..■#^ »Km \e^- ^ * .^A ■FP.OM -THE- LIBRARY- OF - A. n'. Ryder Minna on tlw Cliff Drawn and Etched bv Herbert Dicksee lUuetrated Sterling Gditioii THE PIRATE The Fortunes of Nigel BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. BOSTON DANA ESTES ».^- COMPANY PUBLISHERS 1^ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE PIRATE PAGK Minna on the Cliff Frontispiece The Udaller's Home — Magnus Troil and His Family x The Storm, with Mordaunt Rescuing Cleveland . 75 XoRMA Performing Her Curative Spell on Minna Troil 293 The Altercation between the Pedlar and Cleve- land at the Fair of Kirkwall .... 337 Sir Walter Scott in His Study (Castle Street, Edinburgh) 376 Minna Taking the Pistol from Bunce to Defend Herself and Her Sister 386 FORTUNES OF NIGEL ««I SEE BRAVE LINES HERE,* SAID UrSULA " ... 92 '• The whole train were uncovered excepting the Prince of Wales" 175 "'Stand off, old Pilory, let me make Scotch collops OF him 265 mS9o'90 INTRODUCTIOX TO THE PIRATE. Quoth he, there was a ship. This brief preface may begin like the tale of the " An- cient 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 en- deavored to embody in the romance of the " Pirate." In the summer and autumn of ISli, the Author was in- vited to Join a party of Commissioners for the Northern Lighthouse Service, who proposed making a voyage round the coast of Scotland, and through its various groups of islands, chiefly for the purpose of seeing the condition of the many lighthouses under their direction — edifices so important whether regarding them as benevolent or political institu- tions. Among the commissioners who manage this important public concern, the sheriff of each county of Scotland which borders on the sea holds " ex officio " a place at the Board. These gentlemen act in every respect gratuitously, but have the use of an armed 3'acht, well found and fitted up, when they choose to visit the lighthouses. x'Vn 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 Cor- poral Trim's story, a seaport in its circuit, nor its magistrate, of course, any place at the Board of Commissioners — a cir- cumstance of little consequence where all were old and inti- mate friends, bred to the same profession, and disposed to accommodate each other in everv' possible manner. The nature of the important business which was the prin- cipal purpose of the voyage was connected with the amuse- ment of visiting the leading objects of a traveler's curiosity; for the wild cape or formidable shelve which requires to be marked out by a lighthouse is generally at no great dis- tance from the most magnificent scenery of rocks, caves, and billows. Our time, too, was at our own disposal, and, as most of us were fresh-water sailors, we could at any time make a iv INTRODUCTION TO THE PIRATE. fair wind out of a foul one, and run before the gale in quest of some object of curiosity which lay under our lee. With these purposes of public utility, and some personal amusement, in view, we left the port of Leith on the 26th July, 1814, ran along the east coast of Scotland, viewing its different curiosities, stood over to Zetland and Orkney, where we were some time detained by the wonders of a country which displayed so much that was new to us; and having seen what was curious in the Ultima Thule of the ancients, where the sun hardly thought it worth while to go to bed, since his rising was at this season so early, we doubled the extreme northern termination of Scotland, and took a rapid survey of the Hebrides, where we found many kind friends. There, that our little expedition might not want the dignity of danger, we were favored 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 Irelajid 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 equip- ment 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 pur- suits, and remaining for several weeks on board a small ves- sel, 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 accommoda- tion all the purposes of our little expedition were attained, 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 ! * See Lockbart'8 " Life," vol. iv. pp. ISO-aWX INTRODUCTION TO TBt; PIRATE. ^ But sorrow mixes her memorials with tlie purest remem- brances of pleasure. On returning from the voyage which had proved so satisfactory, I found that fate had deprived her country most unexpectedly of a lady qualified to adorn the high rank which she held, and who had long admitted me to a share of her friendship.* The subsequent loss of one of those comrades who made up the party, and he the most intimate friend I had in the world,t casts also its shade on recollections which, but for these embitterments, would be othennse 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 endeavor to dis- cover some localities which might be useful in the " Lord of the Isles," a poem with which 1 was then threatening the pub- lic, and [which] was afterward printed without attaining re- markable 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 de- partment 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 be- come the scene of a narrative of fictitious events. I learned the history of Gow the pirate from an old sibyl (see Note 14, p. 454), whose principal subsistence was by a trade in favor- able winds, which she sold to mariners at Stromness. Noth- ing could be more interesting than the kindness and hos- pitalitv of the gentlemen of Zetland, which was to me the more affecting as several of them had been friends and cor- respondents of my father. T was induced to go a generation or two farther back to find materials from which I might trace the features of the old Norwegian udaller. the Scottish gentry having in general occupied the place of that primitive race, and their language and peculiarities of manner having entirely disappeared. * Harriet Katherine, Duchess of Bucclench, died 24th Anciist, 19.14. — Laliif;. + William Erskine of Kinedder, -on of an Episci'pal minister in Pertli-liire. wap edu- cated for the lesal profession, and passed advocate 3d July, 1790. Fie was apyioinfed Sheriff-Depute of Orkney 6th June, 1809, and in that capacity was accompanied hy Scott in the Lishthousr vovace round the coast. He was raised to the bench, and took his seat as Lord Kinedder '29th January, 1822. Unfortuiia'ely he did not lon<: enj'vv this honor, as he d'ed nnexpectedly on tlie 14th of .^iiirust following, to the great ifrief of sir Walter, who at this verv time was wholly occnijicd with the arrantremenls con- nertcd with George IV.'s visit to KilinlHirirh. T.ord Kinedder, to whom Scott had from bovhood been deeply attached, was a mo-t amiaMeand accomplished man. In 1788. when the " Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the HiEhlands'' wa< first published ("which the Wartons thought superior to the other works of Collins, but wnirh Dr. Johnson savs, "no search has yet found "\ Mr. Krskine wrote several siipplem<;nt- nrv st;in7,as, intended to commemorate some ScMtti-b snp.erstitions omilti'd hy Collins, The.-e verses first appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine for April, 17SS. — Z.ai/iS'. Ti INTRODUCTION TO THE PIRATE. The only difference now to be observed betwixt the gentry oi these islands and those of Scotland in general is, that the wealth and property is more equally divided among our more northern countrymen, and that there exists among the resi- dent proprietors no men of very gi'eat 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 con- sequence, I found tlie officers of a veteran regiment who had maintained the garrison at Fort Charlotte, in Lerwick, dis- composed at the idea of being recalled from a country where their pay, however inadequate to the expenses of a capital, was fully adequate to their wants, and it was singular to hear natives of merry England herself regretting their approaching departure from the melancholy isles of the Ultima Thule. Such are the trivial particulars attending the origin of that publication, which took place several years later than the agreeable journey from which it took its rise. The state of manners which I have introduced in the ro- mance was necessarily in a great degree imaginary, though founded in some measure on flight 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 Merrilies. 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 liter- ature and extravagant superstitions of the North — something distinct from the Dumfriesshire gypsy, whose pretensions to supernatural powers are not beyond those of a Norwood prophetess. The foundations of such a character may be perhaps traced, though it be too true that the necessary super- structure cannot have been raised upon them, otherwise these remarks would have been unnecessary. There is also great improbabilitv in the statement of Noma's possessing power and opportunity to impress on others that belief in her super- natural gifts which distracted her own mind. Yet, amid a very credulous and ignorant population, it is astonishing INTRODUCTION TO THE PIRATE. vu what success may be attained by an impostor who is, at the same time, an enthusiast. It is such as to remind us of the couplet which assures us that The pleasnra is as great In being cheated as to cheat. Indeed, as I have observed elsewhere, the professed expla- nation of a tale, where appearances or incidents of a super- natural character are referred to natural causes, has often, in the winding up of the story, a degree of improbability almost equal to an absolute goblin narrative. Even the genius of Mrs. Eadcliffe could not always surmount this difficulty. Abbotsfokd, 1st May, 1831. ADVERTISEMENT. The purpose of the following narrative is to give a detailed and accurate account of certain remarkable incidents which took place in the Orkney Islands, concerning which the more imperfect traditions and mutilated records of the country only tell us the following erroneous particulars: In the month of January 172-i~25, a vessel, called the " Eevenge," bearing twenty large guns and six smaller, com- manded by John Gow, or Goiie, or Smith, came to the Orkney Islands, and was discovered to be a pirate by various acts of insolence and villainy committed by the crew. These were for some time submitted to, the inhabitants of these re- mote 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 Strom- ness, but, before his real character was discovered, engaged the affections, and received the troth-plight, of a young lady possessed of some property. A patriotic individual, James Fea, younger of Clestron, formed the plan of securing the buccanier, which he effected by a mixture of courage and ad- dress, in consequence chiefly of Gow's vessel having gone on shore near the harbor of Calfsound, on the Island of Eda, no' far distant from a house then inhabited by Mr. Fea. In the various stratagems by which Mr. Fea contrived finally, at tht peril of his life (they being well armed and desperate), t« make the whole pirates his prisoners, he was much aided b- Mr. James Laing, the grandfather of the late Malcolm Laing VUi INTRODUCTION TO THE PIRATJiJ. Esq.,* the acute and ingenious historian of Scotland during the seventeenth 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-watness, seems to have been subjected to some un- usual 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 wdiip-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 (2Tth May, 1725), when he had seen the terrible preparations for pressing him to death, his courage gave way, and he told the marshal of court that he would not have given so much trouble had he been assured of not being hanged in chains. He was then tried, condemned, and executed, with others of his crew. It is said that the lady whose affections Gow had engaged went up to London to see him before his death, and that, arriving too late, she had the courage to request a sight of his dead body; and then, touching the hand of the corpse, she formally resumed the troth-plight which she had bestowed. Without going through this ceremony, she could not, ac- cording to the superstition of the country, have escaped a visit from the ghost of her departed lover, in the event of her be- stowing upon any living suitor the faith which she had plighted to the dead. This part of the legend may serve as a curious commentary on the fine Scottish ballad f which begins: There came a ghost to Margaret's door, etc. The common account of this incident farther bears, that Mr. Fea, the spirited individual by whose exertions Gow's career of iniquity was cut short, was so far from receiving any reward from Government, that he could not obtain even countenance enough to protect him against a variety of sham * This gentleman was calleci to the Scotch Bar in the year 1784 but the infirm state of hie health indured him, in 1810, to leave the profession, and to reside on his paiernal Eropertv near Kirkwall, devotin? himself to agricultural pursuits. He died in Novem- er, 1818, aged fif ly-five, and was interred in the nave of St, Magnus's Cathedral — Laincf. tTliis ballad of "Willie's Ghost" is printed in Herd's "Collection," vol. i. p. 76, It is not so well known as Mallet's version, " Willie and Margaret," which begins, " 'Twas at the fearful midnight hour."— Zai/iff. INTRODUCTION TO THE PIRATE. ix suits, raised against hira by N'ewgate solicitors, who acted in the name of Gow and others of the pirate's crew; and the various expenses, vexatious prosecutions, and other legal con- sequences, 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 honor of George the First's Government, that the last circumstance, as well as the dates, and other particulars of the commonly received story, are in- accurate, 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.'' Tiie Udaller's home — Magnus Troil and his tamily. 2 WAVERLET NOVELS. 