The Pirate Read online

  CHAPTER V.

  The wind blew keen frae north and east; It blew upon the floor. Quo' our goodman to our goodwife, "Get up and bar the door."

  "My hand is in my housewife-skep, Goodman, as ye may see; If it shouldna be barr'd this hundred years, It's no be barr'd for me!"

  _Old Song._

  We can only hope that the gentle reader has not found the latter part ofthe last chapter extremely tedious; but, at any rate, his impatiencewill scarce equal that of young Mordaunt Mertoun, who, while thelightning came flash after flash, while the wind, veering and shiftingfrom point to point, blew with all the fury of a hurricane, and whilethe rain was dashed against him in deluges, stood hammering, calling,and roaring at the door of the old Place of Harfra, impatient foradmittance, and at a loss to conceive any position of existingcircumstances, which could occasion the exclusion of a stranger,especially during such horrible weather. At length, finding his noiseand vociferation were equally in vain, he fell back so far from thefront of the house, as was necessary to enable him to reconnoitre thechimneys; and amidst "storm and shade," could discover, to the increaseof his dismay, that though noon, then the dinner hour of these islands,was now nearly arrived, there was no smoke proceeding from the tunnelsof the vents to give any note of preparation within.

  Mordaunt's wrathful impatience was now changed into sympathy and alarm;for, so long accustomed to the exuberant hospitality of the Zetlandislands, he was immediately induced to suppose some strange andunaccountable disaster had befallen the family; and forthwith sethimself to discover some place at which he could make forcible entry, inorder to ascertain the situation of the inmates, as much as to obtainshelter from the still increasing storm. His present anxiety was,however, as much thrown away as his late clamorous importunities foradmittance had been. Triptolemus and his sister had heard the wholealarm without, and had already had a sharp dispute on the propriety ofopening the door.

  Mrs. Baby, as we have described her, was no willing renderer of therites of hospitality. In their farm of Cauldacres, in the Mearns, shehad been the dread and abhorrence of all gaberlunzie men, and travellingpackmen, gipsies, long remembered beggars, and so forth; nor was thereone of them so wily, as she used to boast, as could ever say they hadheard the clink of her sneck. In Zetland, where the new settlers wereyet strangers to the extreme honesty and simplicity of all classes,suspicion and fear joined with frugality in her desire to exclude allwandering guests of uncertain character; and the second of these motiveshad its effect on Triptolemus himself, who, though neither suspiciousnor penurious, knew good people were scarce, good farmers scarcer, andhad a reasonable share of that wisdom which looks towardsself-preservation as the first law of nature. These hints may serve asa commentary on the following dialogue which took place betwixt thebrother and sister.

  "Now, good be gracious to us," said Triptolemus, as he sat thumbing hisold school-copy of Virgil, "here is a pure day, for the bear seed!--Wellspoke the wise Mantuan--_ventis surgentibus_--and then the groans of themountains, and the long-resounding shores--but where's the woods, Baby?tell me, I say, where we shall find the _nemorum murmur_, sister Baby,in these new seats of ours?"

  "What's your foolish will?" said Baby, popping her head from out of adark recess in the kitchen, where she was busy about some nameless deedof housewifery.

  Her brother, who had addressed himself to her more from habit thanintention, no sooner saw her bleak red nose, keen grey eyes, with thesharp features thereunto conforming, shaded by the flaps of the loose_toy_ which depended on each side of her eager face, than he bethoughthimself that his query was likely to find little acceptation from her,and therefore stood another volley before he would resume the topic.

  "I say, Mr. Yellowley," said sister Baby, coming into the middle of theroom, "what for are ye crying on me, and me in the midst of myhousewifeskep?"

  "Nay, for nothing at all, Baby," answered Triptolemus, "saving that Iwas saying to myself, that here we had the sea, and the wind, and therain, sufficient enough, but where's the wood? where's the wood, Baby,answer me that?"

  "The wood?" replied Baby--"Were I no to take better care of the woodthan you, brother, there would soon be no more wood about the town thanthe barber's block that's on your own shoulders, Triptolemus. If ye bethinking of the wreck-wood that the callants brought in yesterday, therewas six ounces of it gaed to boil your parritch this morning; though, Itrow, a carefu' man wad have ta'en drammock, if breakfast he behoved tohave, rather than waste baith meltith and fuel in the same morning."

