The day was delightful; there was just so much motion in the air as to disturb the little fleecy clouds which were scattered on the horizon, and by floating them occasionally over the sun, to chequer the landscape with that variety of light and shade which often gives to a bare and unenclosed scene, for the time at least, a species of charm approaching to the varieties of a cultivated and planted country. A thousand flitting hues of light and shade played over the expanse of wild moor, rocks, and inlets, which, as they climbed higher and higher, spread in wide and wider circuit around them.
The elder Mertoun often paused and looked round upon the scene, and for some time his son supposed that he halted to enjoy its beauties; but as they ascended still higher up the hill, he remarked his shortened breath and his uncertain and toilsome step, and became a.s.sured, with some feelings of alarm, that his father"s strength was, for the moment, exhausted, and that he found the ascent more toilsome and fatiguing than usual. To draw close to his side, and offer him in silence the a.s.sistance of his arm, was an act of youthful deference to advanced age, as well as of filial reverence; and Mertoun seemed at first so to receive it, for he took in silence the advantage of the aid thus afforded him.
It was but for two or three minutes, however, that the father availed himself of his son"s support. They had not ascended fifty yards farther, ere he pushed Mordaunt suddenly, if not rudely, from him; and, as if stung into exertion by some sudden recollection, began to mount the acclivity with such long and quick steps, that Mordaunt, in his turn, was obliged to exert himself to keep pace with him. He knew his father"s peculiarity of disposition; he was aware from many slight circ.u.mstances, that he loved him not even while he took much pains with his education, and while he seemed to be the sole object of his care upon earth. But the conviction had never been more strongly or more powerfully forced upon him than by the hasty churlishness with which Mertoun rejected from a son that a.s.sistance, which most elderly men are willing to receive from youths with whom they are but slightly connected, as a tribute which it is alike graceful to yield and pleasing to receive. Mertoun, however, did not seem to perceive the effect which his unkindness had produced upon his son"s feelings. He paused upon a sort of level terrace which they had now attained, and addressed his son with an indifferent tone, which seemed in some degree affected.
"Since you have so few inducements, Mordaunt, to remain in these wild islands, I suppose you sometimes wish to look a little more abroad into the world?"
"By my word, sir," replied Mordaunt, "I cannot say I ever have a thought on such a subject."
"And why not, young man?" demanded his father; "it were but natural, I think, at your age. At your age, the fair and varied breadth of Britain could not gratify me, much less the compa.s.s of a sea-girdled peat-moss."
"I have never thought of leaving Zetland, sir," replied the son. "I am happy here, and have friends. You yourself, sir, would miss me, unless indeed"----
"Why, thou wouldst not persuade me," said his father, somewhat hastily, "that you stay here, or desire to stay here, for the love of me?"
"Why should I not, sir?" answered Mordaunt, mildly; "it is my duty, and I hope I have hitherto performed it."
"O ay," repeated Mertoun, in the same tone--"your duty--your duty. So it is the duty of the dog to follow the groom that feeds him."
"And does he not do so, sir?" said Mordaunt.
"Ay," said his father, turning his head aside: "but he fawns only on those who caress him."
"I hope, sir," replied Mordaunt, "I have not been found deficient?"
"Say no more on"t--say no more on"t," said Mertoun, abruptly, "we have both done enough by each other--we must soon part--Let that be our comfort--if our separation should require comfort."
"I shall be ready to obey your wishes," said Mordaunt, not altogether displeased at what promised him an opportunity of looking farther abroad into the world. "I presume it will be your pleasure that I commence my travels with a season at the whale-fishing."
"Whale-fishing!" replied Mertoun; "that were a mode indeed of seeing the world! but thou speakest but as thou hast learned. Enough of this for the present. Tell me where you had shelter from the storm yesterday?"
"At Stourburgh, the house of the new factor from Scotland."
"A pedantic, fantastic, visionary schemer," said Mertoun--"and whom saw you there?"
