“Nonsense,” replied Halcro; “how could I see any one, when light and distance only enabled me to know that it was a boat, and not a grampus?”
“But there must have been some one in the boat?” repeated Minna, scarce conscious of what she said.
“Certainly,” answered the poet; “boats seldom work to windward of their own accord. – But come, this is all folly; and so, as the Queen says, in an old play, which was revived for the stage by rare Will D’Avenant, ‘To bed – to bed – to bed!’”
They separated, and Minna’s limbs conveyed her with difficulty, through several devious passages, to her own chamber, where she stretched herself cautiously beside her still sleeping sister, with a mind harassed with the most agonizing apprehensions. That she had heard Cleveland, she was positive – the tenor of the songs left her no doubt on that subject. If not equally certain that she had heard young Mertoun’s voice in hot quarrel with her lover, the impression to that effect was strong on her mind. The groan, with which the struggle seemed to terminate – the fearful indication from which it seemed that the conqueror had borne off the lifeless body of his victim – all tended to prove that some fatal event had concluded the contest. And which of the unhappy men had fallen? – which had met a bloody death? – which had achieved a fatal and a bloody victory? – These were questions to which the still small voice of interior conviction answered, that her lover Cleveland, from character, temper, and habits, was most likely to have been the survivor of the fray. She received from the reflection an involuntary consolation which she almost detested herself for admitting, when she recollected that it was at once darkened with her lover’s guilt, and embittered with the destruction of Brenda’s happiness for ever.
“Innocent, unhappy sister!” such were her reflections; “thou that art ten times better than I, because so unpretending – so unassuming in thine excellence! How is it possible that I should cease to feel a pang, which is only transferred from my bosom to thine?”
As these cruel thoughts crossed her mind, she could not refrain from straining her sister so close to her bosom, that, after a heavy sigh, Brenda awoke.
“Sister,” she said, “is it you? – I dreamed I lay on one of those monuments which Claud Halcro described to us, where the effigy of the inhabitant beneath lies carved in stone upon the sepulchre. I dreamed such a marble form lay by my side, and that it suddenly acquired enough of life and animation to fold me to its cold, moist bosom – and it is yours, Minna, that is indeed so chilly. – You are ill, my dearest Minna! for God’s sake, let me rise and call Euphane Fea. – What ails you? has Norna been here again?”
“Call no one hither,” said Minna, detaining her; “nothing ails me for which any one has a remedy – nothing but apprehensions of evil worse than even Norna could prophesy. But God is above all, my dear Brenda; and let us pray to him to turn, as he only can, our evil into good.”
They did jointly repeat their usual prayer for strength and protection from on high, and again composed themselves to sleep, suffering no word save “God bless you,” to pass betwixt them, when their devotions were finished; thus scrupulously dedicating to Heaven their last waking words, if human frailty prevented them from commanding their last waking thoughts. Brenda slept first, and Minna, strongly resisting the dark and evil presentiments which again began to crowd themselves upon her imagination, was at last so fortunate as to slumber also.
The storm which Halcro had expected began about daybreak, – a squall, heavy with wind and rain, such as is often felt, even during the finest part of the season, in these latitudes. At the whistle of the wind, and the clatter of the rain on the shingle-roofing of the fishers’ huts, many a poor woman was awakened, and called on her children to hold up their little hands, and join in prayer for the safety of the dear husband and father, who was even then at the mercy of the disturbed elements. Around the house of Burgh-Westra, chimneys howled, and windows clashed. The props and rafters of the higher parts of the building, most of them formed out of wreck-wood, groaned and quivered, as fearing to be again dispersed by the tempest. But the daughters of Magnus Troil continued to sleep as softly and as sweetly as if the hand of Chantrey had formed them out of statuary-marble. The squall had passed away, and the sunbeams, dispersing the clouds which drifted to leeward, shone full through the lattice, when Minna first started from the profound sleep into which fatigue and mental exhaustion had lulled her, and, raising herself on her arm, began to recall events, which, after this interval of profound repose, seemed almost to resemble the baseless visions of the night. She almost doubted if what she recalled of horror, previous to her starting from her bed, was not indeed the fiction of a dream, suggested, perhaps, by some external sounds.
“I will see Claud Halcro instantly,” she said; “he may know something of these strange noises, as he was stirring at the time.”
