The Pirate 9781474433679

Citation preview

THE EDINBURGH EDITION OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Professor David Hewitt

PATRONS

His Grace the Duke ofBuccleuch : Dame Jean Maxwell-Scott The Royal Society of Edinburgh : The University ofEdinburgh CHIEF FINANCIAL SPONSOR

Bank of Scotland ADVISORY BOARD

Sir Kenneth Alexander, Chairman Professor David Daiches, Vice-Chairman DrW. E. K. Anderson : Thomas Crawford Professor Andrew Hook : Professor R.D. S.Jack Professor A. N.Jeffares : Professor D. N.MacCormick Professor Douglas Mack : Allan Massie Professor Jane Millgate : Professor David Nordloh Sir Lewis Robertson Secretary to the Board Dr Archie Tumbull GENERAL EDITORS

Dr J. H. Alexander, University ofAberdeen Professor P. D. Garside, University ofWales (Cardiff) Claire Lamont, University ofNewcastle G. A. M. Wood, University ofStirling

Research Fellow Dr Alison Lumsden TypographicalAdviser Ruari McLean

VOLUME TWELVE

THE PIRATE

EDINBURGH EDITION OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS

to be complete in thirty volumes Each volume will be published separately but original conjoint publication of certain works is indicated in the eewn volume numbering [4a, b; 7a, b, etc.]. Where eewn editors have been appointed, their names are listed I 2 3 4a 4b 5 6 7a 7b 8 9 I0 II I2 I3 I4 I5 I6 I7 I8a I8b I9 20 2I 22 23a 23b 24 25a 25b

Waverley [1814] P. D. Garside Guy Mannering [I8I5] P. D. Garside The Antiquary [I8I6] David Hewitt The Black Dwarf [I8I6] P. D. Garside The Tale of Old Mortality [I8I6] Douglas Mack Rob Roy [I8I8] David Hewitt The Heart of Mid-Lothian [I8I8] David Hewitt & Alison Lumsden The Bride of Lammermoor [ I8I9] J. H. Alexander A Legend of the Wars of Montrose [I8I9] J. H. Alexander Ivanhoe [ I820] Graham Tulloch The Monastery [I820] Penny Fielding The Abbot [I820] Christopher Johnson Kenilworth [ I82I ] J. H. Alexander The Pirate [ I822] Mark Weinstein with Alison Lumsden The Fortunes of Nigel [I822] Frank Jordan Peveril of the Peak [I822] Alison Lumsden Quentin Durward [I823] G. A. M. Wood and J. H. Alexander Saint Ronan’s Well [I824] Mark Weinstein Redgauntlet [I824] G. A. M. Wood with David Hewitt The Betrothed [I825] J. B. Ellis TheTalisman [I825] J. B. Ellis Woodstock [I826] Tony Inglis Chronicles of the Canongate [I827] Claire Lamont The Fair Maid of Perth [I828] A. Hook and D. Mackenzie Anne of Geierstein [I829] J. H. Alexander Count Robert of Paris [I83I] J. H. Alexander Castle Dangerous [I83I] J. H. Alexander Storiesfrom The Keepsake [I828] Graham Tulloch Introductions and Notes from the Magnum Opus edition of I829-33 Introductions and Notes from the Magnum Opus edition of I829-33

WALTER SCOTT

THE PIRATE

Edited by Mark Weinstein and Alison Lumsden

EDINBURGH

University Press

© The University Court of the University of Edinburgh 200I Edinburgh University Press 22 George Square, Edinburgh

Typeset in Linotronic Ehrhardt by Speedspools, Edinburgh Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4YY ISBN 978 1 4744 3367 9 (ePDF) ISBN O 7486 0576 2

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing from the publisher.

FOREWORD

The Publication of Waverley in I8I4 marked the emergence of the modern novel in the western world. It is difficult now to recapture the impact of this and the following novels of Scott on a readership accus­ tomed to prose fiction either as picturesque romance, ‘Gothic’ quaint­ ness, or presentation of contemporary manners. For Scott not only invented the historical novel, but gave it a dimension and a relevance that made it available for a great variety of new kinds of writing. Balzac in France, Manzoni in Italy, Gogol and Tolstoy in Russia, were among the many writers of fiction influenced by the man Stendhal called ‘notre père, Walter Scott’. What Scott did was to show history and society in motion: old ways of life being challenged by new; traditions being assailed by counter-state­ ments; loyalties, habits, prejudices clashing with the needs of new social and economic developments. The attraction of tradition and its ability to arouse passionate defence, and simultaneously the challenge of pro­ gress and ‘improvement’, produce a pattern that Scott saw as the living fabric of history. And this history was rooted in place; events happened in localities still recognisable after the disappearance of the original actors and the establishment of new patterns ofbelief and behaviour. Scott explored and presented all this by means of stories, entertain­ ments, which were read and enjoyed as such. At the same time his passionate interest in history led him increasingly to see these stories as illustrations of historical truths, so that when he produced his final Magnum Opus edition of the novels he surrounded them with historical notes and illustrations, and in this almost suffocating guise they have been reprinted in edition after edition ever since. The time has now come to restore these novels to the form in which they were presented to their first readers, so that today’s readers can once again capture their original power and freshness. At the same time, serious errors of tran­ scription, omission, and interpretation, resulting from the haste of their transmission from manuscript to print can now be corrected. David Daiches EDINBURGH

