The Pirate
in exchange for the rifle-gun I accepted from him, which will leave no
obligation between us on either side."
"I see where you would be--this is Sebastian and Dorax all over. Well,
you may let the jagger know he is to deliver the things to Cleveland--I
think he is mad to have them--and I will let Cleveland know the
conditions annexed, otherwise honest Bryce might come by two payments
instead of one; and I believe his conscience would not choke upon it."
With these words, Halcro went to seek out Cleveland, while Mordaunt,
observing Snailsfoot, who, as a sort of privileged person, had thrust
himself into the crowd at the bottom of the dancing-room, went up to
him, and gave him directions to deliver the disputed articles to
Cleveland as soon as he had an opportunity.
"Ye are in the right, Maister Mordaunt," said the jagger; "ye are a
prudent and a sensible lad--a calm answer turneth away wrath--and
mysell, I sall be willing to please you in ony trifling matters in my
sma' way; for, between the Udaller of Burgh-Westra and Captain
Cleveland, a man is, as it were, atween the deil and the deep sea; and
it was like that the Udaller, in the end, would have taken your part in
the dispute, for he is a man that loves justice."
"Which apparently you care very little about, Master Snailsfoot," said
Mordaunt, "otherwise there could have been no dispute whatever, the
right being so clearly on my side, if you had pleased to bear witness
according to the dictates of truth."
"Maister Mordaunt," said the jagger, "I must own there was, as it were,
a colouring or shadow of justice on your side; but then, the justice
that I meddle with, is only justice in the way of trade, to have an
ellwand of due length, if it be not something worn out with leaning on
it in my lang and painful journeys, and to buy and sell by just weight
and measure, twenty-four merks to the lispund; but I have nothing to do,
to do justice betwixt man and man, like a Fowd or a Lawright-man at a
lawting lang syne."
"No one asked you to do so, but only to give evidence according to your
conscience," replied Mordaunt, not greatly pleased either with the part
the jagger had acted during the dispute, or the construction which he
seemed to put on his own motives for yielding up the point.
But Bryce Snailsfoot wanted not his answer; "My conscience," he said,
"Maister Mordaunt, is as tender as ony man's in my degree; but she is
something of a timorsome nature, cannot abide angry folk, and can never
speak above her breath, when there is aught of a fray going forward.
Indeed, she hath at all times a small and low voice."
"Which you are not much in the habit of listening to," said Mordaunt.
"There is that on your ain breast that proves the contrary," said Bryce,
resolutely.
"In my breast?" said Mordaunt, somewhat angrily,--"what know I of you?"
"I said _on_ your breast, Maister Mordaunt, and not _in_ it. I am sure
nae eye that looks on that waistcoat upon your own gallant brisket, but
will say, that the merchant who sold such a piece for four dollars had
justice and conscience, and a kind heart to a customer to the boot of a'
that; sae ye shouldna be sae thrawart wi' me for having spared the
breath of my mouth in a fool's quarrel."
"I thrawart!" said Mordaunt; "pooh, you silly man! I have no quarrel
with you."
"I am glad of it," said the travelling merchant; "I will quarrel with no
man, with my will--least of all with an old customer; and if you will
walk by my advice, you will quarrel nane with Captain Cleveland. He is
like one of yon cutters and slashers that have come into Kirkwall, that
think as little of slicing a man, as we do of flinching a whale--it's
their trade to fight, and they live by it; and they have the advantage
of the like of you, that only take it up at your own hand, and in the
way of pastime, when you hae nothing better to do."
The company had now almost all dispersed; and Mordaunt, laughing at the
jagger's caution, bade him good-night, and went to his own place of
repose, which had been assigned to him by Eric Scambester, (who acted
the part of chamberlain as well as butler,) in a small room, or rather
closet, in one of the outhouses, furnished for the occasion with the
hammock of a sailor.
CHAPTER XIX.
I pass like night from land to land,
I have strange power of speech;
So soon as e'er his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me,
To him my tale I teach.
COLERIDGE'S _Rime of the Ancient Mariner_.
The daughters of Magnus Troil shared the same bed, in a chamber which
had been that of their parents before the death of their mother. Magnus,
who suffered grievously under that dispensation of Providence, had
become disgusted with the apartment. The nuptial chamber was abandoned
to the pledges of his bereaved affection, of whom the eldest was at that
period only four years old, or thereabouts; and, having been their
nursery in infancy, continued, though now tricked and adorned according
to the best fashion of the islands, and the taste of the lovely sisters
themselves, to be their sleeping-room, or, in the old Norse dialect,
their bower.