  "That is to say, Baby," replied Triptolemus, who was somewhat of a dryjoker in his way, "that when we have fire we are not to have food, andwhen we have food we are not to have fire, these being too greatblessings to enjoy both in the same day! Good luck, you do not proposewe should starve with cold and starve with hunger _unico contextu_. But,to tell you the truth, I could never away with raw oatmeal, slockenedwith water, in all my life. Call it drammock, or crowdie, or just whatye list, my vivers must thole fire and water."

  "The mair gowk you," said Baby; "can ye not make your brose on theSunday, and sup them cauld on the Monday, since ye're sae dainty? Monyis the fairer face than yours that has licked the lip after such acogfu'."

  "Mercy on us, sister!" said Triptolemus; "at this rate, it's a finishedfield with me--I must unyoke the pleugh, and lie down to wait for thedead-thraw. Here is that in this house wad hold all Zetland in meal fora twelvemonth, and ye grudge a cogfu' of warm parritch to me, that hassic a charge!"

  "Whisht--haud your silly clavering tongue!" said Baby, looking roundwith apprehension--"ye are a wise man to speak of what is in the house,and a fitting man to have the charge of it!--Hark, as I live by bread,I hear a tapping at the outer yett!"

  "Go and open it then, Baby," said her brother, glad at any thing thatpromised to interrupt the dispute.

  "Go and open it, said he!" echoed Baby, half angry, half frightened, andhalf triumphant at the superiority of her understanding over that of herbrother--"Go and open it, said he, indeed!--is it to lend robbers achance to take all that is in the house?"

  "Robbers!" echoed Triptolemus, in his turn; "there are no more robbersin this country than there are lambs at Yule. I tell you, as I have toldyou an hundred times, there are no Highlandmen to harry us here. This isa land of quiet and honesty. _O fortunati nimium!_"

  "And what good is Saint Rinian to do ye, Tolimus?" said his sister,mistaking the quotation for a Catholic invocation. "Besides, if there beno Highlandmen, there may be as bad. I saw sax or seven as ill-lookingchields gang past the Place yesterday, as ever came frae beyontClochna-ben; ill-fa'red tools they had in their hands, whaaling knivesthey ca'ed them, but they looked as like dirks and whingers as ae bitairn can look like anither. There is nae honest men carry siccan tools."

  Here the knocking and shouts of Mordaunt were very audible betwixt everyswell of the horrible blast which was careering without. The brother andsister looked at each other in real perplexity and fear. "If they haveheard of the siller," said Baby, her very nose changing with terror fromred to blue, "we are but gane folk!"

  "Who speaks now, when they should hold their tongue?" said Triptolemus."Go to the shot-window instantly, and see how many there are of them,while I load the old Spanish-barrelled duck-gun--go as if you werestepping on new-laid eggs."

  Baby crept to the window, and reported that she saw only "one youngchield, clattering and roaring as gin he were daft. How many there mightbe out of sight, she could not say."

  "Out of sight!--nonsense," said Triptolemus, laying aside the ramrodwith which he was loading the piece, with a trembling hand. "I willwarrant them out of sight and hearing both--this is some poor fellowcatched in the tempest, wants the shelter of our roof, and a littlerefreshment. Open the door, Baby, it's a Christian deed."

  "But is it a Christian deed of him to come in at the window, then?" saidBaby, setting up a most doleful shriek, as Mordaunt Mertoun, who hadfo
rced open one of the windows, leaped down into the apartment, drippingwith water like a river god. Triptolemus, in great tribulation,presented the gun which he had not yet loaded, while the intruderexclaimed, "Hold, hold--what the devil mean you by keeping your doorsbolted in weather like this, and levelling your gun at folk's heads asyou would at a sealgh's?"

  "And who are you, friend, and what want you?" said Triptolemus, loweringthe but of his gun to the floor as he spoke, and so recovering his arms.

  "What do I want!" said Mordaunt; "I want every thing--I want meat,drink, and fire, a bed for the night, and a sheltie for to-morrowmorning to carry me to Jarlshof."