"His sister, sir," replied Mordaunt, "and old Norna of the Fitful-head."
"What! the mistress of the potent spell," answered Mertoun, with a sneer--"she who can change the wind by pulling her curch on one side, as King Erick used to do by turning his cap? The dame journeys far from home--how fares she? Does she get rich by selling favourable winds to those who are port-bound?"[30]
"I really do not know, sir," said Mordaunt, whom certain recollections prevented from freely entering into his father"s humour.
"You think the matter too serious to be jested with, or perhaps esteem her merchandise too light to be cared after," continued Mertoun, in the same sarcastic tone, which was the nearest approach he ever made to cheerfulness; "but consider it more deeply. Every thing in the universe is bought and sold, and why not wind, if the merchant can find purchasers? The earth is rented, from its surface down to its most central mines;--the fire, and the means of feeding it, are currently bought and sold;--the wretches that sweep the boisterous ocean with their nets, pay ransom for the privilege of being drowned in it. What t.i.tle has the air to be exempted from the universal course of traffic?
All above the earth, under the earth, and around the earth, has its price, its sellers, and its purchasers. In many countries the priests will sell you a portion of heaven--in all countries men are willing to buy, in exchange for health, wealth, and peace of conscience, a full allowance of h.e.l.l. Why should not Norna pursue her traffic?"
"Nay, I know no reason against it," replied Mordaunt; "only I wish she would part with the commodity in smaller quant.i.ties. Yesterday she was a wholesale dealer--whoever treated with her had too good a pennyworth."
"It is even so," said his father, pausing on the verge of the wild promontory which they had attained, where the huge precipice sinks abruptly down on the wide and tempestuous ocean, "and the effects are still visible."
The face of that lofty cape is composed of the soft and crumbling stone called sand-flag, which gradually becomes decomposed, and yields to the action of the atmosphere, and is split into large ma.s.ses, that hang loose upon the verge of the precipice, and, detached from it by the violence of the tempests, often descend with great fury into the vexed abyss which lashes the foot of the rock. Numbers of these huge fragments lie strewed beneath the rocks from which they have fallen, and amongst these the tide foams and rages with a fury peculiar to those lat.i.tudes.
At the period when Mertoun and his son looked from the verge of the precipice, the wide sea still heaved and swelled with the agitation of yesterday"s storm, which had been far too violent in its effects on the ocean to subside speedily. The tide therefore poured on the headland with a fury deafening to the ear, and dizzying to the eye, threatening instant destruction to whatever might be at the time involved in its current. The sight of Nature, in her magnificence, or in her beauty, or in her terrors, has at all times an overpowering interest, which even habit cannot greatly weaken; and both father and son sat themselves down on the cliff to look out upon that unbounded war of waters, which rolled in their wrath to the foot of the precipice.
At once Mordaunt, whose eyes were sharper, and probably his attention more alert, than that of his father, started up, and exclaimed, "G.o.d in Heaven! there is a vessel in the Roost!"
Mertoun looked to the north-westward, and an object was visible amid the rolling tide. "She shows no sail," he observed; and immediately added, after looking at the object through his spy-gla.s.s, "She is dismasted, and lies a sheer hulk upon the water."
"And is drifting on the Sumburgh-head," exclaimed Mordaunt, struck with horror, "without the slightest means of weathering the cape!"
"She makes no effort," answered his father; "she is probably deserted by her crew."
"And in such a day as yesterday," replied Mordaunt, "when no open boat could live were she manned with the best men ever handled an oar--all must have perished."
"It is most probable," said his father, with stern composure; "and one day, sooner or later, all must have perished. What signifies whether the fowler, whom nothing escapes, caught them up at one swoop from yonder shattered deck, or whether he clutched them individually, as chance gave them to his grasp? What signifies it?--the deck, the battlefield, are scarce more fatal to us than our table and our bed; and we are saved from the one, merely to drag out a heartless and wearisome existence, till we perish at the other. Would the hour were come--that hour which reason would teach us to wish for, were it not that nature has implanted the fear of it so strongly within us! You wonder at such a reflection, because life is yet new to you. Ere you have attained my age, it will be the familiar companion of your thoughts."
