might easily deceive you, Minna, and
promise you what my soul tells me is an im'possiljility ; but I am
forced to use too much deceit with others, and with you I will use
none. I cannot be friend to this young man ;^-there is a natural
dislike — an instinctive aversion — something like a principle of re-
pulsion in our mutual nature, which makes us odious to each other.
Ask himself — he will tell you he has the same antipathy against me.
The obligation he conferred on me was a bridle to my resentment ;
but I was so galled by the restraint, that I could have gnawed the
curb till my lips were bloody."

" You have worn what you are wont to call your iron mask so
long, that your features," replied Minna, " retain the impression of
its rigidity even when it is removed."

" You do me injustice, Minna," replied her lover, " and you are
angry with me because I deal with you plainly and honestly.
Plainly and honestly, however, will I say, that I cannot be Mertoun's
friend, but it shall be his own fault, not mine, if I am ever his enemy.
I seek not to injure him ; but do not ask me to love him. And of
this remain satisfied, that it would be vain even if I could do so ;

224 THE PIRATE.

for as sure as I attempted any advances towards his confidence, so
sure would I be to awaken his disgust and suspicion. Leave us to
the exercise of our natural feelings, which, as they will unquestion-
ably keep us as far separate as possible, are most likely to prevent
any possible interference with each other. — Does this satisfy
you?"

" It must," said Minna, " since you tell me there is no remedy.—
And now tell me why you looked so grave when you heard of your
consort's arrival, — for that it is her I have no doubt,— in the port of
Kirkwall?"

" I fear," replied Cleveland, " the consequences of that vessel's
arrival with her crew, as comprehending the ruin of my fondest
hopes. I had made some progress in your father's favour, and,
with time, might have made more, when hither come Hawkins and
the rest to blight my prospects for ever. I told you on what terms
we parted. I then commanded a vessel braver and better found
than their own, with a crew who, at my slightest nod, would have
faced fiends armed with their own fiery element ; but I now stand
alone, a single man, destitute of all means to overawe or to restrain
them ; and they will soon show so plainly the ungovernable license
of their habits and dispositions, that ruin to themselves and to me
will in all probabiUty be the consequence."

" Do not fear it," said Minna ; " my father can never be so
unjust as to hold you liable for the offences of others."

" But what will Magnus Troil say to my own demerits, fair
Minna?" said Cleveland, smiling.

" My father is a Zetlander, or rather a Norwegian," said Minna,
" one of an oppressed race, who will not care whether you fought
against the Spaniards, who are the tyrants of the New World, or
against the Dutch and English, who have succeeded to their
usurped dominions. His own ancestors supported and exercised
the freedom of the seas in those gallant barks, whose pennons were
the dread of all Europe."

" I fear, nevertheless,'' said Cleveland, " that the descendant of
an ancient Sea-King will scarce acknowledge a fitting acquaintance
in a modern rover. I have not disguised from you that I have
reason to dread the English laws ; and Magnus, though a great
enemy to taxes, imposts, scat, wattle, and so forth, has no idea of
latitude upon points of a more general character; — he would willingly
reeve a rope to the yard-arm for the benefit of an unfortunate
buccanier."

" Do not suppose so," said Minna ; " he himself suffers too much
oppression from the tyrannical laws of our proud neighbours of
Scotland. I trust he will soon bo able to rise in resistance against

THE PIRATE. 225

them." The enemy — such I will call them — are now divided amongst
themselves, and every vessel from their coast brings intelligence of
fresh commotions — the Highlands against the Lowlands — the
Williamites against the Jacobites — the Whigs against the Tories,
and, to sum the whole, the kingdom of England against that of
Scotland. What is there, as Claud Halcro well hinted, to prevent
our avaihng ourselves of the quarrels of these robbers, to assert the
independence of which we are deprived ? " ,

" To hoist the raven standard on the Castle of Scalloway," said
Cleveland, in imitation of her tone and manner, " and proclaim
your father Earl Magnus the First ?"

" Earl Magnus the Seventh, if it please you," answered Minna ;
" for six of his ancestors have worn, or were entitled to wear, the
coronet before him. — You laugh at my ardour, — but what is there
to prevent all this ?"

" Nothing will prevent it," replied Cleveland, " because it will
never be attempted — Anything might prevent it, that is equal in
strength to the long-boat of a British man-of-war."

" You treat us with scorn, sir," said Minna ; " yet yourself should
know what a few resolved men may perform."

" But they must be armed, Minna," replied Cleveland, " and
willing to place their lives upon each desperate adventure. — Think
not of such visions. Denmark has been cut down into a second-
rate kingdom, incapable of exchanging a single broad-side with
England ; Norway is a starving wilderness ; and, in these islands,
the love of independence has been suppressed by a long term of
subjection, or shows itself but in a few muttered growls over the
bowl and bottle. And, were your men as willing warriors as their
ancestors, what could the unarmed crews of a few fishing-boats do
against the British navy ? — Think no more of it, sweet Minna — it is
a dream, and I must term it so, though it makes your eye so bright,
and your step so noble."

" It is indeed a dream ! " said Minna, looking down, " and it ill
becomes a daughter of Hialtland to look or to move like a free-
woman — Our eye should be on the ground, and our step slow and
reluctant, as that of one who obeys a taskmaster."

" There are lands," said Cleveland, " in which the eye may look
bright upon groves of the palm and the cocoa, and where the foot
may move light as a galley under sail, over fields carpeted with
flowers, and savannahs surrounded by aromatic thickets, and where
subjection is unknown, except that of the brave to the bravest, and
of all to the most beautiful."

Minna paused a moment ere she spoke, and then answered,
"No, Cleveland. My own rude country has charms for me, even

£26 THE PIRATE.

desolate as you think it, and depressed as it surely is, which no
other land on earth can offer to me. I endeavour in vain to
represent to myself those visions of trees, and of groves, which my
eye never saw ; but my imagination can conceive no sight in nature
more sublime than these waves, when agitated by a storm, or more
beautiful, than when they come, as they now do, rolling in calm
tranquillity to the shore. Not the fairest scene in a foreign land,—
not the brightest sunbeam that ever shonS upon the richest land-
scape, would win my thoughts for a moment from that lofty rock,
misty hill, and wide-rolling ocean. Hialtland is the land of my
deceased ancestors, and of my living father ; and in Hialtland will
I live and die."

" Then in Hialtland," answered Cleveland, " will I too live and
die. I will not go to Kirkwall, — I will not make my existence
known to my comrades, from whom it were else hard for me to
escape. Your father loves me, Minna ; who knows whether long
attention, anxious care, might not bring him to receive me into his
family ? Who would regard the length of a voyage that was certain
to terminate in happiness ? " '

" Dream not of such an issue," said Minna ; " it is impossible.
While you live in my father's house, — while you receive his
assistance, and share his table, you will find him the generous
friend, and the hearty host ; but touch him on what concerns his
name and family, and the frank-hearted Udaller will start up before
you the haughty and proud descendant of a Norwegian Jarl. See
you, — a moment's suspicion has fallen on Mordaunt Mertoun, and
he has banished from his favour the youth whom he so lately loved
as a son. No one must ally with his house that is not of untainted
northern descent."

" And mine may be so, for aught that is known to me upon the
subject," said Cleveland.

" How ! " said Minna ; " have you any reason to believe yourself
of Norse descent ? "

" I have told you before,'' replied Cleveland, " that my family is
totally unknown to me. I spent my earliest days upon a solitary
plantation in the little island of Tortuga, under the charge of my
father, then a different person from what he afterwards became.
We were plundered by the Spaniards, and reduced to such
extremity of poverty, that my father, in desperation, and in thirst
of revenge, took up arms, and having become chief of a little band,
who were in the same circumstances, became a buccanier, as it is
called, and cruized against Spain, with various vicissitudes of good
and bad fortune, until, while he interfered to check some violence
of his companions, he fell by their hands— no uncommon fate among

THE PIRATE. 227

the captains of these rovers. But whence my father came, or what
was the place of his birth, I know not, fair Minna, nor have I ever
had a curious thought on the subject."

" He was a Briton, at least, your unfortunate father ? " said
Minna.

" I have no doubt of it," said Cleveland ; " his name, which I
have rendered too formidable to be openly spoken, is an English
one ; and his acquaintance with the English language, and even
with English literature, together with the pains which he took, in
better days, to teach me both, plainly spoke him to be an English-
man. If the rude bearing which I display towards others is not the
genuine character of my mind and manners, it is to my father,
Minna, that I owe any share of better thoughts and principles,
which may render me worthy, in Some small degree, of your notice
aud approbation. And yet it sometimes seems to me, that I have
two different characters ; for I cannot bring myself to believe, that
I, who now walk this lone beach with the lovely Minna Troil, and
am permitted to speak to her of the passion which I have cherished,
have ever been the daring leader of the bold band whose name was
as terrible as a tornado."

" You had not been permitted," said Minna, " to use that bold
language towards the daughter of Magnus Toil, had you not been
the brave and undaunted leader, who, with so small means, has
made his name so formidable. My heart is like that of a maiden
of the ancient days, and is to be won, not by fair words, but by
gallant deeds."

" Alas ! that heart," said Cleveland ; " and what is it that I may
do — what is it that man can do, to win in it the interest which I
desire ? "

" Rejoin your friends — pursue your fortunes — ^leave the rest to
destiny," said Minna. " Should you return, the leader of a gallant
fleet, who can tell what may befall ? "

" And what shall assure me, that, when I return — if return I ever
shall — I may not find Minna Troil a bride or a spouse?— No,
Minna, I will not trust to destiny the only object worth attaining,
which my stormy voyage in life has yet offered me."

" Hear me," said Minna. " I will bind myself to you, if you dare
accept such an engagement, by the promise of Odin,* the most
sacred of our northern rites which are yet practised among us, that
I will never favour another, until you resign the pretensions which
I have given to you. — Will that satisfy you ? — for more I cannot —
more I will not give."

" Then with that," said Cleveland, after a moment's pause, " I
must perforce be satisfied ; — ^but remember, it is yourself that throw

228 THE PIRATE.

me back upon a mode of life which the laws of Britain denounce as
criminal, and which the violent passions of the daring men by
whom it is pursued, have rendered infamous."

"But I," said Minna, "am superior to such prejudices. In
warring with England, I see their laws in no other light than as if
you were engaged with an enemy, who, in fulness of pride and
power, has declared he will give his antagonist no quarter. A
brave man will not fight the worse for this ; — and, for the manners
of your comrades, so that they do not infect your own, why should
their evil report attach to you ? "

Cleveland gazed at her as she spoke, with a degree of wondering
admiration, in which, at the same time, there lurked a smile at her
simplicity.

" I could not," he said, " have believed, that such high courage
could have been found united with such ignorance of the world, as
the world is now wielded. For my manners, they who best know
me will readily allow, that I have done my best, at the risk of my
popularity, and of my life itself, to mitigate the ferocity of my mates ;
but how can you teach humanity to men burning with vengeance
against the world by whom they are proscribed, or teach them
temperance and moderation in enjoying the pleasures which chance
throws in their way, to vary a life which would be otherwise one
constant scene of peril and hardship ? — But this promise, Minna —
this promise, which is all I am to receive in guerdon for my faithful
attachment — let me at least lose no time in claiming that."

" It must not be rendered here, but in Kirkwall. — We must
invoke, to witness the engagement, the Spirit which presides over
the ancient Circle of Stennis. But perhaps you fear to name the
ancient Father of the Slain too, the Severe, the Terrible ? "

Cleveland smiled.

" Do me the justice to think, lovely Minna, that I am little sub-
ject to fear real causes of terror ; and for those which are visionary
I have no sympathy whatever."

"You believe not in them, then ?" said Minna, " and are so far
better suited to be Brenda's lover than mine."

" I will believe," replied Cleveland, " in whatever you believe.
The whole inhabitants of that Valhalla, about which you converse
so much with that fiddUng, rhyming fool, Claud Halcro — all these
shall become living and existing things to my credulity. But,
Minna, do not ask me to fear any of them."

"Fear! no — not to /^ar them, surely," replied the maiden; "for,
not before Thor or Odin, when they approached in the fulness of
their terrors, did the heroes of my dauntless race yield one foot in
retreat. Nor do I own them as Deities — a better faith prevents so

THE PIRATE. 229

foul an error. But, in our own conception, they are powerful spirits
for good or evil. And when you boast not to fear them, bethink
you that you defy an enemy of a kind you have never yet
encountered." '

" Not in these northern latitudes," said the lover, with a smile
" where hitherto I have seen but angels ; but I have faced, in my
time, the demons of the Equinoctial Line, which we rovers suppose
to be as powerful, and as malignant, as those of the North."

" Have you, then, witnessed those Wonders that are beyond the
visible world?," said Minna, with some degree of awe.

Cleveland composed his countenance, and replied, — "A short
while before my father's death, I came, though then very young,
into the command of a sloop, manned with thirty as desperate
fellows as ever handled a musket. We cruized for a long v/hile
with bad success, taking nothing but wretched small-craft, which
were destined to catch turtle, or otherwise loaded with coarse and
worthless trumpery. I had much ado to prevent my comrades from
avenging upon the crews of those baubling shallops the disappoint-
ment which they had occasioned to us. At length, we grew
desperate, and made a descent on a village, where we were told we
should intercept the mules of a certain Spanish governor, laden
with treasure. We succeeded in carrying the place ; but while I
endeavoured to save the inhabitants from the fury of my followers,
the muleteers, with their precious cargo, escaped into the neigh-
bouring woods. This filled up the measure of my unpopularity.
My people, who had been long discontented, became openly
mutinous. I was deposed fi'om my command in solemn council,
and condemned, as having too little luck and too much humanity
for the profession I had undertaken, to be marooned,* as the phrase
goes, on one of those little sandy, bushy islets, which are called, in
the West Indies, keys, and which are frequented only by turtle and
by sea-fowl. Many of them are supposed to be haunted — some by
the demons worshipped by the old inhabitants — some by Caciques
and others, whom the Spaniards had put to death by torture, to
compel them to discover their hidden treasures, and others by the
various spectres in which sailors of all nations have implicit faith.*
My place of banishment, called Coffin-key, about two leagues and
a half to the south-east of Bermudas, was so infamous as the resort
of these supernatural inhabitants, that I believe the wealth of
Mexico would not have persuaded the bravest of the scoundrels
who put me ashore there, to have spent an hour on the islet alone,
even in broad daylight ; and when they rowed off, they pulled for
the sloop like men that dared not cast their eyes behind them.
And there they left me, to subsist as I might, on a speck of unpro-

230 THE PIRATE.

ductive sand, surrounded by the boundless Atlantic, and haunted,
as they supposed, by malignant demons."

" And what was the consequence ? " said Minna, eagerly.

" I supported life," said the adventurer, " at the expense of such
sea-fowl, aptly called boobies, as were silly enough to let me
approach so near as to knock them down with a stick ; and by
means of turtle-eggs, when these complaisant birds became better
acquainted with the mischievous disposition of the human species,
and more shy of course of my advances."

"And the demons of whom you spoke?" — continued Minna.

" I had my secret apprehensions upon their account," said
Cleveland : " in open daylight, or in absolute darkness, I did not
greatly apprehend their approach j but.in the misty dawn of the
morning, or when evening was about to fall, I saw, for the first
week of my abode on the key, many a dim and undefined spectre,
now resembling a Spaniard, with his capa wrapped around him,
and his huge sombrero, as large as an umbrella, upon his head, —
now a Dutch sailor, with his rough cap and trunk-hose, — and now
an Indian Cacique, with his feathery crown and long lance of
cane."

" Did you not approach and address them ? " said Minna.

" I always approached them," replied the seaman ; " but, — I
grieve to disappoint your expectations, my fair friend, — whenever I
drew near them, the phantom changed into a bush, or a piece of
driftwood, or a wreath of mist, or some such cause of deception,
until at last I was taught by experience to cheat myself no longer
with such visions, and continued a solitary inhabitant of Coffin-
key, as little alarmed by visionary terrors, as I ever was in the
great cabin of a stout vessel, with a score of companions around
me."

" You have cheated me into listening to a tale of nothing,'' said
Minna ; " but how long did you continue on the island ?"

" Four weeks of wretched existence," said Cleveland, " when I
was relieved by the crew of a vessel which came thither a-turtling.
Yet .my miserable seclusion was. not entirely useless to me ; for on
that spot of barren sand I found, or rather forged, the iron mask,
which has since been my chief security against treason, or mutiny
of my followers. It was there I formed the resolution to seem no
softer hearted, nor better instructed — no more humane, and no
more scrupulous, than those with whom fortune had leagued me.
I thought over my former story, and saw that seeming more brave,
skilful, and enterprising than others, had gained me command and
respect, and that seeming more gently nurtured, and more civilized
than they, had made them envy and hate me as a being of another

THE PIRATE. 231

species. I bargained with myself, then, that since I could not lay
aside my superiority of intellect and education, I would do my
best to disguise, and to sink in the rude seaman, all appearance of
better feeling and better accomplishments. I foresaw then what
has since happened, that, under the appearance of daring obduracy,
I should acquire such a habitual command over my followers, that
I might use it for the insurance of discipline, and for relieving the
distresses of the wretches who fell under our power. I saw, in
short, that to attain authority, I must assume the external sem- ,
blance, at least, of those over whom it was to be exercised. The
tidings of my father's fate, while it excited me to vnrath and to
revenge, confirmed the resolution I had adopted. He also had
fallen a victim to his superiority of mind, morals, and manners,
above those whom he commanded. They were wont to call him
the Gentleman ; and, unquestionably, they thought he waited some
favourable opportunity to reconcile himself, perhaps at their
expense, to those existing forms of society his habits seemed best
to suit with, and, even therefore, they murdered him. Nature and
justice alike called on me for revenge. I was soon at the head of a
new body of the adventurers, who are so numerous in those islands.
I sought not after those by whom I had been myself marooned, but
after the wretches who had betrayed my father ; and on them I
took a revenge so severe, that it was of itself sufficient to stamp /
me with the character of that inexorable ferocity which I was
desirous .to be thought to possess, and which, perhaps was gradually
creeping on my natural disposition in actual earnest. My manner,
speech, and conduct, seemed so totally changed, that those who
formerly knew me were disposed to ascribe the alteration to my
intercourse with the demons who haunted the sands of Coffin-key;
nay, there were some superstitious enough to believe, that I had
actually formed a league with them."

"I tremble to hear the rest!" said Minna; "did you not
become the monster* of courage and cruelty whose character you
assumed ? "

" If I have escaped being so, it is to you, Minna," replied Cleve-
land, " that the wonder must be ascribed. It is true, I have always
endeavoured to distinguish myself rather by acts of adventurous
valour, than by schemes of revenge or of plunder, and that at
length I could save lives by a rude jest, and sometimes, by the
excess of the measures which I myself proposed, could induce'
those under me to intercede in favour of prisoners ; so that the
seeniing severity of my character has better served the cause of
humanity, than had I appeared directly devoted to it."

He ceased, and, as Minna replied not a word, both remained

232 THE PIRATE.

silent for a little space, when Cleveland again resumed the dis-
course :-

"You are silent," he said, "Miss Troil, and I have injured
myself in your opinion by the frankness with which I have laid my
character before you. I may truly say that my natural disposition
has been controlled, but not altered, by the untoward circum-
stances in which I am placed."

" I am uncertain," said Minna, after a moment's consideration,
" whether you had been thus candid, had you not known I should
soon see your comrades, and discover, from their conversation and
their manners, what you would otherwise gladly have concealed."

" You do me injustice, Minna, cruel injustice. From the instant
that you knew me to be a sailor of fortune, an adventurer, a buc-
canier, or, if you will have the broad word, a PIRATE, what had
you to expect less than what I have told you ? "

"You speak too truly," said Minna — "all this I might have
anticipated, and I know not how I should have expected it other-
wise. But it seemed to me that a war on the cruel and super-
stitious Spaniards had in it something ennobling— .-something that
refined the fierce employment to which you have just now given its
true and dreaded name. I thought that the independent warriors
of the Western Ocean, raised up, as it were, to punish the wrongs
of so many murdered and plundered tribes, must have had something
of gallant elevation, like that of the Sons of the North, whose long
galleys avenged on so many coasts the oppressions of degenerate
Rome. This I thought, and this I dreamed — I grieve that I am
awakened and undeceived. Yet I blame you not for the erring of
my own fancy. — Farewell ; we must now part."

" Say at least," said Cleveland, " that you do not hold me in
horror for having told you the truth."

" I must have time for reflection," said Minna, " time to weigh
what you have said, ere I can fully understand my own feelings.
Thus much, however, I can say even now, that he who pursues the
wicked purpose of plunder, by means of blood and cruelty, and
who must veil his remains of natural remorse under an affectation
of superior profligacy, is not, and cannot be, the lover whom Minna
Troil expected to find in Cleveland ; and if she still love him, it
must be as a penitent, and not as a hero."

So saying, she extricated herself from his grasp, (for he still
endeavoured to detain her,) making an imperative sign to him to
forbear from following her. — " She is gone," said Cleveland, look-
ing after her ; " wild and fanciful as she is, I expected not this. —
She startled not at the name of my perilous course of life, yet
seems totally unprepared for the evil which must necessarily attend

THE PIRATE. 23s

it ; and so all the merit I have gained by my resemblance to a
Norse Champion, or King of the Sea, is to be lost at once, because
a gang of pirates do not prove to be a choir of saints. I would
that Rackam, Hawkins, and tlie rest, had been at the bottom of
the Race of Portland — I would the Pentland Frith had swept
them to hell rather than to Orkney ! I will not, however, quit the
chase of this angel for all that these fiends can do. I will — I must
to Orkney before the Udaller makes his voyage thither — our meet-
ing might alarm even his blunt understanding, although, thank
Heaven, in this wild country^ men know the nature of our trade
only by hearsay, through our honest friends the Dutch, who take
care never to speak very ill of those they make money by. —
Well, if fortune would but stand my friend with this beautiful
enthusiast, I would pursue her wheel no farther at sea, but set
myself down amongst these rocks, as happy as if they were so
many groves of bananas and palmettoes."

With these, and such thoughts, half rolling in his bosom, half
expressed in indistinct hints and murmurs, the pirate Cleveland'
returned to the mansion of Burgh- Westra.

CHAPTER XXIII.

There was shaking of hands, and sorrow of heart.
For the hour was approaching when merry folks must part ;
So we call'd for our horses, and ask'd for our way.
While the jolly old landlord said, " Nothing's to pay."

Lilliput, a Poem.

We do not dwell upon the festivities of the day, which had
nothing in them to interest the reader particularly. The table
groaned under the usual plenty, which was disposed of by the
guests with the usual appetite — the bowl of punch was filled and
emptied with the same celerity as usual — the men quaffed, and
the women laughed — Claud Halcro rhymed, punned, and praised
John Dryden — the Udaller bumpered and sung choruses — and
the evening concluded, as usual, in the Rigging-loft, as it was
Magnus Troll's pleasure to term the dancing apartment.

It was then and there that Cleveland, approaching Magnus,
where he sat betwixt his two daughters, intimated his intention
of going to Kirkwall in a small brig, which Bryce Snailsfoot, who

234 THE PIRATE.

had disposed of his goods with unprecedented celerity, had
freighted thither, to procure a supply.

Magnus heard the sudden proposal of his guest with surprise,
not unmingled with displeasure, and demanded sharply of Cleve-
land, how long it was since he had learned to prefer Bryce
Snailsfoot's company to his own? Cleveland answered, with his
usual bluntness of manner, that time and tide tarried for no one,
and that he had his own particular reasons for making his trip to
Kirkwall sooner than the Udaller proposed to set sail— that he
hoped to meet with him and his daughters at the great fair which
was now closely approaching, and might perhaps find it possible to
return to Zetland 'along with them.

While he spoke this, Brenda kept her eye as much upon her
sister as it was possible to do, without exciting general observation.
She remarked, that Minna's pale cheek became yet paler while
Cleveland spoke, and that she seemed, by compressing her lips,
and slightly knitting her brows, to be in the act of repressing
the effects of strong interior emotion. But she spoke not ; and
when Cleveland, having bidden adieu to the Udaller, approached
to salute her, as was then the custom, she received his farewell
without trusting herself to attempt a reply.

Brenda had her own trial approaching ; for Mordaunt Mertoun,
once so much loved by her father, was now in the act of making
his cold parting from him, without receiving a single look of
friendly regard. There was, indeed, sarcasm in the tone with
which Magnus wished the youth a good journey, and recommended
to him, if he met a bonny lass by the way, not to dream that she
was in love, because she chanced to jest with him. Mertoun
coloured at what he felt as an insult, though it was but half
intelligible to him ; but he remembered Brenda, and suppressed
every feeling of resentment. He proceeded to take his leave of
the sisters. Minna, whose heart was considerably softened towards
him, received his farewell with some degree of interest ; but
Brenda's grief was so visible in the kindness of her manner, and
the moisture which gathered in her eye, that it was noticed even by
the Udaller, who exclaimed, half angrily, "Why, ay, lass, that
may be right enough, for he was an old acquaintance ; but mind !
I have no will that he remain one."

Mertoun, who was slowly leaving the apartment, half overheard
this disparaging observation, and half turned round to resent it.
But his purpose failed him when he saw that Brenda had been
obliged to have recourse to her handkerchief to hide her emotion,
and the sense that it was excited by his departure, obliterated every
thought of her father's unkindness. He retired — the other guests

THE PIRATE. 235

followed his example ; and many of them, like Cleveland and him-
self, took their leave over-night, with the intention of commencing
their homeward journey on the succeeding morning.

That night, the mutual sorrow of Minna and Brenda, if it could
not wholly remove the reserve which had estranged the sisters from
each other, at least melted all its frozen and unkindly symptoms.
They wept in each other's arms ; and though neither spoke, yet
each bec.ame dearer to the other; because they .felt that the
grief which called forth these drops, had a source common to
them both.

It is probable, that though Brenda's tears were most abundant,
the grief of Minna was most deeply seated ; for, long after the
younger had sobbed herself asleep, like a child, upon her sister's
bosom, Minna lay awake, watching the dubious twilight, while tear
after tear slowly gathered in her eye, and found a current down her
cheek, as soon as it became too heavy to be supported by her long
black silken eyelashes. As she lay, bewildered among the sorrow-
ful thoughts which supplied these tears, she was surprised to dis-
tinguish, beneath the window, the sounds of music. At first she
supposed it was some freak of Claud Halcro, whose fantastic
humour sometimes indulged itself in such serenades. But it was
not the gue of the old minstrel, but the guitar, that she heard ; an
instrument which none in the island knew how to touch except
Cleveland, who had learned, in his intercourse with the South-
American Spaniards, to play on it with superior execution.
Perhaps it was in those climates also that he had learned the song,
which, though he now sung it under the window of a maiden of
Thule, had certainly never been composed for the native of a
climate so northerly and so severe, since it spoke of productions
of the earth and skies which are there unknown.

" Love wakes and weeps
While Beauty sleeps :

O for Music's softest numbers,
To prompt a theme.
For Beauty's dream.

Soft as the pillow of her slumbers !

" Through groves of palm

Sigh gales of balm.
Fire-flies on the air are wheeling ;

While through the gloom

Comes soft perfume.
The distant beds of flowers revealing.

asS THE PIRATE.

" O wake and live,

No dream can giva
A shadoVd bliss, the real excelling ;

No longer sleep,

From lattice peep.
And list the tale that Love is telling ! "

The voice of Cleveland was deep, rich, and manly, and accorded
well with the Spanish air, to which the words, probably a transla-
tion from the same language, had beert adapted. His invocation
would not probably have been fruitless, could Minna have arisen
without awaking her sister. But that was impossible ; for Brenda,
who, as we have already mentioned, had wept bitterly before she
had sunk into repose, now lay with her face on her sister's neck,
and one arm stretched around her, in the attitude of a child which
has cried itself asleep in the arms of its nurse. It was impossible
for Minna to extricate herself from her grasp without awaking
her ; and she could not, therefore, execute her hasty purpose, of
donning her gown, and approaching the' window to speak with
Cleveland, who, she had no doubt, had resorted to this contrivance
to procure an interview. The restraint was sufficiently provoking,
for it was more than probable that her lover came to take his
last farewell ; but that Brenda, inimical as she seemed to be of late
towards Cleveland, should awake and witness it, was a thought not
to be endured.

There was a short pause, in which Minna endeavoured more than
once, with as much gentleness as possible, to unclasp Brenda's arm
from her neck ; but whenever she attempted it, the slumberer mut-
tered some little pettish sound, like a child disturbed in its sleep,
which sufficiently showed that perseverance in the attempt would
awaken her fully.

To her great vexation, therefore, Ininna was compelled to remain
still and silent ; when her lover, as if determined upon gaining her
ear by music of another strain, sung the following fragment of a
sea-ditty : —

" Farewell ! Farewell ! the voice you hear.
Has left its last soft tone with you, —

Its next must join the seaward cheer,
And shout among the shouting crew.

" The accents which I scarce could form
Beneath your frown's Controlling check,

Must give the word, above the storm.
To cut the mast and clear the wreck.

THE PIRATE. 237

" The timid eye I dared not raise, —
The hand that shook when, press'd to thine,

Must point the guns upon the chase,—
Must bid the deadly cutlass shine.

" To all I love, or hope, or fear, —

Honour, or own, a long adieu !
To all that life has soft and dear.

Farewell ! save memory of you ! " *

He was again silent ; and again she, to whom the serenade was
addressed, strove in vain to arise without rousing her sister. It
was impossible ; and she had nothing before her but the unhappy
thought that Cleveland was taking leave in his desolation, without
a single glance, or a single word. He, too, whose temper was so
fiery, yet who subjected his violent mood with such sedulous atten-
tion to her will-t could she but have stolen a moment to say adieu —
to caution him against new quarrels with Mertoun — to implore him
to detach himself from such comrades as he had described — could
she but have done 'this, who could say what effect such parting
admonitions might have had upon his character — nay, upon the
future events of his life ?

Tantalized by such thoughts, Minna was about to make another
and decisive effort, when she heard voices beneath the window, and
thought she could distinguish that they were those of Cleveland
and Mertoun, speaking in a sharp tone, which, at the sarne time,
seemed cautiously suppressed, as if the speakers feared being over-
heard. Alarm now mingled with her former desire to rise from bed,
and she accomplished at once the purpose which she had so often
attempted in vain. Brenda's arm waj unloosed from her sister's
neck, without the sleeper receiving more alarm than, provoked two
or three unintelligible murmurs ; while, with equal speed and
silence, Minna put on some part of her dress, with the intention to
steal to the window. But, ere she could accomplish this, the sound
of the voices without was exchanged for that of blows and strug-
gling, which terminated suddenly by a deep groan.

Terrified at this last signal of mischief, Minna sprung to the
window, and endeavoured to open it, for the persons were so close
under the walls of the house that she could not see them, save
by putting her head out of the casement. The iron hasp was stiff
and rusted, and, as generally happens, the haste with which she
laboured to undo it only rendered the task more difficult. When
it was accomplished, and Minna had eagerly thrust her body half
out at the casement, those who had created the sounds which
alarmed her were become invisible, excepting that she saw a

238 THE PIRATE.

shadow cross the moonlight, the substance of which must have
been in the act of turning a corner, which concealed it from her
sight. The shadow moved slowly, and seemed that of a man who
supported another upon his shoulders ; an indication which put the
climax to Minna's agony of mind. The window was not above
eight feet from the ground, and she hesitated not to throw hersel
from it hastily, and to pursue the object which had excited her terror.

But when she came to the corner of the buildings from which the
shadow seemed to have been projected, she discovered nothing
which could point out the way that the figure had gone ; and, after
a moment's consideration, became sensible that all attempts at
pursuit would be alike wild and fruitless. Besides all the pro-
jections and recesses of the many-angled mansion, and its numerous
offices — ^besides the various cellars, store-houses, stables, and so
forth, which defied her solitary search, there was a range of low
rocks, stretching down to the haven, and which were, in fact, a
continuation of the ridge whicTi formed its pier. These rocks had
many indentures, hollows, and caverns, into any one of which the
figure to which the shadow belonged might have retired with his
fatal burden ; for fatal, she feared, it was most likely to prove.

A moment's reflection, as we have said, convinced Minna of the
folly of further pursuit. Her next thought was to alarm the family ;
but what tale had she to tell, and of whom was that tale to be told?
— On the other hand, the wounded man — if indeed he were wounded
— alas, if indeed he were not mortally wounded! — might not be
past the reach of assistance ; and, with this idea, she was about to
raise her voice, when she was interrupted by that of Claud Halcro,
who was returning apparently from the haven, and singing, in his
manner, a scrap of an old Norse ditty, which might run thus in
English : —

"And you shall deal the funeral dole ;

Ay, deal it, mother mine,
To weary body, and to heavy soul,

The white bread and the wine.

" And you shall deal my horses of pride ;

Ay, deal them, mother mine ;
And you shall deal my lands so wide,

And deal my castles nine.

" But deal not vengeance for the deed,

And deal not for the crime ;
The body to its place, and the soul to Heaven's grace,

And the rest in God's own time."

THE PIRATE.

239

The singular adaptation of these rhymes to the situation in which
she found herself, seemed to Minna like a warning from Heaven.
We are speaking of a land of omens and superstitions, and perhaps
will scarce be understood by those whose limited imagination cannot
conceive how strongly these operate upon the human mind during
a certain progress of society. A line of Virgil, turned up casually,
was received in the seventeenth century, and in the court of Eng-
land,* as an intimation of future events ; and no wonder that a
maiden of the distant and wild isles of Zetland should have con-
sidered as an injunction from Heaven, verses which happened to
convey a sense analogous to her present situation.

" I will be silent," she muttered, — " I will seal my lips —

'The body to its place, and the soul to Heaven's grace,
And the rest in God's own time.' "

" Who speaks there ? " said Claud Halcro, in some alarm ; for
he had not, in his travels in fdreign parts, been able by any means
to rid himself of his native superstitions. In the condition to which
fear and horror had reduced her, Minna was at first unabld to
reply ; and Halcro, fixing his eyes upon the female white figure,
which he saw indistinctly, (for she stood in the shadow of the
house, and the morning was thick and misty,) began to conjure her in
ah ancient -rhyme which occurred to him as suited for the occasion,
and which had in its gibberish a wild and unearthly sound, which
may be lost in the ensuing translation : —

" Saint Magnus control thee, that martyr of treason ;
Saint Ronan rebuke thee, with rhyme and with reason ;
By the mass of Saint Martin, the might of Saint Mary,
Be thou gone, or thy weird shall be worse if thou tarry !

If of good, go hence and hallow thee, —

If of ill, let the earth swallow thee, —

If thou'rt of air, let the grey mist fold thee, —

If of earth, let the swart mine hold thee, —

If a Pixie, seek thy ring, —

If a Nixie, seek thy spring ; —

If on middle earth thou'st been

Slave of sorrow, shame, and sin.

Hast eat the bread of toil and strife,

'And dree'd the lot which men call life.
Begone to thy stone ! for thy coffin is scant of thee,
The worm, thy playfellow, wails for the want of thee ; —
Hence, houseless ghost ! let the earth hide thee.
Till Michael shall blow the blast, see that there thou bide thee ! —
Phantom, fly hence ! take the Cross for a token,
Hence pass till Hallowmass ! — my spell is spoken."

240 THE PIRATE.

" It is I, Halcro," muttered Minna, in a tone so thin and low,
that it might have passed for the faint reply of the conjured
phantom.

"You !— you ! " said Halcro, his tone of alarm changing to one of
extreme surprise ; " by this moonlight, which is waining, and so it
is ! — Who could have thought to find you, my most lovely Night,
wandering abroad in your own element ! — But you saw them, I
reckon, as wejl as I ? — bold enough in you to follow them, though."

" Saw whom ? — follow whom ? " said Minna, hoping to gain some
information on the subject of her fears and anxiety.

" The corpse-lights which danced at the haven," replied Halcro ;
"they bode no good, I promise you — you wot well what the old
rhyme says —

' Where corpse-light

Dances bright.

Be it day or night.

Be it by light or dark,

There shall corpse lie stiff and stark.'

I went half as far as the haven to look after them, but they had
vanished. I think I saw a boat put off, however, — some one bound
for the Haaf, I suppose. — I would we had good news of this fish-
ing — there was Noma left us in anger, — and then these corpse-
lights ! — Well, God help the while ! I am an old man, and can but
wish that all were well over. — But how now, my pretty Minna ?
tears in your eyes ! — And now that I see you in the fair moonlight,
barefooted, too, by Saint Magnus ! — Were there no stockings of
Zetland wool soft enough for these pretty feet and ankles, that glance
so white in the moon-beam? — What, silent ! — angry, perhaps," he
added, in a more serious tone, " at my nonsense ? For shame,
silly maiden ! — Remember I am old enough to be your father, and
have always loved you as my child."

" I am not angry," said Minna, constraining herself to speak —
"but heard you nothing? — saw you nothing .' — They must have
passed you."

" They ? " said Claud Halcro ; " what mean you by they ? — is it
the corpse-lights ?— No, they did not pass by me, but I think they
have passed by you, and blighted you with their influence, for you
are as pale as a spectre.— Come, come, Minna," he added, opening
a side-door of the dwelling, " these moonlight walks are fitter for
old poets than for young maidens — And so lightly clad as you are !
Maiden, you should take care how you give yourself to the breezes
of a Zetland night, for they bring more sleet than odours upon their

THE PIRATE. 241

wings.— But, maiden, go in ; for, as glorious John says— or, as he
does not say — for I cannot remember how his verse chimes — but,
as I say myself, in a pretty poem, written when my muse was in
her teens, —

Menseful maiden ne'er should rise.
Till the first beam tinge the skies ;
Silk-fringed eyelids still should close.
Till the sun has kiss'd the rose ;
Maiden's foot we should not view,
Mark'd with tiny print on dew,
Till the opening flowerets spread
Carpet meet for beauty's tread —

Stay, what comes next ? — let me see."

When the spirit of recitation seized on Claud Halcro, he forgot
time and place, and might have kept his companion in the cold air
for half an hour, giving poetical reasons why she ought to have
been in bed. But she interrupted him by the question, earnestly
pronounced, yet in a voice which was scarcely articulate, holding
Halcro, at the same time, with a trembling and convulsive grasp,
as if to support herself from falling, — " Saw you no one in the boat
which put to sea but now ? "

" Nonsense," replied Halcro ; " how could I see any one, when
light and distance only enabled me to know that it was a boat, and
not a grampus ? "

" But there must have been some one in the boat ? " repeated
Minna, scarce conscious of what she said.

" Certainly," answered the poet ; " boats [seldom work to wind-
ward of their own accord. — But come, this is all folly ; and so, as
the Queen says, in an old play, which was revised for the stage
by rare Will D'Avenant, ' To bed— to bed— to bed ! ' "

They separated, and Minna's limbs conveyed her with difficulty,
through several devious passages, to her own chamber, where she
stretched herself cautiously beside her still sleeping sister, with a
mind harassed with the most agonizing apprehensions. That she
had heard Cleveland, sne was positive — the tenor of the songs left
her no doubt on that subject. If not equally certain that she had
heard young Mertoun's voice in hot quarrel with her lover, the im-
pression to that effect was strong on her mind. The groan with
which the struggle seemed to terminate — the fearful indication
from which it seemed that the conqueror had borne off the liieless
body of his victim— all tended to prove that some fatal event had,
concluded the contest. And which of the unhappy, men had
fallen ?— which had met a bloody death ? — which had achieved a

R

S42 THE PIRATE.

fatal and a bloody victory ? — These were questions to which the
still small voice of interior conviction answered, that her lover
Cleveland, from character, temper, and habits, was most likely to
have been the survivor of the fray. She received from the reflec-
tion an involuntary consolation which she almost detested herself
for admitting, when she recollected that it was at once darkened
with her lover's guilt, and embittered with the destruction of
Brenda's happiness for ever.

" Innocent, unhappy sister ! " such were her reflections ; " thou
that art ten times better than I, because so unpretending— so un-
assuming in thine excellence ! How is it possible that I should
cease to feel a pang, which is only transferred from my bosom to
thine?"

As these cruel thoughts crossed her mind, she could not refrain
from straining her sister so close to her bosom, that, after a heavy
sigh, Brenda awoke.

" Sister," she said, " is it you ? — I dreamed I lay on one of those
monuments which Claud Halcro described to us, where the effigy
of the inhabitant beneath lies carved in stone upon the sepulchre.
I dreamed such a marble form lay by my side, and that it suddenly
acquired enough of life and animation to fold me to its cold, moist
bosom — and it is yours, Minna, that is indeed so chilly. — You are
ill, my dearest Minna ! for God's sake, let me rise and call Eu-
phane Fea. — What ails you ? has Noma been here again ? "

" Call no one hither," said Minna, detaining her ; " nothing ails
me for which any one has a remedy — nothing but apprehensions of
evil worse than even Noma could prophesy. But God is above all,
my dear Brenda ; and let us pray to him to turn, as he only can,
our evil into good."

They did jointly repeat their usual prayer for strength and pro-
tection from on high, aijd again composed themselves to sleep,
suffering no word save " God bless you," to pass betwixt them,
when their devotions were finished ; thus scrupulously dedicating
to Heaven their last waking words, if human frailty prevented them
from commanding their last waking thoughts. Brenda slept first,
and Minna, strongly resisting the dark and evil presentiments which
again began to crowd themselves upon her imagination, was at last
so fortunate as to slumber also.

The storm which Halcro had expected began about daybreak, —
a squall, heavy with wind and rain, such as is often felt, even during
the finest part of the season, in these latitudes. At the whistle of
the wind, and the clatter of the rain on the shingle-roofing of the
fishers' huts, many a poor woman was awakened, and called on her
children to hold up their little hands, and join in prayer for the

THE PIRATE. 243

safety of the dear husband and father, who was even then at the
mercy of the disturbed elements. Around the house of Burgh-
Westra, chimneys howled, and windows clashed. The props and
rafters of the higher parts of the building,- most of them formed out
of wreck-wood, groaned and quivered, as fearing to be again dis-
persed by the tempest. But the daughters of Magnus Troil con-
tinued to sleep as softly and as sweetly as if the hand of Chantrey
had formed them out of statuary-marble. The squall had passed
away, and the sunbeams, dispersing the clouds which drifted to
leeward, shone full through the lattice, when Minna first started
from the profound sleep into which fatigue and mental exhaustion
had lulled her, and raising herself on her arm, began to recall
events, which, after this interval of profound repose, seemed almost
to resemble the baseless visions of the night. She almost doubted
if what she recalled of horror, previous to her starting from her bed,
was not indeed the fiction of a dream, suggested, perhaps, by some
external sounds.

" I will see Claud Halcro instantly," she said ; " he may know
something of these strange noises, as he was stirring at the
time."

With that she sprung from bed, but hardly stood upright on the
floor, ere her sister exclaimed, " Gracious Heaven ! Minna, what
ails your foot — your anlde .■' "

She looked down, and saw with surprise, which amounted to
agony, that both her feet, but particularly one of them, was stained
with dark crimson, resembling the colour of dried blood.

Without attempting to answer Brenda, she rushed to the window,
and cast a desperate look on the grass beneath, for there she knew
she must have contracted the fatal stain. But the rain, which had
fallen there in treble quantity, as well from the heavens, as from
the eaves of the house, had washed away that guilty witness, if
indeed such had ever existed. All was fresh and fair, and the
blades of grass, overcharged and bent with rain-drops, glittered
like diamonds in the bright morning sun.

While Minna stared upon the spangled verdure, with her full
dark eyes fixed and enlarged to circles by the intensity of her
terror, Brenda was hanging about her, and with many an eager
enquiry, pressed to know whether or how she had hurt herself?

"A piece of glass cut through my shoe," said Minna, bethinking
herself that some excuse was necessary to her sister ; " I scarce
felt it at the time."

"And yet see how it has bled," said her sister. " Sweet Minna,"
she added, approaching her with a %yetted towel, " let me wipe the
blood off— the hurt may be worse than you think of."

R 2

244 THE PIRATE.

But as she approached, Minna, who saw no other way of pre-
venting discovery that the blood with which she was stained had
never flowed in her own veins, harshly and hastily repelled the
proffered kindness. Poor Brenda, unconscious of any offence
which she had given to her sister, drew back two or three paces on
finding her service thus unkindly refused, and stood gazing at
Minna with looks in which there was more of surprise and morti-
fied affection than of resentment, but which had yet something also
of natural displeasure.

" Sister," said she, " I thought we had agreed but last night,
that, happen to us what might, we would at least love each other."

"Much may happen betwixt night and morning !" answered
Minna, in words rather wrenched from her by her situation, than
flowing forth the voluntary interpreters of her thoughts.

" Much may indeed have happened in a night so stormy,'' an-
swered Brenda ; " for see where the very wall around Euphane's
plant-a-cruive has been blown down ; but neither wind nor rain,
nor aught else, can cool our affection, Minna."

" But that may chance," replied Minna, "which may convert it
into"

The rest of the sentence she muttered in a tone so indistinct,
that it could not be apprehended ; while, at the same time, she
washed the blood-stains fromher feet and left ankle. Brenda, who
still remained looking on at some distance, endeavoured in vain to
assume some tone which might re-establish kindness and confi-
dence betwixt them.

" You were right," she said, " Minna, to suffer no one to help you
to dress so simple a scratch — standing where I do, it is scarce
visible."

"The most cruel wounds,'' replied Minna, "are those which
make no outward show — Are you sure you see it at all ? "

" O, yes ! " replied Brenda, framing her answer as she thought
would best please her sister ; " I see a very slight scratch ; nay,
now you draw on the stocking, I can see nothing."

" You do indeed see nothing," answered Minna, somewhat wildly;
" but the time will soon come that all — ay, all— will be seen and
known."

So saying, she hastily completed her dress, and led the way to
breakfast, where she assumed her place amongst the guests ; but
with a countenance so pale and haggard, and manners and speech
so altered and so bewildered, that it excited the attention of the
whole company, and the utmost anxiety on the part of her father
Magnus Troil. Many and various were the conjectures of the
guests, concerning a distemperature which seemed rather mental

THE'PIRATE. 243

than corporeal. Some hinted that the maiden had been struck
with an evil eye, and something they muttered about Noma of the
Fitful-head ; some talked of the departure of Captain Cleveland,
and murmured, " it was a shame for a young lady to take on so
after a land-louper, of whom no one knew any thing;" and this
contemptuous epithet was in particular bestowed on the Captain
by Mistress Baby Yellowley, while she was in the act of wrapping
round her old skinny neck the very handsome owerlay (as she
called it) wherewith the said Captain had presented her. The old
Lady Glowrowrum had a system of her own, which she hinted to
Mistress Yellowley, after thanking God that her own connexion with
the Burgh-Westra family was by the lass's mother, who was a
canny Scotswoman, like herself.

" For, as to these Troils, you see, Dame Yellowley, for aS high
as they hold their heads, they say that ken " (winking sagaciously,)
" that there is a bee in their bonnet ; — that Noma, as they call her,
for it's not her right name neither, is at whiles far beside her right
mind, — and they that ken the cause, say the Fowd was some gate
or other linked in with it, for he will never hear an ill word of her.
But I was in Scotland then, or I might have kend the real cause,
as weel as other folk. At ony rate there is a kind of wildness in
the blood. Ye ken very weel daft folk dinna bide to be contra-
dicted ; and I'll say that for the Fowd — he likes to be contradicted
as ill as ony man in Zetland. But it shall never be said that I said
ony ill of the house that I am sae nearly connected wi'. Only ye
will mind, dame, it is through the Sinclairs that we are akin, not
through the Troils, — and the Sinclairs are kend far and wide for a
wise generation, dame. — But I see there is the stirrup-cup coming
round."

" I wonder," said Mistress Baby to her brother, as soon as the
Lady Glowrowrum turned from her, " what gars that muckle wife
dame, dame, dame, that gate at me ? She might ken the blude of
the Clinkscales is as gude as ony Glowrowrum's amang them."

The guests, meanwhile, were fast taking their departure, scarcely
noticed by Magnus, who was so much engrossed with Minna's in-
disposition, that, contrary to his hospitable wont, he suffered them to
go away unsaluted. And thus concluded, amidst anxiety and ill-
ness, the festival of Saint John, as celebrated on that season at the
house of Burgh-Westra; adding another caution to that of the
Emperor of Ethiopia, — with how little security man can reckon
upon the days which he destines to happiness

246 THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER XXIV.

But this sad evil which doth her infest,
Doth course of natural cause far exceed,
And housed is within her hollow breast,
That either seems some cursed witch's deed,
Or evill spright that in her doth such torment breed.

Fairy Queen, Book III., Canto III.

The term had now elapsed, by several days, when Mordaunt
Mertoun, as he had promised at his departure, -'■ ould have returned
to his father's abode at Jarlshof, but there wcic no tidings of his
arrival. Such delay might, at another time, have excited little
curiosity, and no anxiety ; for old Swertha, who took upon her the
office of thinking and conjecturing for the little household, would
have concluded that he had remained behind the other guests upon
some party of sport or pleasure. But she knew that Mordaunt had
not been lately in favour with Magnus Troil ; she knew that he
proposed his stay at Burgh-Westra should be a short one, upon
account of his father's health, to whom, notwithstanding the little
encouragement which his filial piety received, he paid uniform atten-
tion. Swertha knew all this, and she became anxious. She watched
the looks of her master, the elder Mertoun ; but, wrapt in dark
and stern uniformity of composure, his countenance, like the sur-
face of a midnight lake, enabled no one to penetrate into what was
beneath. His studies, his solitary meals, his lonely walks, suc-
ceeded each other in unvaried rotation, and seemed undisturbed by
the least thought about Mordaunt's absence.

At length such reports reached Swertha's ear, from various quar-
ters, that she became totally unable to conceal her anxiety, and
resolved at the risk of provoking her master into fury, or perhaps
that of losing her place in his household, to force upon his notice
the doubts which afflicted her own mind. Mordaunt's good-humour
and goodly person must indeed have made no small impression on
the withered and selfish heart of the poor old woman, to induce
her to take a course so desperate, and from which her friend the
Ranzelman endeavoured in vain to deter her. Still, however, con-
scious that a miscarriage in the matter, would, like the loss of
Trinculo's bottle in the horse-pool, be attended not only with dis-
honour, but with infinite loss, she determined to proceed on her
high emprize with as much caution as was consistent with the
attempt.

We have already mentioned, that it seemed a part of the very

THE PIRATE. 247

nature of this reserved and unsocial being, at least since his
retreat into the utter solitude of Jarlshof, to endure no one to start
a subject of conversation, or to put any question to him, that did
not arise out of urgent and pressing emergency. Swertha was sen-
sible, therefore, that, in order to open the discourse favourably
which she proposed to hold with her master, she must contrive that
it should originate with himself.

To accomplish this purpose, while busied in preparing the table
for Mr. Mertoun's simple and solitary dinner-meal, she formally
adorned the table with two covers instead of one, and made all
her other preparations as if he was to have a guest or companion
at dinner.

The artifice succeeded ; for Mertoun, on coming from his study,
no sooner saw the table thus arranged, than he asked Swertha,
who, waiting the effect of her stratagem as a fisher watches his
ground-baits, was fiddling up and down the room, "Whether Mor-
daunt was returned from Burgh- Westra ? "

This question was the cue for Swertha, and she answered in a
voice of sorrowful anxiety, half real, half affected, " Na, na ! — nae
sic divot had dunted at their door. It wad be blithe news indeed,
to ken that young Maister Mordaunt, puir dear bairn, were safe at
hame."

" And if he be not at home, why should you lay a cover for him,
you doting fool ? " replied Mertoun, in a tone well calculated to
stop the old woman's proceedings. But she repUed, boldly, " that,
indeed, somebody should take thought about Maister Mordaunt ;
a' that she could do was to have seat and plate ready for him when
he came. But she thought the dear bairn had been ower lang awa ;
and, if she maun speak out, she had her ain fears when and
whether he might ever come hame."

" Your fears ! " said Mertoun, his eyes flashing as they usually
did when his hour of ungovernable passion approached ; " do you
speak of your idle fears to me, who know that all of your sex, that
is not fickleness, and folly, and self-conceit, and self-will, is a bundle
of idiotical fears, vapours, and tremors ? What are your fears to
me, you fooUsh old hag ? "

It is an admirable quality in womankind, that, when a breach of
the laws of natural affection comes under their observation, the
whole sex is in arms. Let a rumour arise in the street of a parent
that has misused a child, or a child that has insulted a parent, — I
say nothing of the case of husband and wife, where the interest
may be accounted for in sympathy, — and all the women within
hearing will take animated and decided part with the sufferer.
Swertha, notwithstanding her greed and avarice, had her share of

248 THE PIRATE.

the generous feeling which does so much honour to her sex, and
was, on this occasion, so much carried on by its impulse, that she
confronted her master, and upbraided him with his hard-hearted
indifference, with a boldness at which she herself was astonished.

"To be sure it wasna her that suld be fearing for her young
maister, Maister Mordaunt, even although he was, as she might
weel say, the very sea-calf of her heart ; but ony other father, but
his honour himsell, wad have had speerings made after the poor
lad, and him gane this eight days from Burgh-Westra, and naebody
kend when or where he had gane. There wasna a bairn in the
howff but was maining for him ; for he made all their bits of boats
with his knife ; there wadna be a dry;eye in the parish, if aught
worse than weal should befall him, — na, no ane, unless it might be
his honour's ain."

Mertoun had been much struck, and even silenced, by the inso-
lent volubility of his insurgent housekeeper ; but, at the last sar-
casm, he imposed, on her silence in her turn with an audible voice,
accompanied with one of the most terrific glances which his dark
eye and stern features could express. But Swertha, who, as she
afterwards acquainted the Ranzelman, was wonderfully supported
during the whole scene, would not be controlled by the loud voice
and ferocious look of her master, but proceeded in the same tone
as before.

" His honour,'' she said, " had made an unco wark because a
wheen bits of kists and duds, that naebody had use for, had been
gathered on the beach by the poor bodies of the township ; and
here was the bravest lad in the country lost, and cast away, as
it were, before his een, and nae ane asking what was come o'
him."

" What should come of him but good, you old fool," answered
Mr. Mertoun, " as far, at least, as there can be good in any of the
follies he spends his time in ? "

This was spoken rather in a scornful than an angry tone, and
Swertha, who had got into the spirit of the dialogue, was resolved
not to let it drop, now that the fire of her opponent seemed to
slacken.

" O ay, to be sure I am an auld fule,— but, if Maister Mordaunt
should have settled down in thB Roost, as mair than ae boat had
been lost in that wearifu' squall the other morning— by good luck
it was short as it was sharp, or naething could have lived in it —
or if he were drowned in a loch coming hame on foot, or if he were
killed by miss of footing on a craig— the haill island kend how
venturesome he was— who," said Swertha, " will be the auld fule
then ? " And she added a pathetic ejaculation, that ,' God would

THE PIRATE. 249

protect the poor motherless bairn ! for if he had had a mother,
there would have been search made after him before now."

This last sarcasm affected Mertoun powerfully, — his jaw quivered,
his face grew pale, and he muttered to Swertha to go into his study
(where she was scarcely ever permitted to enter,) and fetch him a
bottle which stood there.

" O ho ! " quoth Swertha to herself, as she hastened on the com-
mission, "my master knows where to find a cup of comfort to
qualify his water with upon fitting occasions."

There was indeed a case of such bottles as were usually em-
ployed to hold, stroftg waters, but the dust and cobwebs in which
they were enveloped showed that they had not been touched for
many years. With some difficulty Swertha extracted the cork of
one of them, by the help of a fork — for corkscrew was there none
at Jarlshof— and having ascertained by smell, and, in case of any
mistake, by a moderate mouthful, that it contained wholesome
Barbadoes-waters, she carried it into the room, where her master
still continued to struggle with his faintness. She then began to
pour a small quantity into the nearest cup that she could find,
wisely judging, that, upon a person so much unaccustomed to the
use of spirituous liquors, a little might produce a strong efi'ect.
But the patient signed to her impatiently to fill the cup, which
might hold more than the third of an English pint measure, up to
the very brim, and swallowed it down without hesitation.

" Now the saunts above have a care on us ! " said Swertha ; " he
will be drunk as weel as mad, and wha is to guide him then, I
wonder ? "
, But Mertoun's breath and colour returned, without the slightest
symptom of intoxication ; on the contrary, Swertha afterwards
reported, that, " although she had always had a firm opinion in
favour of a dram, yet she. never saw one work such miracles — he
spoke mair like a man of the middle world, than she had ever
heard him since she had entered his service."

" Swertha," he said, "jou are right in this matter, and I was
wrong. — Go down to the Ranzelman directly, tell him to come and
speak with me, without an instant's delay, and bring me special
word what boats and people he can command ; I will employ them
all in the search, and they shall be plentifully rewarded."

Stimulated by the spur which maketh the old woman prover-
bially to trot, Swertha posted down to the hamlet, with all the
speed of threescore, rejoicing that her sympathetic feelings were
likely to achieve their own reward, having given rise to a quest
which promised to be so lucrative, and in the profits whereof she
was determined to have her share, shouting out as she went, and

2So THE PIRATE.

long before she got within hearing, the names of Niel Ronaldson,
Sweyn Erickson, and the other friends and confederates who were
interested in her mission. To say the truth, notwithstanding that
the good dame really felt a deep interest in Mordaunt Mertoun,
and was mentally troubled on account of his absence, perhaps few
things would have disappointed her more than if he had at this
moment started up in her path safe and sound, and rendered
unnecessary, by his appearance, the expense and the bustle of
searching after him.

Soon did Swertha accomplish her business in the village, and
adjust with the senators of the township her own little share of
per centage upon the profits likely to accrue on her mission ; and
speedily did she return to Jarlshof, with Niel Ronaldson by her
side, schooling him to the best of her skill in all the peculiarities of
her master.

" Aboon a' things," she said, " never make him wait for an
answer ; and speak loud and distinct, as if you were hailing a
boat, — for he downa bide to say the same thing twice over ; and if
he asks about distance, ye may make leagues for miles, for he
kens naething about the face of the earth that he lives upon ; and
if he speak of siller, ye may ask dollars for shillings, for he minds
them nae mair than sclate-stanes."

