The Pirate
and high-minded character. When Minna Troil heard a tale of woe or of
injustice, it was then her blood rushed to her cheeks, and showed
plainly how warm it beat, notwithstanding the generally serious,
composed, and retiring disposition, which her countenance and demeanour
seemed to exhibit. If strangers sometimes conceived that these fine
features were clouded by melancholy, for which her age and situation
could scarce have given occasion, they were soon satisfied, upon
further acquaintance, that the placid, mild quietude of her disposition,
and the mental energy of a character which was but little interested in
ordinary and trivial occurrences, was the real cause of her gravity; and
most men, when they knew that her melancholy had no ground in real
sorrow, and was only the aspiration of a soul bent on more important
objects than those by which she was surrounded, might have wished her
whatever could add to her happiness, but could scarce have desired that,
graceful as she was in her natural and unaffected seriousness, she
should change that deportment for one more gay. In short,
notwithstanding our wish to have avoided that hackneyed simile of an
angel, we cannot avoid saying there was something in the serious beauty
of her aspect, in the measured, yet graceful ease of her motions, in the
music of her voice, and the serene purity of her eye, that seemed as if
Minna Troil belonged naturally to some higher and better sphere, and was
only the chance visitant of a world that was not worthy of her.
The scarcely less beautiful, equally lovely, and equally innocent
Brenda, was of a complexion as differing from her sister, as they
differed in character, taste, and expression. Her profuse locks were of
that paly brown which receives from the passing sunbeam a tinge of gold,
but darkens again when the ray has passed from it. Her eye, her mouth,
the beautiful row of teeth, which in her innocent vivacity were
frequently disclosed; the fresh, yet not too bright glow of a healthy
complexion, tinging a skin like the drifted snow, spoke her genuine
Scandinavian descent. A fairy form, less tall than that of Minna, but
still more finely moulded into symmetry--a careless, and almost
childish lightness of step--an eye that seemed to look on every object
with pleasure, from a natural and serene cheerfulness of disposition,
attracted even more general admiration than the charms of her sister,
though perhaps that which Minna did excite might be of a more intense as
well as more reverential character.
The dispositions of these lovely sisters were not less different than
their complexions. In the kindly affections, neither could be said to
excel the other, so much were they attached to their father and to each
other. But the cheerfulness of Brenda mixed itself with the every-day
business of life, and seemed inexhaustible in its profusion. The less
buoyant spirit of her sister appeared to bring to society a contented
wish to be interested and pleased with what was going forward, but was
rather placidly carried along with the stream of mirth and pleasure,
than disposed to aid its progress by any efforts of her own. She endured
mirth, rather than enjoyed it; and the pleasures in which she most
delighted, were those of a graver and more solitary cast. The knowledge
which is derived from books was beyond her reach. Zetland afforded few
opportunities, in those days, of studying the lessons, bequeathed
"By dead men to their kind;"
and Magnus Troil, such as we have described him, was not a person within
whose mansion the means of such knowledge were to be acquired. But the
book of nature was before Minna, that noblest of volumes, where we are
ever called to wonder and to admire, even when we cannot understand.
The plants of those wild regions, the shells on the shores, and the
long list of feathered clans which haunt their cliffs and eyries, were
as well known to Minna Troil as to the most experienced fowlers. Her
powers of observation were wonderful, and little interrupted by other
tones of feeling. The information which she acquired by habits of
patient attention, was indelibly riveted in a naturally powerful memory.
She had also a high feeling for the solitary and melancholy grandeur of
the scenes in which she was placed. The ocean, in all its varied forms
of sublimity and terror--the tremendous cliffs that resound to the
ceaseless roar of the billows, and the clang of the sea-fowl, had for
Minna a charm in almost every state in which the changing seasons
exhibited them. With the enthusiastic feelings proper to the romantic
race from which her mother descended, the love of natural objects was to
her a passion capable not only of occupying, but at times of agitating,
her mind. Scenes upon which her sister looked with a sense of transient
awe or emotion, which vanished on her return from witnessing them,
continued long to fill Minna's imagination, not only in solitude, and in
the silence of the night, but in the hours of society. So that sometimes
when she sat like a beautiful statue, a present member of the domestic
circle, her thoughts were far absent, wandering on the wild sea-shore,
and among the yet wilder mountains of her native isles. And yet, when
recalled to conversation, and mingling in it with interest, there were
few to whom her friends were more indebted for enhancing its enjoyments;
and although something in her manners claimed deference (notwithstanding
her early youth) as well as affection, even her gay, lovely, and
amiable sister was not more generally beloved than the more retired and
pensive Minna.
