The Pirate
said, from an ancient Norwegian 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 whatever.
These were remedies to which Mr. Mertoun never applied; his drink was
water, and water alone, and no persuasion 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 ancient
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 drunk, (that is, in 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 compensate
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 conversation, when, as
we have already hinted, he chose to exert them, and his misanthropy or
aversion to the business and intercourse 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 meaning 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,
as his tenant, this deserted mansion of Jarlshof, at the extremity 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 sufficient to sour a whole ocean of punch."
Yet the kind-hearted Zetlander generously and disinterestedly
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 gulls and
gannets."
"My 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 retreat; 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."
"Rent?" 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 wild 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 own barren Highlands or
Lowlands, when once they have tasted our Zetland beef, and seen our
bonny _voes_ and lochs. No, sir," (here Magnus proceeded with great
animation, sipping from time to time the half-diluted spirit, which at
the same time animated his resentment against the intruders, and enabled
him to endure the mortifying reflection which it suggested,)--"No, sir,
the ancient days and the genuine manners of these Islands are no more;
for our ancient possessors,--our Patersons, our Feas, our
Schlagbrenners, our Thorbiorns, have given place to Giffords, Scotts,
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 mystery 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 with pleasure, because he
knew he should not be called upon to contribute any aid to the
conversation, and might therefore indulge his own saturnine humour while
the Norwegian Zetlander 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 possession of the
Norse inhabitants, the true Udallers[7] of Zetland," he recollected the
circumstances of his guest, and stopped suddenly short. "I do not say
all this," he added, interrupting himself, "as if I were unwilling that
you should settle on my estate, Mr. Mertoun--But for Jarlshof--the place
is a wild one--Come from where you will, I warrant you will say, like
other travellers, 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
interjectional,)--"then here's to you."
"My good sir," answered Mertoun, "I am indifferent to climate; if there
is but air enough to fill my lungs, I care not if it be the breath of
Arabia 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 undertaking. If you
think it a comfortable roadstead like this, with the house situated on
the side of an inland voe,[8] that brings the herrings up to your door,
you are mistaken, my heart. At Jarlshof you will see nought but the wild
waves tumbling on the bare rocks, and the Roost of Sumburgh running at
the rate of fifteen knots an-hour."
"I shall see nothing at least of the current of human passions," replied
Mertoun.
"You will hear nothing but the clanging and screaming of scarts,
sheer-waters, and seagulls, from daybreak till sunset."
"I will compound, my friend," replied the stranger, "so that I do not
hear the chattering of women's tongues."
"Ah," said the Norman, "that is because you hear just now my little
Minna and Brenda singing in the garden with your Mordaunt. Now, I would
rather listen to their little voices, than the skylark which I once
heard in Caithness, or the nightingale that I have read of.--What will
the girls do for want of their playmate Mordaunt?"
"They will shift for themselves," answered Mertoun; "younger or elder
they will find playmates or dupes.--But the question is, Mr. Troil, will
you let to me, as your tenant, this old mansion of Jarlshof?"
"Gladly, since you make it your option to live in a spot so desolate."
"And as for the rent?" continued Mertoun.
"The rent?" replied Magnus; "hum--why, you must have the bit of _plantie
cruive_,[9] which they once called a garden, and a right in the
_scathold_, and a sixpenny merk of land, that the tenants may fish for
you;--eight _lispunds_[10] of butter, and eight shillings sterling
yearly, is not too much?"
Mr. Mertoun agreed to terms so moderate, and from thenceforward resided
chiefly at the solitary mansion which we have described in the beginning
of this chapter, conforming not only without complaint, but, as it
seemed, with a sullen pleasure, to all the privations which so wild and
desolate a situation necessarily imposed on its inhabitant.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] The Udallers are the _allodial_ possessors of Zetland, who hold
their possessions under the old Norwegian law, instead of the feudal
tenures introduced among them from Scotland.
[8] Salt-water lake.
[9] Patch of ground for vegetables. The liberal custom of the country
permits any person, who has occasion for such a convenience, to select
out of the unenclosed moorland a small patch, which he surrounds with a
drystone wall, and cultivates as a kailyard, till he exhausts the soil
with cropping, and then he deserts it, and encloses another. This
liberty is so far from inferring an invasion of the right of proprietor
and tenant, that the last degree of contempt is inferred of an
avaricious man, when a Zetlander says he would not hold a _plantie
cruive_ of him.
[10] A lispund is about thirty pounds English, and the value is averaged
by Dr. Edmonston at ten shillings sterling.
CHAPTER II.
'Tis not alone the scene--the man, Anselmo,
The man finds sympathies in these wild wastes,
And roughly tumbling seas, which fairer views
And smoother waves deny him.
_Ancient Arama._
The few inhabitants of the township of Jarlshof had at first heard with
alarm, that a person of rank superior to their own was come to reside in
the ruinous tenement, which they still called the Castle. In those days
(for the present times are greatly altered for the better) the presence
of a superior, in such a situation, was almost certain to be attended
with additional burdens and exactions, for which, under one pretext or
another, feudal customs furnished a thousand apologies. By each of
these, a part of the tenants' hard-won and precarious profits was
diverted for the use of their powerful neighbour and superior, the
tacksman, as he was called. But the sub-tenants speedily found that no
oppression of this kind was to be apprehended at the hands of Basil
Mertoun. His own means, whether large or small, were at least fully
adequate to his expenses, which, so far as regarded his habits of life,
were of the most frugal description. The luxuries of a few books, and
some philosophical instruments, with which he was supplied from London
as occasion offered, seemed to indicate a degree of wealth unusual in
those islands; but, on the other hand, the table and the accommodations
at Jarlshof, did not exceed what was maintained by a Zetland proprietor
of the most inferior description.
The tenants of the hamlet troubled themselves very little about the
quality of their superior, as soon as they found that their situation
was rather to be mended than rendered worse by his presence; and, once
relieved from the apprehension of his tyrannizing over them, they laid
their heads together to make the most of him by various petty tricks of
overcharge and extortion, which for a while the stranger submitted to
with the most philosophic indifference. An incident, however, occurred,
which put his character in a new light, and effectually checked all