The Pirate
"it will be lang or ye win the worth of it ony other gate.--Sit down,
Triptolemus, and mindna the words of a daft wife."
"Daft or wise," replied Yellowley, very much disconcerted, "she kens
more than I would wish she kend. It was awfu' to see sic a wind fa' at
the voice of flesh and blood like oursells--and then yon about the
hearth-stane--I cannot but think"----
"If ye cannot but think," said Mrs. Baby, very sharply, "at least ye can
haud your tongue?"
The agriculturist made no reply, but sate down to their scanty meal, and
did the honours of it with unusual heartiness to his new guest, the
first of the intruders who had arrived, and the last who left them. The
sillocks speedily disappeared, and the smoked goose, with its
appendages, took wing so effectually, that Tronda, to whom the polishing
of the bones had been destined, found the task accomplished, or nearly
so, to her hand. After dinner, the host produced his bottle of brandy;
but Mordaunt, whose general habits were as abstinent almost as those of
his father, laid a very light tax upon this unusual exertion of
hospitality.
During the meal, they learned so much of young Mordaunt, and of his
father, that even Baby resisted his wish to reassume his wet garments,
and pressed him (at the risk of an expensive supper being added to the
charges of the day) to tarry with them till the next morning. But what
Norna had said excited the youth's wish to reach home, nor, however far
the hospitality of Stourburgh was extended in his behalf, did the house
present any particular temptations to induce him to remain there longer.
He therefore accepted the loan of the factor's clothes, promising to
return them, and send for his own; and took a civil leave of his host
and Mistress Baby, the latter of whom, however affected by the loss of
her goose, could not but think the cost well bestowed (since it was to
be expended at all) upon so handsome and cheerful a youth.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] The beetle with which the Scottish housewives used to perform the
office of the modern mangle, by beating newly-washed linen on a smooth
stone for the purpose, called the beetling-stone.
[27] The chapman's drouth, that is, the pedlar's thirst, is proverbial
in Scotland, because these pedestrian traders were in the use of
modestly asking only for a drink of water, when, in fact, they were
desirous of food.
[28] Test upon it, _i. e._, leave it in my will; a mode of bestowing
charity, to which many are partial as well as the good dame in the text.
[29] Although the Zetlanders were early reconciled to the reformed
faith, some ancient practices of Catholic superstition survived long
among them. In very stormy weather a fisher would vow an _oramus_ to
Saint Ronald, and acquitted himself of the obligation by throwing a
small piece of money in at the window of a ruinous chapel.
CHAPTER VII.
She does no work by halves, yon raving ocean;
Engulfing those she strangles, her wild womb
Affords the mariners whom she hath dealt on,
Their death at once, and sepulchre.
_Old Play._
There were ten "lang Scots miles" betwixt Stourburgh and Jarlshof; and
though the pedestrian did not number all the impediments which crossed
Tam o' Shanter's path,--for in a country where there are neither hedges
nor stone enclosures, there can be neither "slaps nor stiles,"--yet the
number and nature of the "mosses and waters" which he had to cross in
his peregrination, was fully sufficient to balance the account, and to
render his journey as toilsome and dangerous as Tam o' Shanter's
celebrated retreat from Ayr. Neither witch nor warlock crossed
Mordaunt's path, however. The length of the day was already
considerable, and he arrived safe at Jarlshof by eleven o'clock at
night. All was still and dark round the mansion, and it was not till he
had whistled twice or thrice beneath Swertha's window, that she replied
to the signal.
At the first sound, Swertha fell into an agreeable dream of a young
whale-fisher, who some forty years before used to make such a signal
beneath the window of her hut; at the second, she waked to remember that
Johnnie Fea had slept sound among the frozen waves of Greenland for this
many a year, and that she was Mr. Mertoun's governante at Jarlshof; at
the third, she arose and opened the window.
"Whae is that," she demanded, "at sic an hour of the night?"
"It is I," said the youth.
"And what for comena ye in? The door's on the latch, and there is a
gathering peat on the kitchen fire, and a spunk beside it--ye can light
your ain candle."
"All well," replied Mordaunt; "but I want to know how my father is?"
"Just in his ordinary, gude gentleman--asking for you, Maister Mordaunt;
ye are ower far and ower late in your walks, young gentleman."
"Then the dark hour has passed, Swertha?"
"In troth has it, Maister Mordaunt," answered the governante; "and your
father is very reasonably good-natured for him, poor gentleman. I spake
to him twice yesterday without his speaking first; and the first time he
answered me as civil as you could do, and the neist time he bade me no
plague him; and then, thought I, three times were aye canny, so I spake
to him again for luck's-sake, and he called me a chattering old devil;
but it was quite and clean in a civil sort of way."
"Enough, enough, Swertha," answered Mordaunt; "and now get up, and find
me something to eat, for I have dined but poorly."
"Then you have been at the new folk's at Stourburgh; for there is no
another house in a' the Isles but they wad hae gi'en ye the best share
of the best they had. Saw ye aught of Norna of the Fitful-head? She went
to Stourburgh this morning, and returned to the town at night."
