The Pirate
the many-angled mansion, and its numerous offices--besides the various
cellars, store-houses, stables, and so forth, which defied her solitary
search, there was a range of low rocks, stretching down to the haven,
and which were, in fact, a continuation of the ridge which formed its
pier. These rocks had many indentures, hollows, and caverns, into any
one of which the figure to which the shadow belonged might have retired
with his fatal burden; for fatal, she feared, it was most likely to
prove.
A moment's reflection, as we have said, convinced Minna of the folly of
further pursuit. Her next thought was to alarm the family; but what tale
had she to tell, and of whom was that tale to be told?--On the other
hand, the wounded man--if indeed he were wounded--alas, if indeed he
were not mortally wounded!--might not be past the reach of assistance;
and, with this idea, she was about to raise her voice, when she was
interrupted by that of Claud Halcro, who was returning apparently from
the haven, and singing, in his manner, a scrap of an old Norse ditty,
which might run thus in English:--
"And you shall deal the funeral dole;
Ay, deal it, mother mine,
To weary body, and to heavy soul,
The white bread and the wine.
"And you shall deal my horses of pride;
Ay, deal them, mother mine;
And you shall deal my lands so wide,
And deal my castles nine.
"But deal not vengeance for the deed,
And deal not for the crime;
The body to its place, and the soul to Heaven's grace,
And the rest in God's own time."
The singular adaptation of these rhymes to the situation in which she
found herself, seemed to Minna like a warning from Heaven. We are
speaking of a land of omens and superstitions, and perhaps will scarce
be understood by those whose limited imagination cannot conceive how
strongly these operate upon the human mind during a certain progress of
society. A line of Virgil, turned up casually, was received in the
seventeenth century, and in the court of England,[13] as an intimation
of future events; and no wonder that a maiden of the distant and wild
isles of Zetland should have considered as an injunction from Heaven,
verses which happened to convey a sense analogous to her present
situation.
"I will be silent," she muttered,--"I will seal my lips--
'The body to its place, and the soul to Heaven's grace,
And the rest in God's own time.'"
"Who speaks there?" said Claud Halcro, in some alarm; for he had not, in
his travels in foreign parts, been able by any means to rid himself of
his native superstitions. In the condition to which fear and horror had
reduced her, Minna was at first unable to reply; and Halcro, fixing his
eyes upon the female white figure, which he saw indistinctly, (for she
stood in the shadow of the house, and the morning was thick and misty,)
began to conjure her in an ancient rhyme which occurred to him as suited
for the occasion, and which had in its gibberish a wild and unearthly
sound, which may be lost in the ensuing translation:--
"Saint Magnus control thee, that martyr of treason;
Saint Ronan rebuke thee, with rhyme and with reason;
By the mass of Saint Martin, the might of Saint Mary,
Be thou gone, or thy weird shall be worse if thou tarry!
If of good, go hence and hallow thee,--
If of ill, let the earth swallow thee,--
If thou'rt of air, let the grey mist fold thee,--
If of earth, let the swart mine hold thee,--
If a Pixie, seek thy ring,--
If a Nixie, seek thy spring;--
If on middle earth thou'st been
Slave of sorrow, shame, and sin,
Hast eat the bread of toil and strife,
And dree'd the lot which men call life,
Begone to thy stone! for thy coffin is scant of thee,
The worm, thy playfellow, wails for the want of thee;--
Hence, houseless ghost! let the earth hide thee,
Till Michael shall blow the blast, see that there thou bide thee!--
Phantom, fly hence! take the Cross for a token,
Hence pass till Hallowmass!--my spell is spoken."
"It is I, Halcro," muttered Minna, in a tone so thin and low, that it
might have passed for the faint reply of the conjured phantom.
"You!--you!" said Halcro, his tone of alarm changing to one of extreme
surprise; "by this moonlight, which is waning, and so it is!--Who could
have thought to find you, my most lovely Night, wandering abroad in your
own element!--But you saw them, I reckon, as well as I?--bold enough in
you to follow them, though."
"Saw whom?--follow whom?" said Minna, hoping to gain some information on
the subject of her fears and anxiety.
"The corpse-lights which danced at the haven," replied Halcro; "they
bode no good, I promise you--you wot well what the old rhyme says--
'Where corpse-light
Dances bright,
Be it day or night,
Be it by light or dark,
There shall corpse lie stiff and stark.'
I went half as far as the haven to look after them, but they had
vanished. I think I saw a boat put off, however,--some one bound for the
Haaf, I suppose.--I would we had good news of this fishing--there was
Norna left us in anger,--and then these corpse-lights!--Well, God help
the while! I am an old man, and can but wish that all were well
over.--But how now, my pretty Minna? tears in your eyes!--And now that I
see you in the fair moonlight, barefooted, too, by Saint Magnus!--Were
there no stockings of Zetland wool soft enough for these pretty feet and
ankles, that glance so white in the moonbeam?--What, silent!--angry,
perhaps," he added, in a more serious tone, "at my nonsense? For shame,
silly maiden!--Remember I am old enough to be your father, and have
always loved you as my child."
"I am not angry," said Minna, constraining herself to speak--"but heard
you nothing?--saw you nothing?--They must have passed you."