Thus tutored, Niel Ronaldson was introduced into the presence
of Mertoun, but was utterly confounded to find that he could not
act upon the system of deception which had been projected.
When he attempted, by some exaggeration of distance and peril,
to enhance the hire of the boats and of the men, (for the searcli
was to be by sea and land,) he found himself at once cut short by
Mertoun, who showed not only the most perfect knowledge of the
country, but of distances, tides, currents, and all belonging to the
navigation of those seas, although these were topics with whicli he
had hitherto appeared to be totally unacquainted. The Ranzel-
man, therefore, trembled when they came to speak of the recom-
pense to be afforded fo: heir exertions in the search ; for it was
not more unhkely that IViertoun should be well informed of what
was just and proper upon this head than upon others ; and Niel
remembered the storm of his fury, when, at an early period after he
had settled at Jarlshof, he drove Swertha and Sweyn Erickson
from his presence. As, however, he stood hesitating betwixt the
opposite fears of asking too much or too little, Mertoun stopped
his mouth, and ended his uncertainty, by promising him a recom-
pense beyond what he dared have ventured to ask, with an addi-
tional gratuity, in case they returned with t^ie pleasing intelligence
that his son was safe.

THE PIRATE. 231

When this great point was settled, Niel Ronaldson, like a man
of conscience, began to consider earnestly the various places
where search should be made after the young man ; and having
undertaken faithfully that the enquiry should be prosecuted at all
the houses of the gentry, both in this and the neighbouring islands,
he added, that, " after all, if his honour would not be angry, there
was ane not far off, that, if any body dared speer her a question,
and if she liked to answer it, could tell more about Maister Mor-
daunt than any body else could.— Ye will ken wha I mean,
Swertha ? Her that was down at the haven this morning." Thus
he concluded, addressing himself with a mysterious look to the
housekeeper, which she answered with a nod and a wink.

" How mean you ? " said Mertoun ; " speak out, short and open
— whom do you speak of? "

"It is Noma of the Fitful-head," said Swertha, "that the
Ranzelman is thinking about ; for she has gone up to Saint
Ringan's Kirk this morning on business of her own."

" And what can this person know of my son ? " said Mertoun ;
" she is, I believe, a wandering madwoman, or impostor."

" If she wanders," said Swertha, " it is for nae lack of means at
hame, and that is weel known — plenty of a' thing has she of her
ain, forby that the Fowd himsell would let her want naething."

" But what is that to my son ? " said Mertoun, impatiently.

" I dinna ken — she took unco pleasure in Maister Mordaunt
from the time she first saw him, and mony a braw thing she gave
him at ae time or another, forby the gowd chain that hangs about
his bonny craig — folk say it is of fairy gold — I kenna what gold it
is, b,ut Bryce Snailsfoot says, that the value will mount to an
hundred pounds English, and that is nae deaf nuts."

" Go, Ronaldson," said Mertoun, " or else send some one, to
seek this woman out — if you think there be a chance of her know-
ing anything of my son."

" She kens a' thing that happens in thae islands," said Niel
Ronaldson, " muckle sooner than other folk, and that is Heaven's
truth. But as to going to the kirk, or the kirkyard, to speer after
her, there is not a man in Zetland will do it, for meed or for money
—and that's Heaven's truth as weel as the other."

" Cowardly, superstitious fools ! " said Mertoun. — " But give me
my cloak, Swertha. — This woman has been at Burgh- Westra —
she is related to Troll's family — she may know something of
Mordaunt's absence, and its cause — I will seek her myself — She is
at the Cross-kirk, you say ? "

" No, not at the Cross-kirk, but at the auld Kirk of Saint
Ringan's — it's a dowie bit, and far frae being canny ; and if your

232 THE PIRATE.

honour," added Swertha, " wad walk by my rule, I wad wait until
she came back, and no trouble her when she may be mair busied
wi' the dead, for onything that we ken, than she is wi' the living.
The like of her carena to have other folk's een on them when they
are, gude sain us ! doing their ain particular turns."

Mertoun made no answer, but throwing his cloak loosely around
him, (for the day was misty, with passing showers,) and leaving the
decayed mansion of Jarlshof, he walked at a pace much faster than
was usual with him, taking the direction of the ruinous church,
which stood, as he well knew, within three or four miles of his
dwelling.

The Ranzelman and Swertha stood gazing after him in silence,
until he was fairly out of ear-shot, when, looking seriously on each
other, and shaking their sagacious heads in the same boding
degree of vibration, they uttered their remarks in the same breath.

" Fools are aye fleet and fain," said Swertha.

" Fey folk run fast," added the Ranzelman ; " and the thing that
we are born to, we cannot win by. — I have known them that tried
to stop folk that were fey. You have heard of Helen Emberson of
Camsey, how she stopped all the boles and windows about the
house, that her gudeman might not see daylight, and rise to the^
Haaf-fishing, because she feared foul weather ; and how the boat
he should have sailed in was lost in the Roost ; and how she came
back, rejoicing in her gudeman's safety — but ne'er may care, for
there she found him drowned in his own masking-fat, within the
wa's of his ain biggin ; and moreover "— —

But here Swertha reminded the Ranzelman that he must go
down to the haven to get off the fishing-boats ; " for both that my
heart is sair for the bonny lad, and that I am fear'd he cast up of
his ain a^ccord before you are at sea ; and, as I have often told ye,
my master may lead, but he winna drive ; and if ye do not his
bidding, and get out to sea, the never a bodle of boat-hire will
ye see."

" Weel, weel, good dame," said the Ranzelman, " we will launch
as fast as we can ; and by good luck, neither Clawson's boat, nor
Peter Grot's, is out to the Haaf this morning, for a rabbit ran
across the path as they were going on board, and they came back
like wise men, kenning they wad be called to other wark this day.
And a marvel it is to think, Swertha, how few real judicious men
are left in this land. There is our great Udaller is weel eneugh
when he is fresh, but he makes ower mony voyages in his ship and
his yawl to be lang sae ; and now, they say, his daughter, Mistress
Minna, is sair out of sorts. — Then there is Noma kens muckle
mair than other folk, but wise woman ye cannot call her. Our

THE PIRATE. 253

tacksman here, Maister Mertoun, his wit is sprung in the bowsprit,
1 doubt — his son is a daft gowk ; and I ken few of consequence
hereabouts — excepting always myself, and maybe you, Swertha —
but what may, in some sense or other, be called fules."

" That may be, Niel Ronaldson," said the dame ; " but if you
do not hasten the faster to the shore, you will lose tide ; and, as I
said to my master some short time syne, wha will be the fule
then?"

CHAPTER XXV.

I do love these ancient ruins —
We never tread upon them but we set
Our foot upon sonie reverend history ;
And, questionless, here, in this open court,
(Which now lies naked to the injuries
Of stormy weather,) some men lie interr'd.
Loved the Church so well, and gave so largely to it,
They thought it should have canopied their bones
Till doomsday ; — but all things have their end —
Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men.
Must have like death which we have.

Duchess of Malfy.

The ruinous church of Saint Ninian had, in its time, enjoyed
great celebrity ; for that mighty system of Roman superstition,
which spread its roots over all Europe, had not failed to extend
them even to this remote archipelago, and Zetland had, in the
Catholic times, her saints, her shrines, and her relics, which,
though little known elsewhere, attracted the homage, and com-
manded the observance, of the simple inhabitants of Thule. Their
devotion to this church of Saint Ninian, or, as he was provincially
termed, Saint Ringan, situated, as the edifice was, close to the
sea-beach, and serving, in many points, as a landmark to their
boats, was particularly obstinate, and was connected with so much
superstitious ceremonial and credulity, that the reformed clergy
thought it best, by an order of the Church Courts, to prohibit all
spiritual service within its walls, as tending to foster the rooted
faith of the simple and rude people around in saint-worship, and
other erroneous doctrines of the Romish Church.

After the Church of Saint Ninian had been thus denounced as a
seat of idolatry, and desecrated of course, the public worship was

254 THK I'lRATK.

transferred to another church ; and the roof, with its lead and its
rafters, having been stripped from the little rude old Gothic build-
ing, it was left in the wilderness to the mercy of the elements. The
fury of the uncontrolled winds, which howled along an exposed
space, resembling that which we have described at Jarlshof, very
soon choked up nave and aisle, and, on the north-west side, which
was chiefly exposed to the wind, hid the outside walls more than
half way up with mounds of drifted sand, over which the gable-
ends of the building, with the little belfry, which was built above
its eastern angle, arose in ragged and shattered nakedness of ruin.

Yet, deserted as it was, the Kirk of Saint Ringan still retained
some semblance of the ancient homage formerly rendered there.
The rude and ignorant fishermen of Dunrossness observed a
practice, of which they themselves had wellmgh forgotten the
origin, and from which the Protestant Clergy in vain endeavoured
to deter them. When their boats were in extreme peril, it was
common amongst them to propose to vow an awmoits, as they
termed it, that is, an alms, to Saint Ringan ; and when the danger
was over, they never failed to absolve themselves of their vow, by
coming singly and secretly to the old church, and putting off their
shoes and stockings at the entrance of the churchyard, walking
thrice around the ruins, observing that they did so in the course of
the sun. When the circuit was accomplished for the third time,
the votary dropped his offeringj usually a small silver coin, through
the muUions of a lanceolated window, which opened into a side
aisle, and then retired, avoiding carefully to look behind him till he
was beyond the precincts which had once been hallowed ground ;
for it was believed that the skeleton of the saint received the
offering in his bony hand, and showed his ghastly death's-head at.
the window into lyhich it was thrown.

Indeed, the scene was rendered more appalling to weak and
ignorant minds, because the same stormy and eddying winds,
which, on the one side of the church, threatened to bury the ruins
with sand, and had, in fact, heaped it up in huge quantities, so as
almost to hide the side-wall with its buttresses, seemed in other
places bent on uncovering the graves of those who had been laid
to their long rest on the south-eastern quarter ; and, after an un-
usually hard gale, the coffins, and sometimes the very corpses, of
those who had been interred without the usual cerements, were dis-
covered, in a ghastly manner, to the eyes of the living.

It was to this desolated place of worship that the elder Mertoun
now proceeded, though without any of those religious or super-
stitious purposes with which the church of Saint Ringan was
usually approached. He was totally without the superstitious fears

THE PIRATE. 255

of the country, — nay, from the sequestered and sullen manner in
which he lived, withdrawing himself from human society even when
assembled for worship, it was the general opinion that he erred on
the more fatal side, and believed rather too little than too much o
that which the Church receives and enjoins to Christians.

As he entered the little bay, on the shore, and almost on the
beach of which the ruins are situated, he could not help pausing
for an instant, and becoming sensible that the scene, as calculated
to operate on human feelings, had been selected with much judg-
ment as the site of a religious house. In front lay the sea, into
which two headlands, which formed the extremities of the bay, pro-
jected their gigantic causeways of dark and sable rocks, on the
ledges of which the gulls, scouries, and other sea-fowl, appeared
like flakes of snow ; while, upon the lower ranges of the cliff,
stood whole lines of cormorants, drawn up alongside of each other,
like soldiers in their battle array, and other living thing was there
none to see. The sea, although not in a tempestuous state, was
disturbed enough to rush on these capes with a sound like distant
thunder, and the billows, which rose in sheets of foam half way up
these sable rocks, formed a contrast of colouring equallj^ striking
and awful.

Betwixt the extremities or capes, of these projecting headlands,
there rolled, on the day when'Mertoun visited the scene, a deep
and dense aggregation of clouds, through which no human eye
could penetrate, and which, bounding the vision, and excluding all
view of the distant ocean, rendered it no unapt representation of
the sea in the Vision of Mirza, whose extent was concealed by
vapours, and clouds, and storms. The ground rising steeply from
the sea-beach, permitting no view into the interior of the country,
appeared a scene of irretrievable barrenness, where scrubby and
stunted heath, intermixed with the long bent, or coarse grass, which
first covers sandy soils, were the only vegetables that could be seen.
Upon a natural elevation, which rose above the beach in the very
bottom of the bay, and receded a little from the sea, so as to be
without reach of the waves, arose the half-buried ruin which we
have already described, surrounded by a wasted, half-ruinous, and
mouldering wall, which, breached in several places, served still to
divide the precincts of the cemetery. The mariners who were
driven by accident into this solitary bay, pretended that the church
was occasionally observed to be full of lights, and, from that
circumstance, were used to prophesy shipwrecks and deaths by
sea.

As Mertoun approached near to the chapel, he adopted, in-
sensibly, and perhaps without much premeditation, measures to

2s5 THE PIRATE.

avoid being himself seen, until he came close under the walls of
the burial-ground, which he approached, as it chanced, on that
side where the sand was blowing from the graves, in the manner
we have described.

Here, looking through one of the gaps in the wall which time
had made, he beheld the person whom he sought, occupied in a
manner which assorted well with the ideas popularly entertained of
her character, but which was otherwise sufficiently extraordinary.

She was employed beside a rude monument, on one side of which
was represented the rough outline of a cavalier, or knight, on horse-
back, while, on the other, appeared a shield, with the armorial
bearings so defaced as not to be intelligible ; which escutcheon
was suspended by one angle, contrary to the modern custom, which
usually places them straight and upright. At the foot of this piUar
was believed to repose, as Mertoun had formerly heard, the bones
of Ribolt Troil, one of the remote ancestors of Magnus, and a man
renowned for deeds of valorous emprize in the fifteenth century.
From the grave of this warrior Noma of the Fitful-head seemed
busied in shovelling the sand, an easy task where it was so light and
loose ; so that it seemed plain that she would shortly complete'what
the rude winds had begun, and make bare the bones which lay
there interred. As she laboured, she muttered her magic song ;
for without the Runic rhyme no form of northern superstition was
ever performed. We have perhaps preserved too many examples
of these incantations ; but we cannot help attempting to translate
that which follows : —

" Champion, famed for warlike toil,
Art thou silent, Ribolt Troil?
Sand, and dust, and pebbly stones,
Are leaving bare thy giant bones.
Who dai-ed touch the wild-bear's skin
Ye slumber'd on while life was in ?—
A woman now, or babe, may come.
And cast the covering from thy tomb.

" Yet be not wrathful, Chief, nor blight
Mine eyes or ears with sound or sight !
I come not, with unhallow'd tread.
To wake the slumbers of the dead,
Or lay thy giant relics bare ;
But what I seek thou well canst spare.
Be it to my hand allow'd.
To shear a merk's weight from thy shroud ;
Yet leave thee sheeted lead enough
To shield thy bones from weather rough.

THE PIRATE. 257

" See, I draw my magic knife —
Never while thou wert in life
Laid'st thou still for sloth or fear,
When point and edge were glittering near ;
See, the cerements now I sever —
Waken now, or sleep for ever !
Thou wilt not wake ? the deed is done ! —
The prize I sought is fairly won.

" Thanks, Ribolt, thanks, — for this the sea
Shall smooth its ruffled crest for thee, —
And while afar its billows foam,
Subside to peace near Ribolt's tomb.
Thanks, Ribolt, thanks — for this the might
Of wild winds raging at their height,
When to thy place of slumber nigh,
Shall soften to a lullaby.

" She, the dame of doubt and dread.
Noma of the Fitful-head,
Mighty in her own despite —
Miserable in her might ;
In despair and frenzy great, —
In her greatness desolate ;
Wisest, wickedest who lives,
Well can keep the word she gives."

While Noma chanted the first part of this rhyme, she com-
pleted the task of laying bare a part of the leaden coffin of the
ancient warrior, and severed from it, with much caution and
apparent awe, a portion of the metal. She then reverentially threw
back the sand upon the coffin ; and by the time she had finished
her song, no trace remained that the secrets of the sepulchre had
been violated.

Mertoun remained gazing on her from behind the churchyard
wall during the whole ceremony, not from any impression of
veneration for her or her employment, but because he conceived
that to interrupt a madwoman in her act of madness, was not
the best way to obtain from her such intelligence as she might
have to impart. Meanwhile he had full time to consider her figure,
although her face was obscured by her dishevelled hair, and by the
hood of her dark mantle, which permitted no more to be visible
than a Druidess would probably have exhibited at the celebration
of her mystical rites. Mertoun had often heard of Noma before ;
nay, it is most probable that he might have seen her repeatedly,
for she had been in the vicinity of Jarlshof more than once since

s

asS THE PIRATE.

his residence there. But the absurd stories which were in circulation
respecting her, prevented his paying any attention to a person
whom he regarded as either an impostor or a madwoman, or a com-
pound of both. Yet, now that his attention was, by circumstances,
involuntarily fixed upon her person and deportment, he could not
help acknowledging to himself that she was either a complete
enthusiast, or rehearsed her part so admirably, that no Pythoness
of ancient times could have excelled her. The dignity and
solemnity of her gesture,— the sonorous, yet impressive tone of
voice with which she addressed the departed spirit whose mortal
relics she ventured to disturb, were such as failed not to make an
impression upon him, careless and indifferent as he generally
appeared to all that went on around him. But no sooner was her
singular occupation terminated, than, entering the churchyard with
some difficulty, by clambering over the disjointed ruins of the wall,
he made Noma aware of his presence. Far from starting, or
expressing the least surprise at his appearance in a place so soli-
tary, she said, in a tone that seemed to intimate that he had been
expected, " So, — you have sought me at last ? '

"And found you," replied Mertoun, judging he would best intro-
duce the enquires he had to make, by assuming a tone which
corresponded to her own.

" Yes ! " she replied, " found me you have, and in the place where
all men must meet — amid the tabernacles of the dead."

" Here we must, indeed, meet at last," replied Mertoun, glanc-
ing his eyes on the desolate scene around, where headstones, half
covered in sand, and others, from which the same wind had stripped
the soil on which they rested, covered with inscriptions, and
sculptured with the emblems of mortality, were the most con-
spicuous objects, — " here, as in the house of death, all men must
meet at length ; and happy those that come soonest to the
quiet haven."

" He that dares desire this haven," said Noma, " must have
steered a steady course in the voyage of life. / dare not hope for
such quiet harbour. Barest thou expect it ? or has the course thou
hast kept deserved it ? "

" It matters not to my present purpose," replied Mertoun ; " I
have to ask vou what tidings you know of my son Mordaunt
Mertoun ? "

" A father," replied the sibyl, " asks of a stranger what tidings she
has of his son ! How should I know aught of him ? the cormorant
says not to the mallard, where is my brood ? "

"Lay aside this useless affectation of mystery," said Mertoun ;
" with the vulgar and ignorant it has its effect, but upon me it is

THE PIRATE. 259

thrown away. The people of Jarlshof have told me that you do
know, or may know, something of Mordaunt Mertoun, who has not
returned home after the festival of Saint John's, held in the house
of your relative, Magnus Troil. Give me such information, if
indeed ye have it to give ; and it shalj be recompensed, if the
means of recompense are in my power."

" The wide round of earth," replied Noma, " holds nothing that I
would call a recompense for the slightest word that I throw away
upon a living ear. But for thy son, if thou wouldst see him in life,
repair to the approaching Fair of Kirkwall, in Orkney."

" And wherefore thither ? " said Mertoun ; " I know he had no
purpose in that direction."

" We drive on the stream of fate," answered Noma, " without
oar or rudder. You had no purpose this morning of visiting the
Kirk of Saint Ringan, yet you are here ; — you had no purpose
but a minute hence of being at Kirkwall, and yet you will go
thither."

" Not unless the cause is more distinctly explained to me. I
am no believer, ^ dame, in those who assert your supernatural
powers."

" You shall believe in them ere we part," said Noma. " As yet
you know but little of me, nor shall you know more. But I know
enough of you, and could convince you with one word that I do so."

" Convince me, then," said Mertoun ; " for unless I am so
convinced, there is little chance of my following your counsel."

" Mark, then," said Noma, " what I have to say on your son's
score, else what I shall say to you on your own will banish every
other thought from your memory. You shall go to the approach-
ing Fair at Kirkwall ; and, on the fifth day of the Fair, you shall
walk, at the hour of noon, in the outer aisle of the Cathedral of
Saint Magnus, and there you shall meet a person who will give you
tidings of your son."

" You must speak more distinctly, dame," returned Mertoun,
scornfully, " if you hope that I should follow your counsel. I have
been fooled in my time by women, but never so grossly as you seem
willing to gull me."

" Hearken, then ! " said the old woman. " The word which I
speak shall touch the nearest secret of thy life, and thrill thee
through nerve and bone."

So saying, she whispered a word into Mertoun's ear, the effect of
which seemed almost magical. He remained fixed and motionless
with surprise, as, waving her arm slowly aloft, with an air of
superiority and triumph. Noma glided from him, turned round a
corner of the ruins, and was soon out of sight.

s 2

260 THE PIRATE.

Mertoun offered not to follow, or to trace her. " We fly from
our fate in vain ! " he said, as he began to recover himself; and
turning, he left behind him the desolate ruins with their cemetery.
As he looked back from the very last point at which the church
was visible, he saw the figure of Noma, muffled in her mantle,
standing on the very summit of the ruined tower, and stretching
out in the sea-breeze something which resembled a white pennon,
or flag. A feeling of horror, similar to that excited by her last
words, again thrilled through his bosom, and he hastened onwards
with unwonted speed, until he had left the church of Saint Ninian,
with its bay of sand, far behind him.

Upon his arrival at Jarlshof, the alteration in his countenance
was so great, that Swertha conjectured he was about to fall into
one of those fits of deep melancholy which she termed his dark
hour.

" And what better could be expected," thought Swertha, "when
he must needs go visit Noma of the Fitful-head, when she was in
the haunted Kirk of Saint Ringan's ? "

But without testifying any other symptoms of an alienated mind,
than that of deep and sullen dejection, her master acquainted her
with his intention to go to the Fair of Kirkwall, — a thing so con-
trary to his usual habits, that the housekeeper wellnigh refused to
credit her ears. Shortly after, he heard, with apparent indifference,
the accounts returned by the different persons who had been sent
out in quest of Mordaunt, by sea and land, who all of them returned
without any tidings. The equanimity with which Mertoun heard
the report of their bad success, convinced Swertha still more firmly,
that, in his interview with Noma, that issue had been predicted to
him by the sibyl whom he had consulted.

The township were yet more surprised, when their tacksman, Mr.
Mertoun, as if on some sudden resolution, made preparations to
visit Kirkwall during the Fair, although he had hitherto avoided
sedulously all such places of public resort. Swertha puzzled herself
a good deal, without being able to penetrate this mystery ; and
vexed herself stiU more concerning the fate of her young master.
But her concern was much softened by the deposit of a sum of
money, seeming, however moderate in itself, a treasure in her eyes,
which her master put into her hands, acquainting her at the same
time, that he had taken his passage for Kirkwall, in a, small bark
belonging to the proprietor of the island of Mousa.

THE PIRATE. 26:

CHAPTER XXVI.

Nae langer she wept, — ^her tears were a' spent, —
Despair it was come, and she thought it content ;
She thought it content, but her cheek it grew pale.
And she droop'd, like a lily broke down by the hail.

Contimtatioti of Auld Robin Gray.*

The condition of Minna much resembled that of the village
heroine in Lady Ann Lindsay's beautiful ballad. Her natural firm-
ness of mind prevented her from sinking under tTie pressure of the
horrible secret, which haunted her while awake, and was yet more
tormenting during her broken and hurried slumbers. There is no
grief so dreadful as that which we dare not communicate, and in
which we can neither ask nor desire sympathy ; and when to this
is added the burden of a guilty mystery to an innocent bosom, there
is little wonder that Minna's health should have sunk under the
burden.

To the friends around, her habits and manners, nay, her temper,
seemed altered to such an extraordinary degree, that it is no wonder
that some should have ascribed the change to witchcraft, and some
to incipient madness. She became unable to bear the solitude in
which she formerly delighted to spend her time ; yet when she
hurried into society, it was without either joining in, or attending
to, wl\at passed. Generally she appeared wrapped in sad, and even
sullen abstraction, until her attention was suddenly roused by some
casual mention of the name of Cleveland, or of Mordaunt Mertoun,
at which she started, with the horror of one who sees the lighted
match applied to a charged mine, and expects to be instantly
involved in the effects of the explosion. And when she observed
that the discovery was not yet made, it was so far from being a
consolation, that she almost wished the worst were known, rather
than endure the continued agonies of suspense.

Her conduct towards her sister was so variable, yet uniformly so
painful t9 the kind-hearted Brenda, that it seemed to all around,
one of the strongest features of her malady. Sometimes Minna was
impelled to seek her sister's company, as if by the consciousness
that they were common sufferers by a misfortune of which she her-
self alone could grasp the extent ; and then suddenly the feeling of
the injury which Brenda had received through the supposed agency
of Cleveland, made her unable to bear her presence, and still less to
endure the consolation which her sister, mistaking the nature of her

262 THE PIRATE.

raalady, vainly endeavoured to administer. Frequently, also, did
it happen, that, while Brenda was imploring her sister to take
comfort, she incautiously touched upon some subject which thrilled
to the very centre of her soul ; so that, unable to conceal her agony,
Minna would rush hastily from the apartment. All these different
moods, though they too much resembled, to one who knew not their
real source, the caprices of unkind estrangement, Brenda endured
with such prevailing and unruffled gentleness of disposition, that
Minna was frequently moved to shed floods of tears upon her neck;
and, perhaps, the moments in which she did so, though embittered
by the recollection that her fatal secret concerned the destruction
of Brenda's happiness as well as her own, were still, softened as
they were by sisterly affection, the most endurable moments of this
most miserable period of her life.

The effects of the alternations of moping melancholy, fearful
agitation, and bursts of nervous feeling, were soon visible on the
poor young woman's face and person. She became pale and
emaciated ; her eye lost the steady quiet look of happiness and
innocence, and was alternately dim and wild, as she was acted upon
by a general feeling of her own distressful condition, or by some
quicker and more poignant sense of agony. Her very features
seemed to change, and become sharp and eager, and her voice,
which, in its ordinary tones, was low and placid, now sometimes
sunk in indistinct mutterings, and sometimes was raised beyond
the natural key, in hasty and abrupt exclamations. When in com-
pany with others, she was sullenly silent, and, when she ventured
into solitude, was observed (for it was now thought very proper to
watch her on such occasions) to speak much to herself.

The pharmacy of the islands was in vain resorted to by Minna's
anxious father. Sages of both sexes, who knew the virtues of every
herb which drinks the dew, and augmented those virtues by words
of might, used while they prepared and applied the medicines, were
attended with no benefit ; and Magnus, in the utmost anxiety, was
at last induced to have recourse to the advice of his kinswoman,
Noma of the Fitful-head, although, owing to circumstances noticed
in the course of the story, there was at this time some estrangement
between them. His first application was in vain. Noma was then
at her usual place of residence, upon the sea-coast, near the head-
land from which she usually took her designation ; but, although
Eric Scambester himself brought the message, she refused positively
to see him, or to return any answer.

Magnus was angry at the slight put upon his messenger and
message, but his anxiety on Minna's account, as well as the respect
which he had for Noma's real misfortunes and imputed wisdom and

THE PIRATE. 263

power, prevented him from indulging, on the present occasion, his
usual irritability of disposition. On the contrary, he determined to
make an application to his kinswoman in his own person. He
kept his purpose, however, to himself, and only desired his daughters
to be in readiness to attend him upon a visit to a relation whom he
had not seen for some time, and directed them, at the same time,
to carry some provisions along with them, as the journey was
distant, and they might perhaps find their friend unprovided.

Unaccustomed to ask explanations of his pleasure, and hoping
that exercise and the amusement of such an excursion might be of
service to her sister, Brenda, upon whom all household and family
charges now devolved, caused the necessary preparations to be
made for the expedition ; and, on the next morning, they were
engaged in tracing the long and tedious course of beach and of
moorland, which, only varied by occasional patches of oats and
barley, where a little ground had been selected for cultivation,
divided Burgh-Westra from the north-western extremity of the
Mainland, (as the principal island is called,) which terminates in
the cape called Fitful-head, as the south-western point ends in the
cape of Sumburgh.

On they went, through wild and over wold, the Udaller bestriding
a strong, square-made, well-barrelled palfrey, of Norwegian breed,
somewhat taller, and yet as stout, as the ordinary ponies of the
country ; while Minna and Brenda, famed, amongst other accom-
plishments, for their horsemanship, rode two of those hardy animals,
which, bred and reared with more pains than is usually bestowed,
showed, both by the neatness of their form and their activity, that
the race, so much and so carelessly neglected, is capable of being
improved into beauty without losing anything of its spirit or vigour.
They were attended by two servants on horseback, and two on foot,
secure that the last circumstance would be no delay to their journey,
because a great part of the way was so rugged, or so marshy, that
the horses could only move at a foot pace ; and that, wheneverthey
met with any considerable tract of hard and even ground, they had
only to borrow from the nearest herd of ponies the use of a couple
for the accommodation of these pedestrians.

The journey was a melancholy one, and little conversation passed,
except when the Udaller, pressed by impatience aijd vexation, urged
his pony to a quick pace, and again, recollecting Minna's weak state
of health, slackened to a walk, and reiterated enquiries how she felt
herself, and whether the fatigue was not too much for her. At
noon the party halted, and p.artook of some refreshment, for which
they had made ample provision, beside a pleasant spring, the pure-
ness of whose waters, however, did not suit the Udaller's palate,

264 THE PIRATE.

until qualified by a liberal addition of right Nantz. After he had a
second, yea and a third time, filled a large silver traveUing-cup,
embossed with a German Cupid smoking a pipe, and a German
Bacchus emptying his flask down the throat of a bear, he began to
become more talkative than vexation had permitted him to be
during the early part of their journey, and thus addressed his
daughters : —

" Well, children, we are within a league or two of Noma's
dwelling, and we shall soon see how the old spell-mutterer will
receive us."

Minna interrupted her father with a faint exclamation, while
Brenda, surprised to a great degree, exclaimed, " Is it then to
Noma that we are to make this visit ? — Heaven forbid ! "

" And wherefore should Heaven forbid ? " said the Udaller,
knitting his brows ; "wherefore, I would gladly know, should
Heaven forbid me to visit my kinswoman, whose skill may be of
use to your sister, if any woman in Zetland, or man either, can be
of service to her ? — You are a fool, Brenda, — your sister has more
sense. — Cheer up, Minna ! — thou wert ever wont to like her songs
and stories, and used to hang about her neck, when little Brenda
cried and ran from her like a Spanish merchantman from a Dutch
caper."*

"I wish she may not frighten me as much to-day, father,"
replied Brenda, desirous of indulging Minna in her taciturnity, and
at the same time to amuse her father by sustaining the conversation ;
" I have heard so much of her dwelling, that I am rather alarmed
at the thought of going there uninvited."

" Thou art a fool," said Magnus, " to think that a visit from her
kinsfolks can ever come amiss to a kind, hearty, Hialtland heart,
like my cousin Noma's. — And, now I think on't, I will be sworn
that is the reason why she would not receive Eric Scambester !—
It is many a long day since I have seen her chimney smoke, and I
have never carried you thither — She hath indeed some right to call
me unkind. But I will tell her the truth — and that is, that though
such be the fashion, I do not think it is fair or honest to eat up the
substance of lone women-folks, as we do that of our brother Udallers,
when we roll about from house to house in the winter season, until
we gather like a snowball, and eat up all wherever we come."

" There is no fear of our putting Noma to any distress just now,"
replied Brenda, " for I have ample provision of every thing that we
can possibly need — fish, and bacon, and salted mutton, and dried
geese — more than we could eat in a week, besides enough of hquor
for you, father."

" Right, right, my girl ! " said the Udaller ; " a well-found ship

THE PIRATE. 265

makes a merry voyage — so we shall only want the kindness of
Noma's roof, and a little bedding for you ; for, as to myself, my sea-
cloak, and honest dry boards of Norway deal, suit me better than
your eider-down cushions and mattresses. So that Noma will have
the pleasure of seeing us without having a stiver's worth of trouble."

" I wish she may think it a pleasure, sir," replied Brenda.

"Why, what does the girl mean, in the name of the Martyr?"
replied Magnus Troil ; " dost thou think my kinswoman is a
heathen, who will not rejoice to see her own flesh and blood ? — I
would I were as sure of a good year's fishing ! — No, no ! I only fear
we may find her from home at present, for she is often a wanderer,
and all with thinking over much on what can never be helped."

Minna sighed deeply as her father spoke, and the Udaller went
on : —

" Dost thou sigh at that, my girl ? — why, 'tis the fault of half the
world — let it never be thine own, Minna."

Another suppressed sigh intimated that the caution came too
late.

" I believe you are afraid of my cousin as well as Brenda is,''
said the Udaller, gazing on her pale countenance ; " if so, speak
the word, and we will return back agaii^ as if we had the wind on
our quarter, and were running fifteen knots by the line."

"Do, for Heaven's sake, sister, let us return! "said Brenda,
imploringly ; " you know — you remember — yoii must be well aware
that Noma can do nought to help you."

" It is but too true," said Minna, in a subdued voice ; " but I
know not — she may answer a question — a question that only the
miserable dare ask of the miserable."

"Nay, my kinswoman is no miser," answered the Udaller, who
only heard the beginning of the word ; " a good income she has,
both in Orkney and here, and many a fair lispund of butter is paid
to her. But the poor have the best share of it, and shame fall the
Zetlander who begrudges them ; the rest she spends, I wot not how,
in her journeys through the islands. But you will laugh to see her
house, and Nick Strumpfer, whom she calls Pacolet — many folks
think Nick is the devil ; but he is flesh and blood, like any of us —
his father lived in Graemsay. — I shall be glad to see Nick again."

While the Udaller thus ran on, Brenda, who, in recompense for
a less portion of imagination than her sister, was gifted with sound
common sense, was debating with herself the probable effect of this
visit on her sister's health. She came finally to the resolution of
speaking with her father aside, upon the first occasion which their
journey should afford. To him she determined to communicate
the whole particulars of their nocturnal interview with Noma, — to

i266 THE PIRATE.

which, among other agitating causes, she attributed the depression
of Minna's spirits,— and then make himself the judge whether he
ought to persist m his visit to a person so singular, and expose his
daughter to all the shock which her nerves might possibly receive
from the interview.

Justus she had arrived at this conclusion, her father, dashing the
crumbs from his laced waistcoat with one hand, and receiving with
the other a fourth cup of brandy and water, drank devoutly to the
success of their voyage, and ordered all to be in readiness to set
forward. Whilst they were saddling their ponies, Brenda, with
some difficulty, contrived to make her father understand she wished
to speak with him in private— no small surprise to the honest
Udaller, who, though secret as the grave in the very few things
where he considered secrecy as of importance, was so far from
practising mystery in general, that his most important affairs were
often discussed by him openly in presence of his whole family,
servants included.

But far greater was his astonishment, when, remaining purposely
with his daughter Brenda, a little in the wake, as he termed it, of
the other riders, he heard the whole account of Noma's visit to
Burgh- Westra, and of the communication with which she had then
astounded his daughters. For a long time he could utter nothing
but interjections, and ended with a thousand curses on his kins-
woman's folly in telling his daughters such a history of horror.

" I have often heard," said the Udaller, " that she was quite mad,
with all her wisdom, and all her knowledge of the seaons ; and, by
the bones of my namesake, the Martyr, I begin now to believe it
most assuredly ! I know no more how to steer than if I had lost my
compass. Had I known this before we set out, I think I had re-
mained at home ; but now that we have come so far, and that
Noma expects us "

" Expects us, father ! " said Brenda ; " how can that be
possible ? "

" Why, that I know not— but she can tell how the wind is to
blow, can tell which way we are designing to ride. She must not
be provoked ; — perhaps she has done my family this ill for the
words I had with her about that lad Mordaunt Mertoun, and if so,
she can undo it again ; — and so she shall, or I will know the cause
wherefore. But I will try fair words first."

Finding it thus settled that they were to go forward, Brenda en-
deavoured next to learn from her father whether Noma's tale was
founded in reality. He shook his head, groaned bitterly, and, in a
few words, acknowledged that the whole so far as concerned her
intrigue with a stranger, and her father's death, of which she became

THE PIRATE. 267

the accidental and most innocent cause, was a matter of sad and
indisputable truth. " For her infant," he said, " he could never, by
any means, learn what became of it."

" Her infant ! " exclaimed Brenda ; " she spoke not a word of her
infant ! "

" Then I wish my tongue had been blistered," said the Udaller,
" when I told you of it ! — I see that, young and old, a man has no
better chance of keeping a secret from you women, than an eel to
keep himself in his hold when he is sniggled with a loop of horse-
hair — sooner or later the fisher teases him out of his hole, when he
has once the noose round his neck."

" But the infant, my father," said Brenda, still insisting on the
particulars of this extraordinary story, " what became of it ? "

" Carried off, I fancy, by the blackguard Vaughan," answered the
Udaller, with a gruff accent, which plainly betokened how weary
he was of the subject.

" By Vaughan ? " said Brenda, " the lover of poor Noma, doubt-
less ! — what sort of man was he, father ? "

" Why, much like other men, I fancy," answered the Udaller ;
" I never saw him in my life. — He kept company with the Scottish
families at Kirkwall ; and I with the good old Norse folk — Ah ! if
Noma had dwelt always amongst her own kin, and not kept com-
pany with her Scottish acquaintance, she would have known nothing
of Vaughan, and things might have been otherwise — But then I
should have known nothing of your blessed mother, Brenda — and
that," he said, " his large blue eyes shining with a tear, " would
have saved me a short joy and a long sorrow."

" Noma could but ill have supplied my mother's place to you,
father, as a companion and a friend — that is, judging from all I
have heard," said Brenda, with some hesitation. But IVIagnus
softened by recollections of his beloved wife, answered her with
more indulgence than she expected,

" I would have been content," he said, " to have wedded Noma
at that time. It would have been the soldering of an old quarrel —
the healing of an old sore. All our blood relations wished it, and,
situated as I was, especially not having seen your blessed mother,
I had little will to oppose their counsels. You must not judge
of Norna or of me by such an appearance as we now present to
you — She was young and beautiful, and I gamesome as a High-
land buck, and little caring what haven I made for, having, as I
thought, more than one under my lee. But Noma preferred this
man Vaughan, and, as I told you before, it was, perhaps, the best
kindness she could have done to me."

" Ah, poor kinswoman ! " said Brenda. " But believe you, father.

268 THE PIRATE.

in the high powers which she claims— in the mysterious vision of
the dwarf — in the "

She was interrupted in these questions by Magnus, to whom they
were obviously displeasing.

" I believe, Brenda," he said, " according to the belief of my fore-
fathers — I pretend not to be a wiser man than they were in their
time, — and they all believed that, in cases of great worldly distress,
Providence opened the eyes of the mind, and afforded the sufferers
a vision of futurity. It was but a trimming of the boat, with re-
verence," — ^here he touched his hat reverentially ; "and, after all
the shifting of ballast, poor Noma is as heavily loaded in the bows
as ever was an Orkneyman's yawl at the dog-fishing — she has more
than affliction enough on board to balance whatever gifts she may
have had in the midst of her calamity. They are as painful to her,
poor soul, as a crown of thorns would be to her brows, though it
were the badge of the empire of Denmark. And do not you, Brenda,
seek to be wiser than your fathers. Your sister Minna, before she
was so ill, had as much 'reverence for whatever was produced in
Norse, as if it had been in the Pope's bull, which is all written in
pure Latin."

" Poor Noma! " re'peated Brenda ; "and her child— was it never
recovered?"

" What do I know of her child," said the Udaller, more gruffly
than before, "except that she was very ill, both before and after the
birth, though we kept her as merry as we could with pipe and harp,
and so forth ;— the child had come before its time into this busthng
world, so it is likely it has been long dead. — But you know nothing
of all these matters, Brenda ; so get along for a foolish girl, and ask no
more questions about what it does not become you to enquire into."

So saying, the Udaller gave his sturdy little palfrey the spur, and
cantering forward over rough and smooth, while the pony's accuracy
and firmness of step put all difficulties of the path at secure defiance,
he placed himself soon by the side of the melancholy Minna, and
permitted her sister to have no farther share in his conversation than
as it was addressed to them jointly. She could but comfort herself '
with the hope, that, as Minna's disease appeared to have its seat in
the imagination, the remedies recommended by Noma might have
some chance of being effectual, since, in all probabihty, they would
be addressed to the same faculty.

Their way had hitherto held chiefly over moss and moor, varied
occasionally by the necessity of making a circuit around the heads
of those long lagoons, called voes, which run up into and indent the
country in such a manner, that, though the mainland of Zetland
may be thirty miles or more in length, there is, perhaps, no part of

THE PIRATE. 269

it which is more than three miles distant from the salt water. But
they had now approached the north-western extremity of the isle,
and travelled along the top of 'an immense ridge of rocks, which
had for ages withstood the rage of the Northern Ocean, and
of all the winds by which it is buffeted.

At length exclaimed Magnus to his daughters, " There is Noma's
dwelling !— Look up, Minna, my love ; for if this does not make
you laugh, nothing will. — Saw you ever any thing but an osprey
that would have made such a nest for herself as that is ? — By my
namesake's bones, there is not the like of it that hving thing ever
dwelt in, (having no wings and the use of reason,) unless it chanced
to be the Frawa-Stack off Papa, where the King's daughter of
Norway was shut up to keep her from her lovers— and all to Uttle
purpose, if the tale be true ; * for, maidens, I would have you to wot
that it is hard to keep flax from the lowe."*

CHAPTER XXVII.

Thrice from the cavern's darksome womb

Her groaning voice arose ;
And come, my daughter, fearless come,

And fearless tell thy woes !

Meikle.

The dwelling of Noma, though none but a native of Zetland,
famiUar, during his whole life, with every variety of rock-scenery,
could have seen any thing ludicrous in this situation, was not un^-
aptly compared by Magnus Troil to the eyry of the osprey, or sea-
eagle. It was very small, and had been fabricated out of one of
those dens which are called Burghs and Picts-houses in Zetland,
and Duns on the mainland of Scotland and the Hebrides, and
which seem to be the first effort at architecture — the connecting
link betwixt a fox's hole in a cairn of loose stones, and an attempt
to construct a human habitation out of the same materials, without
the use of lime or cement of any kind, — without any timber, so far
as can be seen from their remains, — without any knowledge of the
arch or of the stair. Such as they are, however, the numerous re-
mains of these dwellings — for there is one found on every headland,
islet, or point of vantage, which could afford the inhabitants ad-
ditional means of defence — tend to prove that the remote people by
whom these Burghs were constructed, were a numerous race, and

270 THE PIRATE.

that the islands had then a much greater population, than, from
other circumstances, we might have been led to anticipate.

The Burgh of which we at present speak had been altered and re-
paired at a later period, probably by some petty despot, or sea-
rover, who, tempted by the security of the situation, which occupied
the whole of a projecting point of rock, and was divided from the
mainland by a rent or chasm of some depth, had built some addi-
tions to it in the rudest style of Gothic defensive architecture ;—
had plastered the inside with lime and clay, and broken out windows
for the admission of light and air ; and, finally, by roofing it over,
and dividing it into stories, by means of beams of wreck-wood, had
converted the whole into a tower, resembling a pyramidical dovecot,
formed by a double wall, still containing within its thickness that
set of circular galleries, or concentric rings, which is proper to all
the forts of this primitive construction, and which seemed to have
constituted the only shelter which they were originally qualified to
afford to their shivering inhabitants.*

This singular habitation, built out of the loose stones which lay
scattered around, and exposed for ages to the vicissitudes of the
elements, was as grey, weatherbeaten, and wasted, as the rock on
which it was founded, and from which it could not easily be dis-
tinguished, so completely did it resemble in colour, and so little did
it differ in regularity of shape, from a pinnacle or fragment of the
cUff.

Minna's habitual indifference to all that of late had passed around
her, was for a moment suspended by the sight of an abode, which,
at another and happier period of her life, would have attracted at
once her curiosity and her wonder. Even now she seemed to feel
interest as she gazed upon this singular retreat, and recollected it
was that of certain misery and probable insanity, connected, as its
inhabitant asserted, and Minna's faith admitted, with power over
the elements, and the capacity of intercourse with the invisible
world.

" Our kinswoman," she muttered, " has chosen her dwelling well,
with no more of earth than a sea-fowl might rest upon, and all
around sightless tempests and raging waves. Despair and magical
power could not have a fitter residence."

Brenda, on the other hand, shuddered when she looked on the
dwelling to which they were advancing, by a difficult, dangerous,
and precarious path, which sometimes, to her great terror, ap-
proached to the verge of the precipice ; so that, Zetlander as she
was, and confident as she had reason to be, in the steadiness and
sagacity of the sure-footed pony, she could scarce suppress an in-
clination to giddiness, especially at one point, when, being fore-

THE PIRATE. 271

most of the party, and turning a sharp angle of the rock, her feet
as they projected from the side of the pony, hung for an instant
sheer over the ledge of the precipice, so that there was nothing
save empty space betwixt the sole of her shoe and the white foam
of the vexed ocean, which dashed, howled, and foamed, five hun-
dred feet below. What would have driven a maiden of another
country into delirium, gave her but a momentary uneasiness, which
was instantly lost in the hope, that the impression which the scene
appeared to make on her sister's imagination might be favourable
to her cure.

She could not help looking back to see how Minna should pass
the point of peril, which she herself had just rounded ; and could
hear the strong voice of the Udaller, though to him such rough
paths were familiar as the smooth sea-beach, call, in a tone of some
anxiety, " Take heed, jarto," * as Minna, with an eager look, dropped
her bridle, and stretched forward her arms, and even her body,
over the precipice, in the attitude of the wild swan, when balancing
itself, and spreading its broad pinions, it prepares to launch from
the cliff upon the bosom of the winds. Brenda felt, at that instant
a pang of unutterable terror, which left a strong impression on her
nerves, even when relieved, as it instantly was, by her sister re-
covering herself and sitting upright on her saddle, the opportunity
and temptation (if she felt it) passing away, as the quiet steady
animal which supported her rounded the projecting angle, and
turned its patient and firm step from the verge of the precipice.

They now attained a more level and open space of ground, being
the, flat top of an isthmus of projecting rock, narrowing again
towards a point where it was terminated by the chasm which
separated the small peak, or stack, occupied by Noma's habitation,
from the main ridge of cliff and precipice. This natural fosse,
which seemed to have been the work of some convulsion of nature,
was deep, dark, and irregular, narrower towards the bottom, which
could not be distinctly seen, and widest at top, having the ap-
pearance as if that part of the cliff occupied by the building had
been half rent away from the isthmus which it terminated, — an idea
favoured by the angle at which it seemed to recede from the land,
and lean towards the sea, with the building which crowned it.

This angle of projection was so considerable, that it required re-
collection to dispel the idea that the rock, so much removed from
the perpendicular, was about to precipitate itself seaward, with its
old tower : and a timorous person would have been afraid to put
foot upon it, lest an additional weight, so inconsiderable as that of
the human Ijody, should hasten a catastrophe which seemed at
every instant impending.

B72 THE PIRATE.

Without troubling himself about such fantasies, the Udaller rode
towards the tower, and there dismounting along with his daughters,
gave the ponies in charge to one of their domestics, with direc-
tions to disencumber them of their burdens, and turn them out for
rest and refreshment upon the nearest heath. This done, they ap-
proached the gate, which seemed formerly to have been connected
with the land by a rude drawbridge, some of the apparatus of
which was still visible. But the rest had been long demohshed,
and was replaced by a stationary foot-bridge, formed of barrel-
staves covered with turf, very narrow and ledgeless, and supported
by a sort of arch, constructed out of the jaw-bones of the whale.
Along this "brigg of dread" the Udaller stepped with his usual
portly majesty of stride, which threatened its demolition and his
own at the same time ; his daughters trod more lightly and more
safely after him, and the whole party stood before the low and
rugged portal of Noma's habitation.

" If she should be abroad after all," said Magnus, as he plied the
black oaken door with repeated blows ; — " but if so, we will at
least lie by a day for her return, and make Nick Stumpfer pay the
demurrage in bland and brandy."

As he spoke, the door opened, and displayed, to the alarm of
Brenda, and the surprise of Minna herself, a square-made dwarf,
about four feet five inches high, with a head of most portentous
size, and features correspondent — namejy, a huge mouth, a tre-
mendous nose, with large black nostrils, which seemed to have-
been slit upwards, blubber lips of an unconscionable size, and huge
wall-eyes, with which he leered, sneered, grinned, and goggled on
the Udaller as an old acquaintance, without uttering a single word.
The young women could hardly persuade themselves that they did
not see before their eyes the very demon TroUd, who made such a
distinguished figure in Noma's legend. Their father went on
addressing this uncouth apparition in terms of such condescending
friendship as the better sort apply to their inferiors, when they
wish, for any immediate purpose, to conciliate or coax them, — 3.
tone, by the by, which generally contains, in its very familiarity, as
much offence as the more direct assumption of distance and
superiority.

" Ha, Nick ! honest Nick ! " said the Udaller, " here you are,
lively and lovely as Saint Nicholas your namesake, when he is
carved with an axe for the headpiece of a Dutch dogger. How dost
thou do, Nick, or Pacolet, if you like that better ? Nicholas, here
are my two daughters, nearly as handsome as thyself thou
seest."

Nick grinned, and did a clumsy obeisance by way of courtesy,

THE PIRATE. S73

but kept his broad misshapen person firmly placed in the door-
way.

"Daughters," continued the Udaller, who seemed to have his
reasons for speaking this Cerberus fair, at least according to his
own notions of propitiation, — "this [is Nick Strumpfer, maidens,
whom his mistress calls Pacolet, being a light-limbed dwarf, as you
see, like him- that wont to fly about, like a Scourie, on his wooden
hobbyhorse, in the old story-book of Valentine and Orson, that you,
Minna, used to read whilst you were a child. I assure you he can
keep his mistress's counsel, and never told one of her secrets in his
Hfe — ^ha, ha, ha ! "

The ugly dwarf grinned ten times wider than before, and showed
the meaning of the Udaller's jest, by opening his immense jaws, and
throwing back his head, so as to discover, that, in the immense
cavity of his mouth, there only remained the small shrivelled
remnant of a tongue, capable, perhaps, of assisting him in swallow-
ing his food, but unequal to the formation of articulate sounds.
Whether this organ had been curtailed by cruelty, or injured by
disease, it was impossible to guess ; but that the unfortunate being
had not been originally dumb, was evident from his retaining the
sense of hearing. Having made this horrible exhibition, he repaid
the Udaller's mirth with a loud, horrid, and discordant laugh, which
had something in it the more hideous that his mirth seemed to be
excited by his own misery. The sisters looked on each other in
silence and fear, and even the Udaller appeared disconcerted.

" And how now ? " he proceeded, after a minute's pause. " When
didst thou wash that throat of thine, that is about the width of the
Pentland Frith, with a cup of brandy ? Ha, Nick ! I have that '
with me which is sound stuff, boy, ha ! "

The dwarf bent his beetle-brows, shook his mis-shapen head,
and made a quick sharp indication, throwing his right hand up to
his shoulder with the thumb pointed backwards.

" What ! my kinswoman," said the Udaller, comprehending the
signal, "will be angry? Well, shalt have a ilask to carouse when
she is from home, old acquaintance ; — lips and throats may swallow
though they cannot speak."

Pacolet grinned a grim assent.

" And now," said the Udaller, " stand out of the way, Pacolet,
and let me carry my daughters to see their kinswoman. By the
bones of Saint Magnus, it shall be a good turn in thy way ! — nay,
never shake thy her.d, man ; for if thy mistress be at home, see her
we will."

The dwarf again intimated the impossibility of their being ad-
mitted, partly by signs, partly by mumbling some uncouth and

T

274 THE PIRATE.

most disagreeable sounds, and the Udaller's mood began to
arise.

"Tittle tattle, man!" saidbe; "trouble not me with thy gibberish,
but stand out of the way, and the blame, if there be any, shall rest
with me."

So saying, Magnus. Troil laid his sturdy hand upon the collar of
the recusant dwarf's jacket of blue wadmaal, and, with a strong,
but not a violent grasp, removed him from the doorway, pushed
him gently aside, and entered, followed by his two daughters,
whom a sense of apprehension, arising out of all which they saw
and heard, kept very close to him. A crooked and duslcy passage
through which Magnus led the way, was dimly enlightened by a
shot-hole, communicating with the interior of the building, and
originally intended, doubtless, to command the entrance by a hagbut
or culverin. As they approached nearer, for they walked slowly and
with hesitation, the light, imperfect as it was, was suddenly ob-
scured ; and, on looking upward to discern the cause, Brenda was
startled to observe the pale and obscurely-seen countenance of
Noma gazing downward upon them, withoiit speaking a word.
There was nothing 'extraordinary in this, as the mistress of the
mansion might be naturally enough looking out to see what guests
were thus suddenly and unceremoniously intruding themselves on
her presence. Still, however, the natural paleness of her features,
exaggerated by the light in which they were at present exhibited, —
the immovable sternness of her look, which showed neither kind-
ness nor courtesy of civil reception, — her dead silence, and the
singular appearance of every thing about her dwelling, augmented
the dismay which Brenda had already conceived. Magnus Troil
and Minna had walked slowly forward, without observing the ap-
parition of their singular hostess.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The ■witch then raised her withered arm.

And waved her wand on high,
And, while she spoke the mutter'd charm,

Dark lightning fill'd her eye.

MEIKLE.

"This should be the stair," said the Udaller, blundering in the
dark against some steps of irregular ascent — " This should be the
Stair, unless my memory greatly fail me ; ay, and there she sits,

THE PIRATE. 275

he added, pausing at a half-opened door, " with all her tackle about
her as usual, and as busy, doubtless, as the devil in a gale of
wind."

As he made this irreverent comparison, he entered, followed by
his daughters, the darkened apartment in which Noma was seated,
amidst a confused collection of books of various languages, parch-
ment scrolls, tablets and stones inscribed with the straight and
angular characters of the Runic alphabet, and similar articles,
which the vulgar might have connected with the exercise of the
forbidden arts. There were also lying in the chamber, or fcung
over the rude and ill-contrived chimney, an old shirt of mail, with
the headpiece, battle-axe, and lance, which had once belonged to
it ; and on a shelf were disposed, in great order, several of those
curious stone-axes, formed of green granite, which are often found
in those islands, where they are called thunderbolts by the common
people, who usually preserve them as a charm of security against
the effects of lightning. There was, moreover, to be seen amid the
strange collection, a stone sacrificial knife, used perhaps for im-
molating human victims, and one or two of the brazen implements
called Celts, the purpose of which has troubled the repose of so
many antiquaries. A variety of other articles, some of which had
neither name nor were capable o/description, lay in confusion about
the apartment ; and in one corner, on a quantity of withered sea-
weed, reposed what seemed, at first view, to be a large unshapely
dog, but, when seen more closely, proved to be a tame seal, which
it had been Noma's amusement to domesticate.

This uncouth favourite bristled up in its corner, upon the arrival
of so many strangers, with an alertness similar to that which a
terrestrial dog would have displayed on a similar occasion ; but
Noma remained motionless, seated behind a table of rough granite,
propped up by misshapen feet of the same material, which, besides
the old book with which she seemed to be busied, sustained a cak©
of the coarse unleavened bread, three parts oatmeal, and one the
sawdust of fir, which is used by the poor peasants of Norway,
beside which stood a jar of water.

Magnus Troil remained a minute in silence gazing upon his kins-
woman, while the singularity of her mansion inspired Brenda wiLli
much fear, and changed, though but for a moment, the melancholy
and abstracted mood of Minna, into a feeling of interest not un-
mixed with awe. The'silence was interrupted by the Udaller, who,
unwilling on the one band to give his kinswoman offence, and
desirous on the other to show that he was not daunted by a recep-
tion so singular, opened the conversation thus :—

T 2

876 THE PIRATE.

" I give you good e'en, cousin Noma- my daughters and I have
come far to see you."

Noma raised her eyes from her volume, looked full at her visitors,
then let them quietly sit down on the leaf with which she seemed to
be engaged.

" Nay, cousin," said Magnus, "take your own time — our business
with you can wait your leisure. — See here, Minna, what a fair pro-
spect here is of the cape, scarce a quarter of a mile off! you may
see the billows breaking on it topmast high. Our kinswoman has
got a pretty seal, too — Here, sealchie, my man, whew, whew ! "

The seal took no further notice of the Udaller's advances to
acquaintance, than by uttering a low growl.

" He is not so well trained," continued the Udaller, affecting an
air of ease and unconcern, " as Peter MacRaw's, the old piper of
Stornoway, who had a seal that flapped its tail to the tune of Caber-
fae, and acknowledged no other whatever.* — Well, cousin," he con-
cluded, observing that Noma closed her book, "are you going to
give us a welcome at last, or must we go farther than our blood-
relation's house to seek one, and that when the evening is wearing
late apace ? "

" Ye dull and hard-hearted generation, as deaf as the adder to
the voice of the charmer," answered Noma, addressing them,
" why come ye to me ? You have slighted every warning I could
give of the coming harm, and now that it hath come upon you, ye
seek my counsel when it can avail you nothing."

" Look you, kinswoman," said the Udaller, with his usual frank-
ness, and boldness of manner and accent, " I must needs tell you
that your courtesy is something of the coarsest and the coldest. I
cannot say that I ever saw an adder, in regard there are none in
these parts ; but touching my own thoughts of what such a thing
may be, it cannot be terrped a suitable comparison to me or to my
daughters, and that I would have you to know. For old acquaint-
ance, and certain other reasons, I do not leave your house upon the
instant ; but as I came hither in all kindness and civility,, so I pray
you to receive me with the like, otherwise we will depart, and leave
shame on your inhospitable threshold."

" How," said Noma, " dare you use such bold language in the
house of one from whom all men, from whom you yourself, come to
solicit counsel and aid? They who speak to the Reimkennar,
must lower their voice to hejr before whom winds and waves hush
both blast and billow."

" Blast and billow may hush themselves if they will," replied the
peremptory Udaller, " but that will not I. I speak in the house of
my friend as in my own, and strike sail to none."

THE PIRATE. 277

" And hope ye," said Noma, " by this rudeness to compe me to
answer to your interrogatories ? "

" Kinswoman," replied Magnus Troil, " I know not so much a
you of the old Norse sagas ; but this I know, that when kempies
were wont, long since, to seek the habitations of the gall-dragons,
and spae-women, they came with their axes on their shoulders, and
their good swords drawn in their hands, and compelled the power
whom they invoked to listen to and to answer them, ay were it
Odin himself."