University Press

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

viii

General Introduction

xi

THE PIRATE Volume I............................... I

Volume II..................................... I2I

Volume III..................................... 259

Essay on the Text........................... 393

genesis......................................................393 composition........................................... 395

later editions........................................... 4I8 the present text...................................... 433 Emendation List...................................... 452

End-of-line Hyphens................................. 483 Historical Note........................................... 485

Explanatory Notes...................................... 498

Glossary...................................................... 582 Map........................................................... 608

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Scott Advisory Board and the editors of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels wish to express their gratitude to The University Court of the University of Edinburgh for its vision in initiating and supporting the preparation ofthe first critical edition of Walter Scott's fiction. Those Uni­ versities which employ the editors have also contributed greatly in paying the editors' salaries, and awarding research leave andgrantsfor travel and mater­ ials. In the case ofThe Pirate particular thanks are due to the Universities ofAberdeen and Nevada, Las Vegas. Although the edition is the work ofscholars employed by universities, the project could not have prospered without the help ofthe sponsors cited below. Their generosity has ensured the swift progress ofthe edition, progress which could not otherwise have been maintained. BANK OF SCOTLAND

The collapse ofthe great Edinburgh publisher Archibald Constable inJanuary I826 entailed the ruin ofSir Walter Scott who found himselfresponsible for his own private debts, for the debts ofthe printing business ofJames Ballan tyne and Co. in which he was co-partner, and for the bank advances to Archibald Constable which had been guaranteed by the printing business. Scott's largest creditors were Sir William Forbes and Co., bankers, and the Bank ofScotland. On the advice ofSir William Forbes himself, the creditors did not sequester his property, but agreed to the creation ofa trust to which he committed hisfuture literary earnings, and which ultimately repaid the debts ofover £I20,000for which he was legally liable. In the same year the Government proposed to curtail the rights of the Scottish banks to issue their own notes; Scott wrote the 'Letters ofMalachi Malagrowther' in their defence, arguing that the measure was neither in the interests ofthe banks nor ofScotland. The ‘Letters' were so successful that the Government was forced to withdraw its proposal and to this day the Scottish Banks issue their own notes. A portrait ofSir Walter appears on all current bank notes ofthe Bank of Scotland because Scott was a champion ofScottish banking, and because he was an illustrious and honourable customer notjust ofthe Bank ofScotland itself, but also of three other banks now incorporated within it—the British Linen Bank which continues today as the merchant banking arm ofthe Bank ofScotland, Sir William Forbes and Co., and Ramsays, Bonars and Com­ pany. Bank of Scotland’s support ofthe EEWN continues its long andfruitful involvement with the affairs ofWalter Scott. viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ix

THE BRITISH ACADEMY AND THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH BOARD

Between I992 and I998 the EEWN was greatly assisted by the British Academy through the award ofa series ofresearch grants which provided most ofthe support requiredfor employing a research fellow, without whom steady progress could not have been maintained. In addition Alison Lumsden received a grantfrom the British Academyfor a visit to Princeton University Library to collate the manuscript. In 2000 the AHRB awarded the EEWN with a major grant which now ensures the completion ofthe Edition. While much of the preparation ofthis edition ofThe Pirate was completed before the latter award was made, securing the future is essential to productive work in the present. To both of these bodies, the British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the Board and the editors express their thanks. OTHER BENEFACTORS

The Advisory Board and editors also wish to acknowledge with gratitude the generous grants, gifts and assistance to the EEWNfrom the P. F. Charitable Trust, the main charitable trust of the Fleming family which founded the Cityfirm which bears their name; the Edinburgh University General Council Trust, now incorporated within the Edinburgh University Development Trust, and the alumni who contributed to the Trust; Sir Gerald Elliott; the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland; and particularly the Robertson Trust whose help has been especially important in the production ofthis volume. THE MODERN HUMANITIES RESEARCH ASSOCIATION