With that she sprung from bed, but hardly stood upright on the floor, ere her sister exclaimed, “Gracious Heaven! Minna, what ails your foot – your ankle?”
She looked down, and saw with surprise, which amounted to agony, that both her feet, but particularly one of them, was stained with dark crimson, resembling the colour of dried blood.
Without attempting to answer Brenda, she rushed to the window, and cast a desperate look on the grass beneath, for there she knew she must have contracted the fatal stain. But the rain, which had fallen there in treble quantity, as well from the heavens, as from the eaves of the house, had washed away that guilty witness, if indeed such had ever existed. All was fresh and fair, and the blades of grass, overcharged and bent with rain-drops, glittered like diamonds in the bright morning sun.
While Minna stared upon the spangled verdure, with her full dark eyes fixed and enlarged to circles by the intensity of her terror, Brenda was hanging about her, and with many an eager enquiry, pressed to know whether or how she had hurt herself?
“A piece of glass cut through my shoe,” said Minna, bethinking herself that some excuse was necessary to her sister; “I scarce felt it at the time.”
“And yet see how it has bled,” said her sister. “Sweet Minna,” she added, approaching her with a wetted towel, “let me wipe the blood off – the hurt may be worse than you think of.”
But as she approached, Minna, who saw no other way of preventing discovery that the blood with which she was stained had never flowed in her own veins, harshly and hastily repelled the proffered kindness. Poor Brenda, unconscious of any offence which she had given to her sister, drew back two or three paces on finding her service thus unkindly refused, and stood gazing at Minna with looks in which there was more of surprise and mortified affection than of resentment, but which had yet something also of natural displeasure.
“Sister,” said she, “I thought we had agreed but last night, that, happen to us what might, we would at least love each other.”
“Much may happen betwixt night and morning!” answered Minna, in words rather wrenched from her by her situation, than flowing forth the voluntary interpreters of her thoughts.
“Much may indeed have happened in a night so stormy,” answered Brenda; “for see where the very wall around Euphane’s plant-a-cruive has been blown down; but neither wind nor rain, nor aught else, can cool our affection, Minna.”
“But that may chance,” replied Minna, “which may convert it into” —
The rest of the sentence she muttered in a tone so indistinct, that it could not be apprehended; while, at the same time, she washed the blood-stains from her feet and left ankle. Brenda, who still remained looking on at some distance, endeavoured in vain to assume some tone which might re-establish kindness and confidence betwixt them.
“You were right,” she said, “Minna, to suffer no one to help you to dress so simple a scratch – standing where I do, it is scarce visible.”
“The most cruel wounds,” replied Minna, “are those which make no outward show – Are you sure you see it at all?”
“O, yes!” replied Brenda, framing her answer as she thought would best please her sister; “I see a very slight scratch; nay, now you draw on the stocking, I can see nothing.”
“You do indeed see nothing,” answered Minna, somewhat wildly; “but the time will soon come that all – ay, all – will be seen and known.”
So saying, she hastily completed her dress, and led the way to breakfast, where she assumed her place amongst the guests; but with a countenance so pale and haggard, and manners and speech so altered and so bewildered, that it excited the attention of the whole company, and the utmost anxiety on the part of her father Magnus Troil. Many and various were the conjectures of the guests, concerning a distemperature which seemed rather mental than corporeal. Some hinted that the maiden had been struck with an evil eye, and something they muttered about Norna of the Fitful-head; some talked of the departure of Captain Cleveland, and murmured, “it was a shame for a young lady to take on so after a landlouper, of whom no one knew any thing;” and this contemptuous epithet was in particular bestowed on the Captain by Mistress Baby Yellowley, while she was in the act of wrapping round her old skinny neck the very handsome owerlay (as she called it) wherewith the said Captain had presented her. The old Lady Glowrowrum had a system of her own, which she hinted to Mistress Yellowley, after thanking God that her own connexion with the Burgh-Westra family was by the lass’s mother, who was a canny Scotswoman, like herself.