" Kinsman," said Noma, arising from her seat, and coming for-
ward, " thou hast spoken well, and in good time for thyself and
thy daughters ; for hadst thou turned from my threshold without
extorting an answer, morning sun had never again shone upon you.
The spirits who serve me are jealous, and will not be employed in
aught that may benefit humanity, unless their service is commanded
by the undaunted importunity of the brave and the free. And now
speak, what wouldst thou have of me ? "

" My daughter's health," replied Magnus, " which no remedies
have been able to restore."

" Thy daughter's health?" answered Noma; "and what is the
maiden's ailment ? "

" The physician," said Troil, " must name the disease. All that
I can tell thee of it is "

" Be silent," said Noma, interrupting him, " I know all thou
canst tell me, and more than thou thyself knowest. Sit down, all
of you — and thou, maiden," she said, addressing Minna, " sit thou
in that chair," pointing to the place she had jQst left, " once the
seat of Giervada, at whose voice the stars hid their beams, and the
moon herself grew pale."

Minna moved with slow and tremulous step towards the rude
seat thus indicated to her. It was composed of stone, formed into
some semblance of a chair by the rough and unskilful hand of some
ancient ^Gothic artist.

Brenda, creeping as close as possible to her father, seated herself
along with him upon a bench at some distance from Minna, and
kept her eyes, with a mixture of fear, pity, and anxiety, closely
fixed upon her. It would be difficult altogether to decipher the
emotions by which this amiable and affectionate girl was agitated
at the moment. Deficient in her sister's predominating quality of
high imagination, and little credulous, of course, to the marvellous,
she could not but entertain some vague and indefinite fears on her
own account, concerning the nature of the scene which was soon
to take place. But these were in a rnanner swallowed up in her
apprehensions on the score of her sister, who, with a frame so much

278 THE PIRATE.

weakened, spirits so much exhausted, and a mind so susceptible of
the impressions which all around her was calculated to excite,
now sat pensively resigned to the agency of one, whose treatment
might produce the most baneful effects upon such a subject.

Brenda gazed at Minna, who sat in that rude chair of dark stone,
her finely formed shape and limbs making the strongest contrast
with its ponderous and irregular angles, her cheek and lips as pale
as clay, and her eyes turned upward, and lighted with the mixture
of resignation and excited enthusiasm, which belonged to her
disease and her character. The younger sister then looked on
Noma, who muttered to herself in a low monotonous manner, as,
gliding from one place to another, she collected different articles,
which she placed one by one on the table. And lastly, Brenda
looked anxiously to her father, to gather, if possible, from his
countenance, whether he entertained any part of her own fears for
the consequences of the scene which was to ensue, considering the
state of Minna's health and spirits. But Magnus Troil seemed to
have no such apprehensions ; he viewed with stern composure
Noma's preparations, and appeared to wait the event with the
composure of one, who, confiding in the skill of a medical artist,
sees him preparing to enter upon some important and painful ope-
ration, in the issue of which he is interested by friendship or by
affection.

Noma, meanwhile, went onward with her preparations, until she
had placed on the stone table a variety of miscellaneous articles,
and among the rest, a small chafing-dish full of charcoal, a crucible,
and a piece of thin sheet-lead. She then spoke aloud — " It is well
that I was aware of your coming hither — ay, long before you your-
self had resolved it — how should I else have been prepared for
that which is now to be done .'' — Maiden," she continued, addressing
Minna, "where lies thy pain ?"

The patient answered, by pressing her hand to the left side of
her bosom.

" Even so," replied Noma, " even so — ^'tis the site of weal or woe.
— And you, her father and her sister, think not this the idle speech
of one who talks by guess — if I can tell thee ill, it may be that I
shall be able to render that less severe, which may not, by any aid,
be wholly amended. — The heart— ay, the heart— touch that, and
the eye grows dim, the pulse fails, the wholesome stream of our
blood is choked and troubled, our limbs decay like sapless sea-weed
in a summer's sun ; our better views of existence are past and gone ;
what remains is the dream of lost happiness, or the fear of inevi-
table evil. But the Reimkennar must do her work — well it is that
I have prepared the means."

. THE PIRATE. 279

She threw off her long dark-coloured mantle, and stood before
them in her short jacket of light-blue wadmaal, with its skirt of the
same stuff, fancifully embroidered with black velvet, and bound at
the waist with a chain or girdle of silver, formed into singular de-
vices. Noma next undid the fillet which bound her grizzled hair,
and shaking her head wildly, caused it to fall in dishevelled abun-
dance over her face and around her shoulders, so as almost entirely
to hide her features. She then placed a small crucible on the
chafing-dish already mentioned, — dropped a few drops from a vial
on the charcoal below, — pointed towards it her wrinkled forefinger,
which she had previously moistened with liquid from another small
bottle, and said with a deep voice, " Fire, do thy duty ; " — and the
words were no sooner spoken, than, probably by some chemical
combination of which the spectators were not aware, the charcoal
which was under the crucible became slowly ignited ; while Noma,
as if impatient of the delay, threw hastily back her disordered
tresses, and, while her features reflected the sparkles and red light
of the fire, and her eyes flashed from amongst her hair like those
of a wild animal from its cover, blew fiercely till the whole was in
an intense glow. She paused a moment from her toil, and mut-
tering that the elemental spirit must be thanked, recited, in her
usual monotonous, yet wild mode of chanting, the following
verses : —

" Thou so needful, yet so dread,
With cloudy crest, and wing of red ;
Thou, without whose genial breath
The North would sleep the sleep of death ;
Who deign'st to warm the cottage hearth,
Yet hurl'st proud palaces to earth, —
Brightest, keenest of the Powers
Which form and rule this world of ours,
With my rhyme of Runic, I
Thank thee for thy agency."

She then severed a portion from the small mass of sheet-lead
which lay upon the table, and, placing it in the crucible, subjected
it to the action of the lighted charcoal, and, as it melted, she
sung,—

" Old Reimkennar, to thy art
Mother Hertha sends her part ;
She, whose gracious bounty gives
Needful food for all that lives.
From the deep mine of the North,
Came the mystic metal forth,

2So THE Fl-RATE.

Doom'd, amidst disjointed stones,
Long'to cere a champion's bones,
Disinhumed my charms to aid —
Mother Earth, my thanks are paid."

She then poured out some water from the jar into a large cup, or
goblet, and sung once more, as she slowly stirred it round with the
end of her staff : —

" Girdle of our islands dear.
Element of Wafer, hear
Thou whose power can overwhelm
Broken mounds and ruin'd realm

On the lowly Belgian strand ;
All thy fiercest rage can never
Of our soil a furlong sever

From our rock-defended land ;
Play then gently thou thy part.
To assist old Noma's art."

She then, with a pair of pincers, removed the crucible from the
chafing-dish, and poured the lead, now entirely melted, into the bowl
of water, repeating at the same time, —

" Elements, each other greeting.

Gifts and powers attend your meeting ! "

The melted lead, spattering as it fell into the water, formed, of
course, the usual combination of irregular forms which is familiar
to all who in childhood have made the experiment, and from
which, according to our childish fancy, we may have selected por-
tions bearing some resemblance to domestic articles— the tools of
mechanics, or the like. Noma seemed to busy herself in some
such researches, for she examined the jnass of lead with scrupulous
attention, and detached it into different portions, without appa-
rently being able to find a fragment in the form which she
desired.

At length she again muttered, rather as speaking to herself than
to her guests, " He, the Viewless, will not be omitted,— he will have
his tribute even in the work to which he gives nothing. — Stem
compeller of the clouds, thou also shalt hear the voice of the Reim-
kennar."

Thus speaking, Noma once more threw the lead into the crucible,
where, hissing and spatienng as the wet metal touched the sides of

THE PIRATE. 28j

the red-hot vessel, it was soon again reduced iiito a state of fusion.
The sibyl meantime turned to a corner of the apartment, and
opening suddenly a window which looked to the north-west, let in
the fitful radiance of the sun, now lying almost level upon a great
mass of red clouds, which, boding future tempest, occupied the
edge of the horizon, and seemed to brood over the billows of the
boundless sea. Turning to this quarter, from which a low hollow
moaning breeze then blew. Noma addressed the Spirit of the Winds
in tones which seemed to resemble his own :--

'' Thou, that over billows dark
Safely send'st the fisher's bark, —
Giving him a path and motion
Through the wilderness of ocean ;
Thou, that when the billows brave ye,
O'er the shelves canst drive the navy, —
Did'st thou chafe as one neglected,
"While thy brethren were respected ?
To appease thee, see, I tear
This full grasp of grizzled hair ;
Oft thy breath hath through it sung.
Softening to my magic tongue, —
Now, 'tis thine to bid it fly
Through the wide expanse of sky,
'Mid the countless swarms to sail
Of wild-fowl wheeling on thy gale ;
Take thy portion and rejoice, —
Spirit, .thou hast^heard my voice ! "

Noma accompanied these words with the action which they de-
scribed, tearing a handful of hair with vehemence from her head,
and strewing it upon the wind as she continued her recitation. She
then shut the casement, and again involved the chamber in the
dubious twilight, which best suited her character and occupation.
The melted lead was once more emptied into the water, and the
various whimsical conformations which it received from the opera-
tion were examined with great care by the sibyl, who at length
seemed to intimate, by voice and gesture, that her spell had been
•successful. She selected from the fused metal a piece about the
size of a small nut, bearing in shape a close resemblance to that
of the human heart, and, approaching Minna, again spoke in
■song :~

" She who sits by haunted well,
Is subject to the Nixie's spell ;

eSs THE PIllATE.

She who walks on lonely beach

To the Mermaid's charmed speech ;

She who walks round ring of green,

Offends the peevish Fairy Queen ;

And she who takes rest in the Dwarfie's cave,

A weary weird of woe shall have.

" By ring, by spring, by cave, by shore,

Minna Troil has braved all this and more :

And yet hath the root of her sorrow and ill

A source that's more deep and more mystical stiU."

Minna, whose attention had been latterly something disturbed
by reflections on her own secret sorrow, now suddenly recalled it,
and looked eagerly on Noma as if she expected to learn from her
rhymes something of deep interest. The northern sibyl, mean-
while, proceeded to pierce the piece of lead, which bore the form
of a heart, and to fix in it a piece of gold wir?, by which it might
be attached to a chain or necklace. She then proceeded in her
rhyme,-—

" Thou art within a demon's hold,

More wise than Heims, more strong than Trolld ;

No siren sings so sweet as he, —

No fay springs lighter on the lea ;

No elfin power hath half the art

To soothe, to move, to wring the heart, —

Life-blood from the cheek to drain,

Drench the eye, and dry the vein.

Maiden, ere we farther go.

Dost thou note me, ay or no ?"

Minna rephed in the same rhythmical manner, which, in jest
and earnest, was frequently used by the ancient Scandinavians,—

" I mark thee, my mother, both word, look, and sign ;
i Speak on with the riddle — to read it be mine."

" Now, Heaven and every saint be praised ! " said Magnus,
" they are the first words to the purpose which she hath spoken
these many days."

" And they are the last which she shall speak for many a month,
said Noma, incensed at the interruption, "if you again break the
progress of my spell. Turn your faces to the wall, and look not
hitherward again, under penalty of my severe displeasure. You,

'THE PIRATE. 283

Magnus Troil, from hard-hearted audacity of spirit, and you,
Brenda, from wanton and idle disbelief ii> that which is beyond
your bounded comprehension, are unworthy to look oii this mystic
work ; and the glance of your eyes mingles with, and weakens, the
spell ; for the powers cannot brook distrust."

Unaccustomed to be addressed in a tone so peremptory, Magnus
would have made some angry reply ; but reflecting that the health
of Minna was at stake, and considering, that she who spoke was
a woman of many sorrows, he suppressed his anger, bowed his
head, shrugged his shoulders, assumed the prescribed posture,
averting his head from the table, and turning towards the wall.
Brenda did the same, on receiving a sign from her father, and both
remained profoundly silent.

Noma then addressed Minna once more, —

" Mark me ! for the word I speak'

Shall bring the colour to thy cheek.

This leaden heart, so light of cost,

The symbol of a treasure lost,

Thou shalt wear in hope and in peace,

That the cause of your sickness and sorrow may cease,

When crimson foot meets crimson hand

In the Martyrs' Aisle, and in Orkney-land."

Minna coloured deeply at the last couplet, intimating, as she
failed not to interpret it, that Noma was completely acquainted
with the secret cause of her sorrow. The same conviction led the
maiden to hope in the favourable issue, which the sibyl seemed to
prophesy ; and not venturing to express her feelings in any manner
more intelligible, she pressed Noma's withered hand with all the
warmth of affection, first to her breast and then to her bosom,
bedewing it at the same time with her tears.

With more of human feeling than she usually exhibited. Noma
extricated her hand from the grasp of the poor girl, whose tears
now flowed freely, and then, with more tenderness of manner than
she had yet shown, she knotted the leaden heart to a chain of gold
and hung it around Minna's neck, singing, as she performed that
last branch of the spell,—

" Be patient, be patient, for Patience hath power
To ward us in danger, like mantle in shower ;
A fairy gift you best may hold
In a chain of fairy gold ,•

284 THE PIRATE.

The chain and the gift are each a true token,
That not without warrant old Noma has spoken ;
But thy nearest and dearest must never behold them,
Till time shall accomplish the truths I have told them."

The verses being concluded, Noma carefully arranged the chain
around her patient's neck so as to hide it in her bosom, and thus i
ended the spell — a spell which, at the moment I record these inci-
dents, it is known, has been lately practised in Zetland, where
any decline of health, without apparent cause, is imputed by the
lower orders to a demon having stolen the heart from the body of
the patient, and where the experiment of supplying the deprivation
by a leaden one, prepared in the manner described, has been re-
sorted to within these few years. In a metaphorical sense, the
disease may be considered as a general one in all parts of the
world ; but, as this simple and original remedy is peculiar to the
isles of Thule, it were unpardonable not to preserve it at length, in
a narrative connected with Scottish antiquities.*

A second time Noma reminded her patient, that if she showed,
or spoke of, the fairy gifts, their virtue would be lost — a beUef so
common as to be received into the superstitions of all nations.
Lastly, unbuttoning the collar which she had just fastened, she
showed her a link of the gold chain, which Minna instantly recog-
nised as that fomierly given by Noma to Mordaunt Mertoun.
This seemed to intimate he was yet alive, and under Noma's pro-
tection ; and she gazed on her with the most eager curiosity. But
the sibyl imposed her finger on her lips in token of silence, and a
second time involved the chain in those folds which modestly and
closely veiled one of the most beautiful, as well as one of the
kindest, bosoms in the world.

Noma then extinguished the lighted charcoal, and, as the water
hissed upon the glowing embers, commanded Magnus and Brenda
to look around, and behold her task accomplished..

THE PIRATE. 285

CHAPTER XXIX.

See yonder woman, whom our swains revere,

And dread in secret, while they take her counsel

When sweetheart shall be kind, or when cross dame shall die ;

Where lurks the thief who stole the silver tankard.

And how the pestilent murrain may be cured. —

This sage adviser's mad, stark mad, my friend ;

Yet, in her madness, hath the art and cunning

To wring fools' secrets from their inmost bosoms,

And pay enquirers with the coin they gave her.

Old Play.

It seemed as if Noma had indeed full right to claim the gra-
titude of the Udaller for the improved condition of his daughter's
health. She once more threw open the window, and Minna, dry-
ing her eyes and advancing with affectionate confidence, threw
herself on her father's neck, and asked his forgiveness for the
trouble she had of late occasioned to him. It is unnecessary to
add, that this was at once granted, with a full, though rough burst
of parental tenderness, and as many close embraces as if his child
had been just rescued from the jaws of death. When Magnus
had dismissed Minna from his arms, to throw herself into those of
her sister, and express to her, rather by kisses and tears than in
words, the regret she entertained for her late wayward conduct,
the Udaller thought proper, in the meantime, to pay his thanks
to their hostess, whose skill had proved so efficacious. But scarce
had he come out with, " Much respected - kinswoman, I am but a
plain old Norseman,"^-when she interrupted him, by pressing her
finger on her lips.-

" There are those around us," she said, '' who must hear no
mortal voice, witness no sacrifice to mortal feelings — there are
times when they mutiny even against me, their sovereign mis-
tress, because I am still shrouded in the flesh of humanity.
Fear, therefore, and be silent. I, whose deeds have raised me
from the low-sheltered valley of life, where dwell its social wants
and common charities ; — I, who have bereft the Giver of the
Gift which he gave, and stand alone on a cliff of immeasurable
height, detached from earth, save from the small portion that
supports my miserable tread— I alone am fit to cope with those
sullen mates. Fear not, therefore, but yet be not too bold, and let
this night to you be one of fasting and of prayer."

If the Udaller had not, before the commencement of the ope-

286 THE PIR^^TE.

ration, been disposed to dispute the commands of the sibyl, it may
be well believed he was less so now, that it had terminated to all
appearance so fortunately. So he sat down in silence, and seized
upon a volume which lay near him as a sort of desperate effort to
divert ennui, for on no other occasion had Magnus been known to
have recourse to a book for that purpose. It chanced to be a book
much to his mind, being the well-known work of Olaus Magnus,
upon the manners of the ancient Northern nations. The book is
unluckily in the Latin language, and the Danske or Dutch were,
either of them, much more familiar to the Udiller. But then it
was the fine edition published in 1555, which contains represen-
tations of the war-chariots, fishing exploits, warlike exercises, and
domestic employments of the Scandinavians, executed on copper-
plates ; and thus the information which the work refused to the
understanding, was addressed to the eye, which, as is well known
both to old and young, answers the purpose of amusement as well,
if not better.

Meanwhile the two sisters, pressed as close to each other as
two flowers on the same stalk, sat with their arms reciprocally
passed over each other's shoulder, as if they feared some new
and unforeseen cause of coldness was about to separate them,
and interrupt the sister-like harmony which had been but just
restored. Noma sat opposite to them, sometimes revolving the
large parchment volume with which they had found her employed
at their entrance, and sometimes gazing on the sisters with a fixed
look, in which an interest of a kind unusually tender, seemed occa-
sionally to disturb the stern and rigorous solemnity of her counte-
nance. All was still and silent as death, and the subsiding
emotions of Brenda had not yet permitted her to wonder whether
the remaining hours of the evening were to be passed in the same
manner, when the scene of tranquillity was suddenly interrupted
by the entrance of the dwarf Pacolet, or, as the Udaller called him,
Nicholas Strumpfer.

Noma darted an angry glance on the intruder, who seemed to
deprecate her resentment by holding up his hands and uttering a
babbling sound ; then, instantly resorting to his usual mode of
conversation, he expressed himself by a variety of signs made
rapidly upon his fingers, and as rapidly answered by his mistress,
so that the young women, who had never heard of such an art, and
now saw it practised by two beings so singular, almost conceived
their mutual intelligence the work of enchantment. When they
had ceased their intercourse, Noma turned to Magnus Troil with
much haughtiness, and said, " How, my kinsman ? have you so
far forgot yourself, as to bring earthly food into the house t^'

THE PIRATE. 287

the Reimkennar, and make preparations in the dwelling of Power
and of Despair, for refection, and wassail, and revelry ? — Speak
not — answer not," she said ; " the duration of the cure which was
wrought even now, depends on your silence and obedience —
bandy but a single look or word with me, and the latter condition
of that maiden shall be worse than the first ! "

This threat was an effectual charm upon the tongue of the
Udaller, though he longed to indulge it in vindication of his
conduct.

" Follow me, all of you," said Noma, striding to the door of the
apartment, " and see that no one looks backwards — we leave not
this apartment empty, though we, the children of mortality, be
removed from it."

She went out, and the Udaller signed to his daughters to follow,
and to obey her injunctions. The sibyl moved swifter than her
guests down the rude descent, (such it might rather be" termed,
than a proper staircase,) which led to the lower apartment. Magnus
and his daughters, when they entered the chamber, found their own
attendants aghast at the presence and proceedings of Noma of the
Fitful-head.

They had been previously employed in arranging the provisions
which they had brought along with them, so as to present a com-
fortable cold meal, as soon as the appetite of the UdaUer, which was
as regular as the return of tide, should induce him to desire some
refreshment ; and now they stood staring in fear and surprise, while
Noma, seizing upon one article after another, and well supported
by the zealous activity of Pacolet, flung their whole preparations
out of the rude aperture which served for a window, and over the
cliff,. from which the ancient Burgh arose, into the ocean, which
raged and foamed beneath. Vifda, (dried beef,) hams, and pickled
pork, flew after each other into empty space, smoked geese were
restored to the air, and cured fish to the sea, their native elements,
indeed, but which they were no longer capable of traversing,
and the devastation proceeded so rapidly, that the Udaller could
scarce secure from the wreck his silver drinking cup ; while the
large leathern flask of brandy, which was destined to supply his
favourite beverage, was sent to follow the rest of the supper, by
the hands of Pacolet, who regarded, at the same time, the disap-
pointed Udaller with a malicious grin, as if, notwithstanding his
own natural taste for the liquor, he enjoyed the disappointment and
surprise of Magnus Troil still more than he would have relished
sharing his enjoyment.

The destruction of the brandy flask exhausted the patience of
Magnus, who roared out, in a tone of no small displeasure, " Why,

288 THE PIRATE.

kinswoman, this is wasteful madness — where, and on what, would
you have us sup ? "

" Where you will," answered Noma, " and on what you will — but
not in my dwelling, and not on the food with which you have pro-
faned it. Vex my spirit no more, but begone, every one of you !
You have been here too long for my good, perhaps for your own."

" How, kinswoman," said Magnus, " would you make outcasts of
us at this time of night, when even a Scotchman would not turn a
stranger from the door ? — Bethink you, dame, it is shame on our
lineage for ever, if this squall of yours should force us to slip cables
and go to sea so scantily provided."

" Be silent, and depart," said Noma ; " let it suffice you have
got that for which you came. I have no harbourage for mortal
guests, no provision to reheve human wants. There is beneath the
cliff, a beach of the finest sand, a stream of water as pure as the
well of Kildinguie, and the rocks bear dulse as wholesome as that
of Guiodin ; and well you wot, that the well of Kildinguie and the
dulse of Guiodin will cure all maladies save Black Death." *

" And well I wot," said the UdaUer, " that I would eat corrupted
sea-weeds like a starling, or salted seal's flesh like the men of Bur-
raforth, or wilks, buckles, and lampits, like the poor sneaks of
Stroma, rather than break wheat bread and drink red. wine in a
house where it is begrudged me. — And yet," he said, checking
himself, " I am wrong, very wrong, my cousin, to speak thus to
you, and I should rather thank you for what you have done, than
upbraid you for following your own ways. But I see you are im-
patient — we will be all under way presently. — And you, ye knaves,"
addressing his servants, " that were in such hurry with your service
before it was lacked, get out of doors with you presently, and
manage to catch the ponies ; for I see we must make for another
harbour to-night, if we would not sleep with an empty stomach, and
on a hard bed."

The domestics of Magnus, already sufficiently alarmed at the
violence of Noma's conduct, scarce waited the imperious com-
mand of their master to evacuate her dweUing with all dispatch ;
and the UdaUer, with a daughter on each arm, was in the act of
following them, when Noma said emphatically, " Stop ! " They
obeyed, and again turned towards her. She held out her hand to
Magnus, which the placable -UdaUer instantly folded in his own
ample palm.

"Magnus," she said, "we part by necessity, but, I trust, not in
anger ? "

"Surely not, cousin," said the warm-hearted UdaUer, weUnigh
stammering in his hasty disclamation of aU unkindness,— "most

The Pirate. 289

assuredly not. I never bear ill-will to any one, much less to one
of my own blood, and who has piloted me with her advice through
many a rough tide, as I would pilot a boat betwixt Swona and
Stroma, through all the waws, wells, and swelchies, of the Pentland
Frith."

" Enough," said Noma, " and now farewell, with such a blessing
as I dare bestow — not a word more ! — maidens," she added, " draw
near, and let me kiss your brows."

The sibyl was obeyed by Minna with awe, and by Brenda with
feaf ; the one overmastered by the warmth of her imagination, the
other by the natural timidity of her constitution. Noma then dis-
missed them, and in two minutes afterwards they found themselves
beyond the bridge, and standing upon the rocky platform in front of
the ancient Pictish Burgh, which it was the pleasure of this seques-
tered female to inhabit. The night, for it was now fallen, was un-
usually serene. A bright twiUght, which glimmered far over the
surface of the sea, supplied the brief absence of the summer's sun ;
and the waves seemed to sleep under its influence, so faint and
slumberous was the sound with which one after another rolled on
and burst against the foot of the cliff on which they stood. In
front of them stood the rugged fortress, seeming, in the uniform
greyness of the atmosphere, as aged, as shapeless, and as massive,
as the rock on which it was founded. There was neither sight nor
sound that indicated human habitation, save that from one rude
shot-hole glimmered the flame of the feeble lamp by which the
sibyl was probably pursuing her mystical and nocturnal studies,
shooting upon the twilight, in which it was soon lost and con-
founded, a single line of tiny light ; bearing the same proportion
to that of the atmosphere, as the aged woman and her serf, the sole
inhabitants of that desert, did to the solitude with which they were
surrounded.

For several minutes, the party, thus suddenly and unexpectedly
expelled from the shelter where they had reckoned upon spending
the night, stood in silence, each wrapped in their own separate
reflections. Minna, her thoughts fixed on the mystical consolation
which she had received, in vain endeavoured to extract from the
words of Noma a more distinct and intelligible meaning ; and
the Udcdler had not yet recovered his surprise at the extrusion
to which he had been thus whimsically subjected, under circum-
stances that prohibited him from resenting as an insult, treat-
ment, which, in all other respects, was so shocking to the genial
hospitality of his nature, that he still felt like one disposed to be
angry, if he but knew how to set about- it. Brenda was the first
who brought matters to a point, by asking whither they were to go,

U

zgo THE PIRATE.

and how they were to spend the night ? The question, which was
asked in a tone, that, amidst its simplicity, had something dolo-
rous in it, entirely changed the train of her father's ideas ; and the
unexpected perplexity of their situation now striking him in a
comic point of view, he laughed till his very eyes ran over, while
every rock around him rang, and the sleeping sea-fowl were startled
from their repose by the loud, hearty explosions of his obstreperous
hilarity.

The Udaller's daughters, eagerly representing to their father the
risk of displeasing Noma by this unlimited indulgence of his mirth,
united their efforts to drag him to a farther distance from her
dwelling. Magnus, yielding to their strength, which, feeble as it
was, his own fit of laughter rendered him incapable of resisting,
suffered himself to be pulled to a considerable distance from
the Burgh, and then escaping from their hands, and sitting down,
or rather suffering himself to drop, upon a large stone which lay
conveniently by the wayside, he again laughed so long and lustily,
that his vexed and anxious daughters became afraid that there was
something more than natural in these repeated convulsions.

At length his mirth exhausted both itself and the Udaller's
strength. He groaned heavily, wiped his eyes, and said, not
without feeling some desire to renew his obstreperous cachinna-
tion, " Now, by the bones of St. Magnus, my ancestor and name-
sake, one would imagine that being turned out of doors, at this
time of night, was nothing short of an absolutely exquisite jest ;
for I have shaken my sides at it till they ache. There we sat,
made snug for the night, and I made as sure of a good supper and
a can as ever I had been of either, — and here we are all taken
aback ! and then poor Brenda'9 doleful voice, and melancholy
question, of ' What is to be done, and where are we to sleep ? ' In
good faith, unless one of those knaves, who must needs torment
the poor woman by their trencher-work before it was wanted, can
make amends by telling us of some snug port under our lee, we
have no other course for it but to steer through the twihght on the
bearing of Burgh-Westra, and rough it out as well as we can by
the way. I am sorry but for you, girls ; for many a cruize have I
been upon when we were on shorter allowance than we are like to
have now. — I would I had but secured a morsel for you, and a
drop for myself; and then there had been but little to com-
plain of."

Both sisters hastened to assure the Udaller that they felt not the
least occasion for food.

" Why, that is well," said Magnus : " and so being the case, I
will not complain of my own appetite, though it is sharper than

THE PIRATE. 251

convenient. And the rascal, Nicholas Strumpfer,— what a leer the
villain gave me as he started the good Nantz into the salt-water !
He grinned, the knave, like a' seal on a skerry. — Had it not been
for vexing my poor kinswoman Noma, I would have sent his mis-
begotten body, and misshapen jolterhead, after my bonny flask, as
sure as Saint Magnus lies at Kirkwall ! "

By this time the servants returned with the ponies, which they
had very soon caught — these sensible animals finding nothing so
captivating in the pastures where they had been suffered to stray,
as inclined them to resist the invitation again to subject them-
selves to saddle and bridle. The prospects of the party were also
considerably improved by learning that the contents of their
sumpter-pony's burden had not been entirely exhausted, — a small
basket having fortunately escaped the rage of Noma and Pacolet,
by the rapidity with which one of the servants ha"d caught up and
removed it. The same domestic, an alert and ready-witted fellow,
had observed upon the beach, not above three miles distant from
the Burgh, and about a quarter of a mile off their straight path, a
deserted Skio, or fisherman's hut, and suggested that they should
occupy it for the rest of the night, in order that the ponies might
be refreshed, and the young ladies spend the night under cover
from the raw evening air.

When we are delivered from great and serious dangers, our
mood is, or ought to be, grave, in proportion to the peril we have
escaped, and the gratitude due to protecting Providence. But few
things raise the spirits more naturally, or more harmlessly, than
when means of extrication from any of the lesser embarrassments
of life are suddenly presented to us ; and such was the case in the
present instance. The Udaller, relieved from the apprehensions
for his daughters suffering from fatigue, and himself from too
much appetite, and too little food, carolled Norse ditties, as he
spurred Bergen through the twilight, with as much glee and
gallantry as if the night-ride had been entirely a matter of his
own free choice. Brenda lent her voice to some of his choruses,
which were echoed in ruder notes by the' servants, who, in that
simple state of society, were not considered as guilty of any breach
of respect by mingling their voices with the song. Minna, indeed,
was as yet unequal to such an effort ; but she compelled herseff to
assume some share in the general hilarity of the meeting ; and,
contrary to her conduct since the fatal morning which concluded
the Festival of Saint John, she seemed to take her usual interest in
what was going on around her, and answered with kindness and
readiness the repeated enquiries concerning her health, with which
the Udaller every now and then interrupted his carol. And thus

2g,. THE PIRATE.

they proceeded by night, a happier party by far than they had been
when they traced the same route on the preceding morning, mak-
ing hght of the difficulties of the way, and promising themselves
shelter and a comfortable night's rest in the deserted hut which
they were now about to approach, and which they expected to find
in a state of darkness and solitude.

But it was the lot of the Udaller that day to be deceived more
than once in his calculations.

"And which way lies this cabin of yours, Laurie?" said the
Udaller, addressing the intelligent domestic of whom we just
spoke.

" Yonder it should be," said Laurence Scholey, " at the head of
the voe— but, by my faith, if it be the place, there are folk there
before us— God and Saint Ronan send that they be canny com-
pany ! "

In truth there was a light in thfe deserted hut, strong enough to
glimmer through every chink of the shingles and wreck-wood of
which it. was constructed, and to give the whole cabin the
appearance of a smithy seen by night. The universal superstition^
of the Zetlanders seized upon Magnus and his escort.

" They are trows," said one voice.

" They are witches," murmured another.

" They are mermaids," muttered a third ; " only hear their wild
singing 1 "

All stopped ; and, in effect, some notes of music were audible,
which Brenda, with a voice that quivered a little, but yet had a
turn of arch ridicule in its tone, pronounced to be the sound of a
fiddle.

" Fiddle or fiend," said the Udaller, who, if he believed in such
nightly apparitions as had struck terror into his iretinue, cer-
tainly feared them not — " fiddle or fiend, may the devil fetch me
if a witch Cheats me out of supper to-night, for the second
time !"

So saying, he dismounted, clenched his trusty truncheon in his
hand, and advanced towards the hut, followed by Laurence alone ;
the rest of his retinue continuing stationary on the beach beside
his daughters and the ponies.

THE PIRATE. i293

CHAPTER XXX.

What ho, my jovial mates ! come on ! we'll frolic it
Like fairies frisking in the merry moonshine,
Seen by the curtal friar, who, from some christening
Or some blithe bridal, hies belated cell-ward—
He starts, and changes his bold bottle -swagger
To churchman's pace professional, and, ransacking
His treacherous memory for some holy hymn.
Finds but the roundel of the midnight catch.

Old Play.

The stride of the Udaller relaxed nothing of its length or of its
firmness as he approached the glimmering cabin, from which he
now heard distinctly the sound of the fiddle. But, if still long and
firm, his steps succeeded each other rather more slowly than usual ;
for, like a cautious, though a brave general, Magnus was willing to
reconnoitre his enemy before assailing him. The trusty Laurence
Scholey, who kept close behind his master, now whispered into his
»ar, " So help me, sir, as I believe that the ghaist, if ghaist it be,
that plays so bravely on the fiddle, must be the ghaist of Maister
Claud Halcro, or his wraith at least ; for never was bow drawn
across thairm which brought out the gude auld spring of ' Fair and
Lucky,' so like his ain."

Magnus was himself much of the same opinion ; for he knew
the blithe minstrelsy of the spirited little old man, and hailed the
hut with a hearty hilloah, which was immediately replied to by the
cheery note of his ancient messmate, and Halcro himself presently
made his appearance on the beach.

The Udaller now signed to his retinue to come up, while he
asked his friend, after a kind greeting and much shaking of hands,
" How the devil he came to sit there, playing old tunes in so deso-
late a place, like an owl whooping to the moon ? "

" And tell me rather, Fowd," said Claud Halcro, " how you came
to be within hearing of me."" ay, by my word, and with your
bonny daughters, too ? — Jarto Minna and Jarto Brenda, I bid you
welcome to these yellow sands — and there shake hands, as glorious
John, or some other body, says, upon the same occasion. And
how came you here like two fair swans, making day out of twilight,
and turning all you step upon to silver ? "

" You shall know all about them presently," answered Magnus ;
" but what messmates have you got in the hut with you ? I think
I hear some one speaking."

294 THE PIR.U'E.

' "None," replied Claud Halcro, "but that poor creature, the
Factor, and my imp of a boy Giles. I— but come in— come in-
here you will find us starving in comfort — not so much as a mouth-
ful of sour sillocks to be had for love or money."

" That may be in a small part helped," said the Udaller ; " for
though the best of our supper is gone over the Fitful Crags to the
sealchies and the dogfish, yet we have got something in the kit
still. — Here, Laurie, bring up the vifda."

" Jokul,jokul!"* \wz.s Laurence's joyful answer; and he has-
tened for the basket.

"By the bicker of Saint Magnus,"* said Halcro, "and the
burliest bishop that ever quaffed it for luck's sake, there is no find-
ing your locker empty, Magnus ! I believe sincerely that ere a
friend wanted, you could, like old Luggie the warlock, fish tip
boiled and roasted out of the pool of Kibster." *

" You are wrong there, Jarto Claud," said Magnus Troil, " for
far from helping me to a supper, the foul fiend, I believe, has car-
ried off great part of mine this blessed evening ; but you are
welcome to share and share of what is left." This was said while
the party entered the hut.

Here, in a cabin which smelled strongly of dried fish, and whose
sides and roof were jet-black with smoke, they found the unhappy
Triptolemus Yellowley seated beside a fire made of dried sea-
weed, mingled with some peats and wreck-wood ; his sole com-
panion a barefooted, yellow-haired Zetland boy, who acted occa-
sionally as a kind of page to Claud Halcro, bearing his fiddle on
his shoulder, saddling his pony, and rendering him similar duties
of kindly observance. The disconsolate agriculturist, for such his
visage Detokened him, displayed little surprise, and less anima-
tion, at the arrival of the Udaller and his companions, until,
after the party had drawn close to the fire, (a neighbourhood
which the dampness of the night air rendered far from disagree-
able,) the pannier was opened, and a tolerable supply of barley-
bread and hung-beef, besides a flask of brandy, (no doubt
smaller than that which the relentless hand of Pacolet had
emptied into the ocean,) gave assurances of a tolerable supper.
Then, indeed, the worthy Factor grinned, chuckled, rubbed his
hands, and enquired after all friends at Burgh-Westra.

When they had all partaken of this needful refreshment, the
Udaller repeated his enquiries of Halcro, and more particularly
of the Factor, how they came to be nestled in such a remote
corner at such an hour of night.

" Maister Magnus Troil," said Triptolemus, when a second cup
had given him spirits to tell his tale of woe, " I would not have

THE PIRATE. S9S

you think that it is a little thing that disturbs me. I came of that
grain that takes a sair wind to shake it. I have seen many a
Martinmas and many a Whitsunday in my day, whilk are the
times peculiarly grievous to those of my craft, and I could aye
bide the bang ; but I think I am like to be dung ower a'thegither
in this damned country of yours — Gude forgie me for swearing
— but evil communication corrupteth good manners."

" Now, Heaven guide us," said the Udaller, "what is the matter
with the man ? Why, man, if you will put your plough into new
land, you must look to have it hank on a stone now and then — You
must set us an example of patience, seeing you come here for our
improvement."

"And the deil was in my feet when I did so," said the Factor;
" I had better have set myself to improve the cairn on Cloch-
naben."

" But what is it, after all," said the Udaller, " that has befallen
you? — what is it that you complain of?"

" Of every thing that has chanced to me since I landed on this
island, which I belieVe was accursed at the very creation," said the
agriculturist, " and assigned as a fitting station for sorners, thieves,
whores, (I beg the ladies' pardon,) witches, bitches, and all evil
spirits-!"

" By my faith, a goodly catalogue ! " said Magnus ; " and there
has been the day, that if I had heard you give out the half of it, I
should have turned improver myself, and have tried to amend your
manners with a cudgel.''

" Bear with me," said the Factor, " Maister Fowd, or Maister
Udaller, or whatever else they may call you, and as you are strong
be pitiful, and consider the luckless lot of any inexperienced person
who lights upon this earthly paradise of yours. He asks for drink,
they bring him sour whey — no disparagement to your brandy, Fowd,
which is excellent — You ask for meat, and they bring you sour
sillocks that Satan- might choke upon — You call your labourers
together, and bid them work ; it proves Saint Magnus's day, or
Saint Ronan's day/ or some infernal saint or other's — or else,
perhaps, they have come out of bed with the wrong foot foremost,
or they have seen an owl, or a rabbit has cirossed their path, or
they have dreamed of a roasted horse — in short, nothing is to be
done — Give them a spade, and they work as if it burned their
fingers ; but set them to dancing, and see when they will tire of
funking and flinging ! "

" And why should they, poor bodies," said Claud Halcro, " as
long as there are good fiddlers to play to them ? "

"Ay, ay," said Triptolemus, shaking his head, "you are a proper

2;5 THE PIRATE.

person to uphold them in such a humour. Well, to proceed :— I
till a piece of my best ground ; down comes a sturdy beggar that
wants a kailyard, or a plant-a-cruive, as you call it, and he claps
down an enclosure in the middle of my bit shot of corn, as lightly
as if he was baith laird and tenant ; and gainsay him wha likes,
there he dibbles in his kail-plants ! I sit down to my sorrowful
dinner, thinking to have peace and quietness there at least, when
in comes one, two, three, four, or half-a-dozen of skelping long lads,
from some foolery or anither, misca' me for barring my ain door
against them, and eat up the best half of what my sister's provi-
dence — and she is not over bountiful — ^has allotted for my dinner !
Then enters a witch, with an ellwand in her hand, and she raises
the wind or lays it, whichever she likes, majors up and down my
house as if she was mistress of it, and I am bounden to thank
Heaven if she carries not the broadside of it away with her ! "

" Still," said the Fowd, " this is no answer to my question— how
the foul fiend I come to find you at moorings here ? "

" Have patience, worthy sir," replied the afflicted Factor, " and
listen to what I have to say, for I fancy it will be as well to tell
you the whole matter. You must know, I once thought that I had
gotten a small godsend, that might have made all these matters
easier."

" How ! a godsend ! Do you mean a wreck. Master Factor? "
exclaimed Magnus ; " shame upon you, that should have set
example to others ! "

"It was no vnreck," said the Factor; "but, if you must needs
know, it chanced that as I raised an hearthstane in one of the old
chambers at Stourburgh, (for my sister is minded that there is little
use in mair fire-places about a house than one, and I wanted the
stane to knock bear upon,) when, what should I light on but a horn
full of old coins, silver the maist feck of them, but wi' a bit sprink-
ling of gold amang them too.* Weel, I thought this was a dainty
windfa', and so "thought Baby, and we were the mair willing to put
up with a place where there were siccan braw nest-eggs— and we
slade down the stane cannily over the horn, which seemed to me to
be the very cornucopia, or horn of abundance ; and for further
security. Baby wad visit the room maybe twenty times in the day,
and mysell at an orra time, to the boot of a' that."

"On my word, and a very pretty amusement," said Claud
Halcro, " to look over a horn of one's own siller. I question if
glorious John Dryden ever enjoyed such a pastime in his life— I
am very sure I never did."

" Yes, but you forget, Jarto Claud," said the Udaller, " that the
Factor was only counting over the money for my Lord the

THE PIRATE. 297

Chamberlain. As he is so keen for his lordship's rights in whales
and wrecks, he would not surely forget him in treasure-trove."

" A-hem ! a-hem ! a-he — he — hem ! " ejaculated Triptolemus,
seized at the moment with an awkward fit of coughing-, — " no doubt,
ray Lord's right in the matter would have been considered, being in
the hand of one, though I say it, as just as can be found in Angus-
shire, let alone the Mearns. But mark what happened of late ! One
day, as I went up to see that all was safe and snug, and just to count
out the share that should have been his Lordship's — for surely the
labourer, as one may call the finder, is worthy of his hire — nay,
some learned men say, that when the finder, in point of trust and in
point of power, representeth the dominus, or lord superior, he
taketh the whole ; but let that pass, as a kittle question in apicihts
juris, as we wont to say at Saint Andrews — Well, sir and ladies,
when I went to the upper chamber, what should I see but an
ugsome, ill-shaped, and most uncouth dwarf, that wanted but hoofs
and horns to have made an utter devil of him, counting over the
very hornful of siller ! I am no timorous man, Master Fowd, but,
judging that I should proceed with caution in such a matter — for
I had reason' to believe that there was devilry in it — I accosted
him in Latin, (whilk it is maist becoming to speak to aught whilk
taketh upon it as a goblin,), and conjured him in nomine, and so
forth, with such words as my poor learning could furnish of a
suddenty, whilk, to say truth, were not so many, nor, altogether so
purely latineezed as might have been, had I not been few years at
college, and many at the pleugh. Well, sirs, he started at first, as
one that heareth that which he expects not ; but presently recover-
ing himself, he wawls on me with his grey een, like a wild-cat, and
opens his mouth, whilk resembled the mouth of an oven, for the deil'
a tongue he had in it, that I could spy, and took upon his ugly self,
altogether the air and bearing of a bull-dog, whilk I have seen
loosed at a fair upon a mad staig ;* whereupon I was something
daunted, and withdrew myself to call upon sister Baby, who fears
neither dog nor devil, when there is in question the little penny
siller. And truly she raise to the fray as I hae seen the Lindsays
and Ogilvies bristle up, when Donald MacDonnoch, or the like,
made a start down frae the Highlands on the braes of Islay. But
an auld useless carline, called Tronda Dronsdaughter, (they might
call her Drone the sell of her, without farther addition,) flung her-
self right in my sister's gate, and yelloched and skirled, that you
would have thought her a whole generation of hounds ; whereupon
I judged it best to make a yoking of it, and stop the pleugh until I
got my sister's assistance. Whilk when I had done, and we mounted
the stair to the apartment in which the said dwarf, devil, or other

393 THE PIRATE.

apparition, was to be seen, dwarf, horn, and siller, were as clean
gane as if the cat had lickit the place where I saw them."

Here Triptolemus paused in his extraordinary narration, while
the rest ot the party looked upon each other in surprise, and the
Udaller muttered to Claud Halcro — " By all tokens, this must have
been either the devil or Nicholas Strumpfer ; and, if it were him,
he is more of a goblin than e'er I gave him credit for, and shall be
apt to rate him as such in future." Then, addressing the Factor,
he enquired — " Saw ye nought how this dwarf of yours parted
company ? ''

" As I shall answer it, no," replied Triptolemus, with a cautious
look around him, as if daunted by the recollection ; " neither I, nor
Baby, who had her wits more about her, not having seen this un-
seemly vision, could perceive any way by whilk he made evasion.
Only Tronda said she saw him flee forth of the window of the west
roundel of the auld house, upon a dragon, as she averred. But, as
the dragon is held a fabulous animal, I suld pronounce her aver-
ment to rest upon deceptio t/isus."

"But, may we not ask farther," said Brenda, stimulated by
curiosity to know as much of her cousin Noma's family as was
possible, "how all this operated upon Master Yellowley, so as to
occasion his being in this place at so unseasonable an hour ? "

" Seasonable it must be. Mistress Brenda, since it brought us
into your sweet company," answered Claud Halcro, whose mer-
curial brain far outstripped the slow conceptions of the agriculturist,
and who became impatient of being so long silent. " To say the
truth, it was I, Mistress Brenda, who recommended to our friend
the Factor, whose house I chanced to call at just after this mis-
chance, (and where, by the way, owing doubtless to the hurry of
their spirits, I was but poorly received,) to make a visit to our
other friend at Fitful-head, well judging from certain points of the
story, at which my other and more particular friend than either "
(looking at Magnus) " may chance to form a guess, that they who
break a head are the best to find a plaster. And as our friend
the Factor scrupled travelling on horseback, in respect of some
tumbles from our ponies "

" Which are incarnate devils," said Triptolemus, aloud, mutter-
ing under his breath, " like every live thing that I have found in
Zetlaiid."

" Well, Fowd," continued Halcro, " I undertook to carry him to
Fitful-head in my little boat, which Giles and I can manage as if
it were an Admiral's barge full manned ; and Master Triptole-
mus Yellowley will tell you how seamen- like I piloted him to the
little haven, within a quarter of a mile of Noma's dwelling,"

THE PIRATE. 299

" I wish to heaven you had brought me as safe back again," said
the Factor.

" Why, to be sure," rephed the minstrel, " I am, as glorious
John says, —

' A daring pilot in extremity,
Pleased with the danger when the waves go high,
I seek the storm — but, for a calm unfit,
Will steer too near the sands, to show my wit.'"

" I showed little wit in intrusting myself to your charge,'' said
Triptolemus ; " and you still less when you upset the boat at the
throat of the voe, as you call it, when even the poor bairn, that
was mair than half drowned, told you that you were carrying
too much sail ; and then ye wad fasten the rape to the bit
stick on the boat-side, that ye might have time to play on the
fiddle."

" What ! " said' the Udaller, " make fast the sheets to the
thwart ? a most unseasonable practice, Claud Halcro."

" And sae came of it," replied the agriculturist ; " for the neist
blast (and we are never lang without ane in these parts) whomled
us as a gudewife would whomle a bowie, and ne'er a thing wad
Maister Halcro save but his fiddle. The puir bairn swam out like
a water-spaniel, and I swattered hard for my life, wi' the help of
ane of the oars ; and here we are, comfortless creatures, that, till
a good wind blew you here, had naething to eat but a mouthful
of Norway rusk, that has mair sawdust than ryemeal in it, and
tastes liker turpentine than anything else."

"I thought we heard you very merry," said Brenda, "as we
came along the beach."

" Ye heard a fiddle, Mistress Brenda," said the Factor ; " and
maybe ye may think there can be nae dearth, miss, where that is
skirling. But then it was Maister Claud Halcro's fiddle, whilk, I
am apt to think, wad skirl at his father's deathbed, or at his ain,
sae lang as his fingers could pinch the thairm. And it was nae
sma' aggravation to my misfortune to have him bumming a' sorts
of springs,— Norse and Scots, Highland and Lawland, English and
Italian, in my lug, as if nothing had happened that was amiss, and
we all in such stress and perplexity."

" Why, I told you sorrow would never right the boat. Factor,"
said the thoughtless minstrel, " and I did my best to make you
merry ; if I failed, it was neither my fault nor my fiddle's. I have
drawn the bow across it before glorious John Dryden himself."

"I will hear no stories about glorious John Dryden," answered

300 THE PIRATE.

the Udaller, who dreaded Halcro's narratives as much as Triptole-
mus did his music,—" I will hear nought of him, but one story to
every three bowls ol punch, — it is our old paction, you know. But
tell me, instead, what said Noma to you about your errand ? "

"Ay, there was anither fine upshot," said Master Yellowley.
" She wadna look at us, or listen to us ; only she bothered our
acquaintance, Master Halcro here, who thought he could have sae
much to say wi' her, with about a score of questions about your
family and household estate, Master Magnus Troil ; and when she
had gotten a' she wanted out of him, I thought she wad hae dung
him ower the craig, like an empty peacod."

"And for yourself?" said the Udaller.

" She wadna listen to my story, nor hear sae much as a word
that I had to say," answered Triptolemus ; " and sae much for
them that seek to witches and familiar spirits ! "

"You needed not to have had recourse to Noma's wisdom.
Master Factor," said Minna, not unwilling, perhaps, to stop -his
railing against the friend who had so lately rendered her service ;
"the youngest child in Orkney could have told you, that fairy
treasures, if they are not wisely employed for the good of others, as
well as of those to whom they are imparted, do not dwell long with
their possessors."

"Your humble servant to command, Mistress Minnie," said
Triptolemus ; " I thank ye for the hint, — and I am blithe that you
have gotten your wits — I beg pardon, I meant your health— into
the barn-yard again. For the treasure, I neither used nor abused
it, — they that live in the house with my sister Baby wad find it
hard to do either! — and as fori speaking of it, whilk they say
muckle offends them whom we in Scotland call Good Neighbours,
and you call Drows, the face of the auld Norse kings on the
coins themselves, might have spoken as much about it as ever I
did."

"The Factor," said Claud Halcro, not unwilling to seize the
opportunity of revenging himself on Triptolemus, for disgracing
his seamanship and disparaging his mpsic, — " The Factor was so
scrupulous, as to keep the thing quiet even from his master, the
Lord Chamberlain ; but, now that the matter has ta'en wind, he is
likely to have to account to his master for that which is no longer
in his possession ; for the Lord Chamberlain will be in no hurry, I
think, to believe the story of the dwarf. Neither do I think"
(winking to the Udaller) " that Noma gave credit to a word of
so odd a story ; and I dare say that was the reason that she
received us, I must needs say, in a very dry manner. I rather
thmk she knew that Triptolemus, our friend here, had found

THE PIRATE. 301

some oAsr hiding-hole for the money, and that the story of the
gobhn was all his own invention. For my part, I will never believe
there was such a dwarf to be seen as the creature Master Yellowley
describes, until I set my own eyes on him."
■ " Then you may do so at this moment," said the Factor ; " for,

by ," (he muttered a deep asseveration as he sprung on his

feet in great horror,) " there the creature is ! "

All turned their eyes in the direction in which he pointed, and
saw the hideous misshapen figure of Pacolet, with his eyes fixed
and glaring at them through the smoke. He had stolen upon
their conversation unperceived, until the Factor's eye lighted upon
him in the manner we have described. There was something so
ghastly in his sudden and unexpected appearance, that even the
Udaller, to whom his form was familiar, could not help starting.
Neither pleased with himself for having testified this degree of
emotion, however slight, nor with the dwarf who had given cause
to it, Magnus asked him sharply, what was his business there ?
Pacolet replied by producing a letter, which he gave to the Udaller,
uttering a sound resembling the word Shogh.

" That is the Highlandman's language," said the Udaller —
" didst thou learn that, Nicholas, when you lost your own ? "

Pacolet nodded, and signed to him to read his letter.

" That is no such easy matter by fire-light, my good friend,"
replied the UdaUer; "but it may concern Minna, and we must
try."

Brenda offered her assistance, but the UdaUer answered, " No,
no, my girl, — Noma's letters must be read by those they are written
to. Give the knave, Strumpfer, a drop of brandy the while, though
he little deserves it at my hands, considering the grin with which
he sent the good Nantz down the crag this morning, as if it had
been as much ditch-water;

" WiU you be this honest gentleman's cup-bearer — his Ganymede,
friend Yellowley, or shall I ? " said Claud Halcro aside to the
Factor ; while Magnus Trpil, having carefully wiped his spectacles,
which he produced from a large copper case, had disposed them on
his nose, and was studying the epistle of Noma.

" I would not touch him, or go near him, for all the Carse of
Gowrie," said the Factor, whose fears were by no means entirely
removed, though he saw that the dwarf was received as a creature
of flesh and blood by the rest of the company ; " but I pray you to
ask him what he has done with my horn of coins ? "

The dwarf, who heard the question, threw back his head, and
displayed his enormous throat, pointing to it with his finger.

" Nay, if he has swallowed them, there is no more {o be said,"

302 THE PIRATE.

replied the Factor ; only I hope he will thrive on them as a cow
on wet clover. He is dame Noma's servant it's like, — such man,
such mistress ! But if theft and witchcraft are to go unpunished
in this land, my lord must find another factor ; for I have been
used to live in a country where men's worldly gear was keepit from
infang and outfang thief, as well as their immortal souls from the
claws of the deil and his cummers, — sain and save us !"

The agriculturist was perhaps the less reserved in expressing his
complaints, that the Udaller was for the present out of hearing,
having drawn Claud Halcro apart into another corner of the
hut.

" And tell me," said he, " friend Halcro, what errand took the^
to Sumburgh, since I reckon it was scarce the mere pleasure of
sailing in partnership with yonder barnacle .'' "

" In faith, Fowd," said the bard, " and if you will have the truth,
I went to speak to Noma on your affairs."

"On my affairs?" rephed the Udaller; "on what affairs of
mine ? "

" Just touching your daughter's health. I heard that Noma
refused your message, and would not see Eric Scambester. Now,
said I to myself, I have scarce joyed in meat, or drink, or music, or
augh't else, since Jarto Minna has been so ill ; and I may say,
literally as well as figuratively, that my day and night have been
made sorrowful to me. In short, I thought I might have some
more interest with old Noma than another, as scalds and wise
women were always accounted something akin ; and I undertook
the journey with the hope to be of some use to my old friend and
his lovely daughter."

"And it was most kindly done of you, good warm-hearted
Claud," said the Udaller, shaking him warmly by the hand, — " I
ever said you showed the good old Norse heart amongst all thy
fiddling and thy folly. — Tut, man, never wince for the matter, but
be blithe that thy heart is better than thy head. Well, — and I
warrant you got no answer from Noma?"

" None to purpose," rephed Claud Halcro ; but she held me
close to question about Minna's illness, too,— and I told her how I
had met her abroad the other morning in no very good weather,
and how her sister Brenda said she had hurt her foot ; — in shorty
I told her all and everything 1 knew."

"And something more besides, it would seem," said the
Udaller ; " for I, at least, never heard before that Minna had hurt
herself."

" O, a scratch ! a mere scratch ! " said the old man ; " but I
was startlQd about it — terrified lest it had been the bite of a dog,

THE PIRAtE. 383

or some hurt from a venomous thing. I told all to Noma,
however."

" And what," answered the Udaller, " did she say, in the way of
reply?"

" She bade me begone about my business, and told me that the
issue would be known at the Kirkwall Fair : and said just the like
to this noodle of a Factor — it was all that either of us got for our
labour," said Halcro.

" That is strange," said Magnus. " My kinswoman writes me
in this letter not to fail going thither with my daughters. This
Fair runs strongly in her head ; — one would think she intended to
lead the market, and yet she has nothing to buy or to sell there
that I know of And so you came away as wise as you went, and
swamped your boat at the mouth of the voe ?"

" Why, how could I help it ?'' said the poet. " I had set the boy
to steer, and as the flaw came suddenly off shore, I could not let
go the tack and play on the fiddle at the same time. But it is all
well enough, — salt-water never hai-med Zetlander, so as he could
get out of it ; and, as Heaven would have it, we were within man's
depth of the shore, and chancing to find this skio, we should have
done well enough, with shelter and fire, and are much better than
well with your good cheer and good company. But it wears late,
and Night and Day must be both as sleepy as old Midnight can
make them. There is an inner crib here, where the fishers slept, —
somewhat fragrant with the smell of their fish, but that is whole-
some. They shall bestow themselves there, with the help of what
cloaks you have, and then we will have one cup of brandy, and one
stave of glorious John, or some little trifle of my own, and so sleep
as sound as cobblers."

"Two glasses of brandy, if you please," said the Udaller, "if our
stores do not run dry ; but not a single stave of glorious John, or
of any one else to-night."

And this being arranged and executed agreeably to the peremp-
tory pleasure of the Udaller, the whole party consigtied themselves
to slumber for the night, and on the next day departed for their
several habitations, Claud Halcr© having previously arranged with
the Udaller that he would accompany him and his daughters on
their proposed visit to Kirkwall.

304 THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER XXXI.

" By this hand, thou thiiik'st me as far in the devil's book as
thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try
the man.... Albeit I could tell to thee, (as to one it pleases me, for
fault of a better, to call my friend,) I could be sad, and sad indeed
too."

Henry IV., Part 2d.

We must now change the scene from Zetland to Orkney, and
request our readers to accompany us to the ruins of an elegant,
though ancient structur*, called the Earl's Palace. These remains,
though much dilapidated, st;ll exist in the neighbourhood of the
massive and venerable pile, which Norwegian devotion dedicated
to Saint Magnus the Martyr, and, being contiguous to the Bishop's
Palace, which is also ruinous, the place is impressive, as exhibiting
vestiges of the mutations both in Church and State which have
affected Orkney, as well as countries more exposed to such convul-
sions. Several parts of these ruinous buildings might be selected
(under suitable modifications) as the model of a Gothic mansion,
provided architects would be contented rather to imitate what is
really beautiful in thkt species of building, than to make a medley
of the caprices of the order, confounding the military, ecclesias-
tical, and domestic styles of all ages at random, with additional
fantases and combinations of their own device, " all formed out of
the builder's brain."