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 imagi- nation; a large old-fashioned narrow house, with a very steep roof, covered with flags composed of gray sandstone, would perhaps convey the best idea of the place to a modern reader. The windows were few, very small in size, and distributed up and down the building with utter contempt of regularity. Against the main structure had rested, in foi-mer times, cer- tain smaller copartments of the mansion-house, containing offices, or subordinate apartments, necessary for the accommo- dation of the earl's retainers and menials. But these had be- come 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 con- trived, by constant labor and attention, to keep in order a few roods of land, which had been inclosed as a garden, and which, sheltered by the walls of the house itself from the re- lentless sea-blast, produced such vegetables as the climate could bring forth, or rather as the sea-gale would permit to grow; for these islands experience even less of the rigor of cold than is encountered on the mainland of Scotland; but, unsheltered by a wall of some sort or other, it is scarce pos- sible to raise even the most ordinary culinary vegetables; and as for shrubs or trees, they are entirely out of the question, such is the force of the sweeping sea-blast. At a short distance from the mansion, and near to the sea- beach, just where the creek forms a sort of imperfect harbor, 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 dist^ct of the land- lord 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, some- what passionate, the nece8S.ary result of being surrounded by dependents; and somewhat over-convivial in his habits, the THE PIUATK 3 consequence, perhaps, of having too much time at his dis- posal; but frank-tempered and generous to his people, and kind and hospitable to strangers. He was descended also of an old and noble Norwegian family — a circumstance which rendered him dearer to the lower orders, most of whom are of the same race; while the lairds, or proprietors, are gener- ally of Scottish extraction, who, at that early period, were still considered as strangers and intruders. Magnus Troil, who deduced his descent from the \qtj earl who was supposed to have founded Jarlshof, was peculiarly of this opinion. The present inhabitants of Jarlshof had experienced, on several occasions, the kindness and good-^dll of the proprie- tor 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 ^nth that warm and cordial hospitality for which the islands are distinguished. No one asked him whence he came, where he was going, what was his purpose in visiting so remote a corner of the empire, or what was likely to be the term of his stay. He arrived a perfect stranger, yet was instantly overpowered by a succes- sion 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 in- difference to the rank, character, and qualities of their guest did not arise from apathy on the part of his kind hosts, for the islanders had their full share of natural curiosity; but their delicacy deemed it would be an infringement upon the laws of hospitality to ask questions which their guest might have found it difficult or unpleasing to answer; and instead of endeavoring, as is usual in other countries, to wring out of Mr. Mertoun such communications as he might find it agree- able to ^vithhold, the considerate Zetlanders contented them- selves with eagerly gathering up such scraps of information as could be collected in the course of conversation. But the rock in an Arabian desert is not more reluctant to afford water than Mr. Basil Mertoun was niggard in impart- ing his confidence, even incidentally; and certainly the politeness of the gentry of Thule was never put to a more severe test than when they felt that good-breeding enjoined them to abstain from inquiring into the situation of so mys- terious a personage. All that was actually known of him was eafcily summed up. 4 WAVERLET NOVELS. Mr. Mertoun had come to Lerwick, then rising into some im- portance, 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 fouri;een years old. His own age might exceed forty. The Dutch skipper introduced him to some of the very good friends with whom he used to barter gin and gingerbread for little Zetland bullocks, smoked geese, and stockings of lambs' wool; and although Meinherr could only say that, " Meinherr Mertoun hab bay his bassage like one gentlemans, and hab given a kreitz-dollar beside to the crew," this introduction served to establish the Dutchman's passenger in a respectable circle of acquaintances, which gradually enlarged, as it appeared that the stranger was a man of considerable acquirements. This discovery was made almost " per force "; for Mertoun was as unwilling to speak upon general subjects as upon his own affairs. But he was sometimes led into discussions, which showed, as it were in spite of himself, the scholar and the man of the world; and at other times, as if in requital of the hospitality which he experienced, he seemed to compel himself, against his fixed nature, to enter into the society of those around him, especially when it assumed the grave, mel- ancholy, or satirical cast which best suited the temper of his own mind. Upon such occasions, the Zetlanders were uni- versally of opinion that he must have had an excellent edu- cation, 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 re- spects; but so it was. Unless called forth in the manner we have mentioned, the habits of Basil Mertoun Avere retired and gloomy. From loud mirth he instantly fled; and even moderated cheerfulness of a friendly party had the invariable effect of throwing him into deeper dejection than even his usual demeanor indicated. AVomen are always particularly desirous of investigating mystery and of alleviating melancholy, especially when these circumstances are united in a handsome man about the prime of life. It is possible, therefore, that amongst the fair- haired and blue-eyed daughters of Thule this mysterious and pensive stranger might have found someone to take upon herself the task of consolation, had he shown any willingness THE PIRATE. 6 to accept such kindly ofRces; but, far from doing so, he seemed even to shun the presence of the sex to which in our distresses, whether of mind or body, we generally apply for pity and comfort. To these peculiarities ]\Ir. Mertoun added another, wliich was particularly disagreeable to his host and principal patron, Magnus Troil. This magnate of Zetland, descended by the father's side, as we have already said, from an ancient Nor- wegian family, by the marriage of its representative with a Danish lady, held the devout opinion that a cup of Geneva or Nantz was specific against all cares and afflictions what- ever. These were remedies to which Mr. Mertoun never ap- plied: his drink was water, and water alone, and no persua- sion 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 an- cient 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 dmnk (that is, m 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 compen- sate the displeasure given by his austere and abstemious habits? He had, in the first place, that manner and self- importance which mark a person of some consequence; and although it was conjectured that he could not be rich, yet it was certainly known by his expenditure that neither was he absolutely poor. He had, besides, some powers of conversa- tion, when, as we have already hinted, he chose to exert them, and his misanthropy or aversion to the business and inter- course of ordinary life was often expressed in an antithetical manner, which passed for wit, when better was not to be had. Above all, Mr. Mertoun's secret seemed impenetrable, and his presence had all the interest of a riddle, which men love to read over and over, because they cannot find out the mean- ing of it. Notwithstanding these recommendations, Mertoun differed in so many material points from his host, that, after he had been for some time a guest at his principal residence, Magnus Troil was agreeably surprised when, one evening, after they had sat two hours in absolute silence, drinking brandy and water — that is, Magnus drinking the alcohol and Mertoun the element — the guest asked his host's permission to occupy. 6 WAVERLET AOVELS. as his tenant, this deserted mansion of Jarlshof, at the ex- tremity of the territory called Dunrossness, and situated just beneath Sumburgh Head. "I shall be handsomely rid of him," quoth Magnus to himself, " and his kill-joy visage will never again stop the bottle in its round. His departure will ruin me in lemons, however, for his mere look was quite suiii- cient to sour a whole ocean of punch." Yet the kind-hearted Zetlander generously and disinter- estedly remonstrated with Mr. Mertoun on the solitude and inconveniences to which he was about to subject himself. " There were scarcely," he said, " even the most necessary articles of furniture in the old house; there was no society within many miles; for provisions, the principal article of food would be sour sillocks, and his only company gnlls and gannets." " ]\Iy good friend," replied Mertoun, " if you could have named a circumstance which would render the residence more eligible to me than any other, it is that there would be neither human luxury nor human society near the place of my re- treat: 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." " Eent! " answered the Zetlander; " why, no great rent for an old house which no one has lived in since my mother's time — God rest her! — and as for shelter, the old walls are thick enough, and will bear many a bang yet. But, Heaven love you, Mr. Mertoun, think what you "are purposing. For one of us to live at Jarlshof were a ^ald scheme enough; but you, who are from another country, whether English, Scotch, or Irish, no one can tell " " Nor does it greatly matter," said Mertoun, somewhat abruptly. " Not a herring's scale," answered the laird; " only, that I like you the better for being no Scot, as I trust you are not one. Hither they have come like the clack-geese: every chamberlain has brought over a flock of his own name, and his own hatching, for what I know, and here they roost for- ever; catch them returning to their o^vn barren Highlands or Lowlands, when once they have tasted our Zetland beef and seen our bonny voes and lochs. No, sir " — here Magnus pro- ceeded with great animation, sipping from time to time the half-diluted spirit, which at the same time animated liis re- sentment against the intruders and enabled him to endure the mortifying reflection which it suggested — "no, sITj the THE PIRATE. * ancient days and the genuine manners of these islands are no more; for our ancient possessors — our Patersons, our Feas, our Schlagbrennei-s, our Thorbiorns— have given place to Giffords, Seotts, 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 mvstery 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 ^nth pleasure, because he knew he should not be called upon to contribute any aid to the conversation, and might therefore indulge his own saturnine humor while the Xorwegian Zet- lander 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 pos- session of the Norse inhabitants, the true Udallers* of Zet- land," he recollected the circumstances of his guest, and stopped suddenly short. " I do not say all this," he added, interrupting hiniself, " as if I were unwilling that you should settle on my estate, Mr. Mertoun. But for Jarlshof— the place is a wdld one. Come from where you will, I warrant you will say, like other travelers, you came from a better climate than ours, for so say you all. And yet you think of a retreat which the very natives run away from. Will you not take your glass? — (This was to be considered as inter- jectional.)" — Then here's to you." " My good sir," answered Mertoun, " I am indifferent to chmate: if there is but air enough to fill my lungs, I care not if it be the breath of x4rabia or of Lapland." " Air enough you may have," answered Magnus, " no lack of that; somewhat damp, strangers allege it to be, but we know a corrective for that. Here's to you, Mr. Mertoun. You must learn to do so, and to smoke a pipe; and then, as you say, you will find the air of Zetland equal to that of Arabia. But have you seen Jarlshof?" The stranger intimated that he had not. " Then," replied Magnus, " you have no idea of your undert*». discussed at the conclusion of a chapter. CHAPTER III. O, Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, They were twa bouuie lasses ; They biggit a house on yon Luru-brft«, And theekit it ower \vi' rashes. Fair Bessy Bell I looed yestreen, And thought I ne'er could alter ; But Mar}' Gray's twa pawky een Have garr'd ray fancy falter. — Scots Song. We have already mentioned Minna and Brenda, the daugh- ters 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 Mor- daunt 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 wliich even blind indulgence had not introduced slight regard or feminine caprice. The difference of their tempers and of their complexions was singularly striking, although combined, as is usual, with a certain degree of family resemblance. The mother of these maidens had been a Scottish lady from the Highlands of Sutherland, the orphan of a noble chief, who, driven from his own country during the feuds of the seventeenth century, had found shelter in those peaceful islands, which, amidst poverty and seclusion, were thus far happy, that they remained unvexed by discord and unstained by civil broil. The father (his name "was St. 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 fonn and dark eyes, the raven locks and finely-penciled brows, which IS THE PIRATE. 1^ showed she was, on one side at least, a stranger to the blood of Thule. Her cheek — call it fair, uot pale! was so slightly and delicately tinged \nth the rose that many thought the lily had an undue proportion in her complexion. But in that predominance of tlie pder flower there was noth- ing sickly or languid: it was the true, natural color of health, and corresponded in a peculiar degree with features which seemed calculated to express a contemplative and high- minded character. When Minna Troil heard a tale of woe or of injustice, it was then her blood rushed to her cheeks, and showed plainly how warm it beat, notwithstanding the gen- erally serious, composed, and retiring disposition which her coiintenance and demeanor seemed to exhibit. If strangers sometimes conceived that these fine features were clouded by melancholy, for which her age and situation could scarce have given occasion, they were soon satisfied, upon further acquaintance, that the placid, mild quietude of her disposi- tion, and the mental energy of a character which was but little interested in ordinary and trivial occurrences, were 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 wliich she was surrounded, might have wished her whatever could add to her happiness, but could scarce have desired that, graceful as she was in her natural and unaffected seriousness, she should change that deportment for one more gay. In short, notwithstanding our wish to have avoided that hackneyed simile of an angel, we cannot avoid saying there was something in the serious beauty of her aspect, in the measured yet graceful ease of her motions, in the music of her voice, and the serene purity of her eye, that seemed as if Minna Troil belonged naturally to some higher and better sphere, and was only the chance visitant of a world that was not worthy of her. The scarcely less beautiful, equally lovely, and equally innocent Brenda was of a complexion as differing from her sister as they differed in character, taste, and expression. Her profuse locks were of that paly brown which receives from the passing sunbeam a tinge of gold, but darkens again when the ray has passed from it. Her eye, her mouth, the beautiful row of teeth, which in her innocent vivacity were frequently disclosed; the fresh, yet not too bright, glow of a 20 WAVERLEY NOVELS. 