The Pirate
tears;--and yet, with its follies, and its sorrows, and its weaknesses,
what would Norna of Fitful-head give to be again the unmarked and happy
maiden that she was in her early days! Hear me, Mordaunt, and bear with
me; for you hear me utter complaints which have never sounded in mortal
ears, and which in mortal ears shall never sound again. I will be what I
ought," she continued, starting up and extending her lean and withered
arm, "the queen and protectress of these wild and neglected isles,--I
will be her whose foot the wave wets not, save by her permission; ay,
even though its rage be at its wildest madness--whose robe the whirlwind
respects, when it rends the house-rigging from the roof-tree. Bear me
witness, Mordaunt Mertoun,--you heard my words at Harfra--you saw the
tempest sink before them--Speak, bear me witness!"
To have contradicted her in this strain of high-toned enthusiasm, would
have been cruel and unavailing, even had Mordaunt been more decidedly
convinced than he was, that an insane woman, not one of supernatural
power, stood before him.
"I heard you sing," he replied, "and I saw the tempest abate."
"Abate?" exclaimed Norna, striking the ground impatiently with her staff
of black oak; "thou speakest it but half--it sunk at once--sunk in
shorter space than the child that is hushed to silence by the
nurse.--Enough, you know my power--but you know not--mortal man knows
not, and never shall know, the price which I paid to attain it. No,
Mordaunt, never for the widest sway that the ancient Norsemen boasted,
when their banners waved victorious from Bergen to Palestine--never, for
all that the round world contains, do thou barter thy peace of mind for
such greatness as Norna's." She resumed her seat upon the rock, drew the
mantle over her face, rested her head upon her hands, and by the
convulsive motion which agitated her bosom, appeared to be weeping
bitterly.
"Good Norna," said Mordaunt, and paused, scarce knowing what to say that
might console the unhappy woman--"Good Norna," he again resumed, "if
there be aught in your mind that troubles it, were you not best to go to
the worthy minister at Dunrossness? Men say you have not for many years
been in a Christian congregation--that cannot be well, or right. You are
yourself well known as a healer of bodily disease; but when the mind is
sick, we should draw to the Physician of our souls."
Norna had raised her person slowly from the stooping posture in which
she sat; but at length she started up on her feet, threw back her
mantle, extended her arm, and while her lip foamed, and her eye
sparkled, exclaimed in a tone resembling a scream,--"Me did you
speak--me did you bid seek out a priest!--would you kill the good man
with horror?--Me in a Christian congregation!--Would you have the roof
to fall on the sackless assembly, and mingle their blood with their
worship? I--I seek to the good Physician!--Would you have the fiend
claim his prey openly before God and man?"
The extreme agitation of the unhappy speaker naturally led Mordaunt to
the conclusion, which was generally adopted and accredited in that
superstitious country and period. "Wretched woman," he said, "if indeed
thou hast leagued thyself with the Powers of Evil, why should you not
seek even yet for repentance? But do as thou wilt, I cannot, dare not,
as a Christian, abide longer with you; and take again your gift," he
said, offering back the chain. "Good can never come of it, if indeed
evil hath not come already."
"Be still and hear me, thou foolish boy," said Norna, calmly, as if she
had been restored to reason by the alarm and horror which she perceived
in Mordaunt's countenance;--"hear me, I say. I am not of those who have
leagued themselves with the Enemy of Mankind, or derive skill or power
from his ministry. And although the unearthly powers _were_ propitiated
by a sacrifice which human tongue can never utter, yet, God knows, my
guilt in that offering was no more than that of the blind man who falls
from the precipice which he could neither see nor shun. O, leave me
not--shun me not--in this hour of weakness! Remain with me till the
temptation be passed, or I will plunge myself into that lake, and rid
myself at once of my power and my wretchedness!"
Mordaunt, who had always looked up to this singular woman with a sort of
affection, occasioned no doubt by the early kindness and distinction
which she had shown to him, was readily induced to reassume his seat,
and listen to what she had further to say, in hopes that she would
gradually overcome the violence of her agitation. It was not long ere
she seemed to have gained the victory her companion expected, for she
addressed him in her usual steady and authoritative manner.
"It was not of myself, Mordaunt, that I purposed to speak, when I beheld
you from the summit of yonder grey rock, and came down the path to meet
with you. My fortunes are fixed beyond change, be it for weal or for
woe. For myself I have ceased to feel much; but for those whom she
loves, Norna of the Fitful-head has still those feelings which link her
to her kind. Mark me. There is an eagle, the noblest that builds in
these airy precipices, and into that eagle's nest there has crept an
adder--wilt thou lend thy aid to crush the reptile, and to save the
noble brood of the lord of the north sky?"
"You must speak more plainly, Norna," said Mordaunt, "if you would have
me understand or answer you. I am no guesser of riddles."
"In plain language, then, you know well the family of Burgh-Westra--the
lovely daughters of the generous old Udaller, Magnus Troil,--Minna and
Brenda, I mean? You know them, and you love them?"
"I have known them, mother," replied Mordaunt, "and I have loved
them--none knows it better than yourself."
"To know them once," said Norna, emphatically, "is to know them always.
To love them once, is to love them for ever."