The Earl's Palace forms three sides of an oblong square, and
has, even in its ruins, the air of an elegant yet massive structure,
uniting, as was usual in the residence of feudal princes, the charac-
ter of a palace and of a castle. 'A great banqueting-hall, com-
municating with several large rounds, or projecting turret-rooms,
and having at either end an immense chimney, testifies the ancient
Northern hospitality of the Earls of Orkney, and communicates,
almost in the modern fashion, with a gallery, or withdrawing
room, of corresponding dimensions, and having, like the hall, its
projecting turrets. The lordly hall itself is lighted by a fine Gothic
window of shafted stone at one end, and is entered by a spacious
and ' elegant staircase, consisting of three flights of stone steps.
The exterior ornaments and proportions of the ancient building
are also very handsome ; but, being totally unprotected, this
remnant of the pomp and grandeur of Earls, who assumed the
license as well as the dignity of petty sovereigns^ is now fast

THE PIRATE. 305

crumbling to decay, and has suffered considerably since the date of
our story.

With folded arms and downcast looks the pirate Cleveland was
pacing slowly the ruined hall which we have just described ; a
place of retirement which he had probably chosen because it was
distant from public resort. His dress was considerably altered
from that which he usually wore in Zetland, and seemed a sort of
uniform, richly laced, and exhibiting no small quantity of em-
broidery ; a hat with a plume, and a small sword very handsomely
mounted, then the constant companion of every one who assumed
the rank of a gentleman, showed his pretensions to that character.
But if his exterior was so far improved, it seemed to be otherwise
with his health and spirits. He was pale, and had lost both the
fire of his eye and the vivacity of his step, and his whole appear-
ance indicated melancholy of mind, or suffering of body, or a
combination of both evils.

As Cleveland thus paced these ancient riiins, a young man, of a
light and slender form, whose showy dress seemed to have been
studied with care, yet exhibited more extravagance than judgment
or taste, whose manner was a janty affectation of the free and easy
rake of the period, and the expression of whose countenance was
lively, with a cast of effrontery, tripped up the staircase, entered
the hall, and presented himself to Cleveland, who merely nodded
to him, and pulling his hat deeper over his brows, resumed his
solitary and discontented promenade.

The stranger adjusted his own hat, nodded in return, took
snuff, with the air of a petit maitre, from a richly chased gold box,
offered it to Cleveland as he passed, and being repulsed rather
coldly, replaced the box in his pocket, folded his arms in his turn,
and stood looking with fixed attention on his motions whose
solitude he had interrupted. At length Cleveland stopped short,
as if impatient of being longer the subject of his observation, and
said abruptly, " Why can I not be left alone for half an hour, and
what the devil is it that you waiit ? "

" I am glad you spoke &st," answered the stranger, carelessly ;
" I was determined to know whether you were Clement Cleveland,
or Cleveland's ghost, and they say ghosts never take the first word,
so I now set it down for yourself in life and limb ; and here is a
fine old hurly-house you have found out for an owl to hide himself
in at mid-day, or a ghost to revisit the pale glimpses of the moon,
as the divine Shakspeare says."

" Well, well," answered Cleveland, abruptly, " your jest is made,
and now let us have your earnest."

" In earnest, then. Captain Cleveland," replied his companion,
" I think you know me for your friend." x

3o6 THE PIRATE.

I am content to suppose so," said Cleveland.

" It is more than supposition," replied the young man ; " I have
proved it— proved it both here and elsewhere."

" Well, well," answered Cleveland, " I admit you have been
always a friendly fellow — and what then ?"

" Well, well— and what then ? " repUed the other ; " this is but a
brief way of thanking folk. Look you. Captain, here is Benson,
Barlowe, Dick Fletcher, and a few others of us who wished you
well, have kept your old comrade Captain Goffe in these seas upon
the look-out for you, when he and Hawkins, and the greater part
of the ship's company, would fain have been down on the Spanish
Main, and at the old trade."

" And I wish to God that you had all gone about your business,"
said Cleveland, " and left me to my fate."

" Which would have been to be informed against and hanged.
Captain, the first time that any of these Dutch or English rascals,
whom you have lightened of their cargoes, came to set their eyes
upon you ; and no place more likely to meet with seafaring men,
than in these islands. And here, to screen you from such a risk,
we have been wasting our precious time, till folk are grown very
peery ; and when we have no more goods or money to spend
amongst them, the fellows will be for grabbing the ship."

" Well, then, why do you not sail off without me ? " said Cleve-
land — " There has been fair partition, and all have had their
share — let all do as they like. I have lost, my ship, and having
been once a Captain, I will not go to sea under command of Goffe
or any other man. Besides, you know well enough that both
Hawkins and he bear me ill-will for keeping them from sinking
the Spanish brig, with the poor devils of negroes on board."

" Why, what the foul fiend is the matter with thee ? " said his
companion; "Are you Clement Cleveland, our own old true-
hearted Clem of the Cleugh, and do you talk of being afraid of
Hawkins and Goffe, and a score of such fellows, when you have
myself, and Barlowe, and Dick Fletcher at your back ? When was
it we deserted you, either in council or in fight, that you should be
afraid of our flinching now ? And as for serving under Goffe, I
hope it is no new thing for gentlemen of fortune who are going on
the account, to change a Captain now and then ? Let us alone for
that, — Captain you shall be ; for death rock me asleep if I serve
under that feUow Goffe, who is as very a bloodhound as ever
sucked bitch ! — No, no, I thank you — my Captain must have a
little of the gentleman about him, howsoever. Besides, you know,
it was you who first dipped my hands in the dirty water, and
turned me from a stroller by land, to a rover by sea."

THE PIRATE. 307

"Alas, poor Bunce !" said Cleveland, "you owe me little thanks
for that service."

" That is as you take it," replied Bunce ; " for my part, I see no
harm in levying contributions on the public either one way or
t'other. But I wish you would forget that name of Bunce, and call
nie Altamont, as I have often desired you to do. I hope a gentle-
man of the roving trade has as good a right to have an alias as a^
stroller, and I never stepped on the boards but what I was Alta-
mont at the least."

" Well, then. Jack Altamont," replied Cleveland, " since Altamont
is the word "

" Yes, but Captain, yack is not the word, though Altamont be
so. Jack Altamont ? — why, 'tis a velvet coat with paper lace — Let
it be Frederick, Captain ; Fredeirick " Altamont is all of a
piece."

" Frederick be it, then, with all my'heart," said Cleveland ; " and
pray tell me, which of your names will sound best at the head of
the Last Speech, Confession, and Dying Words of John Bunce,
alias Frederick Altamont, who was this morning hanged at Execu-
tion-dock, for the crime of Piracy upon the High Seas ? "

" Faith, I cannot answer that question, without another can of
grog, Captain j so if you will go down with me to Bet Haldane's
on the quay, I will bestow some thought on the matter, with the
help of a right pipe of Trinidado. We will have the gallon bowl
filled with the best stuff you ever tasted, and I know some smart
wenches who will help us to drain it. But you shake your head —
you're not i' the vein ? — Well, then, I will stay with you ; for by
this hand, Clem, you shift me not off. Only I will ferret you out of
this burrow of old stones, and carry you into sunshine and fair air.
— Where shall we go ?"

" Where you will," said Cleveland, " so that you keep out of the
way of our own rascals, and all others."

" Why, then," replied Bunce, " you and I will go up to the Hill
of Whitford, which overlooks the town, and walk together as gravely
and honestly as a pair of well-employed attorneys."

As they proceeded to leave the ruinous castle, Bunce, turning
back to look at it, thus addressed his companion :

" Hark ye, Captain, dost thou know who last inhabited this old
cockloft.?"

" An Earl of the Orkneys, they say," replied Cleveland.

" And are you avised what death he died of.'" said Bunce ; " for
I have heard that it was of a tight neck-collar— a hempen fever, or
the like."

" The people here do say," replied Cleveland,- " that his Lordship,

X 3

3o8 THE PIRATE.

some nondred years ago, had the mishap to become acquainted
with the nature of a loop and a leap in the air."

" Why, la ye there now ! " said Bunce ; " there was some credit
in being hanged in those days, and in such worshipful company.
And what might his lordship have done to deserve such pro-
motion?"

" Plundered the liege subjects, they say," replied Cleveland ; " slain
and wounded them, fired upon his Majesty's flag, and so forth."

" Near akin to a gentleman rover, then," said Bunce, making a
theatrical bow towards the old building ; " and, therefore, my most
potent, grave, and reverend Signior Earl, I crave leave to call you
my loving cousin, and bid you most heartily adieu. I leave you in
the good company of rats and mice, and so forth, and I cari-y with
me an honest gentleman, who, having of late had no more heart
than a mouse, is now desirous to run away from his profession and
friends like a rat, and would therefore be a most fitting denizen of
your Earlship's palace."

" I would advise you not to speak so loud, my good friend
Frederick Altamont, or John Bunce," said Cleveland ; " when you
were on the stage, you might safely rant as loud as you listed ; but,
in your present profession, of which you are so fond, every man
speaks under correction of the yard-arm, and a running noose."

The comrades left the little town of Kirkwall in silence, and
ascended the Hill of Whitford, which raises its brow of dark heath,
uninterrupted by enclosures or cultivation of any kind, to the north-
ward of the ancient Burgh of Saint Magnus. The plain at the foot
of the hill was already occupied by numbers qf persons who were
engaged in making preparations for the Fair of Saint OUa, to be
held upon the ensuing day, and which forms a general rendezvous
to all the neighbouring islands of Orkney, and is even frequented
by many persons from the more distant archipelago of Zetland. It
is, in the words of the Proclamation, " a free Mercat and Fair,
holden at the good Burgh of Kirkwall on the third of August, being
Saint OUa's day," and continuing for an indefinite space thereafter,
extending from three days to a week, and upwards. The fair. is of
great antiquity, and derives its name from Olaus, Olave, OUaw, the
celebrated Monarch of Norway, who, rather by the edge of his
sword than any milder argument, introduced Christianity,into those
isles, and was respected as the patron of Kirkwall some time before
he shared that honour with Saint Magnus the Martyr.

It was no part of Cleveland's purpose to mingle in the busy scene
which was here going on ; and, turning their route to the left, they
soon ascended into undisturbed solitude, save where the grouse,
more plentiful in Orkney, perhaps, than in any other part of the

THE PIRATE. 309

British dominions, rose in covey, and went off before tliem.*
Having continued to ascend till they had wellnigh reached the
summit of the conical hill, both turned round, as with one consent,
to look at and admire the prospect beneath.

The lively bustle which extended between the foot of the hill and
the town, gave life and variety to that part of the scene ; then was
seen the town itself, out of which arose, like a great mass, superior
in proportion as it seemed to the whole burgh, the ancient Cathedral
of Saint Magnus, of the heaviest order of Gothic architecture, but
grand, solemn, and stately, the work of a distant age, and of a
powerful hand. The quay, with the shipping, lent additional
vivacity to the scene ; and not only the whole beautiful bay, which
lies betwixt the promontories of Inganess and Ouanterness, at the
bottom of which Kirkwall is situated, but all the sea, so far as
visible, and in particular the whole strait betwixt the island of
Shapinsha and that called Pomona, or the Mainland, was covered
and enlivened by a variety of boats and small vessels, freighted from
distant islands to convey passengers or merchandise to the Fair of
Saint OUa.

Having attained the point by which this fair and busy prospect
was most completely commanded, each of the strangers, in seaman
fashion, had recourse to his spy-glass, to assist the naked eye in
considering the bay of Kirkwall, and the numerous vessels by which
it was traversed. But the attention of the two companions seemed
to be arrested by different objects. That of Bunce, or Altamont, as
he chose to call himself, was riveted to the armed sloop, where,
conspicuous by her square rigging and length of beam, with the
English jack and pennon, which they had the precaution to keep
flying, she lay among the merchant vessels, as distinguished from
them by the trim neatness of her appearance, as a trained soldier
amongst a crowd of clowns.

" Yonder she lies," said Bunce ; " I wish to God she was in the
bay of Honduras — you Captain, on the quarter-deck, I your lieu-
tenant, and Fletcher quarter-master, and fifty stout fellows under
us — I should not wish to see these blasted heaths and rocks again
for a while ! — And Captain you shall soon be. The old brute Goffe
gets drunk as a lord every day, swaggers, and shoots, and cuts,
among the crew ; and, besides, he has quarrelled with the people
here so damnably, that they will scarce let water or provisions go
on board of us, and we expect an open breach every day."

As Bunce received no answer, he turned short round on his
companion, and, perceiving his attention otherwise engaged,
exclaimed, — " What the devil is the matter with you ? or what can
you see in all that trumpery small-craft, which is only loaded with

310 THE PIRATE.

Stock-fish, and ling, and smoked geese, and tubs of butter that is
worse than tallow ?— the cargdfes of the whole lumped together
would not be worth the flash of a pistol.— No, no, give me such a
chase as we might see from the mast-head off the island of Trinidado.
Your Don, rolling as deep in the water as a grampus, deep-loaden
with rum, sugar, and bales of tobacco, and all the rest ingots,
moidores, and gold dust ; then set all sail, clear the deck, stand to
quarters, up with the Jolly Roger*— we near her— we make her out
to be well manned and armed"

" Twenty guns on her lower deck," said Cleveland.

" Forty, if you will," retorted Bunce, " and we have but ten
mounted — never mind. The Don blazes away — never mind yet,
my brave lads— run her alongside, and on board with you — to work,
with your grenadoes, your cutlasses, pole-axes, and pistols — The
Don cries Misericordia, and we share the cargo without co licendo,
Seignior/"

" By my faith," said Cleveland, " thou takest so kindly to the
trade, that all the world may see that no honest man was spoiled
when you were made a pirate. But you shall not prevail on me to
go farther in the devil's road with you ; for you know yourself that
what is got over his back is spent — you wot how. In a week, or a
■ month at most, the rum and the sugar are out, the bales of tobacco
have become smoke, the moidores, ingots, and gold dust, have got
out of our hands, into those of the quiet, honest, conscientious folks,
who dwell at Port Royal and elsewhere — wink hard on our trade as
long as we have money, but not a jot beyond. Then we have cold
looks, and it may be a hint is given to the Judge Marshal ; for,
when our pockets are worth nothing, our honest friends, rather than
want, will make money upon our heads. Then comes a high gallows
and a short halter, and so dies the Gentleman Rover. I tell thee,
I will leave this trade ; and, when I turn my glass from one of these
barks and boats to another, there is not the worst of them which I
would not row for life, rather than continue to be what I have been.
These poor men make the sea a means of honest livelihood and
friendly communication between shore and shore, for the , mutual
benefit of the inhabitants ; but we have made it a road to the ruin
of others, and to our own destruction here and in eternity. — I am
determined to turn honest man, and use this life no longer ! "

" And where will your honesty take up its abode, if it please you ?"
said Bunce. — "You have broken the laws of every nation, and the
hand of the law will detect and crush you wherever you may take
refuge. — Cleveland, I speak to you more seriously than I am wont
to do. I have had my reflections, too ; and they have been bad
enough, though they lasted but a few minutes, to spoil me weeks of

THE pirate:. 311

joviality. But here is the matter, — what can we do but go on as
we have done, unless we have a direct purpose of adorning the
yard-arm ? "

" We may claim the benefit of the proclamation to those of our
sort who come in and surrender," said Cleveland.

" Umph ! " answered his companion, dryly ; " the date of that
day of grace has been for some time over, and they may take the
penalty or grant the pardon at their pleasure. Were I you, I would
not put my neck in such a venture."

" Why, others have been admitted but lately to favour, and why
should not I ? " said Cleveland.

" Ay," replied his associate, " Harry Glasby and some others
have been spared ; but Glasby did what was called good service, in
betraying his comrades, and re-taking the Jolly Fortune ; and that
I think you would scorn, even to be revenged of the brute Goffe
yonder."

" I would die a thousand times sooner," said Cleveland.

" I will be sworn for it," said Bunce ; " and the others were fore-
castle fellows — petty larceny rogues, scarce worth the hemp it
would have cost to hang them. But your name has stood too high
amongst the gentlemen of fortune for you to get off so easily. You
are the prime buck of the herd, and will be marked accordingly."

" And why so, I pray you ? " said Cleveland ; " you know well
enough my aim. Jack."

" Frederick, if you please,'' said Bunce.

" The devil take your folly ! — Prithee keep thy wit, and let us be
grave for a moment."

" For a moment — be it so," said Bunce ; " but I feel the spirit of
Altamont coming fast upon me, — I have been a grave man for ten
minutes already."

" Be so then for a little longer," said Cleveland ; " I know, Jack,
that you really love me ; and, since we have come thus far in this
talk, I will trust you entirely. Now tell me, why should I be refused
the benefit of this gracious proclamation ? I have borne a rough
outside, as thou knowest ; but, in time of need, I can show the
numbers of lives which I have been the means of saving, the pro-
perty which I have restored to those who owned it, when, without
my intercession, it would have been wantonly destroyed. In short,
Bunce, I can show "

" That you were as gentle a thief as Robin Hood himself," said
Bunce; "and, for that reason, I, Fletcher, and the better sort
among us, love you, as one who saves the character of us Gentlemen
Rovers from utter reprobation. — Well, suppose your pardon made
out, what are you to do next ?— what class in society will receive

312 THE PIRATE.

you ? — with whom will you associate ? Old Drake, in Queen Bess's
time, could plunder Peru and Mexico without a line of commission
to show for it, and, blessed be her memory ! he was knighted for it
on his return. And there was Hal Morgan, the Welshman, nearer
our time, in the days of Merry King Charles, brought all his gettings
home, had his estate and his country-house, and who but he ? But
that is all ended now — once a pirate, and an outcast for ever. The
poor devil may go and live, shunned and despised by every one, in
some obscure seaport, with such part of his guilty earnings as
courtiers and clerks leave him — for pardons do not pass the seals
for nothing ; — and, when he takes his walk along the pier, if a
stranger asks, who is the down-looking, swarthy, melancholy man,
for whom all make way, as if he brought the plague in his person,
the answer shall be, that is such a one, the pardoned pirate ! — No
honest man will speak to him, no woman of repute will give him
her hand."

"Your picture is too highly coloured, Jack," said , Cleveland,
suddenly interrupting his friend ; " there are women — there is one
at least, that would be true to her lover, even if he were what you
have described."

Bunce was silent for a space, and looked fixedly at his friend.
" By my soul ! " he said, at length, " I begin to think myself a con-
jurer. Unlikely as it all was, I could not help suspecting from the
beginning that there was a girl in the case. Why, this is worse
than Prince Volscius in love, ha ! ha ! ha ! "

"Laugh as you will," said Cleveland, "it is true; — there is a
maiden who is contented to love me, pirate as I am ; and I will
fairly own to you, Jack, that, though I have often at times detested
our roving life, and myself for following it, yet I doubt if I could
have found resolution to make the break which I have now resolved
on, but for her sake."

"Why, then, God-a-mercy !" replied Bunce, "there is no speak-
ing sense to a madman ; and love in one of our trade. Captain, is
little better than lunacy. The girl must be a rare creature, for a
wise man to risk hanging for her. But, hark ye, may she not be a
little touched, as well as yourself i'-^and is it not sympathy that has
done it ? She cannot be one of our ordinary cockatrices, but a girl
of conduct and character."

" Both are as undoubted as that she is the most beautiful and
bewitching creature whom the eye ever opened upon," answered
Cleveland.

" And she loves thee, knowing thee, most noble Captain, to be a
commander among those gentlemen of fortune, whom the vulgar
call pirates ?'"

THE PIRATE. 313

" Even so — I am assured of it," said Cleveland.

" Why, then," answered Bunce, " she is either mad in good
earnest, as I said before, or she does not know what a pirate is."

"You are right in the last point," replied Cleveland. " She has
been bred in such remote simplicity, and utter ignorance of what is
evil, that she compares our occupation with that of the old Norse-
men, who swept sea and haven with their victorious galleys,
established colonies, conquered countries, and took the name of
Sea- Kings."

" And a better one it is than that of pirate, and comes much to
the same purpose, I dare say," said Bunce. " But this must be a
mettled wench ! — why did you not bring her aboard ? methinks it
was pity to baulk her fancy."

" And do you think," said Cleveland, " that I could so utterly
play the part of a fallen spirit as to avail myself of her enthusiastic
error, and bring an angel of beauty and innocence acquainted with
such a hell as exists on board of yonder infernal ship of ours ? — I
tell you, my friend, that, were all my former sins doubled in weight
and in dye, such a villainy would have outglared and outweighed
them all."

" Why, then. Captain Cleveland," said his confidant, " methinks
it was but a fool's part to come hither at all. The news must one
day have gone abroad, that the celebrated pirate Captain Cleveland,
with his good sloop the Revenge, had been lost on the Mainland of
Zetland, and all hands perished ; so you would have remained hid
both from friend and enemy, and might have married your pretty
Zetlander, and converted your sash and scarf into fishing-nets, and
your cutlass into a harpoon, and swept the seas for fish instead of
florins."

" And so I had determined," said the Captain ; " but a Jagger,
as they call them here, like a meddling, peddhng thief as he is,
brought down intelligence to Zetland of your lying here, and I was
fain to set off, to see if you were the consort of whom I had told
them, long before I thought of leaving the roving trade."

" Ay," said Bunce, " and so far you judged well. For, as you nad
heard of our being at Kirkwall, so we should have soon learned that
you were at Zetland ; and some of us for friendship, some for
hatred, and some for fear of your playing Harry Glasby upon us,
would have come down for the purpose of getting you into our
company again."

" I suspected as much," said the Captain, " and therefore was
fain to decline the courteous offer of a friend, who proposed to bring
me here about this time. Besides, Jack, I recollected, that, as you
say, my pardon will not pass the seals without money, my own was

314 THE PIRATE.

waxing low — no wonderj thou knowest I was never a churl of it —
And so "

"And so you came for your share of the cobs?" rephed his
friend — " It was wisely done ; and we shared honourably— so far
Goffe has acted up to articles, it must be allowed. But keep your
purpose of leaving him close in your breast, for I dread his playing
you some dog's trick or other ; for he certainly thought himself
sure of your share, and will hardly forgive your coming alive to dis-
appoint him."

" I fear him not," said Cleveland, " and he knows that well. I
would I were as well clear of the consequences of having been his
comrade, as I hold myself to be of all those which may attend his
ill-will. Another unhappy job I may be troubled with — I hurt a
young fellow, who has been my plague for some time, in an unhappy
brawl that chanced the morning I left Zetland."

" Is he dead ? " asked Bunce : " It is a more serious question
here, than it would be on the Grand Caimains or the Bahama Isles,
where a brace or two of fellows may be shot in a morning, and no
more heard of, or asked about them, than if they were so many
wood-pigeons. But here it may be otherwise ;> so I hope you have
not made your friend immortal."

"I hope not," said the Captain, "though my anger has been fatal
to those who have given me less provocation. To say the truth, I
was sorry for the lad notwithstanding, and especially as , I was
forced to leave him in mad keeping."

" In mad keeping ? " said Bunce ; " why, what means that ? "

" You shall hear," replied his friend. " In the first place, you are
to know, this young man came suddenly on me while I was trying
to gain Minna's ear for a private interview before I set sail, that I
might explain my purpose to her. Now, to be broken in on by the
accursed rudeness of this young fellow at such a moment "

" The interruption deserved death," said Bunce, " by all the laws
of love and honour ! "

" A truce with your ends of plays, Jack, and listen one moment.
— The brisk youth thought proper to retort, when I commanded
him to be gone. I am not, thou knowest, very patient, and en-
forced my commands with a blow, which he returned as roundly.
We struggled, till I became desirous that we should part at any
rate, which I could only effect by a stroke of my poniard, which,
according to old use, I have, thou knowest, always about me. I
had scarce done this when I repented ; but there was no time to
think of any thing save escape and concealment, for, if the house
rose on me, I was lost ; as the fiery old man, who is head of the
family, would have done justice on me had I been his brother. I

J
•I

THE PIRATE. 31S

took the body hastily on my shoulders to carry it down to the sea-
shore, with the purpose of throwing it into a riva, as they call them,
or chasm of great depth, where it would have been long enough in
being discovered. This done, I intended to jump into the boat
which I had lying ready, and set sail for Kirkwall. But, as I was
walking hastily towards the beach with my burden, the poor young
fellow groaned, and so apprized me that the wound had not been
> instantly fatal. I was by this time well concealed amongst the
ro'cks, and, far from desiring to complete my crime, I laid the
young man on the ground, and was doing what I could to stanch
the blood, when suddenly an old woman stood before me. She
was a person whom I had frequently seen while in Zetland, and to
whom they ascribe the character of a sorceress, or, as the negroes
say, an Obi woman. She demanded the wounded man of me, and
I was too much pressed for time to hesitate in complying with her
request. More she was about to say to me, when we heard the
voice of a silly old man, belonging to the family, singing at some
distance. She then pressed her finger on her lip as a sign of
secrecy, whistled very low, and a shapeless, deformed brute of a
dwarf coming to her assistance, they carried the wounded man into
one of the caverns with which the place abounds, and I got to
my boat and to sea with all expedition. If that old hag be, as
they say, connected with the King of the Air, she favoured
me that morning with a turn of her caUing ; for not even the
West Indian tornadoes, which we have weathered together, made
a wilder racket than the squall that drove me so fa!r out of our
course, that, without a pocket-compass, which I chanced to have
about me, I should never have recovered the Fair Isle, for which
we run, and'where I found a brig which brought me to this place.
But, whether the old woman meant me weal or woe, here we came
at length in safety from the sea, and here I remain in doubts and
difficulties of more kinds than one."

" O, the devil take the Sumburgh-head," said Bunce, " or what-
ever they call the rock that you knocked our clever little
Revenge a'gainst ! "

" Do not say /knocked her on the rock," said Cleveland ; "have
I not told you fifty times, if the cowards had not taken to their
boats, though I showed them the danger, and told them they
would all be swam.ped, which happened the instant they cast
off the painter, she would have been afloat at this moment ?
Had they stood by me and the ship, their lives would have been
saved ; had I gone with them, mine would have been lost ; who
can say which is for the best ? "

" Well," replied his friend, " I know your case now, and can the

3i6 THE PIRATE.

better help and advise. I will be true to you, Clement as the blade
to the hilt ; but I carniot think that you should leave us. As
the old Scottish song says, 'Wae's my heart that we should
sunder !'— But come, you will aboard with us to-day, at any rate?"

" I have no other place of refuge," said Cleveland, with a sigh.

He then once more ran his eyes over the bay, directing his spy-
glass upon several of the vessels which traversed its surface, in
hopes, doubtless, of discerning the vessel of Magnus Troil, and
then followed his companion down the hill in silence.

CHAPTER XXXII.

I strive like to the vessel in the tide-way,

"VVhich, lacking fkvouring breeze, hath not the power

To stem the powerful current. — Even so.

Resolving daily to forsake my vices.

Habits, strong circumstance, renew'd temptation,

Sweep me to sea again. — O heavenly breath.

Fill thou my sails, and aid the feeble vessel.

Which ne'er can reach the blessed port without thee !

'Tis Odds when Evens meet.

Cleveland, with his friend Bunce, descended the hill for a time
in silence, until at length the latter renewed their conversation.

" You have taken this fellow's wound more on your conscience
than you need, Captain — I have known you do more, and think less
on't."

" Not on such sliglit provocation. Jack," replied Cleveland.
" Besides, the lad saved my life ; and, say that I requited him the
favour, still we should not have met on such evil terms ; but I trust
that he may receive aid from that woman, who has certainly strange
skill in simples."

" And over simpletons, Captain," said his friend, " in w^hich class
I must e'en put you down, if you think more on this subject. That
you should be made a fool of by a young woman, why it is many an
honest man's case ; — but to puzzle your pate about the mummeries
of an old one, is far too great a folly to indulge a friend in. Talk
to me of your Minna, since you so call her, as much as you will ;
but you have no title to trouble your faithful squire-errant with
your old mumping magician. And novif here we are once more
amongst the booths and tents, which these good folk are pitching —
let us look, and see whether we may not find some fun and frolic

THE PIRATE. 317

amongst them. In merry England, now, you would have seen on
such an occasion, two or three bands of strollers, as many fire-
eaters and conjurors, as many shows of wild beasts ; but, amongst
these grave folks, there is nothing but what savours of business
and of commodity — no, not so much as a single squall from my
merry gossip Punch and his rib Joan."

As Bunce thus spoke, Cleveland cast his eyes on some very gay
clothes, which with other articles, hung out upon one of the booths,
that had a good deal more of ornament and exterior decoration than
the rest. There was in front a small sign of canvas painted, an-
nouncing the variety of goods which the owner of the booth, Bryce
Snailsfoot, had on sale, and the reasonable prices at which. he pro-
posed to offer them to the pubhc. For the further gratification of
the spectator, the sign bore on the opposite side an emblematic
device, resembling our first parents in their vegetable garments,
with this legend —

" Poor sinners whom the snake deceives,
Are fain to cover them with leaves.
Zetland hath no leaves, 'tis true.
Because that trees are none, or few ;
But we have flax and taits of woo'.
For linen cloth and wadmaal blue';
And we have many of foreign knacks
Of finer waft, than woo' or flax.'
Ye gallanty Lambmas lads^* appear.
And bring your Lambmas sisters here,
Bryce Snailsfoot spares not cost or care,
To pleasure every gentle pair."

While" Cleveland was perusing these goodly rhymes, which
brought to his mind Claud Halcro, to whom, as the poet laureate of
the island, ready with his talent alike in the service of the great
and small, they probably owed their origin, the worthy proprietor
of the booth, having cast his eye upon him, began with hasty and
trembling hand to remove some of the garments, which, as the sale
did not commence till the ensuing day, he had exposed either for
the purpose of airing them, or to excite the admiration of the
spectators.

" By my word. Captain," whispered Bunce to Cleveland, " you
must have had that fellow under your clutches one day, and he re-
members one gripe of your talons, and fears another. See how fast
he is packing his wares out of sight, so soon as he set eyes on
you ! "

"His wares ! " said Cleveland, on looking more attentively at his
proceedings ; " By Heaven, they are my clothes which I left in a

3l8 THE PIRATE.

chest at Jarlshof when the Revenge was lost there— Why, Br>'ce
Snailsfoot, thou thief, dog, and villain, what means this ? Have
you not made enough of us by cheap buying and dear selling, that
you have seized on my trunk and wearing apparel ? "

Bryce Snailsfoot, who probably would otherwise not have been
wilUng to see his friend the Captain, was now by the vivacity of
his attack obliged to pay attention to him. He first whispered to
his little foot-page, by whom, as we have already noticed, he was
usually attended, " Run to the town-council-house, jarto, and tell
the provost and bailies they maun send some of their officers
, speedily, for here is like to be wild wark in the fair."

So having said, and having seconded his commands by a push
on the shoulder of his messenger, which sent him spinning out of
the shop as fast as heels could carry him, Bryce Snailsfoot turned
to his old acquaintance, and, with that amplification of words and
exaggeration of manner, which in Scotland is called " making a
phrase," he ejaculated — " The Lord be gude to us ! the worthy
Captain Cleveland, that we were all sae grieved about, returned to
relieve our hearts again ! Wat have my cheeks been for you,"
(here Bryce wiped his eyes,) " and blithe am I now to see you re-
stored to your sorrowing friends ! "

"My sorrowing friends, you rascal!" said Cleveland; " I will
give you better cause for sorrow than ever you had on my account,
if you do not tell me instantly where you stole all my clothes."

" Stole ! " ejaculated Bryce, casting up his eyes ; " now the
Powers be gude to us ! — the poor gentleman has lost his reason in
that weary gale of wind."

" Why, you insolent rascal ! " said Cleveland, grasping the cane
which he carried, " do you think to bamboozle me with your im-
pudence ? As you would have a whole head on your shoulders,
and your bones in a whole skin, one minute longer, tell me where
the devil you stole my wearing apparel ? "

Bryce Snailsfoot ejaculated once more a repetition of the word
" stole ! Now Heaven be gude to us ! " but at the same time, con-
scious that the Captain was likely to be sudden in execution, cast
an anxious look to the town, to see the loitering aid of the civil
power advance to his rescue.

" I insist on an instant answer," said the Captain, with upraised
weapon, " or else I will beat you to a mummy, and throw out all
your frippery upon the common ! "

Meanwhile, Master John Bunce, who considered the whole affair
as an excellent good jest, and not the worse one that it made Cleve-
land very angry, seized hold of the Captain's arm, and, without
any idea of ultimately preventing him from executing his threats,.

THE PIRATE. 3ig

interfered just SO much as was necessary to protract a discussion
so amusing.

" Nay, let the honest man speak," he said, " messmate ; he has
as fine a cozening face as ever stood on a knavish pair of shoulders,
and his are the true flourishes of eloquence, in the course of which
men snip the cloth an inch too short Now, I wish you to consider
that you are both of a trade, — he measures bales by the yard, and
you by the sword, — and so I will not have him chopped up till he
has had a fair chase."

" You are a fool ! " said Cleveland, endeavouring to shake his
friend off. — " Let me go ! for, by Heaven, I will be foul of
him!"

" Hold him fast," said the pedlar, " good dear merry gentleman,
hold him fast ! "

" Then say something for yourself," said Bunce ; " use your gob-
box, man ; patter away, or, by my soul, I will let him loose on
you ! "

" He says Lstole these goods," said Bryce, who now saw himself
run so close, that pleading to the charge became inevitable. " Now,
how could I steal them, when they are mine by fair and lawful
purchase ? "

"Purchase! you beggarly vagrant!" said Cleveland; "from
whom did you dare to buy my clothes ? or who had the impudence
to sell them ? "

" Just that worthy professor Mrs Swertha, the housekeeper at
Jarlshof, who acted as your executor," said the pedlar; "and a
grieved heart she had."

" And so she was resolved to make a heavy pocket oi it, I sup-
pose," said the Captain ; " but how did she dare to sell the things
left in her charge ? "

" Why, she acted all for the best,' good woman ! " said the pedlar,
anxious to protract the discussion until the arrival of succours ;
" and, if you will but hear reason, I am ready to account with you
for the chest and all that it holds."

" Speak out, then, and let us have none of thy damnable evasions,"
said Captain Cleveland ; " if you show ever so little purpose of
being somewhat honest for once in thy life, I will not beat thee."

"Why, you see, noble Captain," said the pedlar, — and then
muttered to himself, " plague on Pate Paterson's cripple knee, they
will be waiting for him, hirpling useless body ! " then resumed
aloud ^-" The country, you see, is in great perplexity, — great
perplexity, indeed, — ^much perplexity, truly. There was your honour
missing, that was loved by great and small — clean missing — no-
where to be heard of— a lost man — umquhile — dead — defunct ! "

320 THE PIRATE.

" You shall find me alive to your cost, you scoundrel ! " said the
irritated Captain.

" Weel, but take patience, — ye will not hear a body speak," said
the Jagger. — "Then there was the lad Mordaunt Mertoun "

" Ha ! " said the Captain, " what of him? "

" Cannot be heard of," said the pedlar ; " clean and clear tint, —
a gone youth ; — fallen, it is thought, from the craig into the sea — he
was aye venturous. I have had dealings with him for furs and
feathers, whilk he swapped against powder and shot, and the like ;
and now he has worn out from among us — clean retired — utterly
vanished, like the last puff of an auld wife's tobacco pipe."

" But what is all this to the Captain's clothes, my dear friend ? "
said Bunce ; " I must presently beat you myself unless you come to
the point."

" Weel, weel, — ^patience, paience,'' said Bryce waving his hand ;
" you will get all time enough. Weel, there are two folks gane, as
I said, forbye the distress at Burgh- Westra about Mistress Minna's
sad ailment "

" Bring not her into your buffoonery, sirrah," said Cleveland, in a
tone of anger, not so loud, but far deeper and more concentrated
than he had hitherto used ; " for, if you name her with less than
reverence, I will crop the ears out of your head, and make you
swallow them on the spot ! "

"He, he, he ! " faintly laughed the Jagger ; " that were a pleasant
jest ! you are pleased to be witty. But, to say naething of Burgh-
Westra, there is the carle at Jarlshof, he that was the auld Mertoun,
Mordaunt's father, whom men thought as fast bound to the place
he dwelt in as the Sumburgh-head itsell, naething maun serve him
but he is lost as weel as the lave about whom I have spoken. And
there's Magnus Troil (wi' favour be he named) taking horse ; and
there is pleasant Maister Claud Halcro taking boat, whilk he steers
worst of any man in Zetland, his head running on rambling rhymes ;
and the Factor body is on the stir — the Scots Factor, — him that is
aye speaking of dykes and delving, and such unprofitable wark,
which has naething of merchandise in it, and he is on the lang trot,
too ; so that ye might say, upon a manner, the tae half of the Main-
land of Zetland is lost, and the other is running to and fro seeking
it — awfu' times ! "

Captain Cleveland had subdued his passion, and listened to this
tirade of the worthy man of merchandise, with impatience indeed,
yet not without the hope of hearing something that might concern
him. But his companion was now become impatient in his turn : —
" The clothes ! " he exclaimed, " the clothes, the clothes, the
clothes ! " accompanying each repetition of the words with a

THE PIRATE. 321

flourish of his cane, the dexterity of which consisted in coming
mighty near the Jagger's ears without actually touching them.

The Jagger, shringing from each of these demonstrations, con-
tinued to exclaim, " Nay, sir — good sir— worthy sir — for the clothes
— I found the worthy dame in great distress on account of her old
maister, and on account of her young maister, and on account of
worthy Captain Cleveland ; and because of the distress of the
worthy Fowd's family, and the trouble of the great Fowd himself, —
and because of the Factor, and in respect of Claud Halcro, and on
other accounts and respects. Also we mingled our sorrows and our
tears with a bottle, as the holy text hath it, and called in the Ran-
zelman to our council, a worthy man, Niel Ronaldson byname, who
hath a good reputation."

Here another flourish of the cane came so very near that it partly
touched his ear. The Jagger started back, and the truth, or that
which he desired should be considered as such, bolted from him
without more circumlocution ; as a cork, after much unnecessary
buzzing and fiizzing, springs forth from a bottle of spruce beer.

" In brief, what the deil mair would you have of it ? — the woman
sold me te hkist of clothes— they are mine by purchase, and that is
what I will live and die upon."

" In other words," said Cleveland, " this greedy old hag had the
impudence to sell what was none of hers j and you, honest Bryce
Snailsfoot, had the assurance to be the purchaser ? "

" Ou dear, Captain," said the conscientious pedlar, " what wad
ye hae had twa poor folk to do ? There was yoursell gane that
aught the things, and Maister Mordaiint was gane that had them
in keeping, and the things were but damply put up, where they were
rotting with moth and mould, and"

" And so this old thief sold them, and you bought them, I sup-
pose, just to keep them from spoiling ? " said Cleveland.

''Weel then," said the merchant, " I'm thinking, noble Captain,
that wad be just the gate of it."

" Well, then, hark ye, you impudent scoundrel," said the Captain.
" I do not wish to dirty my fingers with you, or to make any dis- ,
turbance in this place "

" Good reason for that. Captain— aha ! " said the Jagger, slyly.

" I will break your bones if you speak another word," replied
Cleveland. " Take notice — I offer you fair terms — give me back
the black leathern pocket-book with the lock upon it, and the purse
with the doubloons, with some few of the clothes I want, and keep
the rest in the devil's name ! "

" Doubloons ! ! ! "—exclaimed the Jagger, with an exaltation of
voice intende'd to indicate the utmost extremity of surprise, — " What

Y

323 THE PIRATE.

do I ken of doubloons ? my dealing was for doublets, and not for
doubloons — If there were doubloons in the kist, doubtless Swertha
will have them in safe keeping for your honour — the damp would-
na harm the gold, ye ken."

" Give me back my pocket-book and my goods, you rascally
thief," said Cleveland, "or without a word more I wiE beat your
brains out ! "

The wily Jagger, casting eye around him, saw that succour was
near, in the shape of a* party of officers, six in number; for
several rencontres with the crew of the pirate had taught the magis-
trates of Kirkwall to strengthen their police parties when these
strangers were in question.

" Ye had better keep the thief Xa suit yoursell, honoured Captain,"
said the Jagger, emboldened by the approach of the civil power ;
" for wha kens how a' these fine goods and bonny-dies were come by? "

This was uttered with such provoking .slyness of look and tone,
that Cleveland made no further delay, but, seizing upon the Jagger
by the collar, dragged him over his temporary counter, which was,
with all the goods displayed thereon, overset in the scuffle ; and,
holding him with one hand, inflicted on him with the other a severe
beating with his cane. All this was done so suddenly and with'
such energy, that Bjyce Snailsfoot, though rather a stout man, was
totally surprised by the vivacity of the attack, and made scarce any
other effort at extricating himself than by roaring for assistance
like a bull-calf. The " loitering aid " having at length come up,
the officers made an effort to seize on Cleveland, and by their
united exertions succeeded in compelling him to quit hold of the
pedlar, in order to defend himself from their assault. This he did
with infinite strength, resolution, and dexterity, being at the same
time well seconded by his friend Jack Bunce, who had seen with glee
the drubbing sustained by the pedlar, and now combated tightly to
save his companion from the consequences. But, as there had been
for some time a growing feud between the townspeople and the crew
of the Rover, the former, provoked by the insolent deportment of
the seamen, had resolved to stand by each other, and to aid the
civil power upon such occasions of riot as should occur in future;
and so many assistants came|up to the rescue of the constables, that
Cleveland, after fighting most manfully, was at lengtli brought to
the ground and made prisoner. His more fortunate companion had
escaped by speed of foot, as soon as he saw that the day must
needs be determined against them.

The proud heart of Cleveland, which, even in its perversion, had
in its feeling something of original nobleness, was like to burst,
when he found himself borne down in this unworthy brawl— dragged

THE PIRATE. 323

into the town as a prisoner, and hurried through the streets towards
the Council-house, where the magistrates of the burgh were then
seated in council. The probability of imprisonment, with all its
consequences, rushed also upon his mind, and he cursed an hundred
times the folly which had not rather submitted to the pedlar's
knavery, than involved him in so perilous an embarrassment.

But just as they approached the door of the Council-house, which
is situated in the middle of the little town, the face of matters was
suddenly changed by a new and unexpected incident.

Bunce, who had designed, by his precipitate retreat,to serve as well
his friend as himself, had hied him to the haven, where the boat of the
Rover was then lying, and called the coxswain and boat's crew to
the assistance of Cleveland. They now appeared on the scene
— fierce desperadoes, as became their calling, with features bronzed
by the tropical sun under which they had pursued it. They rushed
at once amongst the crowd, laying about them with their stretchers ;
and, forcing their way up to Cleveland, speedily delivered him from
the hands of the officers, who were totally unprepared to resist an
attack so furious and so sudden, and carried him off in triumph
towards the quay, — two or three of their number facing about from
time to time to keep back the crowd, whose efforts to recover the
prisoner were the less violent, that most of the seamen were armed
with pistols and cutlasses, as well as with the less lethal weapons
which alone they had as yet made use of.

They gained their boat in safety, and jumped into it, carrying
along with them Cleveland, to whom circumstances seemed to offer
no other refuge, and pushed off for their vessel, singing in chorus
to their oars an old ditty, of which the natives of Kirkwall could
only hear the first stanza :

" Robin Rover

Said to his crew,
' Up with the black flag,

Down with the blue !—
Fire on the main-top,

Fire on the bow,
Fire on the gun-deck.
Fire down below ! ' "

The wild chorus of their voices was heard long after the words
ceased to be intelligible. — And thus was the pirate Cleveland again
thrown almost involuntarily amongst those desperate associates,
from whom he had so often resolved to detach himself.

38^ THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Parental love, my friend, has power o'er wisdom,
And is the charm, which, like the falconer's lure,
Can bring from heaven the highest soaring spirits. —
So, when famed Prosper dofPd his magic robe,
It was Miranda pluck'd it from his shoulders.

Old Play.

Our wandering narrative must now return to Mordaunt Mer-
toun.— We left him in the perilous condition of one who has
received a severe wound, and we now find him in the condition of
a convalescent — pale, indeed, and feeble from the loss of much
blood, and the effects of a fever which had followed the injury, but
so far fortunate, that the weapon, having glanced on the ribs, had
only occasioned a great effusion of blood, without touching any
vital part, and was now wellnigh healed ; so efficacious were the
vulnerary plants and salves with which it had been treated by the
sage Noma of Fitful-head.

~ The matron and her patient now sat together in a dwelling in a
remote i.sland. He had been transported, during his illness, and
ere he had perfect consciousness, first to her singular habitation
near Fitful-head, and thence to her present abode, by one of the
fishing-boats on the station of Burgh-Westra. For such was the
command possessed by Noma over the superstitious character of
her countrymen, that she never failed to find faithful agents to
execute her commands, whatever these happened to be ; and, as
her orders were generally given under injunctions of the strictest
secresy, men reciprocally wondered at occurrences, which had in
fact been produced by their own agency, and that of their neigh-
bours, and in which, had they communicated freely with each other,
no shadow of the marvellous would have remained.

Mordaunt was now seated by the fire, in an apartment indiffe-
rently well furnished, having a book in his hand, which he looked
upon from time to time with signs of ennui and impatience ; feel-
ings which at length so far overcame him, that, flinging the volume
on the table, he fixed his eyes on the fire, and assumed the attitude
of one who is engaged in unpleasant meditation.

Noma, who sat opposite to him, and appeared busy in the com-
position of some drug or unguent, anxiously left her seat, and,
approaching Mordaunt, felt his pulse, making at the same time the
most affectionate enquiries whether he felt any sudden pain, and
where it was seated. The manner in which Mordaunt replied to

THE PIRATE. 325

these earnest enquiries, although worded so as to express gratitude
for her kindness, while he disclaimed any feeling of indisposition,
did not seem to give satisfaction to the Pythoness.

" Ungrateful boy ! " she said, " for whom I have done so much ;
you whom I have rescued, by my power and skill, from the very
gates of death,— are you already so weary of me, that you cannot
refrain from showing how desirous you are to spend, at a distance
from me, the very first intelligent days of the life which I have
restored you ? "

" You do me injustice, my kind preserver,'' replied Mordaunt ;
" I am not tired of your society ; but I have duties which recall
me to ordinary life."

" Duties ! " repeated Noma ; ■' and what duties can or ought to
interfere with the gratitude which you owe to me ? — Duties ! Your
thoughts are on the use of your gun, or on clambering among the
rocks in quest of sea-fowl. For these exercises your strength doth
not yet fit you ; and yet these are the duties to which you are so
anxious to return ! "

" Not so, my good and kind mistress," said Mordaunt. — " To
name one duty, out of many, which makes me seek to leave you,
now that my strength permits, let me mention that of a son to his
father."

" To your father ! " said Noma, with a laugh that had some-
thing in it almost frantic. " O ! you know not how we can, in these
islands, at once cancel such duties ! And, for your father," she
added, proceeding more calmly, " what has he done ' for you, to
deserve the regard and duty you speak of.' — Is he not the same,
who, as you have long since told me, left you for so many years
poorly nourished among strangers, without enquiring whether you
were alive or dead, and only sending, from time to time, supplies
in such fashion, as men relieve the leprous wretch to whom they
fling alms from a distance ? And, in these later years, when he had
made you the companion of his misery, he has been, by starts your
pedagogue, by starts your tormentorj but never, Mordaunt, never
your father."

" Something of truth there is in what you say,'' replied Mordaunt:
" My father is not fond ; but he is, and has ever been, effectively
kind. Men have not their affections in their power ; and it is a
child's duty to be grateful for the benefits which he receives, even
when coldly bestowed. My father has conferred instruction on me,
and I am convinced he loves me. He is unfortunate ; and even if
he loved me not "

"And he does not love you," said Noma, hastily; "he never
loved any thing, or any one, save himself. He is unfortunate, but

326 THK PIRATE.

well are his misfortunes deserved.— O Mordaunt, you have one
parent only,— one parent, who loves you as the drops of the heart-
blood ! "

" I know I have but one parent," replied Mordaunt ; " my
mother has been long dead.— But your words contradict eaclj
other."

" They do not— they do not," said Noma, in a paroxysm of the
deepest feeling ; " you have but one parent. Your unhappy mother
is not dead — I would to God that she were !— but she is not dead.
Thy mother is the only parent that loves thee ; and I— I, Mor-
daunt," throwing herself on his neck, " am that most unhappy—
yet most happy mother."

She closed him in a strict and convulsive embrace ; and tears,
the first, perhaps, which she had shed for many years, burst in
torrents as she sobbed on his neck. Astonished at what he heard,
felt, and saw,— moved by the excess of her agitation, yet disposed
to ascribe this burst of passion to insanity, — Mordaunt vainly
endeavoured to tranquillize the mind of this extraordinary person.

" Ungrateful boy ! " she said, " who but a mother would have
watched over thee as I have watched ? From the instant I saw thy
father, when he little thought by whom he was observed, a space
now many years back, I knew him well ; and, under his charge, I
saw you, then a stripling, — while Nature; speaking loud in my
bosom, assured me, thou wert blood of my blood, and bone of my
bone. Think how often you have wondered to see me, when least
expected, in your places of pastime and resort ! Think how often
my eye has watched you on the giddy precipices, and muttered
those charms which subdue the evil demons, who show themselves
to the climber on the giddiest point of his path, and force him to
quit his hold ! Did I not hang around thy neck, in pledge of thy
safety, that chain of gold, which an Elfin King gave to the founder
of our race ? Would I have given that dear gift to any but to the
son 6f my bosom ? — Mordaunt, my power has done that for thee
that a mere mortal mother would dread to think of. I have con-
jured the Mermaid at midnight, that thy bark might be prosperous
on the Haaf ! I have hushed the winds, and navies have flapped
their empty sails against the mast in inactivity, that you might
safely indulge your sport upon the crags ! "

Mordaunt, perceiving that she was growing yet wilder in her
talk, endeavoured to frame an answer which should be at once
indulgent, soothing, and calculated to allay the rising warmth of
her imagination.

" Dear Noma," he said, " I have indeed many reasons to call
you mother, who have bestowed so many benefits upon me ; and

THE PIRATE. 337

from me you shall ever receive the affection and duty of a child.
But the chain you mentioned, it has vanished from my neck— I
have not seen it since the ruffian stabbed me."

" Alas ! and can you think of it at this moment ?" said Noma,
in a sorrowful accent.—" But be it so ;— and know, it was I took it
from thy neck, and tied it around the neck of her who is dearest to
you ; in token that the union betwixt you, which has been the only
earthly wish which I have had the power to form, shall yet, even yet,
be accomphshed— ay, although hell should open to forbid the bans ! "

" Alas ! " said Mordaunt, with a sigh, " you remember not the
difference betwixt our situation— her father is wealthy, and of
ancient birth."

" Not more wealthy than will be the heir of Noma of Fitful-
head,^ answered the Pythoness—" not of better or more ancient
blood than that which flows in thy veins, derived from thy mother,
the descendant of the same Jarls and Sea-Kings from whom
Magnus boasts his origin.'— Or dost thou think, like the pedant and
fanatic strangers who have come amongst us, that thy blood is dis-
honoured because my union with thy father did not receive the
sanction of a priest ? — Know, that we were wedded after the ancient
manner of the Norse — our hands were clasped within the circle of
Odin * with such deep vows of eternal fidelity, as even the laws
of these usurping Scots would have sanctioned as equivalent to a
blessing before the altar. To the offspring of such a union, Mag-
nus has nought to object. It was weak — it was criminal, on my
part, but it conveyed no infamy to the birth of my son."

The composed and collected manner in which Noma argued
these points began to impose upon Mordaunt an incipient belief in
the truth of what she said ; and, indeed, she added so many cir-
cumstanqes, satisfactorily and rationally connected with each other,
as seemed to confute the notion that her story was altogether the
delusion of that insanity which sometimes showed itself in her
speech and actions. A thousand confused ideas rushed upon him,
when he supposed it possible that the unhappy person before him
might actually have a right to claim from him the respect and
affection due to a parent from a son. He could only surmount
them by turning his mind to a different, and scarce less interesting
topic, resolving within himself to take time for farther enquiry and
mature consideration, ere he either rejected or admitted the claim
which Noma preferred upon his affection and duty. His benefac-
tress, at least, she undoubtedly was, and he could not err in paying
her, as such, the respect and attention due from a son to a mother ;
and so far, therefore, he might gratify Noma without otherwise
standing committed.

323 THE PIRATE.

"And do you then really think, my mother,— since so you bid me
term you,"— said Mordaunt, " that the proud Magnus Troil may,
by any inducement, be prevailed upon to relinquish the angry feel-
ings which he has of late adopted towards me, and to permit my
addresses to his daughter Brenda ? "

" Brenda?" repeated Noma— "who talks of Brenda?— it was of
Minna that I spoke to you."

" But it was of Brenda that I thought," replied Mordaunt,," of
her that I now think, and of her alone that I will ever think."

" Impossible, my son !" replied Noma. "You cannot be so dull
of heart, so poor of spirit, as to prefer the idle mirth and housewife
simplicity of the younger sister, to the deep feeling and high jnind
of the noble-spirited Minna ? Who would stoop to gather the
lowly violet, that might have the rose for stretching out his
hand?"

" Some think the lowliest flowers are the sweetest," replied Mor-
daunt, " and in that faith will I live and die."

" You dare not teU me so ? " answered Noma, fiercely ; then,
instantly changing her tone, and taking his hand in the most affec-
tionate manner, she proceeded : — " You must not — you will ript tell
me so, my dear son — you will not break a mother^s heart in the
very first hour in which she has embraced her child ? — Nay, do not
answer, but hear me. You must wed Minna — I have bound around
her neck a fatal amulet, on which the happiness of both depends.
The labours of my life have for years had this direction. Thus it
must be, and not otherwise — Minna must be the bride of my
son ! "

" But is not Brenda equally near, equally dear to you ?" replied
Mordaunt.

" As near in blood," said Noma, " but not so dear, no not half
so dear, in affection. Minna's mild, yet high and contemplative
spirit, renders her a companion meet for one, whose ways, like
mine, are beyond the ordinary paths of this world. Brenda is a
thing of common and ordinary life, an idle laugher and scoffer,
who would level art with ignorance, and reduce power to weakness,
by disbelieving and turning into ridicule whatever is beyond the
grasp of her own shallow intellect."

" She is, indeed," answered Mordaunt, " neither superstitious nor
enthusiastic, and I love her the better for it. Remember also, my
mother, that she returns my affection, and that Minna, if she loves
any one, loves the stranger Cleveland."

" She does not — she dares not," answered Noma, " nor dares he
pursue her farther. I told him, when first he came to Burgh- Westra,
that I destined her for you."

THE PIRATE. 329

"And to that rash annunciation," said Mordaunt, "I owe this
man's persevering enmity— my wound, and woUnigh the loss of
my life. See, my mother, to what point your intrigues have
already conducted us, and, in Heaven's name, prosecute them no
farther ! "

It seemed as if this reproach struck Noma with the force, at
once, and vivacity of lightning ; for she struck her forehead with
her hand, and seemed about to drop from her seat. Mordaunt,
greatly shocked, hastened to catch her in his arms, and, though
scarce knowing what to say, attempted to utter some incoherent
expressions.

" Spare me, Heaven, spare me ? " were the first words which she
muttered ; " do not let my crime be avenged by his means ! — Yes,
young man," she said, after a pause, " you have dared to tell what
I 4ared not tell myself. You have pressed that upon me, which, if
it be truth, I cannot believe, and yet continue to live ! "
■ Mordaunt in vain endeavoured to interrupt her with protestations
of his ignorance how he had offended or grieved her, and of his
extreme regret that he had unintentionally done either. She pro-
ceeded, while her voice trembled wildly, with vehemence.

"Yes ! you have touched on that dark suspicion which poisons
the consciousness of my power, — the sole boon which was given me
in exchange for innocence and for peace of mind ! Your voice
joins that of the demon which, even while the elements confess me
their mistress, whispers to me, ' Noma, this is but delusion — your
power rests but in the idle belief of the ignorant, supported by a
thousand petty artifiess of your own.' — This is what Brenda says
— this is what you would say ; and false, scandalously false, as it is,
there are rebellious thoughts in this wild brain of mine," (touching
her forehead with her finger as she spoke,) " that, like an insurrec-
tion in an invaded country, arise to take part against their dis-
tressed sovereign. — Spare me, my son ! " she continued, in a voice
of supplication, " spare me ! — the sovereignty of which your words
would deprive me, is no unviable exaltation. Few would covet to
rule over gibbering ghosts, and howling winds, and raging currents.
My throne is a cloud, my sceptre a meteor, my realm is only
peopled with fantasies ; but I must either cease to be, or continue
to be the mightiest as well as the most miserable of beings."*

" Do not sJDCak thus mournfully, my dear and unhappy benfac-
tress," said Mordaunt, much affected ; " I will think of your power
whatever you would have me beUeve. But, for your own sake,
view the matter otherwise. Turn your thoughts from such agitat-
ing and mystical studies — from such wild subjects of contemplation,
into another and a better channel. Life will again have charms,
and religion will have comforts, for you."

330 THE PIRATE.

She listened to him with some composure, as if she weighed his
counsel, and desired to be guided by it ; but, as he ended, she
shook her head and exclaimed —

" It cannot be. I must remain the dreaded — the mystical — the
Reimkennar— the controller of the elements, or I must be no more !
I have no alternative, no middle station. My post must be high on
yon lofty headland, where never stood human ^oot save mine— or I
must sleep at the bottom of the unfathomable ocean, its white
billows booming over my senseless corpse. The parricide shall
never also be denounced as the impostor ! "

" The parricide ! " echoed Mordaunt, stepping back in horror.

" Yes, my son ! " answered Noma, with a stern composure, even
more frightful than her former impetuosity, "within these fatal
walls my father met his death by my means. In yonder chamber
was he found a livid and lifeless corpse. Beware of filial dis-
obedience, for such are its fruits ! "

So saying, she arose and left the apartment, where Mordaunt
remained alone to meditate at leisure upon the extraordinary com-
munication which he had received. He himself had been taught
by his father a disbelief in the ordinary superstitions of Zetland ;
and he now saw that Noma, however ingenious in duping others,
could not altogether impose on hersel/! This was a strong circum-
stance in favour of her sanity of intellect ; but, on the other hand,
her imputing to herself the guilt of parricide seemed so wild and
improbable, as, in Mordaunt's opinion, to throw much doubt upon
her other assertions.