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 molded 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 differ- ent 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 everyday 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 for- ward, but was rather placidly carried along with the stream of mirth and pleasure than disposed to aid its progress by any efforts of her own. She endured mirth rather than enjoyed it; and the pleasures in which she most delighted were those of a graver and more solitary cast. The knowledge which is derived from books was beyond her reach. Zetland afforded few opportunities in those days of studying the lessons be- queathed 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 ex- perienced fowlers. Her powers of observation were wonder- ful, and little interrupted by other tones of feeling. The in- formation which she acquired by habits of patient attention was indelibly riveted in a naturally powerful memory. She had also a high feeling for the solitary and melancholy grandeur of the scenes in which she was placed. The ocean, in all its varied forms of sublimity and terror; the tremen- dous cliffs, that resound to the ceaseless roar of the billows and t?ie clang of the sea,-fawl, had for Minna a charm in THE PIRATE. 21 almost every state in which the changing seasons exhibited them. With tlie 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 some- times when she sat like a beautiful statue, a present member of the domestic circle, her thoughts were far absent, wander- ing on the wild sea-shore, and among the yet wilder moun- tains of her native isles. And yet, when recalled to conversa- tion, and mingling in it with interest, there were few to whom her friends were more indebted for enhancing its enjoyments; and although something in her manners claimed deference (notwithstanding her early youth) as well as affection, even her gay, lovely, and amiable sister was not more generally be- loved 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 in- habit-ants 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 re- turned to end his days as he could in his native islands, had celebrated the daughters of Magnus in a poem, which he en- titled " Xight 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 merrv' 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 ^finna before noon, and Brenda after the glass had circulated in the evening. 22 WA VERLET NO VELS. But it was still more extraordinary that the affections of Mordau2it Mertoun seemed to hover with the same impar- tiality 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 im- passable character of the country betwixt these places, ex- tending over liills 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 daugh- ters of Magnus by the public of Zetland; and when the old Udaller's great partiality to the youth was considered, nobody doubted that he might aspire to the hand of either of those distinguished beauties, with as large a share of islets, rocky moorland, and shore fishings as might be the fitting portion of a favored child, and with the presumptive prospect of pos- sessing 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 con- structed than many that are current through the world as unquestionable facts. But, alas! all that sharpness of obser- vation 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 affec- tionate 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 at- tention, it seemed only to be because circumstances called her peculiar talents and disposition into more particular and immediate exercise. Both the sisters were accomplished in the simple music of the North, and Mordaunt. who was their assistant, and some- times their preceptor, when they were practicing this delight- ful art, might be now seen assisting Minna in the acquisition THE PIRATE. 23 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 com- pUcated music which her fathers affection caused to be brought from the English or Scottish capital for the use of his daughters. x\nd wliile conversing with them, Mordaunt, who mingled a strain of deep and ardent enthusiasm with the gay and ungovernable spirits of youth, was equally ready to enter into the wild and poetical visions of ]^Iinna or into the lively and often humorous chat of her gayer sister. In short, so httle did he seem to attach himself to either damsel exclusiveh', that he was sometimes heard to say that Minna never looked so lovely as when her light-hearted sister had induced her, for the time, to forget her habitual gra\aty; or Brenda so interesting as when she sat listening, a subdued and affected partaker of the deep pathos of her sister Minna. The pubhc of the Mainland were, therefore, to use the hunter's phrase, at fault in their farther conclusions, and could but determine, after long vacillating betwixt the maidens, that the young man was positively to marry one of them, but which of the two could only be determined when his approaching manhood, or the interference of stout old Magnus, the father, should teach Master Mordaunt Mertoun to know his own mind. " It was a pretty thing indeed," they usually concluded, " that he, no native born, and possessed of no visible means of subsistence that is known to anyone, should presume to hesitate, or affect to have the power of selection and choice, betwixt the two most distinguished beauties of Zetland. If they were Magnus Troil, they would soon be at the bottom of the matter," and so forth; all which remarks were only whispered, for the hasty disposition of the TJdaller had too much of the old Norse fire about it to render it safe for anyone to become an unauthorized intermeddler with his family affairs. And thus stood the relation of Mor- daunt Mertoun to the family of Mr. Troil of Buxgh-Westra when the following incidents took place. CHAPTER IV. This is no pilgrim's morning : yon gray mist Lies upon hill, and dale, and field, and foreat, 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 Jarls- hof. 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 stem 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, " Al- though I must own," added the worthy Udaller, " that, when he lived among us, nobody ever made less use of it." Mordaunt acquiesced both in what respected his father's taciturnity and his dislike to general society; but suggested, at the same time, that the first circumstance rendered his own immediate return more necessary, as he was the usual channel of comrnunication betwixt his father and others; and that the second corroborated the same necessity, since Mr. Mertoun's having no other society whatever seemed a weighty reason why his son's should be restored to him without loss of time. As to his father's coming to Burgh-Westra, " They might as well," he said, " expect to see Sumburgh Cape come thither." " And that would be a cumbrous guest," said Magnus. " But you will stop for our dinner to-day? There are the families of Muness, Quendale, Thorslivoe, and I know not who else, are expected; and, besides the thirty that were in the house this blessed night, we shall have as many more as cham- ber and bower, and bam and boat-house, can furnish with THE PIRATE. 25 beds or with barley-straw; and you will leave all this behind you! " '• And the blithe dance at night," added Brenda, in a tone betwixt reproach and vexation; " and the young men from the Isle of Paba that are to dance the sword-dance, whom shall we find to match them, for the honor of the Main? " " There is many a merry dancer on the Mainland, Brenda," replied Mordaunt, " even if I should never rise on tiptoe again. And where good dancers are found, Brenda Troil will always find the best partner. I must trip it to-night through the wastes of Dunrossness." " Do not say so, Mordaunt," said Minna, who, during this conversation, had been looking from the window something anxiously; " go not, to-day at least, through the wastes of Dunrossness." " And why not to-day, Minna," said Mordaunt, laughing, "any more than to-morrow?" " Oh, the morning mist lies heavy upon yonder chain of isles, nor has it permitted us since daybreak even a single ghmpse of Fitful Head, the lofty cape that concludes yon splendid range of mountains. The fowl are winging their way to the shore, and the shelldrake seems, through the mist, as large as the scart.* See, the very sheerwaters and bonxies are making to the cliifs 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 Mor- daunt, who could not deny the signs, which had not escaped his own quick observation. " If the storm be too fierce, I will abide for the night at Stourburgh." "What!" said Magnus; "will you leave us for the new chamberlain's new Scotch tacksman, who is to teach all us Zetland savages new ways? Take your own gate, my lad, if that is the song you sing." *Se«Note?. 26 WAVEBLEY NOVELS. " Nay," said Mordaunt; " I had onl}^ some curiosity to see fhe new implements he has brought." " Aye — aye, ferlies make fools fain. I would like to know if his new plow will bear against a Zetland rock? " answered Magnus. " I must not pass Stourburgh on the journey," said the youth, deferring to his patron's prejudice against innovation, " if this boding weather bring on tempest; but if it only break in rain, as is most probable, I am not likely to be melted in the wetting." " It will not soften into rain alone," said Minna; " see how much heavier the clouds fall every moment, and see these weather-gaws that streak the lead-colored 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 taiTy here. Adieu, Minna; I will send you the eagle's feathers, if an eagle can be found on Fair Isle or Foulah. And fare thee well, my pretty Brenda, and keep a thought for me, should the Paba men dance ever so well." " Take care of yourself, since go you will," said both sisters together. Old Magnus scolded them formally for supposing there was any danger to an active young fellow from a spring gale, whether by sea or land; yet ended by giving his own caution also to Mordaunt, advising him seriously to delay his journey, or at least to stop at Stourburgh. " For," said he, " second thoughts are best; and as this Scottishman's howf lies right under your lee, why, take any port in a storm. But do not be assured to find the door on latch, let the stonn blow ever so hard; there are such matters as bolts and bars in Scotland, though, thanks to St. Ronald, they are unknown here, save that great lock on the old Castle of Scalloway, that all men run to see; maybe they make part of this man's improve- ments. But go, Mordaunt, since go you will. You should drink a stirrup-cup now, were you three years older; but boys should never drink, excepting after dinner. I will drink it for you, that good customs may not be broken, or bad luck come of it. Here is your bonally, my lad." And so saying, he quaffed a rummer glass of brandy with as much impunity as if it had been spring-water. Thus regretted and cautioned on all hands, Mordaunt took leave of the hospitable household, and looking back at the comforts with which it was surrounded, and the dense smoke that rolled upward from its chimneys, he first recollected the THE PIE ATE. 27 guestless and solitary desolation of Jarlshof, then compared with tlie 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 dishonor 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 pre- cedes his fit of violence; then gradually increasing, the gale howled, raged, and roared with the full fury of a northern storm. It was accompanied by showers of rain mixed with hail, that dashed with the most unrelenting rage against the hills and rocks with wliich the traveler was surrounded, dis- tracting liis attention, in spite of his utmost exertions, and rendering it ver}^ 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, caxried off by the fury of the whirlwind, was mingled \ai\i 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 j\Iordaunt that the spray of the more distant ocean, disturbed to frenzy by the storm, was mingled with that of the inland lakes and streams. Amidst this hideous combustion of the elements, Mordaunt Mertoun struggled forward as one to whom such elemental war was familiar, and who regarded the exertions which it required to withstand its fury but as a mark of resolution and manliood. He felt even, as happens usually to those who endure great hardships, that the exertion necessary' to sub- due them is in itself a kind of elevating triumph. To see and distinguish his path when the cattle were driven from the hill, and the very fowls from the firmament, was but the stronger proof of his own superiority. " They shall not hear of me at Burgh- Westra," said he to himself, " as they heard of old doited Ringan Ewenson's boat, that foundered betwixt roadstead and key. I am more of a cragsman than to mind fire or water, wave by sea, or quagmire by land." Thus he struggled on, buffeting with the storm, supplying the want 28 WAVERLEY NOVELS. of the usual signs by which travelers directed their progress (for rock, mountain, and headland were shrouded in mist and darkness) by the instinctive sagacity with which long ac- quaintance with these wilds had taught him to mark every minute object which could serve in such circumstances to regulate his course. Thus, we repeat, he struggled onward, occasionally standing still, or even lying down, when the gust was most impetuous; making way against it when it was somewhat lulled, by a rapid and bold advance even in its very current; or, when this was impossible, by a movement resem- bling