"Be still and hear me, thou foolish boy," said Norna, calmly, as if she had been restored to reason by the alarm and horror which she perceived in Mordaunt"s countenance;--"hear me, I say. I am not of those who have leagued themselves with the Enemy of Mankind, or derive skill or power from his ministry. And although the unearthly powers _were_ propitiated by a sacrifice which human tongue can never utter, yet, G.o.d knows, my guilt in that offering was no more than that of the blind man who falls from the precipice which he could neither see nor shun. O, leave me not--shun me not--in this hour of weakness! Remain with me till the temptation be pa.s.sed, or I will plunge myself into that lake, and rid myself at once of my power and my wretchedness!"
Mordaunt, who had always looked up to this singular woman with a sort of affection, occasioned no doubt by the early kindness and distinction which she had shown to him, was readily induced to rea.s.sume his seat, and listen to what she had further to say, in hopes that she would gradually overcome the violence of her agitation. It was not long ere she seemed to have gained the victory her companion expected, for she addressed him in her usual steady and authoritative manner.
"It was not of myself, Mordaunt, that I purposed to speak, when I beheld you from the summit of yonder grey rock, and came down the path to meet with you. My fortunes are fixed beyond change, be it for weal or for woe. For myself I have ceased to feel much; but for those whom she loves, Norna of the Fitful-head has still those feelings which link her to her kind. Mark me. There is an eagle, the n.o.blest that builds in these airy precipices, and into that eagle"s nest there has crept an adder--wilt thou lend thy aid to crush the reptile, and to save the n.o.ble brood of the lord of the north sky?"
"You must speak more plainly, Norna," said Mordaunt, "if you would have me understand or answer you. I am no guesser of riddles."
"In plain language, then, you know well the family of Burgh-Westra--the lovely daughters of the generous old Udaller, Magnus Troil,--Minna and Brenda, I mean? You know them, and you love them?"
"I have known them, mother," replied Mordaunt, "and I have loved them--none knows it better than yourself."
"To know them once," said Norna, emphatically, "is to know them always.
To love them once, is to love them for ever."
"To have loved them once, is to wish them well for ever," replied the youth; "but it is nothing more. To be plain with you, Norna, the family at Burgh-Westra have of late totally neglected me. But show me the means of serving them, I will convince you how much I have remembered old kindness, how little I resent late coldness."
"It is well spoken, and I will put your purpose to the proof," replied Norna. "Magnus Troil has taken a serpent into his bosom--his lovely daughters are delivered up to the machinations of a villain."
"You mean the stranger, Cleveland?" said Mordaunt.
"The stranger who so calls himself," replied Norna--"the same whom we found flung ash.o.r.e, like a waste heap of sea-weed, at the foot of the Sumburgh-cape. I felt that within me, that would have prompted me to let him lie till the tide floated him off, as it had floated him on sh.o.r.e. I repent me I gave not way to it."
"But," said Mordaunt, "I cannot repent that I did my duty as a Christian man. And what right have I to wish otherwise? If Minna, Brenda, Magnus, and the rest, like that stranger better than me, I have no t.i.tle to be offended; nay, I might well be laughed at for bringing myself into comparison."
"It is well, and I trust they merit thy unselfish friendship."
"But I cannot perceive," said Mordaunt, "in what you can propose that I should serve them. I have but just learned by Bryce the jagger, that this Captain Cleveland is all in all with the ladies at Burgh-Westra, and with the Udaller himself. I would like ill to intrude myself where I am not welcome, or to place my home-bred merit in comparison with Captain Cleveland"s. He can tell them of battles, when I can only speak of birds" nests--can speak of shooting Frenchmen, when I can only tell of shooting seals--he wears gay clothes, and bears a brave countenance; I am plainly dressed, and plainly nurtured. Such gay gallants as he can noose the hearts of those he lives with, as the fowler nooses the guillemot with his rod and line."
"You do wrong to yourself," replied Norna, "wrong to yourself, and greater wrong to Minna and Brenda. And trust not the reports of Bryce--he is like the greedy chaffer-whale, that will change his course and dive for the most petty coin which a fisher can cast at him. Certain it is, that if you have been lessened in the opinion of Magnus Troil, that sordid fellow hath had some share in it. But let him count his vantage, for my eye is upon him."
