The Pirate
During the time that the unfortunate Cleveland remained at Kirkwall, he
was treated with civility by the Captain of the Halcyon; and the
kindness of his old acquaintance, Magnus Troil, who knew in secret how
closely he was allied to his blood, pressed on him accommodations of
every kind, more than he could be prevailed on to accept.
Norna, whose interest in the unhappy prisoner was still more deep, was
at this time unable to express it. The sexton had found her lying on the
pavement in a swoon, and when she recovered, her mind for the time had
totally lost its equipoise, and it became necessary to place her under
the restraint of watchful attendants.
Of the sisters of Burgh-Westra, Cleveland only heard that they remained
ill, in consequence of the fright to which they had been subjected,
until the evening before the Halcyon sailed, when he received, by a
private conveyance, the following billet:
--"Farewell, Cleveland--we part for ever, and it is right that we
should--Be virtuous and be happy. The delusions which a solitary
education and limited acquaintance with the modern world had
spread around me, are gone and dissipated for ever. But in you, I
am sure, I have been thus far free from error--that you are one to
whom good is naturally more attractive than evil, and whom only
necessity, example, and habit, have forced into your late course
of life. Think of me as one who no longer exists, unless you
should become as much the object of general praise, as now of
general reproach; and then think of me as one who will rejoice in
your reviving fame, though she must never see you more!"--
The note was signed M. T.; and Cleveland, with a deep emotion, which he
testified even by tears, read it an hundred times over, and then
clasped it to his bosom.
Mordaunt Mertoun heard by letter from his father, but in a very
different style. Basil bade him farewell for ever, and acquitted him
henceforward of the duties of a son, as one on whom he, notwithstanding
the exertions of many years, had found himself unable to bestow the
affections of a parent. The letter informed him of a recess in the old
house of Jarlshof, in which the writer had deposited a considerable
quantity of specie and of treasure, which he desired Mordaunt to use as
his own. "You need not fear," the letter bore, "either that you lay
yourself under obligation to me, or that you are sharing the spoils of
piracy. What is now given over to you, is almost entirely the property
of your deceased mother, Louisa Gonzago, and is yours by every right.
Let us forgive each other," was the conclusion, "as they who must meet
no more."--And they never met more; for the elder Mertoun, against whom
no charge was ever preferred, disappeared after the fate of Cleveland
was determined, and was generally believed to have retired into a
foreign convent.
The fate of Cleveland will be most briefly expressed in a letter which
Minna received within two months after the Halcyon left Kirkwall. The
family were then assembled at Burgh-Westra, and Mordaunt was a member of
it for the time, the good Udaller thinking he could never sufficiently
repay the activity which he had shown in the defence of his daughters.
Norna, then beginning to recover from her temporary alienation of mind,
was a guest in the family, and Minna, who was sedulous in her attention
upon this unfortunate victim of mental delusion, was seated with her,
watching each symptom of returning reason, when the letter we allude to
was placed in her hands.
"Minna," it said--"dearest Minna!--farewell, and for ever! Believe
me, I never meant you wrong--never. From the moment I came to know
you, I resolved to detach myself from my hateful comrades, and had
framed a thousand schemes, which have proved as vain as they
deserved to be--for why, or how, should the fate of her that is so
lovely, pure, and innocent, be involved with that of one so
guilty?--Of these dreams I will speak no more. The stern reality
of my situation is much milder than I either expected or deserved;
and the little good I did has outweighed, in the minds of
honourable and merciful judges, much that was evil and criminal. I
have not only been exempted from the ignominious death to which
several of my compeers are sentenced; but Captain Weatherport,
about once more to sail for the Spanish Main, under the
apprehension of an immediate war with that country, has generously
solicited and obtained permission to employ me, and two or three
more of my less guilty associates, in the same service--a measure
recommended to himself by his own generous compassion, and to
others by our knowledge of the coast, and of local circumstances,
which, by whatever means acquired, we now hope to use for the
service of our country. Minna, you will hear my name pronounced
with honour, or you will never hear it again. If virtue can give
happiness, I need not wish it to you, for it is yours
already.--Farewell, Minna."
Minna wept so bitterly over this letter, that it attracted the attention
of the convalescent Norna. She snatched it from the hand of her
kinswoman, and read it over at first with the confused air of one to
whom it conveyed no intelligence--then with a dawn of recollection--then
with a burst of mingled joy and grief, in which she dropped it from her
hand. Minna snatched it up, and retired with her treasure to her own
apartment.
From that time Norna appeared to assume a different character. Her dress
was changed to one of a more simple and less imposing appearance. Her
dwarf was dismissed, with ample provision for his future comfort. She
showed no desire of resuming her erratic life; and directed her
observatory, as it might be called, on Fitful-head, to be dismantled.