that of a vessel working to windward by short tacks, but never yielding one inch of the way which he had fought so hard to gain. Yet, notwithstanding Mordaunt's experience and resolu- tion, his situation was sufficiently uncomfortable, and even precarious; not because his sailor's jacket and trousers, the common dress of young men through these isles when on a journey, were thoroughly wet, for that might have taken place within the same brief time in any ordinary day in this watery climate; but the real danger was that, notwdthstanding his utmost exertions, he made very slow way through brooks that were sending their waters all abroad, through morasses drowned in double deluges of moisture, which rendered all the ordinary passes more than usually dangerous, and re- peatedly obliged the traveler to perfonn a considerable cir- cuit, which in the usual case was unnecessary. Thus repeat- edly baffled, notwithstanding his youth and strength, Mor- daunt, 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 naxiies 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 Eomans 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; aud going straight to the door, with the most undoubt- ing confidence of instant admission, he was not a little sur- prised to find it not merely latched, which the weather might THE PIE ATE. 29 excuse, but even bolted, a thing which, as Magnus Troil has already intimated, was almost unknown in the archipelago. To knock, to call, and finalh' to batter the door with staff and stones, were the natural resources of the youth, who was rendered alike impatient by the pelting of the storm and by encountering such most unexpected and unusual obstacles to instant admission. As he was suffered, however, for many minutes to exhaust his impatience in noise and clamor, with- out 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 Eoseberr}' Topping, had been " come over," by a certain noble Scottish earl, who, proving too far north for canny Yorkshire, had persuaded him to accept of a farm in the ]\Iearns. where, it is unnecessary' to add, he found matters verv- different from what he had expected. It was in vain that the stout farmer set manfully to work to counterbalance, by superior skill, the inconveniences arising from a cold soil and a weeping climate. These might have been probably overcome; but his neighborhood to the Gram- pians exposed him eternally to that species of xasitation from the plaided gentry who dwelt within their skirts which made young Xorval a warrior and a hero, but only converted Jasper Yellowley into a poor man. This was, indeed, balanced in some sort by tlie impression which his ruddy cheek and robust form had the fortune to make upon Miss Barbara Clinkscale, daughter to the umquhile, and sister to the then existing, Clinkscale of that ilk. This was thought a horrid and unnatural union in the neighborhood, considering that the house of Clinkscale had at least as great a share of Scottish pride as of Scottish parsi- mony, and was amply endowed with both. But Miss Baby had her handsome fortune of two thousand merks at her own disposal, was a Avoman of spirit, who had been " major " and " sui juris " (as the writer who drew the contract assured her) for full twenty years: so she set consequences and commen- taries alike at defiance, and wedded the hearty Yorkshire yeo- man. Her brother and Iier 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 Baby after her marriage with Yellowley, but 3C WAVEBLEY NOVELS. even condescended to eat beans and bacon * — though the lat- ter was then the abomination of tlie Scotch as niucli as of the Jews — with her husband, and would willingly have cemented the friendship by borrowing a little cash from him, had not his good lady, who understood trap as well as any woman in the Mearns, put a negative on this advance to intimacy. In- deed, she knew how to make young Deilbelicket, old Dougald JBaresword, the Laird of Bandybrawl, and others pay for the hospitality which she did not think proper to deny them, by rendering them useful in her negotiations with the light- handed lads beyond the Cairn, who, finding their late object of plunder was now allied to " kenn'd 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 confiraied by her proving to be — let me see, what is the prettiest mode of expressing it? — in the family way. On this occasion, Mrs. Yellowley had a remarkable dream, as is the usual practice of teeming mothers previous to the birth of an illustrious offspring. She " was a-dreamed," as her husband expressed it, tliat she was safely delivered of a plow, drawn by three yoke of Angus-shire oxen; and being a mighty investigator into such portents, she sat herself down with her gossips to consider what the thing might mean. Honest Jasper ventured, with much hesitation, to intimate his own opinion that the vision had reference rather to things past than things future, and might have been occasioned by his wife's nerves having been a little startled by meeting in the loan above the house his own great plow 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 be- tween 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 hillside." " Now, the deil's in your Whiggery," said the old Lady Glenprosing; " wad ye hae our cummer's bonny lad-bairn wag * See " Waverley," Note 22, p. 459. THE PIRATE. 31 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 siccai- path, and be a dainty curate; and say he should Hve to be a bishop, what the waur wad he be? " The gauntlet thus fairly flung down by one sibyl was caught up by another, and the controversy between Presby- tery and Episcopacy raged, roared, or rather screamed, a round of cinnamon-water serving only like oil to the flame, till Jasper entered with the plow-staff; and by the awe of his presence, and the shame of misbehaving " before the stran- ger man," imposed some conditions of silence upon the dis- putants. I do not know whether it was impatience to give to the light a being destined to such high and doubtful fat-es, or whether poor Dame Yellowley was rather frightened at the hurly-burly which had t-aken 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 oppor- tunity, having still all her wits about her, to extract from her s3TQpathetic 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 favored; and next, that he would educate him for the min- istr}^ The canny Yorkshireman, thinking she had a good title at present to dictate in such matters, subscribed to all she required. A man-child was accordingly bom under these conditions, but the state of the mother did not permit her for many days to inquire how far they had been complied with. When she was in some degree convalescent, she was informed that, as it was thought fit the child should be imme- diately christened, it had received the name of Triptolemus; the curate, who was a man of some classical skill, conceiving that this epithet contained a handsome and classical allusion to the visionar}' plow, wdth its triple yoke of oxen. Mrs. Yellowley was not much delighted with the manner in which her request had been complied with; but grumbling being to as little purpose as in the celebrated case of Tristram Shandy, she e'en sat down contented with the heathenish name, and endeavored to counteract the effects it might produce upon the taste and feelings of the nominee by such an education * Mr. James Guthrie, minister of Stirling;, and anthor of the " Caiiseg of the Lord's Wrath." 165.3, was executed at Edinburgh in 1661, and his head affixed on the Nether- bow Port or iiBXt.—Laing. 32 WAVERLET NOVELS. as might put liim above the slightest thought of socks, coul- ters, stilts, mold-boards, or anything connected with the servile drudgery of the plow. Jasper, sage Vorkshireman, smiled slyly in his sleeve, con- ceiving that young Trippie was likely to prove a chip of the old block, and would rather take after the jolly Yorkshire yeoman than the gentle but somewhat " aigre " blood of the house of Clinkscale. He remarked, with suppressed glee, that the tune which best answered the purpose of a lullaby was the " Plowman's Whistle," and the first words the infant learned to stammer were the names of the oxen; moreover, that the " bem " preferred home-brewed ale to Scotch two- penny, and never quitted hold of the tankard with so much reluctance as when there had been, by some maneuver of Jas- per's own device, a double " straik " of malt allowed to the brewing, above that which was sanctioned by the most liberal recipe of which his dame's household thrift admitted. Be- sides this, when no other means could be fallen upon to divert an occasional fit of squalling, his father observed that Trip could be always silenced by jingling a bridle at his ear. From all which symptoms he used to swear in private that the boy would prove true Yorkshire, and mother and mother's kin would have small share of him. Meanwhile, and within a year after the birth of Triptol- emus, Mrs. Yellowley bore a daughter, named after herself, Barbara, who even in earliest infancy exhibited the pinched nose and thin lips by which the Clinkscale family were dis- tinguished amongst the inhabitants of the Mearns; and as her childhood advanced, the readiness with which she seized, and the tenacity wherewith she detained, the playthings of Trip- tolemus, besides a desire to bite, pinch, and scratch, on slight or no provocation, were all considered by attentive observers as proofs that Miss Baby would prove " her mother over again." Malicious people did not stick to say, that the acri- mony of the Clinkscale blood had not on this occasion been cooled and sweetened by that of Old England; that young Deilbelicket was much about the house, and they could not but think it odd that Mrs. Yellowley, who, as the whole world knew, gave nothing for nothing, should be so uncommonly attentive to heap the trencher and to fill the eaup of an idle blackguard ne'er-do-weel. But when folk had once looked upon the austere and awfully virtuous countenance of Mrs. Yellowley, they did full justice to her propriety of conduct and DeillDelicket's delicacy of taste. THE PIRATE. 38 Meantime, young Triptolemiis, having received such in- etructions as the curate could give him (for, though Dame Yellowley adhered to the persecuted remnant, her jolly hus- band, edified by the black gown and prayer-book, still con- formed to the church as by law established), was, in due process of time, sent to St. Andrews to prosecute his studies. He went, it is true, but with an eye turned back wdth sad re- membrances on his father's plow, his father's pancakes, and his father's ale, for which the sraalbbeer of the college, com- monly there termed " thorough-go-nimble," furnished a poor substitute. Yet he advanced in his learning, being found, however, to show a particular favor to such authors of an- tiquitj' as had made the improvement of the soil the object of their researches. He endured the "Bucolics" of Virgil; the " Georgic^ " he had by heart; but the "^neid " he could not away with; and he was particularly severe upon the cele- brated line expressing a charge of cavalry, because, as he understand the word " putrem,"* he opined that the combat- ants in their inconsiderate ardor, galloped over a new-manured plowed field. Cato, the Eoman Censor, was his favorite among classical heroes and philosophers, not on account of the strict- ness of his morals, but because of his treatise, " De Re Rus- tica." He had ever in his mouth the phrase of Cicero, " Jam neminem antepones Catoni." He thought well of Palladius and of Terentius Yarro; but Columella was his pocket-companion. To these ancient worthies he added the more modern Tusser, Hartlib, and other writers on rural economics, not forgetting the lucubrations of the " Shepherd of Salisbury Plain," and such of the better-informed philo- maths who, instead of loading their almanacs with vain pre- dictions of political events, pretended to see what seeds would grow and what would not, and direct the attention of their readers to that course of cultivation from which the produc- tion of good crops may be safely predicted; modest sages, in fine, who, careless of the rise and downfall of empires, con- tent themselves with pointing out the fit seasons to reap and sow, with a fair guess at the weather which each month will be likely to present; as, for example, that, if Heaven pleases, M-e shall have snow in January, and the author will stake his reputation that July proves, on the whole, a month of sun- shine. jSTow, although the rector of St. Jjeonard's was greatly pleased in general with the quiet, laborious, and studious bent of Triptplemus Yellowley, and deemed him, in so far, worthy * Qnadrftpedumque potrera eonitu qiiatit nugula campnm. 34 WAVERLEY NOVELS. of a name of four syllables having a Latin termination, yet he relished not, by any means, his exclusive attention to his favorite authors. It savored of the earth, he said, if not of something worse, to have a man's mind always groveling in mold, stercorated or unstercorated; and he pointed out, but m vain, history, and poetry, and divinity as more elevating subjects of occupation. Triptolemus Yellowley was obsti- nate in his own course. Of the battle of Pharsalia, he thought not as it affected the freedom of the world, but dwelt on the rich crop which the Emathian fields were likely to produce the next season. In vernacular poetry, Triptolemus could scarce be prevailed upon to read a single couplet, ex- cepting old Tusser, as aforesaid, whose " Hundred Points of Good Husbandry " he had got by heart; and excepting also " Piers Plowman'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 mis- named political libel. As to divinity, he summed that matter up by reminding his instructors that to labor the earth and win his bread with the toil of his body and sweat of his brow was the lot imposed upon fallen man; and, for his part, he was resolved to discharge, to the best of his abilities, a task so obviously necessary to existence, leaving others to specu- late as much as they would upon the more recondite mys- teries 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 re- luctance to embrace the profession of a clergyman, which suited well enough with the habitual personal indolence which sometimes attaches to speculative dispositions. He had views, to speak plainly (I wish they were peculiar to himself), of cultivating the glebe six days in the Aveek, preach- ing 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 laetas 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 TEE PIBATE. 