"Surely, sir," replied Mordaunt, "such distaste to life is not the necessary consequence of advanced age?"
"To all who have sense to estimate that which it is really worth," said Mertoun. "Those who, like Magnus Troil, possess so much of the animal impulses about them, as to derive pleasure from sensual gratification, may perhaps, like the animals, feel pleasure in mere existence."
Mordaunt liked neither the doctrine nor the example. He thought a man who discharged his duties towards others as well as the good old Udaller, had a better right to have the sun shine fair on his setting, than that which he might derive from mere insensibility. But he let the subject drop; for to dispute with his father, had always the effect of irritating him; and again he adverted to the condition of the wreck.
The hulk, for it was little better, was now in the very midst of the current, and drifting at a great rate towards the foot of the precipice, upon whose verge they were placed. Yet it was a long while ere they had a distinct view of the object which they had at first seen as a black speck amongst the waters, and then, at a nearer distance, like a whale, which now scarce shows its back-fin above the waves, now throws to view its large black side. Now, however, they could more distinctly observe the appearance of the ship, for the huge swelling waves which bore her forward to the sh.o.r.e, heaved her alternately high upon the surface, and then plunged her into the trough or furrow of the sea. She seemed a vessel of two or three hundred tons, fitted up for defence, for they could see her port-holes. She had been dismasted probably in the gale of the preceding day, and lay water-logged on the waves, a prey to their violence. It appeared certain, that the crew, finding themselves unable either to direct the vessel"s course, or to relieve her by pumping, had taken to their boats, and left her to her fate. All apprehensions were therefore unnecessary, so far as the immediate loss of human lives was concerned; and yet it was not without a feeling of breathless awe that Mordaunt and his father beheld the vessel--that rare masterpiece by which human genius aspires to surmount the waves, and contend with the winds, upon the point of falling a prey to them.
Onward she came, the large black hulk seeming larger at every fathom"s length. She came nearer, until she bestrode the summit of one tremendous billow, which rolled on with her unbroken, till the wave and its burden were precipitated against the rock, and then the triumph of the elements over the work of human hands was at once completed. One wave, we have said, made the wrecked vessel completely manifest in her whole bulk, as it raised her, and bore her onward against the face of the precipice.
But when that wave receded from the foot of the rock, the ship had ceased to exist; and the retiring billow only bore back a quant.i.ty of beams, planks, casks, and similar objects, which swept out to the offing, to be brought in again by the next wave, and again precipitated upon the face of the rock.
It was at this moment that Mordaunt conceived he saw a man floating on a plank or water-cask, which, drifting away from the main current, seemed about to go ash.o.r.e upon a small spot of sand, where the water was shallow, and the waves broke more smoothly. To see the danger, and to exclaim, "He lives, and may yet be saved!" was the first impulse of the fearless Mordaunt. The next was, after one rapid glance at the front of the cliff, to precipitate himself--such seemed the rapidity of his movement--from the verge, and to commence, by means of slight fissures, projections, and crevices in the rock, a descent, which, to a spectator, appeared little else than an act of absolute insanity.
"Stop, I command you, rash boy!" said his father; "the attempt is death.
Stop, and take the safer path to the left." But Mordaunt was already completely engaged in his perilous enterprise.
"Why should I prevent him?" said his father, checking his anxiety with the stern and unfeeling philosophy whose principles he had adopted.
"Should he die now, full of generous and high feeling, eager in the cause of humanity, happy in the exertion of his own conscious activity, and youthful strength--should he die now, will he not escape misanthropy, and remorse, and age, and the consciousness of decaying powers, both of body and mind?--I will not look upon it however--I will not--I cannot behold his young light so suddenly quenched."
