The Pirate
cliff at morning, and the deep dead despair which sat on her forehead
when she returned,--when I think on all this, can you wonder that I fear
for Minna, whose heart is formed to entertain, with such deep-rooted
fidelity, any affection that may be implanted in it?"
"I do not wonder," said Mordaunt, eagerly sympathizing with the poor
girl; for, besides the tremulous expression of her voice, the light
could almost show him the tear which trembled in her eye, as she drew
the picture to which her fancy had assimilated her sister,--"I do not
wonder that you should feel and fear whatever the purest affection can
dictate; and if you can but point out to me in what I can serve your
sisterly love, you shall find me as ready to venture my life, if
necessary, as I have been to go out on the crag to get you the eggs of
the guillemot; and, believe me, that whatever has been told to your
father or yourself, of my entertaining the slightest thoughts of
disrespect or unkindness, is as false as a fiend could devise."
"I believe it," said Brenda, giving him her hand; "I believe it, and my
bosom is lighter, now I have renewed my confidence in so old a friend.
How you can aid us, I know not; but it was by the advice, I may say by
the commands, of Norna, that I have ventured to make this communication;
and I almost wonder," she added, as she looked around her, "that I have
had courage to carry me through it. At present you know all that I can
tell you of the risk in which my sister stands. Look after this
Cleveland--beware how you quarrel with him, since you must so surely
come by the worst with an experienced soldier."
"I do not exactly understand," said the youth, "how that should so
surely be. This I know, that with the good limbs and good heart that God
hath given me, ay, and with a good cause to boot--I am little afraid of
any quarrel which Cleveland can fix upon me."
"Then, if not for your own sake, for Minna's sake," said Brenda--"for
my father's--for mine--for all our sakes, avoid any strife with him, but
be contented to watch him, and, if possible, to discover who he is, and
what are his intentions towards us. He has talked of going to Orkney, to
enquire after the consort with whom he sailed; but day after day, and
week after week passes, and he goes not; and while he keeps my father
company over the bottle, and tells Minna romantic stories of foreign
people, and distant wars, in wild and unknown regions, the time glides
on, and the stranger, of whom we know nothing except that he is one,
becomes gradually closer and more inseparably intimate in our
society.--And now, farewell. Norna hopes to make your peace with my
father, and entreats you not to leave Burgh-Westra to-morrow, however
cold he and my sister may appear towards you. I too," she said,
stretching her hand towards him, "must wear a face of cold friendship as
towards an unwelcome visitor, but at heart we are still Brenda and
Mordaunt. And now separate quickly, for we must not be seen together."
She stretched her hand to him, but withdrew it in some slight confusion,
laughing and blushing, when, by a natural impulse, he was about to press
it to his lips. He endeavoured for a moment to detain her, for the
interview had for him a degree of fascination, which, as often as he had
before been alone with Brenda, he had never experienced. But she
extricated herself from him, and again signing an adieu, and pointing
out to him a path different from that which she was herself about to
take, tripped towards the house, and was soon hidden from his view by
the acclivity.
Mordaunt stood gazing after her in a state of mind, to which, as yet,
he had been a stranger. The dubious neutral ground between love and
friendship may be long and safely trodden, until he who stands upon it
is suddenly called upon to recognise the authority of the one or the
other power; and then it most frequently happens, that the party who for
years supposed himself only a friend, finds himself at once transformed
into a lover. That such a change in Mordaunt's feelings should take
place from this date, although he himself was unable exactly to
distinguish its nature, was to be expected. He found himself at once
received, with the most unsuspicious frankness, into the confidence of a
beautiful and fascinating young woman, by whom he had, so short a time
before, imagined himself despised and disliked; and, if any thing could
make a change, in itself so surprising and so pleasing, yet more
intoxicating, it was the guileless and open-hearted simplicity of
Brenda, that cast an enchantment over every thing which she did or said.
The scene, too, might have had its effect, though there was little
occasion for its aid. But a fair face looks yet fairer under the light
of the moon, and a sweet voice sounds yet sweeter among the whispering
sounds of a summer night. Mordaunt, therefore, who had by this time
returned to the house, was disposed to listen with unusual patience and
complacency to the enthusiastic declamation pronounced upon moonlight by
Claud Halcro, whose ecstasies had been awakened on the subject by a
short turn in the open air, undertaken to qualify the vapours of the
good liquor, which he had not spared during the festival.
"The sun, my boy," he said, "is every wretched labourer's
day-lantern--it comes glaring yonder out of the east, to summon up a
whole world to labour and to misery; whereas the merry moon lights all
of us to mirth and to love."
"And to madness, or she is much belied," said Mordaunt, by way of saying
something.
"Let it be so," answered Halcro, "so she does not turn us
melancholy-mad.--My dear young friend, the folks of this painstaking
world are far too anxious about possessing all their wits, or having
them, as they say, about them. At least I know I have been often called
half-witted, and I am sure I have gone through the world as well as if I
had double the quantity. But stop--where was I? O, touching and
concerning the moon--why, man, she is the very soul of love and poetry.