85 compliance with the doctrines of prelacy and other enormities of the time. Tliere was some quesdou how far manse and glebe, stipend, both victual and money, might have out- balanced the good lady's predisposition toward Presbytery; but her zeal was not put to so severe a trial. She died before her son had completed his studies, leaving her afflicted spouse just as disconsolate as was to be expected. The first act of old Jaspers undivided administration was to recall his son from St. Andrew's, in order to obtain his assistance in his domestic labors. And here it might have been supposed that our Triptolemus. summoned to carry into practice what he had so fondly studied in theory, must have been, to use a simile which he would have thought lively, like a cow entering upon a clover park. Alas, mistaken thoughts and deceitful hopes of mankind! A laughing philosopher, the Democritus of our day, once, in a moral lecture, compared human life to a table pierced with a number of holes, each of which has a pin made exactly to fit it, but which pins being stuck in hastily, and without selec- tion, 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 roimd man stuck into the three-cornered hole! " This new illustration of the vagaries of fortune set everyone present into convulsions of laughter, excepting one fat alderman, who seemed to make the case his own, and insisted that it was no jesting matter. To take up the simile, however, which is an excellent one, it is plain that Triptolemus Yellowley had been shaken out of the bag at least a hundred years too soon. If he had come on the stage in our own time, that is, if he had flourished at any time within these thirty or forty years, he could not have missed to have held the office of vice-president of some eminent agriculttiral 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 ex- ceedingly learned in all those particulars which, being of no consequence in actual practice, go, of course, a great way to constitute the character of a connoisseur in any art, and especially in agriculture. But, alas! Triptolemus Yellowley had, as we already have hinted, come into the world at least a century too soon: for, instead of sitting in an arm-chair, with a hammer in his hand and a bumper of port before liim. 36 WAVERLET NOVELS. giving forth the toast — "To breeding, in all its branchee," his father planted him betwixt the stilts of a plow, and in- vited 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 al- though no one talked so well of common and several, wheat and rape, fallow and lea, as his learned son (whom he always called Tolimus), yet, " dang it," added the Seneca, " naught thrives wi' un — naught thrives wi' un! " It was still worse when Jasper, becoming frail and ancient, was obliged, as happened in the course of a few years, gradually to yield up the reins of government to the academical neopliyte. As if nature had meant him a spite, he had got one of the dourest and most intractable farms in the Meams to try con- clusions withal, a place which seemed to yield everytliing but what the agriculturist wanted; for there were plenty of thistles, which indicates dry land; and store of fern, which is said to intimate deep land; and nettles, which show where lime hath been applied; and deep furrows in the most un- likely spots, which intimated that it had been cultivated in former days by the Peghts, as popular tradition bore. There was also enough of stones to keep the ground warm, according to the creed of some farmers, and great abundance of springs to render it cool and sappy, according to the theory of others. It was in vain that, acting alternately on these opinions, poor Triptolemus endeavored to avail himself of the supposed capabilities of the soil. No kind of butter that might be churned could be made to stick upon his own bread, any more than on that of poor Tusser, whose " Hundred Points of Good Husbandry," so useful to others of his day, were never to himself worth as m-any pennies.* In fact, excepting an hundred acres of iniield, to which old Jasper had early seen the necessity of limiting his labors, there was not a comer of the farm fit for an}'*thing but to break plow-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 culti- vation 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. y ♦ See Tusser's Poverty. Note is. THE PIBATE. 37 Matters would have soon been brought to a close with Triptolemus in the present day. He would have got a bank- credit, maneuvered \nth 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 wdth some " eclat." They were pretty much in the situation of people who, being totally without credit, may indeed suffer from in- digence, but cannot possibly become bankrupt. Besides, not- withstanding the failure of Triptolemus' projects, there was to be balanced against the expenditure which they occasioned all the savings which the extreme economy of his sister Bar- bara could effect; and in truth her exertions were wonderful. She might have realized, if anyone could, the idea of the learned philosopher, who pronounced that sleeping was a fancy, and eating but a habit, and who appeared to the world to have renounced both, until it was unhappily discovered that he had an intrigue with the cook-maid of the family, who indemnified him for his privations by giving him private entree to the pantry and to a share of her own couch. But no such deceptions were practiced by Barbara Yellowley. She was up early and down late, and seemed, to her over- watched and over-tasked maidens, to be as " wakerife " as the cat herself. Then, for eating, it appeared that the air was a banquet to her, and she would fain have made it so to her retinue. Her brother, who, besides being lazy in his person, was somewhat luxurious in his appetite, would willingly now and then have tasted a mouthful of animal food, were it but to know how his sheep were fed oif. But a proposal to eat a child could not have startled Mistress Barbara more; and, being of a compliant and easy disposition, Triptolemus recon- ciled 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 accom- plished to scrape together, and although the dower of their mother was by degrees expended, or nearly so, in aiding them upon extreme occasions, the term at length approached when 38 WAVERLKY ^-OVELS. it seemed impossible that they could sustain the conflict any longer against the evil star of Triptolenius, 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 fami arrived at his mansion-house in their neighborhood, with his coach and six and his running footmen,* in the full splendor of the seven- teenth century. This person of quality was the son of the nobleman who had brought the ancient Jasper into the country from York- shire, 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 property or revenue of the crown in these districts, under the title of Lord Chamber- lain. Now, his lordship had become possessed with a notion, in itself a very true one, that much might be done to render this grant available, by improving the culture of the crown lands, both in Orkney and Zetland; and then having some acquaintance with our friend Triptolemus, he thought (rather less happily) that he might prove a person capable of further- ing 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 securing the co-operation of so valuable an assistant, the first step being to release him from his present unprofitable farm. The terms were arranged much to the mind of Triptol- emus, who had already been taught, by many years' experi- ence, 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 eveiy 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 practiced in the regions of Thule, and Trip- tolemus Yellowley conceived himself to be possessed of a * See " Brifle of Lammermoor," Noto 9, p. 318. t See Administration of Zetland. Note 9. THE PIRATE. 39 degree of insight into these mysteries far superior to what was possessed or practiced even in the Mearns. The im- provement, therefore, which was to be expected would bear a double proportion, and the Lord Chamberlain was to reap all the profit, deducting a handsome salary for his steward Yellowley, together with the accommodation of a house and domestic' farm, for the support of his family. Joy seized the heart of Mistress Barbara at hearing this happy "termination of what threatened to be so ver}- 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 ever}' change-house, while he ordered and collected together proper implements of agri- culture, 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 everything is relative, nor could the heavy cart-load of timber, called the old Scots plow, seem less strange to a Scottish farmer of this present day than the corslets and casques of the soldiers of Cortes might seem to a regiment of our own army. Yet the latter conquered Mexico, and undoubtedly the former would have been a splendid im- provement on the state of agriculture in Thule. We have never been able to learn why Triptolemus pre- ferred fixing his residence in Zetland to becoming an inhabit- ant of the Orkneys. Perhaps he thought the inhabitants of the latter archipelago the more simple and docile of the two kindred tribes; or perhaps he considered the situation of the house and farm he himself was to occupy (which was indeed a tolerable one) as preferable to that which he had it in his power to have obtained upon Pomona (so the main island of the Orkneys is entitled). At Harfra, or, as it was sometimes called, Stourburgh, from the remains of a Pictish fort which was almost close to the mansion-house, the factor settled him- self in the plenitude of his authority, determined to honor the name he bore by his exertions, in precept and example, to civilize the Zetlaiiders, and improve their very confined knowledge in the primary arts of human life. CHAPTEK y. The wind blew keen frae north and east ; It blew npon the floor. Quo' our goodman to our goodwife, " Get up and bar the door." " My hand is in my housewifeskep, 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; hut, 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, hlew with all the fury of a hurricane, and while the rain was dashed against him in deluges, stood hammering, calling, and roaring at the door of the old Place of Harfra, impatient for admittance, and at a loss to conceive any position of existing circumstances which could occasion the exclusion of a stran- ger, especially during such horrible weather. At length, finding his noise and vociferation were equally in vain, he fell back so far from the front of the house as was necessary to enable him to reconnoiter the chimneys; and, amidst " storm and shade," could discover, to the increase of his dis- may, 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 exuber- ant 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. 40 THE PIRATE. 41 Mrs. Baby, as we have described her, was no willing Ten- derer of the rites of hospitality. In their farm of Cauldaeres, in the Mearns, she had been the dread and abhorrence of all gaberlunzie men, and traveling packmen, gypsies, long re- membered 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 wxre yet strangers to the extreme honesty and simplicity of all classes, suspicion and fear joined with frugality in her desire to exclude all wandering guests of uncertain character; and the second of these motives had its effect on Triptolemus himself, who, though neither suspicious nor penurious, knew good people were scarce, good farmers scarcer, and had a reasonable share of that wisdom which looks toward self- preservation as the first law of nature. These hints may serve as a commentary on the following dialogue which took place betwixt the brother and sister. " Now, good be gracious to us," said Triptolemus, as he sat thumbing his old school-copy of Yirgil, " here is a pure day for the bear seed! Well spoke the wise Mantuan — ' ventis surgentibus ' — and then the groans of the mountains, and the long-resounding shores; but where's the woods. Baby? — tell me, I say, where we shall find the ' nemorum murmur,' sister Baby, in these new seats of ours ? " " What's your foolish will? " said Baby, popping her head from out of a dark recess in the kitchen, where she was busy about some nameless deed of housewifery. Her brother, who had addressed himself to her more from habit than intention, no sooner saw her bleak red nose, keen gray eyes, with the sharp features thereunto conforming, shaded' by the flaps of the loose " toy " which depended on each side of her eager face, than he bethought himself that his query was likely to find little acceptation from her, and therefore stood another volley before he would resume the topic. " I say, Mr, Yellowley," said sister Baby, coming into the middle of the room, " what for are ye crying on me, and me in the midst of my housewifeskep? " " Nay, for nothing at all. Baby," answered Triptolemus, " saving that I was saying to myself, that here we had the sea, and the wind, and the rain, sufficient enough, but where's the wood? — where's the wood. Baby, answer me that?" "The wood!" replied Baby. "Were I no to take better care of the wood than you, brother, there would soon be no 48 WAVBRLET NOVELS. 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, tliere was six ounces of it gaed to boil your parritch this morning; though, I trow, a carefu' man wad have ta'en drammoek. if breakfast he behoved to have, rather than waste baith meltitli and fuel in the same morning." " That is to say, Baby," replied Triptolemus, who was somewhat of a dry joker in his way, " that when we have fire we are not to have food, and when we have food we are not to have fire, these being too great blessings to enjoy both in the same day! Good luck, you do not propose we should starve with cold and starve with hunger ' unico contextu '? But, to tell you the truth, I could never away with raw oatmeJ, sleekened with water, in all my life. Call it drammoek, or crowd ie, 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 epeak of what is in the house, and a fitting man to have the charge of it! Hark, as I live by bread, I hear a tapping at the outer yett! " " Go and open it then, Baby," said her brother, glad at 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 understanding over that of her brother. " Go and open it, said he, indeed! is it to lend robbers a chance to take all that is in the house? " "Eobbers!" echoed Triptolemus, in his turn; "there are no more robbers in this country than there are lambs at Yule. I tell you, as I have told you an hundred times, there are no Highlandmen to harry us here. This is a land of quiet and honesty. ' fortunati nimium! ' " THE PIRATE. 