He turned from the precipice accordingly, and hastening to the left for more than a quarter of a mile, he proceeded towards a _riva_, or cleft in the rock, containing a path, called Erick"s Steps, neither safe, indeed, nor easy, but the only one by which the inhabitants of Jarlshof were wont, for any purpose, to seek access to the foot of the precipice.
But long ere Mertoun had reached even the upper end of the pa.s.s, his adventurous and active son had accomplished his more desperate enterprise. He had been in vain turned aside from the direct line of descent, by the intervention of difficulties which he had not seen from above--his route became only more circuitous, but could not be interrupted. More than once, large fragments to which he was about to intrust his weight, gave way before him, and thundered down into the tormented ocean; and in one or two instances, such detached pieces of rock rushed after him, as if to bear him headlong in their course. A courageous heart, a steady eye, a tenacious hand, and a firm foot, carried him through his desperate attempt; and in the s.p.a.ce of seven minutes, he stood at the bottom of the cliff, from the verge of which he had achieved his perilous descent.
The place which he now occupied was the small projecting spot of stones, sand, and gravel, that extended a little way into the sea, which on the right hand lashed the very bottom of the precipice, and on the left, was scarce divided from it by a small wave-worn portion of beach that extended as far as the foot of the rent in the rocks called Erick"s Steps, by which Mordaunt"s father proposed to descend.
When the vessel split and went to pieces, all was swallowed up in the ocean, which had, after the first shock, been seen to float upon the waves, excepting only a few pieces of wreck, casks, chests, and the like, which a strong eddy, formed by the reflux of the waves, had landed, or at least grounded, upon the shallow where Mordaunt now stood.
Amongst these, his eager eye discovered the object that had at first engaged his attention, and which now, seen at nigher distance, proved to be in truth a man, and in a most precarious state. His arms were still wrapt with a close and convulsive grasp round the plank to which he had clung in the moment of the shock, but sense and the power of motion were fled; and, from the situation in which the plank lay, partly grounded upon the beach, partly floating in the sea, there was every chance that it might be again washed off sh.o.r.e, in which case death was inevitable.
Just as he had made himself aware of these circ.u.mstances, Mordaunt beheld a huge wave advancing, and hastened to interpose his aid ere it burst, aware that the reflux might probably sweep away the sufferer.
He rushed into the surf, and fastened on the body, with the same tenacity, though under a different impulse, with that wherewith the hound seizes his prey. The strength of the retiring wave proved even greater than he had expected, and it was not without a struggle for his own life, as well as for that of the stranger, that Mordaunt resisted being swept off with the receding billow, when, though an adroit swimmer, the strength of the tide must either have dashed him against the rocks, or hurried him out to sea. He stood his ground, however, and ere another such billow had returned, he drew up, upon the small slip of dry sand, both the body of the stranger, and the plank to which he continued firmly attached. But how to save and to recall the means of ebbing life and strength, and how to remove into a place of greater safety the sufferer, who was incapable of giving any a.s.sistance towards his own preservation, were questions which Mordaunt asked himself eagerly, but in vain.
He looked to the summit of the cliff on which he had left his father, and shouted to him for his a.s.sistance; but his eye could not distinguish his form, and his voice was only answered by the scream of the sea-birds. He gazed again on the sufferer. A dress richly laced, according to the fashion of the times, fine linen, and rings upon his fingers, evinced he was a man of superior rank; and his features showed youth and comeliness, notwithstanding they were pallid and disfigured.
He still breathed, but so feebly, that his respiration was almost imperceptible, and life seemed to keep such slight hold of his frame, that there was every reason to fear it would become altogether extinguished, unless it were speedily reinforced. To loosen the handkerchief from his neck, to raise him with his face towards the breeze, to support him with his arms, was all that Mordaunt could do for his a.s.sistance, whilst he anxiously looked for some one who might lend his aid in dragging the unfortunate to a more safe situation.