He had leisure enough to make up his mind on these particulars,
for no one approached the solitary dwelling, of which Noma, her
dwarf, and he himself, were the sole inhabitants. The Hoy island
in which it stood is rude, bold, and lofty, consisting entirely of three
hills — or rather one hugh mountain divided into three summits,
with the chasms, rents, and valleys, which descend from its
summit to the sea, while its crest, rising to great height, and
shivered into rocks which seem almost inaccessible, intercepts the
mists as they drive from the Atlantic, and, often obscured from the
human eye, forms the dark and unmolested retreat of hawks, eagles,
and other birds of prey.*

The soil of the island is wet, mossy, cold, and unproductive,
presenting a sterile and desolate appearance, excepting where the
sides of small rivulets, or mountain ravines, are fringed with dwarf
bushes of birch, hazel, and wild currant, some of them so tall as to
be denominated trees, in that bleak and bare country.

But the view of the sea-beach, which was Mordaunt's favourite
walk, when his convalescent state began to permit him to take
exercise, had charms which compensated the wild appearance of

THE PIRATE. 331

the interior. A broad and beautiful sound, or strait, divides this
lonely and mountainous island from Pomona, and in the centre
of that sound lies, like a tablet composed of emerald, the beautiful
and verdant little island of Grsemsay. On the distant Mainland
is seen the town or village of Stromness, the excellence of whose
haven is generally evinced by a considerable number of shipping
in the roadstead, and, from the bay growing narrower, and lessen-
ing as it recedes, runs inland into Pomona, where its tide fills
the fine sheet of vvater called the Loch of Stennis.

On this beach Mordaunt was wont to wander for hours, with
an eye not insensible to the beauties of the view, though his
thoughts were agitated with the most embarrassing meditations on
his own situation. He was resolved to leave the island as soon
as the establishment of his health should permit him to travel ;
yet gratitude to Noma, of whom he was at least the adopted, if
not the real son, would not allow him to depart without her pei'-
mission, even if he could obtain means of conveyance, of which
he saw little possibility. It was only by importunity that he
extorted from his hostess a promise, that, if he would consent
to regulate his motions according to her directions, she would
herself convey him to the capital of the Orkney Islands, when
the approaching Fair of Saint OUa should take place there.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Hark to the insult loud, the bitter sneer,
The fierce threat answering to the brutal jeer ;
Oaths fly like pistol-shots, and vengeful words
Clash with each other like conflicting swords —
The robber's quarrel by such sounds is shown.
And true men have some chance to gain their own.

Captivity, a Poem.

When Cleveland, borne off in triumph from his assailants in
Kirkwall, found himself once more on board the pirate-vessel, his
arrival was hailed with hearty cheers by a considerable part of the
crew, who rushed to shake hands with him, and offer their con-
gratulations on his return ; for the situation of a Buccanier Captain
raised him very little above the level of the lowest of his crew,
who, in all social intercourse, claimed the privilege of being his
equal.

332 THE PIRATE.

When his faction, for so these clamorous friends might be
termed, had expressed their own greetings, they hurried Cleveland
forward to the stern, where Goffe, their present commander, was
seated on a gun, listening in a sullen and discontented mood to the
shout which announced Cleveland's welcome. He was a man
betwixt forty and fifty, rather under the middle size, but so very
strongly made, that his crew used to compare him to a sixty-four
cut down. Black-haired, bull-necked, and beetle-browed, his
clumsy strength and ferocious countenance contrasted strongly
with the manly figure and open countenance of Cleveland, in which
even the practice of his atrocious profession had not been able to
eradicate a natural grace of motion and generosity of expression.
The two piratical Captains looked upon each other for some time
in silence, while the partisans of each gathered around him. The
elder part of the crew were the principal adherents of Goffe, while the
young fellows, among whom Jack Bunce was a principal leader
and agitator, were in general attached to Cleveland.

At length Goffe broke silence. — "You are welcome aboard.
Captain Cleveland. — Smash my taffrail ! I suppose you think
yourself commodore yet ! but that was over, by G — , when you lost
your ship, and be d — d ! "

And here, once for all, we may take notice, that it was the
gracious custom of this commander to mix his words and oaths in
nearly equal proportions, which he was wont to call shotting his
discourse. As we delight not, however, in the discharge of such

artillery, we shall only indicate by a space like this the places

in which these expletives occurred ; and thus, if the reader will
pardon a very poor ,pun, we will reduce Captain Goffe's volley of
sharp-shot into an explosion of blank cartridges. To his insinua-
tions that he was come on board to assume the chief command,
Cleveland replied, that he neither desired, nor would accept, any
such promotion, but would only ask Captain Goffe for a cast of the
boat, to put him ashore in one of the other islands, as he had no
wish either to command Goffe, or to remain in a vessel under his
orders.

" And why not under my orders, brother ? " demanded Goffe,

very austerely ; " are you too good a man, with

your cheese-toaster and your jib there, to ser\'e under my

orders, and be d — d to you, where there are so many gentlemen
that are elder and better seamen than yourself ? "

" I wonder which of these capital seamen it was," said Cleve-
land, coolly, "that laid the ship under the fire of yon six-gun
battery, that could blow her out of the water, if they had a mind,
before you could either cut or slip ? Elder and better sailors than

THE PIRATE. 3^3

I may like to serve under such a lubber, but I beg to be excused
for my own share, Captain — that's all I have got to tell you."

" By G — , I think you are both mad ! " said Hawkins the boat-
swain — " a meeting with sword and pistol may be devilish good
fun in its way, when no better is to be had ; but who the devil that
had common sense, amongst a set of gentlemen in our condition,
would fall a quarreUing with each other, to let these duck-winged,
web-footed islanders have a chance of knocking us all upon the
head?"

" Well said, old Hawkins ! " observed Derrick the quarter-
master, who was an officer of very considerable importance
among these rovers ; " I say, if the two captains won't agree to
live together quietly, and club both heart and head to defend
the vessel, why, d — n me, depose them both, say I, and choose
another in their stead ! "

" Meaning yourself, I suppose. Master Quarter-Master ! " said
Jack Bunce ; " but that cock won't fight. He that is to command
gentlemen, should be a gentleman himself, I think ; and I give my
vote for Captain Cleveland, as spirited and as gentleman-like a man
as ever dafifed the world aside, and bid it pass ! "

" What ! you call yourself a gentleman, I warrant ! " retorted

Derrick ; " why, your eyes ! a tailor would make a better out

of the werst suit of rags in your strolling wardrobe ! — It is a shame
for men of spirit to have such a Jack-a-dandy scarecrow on
board ! "

Jack Bunce was so incensed at these base comparisons, that
without more ado, he laid his hand on his sword. The carpenter,
however, and boatswain, interfered, the former brandishing his
broad axe, and swearing he would put the skull of the first who
should strike a blow past clouting, and the latter reminding them,
that, by their articles, all quarrelling, striking, or more especially
fighting, on board, was strictly prohibited ; and that, if any gentle-
man had a quarrel to settle, they were to go ashore, and decide it
with cutlass and pistol in presence of two of their mes smates.

" I have no quarrel with any one, ! " said Goffe, sullenly ;

" Captain Cleveland has wandered about among the islands here,

amusing himself, ! and we have wasted our time and

property in waiting for him, when we might have been adding
twenty or thirty thousand dollars to the stock-purse. However, if

it pleases the rest of the gentlemen-adventurers, ! why, I

shall not grumble about it."

" I propose," said the boatswain, " that there should be a general
council called in the great cabin, acpording to our articles, that we
may consider what course we are to hold in this matter."

334 THE PIRATE.

A gaieral assent followed the boatswain s proposal ; for every
one found his own account in these general councils, in which each
of the rovers had a free vote. By far the greater part of the crew
only valued this franchise, as it allowed them, upon such solemn
occasions, an unlimited quantity of liquor — a right which they failed
not to exercise to the uttermost, by way of aiding their delibera-
tions. But a few amongst the adventurers, who united some degree
of judgment with the daring and profligate character of their pro-
fession, were wont, at such periods, to limit themselves within the
bounds of comparative sobriety, and by these, under the apparent
form of a vote of the general council, all things of moment relating
to the voyage and undertakings of the pirates were in fact deter-
mined. The rest, of the crew, when they recovered from their in-
toxication, were easily persuaded that the resolution adopted had
been the legitimate effort of the combined wisdom of the whole
senate.

Upon the present occasion the debauch had proceeded until the
greater part pf the crew were, as usual, displaying inebriation in all
its most brutal and disgraceful shapes — swearing empty and un-
meaning oaths — venting the most horrid imprecations in the mere
gaiety of their heart — singing songs, the ribaldry of which was only
equalled by their profaneness ; and, from the middle of this earthly
hell, the two captains, together with one or two of their principal
adherents, as also the carpenter and boatswain, who always took a
lead on sUch occasions, had drawn together into a pandemonium, or
privy council of their own, to consider what was to be done ; for,
as the boatswain metaphorically observed, they were in a narrow
channel, and behoved to keep sounding the tide-way.

When they began their consultations, the friends of Goffe re-
marked, to their great displeasure, that he had not observed the
wholesome rule to which we have just alluded ; but that, in
endeavouring to drown his mortification at the sudden appearance
of Cleveland, and the reception he met with from the crew, the
elder Captain had not been able to do so without overflowing his
reason at the same time. His natural sullen taciturnity had pre-
vented this from being observed until the council began its
dehberations, when it proved impossible to hide it.

The first person who spoke was Cleveland, who said, that, so far
from wishing the command of the vessel, he desired no favour at
any one's hand, except to land him upon some island or holm at a
distance from Kirkwall, and leave him to shift for himself.

The boatswain remonstrated strongly against this resolution.
" The lads," he said, "all knew Cleveland, and could trust his sea-
manship, as well as his courage ! besides, he never let the' grog get

THE PIRATE. 335

quite uppermost, and was always in proper trim, either to sail the ship,
or to fight the ship, whereby she was never without some one to
keep her course when he was on board. — And as for the noble
Captain GofFe," continued the mediator, "he is as stout a heart as
ever broke biscuit, and that I will uphold him ; but then, when he
has his grog aboard — I speak to his face — he is so d — d funny with
his cranks and his jests, that there is no living with him. You all
remember how nigh he had run the ship on that cursed Horse of
Copinsha, as they call it, just by way of frolic ; and then you know
how he fired off his pistol under the table, when we were at the
great council, and shot Jack Jenkins in the knee, and cost the poor
devil his leg, with his pleasantry." *

" Jack Jenkins was not a chip the worse," said the carpenter ;
" 1 took the leg off with my saw as well as any loblolly-boy in the
land could have done — heated my broad axe, and seared the stump

— ay, by ! and made a jury-leg that he shambles about with as

well as ever he did — for Jack could never cut a feather." *

" You are a clever 'fellow, carpenter," replied the boatswain, " a
d— d clever fellow ! but I had rather you tried your saw and red-
hot axe upon the ship's knee-timbers than on mine, sink me ! — But
that here is not the case — The question is, if we shall part with
Captain Cleveland here, who is a man of thought and action,
whereby it is my belief it would be heaving the pilot overboard when
the gale is blowing on a lee-shore. And, I must say, it is not the
part of a true heart to leave his mates, who have been here waiting
for him till they have missed stays. Our water is wellnigh out, and
we have junketed till provisions are low with us. We cannot sail
without provisions — we cannot get provisionsjvithout the good- will of
the Kirkwall folks. If we remain here longer, the Halcyon frigate
will be down upon us — she was seen off Peterhead two days since, —
and we shall hang up at the yard-arm to be sun-dried. Now, Captain
Cleveland will get us out of the hobble, if any can. He can play
the gentleman with these Kirkwall folks, and knows how to deal
with them on fair terms, and foul, too, if there be occasion for it."

" And so you would turn honest Captain Goffe a-grazing, would
ye ? " said an old weatherbeaten pirate, who had but one eye ;
" what though he has his humours, and made my eye dowse the
glim in his fancies and frolics, he is as honest a man as ever walked
a quarter-deck, for all that ; and d— n me but I stand by him so
long as t'other lantern is lit ! "

" Why, you would not hear me out," said Hawkins ; " a man
might as well talk to so many negers !— I tell you, I propose that
Cleveland shall only be Captain from one, post meridiem^ to five
a. m., during which time Goffe is always di'unk."

336 THE PIRATE.

The Captain of whom he last spoke gave sufficient proof of the
truth of his words, by uttering an inarticulate growl, and attempting
to present a pistol at the mediator Hawkins.

" Why, look ye now !" said Derrick, "there is all the sense he
has, to get dnink on council-day, like one of these poor silly
fellows ! "

" Ay," said Bunce, " drunk as Davy's sow, in the face of the field,
the fray, and the senate ! "

" But, nevertheless," continued Derrick, " it will never do to have
two captains in the same day. I think week about might suit better
— and let Cleveland take the first turn."

" There are as good here as any of them," said Hawkins ; " how-
somdever, I object nothing to Captain Cleveland, and I think he
may help us into deep water as well as another."

" Ay," exclaimed Bunce, " and a better figure he will make at
bringing these Kirkwallers to order than his sober predecessor ! —
So Captain Cleveland for ever ! "

" Stop, gentlemen," said Cleveland, who had hitherto been silent ;
" I hope you will not choose me Captain without my own consent?"

" Ay, by the blue vault of heaven will we," said Bunce,. " if it be
pro bono publico ! "

" But hear me, at least," said Cleveland — " I do consent to take
command of the vessel, since you wish it, and because I see you
will ill get out of the scrape without me."

" Why, then, I say, Cleveland for ever, again ! " shouted Bunce.

" Be quiet, prithee, dear Bunce ! — honest Altamont ! " said
Cleveland.- " I undertake the business on this condition ; that,
when I have got the ship cleared for her voyage, with provisions,
and so forth, you will be content to restore Captain Goffe to the
command, as I said before, and put me ashore somewhere, to shift
for myself — You will then be sura it is impossible J can betray you,
since I will remain with you to the. last moment."

" Ay, and after the last moment, too, by the blue vault ! or I mis-
take the matter," muttered Bunce to himself. ,

The matter was now put to the vote j and so confident were the
crew in Cleveland's superior address and management, that the
temporary deposition of Goffe found little resistance even among
his own partisans, who reasonably enough observed, " he might at
least have kept sober to look after his own business — E'en let him
put it to rights again himself next morning, if he will."

But when the next morning came, the drunken part of the crew,
being informed of the issue of the deliberations of the council, to
which they were virtually held to have assented, showed such a
superior sense of Cleveland's merits, that Goffe, sulky and male-

THE PIRATE. 337

content as he was, judged it wisest for the present to suppress his
feelings of resentment, until a safer opportunity for suffering them
to explode, and to submit to the degradation which so frequently
took place among a piratical crew.

Cleveland, on his part, resolved to take upon him, with spirit and
without loss of time, the task., of extricating his ship's company
from their perilous situation. For this purpose, he ordered the
boat, with the purpose of going ashore in person, carrying with
him twelve of the stoutest and best men of the crew, all very hand-
somely appointed, (for the success of their nefarious profession had
enabled the pirates to assume nearly as gay dresses as their
officers,) and above all, each man being sufficiently armed with
cutlass and pistols, and several having pole-axes and poniards.

Cleveland himself was gallantly attired in a blue coat, lined with
crimson silk, and laced with gold very richly, crimson , damask
waistcoat and breeches, a velvet cap, richly embroidered, with a
white feather, white silk stockings, and red-heeled shoes, which
were the extremity of finery among the gallants of the day. He
had a gold chain several times folded round his neck, which sus-
tained a whistle of the same metal, the ensign of his authority.
Above all, he wore a decoration peculiar to those daring depre-
dators, who, besides one, or perhaps two brace of pistols at their
belt, had usually two additional brace, of the finest mounting and
workmanship, suspended over their shoulders in a sort of sling or
scarf of crimson ribbon. The hilt and mounting of the Captain's
sword corresponded in value to the rest of his appointments, and
his natural good mien was so well adapted to the whole equipment,
that, when he appeared on deck, he was received with a general
shout by the crew, who, as, in other popular societies, judged a
great deal by the eye.

Cleveland took with him in the boat, amongst others, his pre-
decessor in office, Goffe, who was also very richly dressed, but who,
not having the advantage of such an exterior as Cleveland's, looked
like a boorish clown in the dress of a courtier, or rather like a
vulgar-faced footpad decked in the spoils of some one whom he
has murdered, and whose claim to the property of his garments' is
rendered doubtful in the eyes of all who look upon him, by the
mixture of awkwardness, remorse, cruelty, and insolence, which
clouds his countenance. Cleveland probably chose to take Goife
ashore with him, to prevent his having any opportunity, during his
absence, to debauch the crew from their allegiance. In this guise
they left the ship, and, singing to their oars, while the water foamed
higher at the chorus, soon reached the quay of Kirkwall.

The command of the vessel was in the meantime intrusted to

z

338 THE PIRATE.

Bunce, upon whose aUegiance Cleveland knew that he might
perfectly depend, and, in a private conversation with him of some
length, he gave him directions how to act in such emergencies as
might occur.

These arrangements being made, and Bunce having been re-
peatedly charged to stand upon his guard alike against the adherents
of Goffe and any attempt from the shore, the boat put off. As she
approached the harbour, Cleveland displayed a white flag, and
could observe that their appearance seemed to occasion a good
deal of bustle and alarm. People were seen running to and ,fro,
and some of them appeared to be getting under arms. The battery
was manned hastily, and the English colours displayed. These
were alarming symptoms, the rather that Cleveland knew, that,
though there were no artillerymen in Kirkwall, yet there were many
sailors perfectly competent to the management of great guns, and
willing enough to undertake such service in case of need.

Noting these hostile preparations with a heedful eye, but suffer-
ing nothing like doubt or anxiety to appear on his countenance,
Cleveland ran the boat right for the quay, on which several people,
armed with muskets, rifles, and fowling-pieces, and others with half-
pikes and whaling-knives, were now assembled, as if to oppose his
landing. Apparently, however, they had not positively determined
what measures they were to pursue ; for, when the boat reached
the quay, those immediately opposite bore back, and suffered
Cleveland and his party to leap ashore without hinderance. They
immediately drew up on the quay, except two, who, as their
Captain had commanded, remained in the boat, which they put off
to a little distance ; a manoeuvre which, while it placed the boat
(the only one belonging to the sloop) out of danger of being seized,
indicated a sort of careless confidence in Cleveland and his party,
which was calculated to intimidate their opponents.

The Kirkwallers, however, showed the old Northern blood, put a
manly face upon the matter, and stood upon the quay, [with their
arms shouldered, directly opposite to the rovers, and blocking up
against them the street which leads to the town.

Cleveland was the first who spoke, as the parties stood thus
looking upon each other. — " How is this, gentlemen burghers ?" he
said ; " are you Orkney folks turned Highlandmen, that you are all
under arms so early this morning; or have you manned the quay
to give me the honour of a salute, upon taking the command of my
ship?"

The burghers looked on each other, and one of them replied to
Cleveland^' We do not know who you are ; it was that other
man," pointing to Goffe, " who used to come ashore as Captain."

THE PIRATE. 339

"That other gentleman is my mate, and commands in my
absence," said Cleveland ; — " but what is that to the purpose ? I
wish to speak with your Lord Mayor, or whatever you call
him."

"The Provost is sitting in council with the Magistrates,"
answered the spokesman.

"So much the better," replied Cleveland. —" Where do their
Worships meet ? "

" In the Council-house," answered the other.

" Then make way for us, gentlemen, if you please, for my people
and I are going there."

There was a whisper among the townspeople ; but several were
unresolved upon engaging in a desperate, and perhaps an un-
necessary conflict, with desperate men ; and the more determined
citizens formed the hasty reflection that the strangers might be
more easily mastered in the house, or perhaps in the narrow streets
which they had to traverse, than when they stood drawn up and
prepared for battle upon the quay. They suffered them, therefore,
to proceed unmolested ; and Cleveland, moving very slowly, keep-
ing his people close together, suffering no one to press upon the
flanks of his little detachment, and making four men, who con-
stituted his rear-guard, turn round and face to the rear from time
to time, rendered it, by his caution, a veiy dangerous task to make
any attempt upon them.

In this manner they ascended the narrow street, and reached the
Council-house, where the Magistrates were actually sitting, as the
citizen had informed Cleveland. Here the inhabitants' began to
press forward, with the purpose of mingling with the pirates, and
availing themselves of the crowd in the narrow entrance, to secure
as many as they could, without allowing them room for the free use
of their weapons. But this also had Cleveland foreseen, and, ere
entering the council-room, he caused the entrance to be cleared
and secured, commanding four of his men to face down the street,
and as many to confront the crowd who were thrusting each other
from above. The burghers recoiled back from the ferocious,
swarthy, and sunburnt countenances, as well as the levelled arms
of these desperadoes, and Cleveland, with the rest of his party,
entered the council-room, where the Magistrates were sitting in
council, with very little attendance. These gentlemen were thus
separated effectually from the citizens, who looked to them for
orders, and were perhaps more completely at the mercy of Cleve-
land, than he, with his little handful of men, could be said to be at
that of the multitude by whom they were surrounded.

The Magistrates seemed sensible of their danger : for they looked

z 2

3^0 THE PIRATE.

upon each other in some confusion, when Cleveland thus addressed
them : —

"Good morrow, gentlemen, — I hope there is no unkindness
betwixt us. I am come to talk with you about getting supplies
for my ship yonder in the roadstead — we cannot sail without
them."

" Your ship, sir ? " said the Provost, who was a man of sense and
spirit, — " how do we know that you are her Captain ? "

" Look at me," said Cleveland, " and you will, I think, scarce ask
the question again."

The Magistrate looked at him, and accordingly did not think
proper to pursue that part of the enquiry, but proceeded to say—
" And if you are her Captain, whence comes she, and where is she
bound for ? You look too much like a man-of-war's man to be
master of a trader, and we know that you do not telong to the
British navy."

" There are more men-of-war on the sea than sail under the
British flag," replied Cleveland ; " but say that I were commander
of a free-trader here, willing to exchange tobacco, brandy, gin, and
such like, for cured fish and hides, why, I do not think I deserve
so very bad usage from the merchants of Kirkwall as to deny me
provisions for my money ? "

" Look you. Captain," said the Town-clerk, " it is not that we are
so very strait-laced neither — for, when gentlemen of your cloth come
this way, it is as weel, as I tauld the Provost, just to do as the
collier did when he met the devil, — and that is, to have naething to
say to them, if they have naething to say to us ; — and there is the
gentleman," pointing to Goffe, " that was Captain before you, and
may be Captain after you," — (" The cuckold speaks truth in that,"
muttered Goffe,) — " he knows well how handsomely we entertained
him, till he and his men took upon them to run through the town
like hellicat devils. — I see one of them there ! — that was the very
fellow that stopped my servant-wench on the street, as she carried
the lantern home before me, and insulted her before my face ! "

" If it please your noble Mayorship's honour and glory," said
Derrick, the fellow at whom the; Town-clerk pointed, " it was not I
that brought-to the bit of a tender that carried the lantern in the
poop — it was quite a different sort of a person."

" Who was it, then, sir ? " said the Provost.

"Why, please your majesty's worship," said Derrick, making
several sea bows, and describing as nearly as he could, the exterior
of the worthy Magistrate himself, " he was an elderly gentleman, —
Dutch-built, round in the stern, with a white wig and a red nose —
very like your majesty, I think;" then, turning to a comrade, he

THE PIRATE. 3,1

added, "Jack, don't you think the fellow that wanted to kiss the
pretty girl with the lantern t'other night, was very like his
worship ? "

" By G — , Tom Derrick," answered the party appealed to, " I
believe it is the very man ! "

" This is insolence which we can make you repent of, gentle-
men ! " said the Magistrate, justly irritated at their effrontery ;
" you have behaved in this town, as if you were in an Indian village
at Madagascar. You yourself, Captain, if captain you be, were at
the head of another riot, no longer since than yesterday. We will
give you no provisions till we know better whom we are supplying.
And do not think to bully us ; when I shake this handkerchief out
at the window, which is at my elbow, your ship goes to the bottom.
Remember she lies under the guns of our battery."

" And how many of these guns are honeycombed, Mr. Mayor ? "
said Cleveland. He put the question by chance ; but instantly
perceived, from a' sort of confusion which the Provost in vain en^
deavoured to hide, that the artillery of Kirkwall was not in the best
order. " Come, come, Mr. Mayor," he said, " bullying will go
down With us as little as with you. Your guns yonder will do more
harm to the poor old sailors who are to work them than to our
sloop ; and if we bring a broadside to bear on the town, why, your
wives' crockery will be in some danger. And then to talk to us of
seamen being a little frolicsome ashore, why, when are they other-
wise ? You have the Greenland whalers playing the devil among
you every now and then ; and the very Dutchmen cut capers in the
streets of Kirkwall, like porpoises before a gale of wind. I am
told you are a man of sense, and I am sure you and I can settle
this matter in the course of a five-minutes' palaver."

" Well, sir," said the Provost, " I will hear what you have to say,
if you will walk this way."

Cleveland accordingly followed him into a small interior apart-
ment, and, when there, addressed the Provost thus : " I will lay
aside my pistols, sir, if you are afraid of them."

" D — n your pistols ! " answered the Provost, " I have served the
King, and fear the smell of powder as httle as you. do ! "

" So much the better," said Cleveland, " for you will hear me
the more coolly.— Now, sir, let us be what perhaps you suspect us, or
let us be any thing else, what, in the name of Heaven, can you get
by keeping us here, but blows and bloodshed ? For which, believe
me, we are much better provided than you can pretend to be. The
point is a plain one — you are desirous to be rid of us— we are
desirous to be gone. Let us have the means of departure, and we
leave you instantly."

342 THE PIRATE.

" Look ye, Captain," said the Provost, " I thirst for no man's
blood. You are a pretty fellow, as there were many among the
buccaniers in my time — but there is no harm in wishing you a better
trade. You should have the stores and welcome, for your money,
so you would make these seas clear of you. But then, here lies the
rub. The Halcyon frigate is expected here in these parts im-
mediately ; when she hears of you she will be at you ; for there is
nothing the white lapelle' loves better than a rover— you are seldom
without a cargo of dollars. Well, he comes down, gets you under
his stern "

" Blows us into the air, if you please," said Cleveland.

" Nay, that must be as you please, Captain," said the Provost ;
" but then, what is to come of the good town of Kirkwall, that has
been packing and peeling with the King's enemies ? The burgh
will be laid under a round fine, and it may be that the Provost may
not come off so easily."

" Well, then," said Cleveland, " I see where your pinch lies.
Now, suppose that I run round this island of yours, and get into
the roadstead at Stromness ? We could get what we want put on
board there, without Kirkwall or the Povost seeming to have any
hand in it ; or, if it should be ever questioned, your want of force,
and our superior strength, will make a sufficient apology."

" That may be," said the Provost ; " but if I suffer you to leave
your present station, and go elsewhere, I must have some security
that you will not do harm to the country."

"And we," said Cleveland, "must have some security on our
side, that you will not detain us, by dribbling out our time till the
Halcyon is on the coast. Now, I am myself perfectly willing to
continue on shore as a hostage, on the one side, provided you will
give me your word not to betray me, and send some magistrate, or
person of consequence, aboard the sloop, where his safety will be a
guarantee for mine."

The Provost shook his head, and intimated it would be difficult
to find a person willing to place himself as hostage in such a perilous
condition ; but said he would propose the arrangement to such of
the council as were fit to be trusted with a matter of such weight.

THE PIRATE. 343

CHAPTER XXXV.

" I left my poor plough to go ploughing the deep ! "

DiBDIN.

When the Provost and Cleveland had returned into the public
council-room, the former retired a second time with such of his
brethren as he thought proper to advise with ; and, while they
were engaged in discussing Cleveland's proposal, refreshments
were offered to him and his party. These the Captain permitted
his people to partake of, but with the greatest precaution against
surprisal, one party relieving the guard, whilst the others were at
their food.

He himself, in the meanwhile, walked up and down the apart-
ment, and conversed upon indifferent subjects with those present,
like a person quite at his ease.

Amongst these individuals he saw, somewhat to his surprise,
Trijjtolemus Yellowley, who, chancing to be at Kirkwall, had been
summoned by the Magistrates, as representative, in a certain
degree, of the Lord Chamberlain, to attend council on this occasion. ,
Cleveland , immediately renewed the acquaintance which he had
formed with the agriculturist at Burgh- Westra, and asked him his
present business in Orkney.

" Just to look after some of my little plans. Captain Cleveland. I
am weary of fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus yonder, and I
just cam ower to see how my orchard was thriving, whilk I had
planted four or five miles from Kirkwall, it may be a year bygane,
and how the bees were thriving, whereof I had imported nine skeps,
for the improvement of the country, and for the turning of the
heather-bloom into wax and honey."

" And they thrive, I hope ? " said Cleveland, who, however little
interested in the matter, sustained the conversation, as if to break
the chilly and embarrassed silence which hung upon the company
assembled.

"Thrive!" replied Triptolemus ; "they thrive like everything
else in this country, and that is the backward way."

"Want of care, I suppose ?" said Cleveland.

" The contrary, sir, quite and clean the contrary," replied the
Factor ; " they died of ower muckle care, like Lucky Christie's
chickens. — I asked to see the skeps, and cunning and joyful did the
fallow look who was to have taken care of them—' Had there been
ony body in charge but mysell,' he said, ' ye might have seen the

344 THE PIRATE.

sleeps, or whatever you ca' them ; but there wad hae been as mony
solan-geese as flees in them, if it hadna been for my four quarters ;
for I watched them so closely, that I saw them a' creeping out at
the little holes one sunny morning, and if I had not stopped the
leak on the instant with a bit clay, the deil a bee, or flee, or what-
ever they are, would have been left in the skeps, as ye ca' them !'
—In a word, sir, he had clagged up the hives, as if the puir things
had had the pestilence, and my bees were as dead as if they had
been smeaked — and so ends my hope, generandi gloria mellis, as
Virgilius hath it."

" There is an end of your mead, then," replied Cleveland ; " but
what is your chance of cider? — How does the orchard thrive?"

" O Captain ! this same Solomon of the Orcadian Ophir— I am
sure no man need to send thither to fetch either talents of gold or
talents of sense ! — I say, this wise man had watered the young
apple-trees, in his great tenderness, with hot water, and they are
perished, root and branch ! But what avails grieving ? — And I
wish you would tell me, instead, what is all the din that these good
folks are making about pirates ? and what for all these ill-looking
men, that are armed like so mony Highlandmen, assembled in the
judgment-chamber? — for I am just come from the othef side of the
island, and I have heard nothing distinct about it. —And, now 1
look at you yoursell. Captain, I think you have mair of these
foolish pistolets about you than should suffice an honest man in
quiet times ? "

" And so I think, too," ssfid the pacific Triton, old Haagen, who
had been an unwilling- follower of the daring Montrose ; " if you
had been in the Glen of Edderachyllis, when we were sae sair wor-
ried by Sir John Worry "

" You have forgot the whole matter, neighbour Haagen," said the
Factor ; " Sir John Urry was on your side, and was ta'en with
Montrose ; by the same token, he lost his head."

" Did he ?" said the Triton. — " I believe you may be right ; for
he changed sides mair than anes, and wha kens whilk he died for ?
— But always he was there, and so was I ; — a fight there was, and I
never wish to see another ! "

The entrance of the Provost here interrupted Jheir desultory
conversation. — "We have determined," he said, "Captain, that
your ship shall go round to Stromness, or Scalpa-flow, to take in
stores, in order that there may be no more quarrels between the
Fair folks and your seamen. And as you wish to stay on shore to
see the Fair, we intend to send a respectable gentleman on board
your vessel to pilot her round the Mainland, as the navigation is
but ticklish."

THE PIRATE. 345

" Spoken like a quiet and sensible magistrate, Mr. Mayor," said
Cleveland, " and no Otherwise than as I expected. — And what
gentleman is to honour our quarter-deck during my absence ? "

" We have fixed that, too, Captain Cleveland," said the Provost ;
" you may be sure we were each more desirous than another to go
upon so pleasant a voyage, and in such good company ; but being
Fair time, most of us have some affairs in hand — I myself, in
respect of my office, cannot be well spared — the eldest Bailie's wife
is lying-in — the Treasurer does not agree with the sea — two Bailies
have the gout — the other two are absent from town — and the
other fifteen members of council are all engaged on particular
business."

" All that I can tell you, Mr. Mayor," said Cleveland, raising his
voice, " is, that I expect "

" A moment's patience, if you please, Captain," said the Provost,
interrupting him — " So that we have come to the resolution that
our worthy Mr. Triptolemus Yellowley, who is Factor to the Lord
Chamberlain of these islands, shall, in respect of his official
situation, be preferred to the honour and pleasure of accompanying
you."

"Me!" said the astonished Triptolemus ; "whatthe devil should
I do going on your voyages ? — my business is on dry land ! "

" The gentlemen want a pilot," said the Provost, whispering to
him, "and there is no evitingto give them one."

" Do they want to go bump on shore, then ? " said the Factor —
" how the devil should I pilot them, that never touched rudder in
my life ? "

"Hush!— hush !^be silent !" said the Proyost; "if the people
of this town heard ye say such a word, your utility, and respect, and
rank, and every thing else, is clean gone ! — No man is any thing
with us island folks, unless he can hand, reef, and steer. — Besides,
it is but a mere form ; and we will send old Pate Sinclair to help
you. You will have nothing to do but to eat, drink, and be merry
all day."

" Eat and drink I " said the Factor, not able to comprehend
exactly why this piece of duty was pressed upon him so hastily,
and yet not very capable' of resisting or extricating himself from
the toils of the more knowing Provost — "Eat and drink T — that
is all very well ; but, to speak truth, the sea does not agree with
me any more than with the Treasurer ; and I have always a
better appetite for eating and drinking ashore."

" Hush ! hush ! hush ! " again said the Provost, in an undertone
of earnest expostulation ; " would you actually ruin your character
out and out ?— A Factor of the High Chamberlain of the Isles of

346 THE PIRATE.

Orkney and Zetland, and not like the sea !— you might as well say
you are a Highlander, and do not like whisky 1 "

"You must settle it somehow, gentlemen," said Captain Cleve-
land ; " it is time we were under weigh. — Mr. Triptolemus Yellow-
ley, are we to be honoured with your company ? "

" I am sure. Captain Cleveland," stammered the Factor, " I
would have no objection to go anywhere with you — only "

" He has no objection," said the Provost, catching at the first
limb of the sentence, without awaiting the conclusion.

" He has no objection," cried the Treasurer.

" He has no objection," sung out the whole four Bailies together ;
and the fifteen Councillors, all catching up the same phrase of
assent, repeated it in chorus, with the additions of — "good man"—
"public-spirited" — "honourable gentleman" — "burgh eternally
obliged " — " where will you find such a worthy Factor ? " and so
forth.

Astonished and confused at the praises with which he was over-
whelmed on all sides, and in no shape understanding the nature of
the transaction that was going forward, the astounded and over-
whelmed agriculturist became incapable of resisting the part of the
Kirkwall Curtius thus insidiously forced upon him, and was
delivered up by Captain Cleveland to his party, with the strictest
injunctions to treat him with honour and attention. Goffe and his
companions began now to lead him off, amid the applauses of the
whole meeting, after the manner in which the victim of ancient days
was garlanded and greeted by shouts, when consigned to the priests,
for the purpose of being led to the altar, and knocked on the head,
a sacrifice for the commonweal. It waS while they thus conducted,
and in a manner forced him out of the Council-chamber, that poor
Triptolemus, much alarmed at finding that Cleveland, in whom he
had some confidence, was to remain behind the party, tried, when
just going out at the door, the effect of one remonstrating bellow. —
"Nay, iDut, Provost !— Captain I — Bailies! — Treasurer! — Coun-
cillors I — if Captain Cleveland does not go aboard to protect me it
is naei bargain, and go I will not, unless' I am trailed with cart-
ropes ! "

His protest was, however, drowned in the unanimous chorus of
the Magistrates and Councillors, returning him thanks for his
public spirit — wishing him a good voyage— and praying to Heaven
for his happy and speedy return. Stunned and overwhelmed, and
thinking, if he had any distinct thoughts at all, that remonstrance
was vain, where friends and strangers seemed alike determined to
carry the point against him, Triptolemus, without farther resistance'
suffered himself to be conducted into the street, where the pirate's

THE PIRATE. 347

boat's-crew, assembling around him, began to move slowly towards
the quay, many of the townsfolk following out of curiosity, but
without any attempt at interference or annoyance ; for the specific
compromise which the dexterity of the first Magistrate had achieved,
was unanimously approved of as a much better settlement of the
disputes betwixt them and the strangers, than might have been
attained by the dubious issue of an appeal to arms.

Meanwhile, as they went slowly along, Triptolemus had time to
study the appearance, countenance, and dress, of those into whose
hands he had been thus delivered, and began to imagine that he
read in their looks, not only the general expression of a desperate
character, but some sinister intentions directed particularly towards
himself. He was alarmed by the truculent looks of Goffe, in par-
ticular, who, holding his arm with a gripe which resembled in
delicacy of touch the compression of a smith's vice, cast on him
from the outer corner of his eye oblique glances, like those which
the eagle throws upon the prey which she has clutched, ere yet she
proceeds, as it is technically called, to plume it. At length Yel-
lowleys fears got so far the better of his prudence, that he fairly
asked his terrible conductor, in a sort cif crying whisper, " Are you
going to murder me. Captain, in the face of the laws baith of God
and man .'' "

" Hold your peace, if you are wise," said Goffe, who had his own
reasons for desiring to increase the panic of his captive ; " we have
not murdered a man these three months, and why should you put
us in mind of it ? "

" You are but joking, I hope, good worthy Captain ! " replied
Triptolemus. "This is worse than witches, dwarfs, dirking of
whales, and cowping of cobles, put all together ! — this is an away-
ganging crop, with a vengeance ! — What good, in Heaven's name,
would murdering me do to you ? "

" We might have some pleasure in it, at least," said Goffe. —
" Look these fellows in the face, and see if you see one among
them that would not rather kill a man than let it alone ?— But we
will speak more of that when you have first had a taste of the
bilboes— unless, indeed, you come down with a handsome round
handful of Chilli boards * for your ransom."

" As I shall Uve by bread, Captain," answered the Factor, " that
misbegotten dwarf has carried off the whole hornful of silver ! "

"A cat-and-nine-tails will make you find it again," said
Goffe, grufHy ; " flogging and pickling is an excellent receipt to
bring a man's wealth into his mind— twisting a bowstring round
his skull till the eyes start a httle, is a very good remembrancer
too."

348 THE PIRATE.

" Captain," replied Yellowley stoutly, " I have no money— seldom
can improvers have. We turn pasture to tillage, and barley into
aits, and heather into greensward, and the poor yarpha, as the be-
nighted creatures here call their peat-bogs, into baittle grass-land ;
but we seldom make anything of it that comes back to our ain
pouch. The carles and the cart-avers make it all, and the carles
and the cart-avers eat it all, and the deil clink doun with it ! "

" Well, well," said Goiife, " if you be really a poor fellow, as you
pretend, I'll stand your friend ; " then, inchning his head so as to
reach the ear of the Factor, who stood on tiptoe with anxiety, he
said, " If you love your life, do not enter the boat with us."

" But how am I to get away from you, while you hold me so fast
by the arm, that I could not get off if the whole year's crop of
Scotland depended on it ?"

" Hark ye, you gudgeon," said Goife, "just when you come to
the water's edge, and when the fellows are jumping in and taking
their oars, slue yourself round suddenly to the larboard — I will let go
your arm — and then cut and run for your life ! "

Triptolemus did as he was desired, Goffe's willing hand relaxed
the grasp as he had promised, the agriculturist trundled off like a
football that has just received a strong impulse from the foot of one
of the players, and, with celerity which surprised himself as well as
all beholders, fled through the town of Kirkwall. Nay, such was
the impetus of his retreat, that, as if the grasp of the pirate, was still
' open to pounce upon him, he never stopped till he had traversed
the whole town, and attained the open country on the other side.
They who had seen him that day — his hat and wig lost in the sudden
effort he had made to bolt forward, his cravat awry, and his waist-
coat unbuttoned, — and who had an opportunity of comparing his
round spherical form and short legs with the portentous speed at
which he scoured through the street, migjit well say, that if Fury
ministers arms, Fear confers wings. His very mode of running
seemed to be that peculiar to his fleecy care, for, like a ram in the
midst of his race, he ever and anon encouraged himself by a great
bouncing attempt at a leap, though there were no obtacles in his
way.

There was no pursuit after the agriculturist ; and though a
musket or two were presented, for the purpose of sending a leaden
messenger after him, yet Goffe, turning peace-maker for once in his
life, so exaggerated the dangers that would attend a breach of the
truce with the people of Kirkwall, that he prevailed upon the boat's
crew to forbear any active hostilities, and to pull off for their vessel
with all dispatch.

The burghers, who regarded the escape of Triptolemus as a

THE PIRATE. 349

triumph on their side, gave the boat three cheers by way of an in-
sulting farewell ; while the Magistrates, on the other hand, entei--
tained great anxiety respecting the probable consequences of this
breach of articles between them and the pirates ; and, could they
have seized upon the fugitive very privately, instead of compliment-
ing him with a civic feast in honour of the agility which he dis-
played, it is likely they might have delivered the runaway hostage
once more into the hands of his foemen. But it was impossible to
set their face publicly to such an act of violence, and therefore they
contented themselves with closely watching Cleveland, whom they
determined to make responsible for any aggression which might be
attempted by the pirates. Cleveland, on his part, easily conjectured
that the motive which Goffe had for suffering the hostage to escape,
was to leave him answerable for all consequences, and, relying
more on the attachment and intelligence of his friend and adherent,
Frederick Altamont, alias Jack Bunco, than on anything else, ex-
pected the result with considerable anxiety, since the Magistrates,
though they continued to treat him with civility, plainly intimated
they would regulate his treatment by the behaviour of the crew,
though he no longer commanded them.

It was not, however, without some reason that he reckoned on
the devoted fidelity of Bunce ; for no sooner did that trusty
adherent receive from Goffe, and the boat's crew, the news of the
escape of Triptolemus, than he immediately concluded it had been
favoured by the late Captain, in order that, Cleveland being either put
to death or consigned to hopeless imprisonment, Goffe might be
called upon to resume the command of the vessel. ,

" But the drunken old boatswain shall miss his mark,'' said Bunce
to his confederate Fletcher ; " or else I am contented to quit the
name of Altamont, and be called Jack Bunce, or Jack Dunce, if you
like it better, to the end of the chaptef ."

Availing himself accordingly of a sort of nautical eloquence,
which his enemies termed slack-jaw, Bunce set before the crew, in
a most animated manner, the disgrace which they all sustained, by
their Captain remaining, as he was pleased to term it, in the bilboes,
without any hostage to answer for his safety ; and succeeded so far,
that, besides exciting a good deal of discontent against Goffe, he
brought the crew to the resolution of seizing the first vessel of a
tolerable appearance, and declaring that the ship, crew, and cargo,
should be dealt with according to the usage which Cleveland should
receive on shore. It was judged at the same time proper to try the
faith of the Orcadians, by removing from the roadstead of Kirkwall,
and going round to that of Stromness, where, according to the treaty
betwixt Provost Torfe and Captain Cleveland, they were to victual

.Ko THE PIRATE.

their sloop. They resolved, in the meantime, to intrust the com-
mand of the vessel to a council, consisting of Goffe, the Boatswain;
and Bunce himself, until Cleveland should be in a situation to
resume his command.

These resolutions having been proposed and acceded to, they
weighed anchor, and got their sloop under sail, without experiencing
any opposition or annoyance from the battery, which relieved them
of one important apprehension incidental to their situation.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Clap on more sail, pursue, up with your fights,
Give fire — she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all !

Shakspeare.

A VERY handsome brig, which, with several other vessels, was the
property of Magnus Troil, the great Zetland Udaller, had received
on board that Magnate himself, his two lovely daughters, and the
facetious Claud Halcro, who, for friendship's sake chiefly, and the
love of beauty proper to his poetical calling, attended them on their
journey from Zetland to the capital of Orkney, to which Noma had
referred them, as the place where her mystical oracles should at
length receive a satisfactory explanation.

They passed, at a distance, the tremendous cliffs of the lonely
spot of earth called the Fair Isle, which, at an equal distance from
either archipelago, lies in the sea which divides Orkney from Zet-
land ; and at length, after some baffling winds, made the Start of
Sanda. Off the headland so named, they became involved in a
strong current, well known, by those who frequent these seas, as
the Roost of the Start, which carried them considerably out of their
course, and, joined to an adverse wind, forced them to keep on the
east side of the island of Stronsa. and, finally compelled them to lie
by for the night in Papa Sound, since the navigation in dark or
thick weather, amongst so many low islands, is neither pleasant nor
safe.

On the ensuing morning they resumed their voyage under more
favourable auspices ; and, coasting along the island of Stronsa,
whose flat, verdant, and comparatively fertile shores, formed a
strong contrast to the dun hills and dark cliffs of their own islands,
they doubled the cape called the Lamb-head, and stood away for
Kirkwall.

THE PIRATE. 351

They had scarce opened the beautiful bay betwixt Pomona and
Shapinsha, and the sisters were admiring the massive church of
Saint Magnus, as it was first seen to rise from amongst the inferior
buildings of Kirkwall, when the eyes of Magnus, and of Claud
Halcro, were attracted by an object which they thought more in-
teresting. This was an armed sloop, with her sails set, which had
just left the anchorage in the bay, and was running before the wind
by which the brig of the Udaller was beating in.

" A tight thing that, by my ancestors' bones ! " said the old
Udaller ; "but I cannot make out of what country, as she shows no
colours. Spanish built, I should think her."

" Ay, ay," said Claud Halcro, " she has all the look of it. She runs
before the wind that we must battle with, which is the wonted way
of the world. As glorious John says, —

' With roomy deck, and guns of mighty strength.
Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves,

Deep in her draught, and warlike in her length,
She seems a sea-wasp flying on the waves.' "

Brenda could not help telling Halcro, when he had spouted this
stanza with great enthusiasm, "that though the description was
more like a first-rate than a sloop, yet the simile of the sea-wasp
served but indifferently for either."

" A sea-wasp ? " said Magnus, looking with some surprise, as the
sloop, shifting her course, suddenly bore down on them : " Egad, I
wish she may not show us presently that she has a sting ! "

What the Udaller said in jest, was fulfilled in earnest ; for, with-
out hoisting colours, or hailing, two shots were discharged from tbe
sloop, one of which ran dipping and dancing upon the water, just
ahead of the Zetlander's bows, while the other went through his
main-sail.

Magnus caught up a speaking-trumpet, and hailed the sloop, to
demand what she was, and what was the meaning of this unpro-
voked aggression. He was only answered by the stern command,
— " Down top-sails instantly, and lay your main-sail to the mast —
you shall see who we are presently."

There was no means within the reach of possibility by which
obedience could be evaded, where it would instantly have been en-
forced by a broadside ; and, with much fear on the part of the
sisters and Claud Halcro, mixed with anger and astonishment on
that of the Udaller, the brig lay-to to await the commands of the
captors.

The sloop immediately lowered a boat, with six armed hands.

5S2 THE PIRATE.

commanded by Jack Bunce, which rowed directly for their prize.
As they approached her, Claud Halcro whispered to the UdaUer, —
" If what we hear of buccaniers be true, these men with their silk
scarfs and vests, have the very cut of them."

" My daughters ! my daughters ! " muttered Magnus to himself,
with such an agony as only a father could feel, — " Go down below,
and hide yourselves, girls, while I "

He threw down his speaking-trumpet, and seized on a handspike,
while his daughters, more afraid of the consequences of his fiery
temper to himself than of anything else, hung round him, and
begged him to make no resistance. Claud Halcro united his en-
treaties, adding, " It were best pacify the fellows with fair words.
They might," he said, " be Dunkirkers, or insolent man-of-war's-
men on a frolic."

" No, no," answered Magnus, " it is the sloop which the Jagger
told us of But I will take your advice — I will have patience for
these girls' sakes ; yet "

He had no time to conclude the sentence, for Bunce jumped on
board with his party, and drawing his cutlass, struck it upon the
companion-ladder, and declared the ship was theirs.

" By what warrant or authority do you stop us on the high seas ? "
said Magnus.

" Here are half a dozen of warrants," said Bunce, showing the
pistols which were hung round him, according to a pirate-fashion
already mentioned, " choose which you like, old gentleman, and
you shall have the perusal of it presently."

" That is to say, you intend to rob us ? " said Magnus. — " So be it
— ^we have no means to help it — only be civil to the women, and
take what you please from the vessel. There is not much, but I
will and can make it worth more, if you use us well."

" Civil to the women ! " said Fletcher, who had also come on
board with the gang — " when were we else than civil to them ? ay,
and kind to boot ? — Look here, Jack Bunce ! — What a trim-going
little thing here is ! — By G — , she shall make a cruize with us, come
of old Squaretoes what will ! "

He seized upon the terrified Brenda with one hand, and insolently
pulled back with the other the hood of the mantle in which she had
muffled herself

" Help, father !— help, Minna ! " exclaimed the affrighted girl ;
unconscious, at the moment, that they were unable to render her
assistance.

Magnus again uplifted the handspike, but Bunce stopped his
hand. — " Avast, father ! " he said, " or you will make a bad voyage
of it presently— And you, Fletcher, let go the girl !"

THE PIRATE. 353

" And, d — n me ! why should I let her go ? " said Fletcher.

"Because I command you, Dick," said the other, "and be-
cause I'll make it a quarrel else. — And now let me know, beauties,
is there one of you bears that queer heathen name of Minna for
which I have a certain sort of regard .■■ "

"Gallant sir .'"said Halcro, " unquestionably it is because you
have some poetry in your heart."

"I have had enough of it in my mouth in my time," answered
Bunce ; " but that day is by, old gentleman — however, I shall soon
find out which of these girls is Minna. — Throw back your mufflings
from your faces, and don't be afraid, my Lindamaras ; no one
here shall. meddle with you to do you wrong. On my soul, two
pretty wenches ! — I wish I were at sea in an egg-shell, and a rock
under my lee-bow, if I would wish a better leaguer-lass than the
worst of them ! — Hark you, my girls ; which of you would like to
swing in a rover's hammock ? — you should have gold for the
gathering ! "

The terrified maidens clung close together, and grew pale at the
bold and famihar language of the desperate libertine.

" Nay, don't be frightened," said he ; " no one shall serve under
the noble Altamont but by her own free choice — there is no -press-
ing amongst gentlemen of fortune. And do not look so shy
upon me neither, as if I spoke of what you never thought of
before. One of you, at least, has heard of Captain Cleveland, the
Rover.''

Brenda grew still paler, but the blood mounted at once in Minna's
cheeks, on hearing the name of her lover thus unexpectedly in-
troduced ; for the scene was in itself so confounding, that the idea
of the vessel's being the consort of which Cleveland had spoken at
Burgh- Westra, had occurred to no one save the Udaller.

" I see how it is," said Bunce, with a familiar nod, " and I will
hold my course accordingly. — You need not be afraid of any injury,
father," he added, addressing Magnus familiarly; "and though I
have made many a pretty girl pay tribute in my time, yet yours
shall go ashore without either wrong or ransom."

" If you will assure me of that," said Magnus, " you are as welcome
to the brig and cargo, as ever I made man welcome to a can of
punch."

" And it is no bad thing that same can of punch," said Bunce,
" if we had any one here that could mix it well."

"I will do it," said Claud Halcro, "with any man that ever
squeezed lemon— Eric Scambester, the punch-maker of Burgh-
Westra, being alone excepted."

" And you are within a grapnel's length of him, too," said the

A A

354 THE PIRATE.

Udaller.— " Go down below, my girls," he added, " and send up the
rare old man, and the punch-bowl."

"The punch-bowl!" said Fletcher; "I say, the bucket, d— n
me !— Talk of bowls in the cabin of a paltry merchantman, but not
to gentlemen-strollers— rovers, I would say," correcting himself, as
he observed that Bunce looked sour at the mistake.

" And I say these two pretty girls shall stay on deck, and fill my
can," said Bunce ; " I deserve some attendance, at least, for all my
generosity."

" And they shall fill mine, too," said Fletcher—" they shall fill it
to the brim !— and I will have a kiss for every drop they spill— broil
me if I won't ! "

" Why, then, I tell you, you shan't ! " said Bunce ; " for I'll be
d-d if any one shall kiss Minna but one, and that's neither you
nor I ; and her other little bit of a consort shall 'scape for
company ; — there are plenty of willing wenches in Orkney. — And
so, now I think on it, these girls shall go down below, and bolt
themselves into the cabin ; and we shall have the punch up here on
deck, alfresco, as the old gentleman proposes."

" Why, Jack, I wish you knew your own mind," said Fletcher ;
" I have been your messmate these two years, and I love you ; and
yet flay me like a wild bullock, if you have not as many humours as
a monkey ! — And what shall we have to make a little fun of, since
you have sent the girls down below ? "

" Why, we will have Master Punch-maker here," answered
Bunce, " to give us toasts, and sing us songs.— And, in the meantime,
you there, stand by sheets and tacks, and get her under way ! — and
you, steersman, as you would keep your brains in your skull, keep
her under the stern of the sloop. — If you attempt to play us any
trick, I will scuttle your sconce as if it were an old calabash ! "

The vessel was accordingly got under way, and moved slowly on
in the wake of the sloop, which, as had been previously agreed
upon, held her course, not to return to the bay of Kirkwall, but for
an excellent roadstead called Inganess Bay, formed by a pro-
montory which extends to the eastward ' two or three miles from
the Orcadian metropolis, and where the vessels might conveniently
lie at anchor, while the rovers maintained any communication with
the Magistrates which the new state of things seemed to require.

Meantime Claud Halcro had exerted his utmost talents in com-
pounding a bucketful of punch for the use of the pirates, which they
drank out of large cans ; the ordinary seamen, as well as Bunce
and Fletcher, who acted as officers, dipping them into the bucket
with very little ceremony, as they came and went upon their duty.
Magnus, who was particularly apprehensive that hquor might awaken

THE PIRATE. 355

the brutal passions of these desperadoes, was yet So much astonished
at the quantities which he saw them drink, without producing any
visible effect upon their reason, that he could not help expressing
his surprise to Bunce himself, who, wild as he was, yet appeared by
far the most civil and conversable of his party, and whom he was,
perhaps, desirous to conciliate, by a compliment of which all boon
topers know the value.

" Bones of Saint Magnus ! " said the Udaller, " I used to think I
took off my can like a gentleman ; but to see your men swallow.
Captain, one would think their stomachs were as bottomless as the
hole of Laifell in Foula, which I have sounded myself with a line of
an hundred fathoms. By my soul, the Bicker of Saint Magnus
were but a sip to them ! "

" In our way of life, sir," answered Bunce, " there is no stint till
duty calls, or the puncheon is drunk out."

" By my word, sir," said Claud Halcro, " I believe there is not
one of your people 43ut could drink out the mickle bicker of Scarpa,
which was always offered to the Bishop of Orkney brimful of the
best bummock that ever was brewed." *

" If drinking could make them bishops," said Bunce, " I should
have a reverend crew of them ; but as they harve no other clerical
qualities about them, I do not propose that they shall get drunk to-
day ; so we will cut our drink with a song."

" And I'll sing it, by ! " said or swore Dick Fletcher, and

instantly struck ud the old ditty —

" It was a ship, and a ship of fame,
Launch'd off the stocks, bound for the main.
With an hundred and fifty brisk young men.
All pick'd and chosen every one."

" I would sooner be keel-hauled than hear that song over again,"
said Bunce ; " and confound your lantern iaws, you can squeeze
nothing else out of them ! "

" By , " said Fletcher, " I will sing my song, whether you like

it or no ; " and again he sung, with the doleful tone of a north-
easter whistling through sheet and shrouds, —

" Captain Glen was our Captain's name ;
A very gallant and brisk young man ;
As bold a sailor as e'er went to sea,
And we were bound for High Barbary."

" I tell you again," said Bunce, " we will have none of your

A A 2

356 THE PiRATE.

screech-owl music here ; and I'll be d— d if you shall sit here and
make that infernal noise ! "

" Why, then, I'll teU you what," said Fletcher, getting up, " I'll
sing when I walk about, and I hope there is no harm in that, Jack
Bunce." And so, getting up from his seat, he began to walk up
and down the sloop, croaking out his long and disastrous ballad.

" You see how I manage them," said Bunce, with a smile of self-
applause—" allow that fellow two strides on his own way, and you
make a mutineer of him for Me. But I tie him strict up, and he
follows me as kindly as a fowler's spaniel after he has got a good
beating. — ^And now your toast and your song, sir," addressing
Halcro ; " or rather your song without your toast. I have got a
toast for myself. Here is success to all roving blades, and confusion
to all honest men ! "

" I should be sorry to drink that toast, if I could help it," Said
Magnus Troil.

" What ! you reckon yourself one of the nonest folks, I warrant ? "
said Bunce. — " Tell me your trade, and I'll tell you what I think of
it. As for the punch-maker here, I knew him at first glance to be
a tailor, who has, therefore, no more pretensions to be honest, than
he has not to be mangy. But you are some High-Dutch skipper, I
warrant me, that tramples on the cross when he is in Japan, and
denies his religion for a day's gain."

" No," replied the Udaller, " I am a gentleman of Zetland."

" O, what ! " retorted the satirical Mr. Bunce, " you are come
from the happy climate where gin is a groat a-bottle, and whfre
there is daylight for ever ? "

" At your service. Captain," said the Udaller, suppressing with
much pain some disposition to resent these jests on his country,
although under every risk, and at all disadvantage.

" At my service ! " said Bunce — " Ay, if there was a rope stretched
from the wreck to the beach, you would be be at my service to cut
the hawser, rasksfloatsome z.-aAjetsome of ship and cargo, and well
if you did not give me a rap on the head with the back of the cutty-
axe ; and you call yourself honest ? But never mind — here goes the
aforesaid toast — and do you sing me a song, Mr. Fashioner ; and
look it be as good as your punch."