  "And ye said there were nae caterans or sorners here?" said Baby to theagriculturist, reproachfully. "Heard ye ever a breekless loon fraeLochaber tell his mind and his errand mair deftly?--Come, come, friend,"she added, addressing herself to Mordaunt, "put up your pipes and gangyour gate; this is the house of his lordship's factor, and no place ofreset for thiggers or sorners."

  Mordaunt laughed in her face at the simplicity of the request. "Leavebuilt walls," he said, "and in such a tempest as this? What take you mefor?--a gannet or a scart do you think I am, that your clapping yourhands and skirling at me like a madwoman, should drive me from theshelter into the storm?"

  "And so you propose, young man," said Triptolemus, gravely, "to stay inmy house, _volens nolens_--that is, whether we will or no?"

  "Will!" said Mordaunt; "what right have you to will any thing about it?Do you not hear the thunder? Do you not hear the rain? Do you not seethe lightning? And do you not know this is the only house within I wotnot how many miles? Come, my good master and dame, this may be Scottishjesting, but it sounds strange in Zetland ears. You have let out thefire, too, and my teeth are dancing a jig in my head with cold; but I'llsoon put that to rights."

  He seized the fire-tongs, raked together the embers upon the hearth,broke up into life the gathering-peat, which the hostess had calculatedshould have preserved the seeds of fire, without giving them forth, formany hours; then casting his eye round, saw in a corner the stock ofdrift-wood, which Mistress Baby had served forth by ounces, andtransferred two or three logs of it at once to the hearth, which,conscious of such unwonted supply, began to transmit to the chimneysuch a smoke as had not issued from the Place of Harfra for many a day.

  While their uninvited guest was thus making himself at home, Baby keptedging and jogging the factor to turn out the intruder. But for thisundertaking, Triptolemus Yellowley felt neither courage nor zeal, nordid circumstances seem at all to warrant the favourable conclusion ofany fray into which he might enter with the young stranger. The sinewylimbs and graceful form of Mordaunt Mertoun were seen to great advantagein his simple sea-dress; and with his dark sparkling eye, finely formedhead, animated features, close curled dark hair, and bold, free looks,the stranger formed a very strong contrast with the host on whom he hadintruded himself. Triptolemus was a short, clumsy, duck-legged discipleof Ceres, whose bottle-nose, turned up and handsomely coppered at theextremity, seemed to intimate something of an occasional treaty withBacchus. It was like to be no equal mellay betwixt persons of suchunequal form and strength; and the difference betwixt twenty and fiftyyears was nothing in favour of the weaker party. Besides, the factor wasan honest good-natured fellow at bottom, and being soon satisfied thathis guest had no other views than those of obtaining refuge from thestorm, it would, despite his sister's instigations, have been his lastact to deny a boon so reasonable and necessary to a youth whose exteriorwas so prepossessing. He stood, therefore, considering how he could mostgracefully glide into the character of the hospitable landlord, out ofthat of the churlish defender of his domestic castle, against anunauthorized intrusion, when Baby, who had stood appalled at the extremefamiliarity of the stranger's address and demeanour, now spoke up forherself.

  "My troth, lad," said she to Mordaunt, "ye are no blate, to light on atthat rate, and the best of wood, too--nane of your sharney peats, butgood aik timber, nae less maun serve ye!"

  "You come lightly by it, dame," said Mordaunt, carelessly; "and youshould not grudge to the fire what the sea gives you for nothing. Thesegood ribs of oak did their last duty upon earth and ocean, when theycould hold no longer together under the brave hearts that manned thebark."

  "And that's true, too," said the old woman, softening--"this maun beawsome weather by sea. Sit down and warm ye, since the sticks area-low."

  "Ay, ay," said Triptolemus, "it is a pleasure to see siccan a bonnybleeze. I havena seen the like o't since I left Cauldacres."

  "And shallna see the like o't again in a hurry," said Baby, "unless thehouse take fire, or there suld be a coal-heugh found out."

  "And wherefore should not there be a coal-heugh found out?" said thefactor, triumphantly--"I say, wherefore should not a coal-heugh be foundout in Zetland as well as in Fife, now that the Chamberlain has afar-sighted and discreet man upon the spot to make the necessaryperquisitions? They are baith fishing-stations, I trow?"