43 "And what good is St. Ninian to do ye, Tolimus? " said his sister, mistaking the quotation for a Catholic invocation. " Besides, if there be no Highlandmen, there may be as bad. I saw sax or seven as ill-looking chields gang past the Place yesterday as ever came frae beyont Clochna-ben; ill-faur'd tools they had in their hands, whaaling-knives they ca'ed them, but they looked as like dirks and whingers as ae bit airn can look like anither. There is nae honest men carry siccan tools." Here the knocking and shouts of Mordaunt were very audible betwixt every swell of the horrible blast which was careering without. The brother and sister looked at each other in real perplexity and fear. " If they have heard of the siller," said Baby, her very nose changing with terror from red to blue, " we are but gane folk! " " Who speaks now, when they should hold their tongue? " said Triptolemus. " Go to the shot-window instantly, and see how many there are of them, while I load the old Spanish- barreled 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 trem- bling 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 win- dow, then?" said Baby, setting up a most doleful shriek, as Mordaunt Mertoun, who had forced open one of the windows, leaped down into the apartment, dripping with water like a river god. Triptolemus, in great tribulation, presented the gun which he had not yet loaded, while the intruder ex- claimed, " Hold — hold; what the devil mean you by keeping your doors bolted in weather like this, and leveling your gun at folks' heads as you would at a sealgh's? " "And who are you, friend, and what want you?" said Triptolemus, 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 everything. I want meat, drink, and fire, a bed for the night, and a sheltie for to-morrow morning to C9,rry me to Jarlshof." 44 WAVERLET NOVELS. "And ye said there were nae caterans or sorners here?" said Baby to the agriculturist reproachfully. " Heard ye ever a breekless loon frae Lochaber tell his mind and his errand mair deftly? Come — come, friend," she added, ad- dressing herself to Mordaunt, " put up your pipes and gang your gate; this is the house of his lordship's factor, and no place of reset for thiggers or somers." Mordaunt laughed in her face at the simplicity of the request. " Leave built walls," he said, " and in such a tempest as this? What take you me for? — a gannet or a scart do you think I am, that your clapping your hands and skirling at me like a madwoman should drive me from the shelter into the storm?" " And so you propose, young man," said Triptolemus gravely, " to stay in my house, ' volens nolens ' — that is, whether we will or no?" " Will! " said Mordaunt; " what right have you to will any- thing about it? Do you not hear the thunder? Do you not hear the rain? Do you not see the lightning? And do you not know this is the only house within I wot not how many miles? Come, my good master and dame, this may be Scot- tish 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 heartli, 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 comer 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 Yel- lowley felt neither courage nor zeal, nOr did circumstances seem at all to warrant the favorable conclusion of any fray into which he might enter with the young stranger. The sinewy limbs and graceful form of Mordaunt Mertoun were seen to great advantage in his simple sea-dress; and with his dark sparkling eye, finely formed head, animated features, close curled dark hair, and bold, free looks, the stranger THE PIRATE. 45 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 hajidsomely coppered at the extremity, seemed to intimate something of an occasional treaty with Bacchus. It was like to be no ecjuaJ mellay betwixt persons of such unequal form and strength; and the difference betwixt twenty and fifty years was nothing in favor 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 hos- pitable landlord out of that of the ehurhsh 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 demeanor, 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 awesome weather by sea. Sit down and warm ye, since the sticks are alow." " Aye — aye," said Triptolemus, " it is a pleasure to see sicean a bonny bleeze. I havena seen the like o't since I left Cauldacres." " And shallna see the like o't again in a hurr)-," said Baby, " unless the house take fire, or there suld be a coal-heugh found out." " And wherefore should not there be a coal-heugh found out? " said the factor triumphantly — " I say, wherefore should not a coal-heugh be found out in Zetland as well as in Fife, now that the chamberlain has a far-sighted and de- creet man upon the spot to make the necessarv perquisitions? They are baith fishing-stations, I trow! " "I tell you what it is, Tolimus Yellowley." answered his sister, who had practical reasons to fear her brother's opening 46 WAVERLEY NOVELS. upon any false scent, " if you promise my lord sae mony of these bonnie-wallies, we'll no be wecl hafted here before we are found out and set a-trotting again. If ane was to speak to ye about a gold mine, I ken weel wha would promise he suld have Portugal pieces clinking in his pouch before the year gaed by." " And why suld I not? " said Triptolemus. " Maybe your head docs not know there is a land in Orkney called Ophir, or something very like it; and wherefore might not Solomon, the wise king of the Jews, have sent thither his ships and his servants for four hundred and fifty talents? I trow he knew best where to go or send, and I hope you believe in your Bible, Baby?" Baby was silenced by an appeal to Scripture, howevei: " mal a 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 ironstone, in these islands, neither? " Mordaunt said he had heard that there was copper near the Cliffs of Konigsburgh. " Aye, and a copper scum is found on the Loch of Swana. too, young man. But the youngest of you, doubtless, thinks him- self a match for such as I am! " Baby, who during all this while had been closely and accu- rately reconnoitering the youth's person, now interposed in a manner by her brother totally unexpected. " Ye had mair need, Mr. Yellowley, to give the young man some dr}' clothes, and to see about getting something for him to eat, than to sit there bleezing away with your lang tales, as if the weather were not windy > enow without your help ; and maybe the lad would drink some ' bland,' or sic-like, if ye had the grace to ask him." While Triptolemus looked astonished at such a proposal, considering the quarter it came from, Mordaunt answered, he " should be very glad to have dry clothes, but begged to be excused from drinking until he had eaten somewhat." Triptolemus accordingly conducted him into another apart- ment, and accommodating him with a change of dress, left him to his arrangements, while he himself returned to the kitchen, much puzzled to account for his sister's unusual fit of hospitality. " She must be fey,"* he said, " and in that case has not long to live, and though I fall heir to her tocher- • See Note 10. THE PIRATE. 47 good, I am sorry for it; for she has held the house-gear well together: drawn the girth over tight it may be now and then, but the saddle sits the better." When Triptolemus returned to the kitchen, he found his suspicions confirmed; for his sister was in the desperate act of consigning to the pot a smoked goose, which, with others of the same tribe, had long hung in the large chimney, mutter- ing 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." " Ye ken as little as ane of your ain bits o' nowt, man," retorted sister Baby; " if ye ken na him, do ye ken Tronda Dronsdaughter? " "■' Tronda Dronsdaughter!" echoed Triptolemus; " how should I but ken her, when I pay her twal pennies Scots by the day for working in the house here? I trow she works as if the things burned her fingers. I had better give a Scots lass a groat of English siller." " And that's the maist sensible word ye have said this blessed morning. Weel, but Tronda kens this lad week and she has often spoke to me about him. They call his father the Silent ]\[an 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 naught to be done that day." " Weel — weel, brother, ye are so wise," said Baby, " because ye knapped Latin at St. xVndrews; 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! " 48 WAVEBLEY NOVELS. "A gold chain! '' said Triptolemiis. "In troth is it, hinny; and how lilce yon that? The folk say here, as Tronda tells me, that tlie king of the Drows gave it "to his father, the Silent Man of Sumburgh." " I wish you would speak sense, or be the silent woman," said Triptolemus. " The upshot of it all is, then, that this lad is the rich stranger's son, and that you are giving him the goose you were to keep till Michaelmas! " " Troth, brother, we maun do something for God's sake, and to make friends; and the lad," added Baby, for even she was not altogether above the prejudices of her sex in favor 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 forbye, to let him sit unserved, although he does come unsent for." " The best reason in life," said Triptolemus, " for letting a man into a house is, that you dare not bid him go by. However, since there is a man of quality amongst them, I will let him know whom he has to do with, in my person." Then advancing to the door, he exclaimed, " ' Heus tibi, Dave! ' " " ' Adsum,' " answered the youth, entering the apartment. "Hem!" said the erudite Triptolemus, "not altogether deficient in his humanities, I see. I will try him further. Canst thou aught of husbandry, young gentleman? " "Troth, sir, not I," answered Mordaunt; "I have been trained to plow upon the sea and to reap upon the crag." "Plow the sea!" said Triptolemus; "that's a furrow re- quires small harrowing; and for your harvest on the crag, I suppose you mean these ' scowries,' or whatever you call them. It is a sort of ingathering which the Eanzelman 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 fas- tened to the gibbet; I should be sure of not falling, at least." THE PIRATE. 49 " Now, I would only advise you to ivy it," replied Mor- daunt. " Trust me, the world has few grander sensations than when one is perched in mid-air between a high-browed cliff and a roaring ocean, the rope by which you are sustained seeming scarce stronger than a silken thread, and the stone on which you have one foot steadied affording such a breadth as the kittiwake might rest upon — to feel and know all this, with the full confidence that your own agility of limb and strength of head can bring you as safe off as if you had the wing of the gosshawk — this is indeed being almost independ- ent of the earth you tread on! " Triptolemus stared at this enthusiastic description of an amusement which had so few charms for him; and his sister, looking at the glancing eye and elevated bearing of the young adventurer, answered by ejaculating, '' My certie, lad, but yc are a brave chield! " "A brave chield!" returned Yellowley; "I say a brave goose, to be fiichtering and fleeing in the wind when he might abide upon ' terra firma I ' But come, here's a goose that is more to the purpose, when once it is well boiled. Get us trenchers and salt. Baby; but in truth it will prove salt enough — a tasty morsel it is. But I think the Zetlanders be the only folk in the world that think of running such risks to catch geese, and then boiling them when they have done." " To be sure," replied his sister (it was the only word they had agreed in that day), " it would be an unco tiling to bid ony gudewife in Angus or a' the Mearns boil a goose, while there was sic things as spits in the warld. But wha's this neist?" she added, looking toward the entrance with great indignation. " My certie. open doors and dogs come in; and wha opened the door to him? " " I did, to be sure," replied Mordaunt; " you would not have a poor devil stand beating your deaf door-cheeks in weather like this? Here goes something, though, to help the fire," he added, drawing out the sliding bar of oak with which the door had been secured, and throwing it on the hearth, whence it was snatched by Dame Baby in great wrath, she exclaiming at the same time: "It's sea-borne timber, as there's little else here, and he dings it about as if it were a fir-clog! And who be you, an it please you?" she added, turning to the stranger — "a very hallansiiaker loon, as ever crossed my twa een! " " I am a jagger, if it like your ladyship," replied the unin- 50 WAVERLET NOVELS. vited guest, a stout, vulgar, little man, who had indeed the humble appearance of a peddler, called " jagger " in these islands; " never traveled in a waur day, or was more willing to get to harborage. Heaven be praised for fire and house- room! " So saying, he drew a stool to the fire, and sat down without further ceremony. Dame Baby stared " wild as gray goss- hawk," aud was meditating how to express her indignation in something warmer than words, for which the boiling pot seemed to offer a convenient hint, when an old half-starved serving-woman — the Tronda already mentioned — the sharer of Barbara's domestic cares, who had been as yet in some remote corner of the mansion, now hobbled into the room, and broke out into exclamations which indicated some new cause of alarm. " Oh, master! " and " Oh, mistress! " were the only sounds she could for some time articulate, and then followed them up with, " The best in the house — the best in the house; set a' on the board, and a' will be little aneugh. There is auld Noma of Fitful Head, the most fearful woman in all the isles! " "Where can she have been wandering?" said Mordaunt^ not without some apparent sympathy with the surprise, if not with the alarm, of the old domestic; " but it is needless to ask — the worse the weather, the more likely is she to be a traveler." " What new tramper is this? " echoed the distracted Baby, whom the quick succession of guests had driven well-nigh crazy with vexation. " I'll soon settle her wandering, I sail warrant, if my brother has but the saul of a man in him, or if there be a pair of jougs at Scalloway! " " The iron was never forged on stithy that would hauld her," said the old maidservant. " She comes — she comes. God's sake, speak her fair and canny, or we will have a raveled 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 St. Eonald on the open door, and their broad malison and mine upon close-handed chiirls!" " And wha are ye. that are sae bauld wi' your blessing and banning in other folks' houses? Wliat kind of country is this, that folk cannot sit quiet for an hour, and serve Heaven, and keep their bit gear thegither, without gangrel men and THE PIRATE. 