“For, as to these Troils, you see, Dame Yellowley, for as high as they hold their heads, they say that ken,” (winking sagaciously,) “that there is a bee in their bonnet; – that Norna, as they call her, for it’s not her right name neither, is at whiles far beside her right mind, – and they that ken the cause, say the Fowd was some gate or other linked in with it, for he will never hear an ill word of her. But I was in Scotland then, or I might have kend the real cause, as weel as other folk. At ony rate there is a kind of wildness in the blood. Ye ken very weel daft folk dinna bide to be contradicted; and I’ll say that for the Fowd – he likes to be contradicted as ill as ony man in Zetland. But it shall never be said that I said ony ill of the house that I am sae nearly connected wi’. Only ye will mind, dame, it is through the Sinclairs that we are akin, not through the Troils, – and the Sinclairs are kend far and wide for a wise generation, dame. – But I see there is the stirrup-cup coming round.”
“I wonder,” said Mistress Baby to her brother, as soon as the Lady Glowrowrum turned from her, “what gars that muckle wife dame, dame, dame, that gate at me? She might ken the blude of the Clinkscales is as gude as ony Glowrowrum’s amang them.”
The guests, meanwhile, were fast taking their departure, scarcely noticed by Magnus, who was so much engrossed with Minna’s indisposition, that, contrary to his hospitable wont, he suffered them to go away unsaluted. And thus concluded, amidst anxiety and illness, the festival of Saint John, as celebrated on that season at the house of Burgh-Westra; adding another caution to that of the Emperor of Ethiopia, – with how little security man can reckon upon the days which he destines to happiness.
CHAPTER IV
But this sad evil which doth her infest,
Doth course of natural cause far exceed,
And housed is within her hollow breast,
That either seems some cursed witch’s deed,
Or evill spright that in her doth such torment breed.
Fairy Queen, Book III., Canto III.
The term had now elapsed, by several days, when Mordaunt Mertoun, as he had promised at his departure, should have returned to his father’s abode at Jarlshof, but there were no tidings of his arrival. Such delay might, at another time, have excited little curiosity, and no anxiety; for old Swertha, who took upon her the office of thinking and conjecturing for the little household, would have concluded that he had remained behind the other guests upon some party of sport or pleasure. But she knew that Mordaunt had not been lately in favour with Magnus Troil; she knew that he proposed his stay at Burgh-Westra should be a short one, upon account of his father’s health, to whom, notwithstanding the little encouragement which his filial piety received, he paid uniform attention. Swertha knew all this, and she became anxious. She watched the looks of her master, the elder Mertoun; but, wrapt in dark and stern uniformity of composure, his countenance, like the surface of a midnight lake, enabled no one to penetrate into what was beneath. His studies, his solitary meals, his lonely walks, succeeded each other in unvaried rotation, and seemed undisturbed by the least thought about Mordaunt’s absence.
At length such reports reached Swertha’s ear, from various quarters, that she became totally unable to conceal her anxiety, and resolved, at the risk of provoking her master into fury, or perhaps that of losing her place in his household, to force upon his notice the doubts which afflicted her own mind. Mordaunt’s good-humour and goodly person must indeed have made no small impression on the withered and selfish heart of the poor old woman, to induce her to take a course so desperate, and from which her friend the Ranzelman endeavoured in vain to deter her. Still, however, conscious that a miscarriage in the matter, would, like the loss of Trinculo’s bottle in the horse-pool, be attended not only with dishonour, but with infinite loss, she determined to proceed on her high emprize with as much caution as was consistent with the attempt.
We have already mentioned, that it seemed a part of the very nature of this reserved and unsocial being, at least since his retreat into the utter solitude of Jarlshof, to endure no one to start a subject of conversation, or to put any question to him, that did not arise out of urgent and pressing emergency. Swertha was sensible, therefore, that, in order to open the discourse favourably which she proposed to hold with her master, she must contrive that it should originate with himself.
To accomplish this purpose, while busied in preparing the table for Mr. Mertoun’s simple and solitary dinner-meal, she formally adorned the table with two covers instead of one, and made all her other preparations as if he was to have a guest or companion at dinner.
The artifice succeeded; for Mertoun, on coming from his study, no sooner saw the table thus arranged, than he asked Swertha, who, waiting the effect of her stratagem as a fisher watches his ground-baits, was fiddling up and down the room, “Whether Mordaunt was returned from Burgh-Westra?”
This question was the cue for Swertha, and she answered in a voice of sorrowful anxiety, half real, half affected, “Na, na! – nae sic divot had dunted at their door. It wad be blithe news indeed, to ken that young Maister Mordaunt, puir dear bairn, were safe at hame.”