It had been for many years the scene of the most intimate confidence, if
that could be called confidence, where, in truth, there was nothing to
be confided; where neither sister had a secret; and where every thought
that had birth in the bosom of the one, was, without either hesitation
or doubt, confided to the other as spontaneously as it had arisen. But,
since Cleveland abode in the mansion of Burgh-Westra, each of the lovely
sisters had entertained thoughts which are not lightly or easily
communicated, unless she who listens to them has previously assured
herself that the confidence will be kindly received. Minna had noticed
what other and less interested observers had been unable to perceive,
that Cleveland, namely, held a lower rank in Brenda's opinion than in
her own; and Brenda, on her side, thought that Minna had hastily and
unjustly joined in the prejudices which had been excited against
Mordaunt Mertoun in the mind of their father. Each was sensible that she
was no longer the same to her sister; and this conviction was a painful
addition to other painful apprehensions which they supposed they had to
struggle with. Their manner towards each other was, in outward
appearances, and in all the little cares by which affection can be
expressed, even more assiduously kind than before, as if both, conscious
that their internal reserve was a breach of their sisterly union, strove
to atone for it by double assiduity in those external marks of
affection, which, at other times, when there was nothing to hide, might
be omitted without inferring any consequences.
On the night referred to in particular, the sisters felt more especially
the decay of the confidence which used to exist betwixt them. The
proposed voyage to Kirkwall, and that at the time of the fair, when
persons of every degree in these islands repair thither, either for
business or amusement, was likely to be an important incident in lives
usually so simple and uniform as theirs; and, a few months ago, Minna
and Brenda would have been awake half the night, anticipating, in their
talk with each other, all that was likely to happen on so momentous an
occasion. But now the subject was just mentioned, and suffered to drop,
as if the topic was likely to produce a difference betwixt them, or to
call forth a more open display of their several opinions than either was
willing to make to the other.
Yet such was their natural openness and gentleness of disposition, that
each sister imputed to herself the fault that there was aught like
estrangement existing between them; and when, having finished their
devotions, and betaken themselves to their common couch, they folded
each other in their arms, and exchanged a sisterly kiss, and a sisterly
good-night, they seemed mutually to ask pardon, and to exchange
forgiveness, although neither said a word of offence, either offered or
received; and both were soon plunged in that light and yet profound
repose, which is only enjoyed when sleep sinks down on the eyes of youth
and innocence.
On the night to which the story relates, both sisters were visited by
dreams, which, though varied by the moods and habits of the sleepers,
bore yet a strange general resemblance to each other.
Minna dreamed that she was in one of the most lonely recesses of the
beach, called Swartaster, where the incessant operation of the waves,
indenting a calcarious rock, has formed a deep _halier_, which, in the
language of the island, means a subterranean cavern, into which the tide
ebbs and flows. Many of these run to an extraordinary and unascertained
depth under ground, and are the secure retreat of cormorants and seals,
which it is neither easy nor safe to pursue to their extreme recesses.
Amongst these, this halier of Swartaster was accounted peculiarly
inaccessible, and shunned both by fowlers and by seamen, on account of
sharp angles and turnings in the cave itself, as well as the sunken
rocks which rendered it very dangerous for skiffs or boats to advance
far into it, especially if there was the usual swell of an island tide.
From the dark-browed mouth of this cavern, it seemed to Minna, in her
dream, that she beheld a mermaid issue, not in the classical dress of a
Nereid, as in Claud Halcro's mask of the preceding evening, but with
comb and glass in hand, according to popular belief, and lashing the
waves with that long scaly train, which, in the traditions of the
country, forms so frightful a contrast with the fair face, long tresses,
and displayed bosom, of a human and earthly female, of surpassing
beauty. She seemed to beckon to Minna, while her wild notes rang sadly
in her ear, and denounced, in prophetic sounds, calamity and woe.
The vision of Brenda was of a different description, yet equally
melancholy. She sat, as she thought, in her favourite bower, surrounded
by her father and a party of his most beloved friends, amongst whom
Mordaunt Mertoun was not forgotten. She was required to sing; and she
strove to entertain them with a lively ditty, in which she was accounted
eminently successful, and which she sung with such simple, yet natural
humour, as seldom failed to produce shouts of laughter and applause,
while all who could, or who could not sing, were irresistibly compelled
to lend their voices to the chorus. But, on this occasion, it seemed as
if her own voice refused all its usual duty, and as if, while she felt
herself unable to express the words of the well-known air, it assumed,
in her own despite, the deep tones and wild and melancholy notes of
Norna of Fitful-head, for the purpose of chanting some wild Runic rhyme,
resembling those sung by the heathen priests of old, when the victim
(too often human) was bound to the fatal altar of Odin or of Thor.
At length the two sisters at once started from sleep, and, uttering a
low scream of fear, clasped themselves in each other's arms. For their
fancy had not altogether played them false; the sounds, which had
suggested their dreams, were real, and sung within their apartment. They
knew the voice well, indeed, and yet, knowing to whom it belonged, their
surprise and fear were scarce the less, when they saw the well-known
Norna of Fitful-head, seated by the chimney of the apartment, which,
during the summer season, contained an iron lamp well trimmed, and, in
winter, a fire of wood or of turf.
She was wrapped in her long and ample garment of wadmaal, and moved her
body slowly to and fro over the pale flame of the lamp, as she sung
lines to the following purport, in a slow, sad, and almost an unearthly
accent:
"For leagues along the watery way,