The Pirate Part 6

"I wish you would speak sense, or be the silent woman," said Triptolemus. "The upshot of it all is, then, that this lad is the rich stranger's son, and that you are giving him the goose you were to keep till Michaelmas!"

"Troth, brother, we maun do something for G.o.d's sake, and to make friends; and the lad," added Baby, (for even she was not altogether above the prejudices of her s.e.x in favour of outward form,) "the lad has a fair face of his ain."

"Ye would have let mony a fair face," said Triptolemus, "pa.s.s the door pining, if it had not been for the gold chain."

"Nae doubt, nae doubt," replied Barbara; "ye wadna have me waste our substance on every thigger or sorner that has the luck to come by the door in a wet day? But this lad has a fair and a wide name in the country, and Tronda says he is to be married to a daughter of the rich Udaller, Magnus Troil, and the marriage-day is to be fixed whenever he makes choice (set him up) between the twa la.s.ses; and so it wad be as much as our good name is worth, and our quiet forby, to let him sit unserved, although he does come unsent for."

"The best reason in life," said Triptolemus, "for letting a man into a house is, that you dare not bid him go by. However, since there is a man of quality amongst them, I will let him know whom he has to do with, in my person." Then advancing to the door, he exclaimed, "_Heus tibi, Dave!_"

"_Adsum_," answered the youth, entering the apartment.

"Hem!" said the erudite Triptolemus, "not altogether deficient in his humanities, I see. I will try him further.--Canst thou aught of husbandry, young gentleman?"

"Troth, sir, not I," answered Mordaunt; "I have been trained to plough upon the sea, and to reap upon the crag."

"Plough the sea!" said Triptolemus; "that's a furrow requires small harrowing; and for your harvest on the crag, I suppose you mean these _scowries_, or whatever you call them. It is a sort of ingathering which the Ranzelman should stop by the law; nothing more likely to break an honest man's bones. I profess I cannot see the pleasure men propose by dangling in a rope's-end betwixt earth and heaven. In my case, I had as lief the other end of the rope were fastened to the gibbet; I should be sure of not falling, at least."

"Now, I would only advise you to try it," replied Mordaunt. "Trust me, the world has few grander sensations than when one is perched in midair between a high-browed cliff and a roaring ocean, the rope by which you are sustained seeming scarce stronger than a silken thread, and the stone on which you have one foot steadied, affording such a breadth as the kittywake might rest upon--to feel and know all this, with the full confidence that your own agility of limb, and strength of head, can bring you as safe off as if you had the wing of the gosshawk--this is indeed being almost independent of the earth you tread on!"

Triptolemus stared at this enthusiastic description of an amus.e.m.e.nt which had so few charms for him; and his sister, looking at the glancing eye and elevated bearing of the young adventurer, answered, by ejaculating, "My certie, lad, but ye are a brave chield!"

"A brave chield?" returned Yellowley,--"I say a brave goose, to be flichtering and fleeing in the wind when he might abide upon _terra firma_! But come, here's a goose that is more to the purpose, when once it is well boiled. Get us trenchers and salt, Baby--but in truth it will prove salt enough--a tasty morsel it is; but I think the Zetlanders be the only folk in the world that think of running such risks to catch geese, and then boiling them when they have done."

"To be sure," replied his sister, (it was the only word they had agreed in that day,) "it would be an unco thing to bid ony gudewife in Angus or a' the Mearns boil a goose, while there was sic things as spits in the warld.--But wha's this neist!" she added, looking towards the entrance with great indignation. "My certie, open doors, and dogs come in--and wha opened the door to him?"

"I did, to be sure," replied Mordaunt; "you would not have a poor devil stand beating your deaf door-cheeks in weather like this?--Here goes something, though, to help the fire," he added, drawing out the sliding bar of oak with which the door had been secured, and throwing it on the hearth, whence it was s.n.a.t.c.hed by Dame Baby in great wrath, she exclaiming at the same time,--

"It's sea-borne timber, as there's little else here, and he dings it about as if it were a fir-clog!--And who be you, an it please you?" she added, turning to the stranger,--"a very hallanshaker loon, as ever crossed my twa een!"

"I am a jagger, if it like your ladys.h.i.+p," replied the uninvited guest, a stout vulgar, little man, who had indeed the humble appearance of a pedlar, called _jagger_ in these islands--"never travelled in a waur day, or was more willing to get to harbourage.--Heaven be praised for fire and house-room!"

So saying, he drew a stool to the fire, and sat down without further ceremony. Dame Baby stared "wild as grey gosshawk," and was meditating how to express her indignation in something warmer than words, for which the boiling pot seemed to offer a convenient hint, when an old half-starved serving-woman--the Tronda already mentioned--the sharer of Barbara's domestic cares, who had been as yet in some remote corner of the mansion, now hobbled into the room, and broke out into exclamations which indicated some new cause of alarm.

"O master!" and "O mistress!" were the only sounds she could for some time articulate, and then followed them up with, "The best in the house--the best in the house--set a' on the board, and a' will be little aneugh--There is auld Norna of Fitful-head, the most fearful woman in all the isles!"