Halcro, internally praying for the powers of a new Timptheus, to
turn his strain and check his auditor's pride, as glorious John had
it, began a heart-soothing ditty with the following lines : —

" Maidens fresh as fairest rose,
Listen to this lay of mine."

" I will hear nothmg of maidens or roses," said Bunce J "it puts

THE PIRATE. 357

me in mind what sort of a cargo we have got onboard ; and, by ,

I will be true to my messmate and my captain as long as I can ! —
And now I think on't, I'll have no more punch either — that last cup
made innovation, and I am not to play Cassio to-night — and if I
drink not, nobody else shall."

So saying, he manfully kicked over the bucket, which, notwith-
standing the repeated applications made to it, was still half full, got
up from his seat, shook himself a little to rights, as he expressed it,
cocked his hat, and, walking the quarter-deck with an air of dignity,
gave, by word and signal, the orders for bringing the ships to
anchor, which were readily obeyed by both, Goffe being then, in all
probability, past any rational state of interference.

The Udaller, in the meantime, condoled with Halcro on their
situation, " It is bad enough," said the tough old Norseman ;
"for these are rank rogues — and yet, were it not for the girls, I
should not fear them. That young vapouring fellow, who seems to
command, is not such a born devil as he might have been,"

" He has queer humours, though," said Halcro ; " and I wish we
were loose from him. To kick down a bucket half full of the best
punch ever was made, and to cut me short in the sweetest song I
ever wrote, — I promise you, I do not know what he may do next —
it is next door to madness,"

Meanwhile, the ships being brought to anchor, the valiant Lieu-
tenant Bunce called upon Fletcher, and, resuming his seat by his
unwilling passengers, he told them they should see what message
he was about to send to the wittols of Kirkwall, as they were some-
thing concerned in it, " It shall run in Dick's name," he said, " as
well as in mine. I love to give the poor young fellow a little
countenance now and then — don't I, Dick, you d — d stupid ass ? "

" Why, yes. Jack Bunce," said Dick, " I can't say but as you do —
only you are always buUocking one about something or other, too, —
but, howsomdever, d'ye see "

" Enough said — belay your jaw, Dick," said Bunce, and pro-
ceeded to write his epistle, which, being read aloud, proved to be of
the following tenor : " For the Mayor and Aldermen of Kirkwall—
Gentlemen, As, contrary to your good faith given, you have not sent
u^ on board a hostage for the safety of our Captain, remaining on
shore at your request, these come to tell you, we are not thus to be
trifled withj We have already in our possession, a brig, with a
family of distinction, its owners and passengers; and as you deal
with our Captain, so will we deal with them in every respect. And
as this is the first, so assure yourselves it shall not be the last
damage which we will do to your town and trade, if you do not send
on board our Captain, and supply us with stores accrding to treaty.

358 THE PIRATE.

" Given on board the brig Mergoose of Burgh-Westra, lying in
Inganess Bay. Witness our hands, commanders of the Fortune's
Favourite, and gentlemen adventurers."

He then subscribed himself Frederick Altamont, and handed the
letter to Fletcher, who read the said subscription with much
difficulty ; and, admiring the sound of it very much, swore he would
have a new name himself, and the rather that Fletcher was the
most crabbed word to spell and conster, he believed, in the whole
dictionary. He subscribed himself accordingly, Timothy Tug-
mutton.

" Will you not add a few lines to the coxcombs ? " said Bunce,
addressing Magnus.

" Not I," returned the Udaller, stubborn in his ideas of right and
wrong, even in so formidable an emergency. " The Magistrates

of Kirkwall know their duty, and were I they '' But here the

recollection that his daughters were at the mercy of these ruffians,
blanked the bold visage of Magnus Troil, and checked the defiance
which was just about to issue from his lips.

" D — n me," said Bunce, who easily conjectured what was passing
in the mind of his prisoner — " that pause would have told well on
the stage — it would have brought down pit, box, and gallery, egad,
as Bayes has it."

" I will hear nothing of Bayes," said Claud Halcro, (himself a
little elevated,) " it is an impudent satire on glorious John ; but he
tickled Buckingham off for it —

' In the first rank of these did Zimri stand ;
A man so various ' "

" Hold your peace ! " said Bunce, drowning the voice of the
admirer of Dryden in louder and more vehement asseveration,
" the Rehearsal is the best farce ever was written — and I'll make
him kiss the gunner's daughter that denies it. D — n me, I was the
best Prince Prettyman ever walked the boards —

' Sometimes a fisher's son, sometimes a prince.'

But let us to business. — Hark ye, old gentleman," (to Magnusj
" you have a sort of sulkiness about you, for which some of my
profession would cut your ears out of your head, and broil them for
your dinner with red pepper. I have known Goffe do so to a poor
devil, for looking sour and dangerous when he saw his sloop go to
Davy Jones's locker with his only son on board. Bu^ I'm a spirit

THE PIRATE.

359

of another sort ; and if you or the ladies are ill-used, it shall be the
Kirkwall people's fault, and not mine, and that's fair ; and so you
had better let them know your condition, and your circumstances,
and so forth, — and that's fair, too."

Magnus, thus exhorted, took up the pen, and attempted to write ;
but his high spirit so struggled with his paternal anxiety, that his
hand refused its office. " I cannot help it," he said, after one or
two illegible attempts to write — " I cannot form a letter, if all our
lives depended upon it."

And he could not, with his utmost efforts, so suppress the con-
vulsive emotions which he experienced, but that they agitated his
whole frame. The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes
better than the oak which resists it ; and so, in great calamities, it
sometimes happens, that light and frivolous spirits recover their
elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier
character. In the present case, Claud Halcro was fortunately able
to perform the task which the deeper feelings of his friend and
patron refused. He took the pen, and, in as few words as possible,
explained the situation in which they were placed, and the cruel
risks to which they were exposed, insinuating at the same time, as
delicately as he could express it, that, to the magistrates of the
country, the life and honour of its citizens should be a dearer object
than even the apprehension or punishment of the guilty ; taking
care, however, to qualify the last expression as much as possible,
for fear of giving umbrage to the pirates.

Bunce read over the letter, which fortunately met his approbation ;
and, on seeing the name of Claud Halcro at th6 bottom, he
exclaimed, in great surprise, and with more energetic expressions
of asseveration than we choose to record—" Why, you are the little
fellow that played the fiddle to old Manager Gadabout's company,
at Hogs Norton, the first season I came out there ! I thought I
knew your catchword of glorious John."

At another time this recognition might not have been very grate-
ful to Halcro's minstrel pride ; but, as matters stood with him, the
discovery of a golden mine could not have made him more happy.
He instantly remembered the very hopeful young performer who
came out in Don Sebastian, and judiciously added, that the muse
of glorious John had never received such excellent support during
the time that he was first (he might have added, and only) violin to
Mr. Gadabout's company.

" Why, yes," said Bunce, " I believe you are right — I think I
might have shaken the scene as well as Booth or Betterton either.
But I was destined to figure on other boards," (striking his foot
upon the deck,) " and I believe I must stick by them, till I find no

36o THE PIRATE.

board at all to support me. But now, old acquaintance, I will do
something for you — slue yourself this way a bit — I would have you
solus." They leaned over the taffrail, while Bunce whispered with
more seriousness than he usually showed, "I am sorry for this
honest old heart of Norway pine — blight me if I am not— and for
the daughters too— besides, I have my own reasons for befriending
one of them. I can be a wild fellow with a wilhng lass of the game ;
but to such decent and innocent creatures — d — n me, I am Scipio
at Numantia, and Alexander in the tent of Darius. You remember
how i touch off Alexander ? " (here he started into heroics.)

'" Thus from the grave I rise to save my love ;

All draw your swords, with wings of lightning move.
When I rush on, sure none will dare to stay —
'Tis beauty calls, and glory shows the way.' "

Claud Halcro failed not to bestow the necessary commendations
on his declamation, declaring, that, in his opinion as an honest man,
he had always thought Mr. Altamont's giving that speech far
superior in tone and energy to Betterton.

Bunce, or Altamont, wrung his hand tenderly. " Ah, you flatter
me, my dear friend," he said ; " yet, why had not the public some
of your judgment ! — I should not then have been at this pass.
Heaven knows, my dear Mr. Halcro — Heaven knows with what
pleasure I could keep you on board with me, just that I might have
one friend who loves as much to hear, as I do to recite, the choicest
pieces of our finest dramatic authors. The most of us are beasts —
and, for the Kirkwall hostage yonder, he uses me, egad, as I use
Fletcher, I think, and huffs me the more, the more I do for him.
But how delightful it would be in a tropic night, when the ship was
hanging on the breeze, with a broad and steady sail, for me to
rehearse Alexander, with you for my pit, box, and gallery ! Nay,
(for you are a follower of the muses, as I remember,) who knows
but you and I might be the means of inspiring, like Orpheus and
Eurydice, a pure taste into our companions, and softening their
manners, while we excited their better feehngs ? "

This was spoken with so much unction, that Claud Halcro began
to be afraid he had both made the actual punch over potent, and
mixed too many bewitching ingredients in the cup of flattery which
he had administered ; and that, under the influence of both potions,
the sentimental pirate might detain him by force, merely to realize
the scenes which his imagination presented. The conjecture was,
however, too delicate to admit of any active effort, on Halcro's part,
to redeem his blunder, and therefore he only returned the tender

THE PIRATE. 361

pressure of his friend's hand, and uttered the interjection " alas ! "
'in as pathetic a tone as he could.

Bunce immediately resumed : " You are right, my friend, these
are but vain visions of felicity, and it remains but for the unhappy
Altamont to serve the friend to whom he is now to bid farewell. 1
have determined to put you and the two girls ashore, with Fletcher
for your protection ; and so call up the young women, and let them
begone before the devil get aboard of me, or of some one else. You
will carry my letter to the magistrates, and second it with your own
eloquence, and assure them, that if they hurt but one hair of
Cleveland's head, there will be the devil to pay, and no pitch hot."

Relieved at heart by this unexpected termination of Bunce's
harangue, Halcro descended the companion ladder two steps at a
time, and knocking at the cabin door, could scarce find intelligible
language enough to say his errand. The sisters hearing, with
unexp"ected joy, that they were to be set ashore, muffled themselves
in their cloaks, and, when they learned that the boat was hoisted
out, came hastily on deck, where they were apprized, for the first
time, to their great horror, that their father was still to remain on
board of the pirate.

" We will remain with him at every risk,'' said Minna — " we may
be of some assistance to him, were it but for an instant — we will
live and die with him ! "

" We shall aid him more surely," said Brenda, who comprehended
the nature of their situation better than Minna, " by interesting the
people of Kirkwall to grant these gentlemen's demands."

" Spoken like an angel of sense and beauty," said Bunce ; " and
now away with you ; for, d — n me, if this is not like having a lighted
linstock in the powder-room — if you speak another word more,
confound me if I know how I shall bring myself to part with you ! "

" Go, in God's name, my daughters," said Magnus. " I am in
God's hand ; and when you are gone I shall care little for myself —
and I shall think and say, as long as I live, that this good gentle-
man deserves a better trade. — Go — go — away with you ! " — for they
yet lingered in reluctance to leave him.

" Stay not to kiss," said Bunce, " for fear I be tempted to ask my
share. Into the boat with you — yet stop an instant." He drew the
three captives apart — " Fletcher," said he, "will answer for the rest
of the fellows, and will see you safe off the sea-beach. But how to
answer for Fletcher, I know not, except by trusting Mr. Halcro with
this little guarantee."

He offered the minstrel a small double-barrelled pistol, which, he
said, was loaded with a brace of balls. Minna observed Halcro's
hand tremble as he stretched it out to take the. weapon. " Give it

362 • THE PIRATE.

to me, sir," she said, taking it from the outlaw ; " and trust to me
for defending my sister and myself."

" Bravo, bravo ! " shouted Bunce. " There spoke a wench worthy
of Cleveland, the King of Rovers ! "

" Cleveland ! " repeated Minna, " do you then know that Cleve-
land, whom you have twice named ? "

" Know him ! Is there a man alive," said Bunce, "that knows
better than I do the best and stoutest fellow ever stepped betwixt
stem and stern ? When he is out of the bilboes, as please Heaven
he shall soon be, I reckon to see you come on board of us, and
reign the queen of every sea we sail over. — You have got the little
guardian; I suppose you know how to use it ? If Fletcher behaves
ill to you, you need only draw up this piece of iron with your thumb,
so — and if he persists, it is but crooking your pretty forefinger thus,
and I shall lose the most dutiful messmate that ever man had —
though, d — n the dog, he will deserve his death if he disobeys my
orders. And now, into the boat — but stay, one kiss for Cleveland's
sake."

Brenda, in deadly terror, endured his courtesy, but Minna,
stepping back with disdain, offered her hand. Bunce laughed, but
kissed, with a theatrical air, the fair hand which she extended as a
ransom for her lips, and at length the sisters and Halcro were placed
in the boat, which rowed off under Fletcher's command.

Bunce stood on the quarter-deck, soliloquizing after the manner
of his original profession. " Were this told at Port-Royal now, or
at the isle of Providence, or in the Petits Guaves, I wonder what
they would say of me ! Why, that I was a good-natured milksop —
a Jack-a-lent — an ass. — Well, let them. I have done enough of
bad to think about it ; it is worth while doing one good action, if it
were but for the rarity of the thing, and to put one in good humour
with oneself." Then turning to Magnus Troil, he proceeded —

" By these are bonarobas, these daughters of yours ! The

eldest would make her fortune on the London boards. What a
dashing attitude the wench had with her, as she seized the pistol! —
d — n me, that touch would have brought the house down ! What
a Roxalana the jade would have made ! " (for, in his oratory, Bunce,
like Sancho's gossip, Thomas Cecial, was apt to use the most
energetic word which came to hand, without accurately considering
its propriety.) " I would give my share of the next prize but to
hear her spout —

' Away, begone, and give a whirlwind room,
Or I will blow you up like dust. — Avaunt I
Madness but meanly represents my rage.'

THE PIRATE. 363

And then, again, that little, soft, shy, tearful trembler, for Statira,
to hear her recite—

' He speaks the kindest words, and looks such things,
Vows with such passion, swears with so much grace,
That 'tis a kind of heaven to be deluded by him.'

What a play we might have run up ! — I was a beast not to think
of it before I sent them off— I to be Alexander — Claud Halcro,
Lysimachus — this old gentleman might have made a Clytus, for a,
pinch. I was an idiot not to think of it ! "

There was much in this effusion which might have displeased the
Udaller ; but, to speak truth, he paid no attention to it. His eye,
and, finally, his spy-glass, were employed in watching the return of
his daughters to the shore. He saw them land on the beach,
and, accompanied by Halcro, and another man, (Fletcher, doubt-
less,) he saw them ascend the acclivity, and proceed upon the road
to Kirkwall ; and he could even distinguish that Minna, as if
considering herself as the guardian of the party, walked a little
aloof from the rest, on the watch, as it seemed, against surprise,
and ready to act as occasion should require. At length, as the
Udaller was just about to lose sight of them, he had the exquisite
satisfaction to see the party halt, and the pirate leave them, after a
space just long enough for a civil farewell, and proceed slowly back,
on his return to the beach. Blessing the Great Being who had
thus relieved him from the most agonizing fears which a father can
feel, the worthy Udaller, from that instant, stood resigned to his
own fate, whatever that might be.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Over the mountains and under the waves.
Over the fountains and under the graves,
Over floods that are deepest,

Which Neptune obey,
Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.

Old Song.

The parting of Fletcher from Claud Halcro and the sisters of
Burgh- Westra, on the spot where it took place, was partly occasioned

354 THE PIRATE.

by a small party of armed men being seen at a distance in the act
of advancing from Kirkwall, an apparition hidden from the Udaller's
spy-glass by the swdl of the ground, but quite visible to the pirate,
whom it determined to consult his own safety by a speedy return
to his boat. He was just turning away, when Minna occasioned
the short delay which her father had observed.

" Stop," she said ; " I command you ! — Tell yourleader from me,
that whatever the answer may be from Kirkwall, he shall carry his
vessel, nevertheless, round to Stromness ; and, being anchored
there, let him send a boat ashore for Captain Cleveland when he
shall see a smoke on the Bridge of Broisgar."

Fletcher had thought, like his messmate Bunce, of asking a kiss,
at least, for the trouble of escorting these beautiful young women ;
and perhapSj neither that terror of the approaching Kirkwall men, nor
of Minna s weapon, might have prevented his being insolent. But
the name of his Captain, and, still more, the unappalled, dignified,
and commanding manner of Minna Troil, overawed him. He made
a sea bow,— promised to keep a sharp lookout, and, returning to
his boat, went on board with his message.

As Halcro and the sisters advanced towards the party whom they
saw on the Kirkwall road, and who, on their part, had halted as if
to observe them, Brenda, relieved from the fears of Fletcher's pre-
sence, which had hitherto kept her silent, exclaimed, " Merciful
Heaven ! — Minna, in what hands have we left our dear father? "

" In the hands of brave men," said Minna, steadily—" I fear not
for him."

' As brave as you please," said Claud Halcro, " but very danger-
ous rogues for all that.— I know that fellow Altamont, as he calls
himself, though that is not his right name neither, as deboshed a
dog as ever made a barn ring with blood and blank verse. He
began -with Barnwell, and everybody thought he would end with
the gallows, like the last scene in Venice Preserved."

" It matters not," said Minna—" the wilder the waves, the more
powerful is the voice that rules them. The name alone of Cleveland
ruled the mood of the fiercest amongst then)."

" I am sorry for Cleveland," said Brenda, " if such are his com-
panions,— but I care httle for him in comparison to my father."

" Reserve your compassion for those who need it," said Minna,
" and fear nothing for our father.— God knows, every silver hair
on his head is to me worth the treasure of an unsunned mine ; but
I know that he is safe while in yonder vessel, and I know that he
will be soon safe on shore."

" I would I could see it," said Claud Halcro ; " but I fear the
Kirkwall people, supposing Cleveland to be such as I dread, will

THE PIRATE. s&S

not dare to exchange him against the Udaller. The Scots have
very severe laws against theft-boot, as they call it."

" But who are those on the road before us ? " said Brenda ; " and
why do they halt there so jealously? "

"They are a patrol of the militia," answered Halcro. " Glorious
John touches them off a little sharply, — but then John was a
Jacobite, —

' Mouths without hands, maintain'd at vast expense.
In peace a charge, in war a weak defence ;
Stout once a-month, they march, a blustering band,
And ever, but in time of need, at hand.'

I fancy they halted just now, taking us, as they saw us on the brow
of the hill, for a party of the sloop's men, and now they can distin-
guish that you wear petticoats, they are moving on again."

They came on accordingly, and proved to be, as Claud Halcro
had suggested, a patrol sent out to watch the motions of the pirates,
and to prevent their attempting descents to damage the country.

They heartily congratulated Claud Halcro, who was well known
to more than one of them, upon his escape from captivity ; and the
commander of the party, while offering every assistance to the
ladies, could not help condoling with them on the circumstances in
which their father stood, hinting, though in a delicate and doubtful
manner, the difficulties which might be .in the way of his liberation.

When they arrived at Kirkwall, and obtained an audience of the
Provost, and one or two of the Magistrates, these difficulties were
more plainly insisted upon. — " The Halcyon frigate is upon the
coast," said the Provost ; " she was seen off" Duncansbay-head ;
and, though I have the deepest respect for Mr. Troil of Burgh-
Westra, yet I shall be answerable to law if I release from prison the
Captain of this suspicious vessel, on account of the safety of any
individual who may be unhappily endangered by his detention.
This man is now known to be the heart and soul of these buccaniers,
and am I at liberty to send him aboard, that he may plunder the
country, or perhaps go fight the King's ship ? — for he has impudence
enough for any thing."

" Courage enough for any thing, you mean, Mr. Provost," said
Minna, unable to restrain her displeasure.

"Why, you may call it as you please. Miss Troil," said the
worthy Magistrate ; " but, in my opinion, that sort of courage which
proposes to fight singly against two, is little better than a kind of
practical impudence."

" But our father ? " said Brenda, in a tone of the most earnest

366 THE PIRATE.

entreaty — "our father— the friend, I may say the father, of his
country— to whom so many looked for kindness, and so many for
actual support — whose loss would be the extinclion of a beacon in
a storm — will you indeed weigh the risk which he runs, against such
a trifling thing as letting an unfortunate man from prison, to seek
his unhappy fate elsewhere ? "

" Miss Brenda is right," said Claud Halcro ; " I am for let-a-be
for let-a-be, as the boys say ; and never fash about a warrant of
liberation, Provost, but just take a fool's counsel, and let the good-
man of the jail forget to draw his bolt on the wicket, or leave a chink
of a window open, or the like, and we shall be rid of the rover, and
have the one best honest fellow in Orkney or Zetland on the lee-
side of a bowl of punch with us in five hours."

The Provost repUed in nearly the same terms as before, that he
had the highest respect for Mr. Magnus Troil of Burgh-Westra, but
that he could not suffer his consideration for any individual, how-
ever respectable, to interfere with the discharge of his duty.

Minna then addressed her sister in a tone of calm and sarcastic
displeasure. — " You forget," she said, " Brenda, that you are talking
of the safety of a poor insignificant Udaller of Zetland, to no less a
person than the Chief Magistrate of the metropolis of Orkney — can
you expect so great a person to condescend to such a trifling subject
of consideration ? It will be time enough for the Provost to think
of complying with the terms sent to him — for comply with them at
length he both must and will — when the Church of Saint Magnus
is beat down about his ears."

" You may be angry with me, my pretty young lady," said the
good-humoured Provost Torfe, " but I cannot be offended with you.
The Church of Saint Magnus has stood many a day, and, I think,
will outlive both you and me, much more yonder pack of unhanged
dogs. And besides that, your father is half an Orkneyman, and
has both estate and friends among us, 1 would, I give you my word,
do as much for a Zetlander in distress as I would for any one,
excepting one of our own native Kirkwallers, who are doubtless to
be preferred. And if you will take up your lodgings here with my
wife and myself, we will endeavour to show you," continued he,
" that you are as welcome in Kirkwall, as ever you could be in
Lerwick or Scalloway."

Minna deigned no reply to this good-humoured invitation, but
Brenda declined it in civil terms, pleading the necessity of taking
up their abode with a wealthy widow of Kirkwall, a relation, who
already expected them.

Halcro made another attempt to move the Provost, but found
him inexorable.— " The Collector of the Customs had alreadv

THE PIRATE, 367

threatened;" he said, " to inform against him for entering into treaty,
or, as he called it, packing and peeling with those strangers, even
when it seemed the only means of preventing a bloody affray in the
town ; and, should he now forego the advantage afforded by the
imprisonment of Cleveland and the escape of the Factor, he might
incur something worse than censure." The burden of the whole
was, " that he was sorry for the Udaller, he was sorry even for the
lad Cleveland, who had some sparks of honour about him ; but his
duty was imperious, and must be obeyed." The Provost then
precluded farther argument, by observing, that another affair from
Zetland called for his immediate attention. A gentleman named
Mertoun, residing at Jarlshof, had made complaint against Snails-
foot the jagger, for having assisted a domestic of his in embezzling
some valuable articles which had been deposited in his custody,
and he was about to take examinations on the subject, and cause
them to be restored to Mr. Mertoun, who was accountable for them
to the right owner.

In all this information, there was nothing which seemed interest-
ing to the sisters excepting the word Mertoun, which went like a
dagger to the heart of Minna, when she recollected the circum-
stances under which Mordaunt Mertoun had disappeared, and
which, with an emotion less painful, though still of a melancholy
nature, called a faint blush into Brenda's cheek, and a slight degree
of moisture into her eye. But it was soon evident that the Magis-
trate spoke not of Mordaunt, but of his father ; and the daughters
of Magnus, little interested in his detail, took leave of the Provost
to go to their own lodgings.

When they arrived at their relation's, Minna made it her business
to learn, by such enquiries as she could make without exciting sus-
picion, what was the situation of the unfortunate Cleveland, which
she soon discovered to be exceedingly precarious. The Provost
had not, indeed, committed him to close custody, as Claud Halcro
had anticipated, recollecting, perhaps, the favourable circumstances
under which he had surrendered himself, and loath, till the moment
of the last necessity, altogether to break faith with him. But
although left apparently at large, he was strictly watched by persons
well armed and appointed for the purpose, who had directions to
detain him by force, if he attempted to pass certain narrow precincts
which were allotted to him. He was quartered in a strong room
within what is called the King's Castle, and at night his chamber
door was locked on the outside, and a sufficient guard mounted to
prevent his escape. He therefore enjoyed only the degree of liberty
which the cat, in her cruel sport, is sometimes pleased to permit to
the mouse which she has clutched ; and yet, such was the terror of

368 THE PIRATE.

the resources, the courage, and ferocity of the pirate Captain, that
the Provost was blamed by the Collector, and many other sage
citizens of Kirkwall, for permitting him to be at large upon any
conditions.

It may be well helieved, that, under such circumstances, Cleveland
had no desire to seek any place of public resort, conscious that he
was the object of a mixed feeling of cui'iosity and terror. His
favourite place of exercise, therefore, was the external aisles of the
Cathedral of Saint Magnus, of which the eastern end alone is fitted
up for public worship. This solemn old edifice, having escaped the
ravage which attended the first convulsions of the Reformation, still
retains some appearance of episcopal dignity. This place of worship
is separated by a screen from the nave and western limb of the
cross, and the whole is preserved in a state of cleanliness and
decency, which might be weU proposed as an example to the proud
piles of Westminster and St. Paul's.

It was in this exterior part of the Cathedral that Clevelana was
permitted to walk, the rather that his guards, by watching the single
open entrance, had the means, with very little inconvenience to
themselves, of preventing any possible attempt at escape. The
place itself was well suited to his melancholy circumstances. The
lofty and vaulted roof rises upon ranges of Saxon pillars, of massive
size, four of which, still larger than the rest, once supported the
lofty spire, which, long since destroyed by accident, has been rebuilt
upon a disproportioned and truncated plan. The light is admitted
at the eastern end through a lofty, well-proportioned, and richly-
ornamented Gothic window ; and the pavement is covered with
inscriptions, in different languages, distinguishing the graves of
noble Orcadians, who have at different times been deposited within
the sacred precincts.

Here walked Cleveland, musing over the events of a misspent
life, which, it seemed probable, might be brought to a violent and
shameful close, while he was yet in the prime of youth.—" With
these dead," he said, looking on the pavement, " shall I soon be
numbered— but no holy man will speak' a blessing ; no friendly
hand register an inscription ; no proud descendant sculpture
armorial bearings over the grave of the pirate Cleveland. My
whitening bones will swing in the gibbet-irons, on some wild beach
or lonely cape, that will be esteemed fatal arid accursed for my sake.
The old mariner, as he passes the Sound, will shake his head, and
tell of my name and actions, as a warning to his younger comrades.
—But, Minna ! Minna !— what will be thy thoughts when the news
reaches thee ?— Would to God the tidings were drowned in the
deepest whirlpool betwixt Kirkwall and Burgh-Westra, ere they

4

f

1^ i,

d

THE PIRATE. 369

came to her ear ! — and ! would to Heaven that we had never
met, since we never can meet again ! "

He Ufted up his eyes as he spoke, and Minna Troil stood "before
him. Her face was pale, and her hair dishevelled ; but her look
was composed and firm, with its usual expression of high-minded
melancholy. She was still shrouded in the large mantle which she
had assumed on leaving the vessel. Cleveland's first emotion was
astonishment ; his next was joy, not unmixed with awe. He would
have exclaimed — he would have thrown himself at her feet — but
she imposed at once silence and composure on him, by raising her
finger, and saying, in a low but commanding accent — " Be cautious
—we are observed — there are men without — they let me enter with
difficulty. I dare not remain long — they would think — they might
believe — O, Cleveland ! I have hazarded every thing to save you !"

"To save me? — Alas ! poor Minna!" answered Cleveland, "to
save me is impossible. — Enough that I have seen you once more,
were it but to say, for ever farewell ! "

" We must indeed say farewell," said Minna ; " for fate, and your
guih, have divided us for ever. — Cleveland, I have seen your
associates — need I tell you more — need I say, that I know now what
a pirate is ? "

" You have been in the ruffians' power ! " said Cleveland, with a
start of agony — " Did they presume "

"Cleveland," replied Minna, "they presumed nothing — your
name was a spell over them. By the power of that spell over these
ferocious banditti, and by that alone, I was reminded of the qualities
I once thought my Cleveland's ! "

" Yes," said Cleveland, proudly, " my name has and shall have
power over them, when they are at the wildest ; and, had they
harmed you by one rude word, they should have found — Yet what
do I rave about — I am a prisoner ! "

" You shall be so no longer," said Minna — " Your safety — the
safety of my dear father — all demand your instant freedom. I have
formed a scheme for your liberty, which, boldly executed, cannot
fail. The light is fading without — muffle yourself in my cloak, and
you will easily pass the guards — I have given them the means of
carousing, and they are deeply engaged. Haste to the Loch of
Stennis, and hide yourself till day dawns ; then make a smoke on
the point, where the land, stretching into the lake on each side,
divides it nearly in two at the Bridge of Broisgar. Your vessel,
which Ues not far distant, will send a boat ashore. — Do not hesitate
an instant ! "

" But you, Minna ! — Should this wild scheme succeed," said
Cleveland, " what is to become of you ? ''

B B

370 ' THE PIRATE.

" for my share in your escape," answered the maiden, " the
honesty of my own intention will vindicate me in the sight of
Heaven ; and the safety of my father, whose fate depends on yours,
will be my excuse to man."

In a few words, she gave him thehistory of their capture, and its
consequences. Cleveland Cast up his eyes and raised his hands to
Heaven, in thankfulness for the escape of the sisters from his evil
companions, and then hastily added, — " But you aire right, M,inna ;
I must fly at all rates — ^for your father's sake I must fly. — Here,
then, we part — yet not, I trust, for ever."

" For ever !" answered a voice, that sounded as from a sepulchral
vault.

They started, looked around them, and then gazed on each other.
It seemed as if the echoes of the building had returned Cleveland's
last words, but the pronunciation was too emphatically accented.

" Yes, for ever ! " said Noma of the Fitful-head, stepping forward
from behind one of the massive Saxon pillars which support the
roof of the Cathedral. " Here meet the crimson foot and the crim-
son hand. Well for both that the wound is healed whence that
crimson was derived — well for both, but best forliim who shed it. —
Here, then, you meet — and meet for the last time ! "

" Not so," said Cleveland, as if about to take Minna's hand ; " to
separate me from Minna, while I have life, must be the work of
herself alone."

" Away ! " said Noma, stepping betwixt them, — " away with
such idle folly ! — Nourish no vain dreams of future meetings — you
part here, and you part for ever. The hawk pairs not with the
dove ; guilt matches not with innocence. — Minna Troil, you look
for the last time on this bold and criminal man — Cleveland, you
behold Minna for the last time ! "

" And dream you," said Cleveland, indignantly, " that your mum-
mery imposes on me, and that I am among the fools who see more
than trick in your pretended art ? "

" Forbear, Cleveland, forbear ! " said Minna, her hereditary awe
of Noma augmented by the circumstance of her sudden appear-
ance. O ! forbear ! — she is powerful — she is but too powerful. —
And do you, O Noma, remember my father's safety is linlced with
Cleveland's."

" And it is well for Cleveland that I do remember it," replied the
Pythoness— "and that, for the sake of one, I am here to aid both.
You, with your childish purpose, of passing one of his bulk and
stature under the disguise of a few paltry folds of wadmaal— what
would your device have procured him but instant restraint with
bolt and shackle ?— I will save him— I will place him in security on

THE- PIRATE. 371

board his bark. But let him renounce these shores for ever, and
carry elsewhere the terrors of his sable flag, and his yet blacker
name ; for if the sun rises twice, and finds him still at anchor, his
blood be on his own head. — Ay, look to each other — look the last
look that I permit to frail affection, — and say, if ye can say it.
Farewell for ever."

" Obey her," stammered Minna ; " remonstrate not, but obey
her.

Cleveland, grasping her hand, and kissing it ardently, said, but
so low that she only could hear it, " Farewell, Minna, iDut not for
ever."

"And now, maiden, begone," said Noma, " and leave the rest to
the Reimkennar."

" One word more," said Minna, " and I obey you. Tell me but
if I have caught aright your meaning— Is Mordaunt Mertoun safe
and recovered ? "

" Recovered, and safe," said Noma ; " else woe to the hand that
shed his blood ! "

Minna slowly sought the door of the Cathedral, and turned back
from time to time to look at the shadowy form of Noma, and the
stately and military figure of Cleveland, as they stood together in
the deepening gloom of the ancient Cathedral. When she looked
back a second time they were in motion, and Cleveland followed
the matron, as, with a slow and solemn step, she glided towards
one of the side aisles. When Minna looked back a third time, their
figures were no longer visible. She collected herself, and walked
on to the eastern door by which she had entered, and listened
for an instant to the guard, who talked together on the outside.

" The Zetland girl stays a long time with this pirate fellow," said
one. " I wish they have not more to sneak about than the ransom
of her father."

" Ay, truly," answered another, " the wenches will have more
sympathy with a handsome young pirate, than an old bed-ridden
burgher."

Their discourse was here interrupted by her of whom they were
speaking ; and, as if taken in the manner, they pulled off their hats,
made their awkward obeisances, and looked not a little embarrassed
and confused.

Minna returned to the house where she lodged, much affected,
yet, on the whole, pleased, with the result of her expedition, which
seemed to put her father out of danger, and assured her at once of
the escape of Clevelaad, and of the safety of young Mordaunt. She
hastened to communicate both pieces of intelligence to Brenda,
who joined her jn thankfulness to Heaven, and was herself well-

B B 2

372

THE PIRATE.

nigh persuaded to believe in Noma's supernatural pretensions, so
much was she pleased with the manner in which they had Tseen
employed. Some time was spent in exchanging their mutual con-
gratulations, and minghng tears of hope, mixed with apprehension ;
when, at a late hour in the evening, they were interrupted by Claud
Halcro, who, full of a fidgetting sort of importance, not unmingled
with fear, came to acquaint them, that the prisoner, Cleveland, "had
disappeared from the Cathedral, in which he had been permitted to
walk, and that the Provost, having been informed that Minna was
accessary to his flight, was coming, in a mighty quandary, to make
enquiry into the circumstances.

When the worthy Magistrate arrived, Minna did not conceal
from him her own wish that Cleveland should make his escape, as
the only means which she saw of redeeming her father from immi-
nent danger. But that she had any actual accession to his flight,
she positively denied ; and stated, " that she parted from Cleveland
in the Cathedral, more than two hours since, and then left him in
company with a third person, whose name she did not conceive
herself obliged to communicate."

" It is not needful, Miss Minna Troil," answered Provost Torfe ;
" for, although no person but this Captain Cleveland and yourself
was seen to enter the Kirk of St. Magnus this day, we know well
enough that your cousin, old Ulla Troil, whom you Zetlanders call
Noma of Fitful-head, has been cruising up and down, upon sea
and land, and air, for what I know, in boats and on ponies, and it
may be on broomsticks ; and here has been her dumb Drow, too,
coming and going, and playing the spy on every one — and a
good spy he is, for he can hear everything, and tells nothing again,
unless to his mistress. And we know, besides, that she can enter
the Kirk when all the doors are fast, and has been seen there more
than once, God save us from the Evil One ! — and so, without
farther questions asked, I conclude it was old Noma whom you
left in the Kirk with this slashing blade — and if so, they may
catch them again that can. — I cannot but say, however, pretty
Mistress Minna, that you Zetland folks seem to forget both law
and gospel, when you use the help of witchcraft to fetch delin-
quents out of a legal prison ; and the least that you, or your cousin,
or your father, can do, is to use influence with this wild fellow to
go away as soon as possible, without hurting the town or trade,
and then there will be little harm in what has chanced ; for. Heaven
knows, I did not seek the poor lad's life, so I could get my hands
free of him without blame ; and far less did I wish, that, through
his imprisonment, any harm should come to worthy Magnus Troil
of Burgh- Westra.

THE PIRATE. 373

" I see where the shoe pinches you, Mr. Provost," said Claud
Halcro, " and I am sure I can answer for my friend Mr. Troil, as
well as for myself, that we will say and do all in our power with
this man, Captain Cleveland, to make him leave the coast
directly."

" And I,"said Minna, " am so convinced that what you recommend
is best for all parties, that my sister and I will set off early to-morrow
morning to the House of Stennis, if Mr. Halcro will give us his
escort, to receive my father when he comes ashore, that we may
acquaint him with your wish, and to use every influence to induce
this unhappy man to leave the country."

Provost Torfe looked upon her with some surprise. " It is not
every young woman," he said, " would wish to move eight miles
nearer to a band of pirates."

" We run no risk," said Claud Halcro, interfering. " The House
of Stennis is strong ; and my cousin, whom it belongs to, has men
and arms within It. The young ladies are as safe there as in Kirk-
wall ; and much good may arise from an early communication
betvcen Magnus Troil and his daughters. And happy am I to
see ';at in your case, my good old friend^— as glorious John says, —

-' After much debate,

The man prevails above the magistrate.' "

The Provost smiled, nodded his head, and indicated, as far as
he thought he could do so with decency, howliappy he should be
if the Fortune's Favourite, and her disorderly crew, would leave
Orkney without further interference, or violence on either side.
He could not authorize their being supplied from the shore, he
said ; but, either for fear or favour, they wars certain to get provi-
sions at Stromness. This pacific magistrate then took leave of
Halcro and the two ladies, who proposed the next morning, to
transfer their residence to the House of Stennis, situated upon the
banks of the salt-water lake of the same name, and about four
miles by water from the Road of Stromness. where the Rover's
vessel was lying.

374 THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Fly, Fleance, fly !— Thou mayst escape.

Macbeth.

It was one branch of the various arts by which Noma endea-
voured to maintain her pretensions to supernatural powers, that
she made herself famiUarly and practically acquainted with all the
secret passes and recesses, whether natural or artificial, which she
could hear of, whether by tradition or otherwise, and was, by such
knowledge, often enabled to perform feats which were otherwise
unaccountable. Thus, when she escaped from the tabernacle at
Burgh-Westra, it was by a sliding board which covered a secret'
passage in the wall, known to none but herself and Magnus, who,
she was well assured, would not betray her. The profusion, also,
with which she lavished a considerable income, otherwise of no
use to her, enabled her to procure the earliest intelligence respect-
ing whatever she desired to know, and, at the same time, to secure
all other assistance necessary to carry her plans into effect.
Cleveland, upon the present occasion, had reason to admire both
her sagacity and her resources.

Upon her applying a little forcible pressure, a door which was
concealed under some rich wooden sculpture in the screen which
divides the eastern aisle from the rest of the Cathedral, opened,
and disclosed a dark narrow winding passage, into which she
entered, telling Cleveland, in a whisper, to follow, and be sure he
shut the door behind him. He obeyed, and followed her in dark-
ness and silence, sometimes descending steps, of the number of
which she always apprized him, sometimes ascending, and often
turning at short angles. The air v^s more free than he could
have expected, the passage being ventilated at different parts by
unseen and ingeniously contrived spiracles, which communicated
with the open air. At length their long course ended, by Noma
drawing aside a sliding panel, which, opening behind a wooden,
or box-bed,' as it is called in Scotland, admitted them into an
ancient, but very mean apartment, having a latticed window, and
a groined roof. The furniture was- much dilapidated; and its
only ornaments were, on the one side of the wall, a garland of
faded ribbons, such as are used to decorate whale-vessels ; and,
on the other, an escutcheon, bearing an Earl's arms and coronet,
surrounded with the usual emblems of mortality. The mattock
and spade, which lay in one corner, together with the appearancp

THE PIRATE. 375

of an old man, who, in a rusty black coat, and slouched hat, sat
reading by a table, announced that they were in the habitation of
the church-beadle, or sexton, and in the presence of that respect-
able functionary.

When his attention was attracted by the noise of the sliding
panel, he arose, and, testifying much respect, but no surprise,
took his shadowy hat from his thin grey locks, and stood
uncovered in the presence of Noma with an air of profound
humility.

" Be faithful," said Noma to the old man, " and beware you show
not any living mortal the secret path to the Sanctuary."

The old man bowed, in token of obedience and of thanks, for
she put money in his hand as she spoke. With a faltering
voice, he expressed his hope that she would remember his son,
who was on the Greenland voyage, that he might return fortu-
nate and safe, as he had done last year, when he brought back
the garland, pointing to that upon the wall.

" My cauldron shall boil, and my rhyme shall be said, in his
behalf," answered Noma. " Waits Pacolet without with the
horses ? "

Tlie old Sexton assented, and the Pythoness, commanding
Cleveland to follow her, went through a back door of the apart-
ment into a small garden, corresponding in its desolate appear-
ance, to the habitation they had just quitted. The low and
broken wall easily permitted them to pass into another and
larger garden, though not much better kept, and a gate, which
was upon the latch, let them into a long and winding lane, through
which. Noma having whispered to her companion that it was the
only dangerous place on their road, they walked with a hasty pace.
It was now nearly dark, and the inhabitants of the poor dwellings,
on either hand, had betaken themselves to their houses. They saw
only one woman, who was looking from her door, but blessed
herself, and rgtired into her house with precipitation, when she saw
the tall figure of Noma stalk past her with long strides. The lane
conducted them into the country, where the dumb dwarf waited with
three horses, ensconced behind the wall of a deserted shed. On one
of these Noma instantly seated herself, Cleveland mounted another,
and, followed by Pacolet on the third, they moved sharply on through
the darkness ; the active and spirited animals on which they rode
being of a breed rather taller than those reared in Zetland.

After more than an hour's smart riding, in which Noma acted
'as guide, they stopped before a hovel, so utterly desolate in appear-
ance, that it resembled rather a cattle-shed than, a cottage.

" Here you must remain till dawn, when your signal can be seen

370 THE PIRATE.

from your vessel," said Noma, consigning the horses to the care
of Pacolet, and leading the way into the wretched hovel, which
she presently illuminated by lighting the small iron lamp which
she usually carried along with her. "It is a poor," she,said,
" but a safe place of refuge ; for were we pursued hithef, the
earth would yawn and admit us into its recesses ere yqa were
taken. For know, that this ground is sacred to the Gods of old
Valhalla. — And now say, man of mischief and of blood, are you
friend or foe to Noma, the sole priestess of these disowned deities ? "

" How is it possible for me to be your enemy ?" said Cleveland.
— " Common gratitude "

" Common gratitude," said Noma, interrupting him, " is a com-
mon word — and words are the common pay which fools accept at
the hands of knaves ; but Noma must be requited by actions — by
sacrifices."

" Well, mother, name your request."

" That you never seek to see Minna Troil again, and that you
leave this coast in twenty-four hours," answered Noma.

' It is impossible," said the outlaw ; " I cannot be soon tnough
found in the sea-stores which the sloop must have."

" You can. I will take care you are fully supplied ; and Caith-
ness and the Hebrides are not far distant — "ou can depart if you
will."

" And why should I," said Cleveland, " if I will not ? " \

" Because your stay endangers others," said Noma, " and wil\
prove your own destruction. Hear me with attention. From the,
first moment I saw you lying senseless on the sands beneath the\
cliffs of Sumburgh, I read that in your countenance which linked
you with me, and those who were dear to me ; but whether for
good or evil, was hidden from mine eyes. I aided in saving your life,
in preserving your property. I aided in doing so, the very youth
whom you have crossed in his dearest affections — crossed by tale-
bearing and slander." ,,

" / slander Mertoun ! " exclaimed Cleveland. " By heaven, I
scarce mentioned his name at Burgh- Westra, if it is that which
you mean. The peddling fellow, Bryce, meaning, I believe to be
my friend, because he found something could be made by me, did,
I have since heard, carry tattle or truth, I know not which, to the
old man, which was confirmed by the report of the whole island.
But for me, I scarce thought of him as a rival ; else, I had taken a
more honourable way to rid myself him."

"Was the point of your double-edged knife, directed to the
bosom of an unarmed man, intended to carve out that more hon^
curable way ?" said Noma, sternly.

THE PIRATE. ■ 377

Cleveland was , conscience-struck, and remained silent lor an
instant, ere he replied, " There, indeed, I was wrong ; but he is, I
thank Heaven,recov'ered, and welcome toan honourable satisfaction.'

" Cleveland," said the Pythoness, " No ! The fiend who employs
you as his implement is powerful ; but with me he shall not strive.
You are of that temperment which the dark Influences desire as
the tools, of their agency; bold, haughty, and undaunted, unre-
strained by principle, and having only in its room a wild sense of
indomitable pride, which such men call hoHour. Such you are,
and as such your course through life has been — onward, and unre-
strained, bloody, and tempestuous. By me, however, it shall be
controlled," she concluded, stretching out her staff, as if in the atti-
tude of determined authority — " ay, even although the demon who
presides over it should now arise in his terrors."

Cleveland laughed scornfully. " Good mother," he said, " re-
serve such language for the rude sailor that implores you to bestow
him fair wind, or the poor fisherman that asks success to his nets
and lines. I have been long inaccessible both to fear and to
superstition. Call forth your demon, if you command one, and
place him before me. The man that has spent three years in
company with incarnate devils, can scarce dread the presence of a
disembodied fiend."

This was said with a careless and desperate bitterness of spirit,
which proved too powerfully energetic even for the delusions of
Noma's insanity ; and it was with a hollow and tremulous voice
'.hat she asked Cleveland—" For what, then, do you hold me, if you
aeny the power I have bought so dearly ? "

" You have wisdom, mother," said Cleveland ; " at least you
have art, and art is power. I hold you for one who knows how
to steer upon the current of events, but I deny your power to
change its course. Do not, therefore, waste words in quoting
terrors for which I have no feeling, but tell me at once, wherefore
you would have me depart ? "

"Because I will have you see Minna no more," answered
Noma — " Because Minna is the destined bride of him whom men
call Mordaunt Mertoun — Because if you depart not within twenty-
four hours, utter destruction awaits you. In these plain words
there is 110 metaphysical delusion — Answer me as plainly."

" In as plain words, then," answered Cleveland, " I will not leave
thr-se islands — not, at least, till I have seen Minna Troil ; and never
slicill your Mordaunt possess her while I live."

" Hear him ! " said Noma — " hear a mortal man spurn at the
means of prolonging his life ! —hear a sinful — a most sinful being,
refuse the time which fate yet affords for repentance, and for

378 THE PIRATE.

the salvation of ,an immortal soul !— Behold him how he stands
erect, bold and confident in his youthful strength and courage !
My eyes, unused to tears — even my eyes, which have so little cause
to weep for him, a,re blinded with sorrow to think what so fair a
form will be ere the second sun set ! "

" Mother," said Cleveland, firmly, yet with some touch of sorrow
in his voice, " I in part understand your threats. You know more
than we do of the course of the Halcyon — perhaps have the means
(for I acknowledge you have shown wonderful skill of combination
in such affairs) of directing her cruise our way. Be it 'so, — I will
not depart from my purpose for that risk. If the frigate comes
hither, we have still our shoal water to trust to ; and I think they
wiU scarce cut us out with boats, as if we were a Spanish xebeck.
I am therefore resolved I will hoist once more the flag under which
I have cruised, avail ourselves of the thousand chances which Jiave
helped us in greater odds, and, at the worst, fight the vessel to the
very last ; and, when mortal man can do no more, it is but snap-
ping a pistol in the powder-room, and, as we have lived, so will we
die."

There was a dead pause as Cleveland ended ; and it was broken
by his resuming, in a softer tone — " You have heard my answer,
mother ; let us debate it no further, but part in peace. I would
willingly leave you a remembrance, that you may not forget a poor
fellow to whom your services have been useful, and who parts with
you in no unkindness, however unfriendly you are to his dearest
interests. — Nay, do not shun to accept such a triile," he said,
forcing upon NoAia the little silver enchased box which had been
once the subject of strife betwixt Mertoun and him ; " it is not
for the sake of the metal, which I know you value not, but simply
as a memorial that you have met him of whom many a strange tale
will hereafter be told in the seas which he has traversed."

" I accept your gift," said Noma, " in token that, if I have in
aught been accessary to your fate, it was as the involuntary and
grieving agent of other powers. Well did you say we direct not
the current of events which hurry us forward, and render our
utmost efforts unavailing ; even as the wells of Tuftiloe * can
wheel the stoutest vessel round and round, in despite of either sail
or steerage. — Pacolet ! " she exclaimed, in a louder voice, " what,
ho ! Pacolet ! "

A large stone, which lay at the side of the wall of the hovel, fell
as she spoke, and to Cleveland's surprise, if not somewhat to hi^
fear, the misshapen form of the dwarf was seen, like some over-
grown reptile, extricating himself out of a subterranean passage,
the entrance to which the stone had covered.

THE PIRATE. 379

Noma, as if impressed by what Cleveland had said on the sub-
ject of her supernatural pretensions, was so far from endeavouring
to avail herself of this opportunity to enforce them, that she hastened
to explain the phenomenon he had witnessed.

" Such passages," she said, " to which the entrances are care-
fully concealed, are frequently found in these islands — the places
of retreat of the ancient inhabitants, where they sought refuge
from the rage of the Normans, the pirates of that day. It was
that you might avail yourself of this,in case of need, that I brought
you hither. Should you observe signs 'of pursuit, you may either
lurk in the bowels of the earth until it has passed by, or escape,
if you will, through the farther entrance near the lake, by which
Pacolet entered but now. — And now farewell ! Think on what I
have said ; for as sure as you now move and breathe a living man,
so surely is your doom fixed and sealed, unless, within four-and-
twenty hours, you have doubled the Burgh-head."

" Farewell, mother ! " said Cleveland, as she departed, bending a
look upon him, in which, as he could perceive by the lamp, sorrow
was mingled with displeasure.

The interview, which thus concluded, left a strong effect even
upon the mind of Cleveland, accustomed as he was to imminent
dangers and to hair-breadth escapes. He in vain attempted to
shake off the impression left by the words of Noma, which he
felt the more powerful, because they were in a great measure
divested of her wonted mystical tone, which he contemned. A
thousand times he regretted that he had from time to time de-
layed the resolution, wnich he had long adopted, to quit his dread-
ful and dangerous trade ; and as often he firmly determined, that,
could he but see Minna Troil once more, were it but for a last fare-
well, he would leave the sloop, as soon as his comrades were extri-
cated from their perilous situation, endeavour to obtain the benefit
of the King's pardon,' and distinguish himself, if possible, in some
more honourable course of warfare.

This resolution, to which he again and again pledged himself, had
at length a sedative effect on his mental perturbation, and, wrapt
in his cloak, he enjoyed, for a time, that imperfect repose which
exhausted nature demands as her tribute, even from those who are
situated on the verge of the most imminent danger. But how far
soever the guilty may satisfy his own mind, and stupify the feelings
of remorse, by such a conditional repentance, we may well question
whether it is not, in the sight of Heaven, rather a presumptuous
•aggravation, than an expiation of his sins.

When Cleveland awoke, the grey dawn was already mingling
with the twilight of an Orcadian night. He found himself on the

38o THE PIRATE.

verge of a beautiful sheet of waterj which, close by the place
where he had rested, was nearly divided by two tongues of land
that approach each other from the opposing sides of the lake, and
are in some degree united by the Bridge of Broisgar, a long cause-
way, containing openings to permit the flow and reflux of the tide.
Behind him, and fronting to the bridge, stood that remarkable
semicircle of huge upright stones, which has no rival in Britain,
except the inimitable monument at Stonehenge. These immense
blocks of stone, all of them above twelve feet, and several being
even fourteen or fifteen feet in height, stood around the pirate in
the grey light of the dawning, like the phantom forms of antedilu-
vian giants, who, shrouded in the habihments of the dead, came to
revisit, by this pale light, the earth which they had plagued by their
oppression and polluted by their sins, till they brought down upon
it the vengeance of long-suffering Heaven.*

Cleveland was less interested by this singular monument of
antiquity than by the distant view of Stromness, which he could
as yet scarce discover. He lost no time in striking a light, by
the assistance [of one of his pistols, and some wet fern supplied
him with fuel sufficient to make the appointed signal. It had been
earnestly watched for on board the sloop ; for Goffe's incapacity
became daily more apparent ; and even his most steady adherents
agreed it would be best to submit to Cleveland's command till they
got back to the West Indies.

Bunce, who came with the boat to bring off his favourite com-
mander, danced, cursed, shouted, and spouted for joy, when he
saw him once more at freedom. " They had already," he said,
"made some progress in victualling the sloop, and they might
have made more, but for that drunken old swab Gofife, who
minded nothing but splicing the main-brace."

The boat's crew were inspired with the same enthusiasm, and
rowed so hard, that, although the tide was against them, and the
air of wind failed, they soon placed Cleveland once more on the
quarter-deck of the vessel which it was his misfortune to com'
mand.

The first exercise of the Captain's power was to make known
to Magnus Troil that he was at fuU freedom to depart — that he
was willing to make him any compensation in his power, for the
interruption of his voyage to Kirkwall ; and that Captain Cleve-
land was desirous, if agreeable to Mr. Troil, to pay his respects
to him on board his brig — thank him for former favours, and
apologize for the circumstances attending his detention.

To Bunce, who, as the most civiliaed of the crew, Cleveland had
intrusted this message, the old plain-dealing Udaller made the fol-

THE PIRATE. 381

lowing answer : " Tell your Captain that I should be glad to
think he had never stopped any one upon the high sea, save such
as have suffered as little 'as I have. Say, too, that if we are to
continue friends, ~we shall be most so at a distance ; for I like the
sound of his cannon-balls as little by sea, as he would like the
whistle of a bullet by land from my rifle-gun. Say, in a word, that
I am sorry I was mistaken in him, and that he would have done
better to have reserved for the Spaniard the usage he is bestowing
on his countrymen."

" And so that is your message, old Snapcholeric ? " said Bunce —
" Now, stap my vitals' if I have not a mind to do your errand for
you over the left shoulder, and teach vou more respect for gentle-
men of fortune ! But I wont, chiefly for the sake of your two pretty
wenches, not to mention my old friend Claud Halcro, the very
visage of whom brought back all the old days of scene-shifting and
candle-snuffing. So good morrow to you. Gaffer Seal's-cap, and
all is said that need pass between us."

No sooner did the boat put off with the pirates, who left the brig,
and now returned to their own vessel, than Magnus, in order to
avoid reposing unnecessary confidence in the honour"of these gen-
tlemen of fortune, as they called themselves, got his brig under
way ; and, the wind coming favourably round, and increasing as
the sun rose, he crowded all sail for Scalpa-flow, intending there to
disembark and go by land to Kirkwall, where he expected to ineet
his daughters and his friend Claud Halcro.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Now, Emma, now the last reflection make,
What thou wouldst follow, what thou must forsake.
By our ill-omen'd stars and adverse Heaven, ■
No middle object to thy choice is given.

Henry and Emma.

T«E sun was high in heaven ; the boats were busily fetching off
from the shore the promised supply of provisions and water, which,
as many fishing skiffs Tvere employed in the service, were got on
board with unexpected speed, and stowed away by the crew of the
sloop, with equal despatch. All worked with good will ; for all,
save Cleveland himself, were weary of a coast, where every moment
increased their danger, and where; which they esteemed a worse

382 THE PIRATE.

misfortune, there was no booty to be won Bunce and Derrick
took the immediate direction of this duty, while Cleveland, walking
the deck alone, and in silence, only interfered from time to time, to
give some order which circumstances required, and then relapsed
into his own sad reflections.

There are two sorts of men whom situations of guilt, terror, and
commotion, bring forward as prominent agents. The first are
spirits so naturally moulded and fitted for deeds of horror, that
they stalk forth from their lurking-places like actual demons, to
work in their native element, as the hideous apparition of the
Bearded Man came forth at Versailles, on the memorable 5th
October, 1789, the delighted executioner of the victims delivered
up to him by a bloodthirsty rabble. But Cleveland belonged to
the second class of these unfortunate beings, who are involved in
evil rather by the concurrence of external circumstances than by
natural inclination, being, indeed, one of whom his first engaging
in this lawless mode of life, as the follower of his father, nay, per-
haps, even his pursuing it as his father's avenger, carried with it
something of mitigation and apology ;— one also who often con-
sidered his guilty situation with horror, and had made repeated,
though ineffectual efforts, to escape from it.

Such thoughts of remorse were now rolling in his mind, and he
may be forgiven, if recollections of Minna mingled with and aided
them. He looked around, too, on his mates, and, profligate and
hardened as he knew them to be, he could not think of them
paying the penalty of his obstinacy. " We shall be ready to sail
with the ebb tide," he said to himself^" why should I endanger
these men, by detaining them till the hour of danger, predicted by
that singular woman, shall arrive? Her inteUigence, howsoever
acquired, has been always strangely accurate ; and her warning
was as solemn as if a mother were to apprize an erring son of his
crimes, and of his approaching punishment. Besides, what chance
is there that I can again see Minna ? She is at Kirkwall, doubt-
less, and to hold my course thither would be to steer right upon
the rocks. No, I will not endanger these poor fellows — I will sail
with the ebb tide. On the desolate Hebrides, or on the north-west
coast of Ireland, I will leave the vessel, and return hither in some
disguise— yet, why should I return, since it will perhaps be only to
see Minna the bride of Mordaunt ? No— let the vessel sail with
this ebb tide without me. I will abide and take my fate."

His meditations were here interrupted by Jack Bunce, who, hail-
ing him noble Captain, said they were ready to sail when he pleased.

""When you please, Bunce ; for I shall leave the command with
you, and go ashore at Stromness," said Cleveland.

THE PIRATE. 333

"You shall do no such matter, by Heaven !" answered Bunce.
" The command with me, truly ! and how the devil am I to get the
crew to obey ?;z« .? Why, even Dick Fletcher rides rusty on me
now and then. You know well enough that, without you, we shall
be all at each other's throats in half an hour ; and, if you desert
us, what a rope's end does it signify whether we are destroyed by
the king's cruisers, or by each other ? Come, come, noble Captain,
there are black-eyed girls enough in the world, but where will you
find so tight a sea-boat as the little Favourite here, manned as she
is with a set of tearing lads,

' Fit to disturb the peace of all the world.
And rule it when 'tis wildest ? ' "

" You are a precious fool. Jack Bunce," said Cleveland, half an-
gry, and, in despite of himself, half diverted, by the false tones and
exaggerated gesture of the stage-struck pirate.