"They?" said Claud Halcro; "what mean you by they?--is it the
corpse-lights?--No, they did not pass by me, but I think they have
passed by you, and blighted you with their influence, for you are as
pale as a spectre.--Come, come, Minna," he added, opening a side-door of
the dwelling, "these moonlight walks are fitter for old poets than for
young maidens--And so lightly clad as you are! Maiden, you should take
care how you give yourself to the breezes of a Zetland night, for they
bring more sleet than odours upon their wings.--But, maiden, go in; for,
as glorious John says--or, as he does not say--for I cannot remember how
his verse chimes--but, as I say myself, in a pretty poem, written when
my muse was in her teens,--
Menseful maiden ne'er should rise,
Till the first beam tinge the skies;
Silk-fringed eyelids still should close,
Till the sun has kiss'd the rose;
Maiden's foot we should not view,
Mark'd with tiny print on dew,
Till the opening flowerets spread
Carpet meet for beauty's tread--
Stay, what comes next?--let me see."
When the spirit of recitation seized on Claud Halcro, he forgot time and
place, and might have kept his companion in the cold air for half an
hour, giving poetical reasons why she ought to have been in bed. But she
interrupted him by the question, earnestly pronounced, yet in a voice
which was scarcely articulate, holding Halcro, at the same time, with a
trembling and convulsive grasp, as if to support herself from
falling,--"Saw you no one in the boat which put to sea but now?"
"Nonsense," replied Halcro; "how could I see any one, when light and
distance only enabled me to know that it was a boat, and not a grampus?"
"But there must have been some one in the boat?" repeated Minna, scarce
conscious of what she said.
"Certainly," answered the poet; "boats seldom work to windward of their
own accord.--But come, this is all folly; and so, as the Queen says, in
an old play, which was revived for the stage by rare Will D'Avenant, 'To
bed--to bed--to bed!'"
They separated, and Minna's limbs conveyed her with difficulty, through
several devious passages, to her own chamber, where she stretched
herself cautiously beside her still sleeping sister, with a mind
harassed with the most agonizing apprehensions. That she had heard
Cleveland, she was positive--the tenor of the songs left her no doubt on
that subject. If not equally certain that she had heard young Mertoun's
voice in hot quarrel with her lover, the impression to that effect was
strong on her mind. The groan, with which the struggle seemed to
terminate--the fearful indication from which it seemed that the
conqueror had borne off the lifeless body of his victim--all tended to
prove that some fatal event had concluded the contest. And which of the
unhappy men had fallen?--which had met a bloody death?--which had
achieved a fatal and a bloody victory?--These were questions to which
the still small voice of interior conviction answered, that her lover
Cleveland, from character, temper, and habits, was most likely to have
been the survivor of the fray. She received from the reflection an
involuntary consolation which she almost detested herself for admitting,
when she recollected that it was at once darkened with her lover's
guilt, and embittered with the destruction of Brenda's happiness for
ever.
"Innocent, unhappy sister!" such were her reflections; "thou that art
ten times better than I, because so unpretending--so unassuming in thine
excellence! How is it possible that I should cease to feel a pang, which
is only transferred from my bosom to thine?"
As these cruel thoughts crossed her mind, she could not refrain from
straining her sister so close to her bosom, that, after a heavy sigh,
Brenda awoke.
"Sister," she said, "is it you?--I dreamed I lay on one of those
monuments which Claud Halcro described to us, where the effigy of the
inhabitant beneath lies carved in stone upon the sepulchre. I dreamed
such a marble form lay by my side, and that it suddenly acquired enough
of life and animation to fold me to its cold, moist bosom--and it is
yours, Minna, that is indeed so chilly.--You are ill, my dearest Minna!
for God's sake, let me rise and call Euphane Fea.--What ails you? has
Norna been here again?"
"Call no one hither," said Minna, detaining her; "nothing ails me for
which any one has a remedy--nothing but apprehensions of evil worse than
even Norna could prophesy. But God is above all, my dear Brenda; and let
us pray to him to turn, as he only can, our evil into good."
They did jointly repeat their usual prayer for strength and protection
from on high, and again composed themselves to sleep, suffering no word
save "God bless you," to pass betwixt them, when their devotions were
finished; thus scrupulously dedicating to Heaven their last waking
words, if human frailty prevented them from commanding their last waking
thoughts. Brenda slept first, and Minna, strongly resisting the dark and
evil presentiments which again began to crowd themselves upon her
imagination, was at last so fortunate as to slumber also.
The storm which Halcro had expected began about daybreak,--a squall,
heavy with wind and rain, such as is often felt, even during the finest
part of the season, in these latitudes. At the whistle of the wind, and
the clatter of the rain on the shingle-roofing of the fishers' huts,
many a poor woman was awakened, and called on her children to hold up
their little hands, and join in prayer for the safety of the dear
husband and father, who was even then at the mercy of the disturbed
elements. Around the house of Burgh-Westra, chimneys howled, and windows
clashed. The props and rafters of the higher parts of the building, most
of them formed out of wreck-wood, groaned and quivered, as fearing to be
again dispersed by the tempest. But the daughters of Magnus Troil
continued to sleep as softly and as sweetly as if the hand of Chantrey