She refused the name of Norna, and would only be addressed by her real
appellation of Ulla Troil. But the most important change remained
behind. Formerly, from the dreadful dictates of spiritual despair,
arising out of the circumstances of her father's death, she seemed to
have considered herself as an outcast from divine grace; besides, that,
enveloped in the vain occult sciences which she pretended to practise,
her study, like that of Chaucer's physician, had been "but little in the
Bible." Now, the sacred volume was seldom laid aside; and, to the poor
ignorant people who came as formerly to invoke her power over the
elements, she only replied--"_The winds are in the hollow of His
hand._"--Her conversion was not, perhaps, altogether rational; for this,
the state of a mind disordered by such a complication of horrid
incidents, probably prevented. But it seemed to be sincere, and was
certainly useful. She appeared deeply to repent of her former
presumptuous attempts to interfere with the course of human events,
superintended as they are by far higher powers, and expressed bitter
compunction when such her former pretensions were in any manner
recalled to her memory. She still showed a partiality to Mordaunt,
though, perhaps, arising chiefly from habit; nor was it easy to know how
much or how little she remembered of the complicated events in which she
had been connected. When she died, which was about four years after the
events we have commemorated, it was found that, at the special and
earnest request of Minna Troil, she had conveyed her very considerable
property to Brenda. A clause in her will specially directed, that all
the books, implements of her laboratory, and other things connected with
her former studies, should be committed to the flames.
About two years before Norna's death, Brenda was wedded to Mordaunt
Mertoun. It was some time before old Magnus Troil, with all his
affection for his daughter, and all his partiality for Mordaunt, was
able frankly to reconcile himself to this match. But Mordaunt's
accomplishments were peculiarly to the Udaller's taste, and the old man
felt the impossibility of supplying his place in his family so
absolutely, that at length his Norse blood gave way to the natural
feeling of the heart, and he comforted his pride while he looked around
him, and saw what he considered as the encroachments of the Scottish
gentry upon THE COUNTRY, (so Zetland is fondly termed by its
inhabitants,) that as well "his daughter married the son of an English
pirate, as of a Scottish thief," in scornful allusion to the Highland
and Border families, to whom Zetland owes many respectable landholders;
but whose ancestors were generally esteemed more renowned for ancient
family and high courage, than for accurately regarding the trifling
distinctions of _meum_ and _tuum_. The jovial old man lived to the
extremity of human life, with the happy prospect of a numerous
succession in the family of his younger daughter; and having his board
cheered alternately by the minstrelsy of Claud Halcro, and enlightened
by the lucubrations of Mr. Triptolemus Yellowley, who, laying aside his
high pretensions, was, when he became better acquainted with the manners
of the islanders, and remembered the various misadventures which had
attended his premature attempts at reformation, an honest and useful
representative of his principal, and never so happy as when he could
escape from the spare commons of his sister Barbara, to the genial table
of the Udaller. Barbara's temper also was much softened by the
unexpected restoration of the horn of silver coins, (the property of
Norna,) which she had concealed in the mansion of old Stourburgh, for
achieving some of her mysterious plans, but which she now restored to
those by whom it had been accidentally discovered, with an intimation,
however, that it would again disappear unless a reasonable portion was
expended on the sustenance of the family, a precaution to which Tronda
Dronsdaughter (probably an agent of Norna's) owed her escape from a slow
and wasting death by inanition.
Mordaunt and Brenda were as happy as our mortal condition permits us to
be. They admired and loved each other--enjoyed easy circumstances--had
duties to discharge which they did not neglect; and, clear in conscience
as light of heart, laughed, sung, danced, daffed the world aside, and
bid it pass.
But Minna--the high-minded and imaginative Minna--she, gifted with such
depth of feeling and enthusiasm, yet doomed to see both blighted in
early youth, because, with the inexperience of a disposition equally
romantic and ignorant, she had built the fabric of her happiness on a
quicksand instead of a rock,--was she, could she be happy? Reader, she
_was_ happy, for, whatever may be alleged to the contrary by the sceptic
and the scorner, to each duty performed there is assigned a degree of
mental peace and high consciousness of honourable exertion,
corresponding to the difficulty of the task accomplished. That rest of
the body which succeeds to hard and industrious toil, is not to be
compared to the repose which the spirit enjoys under similar
circumstances. Her resignation, however, and the constant attention
which she paid to her father, her sister, the afflicted Norna, and to
all who had claims on her, were neither Minna's sole nor her most
precious source of comfort. Like Norna, but under a more regulated
judgment, she learned to exchange the visions of wild enthusiasm which
had exerted and misled her imagination, for a truer and purer connexion
with the world beyond us, than could be learned from the sagas of
heathen bards, or the visions of later rhymers. To this she owed the
support by which she was enabled, after various accounts of the
honourable and gallant conduct of Cleveland, to read with resignation,
and even with a sense of comfort, mingled with sorrow, that he had at