"Where can she have been wandering?" said Mordaunt, not without some apparent sympathy with the surprise, if not with the alarm, of the old domestic; "but it is needless to ask--the worse the weather, the more likely is she to be a traveller."

"What new tramper is this?" echoed the distracted Baby, whom the quick succession of guests had driven wellnigh crazy with vexation. "I'll soon settle her wandering, I sall warrant, if my brother has but the saul of a man in him, or if there be a pair of jougs at Scalloway!"

"The iron was never forged on st.i.thy that would hauld her," said the old maid-servant. "She comes--she comes--G.o.d's sake speak her fair and canny, or we will have a ravelled hasp on the yarn-windles!"

As she spoke, a woman, tall enough almost to touch the top of the door with her cap, stepped into the room, signing the cross as she entered, and p.r.o.nouncing, with a solemn voice, "The blessing of G.o.d and Saint Ronald on the open door, and their broad malison and mine upon close-handed churls!"

"And wha are ye, that are sae bauld wi' your blessing and banning in other folk's houses? What kind of country is this, that folk cannot sit quiet for an hour, and serve Heaven, and keep their bit gear thegither, without gangrel men and women coming thigging and sorning ane after another, like a string of wild-geese?"

This speech, the understanding reader will easily saddle on Mistress Baby, and what effects it might have produced on the last stranger, can only be matter of conjecture; for the old servant and Mordaunt applied themselves at once to the party addressed, in order to deprecate her resentment; the former speaking to her some words of Norse, in a tone of intercession, and Mordaunt saying in English, "They are strangers, Norna, and know not your name or qualities; they are unacquainted, too, with the ways of this country, and therefore we must hold them excused for their lack of hospitality."

"I lack no hospitality, young man," said Triptolemus, "_miseris succurrere disco_--the goose that was destined to roost in the chimney till Michaelmas, is boiling in the pot for you; but if we had twenty geese, I see we are like to find mouths to eat them every feather--this must be amended."

"What must be amended, sordid slave?" said the stranger Norna, turning at once upon him with an emphasis that made him start--"_What_ must be amended? Bring hither, if thou wilt, thy new-fangled coulters, spades, and harrows, alter the implements of our fathers from the ploughshare to the mouse-trap; but know thou art in the land that was won of old by the flaxen-haired Kempions of the North, and leave us their hospitality at least, to show we come of what was once n.o.ble and generous. I say to you beware--while Norna looks forth at the measureless waters, from the crest of Fitful-head, something is yet left that resembles power of defence. If the men of Thule have ceased to be champions, and to spread the banquet for the raven, the women have not forgotten the arts that lifted them of yore into queens and prophetesses."

The woman who p.r.o.nounced this singular tirade, was as striking in appearance as extravagantly lofty in her pretensions and in her language. She might well have represented on the stage, so far as features, voice, and stature, were concerned, the Bonduca or Boadicea of the Britons, or the sage Velleda, Aurinia, or any other fated Pythoness, who ever led to battle a tribe of the ancient Goths. Her features were high and well formed, and would have been handsome, but for the ravages of time and the effects of exposure to the severe weather of her country. Age, and perhaps sorrow, had quenched, in some degree, the fire of a dark-blue eye, whose hue almost approached to black, and had sprinkled snow on such parts of her tresses as had escaped from under her cap, and were dishevelled by the rigour of the storm. Her upper garment, which dropped with water, was of a coa.r.s.e dark-coloured stuff, called wadmaal, then much used in the Zetland islands, as also in Iceland and Norway. But as she threw this cloak back from her shoulders, a short jacket, of dark-blue velvet, stamped with figures, became visible, and the vest, which corresponded to it, was of crimson colour, and embroidered with tarnished silver. Her girdle was plated with silver ornaments, cut into the shape of planetary signs--her blue ap.r.o.n was embroidered with similar devices, and covered a petticoat of crimson cloth. Strong thick enduring shoes, of the half-dressed leather of the country, were tied with straps like those of the Roman buskins, over her scarlet stockings. She wore in her belt an ambiguous-looking weapon, which might pa.s.s for a sacrificing knife, or dagger, as the imagination of the spectator chose to a.s.sign to the wearer the character of a priestess or of a sorceress. In her hand she held a staff, squared on all sides, and engraved with Runic characters and figures, forming one of those portable and perpetual calendars which were used among the ancient natives of Scandinavia, and which, to a superst.i.tious eye, might have pa.s.sed for a divining rod.

Such were the appearance, features, and attire, of Norna of the Fitful-head, upon whom many of the inhabitants of the island looked with observance, many with fear, and almost all with a sort of veneration.