"And why, mother," said Mordaunt, "do you not tell to Magnus what you have told to me?"
"Because," replied Norna, "they who wax wise in their own conceit must be taught a bitter lesson by experience. It was but yesterday that I spoke with Magnus, and what was his reply?--"Good Norna, you grow old."
And this was spoken by one bounden to me by so many and such close ties--by the descendant of the ancient Norse earls--this was from Magnus Troil to me; and it was said in behalf of one, whom the sea flung forth as wreck-weed! Since he despises the counsel of the aged, he shall be taught by that of the young; and well that he is not left to his own folly. Go, therefore, to Burgh-Westra, as usual, upon the Baptist"s festival."
"I have had no invitation," said Mordaunt; "I am not wanted, not wished for, not thought of--perhaps I shall not be acknowledged if I go thither; and yet, mother, to confess the truth, thither I had thought to go."
"It was a good thought, and to be cherished," replied Norna; "we seek our friends when they are sick in health, why not when they are sick in mind, and surfeited with prosperity? Do not fail to go--it may be, we shall meet there. Meanwhile our roads lie different. Farewell, and speak not of this meeting."
They parted, and Mordaunt remained standing by the lake, with his eyes fixed on Norna, until her tall dark form became invisible among the windings of the valley down which she wandered, and Mordaunt returned to his father"s mansion, determined to follow counsel which coincided so well with his own wishes.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] The Drows, or Trows, the legitimate successors of the northern _duergar_, and somewhat allied to the fairies, reside, like them, in the interior of green hills and caverns, and are most powerful at midnight.
They are curious artificers in iron, as well as in the precious metals, and are sometimes propitious to mortals, but more frequently capricious and malevolent. Among the common people of Zetland, their existence still forms an article of universal belief. In the neighbouring isles of Feroe, they are called Foddenskencand, or subterranean people; and Lucas Jacobson Debes,(_h_) well acquainted with their nature, a.s.sures us that they inhabit those places which are polluted with the effusion of blood, or the practice of any crying sin. They have a government, which seems to be monarchical.
[37] The larger seal, or sea-calf, which seeks the most solitary recesses for its abode. See Dr. EDMONSTONE"S _Zetland_, vol. ii., p.
294.
CHAPTER XI.
----All your ancient customs, And long-descended usages, I"ll change.
Ye shall not eat, nor drink, nor speak, nor move, Think, look, or walk, as ye were wont to do.
Even your marriage-beds shall know mutation; The bride shall have the stock, the groom the wall; For all old practice will I turn and change, And call it reformation--marry will I!
_"Tis Even that we"re at Odds._
The festal day approached, and still no invitation arrived for that guest, without whom, but a little s.p.a.ce since, no feast could have been held in the island; while, on the other hand, such reports as reached them on every side spoke highly of the favour which Captain Cleveland enjoyed in the good graces of the old Udaller of Burgh-Westra. Swertha and the Ranzelman shook their heads at these mutations, and reminded Mordaunt, by many a half-hint and innuendo, that he had incurred this eclipse by being so imprudently active to secure the safety of the stranger, when he lay at the mercy of the next wave beneath the cliffs of Sumburgh-head. "It is best to let saut water take its gate," said Swertha; "luck never came of crossing it."
"In troth," said the Ranzelman, "they are wise folks that let wave and withy haud their ain--luck never came of a half-drowned man, or a half-hanged ane either. Who was"t shot Will Paterson off the Noss?--the Dutchman that he saved from sinking, I trow. To fling a drowning man a plank or a tow, may be the part of a Christian; but I say, keep hands aff him, if ye wad live and thrive free frae his danger."
"Ye are a wise man, Ranzelman, and a worthy," echoed Swertha, with a groan, "and ken how and whan to help a neighbour, as well as ony man that ever drew a net."
"In troth, I have seen length of days," answered the Ranzelman, "and I have heard what the auld folk said to each other anent sic matters; and nae man in Zetland shall go farther than I will in any Christian service to a man on firm land; but if he cry "Help!" out of the saut waves, that"s another story."