“And if he be not at home, why should you lay a cover for him, you doting fool?” replied Mertoun, in a tone well calculated to stop the old woman’s proceedings. But she replied, boldly, “that, indeed, somebody should take thought about Maister Mordaunt; a’ that she could do was to have seat and plate ready for him when he came. But she thought the dear bairn had been ower lang awa; and, if she maun speak out, she had her ain fears when and whether he might ever come hame.”
“Your fears!” said Mertoun, his eyes flashing as they usually did when his hour of ungovernable passion approached; “do you speak of your idle fears to me, who know that all of your sex, that is not fickleness, and folly, and self-conceit, and self-will, is a bundle of idiotical fears, vapours, and tremors? What are your fears to me, you foolish old hag?”
It is an admirable quality in womankind, that, when a breach of the laws of natural affection comes under their observation, the whole sex is in arms. Let a rumour arise in the street of a parent that has misused a child, or a child that has insulted a parent, – I say nothing of the case of husband and wife, where the interest may be accounted for in sympathy, – and all the women within hearing will take animated and decided part with the sufferer. Swertha, notwithstanding her greed and avarice, had her share of the generous feeling which does so much honour to her sex, and was, on this occasion, so much carried on by its impulse, that she confronted her master, and upbraided him with his hard-hearted indifference, with a boldness at which she herself was astonished.
“To be sure it wasna her that suld be fearing for her young maister, Maister Mordaunt, even although he was, as she might weel say, the very sea-calf of her heart; but ony other father, but his honour himsell, wad have had speerings made after the poor lad, and him gane this eight-days from Burgh-Westra, and naebody kend when or where he had gane. There wasna a bairn in the howff but was maining for him; for he made all their bits of boats with his knife; there wadna be a dry eye in the parish, if aught worse than weal should befall him, – na, no ane, unless it might be his honour’s ain.”
Mertoun had been much struck, and even silenced, by the insolent volubility of his insurgent housekeeper; but, at the last sarcasm, he imposed on her silence in her turn with an audible voice, accompanied with one of the most terrific glances which his dark eye and stern features could express. But Swertha, who, as she afterwards acquainted the Ranzelman, was wonderfully supported during the whole scene, would not be controlled by the loud voice and ferocious look of her master, but proceeded in the same tone as before.
“His honour,” she said, “had made an unco wark because a wheen bits of kists and duds, that naebody had use for, had been gathered on the beach by the poor bodies of the township; and here was the bravest lad in the country lost, and cast away, as it were, before his een, and nae are asking what was come o’ him.”
“What should come of him but good, you old fool,” answered Mr. Mertoun, “as far, at least, as there can be good in any of the follies he spends his time in?”
This was spoken rather in a scornful than an angry tone, and Swertha, who had got into the spirit of the dialogue, was resolved not to let it drop, now that the fire of her opponent seemed to slacken.
“O ay, to be sure I am an auld fule, – but if Maister Mordaunt should have settled down in the Roost, as mair than ae boat had been lost in that wearifu’ squall the other morning – by good luck it was short as it was sharp, or naething could have lived in it – or if he were drowned in a loch coming hame on foot, or if he were killed by miss of footing on a craig – the haill island kend how venturesome he was – who,” said Swertha, “will be the auld fule then?” And she added a pathetic ejaculation, that “God would protect the poor motherless bairn! for if he had had a mother, there would have been search made after him before now.”
This last sarcasm affected Mertoun powerfully, – his jaw quivered, his face grew pale, and he muttered to Swertha to go into his study, (where she was scarcely ever permitted to enter,) and fetch him a bottle which stood there.
“O ho!” quoth Swertha to herself, as she hastened on the commission, “my master knows where to find a cup of comfort to qualify his water with upon fitting occasions.”
There was indeed a case of such bottles as were usually employed to hold strong waters, but the dust and cobwebs in which they were enveloped showed that they had not been touched for many years. With some difficulty Swertha extracted the cork of one of them, by the help of a fork – for corkscrew was there none at Jarlshof – and having ascertained by smell, and, in case of any mistake, by a moderate mouthful, that it contained wholesome Barbadoes-waters, she carried it into the room, where her master still continued to struggle with his faintness. She then began to pour a small quantity into the nearest cup that she could find, wisely judging, that, upon a person so much unaccustomed to the use of spirituous liquors, a little might produce a strong effect. But the patient signed to her impatiently to fill the cup, which might hold more than the third of an English pint measure, up to the very brim, and swallowed it down without hesitation.