"Returned!--then she is here? How could she travel three leagues and
better in so short a time?"
"Wha kens how she travels?" replied Swertha; "but I heard her tell the
Ranzelman wi' my ain lugs, that she intended that day to have gone on to
Burgh-Westra, to speak with Minna Troil, but she had seen that at
Stourburgh, (indeed she said at Harfra, for she never calls it by the
other name of Stourburgh,) that sent her back to our town. But gang your
ways round, and ye shall have plenty of supper--ours is nae toom pantry,
and still less a locked ane, though my master be a stranger, and no just
that tight in the upper rigging, as the Ranzelman says."
Mordaunt walked round to the kitchen accordingly, where Swertha's care
speedily accommodated him with a plentiful, though coarse meal, which
indemnified him for the scanty hospitality he had experienced at
Stourburgh.
In the morning, some feelings of fatigue made young Mertoun later than
usual in leaving his bed; so that, contrary to what was the ordinary
case, he found his father in the apartment where they eat, and which
served them indeed for every common purpose, save that of a bedchamber
or of a kitchen. The son greeted the father in mute reverence, and
waited until he should address him.
"You were absent yesterday, Mordaunt?" said his father. Mordaunt's
absence had lasted a week and more; but he had often observed that his
father never seemed to notice how time passed during the period when he
was affected with his sullen vapours. He assented to what the elder Mr.
Mertoun had said.
"And you were at Burgh-Westra, as I think?" continued his father.
"Yes, sir," replied Mordaunt.
The elder Mertoun was then silent for some time, and paced the floor in
deep silence, with an air of sombre reflection, which seemed as if he
were about to relapse into his moody fit. Suddenly turning to his son,
however, he observed, in the tone of a query, "Magnus Troil has two
daughters--they must be now young women; they are thought handsome, of
course?"
"Very generally, sir," answered Mordaunt, rather surprised to hear his
father making any enquiries about the individuals of a sex which he
usually thought so light of, a surprise which was much increased by the
next question, put as abruptly as the former.
"Which think you the handsomest?"
"I, sir?" replied his son with some wonder, but without
embarrassment--"I really am no judge--I never considered which was
absolutely the handsomest. They are both very pretty young women."
"You evade my question, Mordaunt; perhaps I have some very particular
reason for my wish to be acquainted with your taste in this matter. I am
not used to waste words for no purpose. I ask you again, which of Magnus
Troil's daughters you think most handsome?"
"Really, sir," replied Mordaunt--"but you only jest in asking me such a
question."
"Young man," replied Mertoun, with eyes which began to roll and sparkle
with impatience, "I _never_ jest. I desire an answer to my question."
"Then, upon my word, sir," said Mordaunt, "it is not in my power to form
a judgment betwixt the young ladies--they are both very pretty, but by
no means like each other. Minna is dark-haired, and more grave than her
sister--more serious, but by no means either dull or sullen."
"Um," replied his father; "you have been gravely brought up, and this
Minna, I suppose, pleases you most?"
"No, sir, really I can give her no preference over her sister Brenda,
who is as gay as a lamb in a spring morning--less tall than her sister,
but so well formed, and so excellent a dancer"----
"That she is best qualified to amuse the young man, who has a dull home
and a moody father?" said Mr. Mertoun.
Nothing in his father's conduct had ever surprised Mordaunt so much as
the obstinacy with which he seemed to pursue a theme so foreign to his
general train of thought, and habits of conversation; but he contented
himself with answering once more, "that both the young ladies were
highly admirable, but he had never thought of them with the wish to do
either injustice, by ranking her lower than her sister--that others
would probably decide between them, as they happened to be partial to a
grave or a gay disposition, or to a dark or fair complexion; but that he
could see no excellent quality in the one that was not balanced by
something equally captivating in the other."
It is possible that even the coolness with which Mordaunt made this
explanation might not have satisfied his father concerning the subject
of investigation; but Swertha at this moment entered with breakfast, and
the youth, notwithstanding his late supper, engaged in that meal with an
air which satisfied Mertoun that he held it matter of more grave
importance than the conversation which they had just had, and that he
had nothing more to say upon the subject explanatory of the answers he
had already given. He shaded his brow with his hand, and looked long
fixedly upon the young man as he was busied with his morning meal. There
was neither abstraction nor a sense of being observed in any of his
motions; all was frank, natural, and open.
"He is fancy-free," muttered Mertoun to himself--"so young, so lively,
and so imaginative, so handsome and so attractive in face and person,
strange, that at his age, and in his circumstances, he should have
avoided the meshes which catch all the world beside!"
When the breakfast was over, the elder Mertoun, instead of proposing, as
usual, that his son, who awaited his commands, should betake himself to
one branch or other of his studies, assumed his hat and staff, and
desired that Mordaunt should accompany him to the top of the cliff,
called Sumburgh-head, and from thence look out upon the state of the
ocean, agitated as it must still be by the tempest of the preceding day.
Mordaunt was at the age when young men willingly exchange sedentary
pursuits for active exercise, and started up with alacrity to comply
with his father's desire; and in the course of a few minutes they were