"To have loved them once, is to wish them well for ever," replied the
youth; "but it is nothing more. To be plain with you, Norna, the family
at Burgh-Westra have of late totally neglected me. But show me the means
of serving them, I will convince you how much I have remembered old
kindness, how little I resent late coldness."
"It is well spoken, and I will put your purpose to the proof," replied
Norna. "Magnus Troil has taken a serpent into his bosom--his lovely
daughters are delivered up to the machinations of a villain."
"You mean the stranger, Cleveland?" said Mordaunt.
"The stranger who so calls himself," replied Norna--"the same whom we
found flung ashore, like a waste heap of sea-weed, at the foot of the
Sumburgh-cape. I felt that within me, that would have prompted me to let
him lie till the tide floated him off, as it had floated him on shore. I
repent me I gave not way to it."
"But," said Mordaunt, "I cannot repent that I did my duty as a Christian
man. And what right have I to wish otherwise? If Minna, Brenda, Magnus,
and the rest, like that stranger better than me, I have no title to be
offended; nay, I might well be laughed at for bringing myself into
comparison."
"It is well, and I trust they merit thy unselfish friendship."
"But I cannot perceive," said Mordaunt, "in what you can propose that I
should serve them. I have but just learned by Bryce the jagger, that
this Captain Cleveland is all in all with the ladies at Burgh-Westra,
and with the Udaller himself. I would like ill to intrude myself where I
am not welcome, or to place my home-bred merit in comparison with
Captain Cleveland's. He can tell them of battles, when I can only speak
of birds' nests--can speak of shooting Frenchmen, when I can only tell
of shooting seals--he wears gay clothes, and bears a brave countenance;
I am plainly dressed, and plainly nurtured. Such gay gallants as he can
noose the hearts of those he lives with, as the fowler nooses the
guillemot with his rod and line."
"You do wrong to yourself," replied Norna, "wrong to yourself, and
greater wrong to Minna and Brenda. And trust not the reports of
Bryce--he is like the greedy chaffer-whale, that will change his course
and dive for the most petty coin which a fisher can cast at him. Certain
it is, that if you have been lessened in the opinion of Magnus Troil,
that sordid fellow hath had some share in it. But let him count his
vantage, for my eye is upon him."
"And why, mother," said Mordaunt, "do you not tell to Magnus what you
have told to me?"
"Because," replied Norna, "they who wax wise in their own conceit must
be taught a bitter lesson by experience. It was but yesterday that I
spoke with Magnus, and what was his reply?--'Good Norna, you grow old.'
And this was spoken by one bounden to me by so many and such close
ties--by the descendant of the ancient Norse earls--this was from Magnus
Troil to me; and it was said in behalf of one, whom the sea flung forth
as wreck-weed! Since he despises the counsel of the aged, he shall be
taught by that of the young; and well that he is not left to his own
folly. Go, therefore, to Burgh-Westra, as usual, upon the Baptist's
festival."
"I have had no invitation," said Mordaunt; "I am not wanted, not wished
for, not thought of--perhaps I shall not be acknowledged if I go
thither; and yet, mother, to confess the truth, thither I had thought to
go."
"It was a good thought, and to be cherished," replied Norna; "we seek
our friends when they are sick in health, why not when they are sick in
mind, and surfeited with prosperity? Do not fail to go--it may be, we
shall meet there. Meanwhile our roads lie different. Farewell, and speak
not of this meeting."
They parted, and Mordaunt remained standing by the lake, with his eyes
fixed on Norna, until her tall dark form became invisible among the
windings of the valley down which she wandered, and Mordaunt returned to
his father's mansion, determined to follow counsel which coincided so
well with his own wishes.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] The Drows, or Trows, the legitimate successors of the northern
_duergar_, and somewhat allied to the fairies, reside, like them, in the
interior of green hills and caverns, and are most powerful at midnight.
They are curious artificers in iron, as well as in the precious metals,
and are sometimes propitious to mortals, but more frequently capricious
and malevolent. Among the common people of Zetland, their existence
still forms an article of universal belief. In the neighbouring isles of
Feroe, they are called Foddenskencand, or subterranean people; and Lucas
Jacobson Debes,(_h_) well acquainted with their nature, assures us that
they inhabit those places which are polluted with the effusion of blood,
or the practice of any crying sin. They have a government, which seems
to be monarchical.
[37] The larger seal, or sea-calf, which seeks the most solitary
recesses for its abode. See Dr. EDMONSTONE'S _Zetland_, vol. ii., p.
294.
CHAPTER XI.
----All your ancient customs,
And long-descended usages, I'll change.
Ye shall not eat, nor drink, nor speak, nor move,
Think, look, or walk, as ye were wont to do.
Even your marriage-beds shall know mutation;
The bride shall have the stock, the groom the wall;
For all old practice will I turn and change,
And call it reformation--marry will I!
_'Tis Even that we're at Odds._
The festal day approached, and still no invitation arrived for that
guest, without whom, but a little space since, no feast could have been
held in the island; while, on the other hand, such reports as reached
them on every side spoke highly of the favour which Captain Cleveland
enjoyed in the good graces of the old Udaller of Burgh-Westra. Swertha
and the Ranzelman shook their heads at these mutations, and reminded