“Now the saunts above have a care on us!” said Swertha; “he will be drunk as weel as mad, and wha is to guide him then, I wonder?”
But Mertoun’s breath and colour returned, without the slightest symptom of intoxication; on the contrary, Swertha afterwards reported, that, “although she had always had a firm opinion in favour of a dram, yet she never saw one work such miracles – he spoke mair like a man of the middle world, than she had ever heard him since she had entered his service.”
“Swertha,” he said, “you are right in this matter, and I was wrong. – Go down to the Ranzelman directly, tell him to come and speak with me, without an instant’s delay, and bring me special word what boats and people he can command; I will employ them all in the search, and they shall be plentifully rewarded.”
Stimulated by the spur which maketh the old woman proverbially to trot, Swertha posted down to the hamlet, with all the speed of threescore, rejoicing that her sympathetic feelings were likely to achieve their own reward, having given rise to a quest which promised to be so lucrative, and in the profits whereof she was determined to have her share, shouting out as she went, and long before she got within hearing, the names of Niel Ronaldson, Sweyn Erickson, and the other friends and confederates who were interested in her mission. To say the truth, notwithstanding that the good dame really felt a deep interest in Mordaunt Mertoun, and was mentally troubled on account of his absence, perhaps few things would have disappointed her more than if he had at this moment started up in her path safe and sound, and rendered unnecessary, by his appearance, the expense and the bustle of searching after him.
Soon did Swertha accomplish her business in the village, and adjust with the senators of the township her own little share of per centage upon the profits likely to accrue on her mission; and speedily did she return to Jarlshof, with Niel Ronaldson by her side, schooling him to the best of her skill in all the peculiarities of her master.
“Aboon a’ things,” she said, “never make him wait for an answer; and speak loud and distinct, as if you were hailing a boat, – for he downa bide to say the same thing twice over; and if he asks about distance, ye may make leagues for miles, for he kens naething about the face of the earth that he lives upon; and if he speak of siller, ye may ask dollars for shillings, for he minds them nae mair than sclate-stanes.”
Thus tutored, Niel Ronaldson was introduced into the presence of Mertoun, but was utterly confounded to find that he could not act upon the system of deception which had been projected. When he attempted, by some exaggeration of distance and peril, to enhance the hire of the boats, and of the men, (for the search was to be by sea and land,) he found himself at once cut short by Mertoun, who showed not only the most perfect knowledge of the country, but of distances, tides, currents, and all belonging to the navigation of those seas, although these were topics with which he had hitherto appeared to be totally unacquainted. The Ranzelman, therefore, trembled when they came to speak of the recompense to be afforded for their exertions in the search; for it was not more unlikely that Mertoun should be well informed of what was just and proper upon this head than upon others; and Niel remembered the storm of his fury, when, at an early period after he had settled at Jarlshof, he drove Swertha and Sweyn Erickson from his presence. As, however, he stood hesitating betwixt the opposite fears of asking too much or too little, Mertoun stopped his mouth, and ended his uncertainty, by promising him a recompense beyond what he dared have ventured to ask, with an additional gratuity, in case they returned with the pleasing intelligence that his son was safe.
When this great point was settled, Niel Ronaldson, like a man of conscience, began to consider earnestly the various places where search should be made after the young man; and having undertaken faithfully that the enquiry should be prosecuted at all the houses of the gentry, both in this and the neighbouring islands, he added, that, “after all, if his honour would not be angry, there was ane not far off, that, if any body dared speer her a question, and if she liked to answer it, could tell more about Maister Mordaunt than any body else could. – Ye will ken wha I mean, Swertha? Her that was down at the haven this morning.” Thus he concluded, addressing himself with a mysterious look to the housekeeper, which she answered with a nod and a wink.
“How mean you?” said Mertoun; “speak out, short and open – whom do you speak of?”
“It is Norna of the Fitful-head,” said Swertha, “that the Ranzelman is thinking about; for she has gone up to Saint Ringan’s Kirk this morning on business of her own.”