In I998 the MHRA awarded a grant for the appointment of a research associate specifically to work on The Pirate Dr Alison Lumsden was appointed to the position, and the completion of this edition of the novel is a direct consequence of the MHRA's far-sighted policy of supporting collaborative scholarship. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Without the generous assistance ofthe National Library ofScotland it would not have been possible to have undertaken the editing ofScott's novels, and the Scott Advisory Board and the editors cannot overstate the extent to which they areindebtedto the Trustees and the staff. THE PIRATE

The manuscript of The Pirate is owned by Princeton University Library, and the proofs ofthe novel are owned by the Henry Huntington Library, in San Marino, California. A large proportion of the other manuscript material consulted and used in the preparation ofthis edition is in the National Library of Scotland. Seven leaves of the manuscript belong to the Scottish Borders

X

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Council, the successor authority to the town of Galashiels to which they were bequeathed by William Rutherford. To each ofthese the editors wish to express their gratitude. They also wish to thank the staffofthese and other libraries, in particular John Bidwell, Mura Criutu, Charles Greene, Anna Lee Pauls, and Peggy Sherry in Princeton; Leah Owens, Mary Robertson, and Carmi Saliers in the Huntington Library; Murray Simpson, Iain Brown, Ulrike Moret and Graham Hogg in the NLS; Jane Pirie in Aberdeen University Library; Mark Bentley, Elizabeth Fisher-Smith, and David Smith in the New York Public Library; Jennifer Lee and Jane Rodgers Siegel in Columbia University Library; Jean Rainwater in Brown University Library; Jean Archibald and Richard Ovenden in Edinburgh University Library; and Jeanne Eichelberger in the State University ofNew YorkatBinghampton. The acquisition oflocal knowledge always presents editors with problems; in this case they are much indebted to Helen Lumsden who supplied many details about Orkney based on real and not mere book-knowledge of the islands, to Shetland Islands Tourism and the Shetland Museum, Lerwick. Editing Scott demands scholarship beyond the command ofany individual, and the editors wish to thank their editorial colleagues, J. H. Alexander, Tony Inglis, and Frank Jordanforgiving their advice so warmly and sharing their knowledge so freely. The EEWN's panel of experts was as always most supportive, often at very short notice when a yet another new problem was recognised: John Cairns (Scots Law), Thomas Craik (literary allusions particularly Shakespeare), Caroline Jackson Houlston (popular song), Roy Pinkerton (the classics), and David Stevenson (history). Other friends answered queries, lent books, or looked at manuscripts on the editors'behalf: Ann Bowden, Tim Erwin, Andrew Hook, Jane Millgate, Roger Robinson, Lisa Stemlieb, William B. Todd, and Archie Turnbull. The keyboarder, Audrey Inglis, typesetter, Harry McIntosh, and the proof-readers Gillian Hughes and Sheena Sutherland not only did their respective jobs but also repeatedly called the attention ofthe editors to problems which might otherwise have passed them by. Ian Clark is a reader whose knowledge ofhistory and eye for typographical detail have prevented many slips and more than one historical solecism. As usual the shaping ofthe editorial matter owes much to the editor-in-chief, many ofwhose words have been imbedded (without specific acknowledgement). The support of Wayne Price during a piratical existence has been unwavering. To all the editors extend their thanks. The General Editorfor this volume was David Hewitt.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

What has the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels achieved? The original version ofthis General Introduction said that many hundreds of readings were being recovered from the manuscripts, and commented that although the individual differences were often minor, they were ‘cumulatively telling’. Such an assessment now looks tentative and tepid, for the textual strategy pursued by the editors has been justified by spectacular results. In each novel up to 2000 readings never before printed are being recovered from the manuscripts. Some of these are major changes although they are not always verbally extensive. The restoration of the pen-portraits of the Edinburgh literati in Guy Mannering, the recon­ struction of the way in which Amy Robsart was murdered in Kenilworth, the recovery of the description of Clara Mowbray’s previous relation­ ship with Tyrrel in Saint Ronan's Well—each of these fills out what was incomplete, or corrects what was obscure. A surprising amount of what was once thought loose or unidiomatic has turned out to be textual corruption. Many words which were changed as the holograph texts were converted into print have been recognised as dialectal, period or technical terms wholly appropriate to their literary context. The mis­ takes in foreign languages, in Latin, and in Gaelic found in the early printed texts are usually not in the manuscripts, and so clear is this manuscript evidence that one may safely conclude that Friar Tuck’s Latin in Ivanhoe is deliberately full of errors. The restoration of Scott’s own shaping and punctuating of speech has often enhanced the rhetor­ ical effectiveness of dialogue. Furthermore, the detailed examination of the text and supporting documents such as notes and letters has re­ vealed that however quickly his novels were penned they mostly evolved over long periods; that although he claimed not to plan his work yet the shape of his narratives seems to have been established before he com­ mitted his ideas to paper; and that each of the novels edited to date has a precise time-scheme which implies formidable control of his stories. The Historical and Explanatory Notes reveal an intellectual command of enormously diverse materials, and an equal imaginative capacity to synthesise them. Editing the texts has revolutionised the editors’ under­ standing and appreciation of Scott, and will ultimately generate a much wider recognition of his quite extraordinary achievement. The text of the novels in the Edinburgh Edition is normally based on the first editions, but incorporates all those manuscript readings which were lost through accident, error, or misunderstanding in the process of xi