  "I tell you what it is, Tolemus Yellowley," answered his sister, who hadpractical reasons to fear her brother's opening upon any false scent,"if you promise my Lord sae mony of these bonnie-wallies, we'll no beweel hafted here before we are found out and set a-trotting again. Ifane was to speak to ye about a gold mine, I ken weel wha would promisehe suld have Portugal pieces clinking in his pouch before the year gaedby."

  "And why suld I not?" said Triptolemus--"maybe your head does not knowthere is a land in Orkney called Ophir, or something very like it; andwherefore might not Solomon, the wise King of the Jews, have sentthither his ships and his servants for four hundred and fifty talents? Itrow he knew best where to go or send, and I hope you believe in yourBible, Baby?"

  Baby was silenced by an appeal to Scripture, however _mal a propos_, andonly answered by an inarticulate _humph_ of incredulity or scorn, whileher brother went on addressing Mordaunt.--"Yes, you shall all of you seewhat a change shall coin introduce, even into such an unpropitiouscountry as yours. Ye have not heard of copper, I warrant, nor ofiron-stone, in these islands, neither?" Mordaunt said he had heard therewas copper near the Cliffs of Konigsburgh. "Ay, and a copper scum isfound on the Loch of Swana, too, young man. But the youngest of you,doubtless, thinks himself a match for such as I am!"

  Baby, who during all this while had been closely and accuratelyreconnoitring the youth's person, now interposed in a manner by herbrother totally unexpected. "Ye had mair need, Mr. Yellowley, to givethe young man some dry clothes, and to see about getting something forhim to eat, than to sit there bleezing away with your lang tales, as ifthe weather were not windy enow without your help; and maybe the ladwould drink some _bland_, or sic-like, if ye had the grace to ask him."

  While Triptolemus looked astonished at such a proposal, considering thequarter it came from, Mordaunt answered, he "should be very glad tohave dry clothes, but begged to be excused from drinking until he hadeaten somewhat."

  Triptolemus accordingly conducted him into another apartment, andaccommodating him with a change of dress, left him to his arrangements,while he himself returned to the kitchen, much puzzled to account forhis sister's unusual fit of hospitality. "She must be _fey_,"[24] hesaid, "and in that case has not long to live, and though I fall heir toher tocher-good, I am sorry for it; for she has held the house-gear welltogether--drawn the girth over tight it may be now and then, but thesaddle sits the better."

  When Triptolemus returned to the kitchen, he found his suspicionsconfirmed; for his sister was in the desperate act of consigning to thepot a smoked goose, which, with others of the same tribe, had long hungin the large chimney, muttering to herself at the same time,--"It maunbe eaten sune or syne, and what for no by the puir callant?"

  "What is this of it, sister?" said Triptolemus. "You have on the girdleand the pot at ance. What day is this wi' you?"

  "E'en such a day as the Israelites had beside the flesh-pots of Egypt,billie Triptolemus; but ye little ken wha ye have in your house thisblessed day."
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  "Troth, and little do I ken," said Triptolemus, "as little as I wouldken the naig I never saw before. I would take the lad for a jagger,[25]but he has rather ower good havings, and he has no pack."

  "Ye ken as little as ane of your ain bits o' nowt, man," retorted sisterBaby; "if ye ken na him, do ye ken Tronda Dronsdaughter?"

  "Tronda Dronsdaughter!" echoed Triptolemus--"how should I but ken her,when I pay her twal pennies Scots by the day, for working in the househere? I trow she works as if the things burned her fingers. I had bettergive a Scots lass a groat of English siller."

  "And that's the maist sensible word ye have said this blessedmorning.--Weel, but Tronda kens this lad weel, and she has often spoketo me about him. They call his father the Silent Man of Sumburgh, andthey say he's uncanny."

  "Hout, hout--nonsense, nonsense--they are aye at sic trash as that,"said the brother, "when you want a day's wark out of them--they havestepped ower the tangs, or they have met an uncanny body, or they haveturned about the boat against the sun, and then there's nought to bedone that day."

  "Weel, weel, brother, ye are so wise," said Baby, "because ye knappedLatin at Saint Andrews; and can your lair tell me, then, what the ladhas round his halse?"

  "A Barcelona napkin, as wet as a dishclout, and I have just lent him oneof my own overlays," said Triptolemus.