“And what can this person know of my son?” said Mertoun; “she is, I believe, a wandering madwoman, or impostor.”
“If she wanders,” said Swertha, “it is for nae lack of means at hame, and that is weel known – plenty of a’ thing has she of her ain, forby that the Fowd himsell would let her want naething.”
“But what is that to my son?” said Mertoun, impatiently.
“I dinna ken – she took unco pleasure in Maister Mordaunt from the time she first saw him, and mony a braw thing she gave him at ae time or another, forby the gowd chain that hangs about his bonny craig – folk say it is of fairy gold – I kenna what gold it is, but Bryce Snailsfoot says, that the value will mount to an hundred pounds English, and that is nae deaf nuts.”
“Go, Ronaldson,” said Mertoun, “or else send some one, to seek this woman out – if you think there be a chance of her knowing any thing of my son.”
“She kens a’ thing that happens in thae islands,” said Niel Ronaldson, “muckle sooner than other folk, and that is Heaven’s truth. But as to going to the kirk, or the kirkyard, to speer after her, there is not a man in Zetland will do it, for meed or for money – and that’s Heaven’s truth as weel as the other.”
“Cowardly, superstitious fools!” said Mertoun. – “But give me my cloak, Swertha. – This woman has been at Burgh-Westra – she is related to Troil’s family – she may know something of Mordaunt’s absence, and its cause – I will seek her myself – She is at the Cross-kirk, you say?”
“No, not at the Cross-kirk, but at the auld Kirk of Saint Ringan’s – it’s a dowie bit, and far frae being canny; and if your honour,” added Swertha, “wad walk by my rule, I wad wait until she came back, and no trouble her when she may be mair busied wi’ the dead, for ony thing that we ken, than she is wi’ the living. The like of her carena to have other folk’s een on them when they are, gude sain us! doing their ain particular turns.”
Mertoun made no answer, but throwing his cloak loosely around him, (for the day was misty, with passing showers,) and leaving the decayed mansion of Jarlshof, he walked at a pace much faster than was usual with him, taking the direction of the ruinous church, which stood, as he well knew, within three or four miles of his dwelling.
The Ranzelman and Swertha stood gazing after him in silence, until he was fairly out of ear-shot, when, looking seriously on each other, and shaking their sagacious heads in the same boding degree of vibration, they uttered their remarks in the same breath.
“Fools are aye fleet and fain,” said Swertha.
“Fey folk run fast,” added the Ranzelman; “and the thing that we are born to, we cannot win by. – I have known them that tried to stop folk that were fey. You have heard of Helen Emberson of Camsey, how she stopped all the boles and windows about the house, that her gudeman might not see daylight, and rise to the Haaf-fishing, because she feared foul weather; and how the boat he should have sailed in was lost in the Roost; and how she came back, rejoicing in her gudeman’s safety – but ne’er may care, for there she found him drowned in his own masking-fat, within the wa’s of his ain biggin; and moreover” —
But here Swertha reminded the Ranzelman that he must go down to the haven to get off the fishing-boats; “for both that my heart is sair for the bonny lad, and that I am fear’d he cast up of his ain accord before you are at sea; and, as I have often told ye, my master may lead, but he winna drive; and if ye do not his bidding, and get out to sea, the never a bodle of boat-hire will ye see.”
“Weel, weel, good dame,” said the Ranzelman, “we will launch as fast as we can; and by good luck, neither Clawson’s boat, nor Peter Grot’s, is out to the Haaf this morning, for a rabbit ran across the path as they were going on board, and they came back like wise men, kenning they wad be called to other wark this day. And a marvel it is to think, Swertha, how few real judicious men are left in this land. There is our great Udaller is weel eneugh when he is fresh, but he makes ower mony voyages in his ship and his yawl to be lang sae; and now, they say, his daughter, Mistress Minna, is sair out of sorts. – Then there is Norna kens muckle mair than other folk, but wise woman ye cannot call her. Our tacksman here, Maister Mertoun, his wit is sprung in the bowsprit, I doubt – his son is a daft gowk; and I ken few of consequence hereabouts – excepting always myself, and maybe you, Swertha – but what may, in some sense or other, be called fules.”
“That may be, Niel Ronaldson,” said the dame; “but if you do not hasten the faster to the shore, you will lose tide; and, as I said to my master some short time syne, wha will be the fule then?”