51 women coming thigging and sorning ane after another, like a string of wild geese? " This speech the understanding reader will easily saddle on Mistress Baby; and what effects it might have produced on the last stranger can only be matter of conjecture, for the old servant and Mordauut applied themselves at once to the party addressed, in order to deprecate her resentment; the former speaking to her some words of Norse, in a tone of interces- sion, and Mordaunt saying in English, " They are strangers, Noma, and know not your name or qualities; they are unac- quainted, too, with the ways of this countr}^, and therefore we must hold them excused for their lack of hospitality." " I lack no hospitality, young man," said Triptolemus, " ' miseris suecurrere disco ' : the goose that was destined to roost in the chimney till Michaelmas is boiling in the pot for you; but if we had twenty geese, I see we are like to find mouths to eat them e\Qvy feather. This must be amended." " What must be amended, sordid slave? " said the stranger Worna, turning at once upon him with an emphasis that made him start — " tvhnt must be amended? Bring hither, if thou wilt, thy new-fangled coulters, spades, and harrows, alter the implements of our fathers from the plowshare 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, some- thing is yet left that resembles power of defense. If the men of Thule have ceased to be champions, and to spread the ban- quet 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 preten- sions and in her language. She might well have represented on the stage, so far as features, voice, and stature were con- cerned, the Bonduca or Boadicea of the Britons, or the sage Velleda, Aurinia, or any other fated pythooiess 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 62 WAVERLEY NOVELS. her cap, and were disheveled by the rigor of the storm. Her upper garment, which dropped with water, was of a coarse, dark-colored 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 color, and embroidered with tarnished silver. Her girdle was plated with silver ornaments, cut into the shape of planetary signs; her blue apron was embroidered with similar devices, and covered a petticoat of crimson cloth. Strong, thick, endur- ing shoes, of the half-dressed leather of the country, were tied with straps, like those of the Roman buskins, over her scarlet stockings. She wore in her belt an ambiguous-look- ing weapon, which might pass for a sacrificing knife or dag- ger, 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 Eunic 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 all with a sort of veneration. Less pregnant circumstances of suspicion would, in any other part of Scotland, have ex- posed her to the investigation of those cruel inquisitors who were then often invested with the delegated authority of the privy council, for the purpose of persecuting, torturing, and finally consigning to the flames, those who were accused of witchcraft or sorcery. But superstitions of this nature pass through two stages ere they become entirely obsolete. Those supposed to be possessed of supernatural powers are venerated in the earlier stages of society. As religion and knowledge increase, they are first held in hatred and horror, and are finally regarded as impostors. Scotland was in the second state:* the fear of witchcraft was great, and the hatred against those suspected of it intense. Zetland was as yet a little world by itself, where, among the lower and ruder classes, so much of the ancient Northern superstition remained as cherished the original veneration for those affecting niper- natural knowledge and power over the elements, which made a constituent part of the ancient Scandinavian creed. At THE PIRATE. 53 least, if the natives of Thule admitted that one class of magicians performed their teats by their alliance with Satan, they devoutly believed that others dealt with spirits of a different and less odious class — the ancient dwarfs, called in Zetland Trows, or Drows, the modern fairies, and so forth. Among those who were supposed to be in league with disembodied spirits, this Noma, descended from, and repre- sentative of, a family which had long pretended to such gifts, was so eminent, that the name assigned to her, which signi- fies one of those fatal sisters who weave the web of human fate, had been conferred in honor of her supernatural powers. The name by which she had been actually christened was carefully concealed by herself and her parents; for to its dis- covery they superstitiously annexed some fatal consequences. In those times, the doubt only occurred, whether her sup- posed powers were acquired by lawful means. In our days, it would have been questioned whether she was an impostor, or whether her imagination was so deeply impressed with the mysteries of her supposed art that she might be in some de- gree a believer in her own pretensions to supernatural knowl- edge. Certain it is, that she performed her part \Wth such undoubting confidence, and such striking dignity of look and action, and evinced, at the same time, such strength of lan- guage and energy of purpose, that it would have been difficult for the greatest skeptic to have doubted the reality of her en- thusiasm, 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 rigor just before the entrance of Noma, otherwise she must have found it impos- sible 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 Yellow- ley, when the tempest suddenly resumed its former vehe- mence, 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 guizards and gyre-carlines is this? And you, ye fool carle," she added, turning on her brother, for all her passions had a touch of acidity in them, " to quit the bonny Mearns land to come here, where there is naething but sturdy beggars and gaberlunzies within ane's house, and Heaven's anger on the outside on't! " " I tell you, sister Baby," answered the insulted agricul- turist, " that all shall be reformed and amended — excepting," he added, betwixt his teeth, " the scaulding humors of an ill- natured jaud, that can add bitterness to the very storm! " The old domestic and the peddler meanwhile exhausted themselves in entreaties to Noma, of which, as they were couched in the Norse language, the master of the house understood nothing. She listened to them with a haughty and unmoved air, and replied at length aloud, and in English — " I will not. What if this house be strewed in ruins before morning — where would be the world's want in the crazed projector and the niggardly pinch-commons by which it is inhabited? They will needs come to reform Zetland customs, let them try how they like a Zetland storm. You that would not perish, quit this house! " The peddler seized on his little knapsack, and began hastily to brace it on his back, the old maidservant cast her THE PIRATE, 55 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 apprehension, whether he thought there was any, that is, so very much danger. " I cannot tell," answered the youth, " I have scarce ever seen such a storm. Noma can tell us better than anyone 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; " thou shalt know her powers are not bounded within such a naiTow 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 j\lordaunt; " 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 supersti- tious feelings had been daunted by the threats of the sup- posed sorceress, and who, amidst her eager, narrow, and repin- ing 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 expen- sive 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 gentle- ^ man'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 vegetation of the house-leek which now grows on their thatch, and which shall soon be crushed amongst their mangled limbs." " I — I — I will go forth," said Yellowley, who, despite of his bearing himself scholarly and wisely, was beginning to be terrified for the issue of the adventure; for the house was old, and the walls rocked formidably to the blast. " To what purpose? " said his sister. " I trust the Prince 66 WAVERLET NOVELS. of the power of the air has not yet such-like power over those that are made in God's image that a good house should fall about our heads because a randy quean (here she darted a fierce glance at the pythoness) should boast us with her glamour, as if we were sae mony dogs to crouch at her bidding! " " I was only wanting," said Triptolemus, ashamed of his motion, " to look at the bear-braird, which must be sair laid wi' this tempest; but if this honest woman like to bide wi' us, I think it were best to let us a' sit doun canny fhegither, 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, step- ping to the window, seemed engaged in deep contemplation of the heavens, while the old maidservant, Tronda, drawing close to her mistress, implored, for the sake of all that was dear to man or woman, " Do not provoke Noma of Fitful Head! You have no sic woman on the mainland of Scotland: she can ride on one of these clouds as easily as man ever rode on a sheltie." " i shall live to see her ride on the reek of a fat tar-barrel," said Mistress Baby; " and that will be a fit pacing palfrey for her." Again 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 northwest, from which quarter the gale seemed at present to blow, she stood for some time with her arms crossed, looking out upon the leaden-colored sky, ob- scured as it was by the thick drift, which, coming on in suc- cessive 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 stem serenity of her features had in it a cast of awe, and at the same time of authority, as the cabalist may be supposed to look upon the spirit he has evoked, and which, though he knows how to subject him to his spell, bears still an aspect appalling to fiesh and blood. The attendants stood by in difi'erent attitudes, expressive of * See Note 11. THE PIRATE. SY their various feelings. Mordaunt, though not indifferent to the risk in which they stood, was more curious than alarmed. He had lieard of I^orna's alleged power over the elements, and now expected an opportunity of judging for liimself 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 shar}? eyes and thin, compressed lips. The peddler and old Tronda, confi- dent that the house would never fall while the redoubted iSTorna was beneath its roof, held themselves ready for a start the instant she should take her departure. Having looked on the sky for some time in a fixed attitude, and -oath the most profound silence. Noma at once, yet with a slow and elevated gesture, extended her staff of black oak toward 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 [Unst?], un- der the name of the " Song of the Eeim-kennar," though some call it the " Song of. the Tempest." The following is a ' free translation, it being impossible to render literally many of the elliptical and metaphorical terms of expression, peculiar to the ancient Northern poetry: Song of the Eime-kennab. "Stern eagle of the far north-west, Thou that bearest in thy grasp the thnnderbolt, 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 tliy scream be loud as the cry of a perishing nation. Though the rnsliing of thy wings be like the roar of ten thousand waves, Yet hear, in thine ire and thy haste. Hear thou the voice of the lleim-kennar. " Thou hast met the pine-trees of Drontheim, Their dark-green heads lie prostrate beside their uprooted stems; Thou hast met the rider of the ocean. The tall, the strong bark of the fearless rover, And she has struck to thee the topsail That she had not veiled to a royal armada; Thou has met the tower that bears its crest among the clouds, The battled massive tower of the jarl of former days, And the copestone of the turret Is lying upon its hospitable hearth; But thou too shalt stoop, proud conipeller of clouds, When thou bearest the voice of the Reim-kennar. 58 WAYERLEY NOVELS. " There are verses that can stop the stag in the forest, Aye, and when the dark colorud dog iw 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 slirill whistle of the fowk-r. 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 churcli hath fallen in the moment of prayer, There are sounds which thou also nmst 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. Cease thou the waving of thy pinions. Let the ocean r-^pose in her dark strength; Cease thou the Hashing of thine eye: Let the thunderbolt sleep in the armory 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 roman- tic poetry and romantic situation; it is not therefore surpris- ing that he listened with interest to the wild address thus uttered to the wildest wind of the compass, in a tone of such dauntless enthusiasm. But though he had heard so much of the Eunic 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. Certain it was, that the blast seemed passing away, and the apprehended danger was already over; but it was not improbable that this issue had been for some time foreseen by the pythoness, through signs of the weather imperceptible to those who had not dwelt long in the country, or had not bestowed on the meteorological phenomena the attention of a strict and close observer. Of Noma's experience he had no doubt, and that went a far way to explain what seemed supernatural in her demeanor. Yet still the noble countenance, half-shaded by disheveled 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 ascendancy of the occult arts over the powers of nature; for, if a woman ever moved on earth to whom such authority over the ordi- nary laws of the universe could belong. Noma of Fitful Head, judging from bearing, figure, and face, was bom to that high destiny. THE PIRATE. 59 The rest of the company were less slow in receiving con- fiction. 