  "A Barcelona napkin!" said Baby, elevating her voice, and then suddenlylowering it, as from apprehension of being overheard--"I say a goldchain!"

  "A gold chain!" said Triptolemus.

  "In troth is it, hinny; and how like you that? The folk say here, asTronda tells me, that the King of the Drows gave it to his father, theSilent Man of Sumburgh."

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

  "Troth, brother, we maun do something for God's sake, and to makefriends; and the lad," added Baby, (for even she was not altogetherabove the prejudices of her sex in favour of outward form,) "the lad hasa fair face of his ain."

  "Ye would have let mony a fair face," said Triptolemus, "pass the doorpining, if it had not been for the gold chain."

  "Nae doubt, nae doubt," replied Barbara; "ye wadna have me waste oursubstance on every thigger or sorner that has the luck to come by thedoor in a wet day? But this lad has a fair and a wide name in thecountry, and Tronda says he is to be married to a daughter of the richUdaller, Magnus Troil, and the marriage-day is to be fixed whenever hemakes choice (set him up) between the twa lasses; and so it wad be asmuch as our good name is worth, and our quiet forby, to let him situnserved, although he does come unsent for."

  "The best reason in life," said Triptolemus, "for letting a man into ahouse is, that you dare not bid him go by. However, since there is a manof quality amongst them, I will let him know whom he has to do with, inmy 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 hishumanities, I see. I will try him further.--Canst thou aught ofhusbandry, young gentleman?"

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

  "Plough the sea!" said Triptolemus; "that's a furrow requires smallharrowing; and for your harvest on the crag, I suppose you mean these_scowries_, or whatever you call them. It is a sort of ingathering whichthe Ranzelman should stop by the law; nothing more likely to break anhonest man's bones. I profess I cannot see the pleasure men propose bydangling in a rope's-end betwixt earth and heaven. In my case, I had aslief the other end of the rope were fastened to the gibbet; I should besure 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 midairbetween a high-browed cliff and a roaring ocean, the rope by which youare sustained seeming scarce stronger than a silken thread, and thestone on which you have one foot steadied, affording such a breadth asthe kittywake might rest upon--to feel and know all this, with the fullconfidence that your own agility of limb, and strength of head, canbring you as safe off as if you had the wing of the gosshawk--this isindeed being almost independent of the earth you tread on!"

  Triptolemus stared at this enthusiastic description of an amusementwhich had so few charms for him; and his sister, looking at the glancingeye and elevated bearing of the young adventurer, answered, byejaculating, "My certie, lad, but ye are a brave chield!"

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

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

  "I did, to be sure," replied Mordaunt; "you would not have a poor devilstand beating your deaf door-cheeks in weather like this?--Here goessomething, though, to help the fire," he added, drawing out the slidingbar of oak with which the door had been secured, and throwing it on thehearth, whence it was snatched by Dame Baby in great wrath, sheexclaiming at the same time,--

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

  "I am a jagger, if it like your ladyship," replied the uninvited guest,a stout vulgar, little man, who had indeed the humble appearance of apedlar, called _jagger_ in these islands--"never travelled in a waurday, or was more willing to get to harbourage.--Heaven be praised forfire and house-room!"

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

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

  "Where can she have been wandering?" said Mordaunt, not without someapparent sympathy with the surprise, if not with the alarm, of the olddomestic; "but it is needless to ask--the worse the weather, the morelikely is she to be a traveller."

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

  "The iron was never forged on stithy that would hauld her," said the oldmaid-servant. "She comes--she comes--God's sake speak her fair andcanny, 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 doorwith her cap, stepped into the room, signing the cross as she entered,and pronouncing, with a solemn voice, "The blessing of God and SaintRonald on the open door, and their broad malison and mine uponclose-handed churls!"

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

  This speech, the understanding reader will easily saddle on MistressBaby, and what effects it might have produced on the last stranger, canonly be matter of conjecture; for the old servant and Mordaunt appliedthemselves at once to the party addressed, in order to deprecate herresentment; the former speaking to her some words of Norse, in a tone ofintercession, 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 excusedfor their lack of hospitality."