" I may be so, noble Captain," answered Bunce, " and it may be
that I have my comrades in my folly. Here are you, now, going to
play All for Love, and the World well Lost, and yet you cannot
bear a harmless bounce in blank verse — Well, I can talk prose for
the matter, for I have news enough to tell — and strange news^ too
— ay, and stirring news to boot."

" Well, prithee deliver them (to speak thy own cant) like a man
of this world."

" The Stromness fishers will accept nothing for their provisions
and trouble," said Bunce — " there is a wonder for you ! "

" And for what reason, I pray ? " said Cleveland ; " it is the first
time I have ever heard of cash being refused at a seaport."

" True — they commonly lay the charges on as thick as if they
were caulking. But here is the matter. The owner of the brig
yonder, the father of your fair Imoinda, stands paymaster, by way
of thanks for the civility with which we treated his daughters, and
that we may not meet our due, as he calls it, on these shores."

" It is like the frank-hearted old Udaller ! " said Cleveland ; " but
is he at Stromness ? I thought he was to have crossed the island
for Kirkwall."

" He did so purpose," said Bunce ; "but more folks than King
Duncan change the course of their voyage. He was no sooner
ashore than he was met with by a meddhng old witch of these
parts, who has her finger in every man's pie, and by her counsel he
changed his purpose of going to Kirkwall, and lies at anchor for
the present ^in yonder white house, that you may see with your

384 THE PIRATE.

glass up the lake yonder. I am told the old woman clubbed also
to pay for the sloop's stores. Why she should shell out the boards
I cannot conceive an idea, except that she is said to be a witch, and
may befriend us as so many devils."

" But who told you all this ?" said Cleveland, without using his
spy-glass, or seeming so much interested in the news as his comrade
had expected.

" Why," replied Bunce, " I made a trip ashore this morning to
the village, and had a can with an old acquaintance, who had been
sent by Master Troil to look after matters, and I fished it all out
of him, and more, too, than I am desirous of telling you, noble
Captain."

" And who is your intelligencer ? " said Cleveland ; " has he got
no name ? "

"Why, he is an old, fiddling, foppish acquaintance of mine,
called Halcro, if you must know," said Bunce.

" Halcro ? " echoed Cleveland, his eyes sparkling with surprise—
" Claud Halcro ! — why, he went ashore at Inganess with Minna and
her sister — Where are they?"

" Why, that is just what I did not want to tell you," replied the
confidant — " yet hang me if I can help it, for I cannot baulk a fine
situation. — That start had a fine effect — O ay, and the spy-glass is
turned on the House of Stennis now ! — Well, yonder they are, it
must be confessed — indifferently well guarded, too. Some of the
old witch's people are come over from that mountain of an island
— Hoy, as they call it ; and the old gentleman has got some fellows
under arms himself. But what of all that, noble Captain ! — give
you but the word, and we snap up the wenches to-night — clap them
under hatches — man the capstem by daybreak — up topsails — and
sail with the morning tide."

"You sicken me with your villainy," said Cleveland, turning away
from him.

" Umph !— villainy, and sicken you ! " said Bunce — " Now, pray,
what have I said but what has been done a thousand times by gen-
tlemen of fortune like ourselves ? " ,

" Mention it not again," said Cleveland ; then took a turn along
the deck, in deep meditation, and, coming back to Bunce, took him
by the hand, and said, "Jack, I will see her once more."

" With all my heart," said Bunce, sullenly.

" Once more will I see her, and it may be to abjure at her feet
this cursed trade, and expiate my offences "

" At the gallows ! " said Bunce, completing the sentence — " With
all my heart !— confess and be hanged is a most reverend pro-
verb."

THE PIRATE. 38s

" Nay— but, dear Jack ! " said Cleveland.

"Dear Jack!" answered Bunco, in the same sullen tone — "a
dear sight you have been to dear Jack. But hold your own course
—I have done with, caring for you for ever — I should but sicken
^ou with my villainous counsels."

" Now, must I soothe this silly fellow as if he were a spoiled
child," said Cleveland, speaking at Bunco, but not to him ; " and
yet he has sense enough, and bravery enough, too ; and, one would
think, kindness enough to know that men don't pick their words
during a gale of wind."

" Why, that's true, Clement," said Bunce, " and there is my hand
upon it —And, now I think upon't, you shall have your last inter-
view, for it's out of my line to prevent a parting scene ; and what
signifies a tide — we can sail by to-morrow's ebb as well as by
this." , -,

Cleveland sighed, for Noma's prediction rushed on his mind ;
but the opportunity of a last meeting with Minna was too tempting
to be resigned either for presentiment or prediction.

" I will go presently ashore to the place where they all are," said
Bunce ; " and the payment of these stores shall serve me for a pre-
text ; and I will carry any letters or message from you to Minna
with the dexterity of a valet de chambre."

" But they have armed men — you may be in aanger," said Cleve-
land.

" Not a whit— not a whit," replied Bunce. " I protected the
wenches when they were in my power ; I warrant their father will
neither wrong me, nor see me wronged."

" You say true," said Cleveland, " it is not in his nature. 'I will
instantly write a note to Minna." And he ran down to the cabin
for that purpose, where he wasted much paper, ere, with a trembling
hand, and throbbing heart, he achieved such a letter as he hoped
might prevail on Minna to permit him a farewell meeting on the
succeeding morning.

His adherent, Bunce, in the meanwhile, sought out Fletcher,
of whose support to second anyjnotion whatever, he accounted
himself perfectly sure ; and, followed by this trusty satellite, he
intruded himself on the awful presence of Hawkins the boatswain,
and Derrick the quarter-master, who were regaling themselves with
a can of rumbo, after the fatiguing duty of the day.

" Here comes he can tell us," said Derrick.—" So, Master Lieu-
tenant, for so me must call you now, I think,, let us have a peep
into your counsels — When will the anchor be a-trip ? "

"When it pleases heaven, Master Quarter-master," answered
Bunce, " for I know no more than the stern-post."

c c

385 THE PIRATE.

"Why, d— n my buttons," said Derrick, "do we not weigh this
tide?"

" Or to-morrow's tide,, at farthest ? " said the Boatswain—" Why,
what have we been slaving" the whole company for, to get all these
stores aboard?" ^ <jie!.^^

" Gentlemen," said Bunce, " you are to know that Cupid has laid
our Captain on board, carried the vessel, and nailed down his wits
under hatches."

" What sort of play-stuff is all this ? " said the Boatswain,
gruffly. - " If you have anything to tell us, say it in a word, like a
man."

" Howsomdever," said Fletcher, " I always think Jack Bunce

speaks like a man, and acts like a man too — and so, d'ye see "

f " Hold your peace, dear Dick, best of buUybacks, be silent,'' said
Bunce — " Gentlemen, in one word, the Captain is in love."

" Why; now, only think of that ! " said the Boatswain ; " not but
that I have been in love as often as any man, when the ship was
laid up."

" Well, but," continued Bunce, " Captain Cleveland is in love
— Yes — Prince Volscius is in love ; and, though that's the cue for
laughing on the stage, it is no laughing matter here. He expects
to meet the girl to-morrow, for the last time ; and that, we all
know, leads to another meeting, and another, and so on till the
Halcyon is down on us, and then we may look for more kicks than
halfpence."

" By — ," said the Boatswain, with a sounding oath, " we'll have
a munity, and not allow him to go ashore, — eh, Derrick ?"

" And the best way, too," said Derrick.

" What d'ye think of it, Jack Bunce ? " said Fletcher, in whose
ears this counsel sounded very sagely, but who still bent a wistful
look upon his companion.

" Why, look ye, gentlemen," said Bunce, " I will mutiny none,
and stap my vitals if any of you shall ! "

" Why, then I won't, for one," said Fletcher ; " but what are we
to do, since howsomdever"

" Stopper your jaw, Dick, will you ? " said Bunce. — " Now, Boat-
swain, I am partly of your mind, that the Captain must be brought
to reason by a little wholesome force. But you all know he has the
spirit of a Uon, and will do nothing unless he i^ allowed to hold on
his own course. Well, I'll go ashore and make this appointment.
This girl comes to the rendezvous in the morning, and the Captain
goes ashore — we take a good boat's crew with us, to row against
tide and current, and we will be ready at the signal, to jump ashore
and bring off the Captain and the girl whether they will or no.

THE PIRATE. 387

The pet-child will not quarrel with us, since we bring off his whir-
ligig along with him ; and if he is still fractious, why, we will weigh
anchor without his orders, and let him come to his senses at leisure,
and know his friends another time."

" Why, this has a face with it, Master Derrick," said Hawkins.

" Jack Bunce is always right," said Fletcher ; " howsomdever,
the Captain will shoot some of us, that is certain."

" Hold your jaw, Dick," said Bunce ; " pray, who the devil cares,
do you think, whether you are shot or hanged } "

"Why, it don't much argufy for the matter of that," replied
Di(jk ;" howsomdever" '

" Be quiet, I tell you," said his inexorable patron, " and hear me
out. — We will take him at unawares, so that he shall neither have
time to use cutlass nor pops ; and I myself, for the dear love I bear
him, will be the first to lay him on his back. There is a nice
tight-going bit of a pinnace, that is a consort of this chase of the
Captain's,— if I have an opportunity, I'll snap her up on my own
account."

"Yes, yes," said Derrick, " let you alone for keeping on the look-
out for your own comforts."

" Faith, nay," said Bunce, " I only snatch at them when they
come fairly in my way, or are purchased by dint of my own wit ;
and none of you could have fallen on such a plan as this. We shall
have the Captain with us, head, hand, and heart and all, besides
making a scene fit to finish a comedy. So I will go ashore to
make the appointment, and do you possess some of the gentlemen
who are still sober, and fit to be trusted, with the knowledge of our
intentions."

Bunce, with his friend Fletcher, departed accordingly, and the
two veteran pirates remained looking at each other in silence, until
the Boatswain spoke at last. " Blow me, Derrick, if I like these
two daffadandilly young fellows ; they are not the true breed. Why,
they are no more like the rovers I have known, than this sloop is to
a first-rate. Why, there was old Sharpe that , read prayers to his
ship's company every Sunday, what would he have said to have
heard it proposed to bring two wenches on board ! "

" And what would tough old Black Beard have said," answered
his companion, " if they had expected to keep them to themselves 'i
They deserve to be made to walk the plank for their impudence ;
or to be tied back to back and set a-diving, and I care not how
soon."

"Ay, but who is to command the ship, then?" said Hawkins,

'Why, what ails you at old Goffe?" answered Derrick.

" Why, he has sucked the monkey so long and so often," said the

C C 3

388 THE PIRATE.

Boatswain, " that the best of him is buffed He is little better than
an old woman when he is sober, and he is roaring mad when he is
drunk — we have had enough of Goffe."

" Why, then, what d'ye say to yourself, or to me, Boatswain ? "
demanded the Quarter-master. "I am content to toss up for
it?"

" Rot it, no," answered the Boatswain, after a moment's con-
sideration ; " if we were within reach of the trade- winds, we might
either of us make a shift ; but it will take all Cleveland's navigation
to get us there ; and so, I think, there is nothing like Bunce's pro-
ject for the present. Hark, he calls for the boat — I must go on
deck and have her lowered for his honour, d — n his eyes."

The boat was lowered accordingly, made its voyage up the lake
with safety, and landed Bunce within a few hundred yards of the
old mansion-house of Stennis. Upon arriving in front of the
house, he found that hasty measures had been taken to put it in a
state of defence, the lower windows being barricaded, with places
left for use of musketry, and a ship-gun being placed so as to com-
mand/ the entrance, which was besides guarded by two sentinels.
Bunce demanded admission at the gate, which was briefly and un-
ceremoniously refused, with an exhortation to him, at the same
time, to be gone about his business before worse came of it. As
he continued, however, importunately to insist on seeing some one
of the family, and stated his business to be of the most urgent
nature, Claud Halcro at length appeared, and, with more peevish-
ness than belonged to his usual manner, that admirer of glorious
John expostulated with his old acquaintance upon his pertinacious
folly.

" You are," he said, " like foolish moths fluttering about a candle,
which is sure at last to consume you."

" And you," said Bunce, " are a set of stingless drones, whom we
can smoke out of your defences at our pleasure, with half-a-dozen of
hand-grenades."

" Smoke a fool's head ! " said Halcro ; " take my advice, and
mind your own matters, or there will be those upon you will smoke
you to purpose. Either begone, or tell me in two words what you
want ; for you are like to receive no welcome here save from a
blunderbuss. We are men enough of ourselves ; and here is young
Mordaunt Mertoun come from Hoy, whom your Captain so nearly
anurdered."

" Tush, man," said Bunce, " he did but let out a little malapert
blood."

" We want no such phlebotomy here," said Claud Halcro ; "and
besides, your patient turns out to be nearer allied to us than either

THE PIRATE. 389

you or we thought of ; so you may think how httle welcome the
Captain or any of his crew are like to be here."

" Well, but what if I bring money for the stores sent on
board ? "

" Keep it till it is asked of you," said Halcro. "There are two
bad paymasters— he that pays too soon, and he that does not pay
at all."

" Well, then, let me at least give our thanks to the donor," said
Bunce.

" Keep them, too, till they are asked for," answered the poet.

" So this is all the welcome I have of you for old acquaintance'
sake?" said Bunce.

" Why, what can I do for you, Master Altamont ? " said Halcro,
somewhat moved, — " If young Mordaunt had had his own will, he
would have welcomed you with ' the red Burgundy, Number a thou-
sand.' For God's sake begone, else the stage direction will be,
Enter guard, and seize Altamont."

. " I will not give you the trouble," said Bunce, " but will make my
exit instantly. — Stay a moment — I had almost forgot that I have a
slip of paper for the tallest of your girls there— Minna, ay, Minna
is her name. It is a farewell from Captain Cleveland — you cannot
refuse to give it her ? "

" Ah, poor fellow ! " said Halcro — " I comprehend — I compre-
hend — Farewell, fair" Armida — '

' 'Mid pikes and 'mid bullets, 'mid tempests and fire,
The danger is less than in hopeless desire ! '

Tell me but this — is there poetry in it ? "

" Chokeful to the seal, with song, sonnet, and elegy," answered
Bunce ; " but let her have it cautiously and secretly."

" Tush, man — teach me to deliver a billet-doux ! — me, who have
been in the Wits' Coffee-house, and have seen all the toasts of the
Kit-Kat Club ! — Minna shall have it, then, for old acquaintance'
sake, Mr. Altamont, and for your Captain's sake, too, who has less
of the core of devil about him than his trade requires. There can
be no harm in a farev/ell letter."

" Farewell, then, old boy, for ever and a day ! " said Bunce ; and
seizing the poet's hand, gave it so hearty a grip, that he left him
roaring, and shaking his fist, like a dog when a hot cinder has fallen
on his foot.

Leaving the rover to return on board the vessel, we remain with
the family of Magnus Troil, assembled at their kinsman's mapsioij

390 THE PIRATE.

of Stennis, where they maintained a constant and careful watch
against surprise.

Mordaunt Mertoun had been received with much kindness by
Magnus Troil, when he came to his assistance, with a small party
of Norna's dependants, placed by her under his command. The
Udaller was easily satisfied that the reports instilled into his ears
by the Jagger, zealous to augment his favour towards his more
profitable customer Cleveland, by diminishing that of Mertoun,
were without foundation. They had, indeed, been confirmed by the
good Lady Glowrowrum, and by common fame, both of whom were
pleased to represent Mordaunt Mertoun as an arrogant pretender
to the favour of the sisters of Burgh- Westra, who only hesitated,
sultan-like, on whom he should bestow the handkerchief. But
common fame, Magnus considered, was a common liar, and he was
sometimes disposed (where scandal was concerned) to regard the
good Lady Glowrowrum as rather an uncommon specimen of the
same genus. He therefore received Mordaunt once more into full
favour, listened with much surprise to the claim which Noma laid
to the young man's duty, and with no less interest to her intention
of surrendering to him the considerable property which she had
inherited from her father. Nay, it is even probable that, though
he gave no immediate answer to her hints concerning an union
betwixt his eldest daughter and her heir, he might think such an
alliance recommended, as well by the young man's personal merits,
as by the chance it gave of reuniting the very large estate which had
been divided betwixt his own father and that of Noma. ' At all
events, the Udaller received his young friend with much kindness,
and he and the proprietor of the mansion joined in intrusting to
him, as the youngest and most active of the party, the charge of
commanding the night-watch, and relieving the sentinels around
the House of Stennis.

CHAPTER XL.

Of an outlawe, this is the lawe —

That men him take and bind,
Without pitie hang'd to be,

And waive with the wind.

The Ballad of the Nut Brown Maid.

Mordaunt had caused the sentinels who had been on duty since
midnight to be relieved ere the peep of day, and having given

THE PIRATE. 391

directions that the guard should be again changed at sunrise, he
had retired to a small parlour, and, placing his arms beside him,
was slumbering in an easy-chair, when he felt himself pulled by the
watch-cloak in which he was enveloped.

" Is it sunrise," said he, " already ? " as, starting up, he discovered
the first beams lying level upon the horizon.

" Mordaunt ! " said a voice, every note of which thrilled to his
heart.

He turned his eyes on the speaker, and Brenda Troil, to Ifis
joyful astonishment, stood before him. As he was about to ad-
dress her eagerly, he was checked by observing the signs of sorrow
and discomposure in her pale cheeks, trembling lips, and brimful
eyes.

" Mordaunt," she said, " you must do Minna and me a favour —
you must allow us to leave the house quietly, and without alarming
any one, in order to go as far as the Standing Stones of^Stennis."

" What freak can this be, dearest Brenda ? " said Mordaunt,
much amazed at the request — " some Orcadian observance of
superstition, perhaps ; but the time is too dangerous, and my charge
from your father too strict, that I should permit you to pass without
his consent. Consider, dearest Brenda, I am a soldier on duty,
and must obey orders."

" Mordaunt," said Brenda, " this is no jesting matter — Minna's
reason, nay, Minna's life, depends on your giving us this permis-
sion."

" And for what purpose ? " said Mordaunt ; " let me at least know
that."

" For a wild and a desperate purpose," replied Brenda — " It is
that she may meet Cleveland."

" Cleveland ! " said Mordaunt — " Should the villain come ashore,
he shall- be welcomed with a shower of rifle-balls. Let me within
a hundred yards of him," he added, grasping his piece, " and all
the mischief he has done me shall be balanced with an ounce
bullet ! "

" His death will drive Minna frantic," said Brenda ; " and him
who injures Minna, Brenda will never again look upon."

" This is madness— raving madness ! " said Mordaunt — " Con-
sider your honour — consider your duty."

" I can consider nothing but Minna's danger," said Brenda,
breaking into a flood of tears ; " her former illness was nothing to
the state she has been in all night. She holds in her hand his
letter, written in characters of fire, rather than of ink, imploring
her to see him, for a last farewell, as she would save a mortal body,
and an immortal soul ; pledging himself for her safety ; and de-

333 THE PIRATE.

daring no power shall force him from the coast till he has seen her.
— You must let us pass."

" It is impossible !" replied Mordaunt, in great perplexity — "This
ruffian has imprecations enough, doubtless, at his fingers' ends' — but
what better pledge has he to offer ? — I cannot permit Minna to go."

" I suppose," said Brenda, somewhat reproachfully, while she
dried her tears, yet still continued sobbing, " that, there is dome-
thing in what Noma spoke of betwixt Minna and you ; and that
you are too jealous of this poor wretch, to allow him even to speak
with her an instant before his departure."

" You are unjust," said Mordaunt, hurt, and yet somewhat flat-
tered by her suspicions, — " you are as unjust as .you are imprudent.
You know — you cannot but know — that Minna is chiefly dear to
me as your sister. Tell me, Brenda — and tell me truly — if I aid
you in this folly, have you no suspicion of the Pirate's faith ? "

" No, none," said Brenda ; " if I had any, do you think I would
urge you thus ? He is wild and :unhappy, but I think we may in
this trust him."

■ "Is the appointed place the Standing Stones, and the time day-
break.'" again demanded Mordaunt.

" It is, and the time is come," said Brenda, — "for Heaven's sake
let us depart ! "

" I will myself," said Mordaunt, " relieve the sentinel at the
front door for a few minutes, and suffer you to pass. — You will not
protract this interview, so full of danger ? "

" We will not," said Brenda ; " and you, on your part, will not
avail yourself of this unhappy man's venturing hither, to harm or to
seize him ? "

" Rely on my honour," said Mordaunt — " He shall have no harm,
unless he offers any."

" Then I go to call my sister," said Brenda, and quickly left the
apartment.

Mordaunt considered the matter for an instant, and then going
to the sentinel at the front door, he desired him to run instantly to
the main-guard, and order the whole to turn out with their arms —
to see the order obeyed, and to return when they were in readiness.
Meantime, he himself, he said, would remain upon the post.

During the intqfval of the sentinel's absence, the front door was
slowly opened, and Minna and Brenda appeared, muffled in their
mantles. The former leaned on her sister, and kept her face bent
on the ground, as one who felt ashamed of the step she was about
to take. Brenda also passed her lover in silence, but threw back
upon him a look of gratitude and affection, which doubled, if pos-
sible, his aijxiety for their safety.

THE PIRATE. 393

The sisters, in the meanwhile, passed out of sight of the house ;
when Minna, whose step, till that time, had been faint and feeble,
began to erect her person, and to walk with a pace so firm and so
swift, that Brenda, who had some difficulty to keep up with her,
could not forbear remonstrating on the imprudence of hurrying
her spirits, and exhausting her force, by such unnecessary haste.

" Fear not, my dearest sister," said iVIinna ; " the spirit which I
now feel will, and must, sustain me through the dreadful interview.
I could not but move with a drooping head, and dejected pace,
while I was in view of one who must necessarily deem me deserv-
ing of his pity, or his scorn. But you know, my dearest Brenda,
and Mordaunt shall also know, that the love I bore to that vin-
happy man, was as pure as the rays of that sun, that is now
reflected on the waves. And I dare attest that glorious sun, and
yonder blue heaven, to bear me witness, that, but to urge him
to change his unhappy course of life, I had not, for aU the
temptations this round world holds, ever consented to see him more."

As she spoke thus, in a tone which afforded much confidence
to Brenda, the sisters attained the summit of a rising ground,
whence they commanded a full view of the Orcadian Stonehenge,
consisting of a huge circle and semicircle of the Standing Stones,
as they are called, which already glimmered a greyish white in
the rising sun, and projected far to the westward their long
gigantic shadows. At another time, the scene would have
operated powerfully on the imaginative mind of Minna, and in-
t«ested the curiosity at least of her less sensitive sister. But, at
this moment, neither was at leisure to receive the impressions
which this stupendous monument of antiquity is so well calcu-
lated to impress on the feelings of those who behold it ; for they
saw, in the lower lake, beneath what is termed the Bridge of
Broisgar, a boat well manned and armed, which had disembarked
one of its crew, who advanced alone, and wrapped in a naval
cloak, towards that monumental circle which they themselves
were about to reach from another quarter.

" They are many, and they are armed," said the startled Brenda,
in a whisper to her sister.

"It is for precaution's sake," answered Minna, "which, alas,
their condition renders but too necessary. Fear no treachery
from him — that, at least, is not his vice."

As she spoke, or shortly afterwards, she attained the centre of
the circle, on which, in the midst of the tall erect pillars of
rude stone that are raised arojmd, lies one flat and prostrate,
supported by short stone pillars, of which some relics are still
visible, that had once served, perhaps, the purpose of an altar.

394 THE PIRATE.

" Here," she said, " in heathen times (if we may believe legends,
which have cost me but too dear) our ancestors offered sacrifices to
heathen deities — and here will I, from my soul, renounce, abjure,
and offer up to a better and a more merciful God than was known
to them, the vain ideas with ^which ray youthful imagination has
been seduced."

She stood by the prostrate table of stone, and saw Cleveland
advance towards her, with a timid pace, and a downcast look, as
different from his usual character and bearing, as Minna's high
air and lofty demeanour, and calm contemplative posture, were
distant from those of the love-lorn and broken-hearted maiden,
whose weight had almost borne down the support of her sister as
she left the House of Stennis. If the belief of thosq is true, who
assign these singular monuments exclusively to the Druids, Minna
might have seemed the Haxa, or high priestess of the order, from
whom some champion of the tribe expected inauguration. Or, if
we hold the circles of Gothic and Scandinavian origin, she might
have seemed a descended Vision of Freya, the spouse of the
Thundering Deity, before whom some bold Sea- King or champion
bent with an awe, which no mere mortal terror could have inflicted
upon him. Brenda, overwhelmed with inexpressible fear and
doubt, remained a pace or two behind, anxiously observing the
motions of Cleveland, and attending to nothing around, save to him
and to her sister.

Cleveland approached within two yards of Minna, and bent his
head to the ground. There was a dead pause, until Minna said,
in a firm but melancholy tone, " Unhappy man, why didst tfiou
seek this aggravation of our woe ? Depart in peace, and may
Heaven direct thee to a better course than that which thy life has
yet held?"

" Heaven will not aid me," said Cleveland, ''excepting by your
voice. I came hither rude and wild, scarce knowing that my trade,
my desperate trade, was more criminal in the sight of man or of
Heaven, than that of those privateers whom your law acknowledges.
I was bred in it, and, but for the wishes you have encouraged me
to form, I should have perhaps died in it, desperate and impeni-
tent. O, do not throw me from you ! let me do something to re-
deem what I have done amiss, and do not leave your own work
half-finished ! "

" Cleveland," said Minna, " I will not reproach you with abusing
my inexperience, or with availing yourself of those delusions which
the creduhty of early youth had flung around me, and which led
me to confound your fatal course of life with the deeds of our
ancient heroes. Alas, when I saw your followers, thg.t illusion was

THK PIRATE. 395

no more f — but I do not upbraid you with its having existed. Go,
Cleveland ; detach yourself from those miserable wretches with
whom you are associated, and believe me, that if Heaven yet grants
you the means of distinguishing your name by one good or glorious
action, there are eyes left in those lonely islands, that will weep as
much for joy, as — as — they must now do for sorrow."

" And is this all ? " said Cleveland ; " and may I not hope, that
if I extricate myself from my present associates — if I can gain my
pardon by being as bold in the right, as I have been too often in
the wrong cause — if, after a term, I care not how long — but still a
term which may have an end, I can boast of having redeemed my
fame — may I not — may I not hope that Minna may forgive what
my God and my country shall have pardoned ? "

" Never, Cleveland, never ! " said Minna, with the utmost firm-
ness ; " on this spot we part, and part for ever, and part without
longer indulgence. Think of me as one of dead, if you continue as
you now are ; but if, which may Heaven grant, you change your
fatal course, think of me then as one, whose morning and evening
prayers will be for your happiness, though she has lost her own. —
Farewell, Cleveland ! "

He kneeled, overpowered by his own bitter feelings, to take the
hand which she held out to him, and in that instant, his confidant
Bunce, starting from behind one of the large upright pillars, his
eyes wet with tears, exclaimed —

" Never saw such a parting scene on any stage ! But I'll be
d — d if you make your exit as you expect ! "

And so saying, ere Cleveland could employ either remonstrance
or resistance, and indeed before he could get upon his feet, he
easily secured him by pulling him down on his back, so that two
or three of the boat's crew seized him by the arms and legs, and
bega.n to hurry him towards the lake. Minna and Brenda shrieked,
and attempted to fly ; but Derrick snatched up the former with as
much ease as a falcon pounces on a pigeon, while Bunce, with an
oath or two which were intended to be of a consolatory nature,
seized on Brenda ; and the whole party, with two or three of the other
pirates, who, stealing from the water-side, had accompanied thenl
on the ambuscade, began hastily to run towards the boat, which
was left in charge of two of their number. Their course, however,
was unexpectedly interrupted, and their criminal purpose entirely
frustrated.

When Mordaunt Mertoun had turned out his guard in arms, it
was with the natural purpose of watching over the safety of the two
sisters. They had accordingly closely observed the motions of the
pirates, and. when they saw so many of them leave the boat and

396 THE PIRATE.

Steal towards the place of rendezvous assigned to Cleveland, they
naturally suspected treachery, and by cover of an old hollow way
or trench, which perhaps had anciently been connected with the
monumental circle, they had thrown themselves unperceived
between the pirates and their boat. At the cries of the sisters,
they started up and placed themselves in the way of the ruffians,
presenting their pieces, which, notwithstanding, they dared not tire,
for fear of hurting the young ladies, secured as they were in the
rude grasp of the marauders. Mordaunt, however, advanced
with the speed of a wild deer on Bunce, who, loath to quit his
prey, yet unable to defend himself otherwise, turned to this side
and that alternately, exposing Brenda to the blows which Mor-
daunt offered at him. This defence, however, proved in vain
against a youth, possessed of the lightest foot and most active
hand ever known in Zetland, and after a feint or two, Mordaunt
brought the pirate to the ground with a stroke from the but of the
carabine, which he dared not use otherwise. At the same time
fire-arms were discharged on either side by those who were liable
to no such cause of forbearance, and the pirates who had hold of
Cleveland, dropped him, naturally enough, to provide for their own
defence or retreat. But they only added to the numbers of their
enemies ; for Cleveland, perceiving Minna in the arms of Derrick,
snatched her from the ruffian with one hand, and with the other
shot him dead on the spot. Two or three more of the pirates fell
or were taken, the rest fled to their boat, pushed off, then turned
their broadside to the shore, and fired repeatedly on the Orcadian
party, which they returned, with little injury on either side. Mean-
while Mordaunt, having first seen that the sisters were at liberty
and in full flight towards the house, advanced on Cleveland with
his cutlass drawn. The pirate presented a pistol, and calling out
at the same time, — " Mordaunt, I never missed my aim," he fired
into the air, and threw it into the lake ; then drew his cutlass,
brandished it round his head, and flung that also as far as his arm
could send it in the same direction. Yet such was the universal
belief of his personal strength and resources, that Mordaunt still
used precaution, as, advancing on Cleveland, he asked if he
surrendered.

" I surrender to no man," said the Pirate-captain ; " but you
may see I have thrown away my weapons."

He was immediately seized by some of the Orcadians without
his offering any resistance ; but the instant interference of Mor-
daunt prevented his being roughly treated, or bound. The victors
conducted him to a well-secured upper apartment in the House of
Stennis, and placed a sentinel at the door, Bunce and Fletcher,

THE PIRATE. 397

both of whom had been stretched on the field during the skirmish,
were lodged in the same chamber ; and two prisoners, who
appeared of lower rank, were confined in a vault belonging to the
mansion.

Without pretending to describe the joy of Magnus Troil, who,
when awakened by the noise and firing, found his daughters safe,
and his enemy a prisoner, we shall only say, it was so great, that
he forgot, for the time at least, to enquire what circumstances
were those which had placed them in danger ; that he hugged
Mordaunt to his breast a thousand times, as their preserver ;
and swore as often by the bones of his sainted namesake, that
if he had a thousand daughters, so tight a lad, and so true a
friend, should have the choice of them, let Lady Glowrowrum
say what she would.

A very different scene was passing in the prison-chamber of
the unfortunate Cleveland and his associates. The Captain sat
by the window, his eyes bent on the prospect of the sea which it
presented, and was seemingly so intent on it, as to be insensible
of the presence of the others. Jack Bunco stood meditating some
ends of verse, in order to make his advances towards a recon-
ciliation with Cleveland ; for he began to be sensible, from the
consequences, that the part he had played towards his Captain,
however well intended, was neither lucky in its issue, nor likely
to be ,well taken. His admirer and adherent Fletcher lay half
asleep, as it seemed, on a truckle-bed in the room, without
the least attempt to interfere in the conversation which ensued.

" Nay, but speak to me, Clement," said the penitent Lieutenant,
" if it be but to swear at me for my stupidity !

' What ! not an oath ? — Nay, then the world goes hard,
If Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.' "

" I prithee peace, and be gone ! " said Cleveland ; " I have one
bosom friend left yet, and you will make me bestow its contents on"
you, or on myself."

" I have it ! " said Bunce, " I have it ! " and on he went in the
vein of Jaffier —

" ' Then, by the hell I merit, Til not leave thee.
Till to thyself at least thou'rt reconciled,
However thy resentment deal with me ! ' "

"I pray you once more to be silent," said Cleveland — " Is it not
enough that you have undone me with your treachery, but you

398 THE pIrA-PE.

must slun me with your silly buffoonery? — I, would not have
believed you would have lifted a finger against me, Jack, of any
man or devil in yonder unhappy ship."

" Who, I ? " exclaimed Bunce, — " I lift, a finger against you !
—and if I did, it was in pure love, and to make you the
happiest fellow that ever trode a deck, with your mistress
beside you, and fifty fine fellows at your command. Here is Dick
Fletcher can bear witness I did all for the best, if he would but
speak, instead of lolloping there like a Dutch dogger laid up to be
careened. — Get up, Dick, and speak for me, won't you .'' "

" Why, yes. Jack Bunce," answered Fletcher, raising hiniself
with difficulty, and speaking feebly, " I will if I can — and I always
knew you spoke and did for the best — but howsomdever, d'ye see,
it has turned out for the worst for me this time, for I am bleeding
to death, 1 think."

" You cannot be such an ass ! " said Jack Bunce, springing to
his assistance, as did Cleveland. But human aid came too late
— he sunk back on the bed, and, turning on his face, expired
without a groan.

" I always thought him a d — d fool," said Bunce, as he wiped a
tear from his eye, " but never such a consummate idiot as to hop
the perch so sillily. I have lost the best follower '' — and he again
wiped his eye.

Cleveland looked on the dead body, the rugged features of which
had remained unaltered by the death-pang — "A bull-dog," he
said, "of the true British breed, and, with a better counsellor,
would have been a better man."

" You may say that of some other folks, too. Captain, if you are
minded to do them justice," said Bunce.

" I may indeed, and especially of yourself," said Cleveland, m
reply.

"Why then, say. Jack, I forgive you" said Bunce ; " it's but a
short word, and soon spoken."

" I forgive you from all my soul, Jack," said Cleveland, who had
resumed his situation at the window ; " and the rather that your
folly is of little consequence — the morning is come that must bring
ruin on us all."

" What ! you are thinking of the old woman's prophecy you
spoke of?" said Bunce.

" It will soon be accomplished," answered Cleveland. " Come'
hither ; what do you. take yon large square-rigged vessel for, that
you see doubhng the headland on the east, and opening the Bay
of Stromness ? "

" Why, I can't make her well out," said Bunce, " but yonder is

THE PIRATE. 399

old Goffe, takes her for a West Indiaman loaded with rum and
sugar, I suppose, for d — n me if he does not slip cable, and stand
out to her ! "

" Instead of running into the shoal-water, which was his only
safety," said Cleveland — " The fool ! the dotard ! the drivelling,
drunken idiot ! — he will get his flip hot enough ; for yon is the
Halcyon — See, she hoists her colours and fires a broadside ! and
there will soon be an end of the Fortune's Favourite ! I only hope
they will light her to the last plank. The Boatswain used to be
stanch enough, and so is Goffe, though an incarnate demon. —
Now she shoots away, with all the sail she can spread, and that
shows some sense."

" Up goes the Jolly Hodge, the old black flag, with the death's
head and hour-glass, and that shows some spunk," added his
comrade.

" The hour-glass is turned for us, Jack, for this bout — our sand
is running fast. — Fire away yet, my roving lads ! The deep sea or
the blue sky, rather than n rope and a yard-arm ! "

There was a moment of anxious and dead silence ; the sloop,
though hard pressed, maintaining still a running fight, and the frigate
continuing in full chase, but scarce returning a shot. At length
the vessels neared each other, so as to show that the man-of-war
intended to board the sloop, instead of sinking her, probably to
secure the plunder which might be in the pirate vessel.

" Now, Goffe — now. Boatswain ! " exclaimed Cleveland, in an
ecstasy of impatience, and as if they could have heard his com-
mands, " stand by sheets and tacks — rake her with a broadside,
when you are under her bows, then about ship, and go off on the
other tack like a wild-goose. The sails shiver — the helm's a-ln; —
Ah !— deep-sea sink the lubbers ! — they miss stays, and the frigate
runs them aboard ! "

Accordingly, the various manoeuvres of the chase had brought
them so near, that Cleveland, with his spy-glass, could see the
man-of-war's-men boarding by the yards and bowsprit, in irresis-
tible numbers, their naked cutlasses flashing in the sun, when, at
that critical moment, both ships were enveloped in a cloud of thick
black smoke, which suddenly arose on board the captured pirate.

" Exeunt omncs ! " said Bunco, with clasped hands.

" There went the Fortune's Favourite, ship and crew ! " said
Cleveland, at the same instant.

But the smoke immediately clearing away, showed that the
damage had only been partial, and that, from want of a sufficient
quanttty of powder, the pirates had failed in their desperate attempt
to blow up their vessel with the Halcyon.

4co tHE PIRATE.

Shortly after the action was over, Captain Weatherport of the
Halcyon sent an officer and a party of marines to the House of
Stennis, to demand from the little garrison the pirate seamen who
were their prisoners, and, in particular, Cleveland and Bunce, who
acted as Captain and Lieutenant of the gang.

This was a demand which was not to be resisted, though Magnus
Troil could have wished sincerely that the roof under which he
lived had been allowed as an asylum at least to Cleveland. But
the officer's orders were peremptory ; and ' he added, it was
Captain Weatherport's intention to land the other prisoners, and
send the whole, with a sufficient escort, across the island to Kirk-
wall, in order td undergo an examination there before the civil
authorities, previous to their being sent off to London for trial at
the High Court o^ Admiralty. Magnus could therefore only inter-
cede for good usage to Cleveland, and that he might not be stripped
or plundered, which the officer, struck by his good mien, and com-
passionating his situation, readily promised. The honest Udaller
would have said something in the way of comfort to Cleveland him.-
self, but he could not find words to express it. and only shook
his head.

" Old friend," said Cleveland, " you may have much to complain
of — yet you pity instead of exulting over me — for the sake of you
and yours,' I will never harm human being more. Take this from
me— ^my last hope, but my last temptation also " — he drew from
his bosom a pocket-pistol, and gave it to Magnus Troil. " Re-
member me to — But no — let every one forget me. — I am your
prisoner, sir," said he to the officer.

" And I also," said poor Bunce ; and putting on a theatrical
countenance, he ranted, with no very perceptible faltering in his
tone, the words of Pierre :

" ' Captain, you should be a gentleman of honour ;
Keep off the rabble, that 1 may have room
To entertain my fate, and die with decency.' "

CHAPTER XLI.

Joy, joy, in London now !

SOUTHEY.

The news of the capture of the Rover reached Kirkwall, about
an hour berfore noon, and filled all men with wonder and with
joy. Little business was that day done at the Fair, whilst people
of all ages and occupations streamed from the place to see the

THE PIRATE. 401

prisoners as they were marched towards Kirkwall, an"d to triumph
in the different appearance which they now bore, from that which
they had formerly exhibited when ranting, swaggering, and bully-
ing in the streets of that town. The bayonets of the marines were
soon seen to glisten in the sun, and then came on the melancholy
troop of captives, handcuffed two and two together. Their finery
had been partly torn from them by their captors, partly hung in
rags about them ; many were wounded and covered with blood,
many blackened and scorched with the explosion, by which a few
of the most desperate had in vain striven to blow up the vessel.
Most of them seemed sullen and impenitent, some were more
becomingly affected with their condition, and a few braved it out,
and sung the same ribald songs to which they had made the
streets of Kirkwall ring when they were in their frolics.

The Boatswain and Goffe, coupled together, exhausted them-
selves in threats and imprecations against each other ; the former
charging Goffe with want of seamanship, and the latter alleging
that the Boatswain had prevented him from firing the powder that
was stowed forward, and so sending them all to the other world
together. Last came Cleveland and Bunce, who were permitted
to walk unshackled ; the decent melancholy, yet resolved manner
of the former, contrasting strongly with the stage strut and swagger
which poor Jack thought it fitting to assume, in order to conceal
some less dignified emotion's. The former was looked upon with
compassion, the latter with a mixture of scorn and pity ; while
most of the others inspired horror, and even fear, by their looks
and their language.

There was one individual in Kirkwall, who was so far from
hastening to see the sight which attracted all eyes, that he was not
even aware of the event which agitated the town. This was the
elder Mertoun, whose residence Kirkwall had been for two or three
days, part of which had been spent in attending to some judicial
proceedings, undertaken at the instance of the Procurator Fiscal,
against that grave professor, Bryce Snailsfoot. In consequence of
an inquisition into the proceedings of this worthy trader, Cleve-
land's chest, with his papers and other matters therein contained,
had been restored to Mertoun, as the lawful custodier thereof, unti
the right owner should be in a situation to estabhsh his right to
them. Mertoun was at first desirous to throw back upon Justice
the charge which she was disposed to intrust him with ; but, on
perusing one or two of the papers, he hastily changed his mind— in
broken words, requested the Magistrate to let the chest be sent to
his lodgings, and, hastening homeward, bolted himself into the
room, to consider and digest the singular information which chance

D D

402 THE PIRATE.

had thus conveyed to him, and which increased, in a tenfold degree,
his impatience for an interview with the mysterious Noma of the
Fitful-head.

It may be remembered that she had required of him, when they
met in the Churchyard of Saint Ninian, to attend in the outer aisle
of the Cathedral of Saint Magnus, at the hour of noon, on the fifth
day of the Fair of Saint OUa, there to meet a person by whom the
fate of Mordaunt would be explained to him. — " It must be her-
self," he said ; " and that I should see her at this moment is in-
dispensable. How to find her sooner, I know not ; and better lose
a few hours even in this exigence, than offend her by a premature
attempt to force myself on her presence."

Long, therefore, before noon — long before the town of Kirkwall
was agitated by the news of the events on the other side of the
island, the elder Mertoun was pacing the deserted aisle of the
Cathedral, awaiting, with agonizing eagerness, the expected com-
munication from Noma. The bell tolled twelve — no door opened
— no one was seen to enter the Cathedral ; but the last sounds had
not ceased to reverberate through the vaulted roof, when, gliding
from one of the interior side-aisles. Noma stood before him. Mer-
toun, indifferent to the apparent mystery of her sudden approach,
(with the secret of which the reader is acquainted), went up to her
at once, with the earnest ejaculation — " Ulla — UUa Troil — aid me
to save our unhappy boy ! "

" To Ulla Troil," said Noma, " I answer not — I gave that name
to the winds, on the night that cost me a father ! "

" Speak not of that night of horror," said Mertoun ; " we have
need of our reason — let us not think on recollections which may
destroy it ; but aid me, if thou canst, to save our unfortunate
child!"

"Vaughan," answered Noma, " he is already saved — long since
saved ; think you a mother's hand — and that of such a mother as
I am — would await your crawling, tardy, ineffectual assistance?
No, Vaughan — I make myself known to you, but to show my
triumph over you — it is the only revenge which the powerful Noma
permits herself to take for the wrongs of Ulla Troil."

" Have you indeed saved him — saved him from the murderous
crew ? " said Mertoun, or Vaughan — " speak ! — and speak truth !
— I will believe every thing — all you would require me to assent to !
—prove to me only he is escaped and safe ! "

" Escaped and safe, by my means," said Noma — " safe, and in
assurance of an honoured and happy alliance. Yes, great un-
believer ! — yes, wise and self-opinioned infidel ! — these were the
works of Noma ! I knew y ou many a year since ; but never had

THE PIRATE. 403

I made myself known to you, save with the triumphant con-
sciousness of having controlled the destiny that threatened my
son. All combined against him — planets which threatened drown-
ing — combinations which menaced blood — but my skill was
superior to all. — I arranged — I combined — I found means — I
made them — each disaster has been averted ; — and what infidel
on earth, or stubborn demon beyond the bounds of earth, shall
hereafter deny my power ? "

The wild ecstasy with which she spoke, so mucli resembled
triumphant insanity, that Mertoun answered — "Were your pre-
tensions less lofty, and your speech more plain, -I should be
better assured of my son's safety."

" Doubt on, vain sceptic ! " said Noma — " And yet know, that
not only is our son safe, but vengeance is mine, though I sought
it not — vengeance on the powerful implement of the darker
Iniluences by whom my schemes were so often thwarted, and
even the life of my son endangered. — ^Yes, take it as a guarantee
of the truth of my speech, fiiat Cleveland — the pirate Cleveland —
even now enters Kirkwall as a prisoner, and will soon expiate with
his life the having shed blood which is of kin to Noma's."

" Who didst thou say was prisoner ? " exclaimed Mertoun, with
a voice of thunder — " Who, woman, didst thou say should expiate
his crimes with his life ? "

" Cleveland — the pirate Cleveland ! " answered Noma ; "and by
me, whose counsel he scorned, he has been permitted to meet
his fate."

" Thou most wretched of women ! " said Mertoun, speaking
from between his clenched teeth, — " thou hast slain thy son, as
well as thy father ! "

" My son ! — what son ? — what mean you ? — Mordaunt is your
son — your only son ! " exclaimed Noma — " is he not ? — tell me
quickly — is he not ? "

"Mordaunt is indeed my son," said Mertoun — "the laws, at
least, gave him to me as such — But, O unhappy Ulla ! Cleveland
is your son as well as mine — blood of our blood, bone of our bone ;
and if you have given him to death, I -Will end my wretched life
along with him ! "

" Stay — hold — stop, Vaughan ! " said Noma ; " I am not yet
overcome — prove but to me the truth of what you say, I would find
help, if I should evoke hell !— But prove your words, else believ
them I cannot."

" Thou help ! wretched, overweening woman !— in what have
thy combinations and thy stratagems— the legerdemain of lunacy
—the. mere quackery of insanity— in what have these involved thee?

D D 2

404 THE PIRATE.

—and yet I will speak to thee as reasonable— nay, I will admit
thee as powerful — Hear, then, UUa, the proofs which you demand,
and find a remedy, if thou canst : —

" When I fled from Orkney," he continued, after a pause — " it is
now five-and-twenty years since — I bore with me the unhappy
offspring to whom you had given light. It was sent to me by one
of your kinswomen, with an account of your illness, which was
soon followed by a generally received belief of your death. It
avails not to tell in what misery I left Europe. I found refuge in
Hispamiola, wherein a fair young Spaniard undertook the task of
comforter. I married her — she became mother of the youth
called Mordaunt Mertoun."

" You married her ! " said Noma, in a tone of deep reproach.

" I did, UUa," answered Mertoun ; " but you were avenged.
She proved faithless, and her infidelity left me in doubts whether
the child she bore had a right to call me father — But I also was
avenged."
i. " You murdered her ! " said Noma, with a dreadful shriek.

" I did that," said Mertoun, without a more direct reply, " which
made an instant flight from Hispaniola necessary. Your son I
carried with me to Tortuga, where we had a small settlement.
Mordaunt Vaughan, my son by marriage, about three or four years
younger, was residing in Port-Royal, for the advantages of an
English education. I resolved never to see him again, but I con-
tinued to support him. Our settlement was plundered by the
Spaniards, when Clement was but fifteen— Want came to aid
despair and a troubled conscience. I became a corsair, and in-
volved Clement in the same desperate trade. His skill and bravery,
though then a mere boy, gained him a separate command ; and
after a lapse of two or three years, while we were on different
cruises, my crew rose on me, and left me for dead on the beach
of one of the Bermudas. I recovered, however, and my first
enquiries, after a tedious illness, were after Clement. He, I heard,
had been also marooned by a rebellious crew, and put ashore on a
desert islet, to perish with want — I believed he had so perished."

" And what assures you that he did not ? " said UUa ; " or how
comes this Cleveland to be identified with Vaughan ? "

" To change a name is common with such adventurers," answered
Mertoun, " and Clement had apparently found that of Vaughan had
become too notorious — and this change, in his case, prevented me
from hearing any tidings of him. It was then that remorse seized
me, and that, detesting all nature, but especially the sex to which
Louisa belonged, I resolved to do penance in the wild islands of
Zetland for the rest of my life. To subject myself to fasts and to

THE PIRATE, 403

the scourge, was the advice of the holy Catholic priests, whom I
consulted. But I devised a nobler penance— I determined to
bring with me the unhappy boy Mordaunt, and to keep always
before me the living memorial of my misery and my guilt. I have
done so, and I have thought over both, till reason has often trem-
bled on her throne. And now, to drive me to utter madness, my
Clement — my own, my undoubted son, revives from the dead to be
consigned to an infamous death, by the machinations of his own
mother ! "

" Away, away !" said Noma, with a laugh, when she had heard
the story to an end, " this is a legend framed by the old corsair, to
interest my aid in favour of a guilty comrade. How could I
mistake Mordaunt for my son, their ages being so different ? "

" The dark complexion and manly stature may have done much,"
said Basil Mertoun ; "strong imagination must have done the rest.''

" But, give me proofs — give me proofs that this Cleveland is my
son, and,' believe me, this sun shall sooner sink in the east, than
they shall have power to harm a hair of his head."

" These papers, these journals," said Mertoun, offering the
pocket-book.

" I cannot read them," she said, after an effort, " my brain is
dizzy."

" Clement had also tokens which you may remember, but they
must have become the booty of his captors. He had a silver box
with a Runic inscription, with which in far other days you pre-
sented me — a golden chaplet."

" A box ! " said Norni, hastily ; " Cleveland gave me one but a
day since —I have never looked at it till now."

Eagerly she pulled it out — eagerly examined the legend around
the lid, and as eagerly exclaimed — " They may now indeed call me
Reimkennar, for by this rhyme I know myself murderess of my
son, as well as of my father ! "

The conviction of the strong delusion under which- she haa
laboured, was so overwhelming, that she sunk down at the foot of
one of the pillars— Mertoun shouted for help, though in despair of
receiving any ; the sexton, however, entered, and, hopeless of all
assistance from Noma, the distracted father rushed out, to learn,
if possible, the fate of his son.

4o6 THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER XLII.

Go, some of you, cry a reprieve !

Beggar's Opera.

Captain Weatherport had, before this time, reached Kirk-
wall in person, and was received with great joy and thankfulness
by the Magistrates, who had assembled in council for the purpose.
The Provost, in particular, expressed himself delighted with the
providential arrival of the Halcyon, at the very conjuncture when
the Pirate could not escape her. The Captain looked a little sur-
prised; and said — " For that, sir, you may thank the information
you yourself supplied."

" That I supplied ? " said the Provost, somewhat astonished.

" Yes, sir," answered Captain Weatherport, " I understand you
to be George Torfe, Chief Magistrate of Kirkwall, who subscribes
this letter."

The astonished Provost took the letter addressed to Captain
Weatherport of the Halcyon, stating the arrival, force, &c., of the
pirates' vessel ; but adding, that they heard of the Halcyon being
on the coast, and that they were on their guard and ready to baffle
her, by going among the shoals, and through the islands, and
holms, where the frigate could not easily follow ; and at the worst,
they were desperate enough to propose running the sloop ashore
and blowing her up, by which much" booty and treasure would be
lost to the captors. -The letter, therefore, suggested, that the
Halcyon should cruise betwixt Duncansbay Head and Cape
Wrath, for two or three days, to relieve the pirates of the alarm
her neighbourhood occasioned, and lull them into security, the
more especially as the letter-writer knew it to be their intention, if
the frigate left the coast, to go into Stromness Bay, and there put
their guns ashore for some necessary repairs, or even for careening
their vessel, if they could find means. The letter concluded by
assuring Captain Weatherport, that, if he could bring his frigate
into Stromness Bay on the morning of the 24th of August, he
would have a good bargain of the pirates — if sooner, he was not
unlikely to miss them.

" This letter is not of my writing or subscribing. Captain
Weatherport," said the Provost; "nor would I have ventured to
advise any delay in your coming hither."

The Captain was surprised in his turn. " All I know is, that it
reached me when I was inthe bay of Thurso, and that I gave the

THE PIRATE. 407

boat's crew that brought it five dollars for crossing the Pentland
Frith in very rough weather. They had a dumb dwarf as cock-
swain, the ugliest urchin my eyes ever opened upon. I give you
much credit for the accuracy of your intelligence, Mr. Provost."

" It is lucky as it is," said the Provost ; " yet I question whether
the writer of this letter would not rather that you had found the
nest cold and the bird flown."

So saying, he handed the letter to Magnus Troil, who returned
it with a smile, but without any observation, aware, doubtless, with
the sagacious reader, that Noma had her own reasons for calcu-
lating with accuracy on the date of the Halcyon's arrival.

Without puzzling himself farther concerning a circumstance
which seemed inexplicable, the Captain requested that the exami-
nations might proceed ; and Cleveland and Altamont, as he chose
to be called, were brought up the first of the pirate crew, on the
charge of having acted as Captain and Lieutenant. They had just
commenced the examination, when, after some expostulation with
the officers who kept the door, Basil Mertoun burst into the apart-
ment and exclainied, " Take the old victim for the young one ! — I
am Basil Vaughan, too well known on the windward station — take
my life, and spare my son's ! "

AH were astonished, and none more than Magnus Troil, who
hastily explained to the Magistrates and Captain Weatherport,
that this gentleman had been living peaceably and honestly on the
Mainland of Zetland for many years.

" In that case," said the Captain, " I wash my hands of the poor
man, for he is safe, under two proclamations of mercy ; and, by
my soul, when I see them, the father and his offspring, hanging on
each other's neck, I wish I could say as much for the son."

" But how is it — how can it be ? " said the Provost ; " we always
called the old man Mertoun, and the young, Cleveland, and now
it seems they are both named Vaughan."

" Vaughan," answered Magnus, " is a name which I have some
reason to remember ; and, from what I have lately heard from my
cousin Noma, that old man has a right to bear it."

" And, I trust, the young man also," said the Captain, who had
been looking over a memorandum. " Listen to me a moment," added
he, addressing the younger Vaughan, whom we have hitherto
called Cleveland. " Hark you, sir, your name is said to be Clement
Vaughan— are you the same, who, when a mere boy, commanded a
party of rovers, who, about eight or nine years ago, pillaged a
Spanish village called Quempoa, on the Spanish Main, with the
purpose of seizing some treasure ? "

" It will avail me nothing to deny it," answered the prisoner.

4o8 THE PIRATE.

" No," said Captain Weatherport, " but it may do you service to
admit it. — Well, the muleteers escaped with the treasure, while you
were engaged in protecting, at the hazard of your own life, the
honour of two Spanish ladies against the brutahty of your fol-
owers. Do you remember anything of this ? "

" I am sure / do," said Jack Bunce ; " for our Captain here
was marooned for his gallantry, and I narrowly escaped flogging
and pickling for having taken his part."

" When these points are established," said Captain Weather-
port, " Vaughan's life is safe — the women he saved were persons of
quality, daughters to the governor of the province, and application
was long since made, by the grateful Spaniard, to our government,
for favour to be shown to their preserver. I had special orders
about Clement Vaughan, when I had a commission for cruizing
upon the pirates, in the West Indies, six or seven years since.
But Vaughan was gone then as a name amongst them ; and I
heard enough of Cleveland in his room. However, Captain, be
you Cleveland or Vaughan, I think that, as the Quempoa hero, I
can assure you a free pardon when you arrive in London."

Cleveland bowed, and the blood mounted to his face. Mertoun
fell on his knees, and exhausted himself in thanksgiving to Heaven.
They were removed, amidst the sympathizing sobs of the spec-
tators.

" And now, good Master Lieutenant, what have you got to say
for yourself?" said Captain Weatherport to the ci-devant Roscius.

" Why, little or nothing, please your honour ; only that I wish
your honour could find my name in that book of mercy you have
in your hand ; for I stood by Captain Clement Vaughan in that
Quempoa business."

" You call yourself Frederick Altamont ? " said Captain Weather-
port. " I can see no such name here ; one John Bounce, or Bunce,
the lady put on her tablets."

" Why, that is me — that is I myself. Captain — I can prove it ;
and I am determined, though the sound be something plebeian,
rather to live Jack Bunce, than to hang as Frederick Altamont."

" In that case," said the Captain, " I can give you some hopes as
John Bunce."

"Thank your noble worship !" shouted Bunce ; then changing
his tone, he said, " Ah, since an alias has such virtue, poor Dick
Fletcher might have come off as Timothy Tugmutton ; but how-
somdever, d'ye see, to use his ewn phrase" ■

"Away with the Lieutenant," said the Captain, "and bring
forward Goffe and the other fellows ; there will be ropes reeved for
some of them, I think." And this prediction promised to be amply

THE PIRATE. 409

fulfilled, so strong was the proof which was brought against
them.

The Halcyon was accordingly ordered round to carry the whole
prisoners to London, for which she set sail in the course of two
days.

During the time that the unfortunate Cleveland remained at
Kirkwall, he was treated with civility by the Captain of the
Halcyon ; and the kindness of his old acquaintance, Magnus Troil
who knew in secret how closely he was allied to his blood, pressed
on him accommodations of every kind, more than he could be pre-
vailed on to accept.

Noma, whose interest in the unhappy prisoner was still more
deep, vt^as at this time unable to express it. The sexton had found
her lying on the pavement in a swoon, and when she recovered,
her mind for the time had totally lost its equipoise, and it became
necessary to place her under the restraint of watchful attendants.

Of the sisters of Burgh- Westra, Cleveland only heard that they
remained ill, in consequence of the fright to which they had been
subjected, until the evening before the Halcyon sailed, when he
received, by a private conveyance, the following billet : — " Farewell,
Cleveland— we part for ever, and it is right that we should — Be
virtuous and be happy. The delusions which a solitary education
and limited acquaintance with the modern world had spread
around me, are gone and dissipated for ever. But in you, I am
sure, I have been thus far free from error — that you are one to
whom good is naturally more attractive than evil, and whom only
necessity, example, and habit, have forced into your late course of
life. Think of me as one who no longer exists, unless you should
become as much the object of general praise, as now of general
reproach ; and then think of me as one who will rejoice in your
reviving fame, though she must never see you more ! " — The note
was signed M. T. j and Cleveland, with a deep emotion, which he
testified even by tears, read it an hundred times over, and then
clasped it to his bosom.