Less pregnant circ.u.mstances of suspicion would, in any other part of Scotland, have exposed her to the investigation of those cruel inquisitors, who were then often invested with the delegated authority of the Privy Council, for the purpose of persecuting, torturing, and finally consigning to the flames, those who were accused of witchcraft or sorcery. But superst.i.tions of this nature pa.s.s through two stages ere they become entirely obsolete. Those supposed to be possessed of supernatural powers, are venerated in the earlier stages of society. As religion and knowledge increase, they are first held in hatred and horror, and are finally regarded as impostors. Scotland was in the second state--the fear of witchcraft was great, and the hatred against those suspected of it intense. Zetland was as yet a little world by itself, where, among the lower and ruder cla.s.ses, so much of the ancient northern superst.i.tion remained, as cherished the original veneration for those affecting supernatural knowledge, and power over the elements, which made a const.i.tuent part of the ancient Scandinavian creed. At least if the natives of Thule admitted that one cla.s.s of magicians performed their feats by their alliance with Satan, they devoutly believed that others dealt with spirits of a different and less odious cla.s.s--the ancient Dwarfs, called, in Zetland, Trows, or Drows, the modern fairies, and so forth.

Among those who were supposed to be in league with disembodied spirits, this Norna, descended from, and representative of, a family, which had long pretended to such gifts, was so eminent, that the name a.s.signed to her, which signifies one of those fatal sisters who weave the web of human fate, had been conferred in honour of her supernatural powers. The name by which she had been actually christened was carefully concealed by herself and her parents; for to its discovery they superst.i.tiously annexed some fatal consequences. In those times, the doubt only occurred, whether her supposed powers were acquired by lawful means. In our days, it would have been questioned whether she was an impostor, or whether her imagination was so deeply impressed with the mysteries of her supposed art, that she might be in some degree a believer in her own pretensions to supernatural knowledge. Certain it is, that she performed her part with such undoubting confidence, and such striking dignity of look and action, and evinced, at the same time, such strength of language, and energy of purpose, that it would have been difficult for the greatest sceptic to have doubted the reality of her enthusiasm, though he might smile at the pretensions to which it gave rise.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] When a person changes his condition suddenly, as when a miser becomes liberal, or a churl good-humoured, he is said, in Scotch, to be _fey_; that is, predestined to speedy death, of which such mutations of humour are received as a sure indication.

[25] A pedlar.

CHAPTER VI.

----If, by your art, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.

_Tempest._

The storm had somewhat relaxed its rigour just before the entrance of Norna, otherwise she must have found it impossible to travel during the extremity of its fury. But she had hardly added herself so unexpectedly to the party whom chance had a.s.sembled at the dwelling of Triptolemus Yellowley, when the tempest suddenly resumed its former vehemence, and raged around the building with a fury which made the inmates insensible to any thing except the risk that the old mansion was about to fall above their heads.

Mistress Baby gave vent to her fears in loud exclamations of "The Lord guide us--this is surely the last day--what kind of a country of guisards and gyre-carlines is this!--and you, ye fool carle," she added, turning on her brother, (for all her pa.s.sions had a touch of acidity in them,) "to quit the bonny Mearns land to come here, where there is naething but st.u.r.dy beggars and gaberlunzies within ane's house, and Heaven's anger on the outside on't!"

"I tell you, sister Baby," answered the insulted agriculturist, "that all shall be reformed and amended,--excepting," he added, betwixt his teeth, "the scaulding humours of an ill-natured jaud, that can add bitterness to the very storm!"

The old domestic and the pedlar meanwhile exhausted themselves in entreaties to Norna, of which, as they were couched in the Norse language, the master of the house understood nothing.

She listened to them with a haughty and unmoved air, and replied at length aloud, and in English--"I will not. What if this house be strewed in ruins before morning--where would be the world's want in the crazed projector, and the n.i.g.g.ardly pinch-commons, by which it is inhabited?

They will needs come to reform Zetland customs, let them try how they like a Zetland storm.--You that would not perish, quit this house!"

The pedlar seized on his little knapsack, and began hastily to brace it on his back; the old maid-servant cast her cloak about her shoulders, and both seemed to be in the act of leaving the house as fast as they could.

Triptolemus Yellowley, somewhat commoved by these appearances, asked Mordaunt, with a voice which faltered with apprehension, whether he thought there was any, that is, so very much danger?

"I cannot tell," answered the youth, "I have scarce ever seen such a storm. Norna can tell us better than any one when it will abate; for no one in these islands can judge of the weather like her."

"And is that all thou thinkest Norna can do?" said the sibyl; "thou shalt know her powers are not bounded within such a narrow s.p.a.ce. Hear me, Mordaunt, youth of a foreign land, but of a friendly heart--Dost thou quit this doomed mansion with those who now prepare to leave it?"

"I do not--I will not, Norna," replied Mordaunt; "I know not your motive for desiring me to remove, and I will not leave, upon these dark threats, the house in which I have been kindly received in such a tempest as this. If the owners are unaccustomed to our practice of unlimited hospitality, I am the more obliged to them that they have relaxed their usages, and opened their doors in my behalf."

"He is a brave lad," said Mistress Baby, whose superst.i.tious feelings had been daunted by the threats of the supposed sorceress, and who, amidst her eager, narrow, and repining disposition, had, like all who possess marked character, some sparks of higher feeling, which made her sympathize with generous sentiments, though she thought it too expensive to entertain them at her own cost--"He is a brave lad," she again repeated, "and worthy of ten geese, if I had them to boil for him, or roast either. I'll warrant him a gentleman's son, and no churl's blood."