  "I lack no hospitality, young man," said Triptolemus, "_miserissuccurrere disco_--the goose that was destined to roost in the chimneytill Michaelmas, is boiling in the pot for you; but if we had twentygeese, I see we are like to find mouths to eat them every feather--thismust be amended."

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

  The woman who pronounced this singular tirade, was as striking inappearance as extravagantly lofty in her pretensions and in herlanguage. She might well have represented on the stage, so far asfeatures, voice, and stature, were concerned, the Bonduca or Boadicea ofthe Britons, or the sage Velleda, Aurinia, or any other fated Pythoness,who ever led to battle a tribe of the ancient Goths. Her features werehigh and well formed, and would have been handsome, but for the ravagesof time and the effects of exposure to the severe weather of hercountry. Age, and perhaps sorrow, had quenched, in some degree, the fireof a dark-blue eye, whose hue almost approached to black, and hadsprinkled snow on such parts of her tresses as had escaped from underher cap, and were dishevelled by the rigour of the storm. Her uppergarment, which dropped with water, was of a coarse dark-coloured stuff,called wadmaal, then much used in the Zetland islands, as also inIceland and Norway. But as she threw this cloak back from hershoulders, a short jacket, of dark-blue velvet, stamped with figures,became visible, and the vest, which corresponded to it, was of crimsoncolour, and embroidered with tarnished silver. Her girdle was platedwith silver ornaments, cut into the shape of planetary signs--her blueapron was embroidered with similar devices, and covered a petticoat ofcrimson cloth. Strong thick enduring shoes, of the half-dressed leatherof the country, were tied with straps like those of the Roman buskins,over her scarlet stockings. She wore in her belt an ambiguous-lookingweapon, which might pass for a sacrificing knife, or dagger, as theimagination of the spectator chose to assign to the wearer the characterof a priestess or of a sorceress. In her hand she held a staff, squaredon all sides, and engraved with Runic characters and figures, formingone of those portable and perpetual calendars which were used among theancient natives of Scandinavia, and which, to a superstitious eye, mighthave passed for a divining rod.

  Such were the appearance, features, and attire, of Norna of theFitful-head, upon whom many of the inhabitants of the island looked withobservance, many with fear, and almost all with a sort of veneration.Less pregnant circumstances of suspicion would, in any other part ofScotland, have exposed her to the investigation of those cruelinquisitors, who were then often invested with the delegated authorityof the Privy Council, for the purpose of persecuting, torturing, andfinally consigning to the flames, those who were accused of witchcraftor sorcery. But superstitions of this nature pass through two stages erethey become entirely obsolete. Those supposed to be possessed ofsupernatural powers, are venerated in the earlier stages of society. Asreligion and knowledge increase, they are first held in hatred andhorror, and are finally regarded as impostors. Scotland was in thesecond state--the fear of witchcraft was great, and the hatred againstthose suspected of it intense. Zetland was as yet a little world byitself, where, among the lower and ruder classes, so much of the ancientnorthern superstition remained, as cherished the original veneration forthose affecting supernatural knowledge, and power over the elements,which made a constituent part of the ancient Scandinavian creed. Atleast if the natives of Thule admitted that one class of magiciansperformed their feats by their alliance with Satan, they devoutlybelieved that others dealt with spirits of a different and less odiousclass--the ancient Dwarfs, called, in Zetland, Trows, or Drows, themodern 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 hadlong pretended to such gifts, was so eminent, that the name assigned toher, which signifies one of those fatal sisters who weave the web ofhuman fate, had been conferred in honour of her supernatural powers. Thename by which she had been actually christened was carefully concealedby herself and her parents; for to its discovery they superstitiouslyannexed some fatal consequences. In those times, the doubt onlyoccurred, whether her supposed powers were acquired by lawful means. Inour days, it would have been questioned whether she was an impostor, orwhether her imagination was so deeply impressed with the mysteries ofher supposed art, that she might be in some degree a believer in herown pretensions to supernatural knowledge. Certain it is, that sheperformed her part with such undoubting confidence, and such strikingdignity of look and action, and evinced, at the same time, such strengthof language, and energy of purpose, that it would have been difficultfor 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 miserbecomes liberal, or a churl good-humoured, he is said, in Scotch, to be_fey_; that is, predestined to speedy death, of which such mutations ofhumour are received as a sure indication.

  [25] A pedlar.