I question if there was ever a true lover in existence who had not got
at least as far as 'O thou,' in a sonnet in her praise."
"The moon," said the factor, who was now beginning to speak very thick,
"ripens corn, at least the old folk said so--and she fills nuts also,
whilk is of less matter--_sparge nuces, pueri_."
"A fine, a fine," said the Udaller, who was now in his altitudes; "the
factor speaks Greek--by the bones of my holy namesake, Saint Magnus, he
shall drink off the yawl full of punch, unless he gives us a song on the
spot!"
"Too much water drowned the miller," answered Triptolemus. "My brain has
more need of draining than of being drenched with more liquor."
"Sing, then," said the despotic landlord, "for no one shall speak any
other language here, save honest Norse, jolly Dutch, or Danske, or broad
Scots, at the least of it. So, Eric Scambester, produce the yawl, and
fill it to the brim, as a charge for demurrage."
Ere the vessel could reach the agriculturist, he, seeing it under way,
and steering towards him by short tacks, (for Scambester himself was by
this time not over steady in his course,) made a desperate effort, and
began to sing, or rather to croak forth, a Yorkshire harvest-home
ballad, which his father used to sing when he was a little mellow, and
which went to the tune of "Hey Dobbin, away with the waggon." The rueful
aspect of the singer, and the desperately discordant tones of his voice,
formed so delightful a contrast with the jollity of the words and tune,
that honest Triptolemus afforded the same sort of amusement which a
reveller might give, by appearing on a festival-day in the holyday-coat
of his grandfather. The jest concluded the evening, for even the mighty
and strong-headed Magnus himself had confessed the influence of the
sleepy god. The guests went off as they best might, each to his separate
crib and resting place, and in a short time the mansion, which was of
late so noisy, was hushed into perfect silence.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] See some admirable discussion on this passage, in the Variorum
Shakspeare.
CHAPTER XVII.
They man their boats, and all the young men arm,
With whatsoever might the monsters harm;
Pikes, halberds, spits, and darts, that wound afar,
The tools of peace, and implements of war.
Now was the time for vigorous lads to show
What love or honour could incite them to;--
A goodly theatre, where rocks are round
With reverend age and lovely lasses crown'd.
_Battle of the Summer Islands._
The morning which succeeds such a feast as that of Magnus Troil, usually
lacks a little of the zest which seasoned the revels of the preceding
day, as the fashionable reader may have observed at a public breakfast
during the race-week in a country town; for, in what is called the best
society, these lingering moments are usually spent by the company, each
apart in their own dressing-rooms. At Burgh-Westra, it will readily be
believed, no such space for retirement was afforded; and the lasses,
with their paler cheeks, the elder dames, with many a wink and yawn,
were compelled to meet with their male companions (headaches and all)
just three hours after they had parted from each other.
Eric Scambester had done all that man could do to supply the full means
of diverting the ennui of the morning meal. The board groaned with
rounds of hung beef, made after the fashion of Zetland--with
pasties--with baked meats--with fish, dressed and cured in every
possible manner; nay, with the foreign delicacies of tea, coffee, and
chocolate; for, as we have already had occasion to remark, the situation
of these islands made them early acquainted with various articles of
foreign luxury, which were, as yet, but little known in Scotland, where,
at a much later period than that we write of, one pound of green tea was
dressed like cabbage, and another converted into a vegetable sauce for
salt beef, by the ignorance of the good housewives to whom they had been
sent as rare presents.
Besides these preparations, the table exhibited whatever mighty potions
are resorted to by _bons vivans_, under the facetious name of a "hair of
the dog that bit you." There was the potent Irish Usquebaugh--right
Nantz--genuine Schiedamm--Aquavitæ from Caithness--and Golden Wasser
from Hamburgh; there was rum of formidable antiquity, and cordials from
the Leeward Islands. After these details, it were needless to mention
the stout home-brewed ale--the German mum, and Schwartz beer--and still
more would it be beneath our dignity to dwell upon the innumerable sorts
of pottage and flummery, together with the bland, and various
preparations of milk, for those who preferred thinner potations.
No wonder that the sight of so much good cheer awakened the appetite and
raised the spirits of the fatigued revellers. The young men began
immediately to seek out their partners of the preceding evening, and to
renew the small talk which had driven the night so merrily away; while
Magnus, with his stout old Norse kindred, encouraged, by precept and
example, those of elder days and graver mood, to a substantial
flirtation with the good things before them. Still, however, there was
a long period to be filled up before dinner; for the most protracted
breakfast cannot well last above an hour; and it was to be feared that
Claud Halcro meditated the occupation of this vacant morning with a
formidable recitation of his own verses, besides telling, at its full
length, the whole history of his introduction to glorious John Dryden.
But fortune relieved the guests of Burgh-Westra from this threatened
infliction, by sending them means of amusement peculiarly suited to
their taste and habits.