"And yet, to think of this lad Cleveland standing in our Maister Mordaunt"s light," said Swertha, "and with Magnus Troil, that thought him the flower of the island but on Whitsunday last, and Magnus, too, that"s both held (when he"s fresh, honest man) the wisest and wealthiest of Zetland!"
"He canna win by it," said the Ranzelman, with a look of the deepest sagacity. "There"s whiles, Swertha, that the wisest of us (as I am sure I humbly confess mysell not to be) may be little better than gulls, and can no more win by doing deeds of folly than I can step over Sumburgh-head. It has been my own case once or twice in my life. But we shall see soon what ill is to come of all this, for good there cannot come."
And Swertha answered, with the same tone of prophetic wisdom, "Na, na, gude can never come on it, and that is ower truly said."
These doleful predictions, repeated from time to time, had some effect upon Mordaunt. He did not indeed suppose, that the charitable action of relieving a drowning man had subjected him, as a necessary and fatal consequence, to the unpleasant circ.u.mstances in which he was placed; yet he felt as if a sort of spell were drawn around him, of which he neither understood the nature nor the extent;--that some power, in short, beyond his own control, was acting upon his destiny, and, as it seemed, with no friendly influence. His curiosity, as well as his anxiety, was highly excited, and he continued determined, at all events, to make his appearance at the approaching festival, when he was impressed with the belief that something uncommon was necessarily to take place, which should determine his future views and prospects in life.
As the elder Mertoun was at this time in his ordinary state of health, it became necessary that his son should intimate to him his intended visit to Burgh-Westra. He did so; and his father desired to know the especial reason of his going thither at this particular time.
"It is a time of merry-making," replied the youth, "and all the country are a.s.sembled."
"And you are doubtless impatient to add another fool to the number.--Go--but beware how you walk in the path which you are about to tread--a fall from the cliffs of Foulah were not more fatal."
"May I ask the reason of your caution, sir?" replied Mordaunt, breaking through the reserve which ordinarily subsisted betwixt him and his singular parent.
"Magnus Troil," said the elder Mertoun, "has two daughters--you are of the age when men look upon such gauds with eyes of affection, that they may afterwards learn to curse the day that first opened their eyes upon heaven! I bid you beware of them; for, as sure as that death and sin came into the world by woman, so sure are their soft words, and softer looks, the utter destruction and ruin of all who put faith in them."
Mordaunt had sometimes observed his father"s marked dislike to the female s.e.x, but had never before heard him give vent to it in terms so determined and precise. He replied, that the daughters of Magnus Troil were no more to him than any other females in the islands; "they were even of less importance," he said, "for they had broken off their friendship with him, without a.s.signing any cause."
"And you go to seek the renewal of it?" answered his father. "Silly moth, that hast once escaped the taper without singeing thy wings, are you not contented with the safe obscurity of these wilds, but must hasten back to the flame, which is sure at length to consume thee? But why should I waste arguments in deterring thee from thy inevitable fate?--Go where thy destiny calls thee."
On the succeeding day, which was the eve of the great festival, Mordaunt set forth on his road to Burgh-Westra, pondering alternately on the injunctions of Norna--on the ominous words of his father--on the inauspicious auguries of Swertha and the Ranzelman of Jarlshof--and not without experiencing that gloom with which so many concurring circ.u.mstances of ill omen combined to oppress his mind.
"It bodes me but a cold reception at Burgh-Westra," said he; "but my stay shall be the shorter. I will but find out whether they have been deceived by this seafaring stranger, or whether they have acted out of pure caprice of temper, and love of change of company. If the first be the case, I will vindicate my character, and let Captain Cleveland look to himself;--if the latter, why, then, good-night to Burgh-Westra and all its inmates."
As he mentally meditated this last alternative, hurt pride, and a return of fondness for those to whom he supposed he was bidding farewell for ever, brought a tear into his eye, which he dashed off hastily and indignantly, as, mending his pace, he continued on his journey.
The weather being now serene and undisturbed, Mordaunt made his way with an ease that formed a striking contrast to the difficulties which he had encountered when he last travelled the same route; yet there was a less pleasing subject for comparison, within his own mind.