Mordaunt.Mertoun heard by letter from his father, but in a very
different style. Basil bade him farewell for ever, and acquitted
him henceforward of the duties of a son, as one on whom he, not-
withstanding the exertions of many years, had found himself unable
to bestow the affections of a parent. The letter informed him of a
recess in the old house of Jarlshof, in which the writer had de-
posited a considerable quantity of specie and of treasure, which he
desired Mordaunt to use as his own. " You need not fear," the
letter bore, " either that you lay yourself under obligation to me, or
that you are sharing the spoils of piracy, What is now given over

410 THE PIRATE.

to you, is almost entirely the property of your deceased mother,
Louisa Gonzago, and is yours by every right. Let us forgive each
other," was the conclusion, " as they who must meet no more."—
And they never met more ; for the elder Mertoun, against whom
no charge was ever preferred, disappeared after the fate of Cleve-
land was determined, and was generally believed to have retired
into a foreign convent.

The fate of Cleveland will be most briefly expressed in a letter
which Minna received within two months after the Halcyon left
Kirkwall. The family were then assembled at Burgh-Westra, and
Mordaunt was a member of it for the time, the good Udaller think-
ing he could never sufficiently repay the activity which he had
shown in the defence of his daughters. Noma, then beginning to
recover from her temporary alienation of mind, was a guest in the
family, and Minna, who was sedulous in her attention upon this
unfortunate victim of mental delusion, was seated with her, watch-
ing each symptom of returning reason, when the letter w€ allude
to was placed in her hands.

" Minna," it said — " dearest Minna ! — farewell, and for ever !
Believe me, I never meant you wrong — never. From the moment
I came to know you, I resolved to detach myself from my hateful
comrades, and had framed a thousand schemes, which have proved
as vain as they deserved to be — for why, or how, should the fate of
her that is so lovely, pure, and innocent, be involved with that of
one so guilty ? — Of these dreams I will speak no more. The stern
reality of my situation is much milder than I either expected or
deserved ; and the little good I did has outweighed, in the minds
of honourable and merciful judges, much that was evil and criminal.
I have not only been exempted from the ignominious death to
which several of my compeers are sentenced ; but Captain Weather-
port, about once more to sail for the Spanish Main, under the
apprehension of an immediate war with that country, has gene-
rously solicited and obtained permission to employ me, and two
or three more of my less guilty associates, in the same service — a
measure recommended to himself by his own generous compas-
sion, and to others by our knowledge of the coast, and of local
circumstances, which, by whatever means acquired, we now hope
to use for the service of our country. Minna, you will hear my
name pronounced with honour, or you will never hear it again. If
virtue can give happiness, I need not wish it to you, for it is yours
already. — Farewell, Minna."

Minna wept so bitterly over this letter, that it attracted the
attention of the convalescent Noma. She snatched it from the
hand of her kinswoman, and read it over at first with the con-

THE PIRAtE. 4it

fused air of one to whom it conveyed no intelligence— then with a
dawn of recollection— then with a burst of mingled joy and grief,
in which she dropped it from her hand. Minna snatched it up,
and retired with her treasure to her own apartment.

From that time Noma appeared to assume a different character.
Her d:ess was changed to one of a more simple and less imposing
appearance. Her dwarf was dismissed, with ample provision for
his future comfort. She showed no desire of resuming her erratic
life ; and directed her observatory, as it might be called, on Fitful-
head, to be dismantled. She refused the name of Noma, and
would only be addressed by her real appellation of Ulla Troil.
But the most important change remained behind. Formerly, from
the dreadful dictates of spiritual despair, arising out of the circum-
stances of her father's death, she seemed to have considered
herself as an outcast from divine grace ; besides, that, enveloped
in the vain occult sciences which she pretended to practise, her
study, like that of Chaucer's physician, had been " but little in the
Bible." Now, the sacred volume was seldom laid aside ; and, to
the poor ignorant people who came as formerly to invoke her
power over the elements, she only replied — " The winds are in the
hollow of His hand." — Her conversion was not, perhaps, alto-
gether rational; for this, the state of a mind disordered by such a
complication of horrid incidents, probably prevented. But it
seemed to be sincere, and wa^ certainly useful. She appeared
deeply to repent of her former presumptuous attempts to interfere
with the course of human events, superintended as they are by far
higher powers, and expressed bitter compunction when such her
former pretensions were in any manner recalled to her memory.
She still showed a partiality to Mordaunt, though, perhaps, arising
chiefly from habit ; nor was it easy to know how much or how
little she remembered of the complicated events in which she had
been connected. When she died, which was about four years after
the events we have commemorated, it was found that, at the special
and earnest request of Minna Troil, she had conveyed her very
considerable property to Benda. A clause in her will specially
directed, that all the books, implements of her laboratory, and
other things connected with her former studies, should be com-
mitted to the flames.

About two years before Noma's death, Brenda was wedded to
Mordaunt Mertoun. It was some time before old Magnus Troil,
with all his affection for his daughter, and all his partiality for
Mordaunt, was able frankly to reconcile himself to this match.
But Mordaunt's accomplishments were peculiarly to the Udaller's
taste, and the old man felt the impossibility of supplying his place

412 THE PIRATE.

in his family so absolutely, that at length his Norse blood gave
way to the natural feeling of the heart, and he comforted his pride
•while he looked around him, and saw what he considered as the
encroachments of the Scottish gentry upon the country, (so
Zetland is fondly termed by its inhabitants,) that as well " his
daughter married the son of an English pirate, as of a Scottish
thief," in scornful illusion to the Highland and Border families, to
whom Zetland owes many respectable landljplders ; but whose
ancestors were generally esteemed more renowned for ancient
family and high courage, than for accurately regarding the trifling
distinctions of meum and tuum. The jovial old man lived to the
extremity of human life, with the happy prospect of a numerous
succession in the family of his younger daughter j and having his
board cheered alternately by the minstrelsy of Claud Halcro, and
enlightened by the lucubrations of Mr. Troptoleraus Yellowley,
who, laying aside his high pretensions, was, when he became better
acquainted with the manners of the islanders, and remembered
the various misadventures which had attended his premature
attempts at reformation, an honest and useful representative of his
principal, and never so happy as when he could escape from the
spare commons of his sister Barbara, to the genial table of the
Udaller. Barbara's temper also was much softened by the unex-
pected restoration of the horn of silver coins, (the property of
Noma,) which she had concealed in the mansion of old Stour-
burgh, for achieving some of her mysterious plans, but which she
now restored to those by whom it had been accidentally discovered,
with an intimation, however, that it would again disappear unless
a reasonable portion was expended on the sustenance of the family,
a precaution to which Tronda Dronsdaughter (probably an agent
of Noma's) owed her escape from a slow and wasting death by
inanition.

Mordaunt and Brenda were as happy as our mortal condition
permits us to be. They admired and loved each other — enjoyed
easy circumstances — had duties to discharge which they did not
neglect ; and, clear in conscience as light of heart, laughed, sung,
danced, daffed the world aside, and bid it pass.

But Minna — the high-minded and imaginative Minna — she,
gifted with such depth of feeling and enthusiasm, yet doomed to
see both blighted in early youth, because, with the inexperience of
a disposition equally romantic and ignorant, she had built the
fabric of her happiness on a quicksand instead of a rock,— was she,
could she be happy ? Reader, she was happy ; for, whatever may
be alleged to the contrary by the sceptic and the scorner, to each
duty performed there is assigned a degree of mental peace and high

THE PIRATE. 413

consciousness of honourable exertion, corresponding to the diffi-
culty of the task accomplished. That rest of the body which
succeeds to hard and industrious toil, is not to be compared to the
repose which the spirit enjoys under similar circumstances. Her
resignation, however, and the constant attention which she paid to
her father, her sister, the afflicted Noma, and to all who had claims
on her, were neither Minna's sole nor her most precioas source of
comfort. Like Noma, but under a more regulated judgment, she
learned to exchange the visions of wild enthusiasm which had
exerted and misled her imagination, for a truer and purer con-
nexion with the world beyond us, than could be learned from the
sagas of heathen bards, or the visions of later rhymers. To this
she owed the support by which she was enabled, after various
accounts of the honourable and gallant conduct of Cleveland, to
read with resignation, and even with a sense of comfort, mingled
with sorrow, that he had at length fallen, leading the way in a
gallant and honourable enterprise, which was successfully accom-
plished by those companions, to whom his determined bravery had
opened the road. Bunce, his fantastic follower in good, as
formerly in evil, transmitted an account to Minna of this melan-
choly event, in terms which showed, that though his head was
weak, his heart had not been utterly corrupted by the lawless life
which he had for some time led, or at least that it had been
amended by the change ; and that he himself had gained credit
and promotion in the same action, seemed to be of little conse-
quence to him, compared with the loss of his old captain and
comrade.* Minna read the intelligence, and thanked Heaven,
even while the eyes which she lifted up were streaming with tears
that the death of Cleveland had been in the bed of honour ; nay,
she even had the courage to add her gratitude, that he had been
snatched from a situation of temptation ere circumstances had
overcome his new-born virtue ; and so strongly did this reflection
operate, that her life, after the immediate pain of this event had
passed away, seemed not only as resigned, but even more cheerful
than before. Her thoughts, however, were detached from the
world, and only visited it, with an interest like that which guardian
spirits take for their charge, in behalf of those friends with whom
she lived in love, or of the poor whom she could serve and comfort.
Thus passed her life, enjoying, from all who approached her, an
affection enhanced by reverence ; insomuch, that when her friends
sorrowed for her death, which arrived at a late period of her
existence, they were comforted by the fond reflection, that the
humanity which she then laid down, was the only circumstance
which had placed her, in the words of Scripture, " a little lower
than the angels ! "

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

» p. i6.— The Udallers are the allo-
dial possessors of Zetland, who hold
their possessions under the old Nor-
wegian law, instead of the feudal
tenures introduced among them from
Scotland,

* P. 17. ^Salt-water lake.

* P. 17. — Patch of ground for vege-
tables. The liberal custom of the
country permits any person, who has
occasion for such a convenience, j to
select out of the unenclosed moorland
a smaU patch, which he surrounds
with a drystone wall, and cultivates as
a kail-yard, 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
flantie cruive of him.

* P. 18. — A lipsund is about thirty
pounds English, and the value is
averaged by Dr. Edraonston at ten
shillings sterling.

* P. 19. — i. e. The deep-sea fishing,
in distinction to that which is practised
along shore.

* P. ig. — ^The operation of slicing the
blubber from the bones of the whale,
is called, technically, j^zm^,%z?z^.

* P. 20, — 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.

* P. 31. — Finner, small whale.

* P. 21. — 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.

* P. 23. --Fatal accidents, however.

sometimes occur. When I visited the
Fair Isle in 1814, a poor lad of four-
teen 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.

* P. 24. — Norse Fragments. — Near
the conclusion of this chapter it is
noticed that the old Norwegian sagas
were preserved and often repeated by
the fishermen of Orkney and Zetland,
while that language was npt yet quite
forgotten. Mr. Baikie of Tankemess,
a most respectable inhabitant of Kirk-
wall, and an Orkney proprietor, as-
sured me of the following curious
'fact.

A clergyman, who was not long de-
ceased, remembered well when some
remnants of the Norse were still spoken
in the island called North Ronaldshaw.
When Grey's Ode, entitled the ' ' Fatal
Sisters," was first published, or at least
first reached that remote island, the
reverend gentleman had the well-judged
curiosity to read it to some of the old
persons of the isle, as a poem which
regarded the history of theil- own
country. They hstened with great
attention to the preliminary stan-

" Now the storm begins to lour,
Haste the loom of hell prepare,

Iron sleet of arrowy showe:^
Hurtles in the darken' d air."

But when they had heard a verse or
two more, they intemipted the reader,
telling him they knew the song well in
the Norse language, and had often
sung it to him when he asked them
for an eld song. They called it the
i Magicians, or the Enchantresses. It

4i6

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

would have been singular news to the
elegant translator, when executing his
version from the text of BarthoUne, to
have learned that the Norse original
was still preserved by tradition in a
remote comer of the British domi-
nions. The circumstances will pro-
bably justify what is said in the text
concerning the traditions of the inha-
bitants of those remote isles, at the
beginning of the eighteenth century.

Even yet, though the Norselanguage
is entirely disused, except in so far as
particular words and phrases are still
retained, these fishers of the Ultima
Thule are a generation much attached
to these ancient legends. Of this the
author leai;ned a singular instance.

About twenty years ago, a mission-
ary clergyman had taken the resolu-
tion of traversing those wild islands,
where he supposed there might be a
lack of religious instruction, which he
believed himself capable of supplying.
After being some days at sea in an
open boat, he arrived at North Ronald-
shaw, where his appearance excited
great speculation. He was a very little
man, dark-complexioned, and from the
fatigue he had sustained in removing
from one island to another, appeared
before them ill-dressed and unshaved ;
so that the inhabitants set him down
as one oi the Ancient Picts, or, as they
call them with the usual strong gut-
tural, Peghts. How they might have
received the poor preacher in this
character, was at least dubious ; and the
school-master of the parish, who had
given quarters to the fatigued traveller,

set off to consult with Mr. S , the

able and ingenious engineer of the
Scottish Light-House Service, who
chanced to be on the island. As his
skill and knowledge were in the highest
repute, it was conceived that Mr.

S .could decide at once whether

the stranger was a Peght, or ought to

be treated as such. Mr. S was so

good-natured as to attend the sum-
mons, with the view of rendering the
preacher some service. The poor
missionary, who had watched for three
nights, was now fast asleep, little
dreaming what odious suspicions were
current respecting him. The inhabi-
tants were assembled round the door.

Mr. S , understanding the traveller's

condition, declined disturbing him,
upon which the islanders produced a

pair of very little uncouth-looking
boots, with prodigiously thick soles,
and appealed to him whether it was
possible such articles of raiment could
belong to any orje but a Peght. Mr.

S , finding the prejudices of the

natives so strong, was induced to
enter the sleeping apartment of the
traveller, and was surprised to re-
cognise in the supposed Peght a person
whom he had known in his worldly
profession of an Edinburgh shopkeeper,
before he had assumed his present
vocation. Of course he was enabled
to refute all suspicions of Peghtism.
* P. 24 . — Monsters of the Nor-
thern Seas. — 1 have said, in the
text, that the wondrous tales told by
Pontoppidan, the Archbishop of Upsal,
still find behevers in the Northern
Archipelago. It is in vain they are
cancelled even in the later editions of
Guthrie's Grammar, of which instruc-
tive work they used to form the chapter
far most attractive to juvenile readers.
But the same causes which probably
gave birth to the legends concerning
mermaids, sea-snakes, krakens, and
other marvellous inhabitants of the
Northern Ocean, are still afloat in those
climates where they took their rise.
They had their origin probably from
the eagerness of curiosity manifested
by our elegant poetess, Mrs. He-
mans :

"What hidest thou in thy treasure-
caves and cells.
Thou ever-sounding and mysterious
Sea?"

The additional mystic gloom which
rests on these northern billows for half
the year, joined to the imperfect
glance obtained of occasional objects,
encourage the timid or the fanciful to
give way to imagination, andfrequently
to shape out a distinct story from some ,
object half seen and imperfectly ex- '
amined. Thus, some years since, a
large object was observed in the beau-
tiful Bay of Scalloway in Zetland, so
much in vulgar opinion resembling the
kraken, that though it might be dis-
tinguished for several days, if the ex-
change of darkness to twilight can be
termed so, yet the hardy boatmen
shuddered to approach it, for fear of
being drawn down by the suction sup-
posed to attend its sinking. It was

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

417

probably the hull of some vessel which
had foundered at sea.

The belief in mermaids, so fanciful
and pleasing in itself, is ever and anon
refreshed by a strange tale from the
remote shores of some solitary islet.

The author heard a mariner of some
reputation in his cLoss vouch for having
, seen the celebrated sea-serpent. It
appeared, so far as could be guessed,
to be about a hundred feet long, with
the wild mane and fiery eyes which
old writers ascribe to the monster ; but
it is not unlikely the spectator might,
in the doubtful light, be deceived by
the appearance of a good Norway log
floating on the waves. I have only to
add, that the remains of an animal,
supposed to belong to this latter
species, were driven on shore in the Zet-
land Isles, vtithin the recollection of
man. Part of the bones were sent to
London, and pronouncedby Sir Joseph
Banks to be those of a basking shark ;
yet it. would seem that an animal so
well known, ought to have been im-
mediately distinguished by the nor-
thern fishermen.

• P. 33; — ^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
1815.

* P. 38. — i. e. Gossips.

* P. 40. — Quadrupedumque putrem
sonitu quatit ungula campum.

• P. 43. — ^This is admitted by the
English agricultiurist : —

" 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."

• P. 44. — Government of Zet-
land.— At the period supposed, the
Earls of Morton held the islands of
Orkney and Zetland, originally granted
in 1643, confirmed in 1707, and ren-
dered absolute in 1742. This gave the
family much property and influence,
which they usually exercised byfactors,
named chamberlains. In 1766 this
property was sold by the then Earl of
Morton to Sir Lawrence Dundas, by
whose son, Lord Pundas, it is now
held

* P. 52.— When a person changes his

condition suddenly, as when a mise
becomes liberal, or a churl good-
humoured, he is said in Scotch, to be
/ey ; that is, predestined to speedy
death, of which such mutations of
humour are received as a sure indica-
tion.

* P. S3- — A pedlar.

* P. 6r. — ^The beetle with which the
Scottish housewives used to perform
the office of the modem mangle, by
beating newly-washed linen on a
smooth stone for the purpose, called
the beetUng-stone.

* P. 67. — The chapman's drowth,
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.

* P. 67. — 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.

* P. 67. — Although the Zetlanders
were early reconciled to the reformed
faith, some ancient practices of Ca-
tholic superstition survived long among
them. In very stormy weather a fisher
would vowanorawzajto Saint Ronald,
and acquitted himself of the obligation
by throwing a small piece of money in
at the window of a ruinous chapel.

* P. 74. —Sale of Winds. —The
King of Sweden, the same Eric quoted
by Mordaunt, "was," says Glaus
Magnus, "in his time held second to
none in the magical art ; and he was
so familiar with the evil spirits whom
he worshipped, that what way soever
he turned his cap, the wind would pre-
sently blow that way. For this he was
called Windycap." Historia de Gen
tibus Septentrionaliius, J?omts, 1555,
It is well known that the Laplanders
derive a profitable trade in selling
winds, but it is perhaps less notorious,
that within these few years such a
commodity might be purchased on
British ground, where it was likely to
be in great request. At the village of
Stromness, on the Orkney main island,
called Pomona, lived, in 1814, an aged
dame, called Bessie Millie, who helped
out her subsistence by seUing favour-
able winds to mariners. He was a
venturous master of a vessel who lef
the roadstead of Stromness without
paying his offering to propitiate Bessie
Millie ; her fee was extreme mo le-

r, E

4i8

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

rate, being exactly sixpence, for which,
as she explained herself, she boiled her
kettle and gave the bark advantage of
her prayers, for she disclaimed all un-
lawful arts. The wind thus petitioned
for was sure, she said, to arrive, though
occasionally the mariners had to wait
some time for it. The woman's dwel-
ling and appearance were not unbe-
coming her pretensions; her house,
which was on the brow of the steep
hill on which Stromness is founded,
was only accessible by a series of dirty
and precipitous lanes, and for ex-
posure might have been the abode of
Eolus himself, in whose commodities
the inhabitant dealt. She herself was,
as she told us, nearly one hundred
years old, withered and dried up like a
mummy. A clay-coloured kerchief,
folded round her head, corresponded
in colour to her corpse-like complexion.
Two light-blue eyes that gleamed with
a lustre like that of insanity, an utter-
ance of astonishing rapidity, a nose
and chin that almost met together;
and a ghastly expression of cunning,
gave her the effect of Hecate. She re-
membered Gow the pirate, who had
been a native of these islands, in which
he closed his career, as mentioned in
the preface. Such was Bessie Millie,
to whom the mariners paid a sort of
tribute, with a feeling betwixt jest and
earnest.

* P. 80. — Reluctance to Save a
Drowning Man. — It is remarkable,
th-it in an archipelago where so many
parsons must be necessarily endangered
by the waves, so strange and inhuman
a maxim should have ingrafted itself
upon the minds of a people otherwise
kind, moral, and hospitable. But all
with whom I have spoken agree, that
it was almost general in the beginning
of the eighteenth century, and was
with difficulty weeded out by the sedu-
lous instructions of the clergy, and the
rigorous injunctions of the proprietors.
Thereis little doubt it had been origin-
ally introduced as an excuse for suffer-
ing those who attempted to escape
from the wreck to perish unassisted, so
that, there being no survivor, she might
be considered as lawful plunder. A
story was told me, T hope an untrue
one, that a vessel having got ashore
among the breakers on one of the
remote Zetland Islands, five or six
men, the whole or greater part of the

unfortunate crew, endeavoured to land
by assistance of a hawser, which
they had secured to a rock ; the in-
habitants were assembled, and looked
on with some uncertainty, till an old
man said, "Sirs, if these men come
ashore, the additional mouths will eat
all the meal we have in storefor winter ;
and how are we to get more?" A
young fellow, moved with this argu-
ment, struck the rope asunder with his
axe, and all the poor wretches were
immersed among the breakers, and
perished.

* P. 84.— Mair Wrecks ere Win-
ter. — ^The ancient Zetlander looked
upon the sea as the provider of his
living, not only by the plenty produced
by the fishings, but by the spoil of
wrecks. Some particular islands have
fallen off very considerably in their rent,
since the commissioners of the light-
houses have ordered lights on the Isle
of Sanda'and the Pentland Skerries,
A gentleman, familiar with those seas,
expressed surprise at seeing the farmer
of one of the isles in a boat with
a very old pair of sails. "Had it
been His will" — said the man, with
an affected deference to Providence,
very inconsistent with the sentiment of
his speech — "Had it been His will
that hght had not been placed yonder,
I would have had enough of new sails
last winter."

* P. 86.— This was literally true.

* P. 95. — ^These are weights of Nor-
wegian origin, still used in Zetland.

* P. 98.— Barter.

* P. 103. — The Drows, or Trows, the
legitimate successors of the northern
duergar, and somewhat allied to the
fairies, reside, Uke them, in the in-
terior 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 male-
volent. 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 subter
ranean people ; and Lucas Jacobson
Debes, 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 Kave a gov-

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

419

emment, which seems to be monar-
chical.

* P. 103. — The larger seal, or sea-calf,
which seeks the most solitary recesses
for its abode. See Dr. Edmon-
stone's Zetland, vol. ii., p. 294.

* P. 116, — Zetland Coen-mills. —
There is certainly something very ex-
traordinary to a stranger, in Zetland
corn-mills. They are of the smallest
possible size ; the wheel which drives
them is horizontal, and the cogs are
turned diagonally to the water. The
beam itself stands upright, and is
inserted in a stone quern of the old-
fashioned construction, which it turns
round, and thus performs its duty.
Had Robinson Crusoe ever been in
Zetland, he would have had no diffi-
culty in contriving a machine for
grinding corn in his desert island.
These mills are thatched over in a
little hovel, which has much the air of
a pig-sty. There may be five hun-
dred such mills on one island, not
capable any one of them of grinding
above a sackful of corn at a time.

* P. Ii8. — What is eat by way of
relish to dry bread is called kitchen
in Scotland, as cheese, dried fish, or
the like relishing morsels.

* P. 139. — See Hibbert'S Descrifti,
of the Zetland Islands, p. 470.

* P. 149. — See Note to p. 24. Norse
Fragments.

* P. 152. — 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.

* P. 152. — Here, as afterwards re-
marked 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 Cove-
nanters; and

" Wind-changing Warwick then could
change no more."

Strachan commanded the body by
which Montrose was routed.

• P- IS3'— The Sword Dance,—
The Sword-Dance is celebrated in
general terms by Olaus Magnus. He
seems to have considered it as pecu-
liar to the Norwegians, from whom it
may have passed to the Orkneymen
and Zetlanders, with other northern
customs.

"Op their Dancing in Arms,

"Moreover, the northern Goths
and Swedes had another sport to ex-
ercise youth withall, that they will
dance and skip amongst naked swords
and dangerous weapons : And this
they do after the manner of masters
of defence, as they are taught from
their youth by skilful teachers, that
dance before them, and sing to it.
And this play is showed especially
about Shrovetide, called in Italian
Macchararum. For, before carnivals,
all the youth dance for eight days
together, holding their swords up,
but within the scabbards, for three
times turning about ; and then they
do it with their naked swords lifted
up. After this, turning more mode-
rately, taking the points and pummels
one of the other, they change ranks,
and place themselves in a triagpnal
figure, and this they call Rosam; and
presently they dissolve it by drawing
back their swords and lifting them up,
that upon every one's head there may
be made a square Rosa, and then by
a most nimbly whisking their swords
about collateially, they quickly leap
back, and end the sport, which they
guide with pipes or songs, or both
together ; first by a more heavy, then
by a more vehement, and lastly, by a
most vehement dancing. But this
speculation is scarce to be understood
but by those who kjok on, how
comely and decent it is, when at one
word, or one commanding, the whole
armed multitude is directed to fall to
fight, and clergymen may exercise
themselves, and mingle themselves
amongst others at this sport, because
it is all guided by most wise reason."
To the Primate's account of the
sword-dance, I am able to add the
words sung or chanted, on occasion
of this dance, as it is still performed
in Papa Stour, a remote island of
Zetland, where alone the custom keeps
its ground. It is, it will be observed

4S0

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

by antiquaries, a species of play or
mystery, in which the Seven. Cham-
pions of Christendom make their
appearance, as in the interlude pre-
sented in "All's Well that Ends
Well." This dramatic curiosity was
most kindly procured for my use by
Dr. Scott of Hazlar Hospital, son of
my friend Mr. Scott of Mewbie, Zet-
land. Mr. Hibbert has, in his De-
scription of the Zetland Islands, given
an account of the sword-dance, but
somewhat less full than the following :

"Words used as a prelude to
THE Sword-Dance, a Danish or
Norwegian Ballet, composed
some centuries ago, and pre-
served IN Papa Stour, Zet-
land.

Persons Dramatis."

[finttr Master, in the character of
St. George.)

Brave gentles all within this boor,t

If ye delight in any sport.

Come see me dance upon this floor,

Which to you all shall yield comfort.

Then shall I dance in such a sort.

As possible I may or can ;

You, minstrel man, play me a Porte, J

That I on this floor may prove a man.

(He htmis, and dances in a line.)
Now have I danced with heart and

hand.
Brave gentles all, as you may see.
For I have been tried in many a land,
As yet the truth can testify ;
In England, Scotland, Ireland, France,

Italy, and Spain,
Have I been tried with that good

sword of'steel.
{Draws, andjlourishes.)
Yet, I deny that ever a man did make

me yield ;
For in my body there is strength,

* So placed in the old MS.

t Boor— so spelt, to accord with
the vulgar pronunciation of the word
iovier.

% Porte— so spelt in the original.
The word is known as indicating a
piece of music on the bagpipe, to
which ancient instrument, which is of
Scajidinavian origin, the sword-dance
may have been originally composed.

As by my manhood may be seen ;
And I, with that good sword of length,
Have oftentimes in perils been.
And over champions I was king.
And by the strength of this right hand,
Once on a day I kill'd fifteen.
And left them dead upon the land.
Therefore, brave minstrel, do not

care.
But play to me a Porte most light,
That I no longer do forbear.
But dance in all these gentles' sight ;
Although my strength makes you

abased.
Brave gentles all, be not afraid.
For here are six champions, with me

staid.
All by my manhood I have raised.

(He dances.)
Since I have danced, I think it best
"To call my brethren in your sight,
"That I may have a little rest.
And they may dance with all their

might ;
With heart and hand as they are

knights,
And shake their swords of steel so

bright.
And shdw their main strength on this

floor.
For we shall have another bout
Before we pass out of this boor.
Therefore, brave minstrel, do not

care
To play to me a Porte most light.
That I no longer do forbear.
But dance in all these gentles' sight.
(He dances, and then introduces his

knights, as under.)
Stout James of Spain, both triad and

stour,*
Thine acts are known full well indeed ;
And champion Dennis, a French

knight,
Who stout and bold is to be seen ;
And David, a Welshman bom.
Who is come of noble blood ;
And Patrick also, who blew the horn,
An Irish knight, amongst the wood.
Of Italy, brave Anthony the good.
And Andrew of Scotland King ;
St. George of England, brave indeed.
Who to the Jews wrought muckla

tinte.t
Away with this ! — Let us come to

sport,

* Stour, great.

t Mttckle tinte, much loss or barm ;
so tn MS.

NOTES To THE t'iRATE.

44i

Since that ye have a mind to war,
Since that ye have this bargain

sought,
Come let us fight and do not fear.
Therefore, brave minstrel, do not

care
To play to me a Porte most light,
That I no longer do forbear,
But dance in all these gentles' sight.
(He dances, and advances tojAUESo/

Spain.)
Stout James of Spain, both tried and

stour.
Thine acts are known full well indeed.
Present thyself within our sight.
Without either fear or dread.
Count not for favour or for feid.
Since of thy acts thou hast been sure ;
Brave James of Spain, I will thee

lead,
To prove thy manhood on this floor.

(James dances. )
Brave champion Dennis, a French

knight.
Who stout and bold is to be seen,
Present thyself here in our sight.
Thou brave French knight.
Who bold hast been ;
Since thou £uch valiant acts has

done.
Come let us see some of them now
With courtesy, thou brave French

Knight,
Draw out thy sword of noble hue.
(Dennis dances, while the others retire

to a side.)
Brave David a bow must string, and

with awe
Set up a wand upon a stand,
And that brave David will cleave in

twa.*

(David dances sohis.)
Here, is, I think, an Irish knight.
Who does not fear, or does not

fright.
To prove thyself a valiant man.
As thou hast done full often bright ;
Brave Patrick, dance, if that thou

can.

(He dances.)
Thou stout Italian, come thou here ;
Thy name is Anthony, most stout ;
Draw out thy sword that is most

clear,
And do thou fight without any doubt ;

* Something is evidently amiss or
omitted here. David probably ex-
hibited some feat of archery.

Thy leg thou shake, thy neck, thou

lout,*
And show some courtesy on this floor,
For we shall have another bout.
Before we pass out of this boor.
Thou kindly Scotsman, come thou

here ;
Thy name is Andrew of Fair Scot-
land ;
Draw out thy sword that is most

clear,
Fight for thy king with thy right

hand ;
And aye as long as thou canst stand.
Fight for thy king with all thy heart ;
And then, for to confirm his band,
Make all his enemies for to smart. —
(He dances.)

(Music begins.)

FiGUIR.t

" The six stand in rank with their
swords reclining on their shoulders.
The Master (St. George) dances, and
then strikes the sword of James of
Spain, who follows George, then
dances, strikes the sword of Dennis,
who follows behind James. In like
manner the rest — the music playing —
swords as before. After the six are
brought out of rank, they and the
master form a circle, and hold the
swords point and hilt. The circle is
danced round twice. The whole,
headed by the master, pass under the
swordsheld in avaiilted manner. They
jump over the swords. This naturally
places the swords across, which they
disentangle bypassing under their right
sword. They takeup thesevenswords,
and form a circle in which they dance
round.

" The master runs imder the sword
opposite, which he jumps over back-
wards. Theothersdo thesame. He
then passes under the rigjht-hand
sword, which the others follow, in which
position they dance, until commanded
by the master, when they form into a
circle, and dance round as before.
They then jump over the right-hand
sword, by which means their backs are
to the circle, and their hands across

* Lout— to bend or bow down, pro-
nounced loot, as dou6t is doot in Scot-
land.

t Figuir—so spelt in MS.

4^i

Notes to the pirate.

their backs. They dance roimd in that
form until the master calls 'Loose,'
when they pass under the right sword,
and are in a perfect circle.

"The master lays down his sword,
and lays hold of the point of
James's sword. He then turns himself,
James, and the others, into a clew.
When so formed, he passes under
out of the midst of the circle ; the
others follow ; they vault as before.
After several other evolutions, they
throw themselves into a circle, with
their arms across the breast. They
afterwards form such figures as to form
a shield of their swords, and the shield
is so compact, that the master and his
knights dance alternately with this
shield upon their heads. It is then
laid down upon the floor. Each
knight lays hold of their former points
and hilts with their hands across,
which disentangle by figuirs directly
contrary to those that formed the
shield. This linishes the Ballet.

"Epilogue.

Mars does rule, he bends his brows,
He makes us all agast; *
After the few hours that we stay here,
Venus will rule at last.

Farewell, farewell, brave gentles' all,
That herein do remain,
I wish you health and happiness
Till we return again.

lExeufti."

The manuscript from which the
above was copied was transcribed from
a very old one, by Mr. William Hender-
son, Jun., of Papa Stour, in Zetland.
Mr. Henderson's copy is not dated, but
bears his own signature, and, from
various circumstances, it is known to
have been written about the year 1788.

* P. 156. — See some admirable dis-
cussion on this passage, in the Vario-
rum Shakspeare.

* P. 176. — 'The contestabout the whale
will remind the poetical reader of
Waller's Battle of the Suinmer Islands.

* P. 193 . — The Lawting was the Comitia,
orSupreme Court, of the country, being
retained both in Orkney and Zetland,
and presenting in its constitution, the
rude origin of a parliament.

* P-I93-— And from which hill of Hoy,

' Agast— iKi spelt in MS.

at midsummer, the sun may be seen,
it is said, at midnight. So says the
geographer Bleau, although, according
to Dr. Wallace, it cannot be the true
body of the sun which is visible, but
only its image refracted through some
watery cloud upon the horizon.
* P. 194.— The Dwarfie Stone.—
This is one of the wonders of the
Orkney Islands, though it has been
rather undervalued by their late
historian, Mr. Barry. The island of
Hoy rises abruptly, starting as it were
out of the sea, which is contrary to the
gentle and flat character of the other
Isles of Orkney. It consists of a moun-
tain, having different eminences or
peaks. It is very steep, furrowed
with ravines, and placed so as to catch
the mists of the Western Ocean, and
has a noble and picturesque effect from
all points of view. The highest peak
is divided from another eminence,
called the Ward-hill, by a long swampy
valley full of peat-bogs. Upon the
slope of this last hill, and just where the
principal mountain of Hoy opens in a
hollow swamp, or corrie, lips what is
called the Dwarfie Stone. It is a great
fragment of sandstone, composing one
solid mass, which has long since been
detached from a belt of the same
materials, cresting the eminence above
the spot where it now lies, and which
has slid down till it reached its present
situation. The rock is about seven
feet high, twenty-two feet long, and
seventeen feet broad. The upper end
of it is hollowed by iron tools, of which
the marks are evident, into a sort of
apartment, containing two beds of
stone, with a passage, between them.
The uppermost and largest bed is five
feet eight inches long, by two feet
broad, which was supposed to be used
by the dwarf himself ; the lower couch
is shorter, and jounded off, instead of
being squared at the corners. There
Is an entrance of about three feet and a
half square, and a stone lies before it
calculated to fit the opening. A sort
of skylight window gives light to the
apartment. We can only guess at the
purpose of this monument, and dif-
ferent ideas have been suggested.
Some have supposed it the work of
some travelling mason ; but the cui
tono would remain to be accounted
for. The Rev. Mr. Barry conjectures
it to be a hermit's cell ; but it displays

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

423

no symbol of Christianity, and the
door opens to the westward. The
Orcadian traditions allege the work to
be that of a dwarf, to whom they
ascribe supernatural powers, and a
malevolent disposition, the attributes
of that race in Norse mythology. Who-
ever inhabited this singular den cer-
tainly enjoyed

" Pillow cold, and sheets not warm.''
I observed, that commencing just op-
posite to the Dwarfie Stone, and ex-
tending in a line to the sea-beach, there
are a number of small barrows, or
cairns, which seem to connect the
stone with a very large cairn where we
landed. This curious monument may
therefore have been intended as a
temple of some kind to the Northern
Dii Manes, to which the cairns might
direct worshippers.

* P. i94.-^-Carbuncle on the Waed-
HlLL. — "At the west end of this stone,
(i. e. the Dwarfie Stone, ) stands an ex-
ceeding high mountain of a steep
ascent, called the Ward-hill of Hoy,
near the top of which, in the months
of May, June, and July, about mid-
night, is seen something that shines
and sparkles admirably, and which is
often seen a great way off. It hath
shined more brightly beforp than it
does now, and though many have
climbed up the hill, and attempted to
search for it, yet they could find no-
thing. The vulgar talk of it as some
enchanted carbuncle, but I take it
rather to be some water sliding down
the face of a smooth rock, which, when
the sun, at such a time, shines upon,
the reflection causeth that admirable
splendour." — Dr. Wallace's De-
scription of the Islands of Orkney,
i2mo, 1700, p. 52.

* P. 196. — Or consecrated motmtain,
used by the Scandinavian priests for
the purposes of their idol-\vorship.

* P. 197. — Stack. A precipitous rock,
rising out of the sea.

* P. 197. — Skerry. A flat insulated
rock, not subject to the overflowing of
the sea.

* P. 197. — Noup. A round-headed
eminence.

* P. 197. — Voe. A creek, or inlet of
the sea.

* P. 197. — Air. An open-sea beach,

* P. 197. — TVici. An open bay.

* P. 197. — Helyer. A cavern into
which the tide flows.

* P. 197. — Gio. A deep ravine which
admits the sea.

* P. 199. — This cruelty is practised by
some fishers, out of a vindictive hatred
to these ravenous fishes.

* P. 211. — The garland is an artificial
coronet, composed of ribbons by those
young women who take an interest in
a. whaling vessel or her crew : it is
always displayed from the rigging, and
preserved with great care during the
voyage.

* P. 211. — ^The best oil exndes from
the jaw-bones of the whale, which, for
the purpose of collecting it, are sus-
pended to the masts of the vessel.

* P. 211. — There is established among
- whalers a sort of telegraphic signal, in

which a certain number of motions,
made with a broom, express to any
other vessel the number of fish which
they'have caught.

* P. 215.— The Admiral of the Spanish
Armada was wrecked on the Fair Isle,
half-way betwixt the Orkney and Zet-
land Archipelago. The Duke of Me-
dina Sidonia landed, with some of his
people, and pillaged the islanders of
their winter stores. These strangers
are remembered as having remained
on the island by force, and on bad
terms with the inhabitants, till spring
returned, when they effected their
escape.

* P. 217. — Galdra-Kinna — the Norse
for a sorceress.

*P.2i9. — Fortune-telling Rhymes.
— ^The author has in the preceding
chapter supposed that a very ancient
northern custom, used by those who
were accounted soothsaying women,
might have survived, though in jest
rather than earnest, abiong the Zet-
landers, their descendants. "The fol-
lowing original account of such a
scene will show the ancient importance
and consequence of such a prophetic
character as was assumed by Noma : —
' ' There lived in the same territory
(Greenland) a woman named Thor-
biorga, who was a prophetess, and
called the little Vola, (or fatal sister,)
the only one of nine sisters who sur-
vived. Thorbiorga during the winter
used to frequent the festivities of the
season, invited by those who were
desirous of learning their own fortune,
and the future events which impended.
Torquil being a man of consequence
in the country, it fell to his lot to en-

4*4

Notes to the pirate.

quire how long the dearth was to
endure witk which the country was
then afflicted ; he therefore invited the
prophetess to his house, having made
liberal preparation, as was the custom,
for receiving a guest of such conse-
quence. The seat of the soothsayer
was placed in an eminent situation,
and covered with pillows filled with
the softest eider down. In the even-
ing she arrived, together with a person
who had been sent to meet her, and
show her the way to Torquil's habita-
tion. She was attired as follows : She
had a sky-blue tunick, having the
front ornamented with gems from the
top to the bottom, and wore around
her throat a necklace Of glass beads.*
Her head-gear was of black lambskin,
the lining -being the fur of a white
wild-cat. She leant on a staff, having
a ball at the top.t The staff was
ornamented with brass, and the ball
or globe with gems or pebbles. She
wore a Hunland (or Hungarian) girdle,
to which was attached a large pouch,
in which she kept her magical imple-
ments. Her shoes were of sealskin,
dressed with the hair outside, and
secured by long and thick straps,
fastened "by brazen clasps. She wore
gloves of the wild-cat's skin, with the
fur inmost. As this venerable person
entered the hall, all saluted her with
due respect ; but she only returned
the compliments of such as were agree-
able to her. Torquil conducted her
with reverence to the seat prepared
for her, and requested she would
purify the apartment and company
assembled, by casting her eyes over
them. She was by no means sparing
of her words. The table being at
length covered, such viands were
placed before Thorbiorga as suited
her character of a soothsayer. These
were, a preparation of goat's milk, and
a mess composed of the hearts of
various animals ; the prophetess made
use of a brazen spoon, and a pointless
knife, the handle of which was com-

* We may suppose the beads to
have been of the potent adderstone,
to which so many virtues were as-
cribed.

t Like those anciently borne by
porters at the gates of distinguished
persons, as a badge of office.

posed of a whale's tooth, and orna-
mented with two rings of brass. The
table being removed, Torquil ad-
dressed Thorbiorga, requesting her
opinion of his house and guests, at
the same time intimating the subjects
on which he and the company were
desirous to consult her.

"Thorbiorga replied, it was impos-
sible for to answer their enquiries
until she had slept a night ui^der his
roof. The next morning, therefore,
the magical apparatus necessary for
her purpose w^ prepared, and she
then enquired, as a necessary part of
the ceremony, whether there was any
female present who could sing a
magical song called ' Vardlokur.'
When no songstress such as she
desired could be found, Gudrida, the
daughter of Torquil, replied, 'I am
no sorceress or soothsayer ; but ray
nurse, Haldisa, taught me, when in
Iceland, a song called Vardlokur.' —
' Then thou knowest more than I was
aware of, ' said Torquil. ' But as I am
a Christian,' continued Gudrida, 'I
consider these rites as matters which
it is imlawful to promote, and the song
itself as unlawful.' — ' Nevertheless,"
answered the soothsayer, ' thou mayst
help us in this matter without any
harm to thy religion, since the task
will remain with Torquil to provide
everything necessary for the present
purpose.' Torquil also earnestly en-
treated Gudrida, till she consented to
grant his request. The females then
surrotmded Thorbiorga, who took her
place on a sort of elevated stage;
Gudrida then sung the magic song,
with a voice so sweet and tuneful, as
to excel anything that had been heard
by any present. The soothsayer, de-
lighted with the melody, returned
thanks to the singer, and then said,
' Much I have now learned of dearth
and disease approaching the country,
and many things are now clear to me
which before were hidden as well from
me as others. Our present dearth of
substance shall not long endure for
the present, and plenty will in the
spring succeed to scarcity. The con-
tageous diseases also, with which the
country h as been for some time afflicted,
will in a short time take their depar-
ture. To thee, Gudrida, I can, in
recompense for thy assistance on this
occasion, announce a fortune of higher

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

4=5

import than any one could have con-
jectured. You shall be married to a
man of name here in Greenland ; but
you shall not long enjoy that union,
for your fate recalls you to Iceland,
where you shall become the mother of
a numerous and honourable family,
which shall be enlightened by a lumi-
nous ray of good fortune. So, my
daughter, wishing thee health, I bid
thee farewell. ' The prophetess, having
afterwards given answers to all queries
which were put to her, either by Tor-
quil or his guests, departed to show
her skill at another festival, to which
she had been invited for that purpose.
But all which she had presaged, either
concerning the public or individuals,
came truly to pass."

The above narrative is taken from
the Saga of Erick Randa, as quoted
by the learned Bartholine in his curious
work. He mentions similar instances,
particularly of one Heida, celebrated
for her predictions, who attended fes-
tivals for the purpose, as a modem
Scotsman might say, of spacing for-
tunes, with a gallant tail, or retinue,
of thirty male and fifteen female
attendants. — See De Causis Contemptcs
a Danis adhuc gentilibus Mortis, lib.
III., cap. ^.

* P. 2ig. — Dr. Edmonston, the inge-
nious author of a View of the Ancient
and Present State of the Zetland
Islands, has placed this part of the
subject in an interesting light. " It is
truly painful to witness the anxiety
and distress which the wives of these
poor men suffer on the approach of a
storm. Regardless of fatigue, they
leave their homes, and fly to the spot
where they expect their husbands to
land, or ascend the summit of a rock,
to look out for them on the bosom of
the deep. Should they get the glimpse
of a sail, they watch, with trembling
solicitude, its alternate rise and dis-
appearance on the waves ; and though
often tranquillized by the safe arrival
of the objects of their search, yet it
sometimes is their lot ' to hail the bark
that never can return.' Subject to the
influence of a variable climate, and
engaged on a sea naturally tempes-
tuous, with rapid currents, scarcely a
season passes over without the occur-
rence of some fatal accident or hair-
breadth escape." — View, ifc. of the
Zetland Islands, vol. i. p. 238. Many

interesting particulars respecting the
fisheries and apiculture of Zetland,
as well as its antiquities, may be found
in the work we have quoted.

* P. 227. — Promise of Odin.— Al-
though the Father of Scandinavian
mythology has been as a deity long for-
gotten in the archipelago, which was
once a very small part of his realm, yet
even at this day his name continues to
be occasionally attested as security for
a promise.

It it curious to observe, that the
rites with which such attestations are
still made in Orkney, correspond to
those of the ancient Northmen. It
appears from several authorities, that
in the Norse ritual, when an oath was
imposed, he by whom it was pledged,
passed his hand, while pronouncing
it, through a massive ring of silver
kept for that purpose.* In like man-
ner, two persons, generally lovers,
desirous to take the promise of Odin,
which they considered as peculiarly
binding, joined hands through a
circular hole in a sacrificial stone,
which lies in the Orcadian Stonehenge,
called the Circle of Stennis, of which
we shall speak more hereafter. The
ceremony is now confined to the troth-
plighting of the lower classes, but at
an earher period may be supposed to
have influenced a character like Minna
in the higher ranks. >

* P. 229. — To maroon a seaman, signi-
fied to abandon him on a desolate
coast or island — a piece of cruelty
often practised by Pirates and Buc-
caniers.

* P. 229. — An elder brother, now no
more, who was educated in the navy,
and had been a midshipman in Rod-
ney's squadron in the West Indies,
used to astonish the author's boyhood
with tales of those haunted islets. On
one of them, called, I believe. Coffin-
key, the seamen positively refused to
pass the night, and came off every
evening while they were engaged in
completing the watering of the vessel,
returning the following sunrise.

* P. 237. — I cannot suppress the pride of
saying, that these lines have been
beautifully set to original music, by
Mrs. Arkwright, of Derbyshire.

* P. 239. — The celebrated Sortes Vir-

' See the Eyrbiggia Sagia.

425

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

gilianse were resorted to by Charles I.
and his courtiers, as a mode of prying
into futurity.

• P. 261. — It is worth while saying, that
this motto, and the ascription of the
beautiful ballad from which it is taken
to the Right Honourable I,ady Ann
Lindsay, occasioned the ingenious
authoress's acknowledgment of the
ballad, of which the Editor, by her
permission, published a small impres-
sion, inscribed to the Bannatyne
Club.

• P. 264. — ^A light-armed vessel of the
seventeenth century, adapted for
privateering, and much used by the
Dutch.

• P.269. — "VaeFrawa-Stack, or Maiden-
Rock, an inaccessible cliff, divided by a
narrow gulf from the Island of Papa,
has on the summit some ruins, concern-
ing which there is a legend similiar to
that of Danae.

• P. 269. — Lowe, flame.

• P. 270.— The Pictish Burgh. — The
Pictish Burgh, a fort which Noma is
supposed to have converted into her
dwelling-house, has been fully de-
scribed in the Notes upon Ivanhoe,
p. 431 of this edition. An account
of the celebrated Castle of Mousa is
there given, to afford an opportunity
of comparing it with the Saxon Castle
of Coningsburgh. It should , however,
have been mentioned, that the Castle
of Mousa underwent considerable re-
pairs at a comparatively recent»period.
Accordingly, Torfasus assures us, that
even this ancient pigeon-house, com-
posed of dry stones, was fortification
enough, not indeed to hold out a ten
years' siege, like Troy in similar cir-
curnstances, but to wear out the
patience of the besiegers. Erland, the
son of Harold the Fair-spoken, had
carried off a beautiful woman, the
mother of a Norwegian earl, also
called Harold, and sheltered himself
with his fair prize in the Castle of
Mousa. Earl Harold followed with an
army, and, finding the place too strong
for assault, endeavoured to reduce it
by famine ; but such was the length of
the siege, that the offended Earl found
it necessary to listen to a treaty of ac-
commodation, and agreed that his
mother's honour should be restored by
marriage. This transaction took place
in the beginning of the thirteenth
century, in the reign of William the

Lion of Scotland.* It is probable
that the improvements adopted by
Erland on this occasion, were those
which finished the parapet of ths
castle, by making it project outwards,
so that the tower of Mousa rather re-
sembles the figure of a dice-box,
whereas others of the same kind have
the form of a truncated cone. It is
easy to see how the projection of the
highest parapet would render the
defence more easy and effectual,

* P. 271. — Jarto, my dear.

* P. 276. — ^The MacRaws were follow-
ers of the MacKenzies, whose chief
has the name of Caber&e, or Bucks-
head, from the cognisance borne on his
standards. Unquestionably the worthy
piper trained the seal on the same
principle of respect to the clan-terra
which I have heard has been taught to
dogs, who, unused to any other air,
danced after their fashion to the tune
of Caberfae.

* P. 284. — ^The spells described in this
chapter are not altogether imaginary.
By this mode of pouring lead into
water, and selecting the part which
chances to assume a resemblance to
the human heart, which must be worn
by the patient around her or his neck,
the sage persons of Zetland pretend to
cure the fatal disorder called the loss
of a heart.

* P. 288. — So at least says an Orkney
proverb.

* P. 294. — Jokul, yes, sir ; a Norse ex-
pression, still in common use.

* P. 294. — The Bicker of Saint Mag-
nus, a vessel of enormous dimensions,
was preserved at Kirkwall, and pre-
sented to each bishop of the Orkneys.
If the new incumbent was able to quaff
it out at one draught, which was a
task for Hercules or Rorie Mhor of
Dunvegan, the omen boded a crop of
unusual fertility.

* P. 294. — Luggie, a famous conjurer,
was wont, when storms prevented him
from going to his usual employment of
fishing, to angle over a steep rock, at
a place called, from his name, Lug-
gie's Knoll. At other times he drew
up dressed food while they were out
at sea, of which his comrades partook
boldly from natural courage, without
caring who stood cook. The poor

■ See Torfxi Orcadus, p. 131.

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

427

man was finally condemned and burnt
at Scalloway.

* P. .296.— Antique Coins found in
Zetland. — ^While these sheets were
passing through the press, I received
a letter from an honourable and learned
friend, containing the following pas-
sage, relating to a discovery in Zet-
land : — "Within a few weeks, the
workmen taking up the foundation of
an old wall, came on a hearth-stone,
under which they found a horn, sur-
rounded with massive silver rings, like
bracelets, and filled with coins of the
Heptarchy, in perfect preservation.
The place of finding is within a very
short distance of' the [supposed]
residence of Noma of the Fitfulhead.'"'
— Thus one of the very improbable
fictions of the tale is verified by a
singular coincidence.

* P. 297. — ^Young unbroke horse.

* P. 301. — In Gaelic, there.

* P. 309. — It is very curious that the
grouse, plenty in Orkney as the text
declares, should be totally unknown in
the neighbouring archipelago of Zet-
land, which is only about sixty miles
distance, with the Fair Isle as a step
between.

* P. 310. — ^The pirates gave this name
to the black flag, which, with many
horrible devices to enhance its terrors,
was their favourite ensign.

* P. 317. —It was anciently a custom at
Saint Olla's Fair at Kirkwall, that the
young people of the lower class, and
of either sex, associated in pairs for
the period of the Fair, during which
the couple were termed Lambmas
brother and sister. It is easy to con-
ceive that the exclusive familiarity
arising out of this custom was liable to
abuse, the rather that it is said little
scandal was attached to the indiscre-
tions which it occasioned.

* P. 327. — See an explanation of this
promise. Note to p. 227, of this
volume.

* P. 329.— Character of Norna.-^
The character of Noma is meant to be
an instance of that singular kind of
insanity, during which the patient,
while she or he retains much subtlety
and address for the power of imposing
upon others, is still more ingenious in
endeavouring to impose upon them-
selves. Indeed, maniacs of this kind
may be often observed to possess a
sort of double character, in pjie of

■"'which they are the being whom their
distempered imagination shapes lOut,
and in the other, their own natural
self, as seen to exist by other people.
This species of double consciousness
makes wild work with the patient's
imagination, and, judiciously used, is
perhaps a frequent means of restoring
sanity of intellect. Exterior circum-
stances striking the senses, often have
a powerful effect in undermining or
battering the airy castles which the
disorder has e-xcited.

A late medical gentleman, my par-
ticular friend, told me the case of *.
lunatic patient confined in the Edin-
burgh Infirmary. He was so far happy
that his mental alienation was of a gay
and pleasant character, giving a kind
of joyous explanation to all that came
in contact with him. He considered
the large house, numerous servants,
&c., of the hospital, as all matters of
state and consequence belonging to
his own personal estabhshment, and
had no doubt of his own wealth and
grandeur. One thing alone puzzled
this man of wealth. Although he was
provided with a first-rate cook and
proper assistants, although his table
was regularly supplied with every
delicacy of the season, yet he confessed
to my friend, that by some uncommon
depravity of the palate, every thing
which he ate tasted of porridge. This
peculiarity, of course, arose from the
poor man being fed upon nothing else,
and because his stomach was not so
easily deceived as his other senses.
* P. 330. — Birds of Prey. — So favour-
able a retreat does the island of
Hoy afford for birds of prey, that
instances of their ravages, which
seldom occur in other parts of the
country, arc not unusual there. An
individual was living in Orkney not
long since, whom, while a child in its
swaddling clothes, an eagle actually
transported to its nest in the Hill of
Hoy. Happily the eyry being laiown,
and the bird instantly pursued, the
child was found uninjured, playing with
the young eagles. A story of a more
ludicrous transportation was told me
by the reverend clergyman who is
minister of the island. Hearing one
day a strange grunting, he suspected
his ser%'ants had permitted a sow and
pigs, which were tenants of his farm-
, yard, to get among his barley crop.

423

NOTES TO THE PIRATE.

Having in vain looked for the trans-
gressors upon solid earth, he at length
cast his eyes upward, when he dis-
covered one of the litter in the talons
of a large eagle, which was soaring
away with the unfortunate pig (squeak-
ing all the while with terror) towards
her nest in the crest of Hoy.

* P- 33S' — This was really an exploit
of the celebrated Avery the pirate,
who suddenly, and without provoca-
tion, fired his pistols under the table
where he sat drinking with his mess-
mates, wounded one man severely,
and thought the matter a good jest.
What is still more extraordinary, his
crew regarded it in the same light.

* P- 335- — A ship going fast through
the sea is said to cut a feather, alluding
to the ripple which she throws off from
her bows.

* P. 347.— Commonly called by lands-
men, Spanish dollars.

* P- 3SS- — Liquor brewed for a Christ-
mas treat.

* P. 378. — A well, in the language of
those seas, denotes one of the whirl-
pools, or circular eddies, which wheel
and boil with astonishing strength,
and are very dangerous. Hence the
distinction, in old English, betwixt
wells and waves, the latter signifying
the direct onward course of the tide,
and the former the smooth, glassy,
oily-looking whirlpools, whose strength
seems to the eye almost irresistible.

*P. 380. — The Standing Stones of
Stennis. — The Standing Stones of
Stennis, as by a little pleonasm this
remarkable monument is termed,
furnishes an irresistible refutation of
the opinion of such antiquaries as
hold that the circles usually called
Druidical, were pecuUar to that race
of priests. There is every reason to
believe, that the custom was as preva-
lent in Scandinavia as in Gaul or
Britain, and as common to the my-
thology of Odin as to Druidicial super-
stition. There is even reason to think,
that the Druids never occupied any
part of the Orkneys, and tradition, as
well as history, ascribes the stones of
Stennis to the Scandinavians. Two
\31ge sheets of water, communicating
with the sea, are connected by a cause-
way, with openings permitting the tide
to rise and recede, which is called the
Bridge of Broisgar. Upon the eastern

tongue of land appear the Standing
Stones, arranged in the form of a half
circle, or rather a horse-shoe, the
height of the pillars being fifteen feet
and upwards. Within 'this circle lies
a stone, probably sacrificial. One of
the pillars, a little to the westward, is
perforated with a circular hole, through
which loving couples are wont to join
hands when they take the Promise of
Odin, as has been repeatedly men-
tioned in the text. The enclosure is
surrounded by barrows, and on the
opposite isthmus, advancing towards
the Bridge of Broisgar, there is another
monument of Standing Stones, which,
in this case, is completely circular.
They are less in size than those on the
eastern side of the lake, their height
running only from ten or twelve to
fourteen feet. This western circle is
surrounded by a deep trench drawn on
the outside of the pillars ; and I re-
marked four tumuh, or mounds of
earth, regularly disposed around it.
Stonehenge excels this Orcadian
monument ; but that of Stennis is, I '
conceive, the only one in Britain
which can be said to approach it in
consequence. All the northern nations
marked by those huge enclosures the
places of popular meeting, either for
religious worship or the transaction of
public business of a temporal nature.
The Nortlierti Popular Antiquities
contain, in an abstract of the Eyr-
biggia Saga, a particular account of
the manner in which the Helga Fels,
or Holy Rock, was set apart by the
Pontiff Thorolf for solemn occasions.

I need only add, that, different
from the monument on Salisbury
Plain, the stones which were used in
the Orcadian circle seem to have been
raised from a quarry upon the spot,
of which the marks are visible.
* P. 413. — We.have been able to learn
nothing with certainty of Bunce's
fate ; but our flriend. Dr. Dryasdust,
believes he may be identified with an
old gentleman, who, in the beginning
of the reign of George I. attended the
Rose Coffee-house regularly, went to
the theatre every night, told mercilessly
long stories about the Spanish Main,
controlled reckonings, bullied waiters,
and was generally known by the name
of Captain Bounce.

DKADUURV, AGNKW, & CO., PKINTERS, WHITEFEHRS.

5j^'>';Vi ^i^-^i".*;-*- ^ .* '»^

r*