Indeed, the two lovely sisters were not only the delight of their
friends, but the pride of those islands, where the inhabitants of a
certain rank were blended, by the remoteness of their situation and the
general hospitality of their habits, into one friendly community. A
wandering poet and parcel-musician, who, after going through various
fortunes, had returned to end his days as he could in his native
islands, had celebrated the daughters of Magnus in a poem, which he
entitled Night and Day; and in his description of Minna, might almost be
thought to have anticipated, though only in a rude outline, the
exquisite lines of Lord Byron,--
"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect, and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies."
Their father loved the maidens both so well, that it might be difficult
to say which he loved best; saving that, perchance, he liked his graver
damsel better in the walk without doors, and his merry maiden better by
the fireside; that he more desired the society of Minna when he was sad,
and that of Brenda when he was mirthful; and, what was nearly the same
thing, preferred Minna before noon, and Brenda after the glass had
circulated in the evening.
But it was still more extraordinary, that the affections of Mordaunt
Mertoun seemed to hover with the same impartiality as those of their
father betwixt the two lovely sisters. From his boyhood, as we have
noticed, he had been a frequent inmate of the residence of Magnus at
Burgh-Westra, although it lay nearly twenty miles distant from Jarlshof.
The impassable character of the country betwixt these places, extending
over hills covered with loose and quaking bog, and frequently
intersected by the creeks or arms of the sea, which indent the island on
either side, as well as by fresh-water streams and lakes, rendered the
journey difficult, and even dangerous, in the dark season; yet, as soon
as the state of his father's mind warned him to absent himself,
Mordaunt, at every risk, and under every difficulty, was pretty sure to
be found the next day at Burgh-Westra, having achieved his journey in
less time than would have been employed perhaps by the most active
native.
He was of course set down as a wooer of one of the daughters of Magnus,
by the public of Zetland; and when the old Udaller's great partiality to
the youth was considered, nobody doubted that he might aspire to the
hand of either of those distinguished beauties, with as large a share of
islets, rocky moorland, and shore-fishings, as might be the fitting
portion of a favoured child, and with the presumptive prospect of
possessing half the domains of the ancient house of Troil, when their
present owner should be no more. This seemed all a reasonable
speculation, and, in theory at least, better constructed than many that
are current through the world as unquestionable facts. But, alas! all
that sharpness of observation which could be applied to the conduct of
the parties, failed to determine the main point, to which of the young
persons, namely, the attentions of Mordaunt were peculiarly devoted. He
seemed, in general, to treat them as an affectionate and attached
brother might have treated two sisters, so equally dear to him that a
breath would have turned the scale of affection. Or if at any time,
which often happened, the one maiden appeared the more especial object
of his attention, it seemed only to be because circumstances called her
peculiar talents and disposition into more particular and immediate
exercise.
Both the sisters were accomplished in the simple music of the north, and
Mordaunt, who was their assistant, and sometimes their preceptor, when
they were practising this delightful art, might be now seen assisting
Minna in the acquisition of those wild, solemn, and simple airs, to
which scalds and harpers sung of old the deeds of heroes, and presently
found equally active in teaching Brenda the more lively and complicated
music, which their father's affection caused to be brought from the
English or Scottish capital for the use of his daughters. And while
conversing with them, Mordaunt, who mingled a strain of deep and ardent
enthusiasm with the gay and ungovernable spirits of youth, was equally
ready to enter into the wild and poetical visions of Minna, or into the
lively and often humorous chat of her gayer sister. In short, so little
did he seem to attach himself to either damsel exclusively, that he was
sometimes heard to say, that Minna never looked so lovely, as when her
lighthearted sister had induced her, for the time, to forget her
habitual gravity; or Brenda so interesting, as when she sat listening, a
subdued and affected partaker of the deep pathos of her sister Minna.
The public of the mainland were, therefore, to use the hunter's phrase,
at fault in their farther conclusions, and could but determine, after
long vacillating betwixt the maidens, that the young man was positively
to marry one of them, but which of the two could only be determined when
his approaching manhood, or the interference of stout old Magnus, the
father, should teach Master Mordaunt Mertoun to know his own mind. "It
was a pretty thing, indeed," they usually concluded, "that he, no native
born, and possessed of no visible means of subsistence that is known to
any one, should presume to hesitate, or affect to have the power of
selection and choice, betwixt the two most distinguished beauties of
Zetland. If they were Magnus Troil, they would soon be at the bottom of
the matter"--and so forth. All which remarks were only whispered, for
the hasty disposition of the Udaller had too much of the old Norse fire
about it to render it safe for any one to become an unauthorized
intermeddler with his family affairs; and thus stood the relation of
Mordaunt Mertoun to the family of Mr. Troil of Burgh-Westra, when the
following incidents took place.
CHAPTER IV.
This is no pilgrim's morning--yon grey mist
Lies upon hill, and dale, and field, and forest,
Like the dun wimple of a new-made widow;