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 llie 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 lieaid 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 pathi "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 shak- ing 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." Noma turned toward 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, re- turned toward the churlish hosts. " I give you no thanks," she said, " for my refreshment, for you bid me not welcome to it; and thanks bestowed on a churl are Hke the dew of heaven on the clifi's of Foulah, where it finds naught that can be refreshed by its influences. I give you no thanks," she said again, but "drawing from her pocket a leathern purse that seemed large and heavy, she added, " I pay you with what you will value more than the gratitude of the whole inhabitants of Hialtland. Say not that Norna of Fitful Head hath eaten of your bread and drunk of your cup, and left you sorrowing dO WAVERLEY NOVELS. 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; " baud to that, tittie." "What are ye whittie-whattieing about, ye gowk?" said his gentle sister, who suspected the tenor of his murmurs. " Gie the lady back her bonny die there, and be blithe to be sae rid on't: it will be a sclate-stane the morn, if not some- thing 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 honorable danger, and must be expended with honorable liberality. The treasure which lies under a cold hearth will one day, like the hidden talent, bear witness against its avaricious possessors." This last obscure intimation seemed to raise the alarm and the wonder of Mrs. Baby and her brother to the uttermost. The latter tried to stammer out something like an invitation to 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 THE PIRATE. 61 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, Bryxe Snailsfoot," she continued, speak- ing to the peddler, "speed thee on to Sumburgh: the Roost will afford thee a gallant harvest, and worthy the gathering in. Much goodly ware wall 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.'' " K^a — na, good mother," answered Snailsfoot, " I desire no man's life for my private advantage, and am just grateful for the blessing of Providence on my sma' trade. But doubtless, one man's loss is another's gain; and as these storms destroy a' thing on land, it is but fair they suld send us something by sea. Sae, taking the freedom, like j'oursell, mother, to borrow a lump of barley-bread and a draught of bland, I will bid good-day and thank you to this good gentle- man and lady, and e'en go on my way to Jarlshof, as you advise." " Aye," replied the pythoness, " where the slaughter is, the eagles will be gathered; and where the wreck is on the shore, the jagger is as busy to purchase spoil as the shark to gorge upon the dead." This rebuke, if it was intended for such, seemed above the comprehension of the traveling-merchant, who, bent upon gain, assumed the knapsack and ell-wand, and asked Mor- daunt, 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 ped- dler. Accordingly, he muttered a benediction, and, without more ceremony, helped himself to what, in Mrs. Baby's cov- etous 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. " ily certie," said the despoiled ^Mrs. Baby, " there is the chapman's drouth* and his hunger bnith, 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, look- *See Note IS. 62 WAVERLET NOVELS. ing to Mordaunt, " more especially in such judgment- weather. But 1 se€ the goose is dished, poor thing." This she spoke in a tone of att'ection for the smoked goose, which, though it had long been an inanimate inhabitant of her chimney, was far more interesting to Mi's. Baby 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 peddler. " I am glad she is gane, the dour carline," said Mrs. Baby, " though she has left that piece of gowd to be an everlasting shame to us." " Whisht, mistress, for the love of Heaven! " said Tronda Dronsdaughter; " wha kens where she may be this moment? We are no sure but she may hear us, though we cannot see her." Mistress Baby cast a startled eye around, and instantly re- covering 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 Andrews student! — you studied lair and Latin humanities, as ye ca' them, and daunted wi' the clavers of an auld randy 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 spend- ing siller. Say your best college grace, man, and let us eat and drink in the meantime." " Ye had muckle better say an ' oraamus ' to St. Eonald,t and fling a saxpence ower your left shauther, master," said Tronda. " That ye may pick it up, ye jaud," said the implacable Mistress Baby; " it will be lang or ye win the wori;h of it ony other gate. Sit down, Triptolemus, and mindna the words of a daft wife." " Daft or wise," replied Yellowley, very much discon- certed, "she kens more than I would wish she kenn'd. It was * Test upon it, i. «., leave it in my will -a mode of bestowing charity to which many are partial as well as the good dame in the text. t See Mote 13. THE PIRATE. 63 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 baud your tongue." The agriculturist made no reply, but sate down to their scanty meal, and did the honors of it with unusual heartiness to his new guest, the first of the intruders who had arrived, and the last who left the^m. The sillocks speedily disap- peared, and the smoked goose, with its appendages, took wing so effectually that Tronda, to whom the polishing of the bones had been destined, found the task accomplished, or nearly so, to her hand. After dinner, the host produced his bottle of brandy; but Mordaunt, whose general habits were as abstinent almost as those of his father, laid a very light tax upon this unusual exertion of hospitality. During the meal, they learned so much of young Mordaunt and of his father that even Baby resisted his wish to reassume his wet garments, and pressed him (at the risk of an expensive supper being added to the charges of the day) to tarr}^ with them till the next morning. But what Noma had said ex- cited the youth's wish to reach home, nor, however far the hospitality of Stourburgh was extended in his behalf, did the house present any particular temptations to induce him to remain there longer. He therefore accepted the loan of the factor's clothes, promising to return them and send for his own; and took a civil leave of his host and Mistress Baby, the latter of whom, however affected by the loss of her goo?€, 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 oceas Engulfing those she strangleH, lier wild womb Affords the mariners whom she hath dealt ou, Their death at once, and sepiilcher. — Old Play. There were ten " lang Scots miles " betwixt Stourburgh and Jarlshof; and though the pedestrian did not number all the impediments which crossed Tarn o' Shanter's path — for in a country where there are neither hedges nor stone inclosures, there can be neither " slaps nor stiles " — yet the number and nature of the " mosses and waters " which he had to cross in his peregrination was fully sufficient to balance the account, and to render his journey as toilsome and dangerous as Tarn 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 Jarls- hof 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." THE PIRATE. 65 " Then the dark hour has passed, Swertha? " " In troth has it, Maister Mordaunt," answered the govem- ante; " and your father is very reasonably good-natured for him, poor gentleman. I spake to him twice yesterday with- out 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 chat- tering 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 folks' 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." "Eeturned! 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 Eanzelman wi' my ain lugs that she in- tended that (lay to have gone on to Burgh-AVestra, to speak with Minna Troil, but she had seen that at Stourburgh — in- deed, she said at Harfra, for she never calls it by the other name of Stourburgh — that sent her back to our towm. But gang your wa3's 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 rig- ging, as the Eanzelman 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 ^ler- toun later than usual in leaving his bed; so that, contrary- to what was the ordinary case, he found his father in the apart- ment where they eat, and which served them indeed for every common purpose, save that of a bedchamber or of a kitchen. The son greeted the father in mute reverence, and waited until he should address him. "You were absent yesterday, Mordaunt?" said his father. Mordaunt's absence had lasted a week and more; but he had often observed that bis father never seemed to notice how 66 WA VERLE T NO VEL8. time passed during llie period when he was affected with his sullen vapors, lie 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 somber reflec- tion, which seemed as if he were about to relapse into liis moody fit. Suddenly turning to his son, however, he ob- served, in the tone of a query, " Magnus Troil has two daugh- ters — they must be now young women; they are thought handsome, of course ? " " Very generally, sir," answered Mordaunt, rather sur- prised to hear his father making any inquiries aloout the indi- viduals of a sex which he usually thought so light of — a sur- prise which was much increased by the next question, put as abruptly as the former. " Which think you the handsomest ? " " I, sir? " replied his son with some wonder, but without embarrassment, " I really am no Judge. I never considered which was absolutely the handsomest. They are both very pretty young women." "You evade my question, Mordaunt; perhaps I have some very particular reason for my ^Wsh 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 Troll's daugh- ters you think most handsome?" " Eeally, sir," replied Mordaunt — " but you only jest in asking me such a question." " Young man," replied Mertoun, with eyes which began to roll and sparkle with impatience, " I never jest. I desire an answer to my question." " Then, upon my word, sir," said Mordaunt, " it is not in my power to form a judgment betwixt the young ladies; they are both very pretty, but by no means like each other. ]\Iinna 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? " " Ko, sir, really I can give her no preference over her sister Brenda, who is as gay as a lamb in a spring morning; leSiS tall than her sister, but so well formed and so excellent a dancer " THE PIRATE. 67 " 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 Mor- daunt so much as the obstinacy with which he seemed to pur- sue a theme so foreign to his general train of thought and habits of conversation; but he contented himself with an- swering 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 hap- pened to be partial to a grave or a gay disposition, or to a dark or fair complexion; but that he could see no excellent quality in the one that was not balanced by something equally captivating in the other." It is possible that even the coolness with which Mordaunt made this explanation might not have satisfied his father concerning the subject of investigation; but Swertha at this moment entered with breakfast, and the youth, notwithstand- ing his late supper, engaged in that meal with an air which satisfied Mertoun that he held it matter of more grave im- portance than the conversation which they had just had, and that he had nothing more to say upon the subject explana- tory of the answers he had already given. He shaded his brow with his hand, and looked long fixedly upon the young man as he was busied ^\dth 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 at- tractive 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 com- mands, 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 Sum- burgh Head, and from thence look out upon the state of the ocean, agitated as it must still be by the tempest of the pre- ceding day. Mordaunt was at the age when young men will- ingly 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 to- gether the hill, which, ascending from the land side in a long, 68 WAVERLET NOVELS. steep, and grassy slope, sinks at once from the summit to the sea in an abrupt and tremendous precipice. The day was dcliohtful; there was just so much motion in the air as to disturb the little fleecy clouds which were scat- tered on the horizon, and by Hoating them occasionally over the sun, to checker the landscape with that variety of light and shade which often gives to a bare and uninclosed 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 ]\Iertoun often paused and looked round upon the scene, and for some time his son supposed that he halted to enjoy its beauties; but as they ascended still higher up the hill, he remarked his shortened breath and his uncertain and toilsome step, and became assured, with some feelings of alarm, that his father's strength was, for the moment, ex- hausted, and that he found the ascent more toilsome and fatiguing than usual. To draw close to his side, and offer him m silence the assistance of his arm, was an act of youth- ful deference to advanced age, as well as of filial reverence; and Mertoun seemed at first so to receive it, for he took in silence the advantage of the aid thus afforded him. It was but for two or three minutes, however, that the father availed himself of his son's support. They had not ascended fifty yards farther ere he pushed ]\Iordaunt sud- denly, if not rudely, from him; and, as if stung into exertion by some sudden recollection, began to mount the acclivity with such long and quick steps that Mordaunt, in his turn, was obliged to exert himself to keep pace with him. He knew his father's peculiarity of disposition; he was aware, from many slight circumstances, that he loved him not, even while he took much pains with his education, and while he seemed to be the sole object of his care upon earth. But the conviction had never been more strongly or more powerfully forced upon him than by the hasty churlishness with which Mertoun rejected from a son that assistance which most elderly men are willing to receive from youths with whom they are but slightly connected, as a tribute which it is alike graceful to yield and pleasing to receive. Mertoun, however, did not seem to perceive the effect which his unkindness had produced upon his son's feelings. He paused upon a sort of level terrace which thev had now attained, and addressed his THE PIRATE. 69 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 comp