xii

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

converting holograph manuscripts into printed books. The Edition is the first to investigate all Scott’s manuscripts and proofs, and all the printed editions to have appeared in his lifetime, and it has adopted the textual strategy which best makes sense of the textual problems. It is clear from the systematic investigation of all the different states of Scott’s texts that the author was fully engaged only in the early stages (manuscripts and proofs, culminating in the first edition), and when preparing the last edition to be published in his lifetime, familiarly known as the Magnum Opus (I829-33). There may be authorial read­ ings in some of the many intermediate editions, and there certainly are in the third edition of Waverley, but not a single intermediate edition of any of the nineteen novels so far investigated shows evidence of sus­ tained authorial involvement. There are thus only two stages in the textual development of the Waverley Novels which might provide a sound basis for a critical edition. Scott’s holograph manuscripts constitute the only purely authorial state of the texts of his novels, for they alone proceed wholly from the author. They are for the most part remarkably coherent, although a close examination shows countless minor revisions made in the process ofwriting, and usually at least one layer of later revising. But the heaviest revising was usually done by Scott when correcting his proofs, and thus the manuscripts could not constitute the textual basis of a new edition; despite their coherence they are drafts. Furthermore, the holograph does not constitute a public form of the text: Scott’s manuscript punctu­ ation is light (in later novels there are only dashes, full-stops, and speech marks), and his spelling system though generally consistent is personal and idiosyncratic. Scott’s novels were, in theory, anonymous publications—no title page ever carried his name. To maintain the pretence of secrecy, the original manuscripts were copied so that his handwriting should not be seen in the printing house, a practice which prevailed until I827, when Scott acknowledged his authorship. Until I827 it was these copies, not Scott’s original manuscripts, which were used by the printers. Not a single leaf of these copies is known to survive but the copyists probably began the tidying and regularising. As with Dickens and Thackeray in a later era, copy was sent to the printers in batches, as Scott wrote and as it was transcribed; the batches were set in type, proof-read, and ultimately printed, while later parts of the novel were still being written. When typesetting, the compositors did not just follow what was before them, but supplied punctuation, normalised spelling, and corrected minor errors. Proofs were first read in-house against the transcripts, and, in addition to the normal checking for mistakes, these proofs were used to improve the punctuation and the spelling. When the initial corrections had been made, a new set of proofs went to James Ballantyne, Scott’s friend and partner in the printing firm

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

xiii

which bore his name. He acted as editor, not just as proof-reader. He drew Scott’s attention to gaps in the text and pointed out inconsistencies in detail; he asked Scott to standardise names; he substituted nouns for pronouns when they occurred in the first sentence of a paragraph, and inserted the names of speakers in dialogue; he changed incorrect punctuation, and added punctuation he thought desirable; he cor­ rected grammatical errors; he removed close verbal repetitions; and in a cryptic correspondence in the margins of the proofs he told Scott when he could not follow what was happening, or when he particularly en­ joyed something. These annotated proofs were sent to the author. Scott usually accepted Ballantyne’s suggestions, but sometimes rejected them. He made many more changes; he cut out redundant words, and substituted the vivid for the pedestrian; he refined the punctuation; he sometimes reworked and revised passages extensively, and in so doing made the proofs a stage in the creative composition of the novels. When Ballantyne received Scott’s corrections and revisions, he tran­ scribed all the changes on to a clean set of proofs so that the author’s hand would not be seen by the compositors. Further revises were pre­ pared. Some of these were seen and read by Scott, but he usually seems to have trusted Ballantyne to make sure that the earlier corrections and revisions had been executed. When doing this Ballantyne did not just read for typesetting errors, but continued the process of punctuating and tidying the text. A final proofallowed the corrections to be inspected and the imposition of the type to be checked prior to printing. Scott expected his novels to be printed; he expected that the printers would correct minor errors, would remove words repeated in close proximity to each other, would normalise spelling, and would insert a printed-book style of punctuation, amplifying or replacing the marks he had provided in manuscript. There are no written instructions to the printers to this effect, but in the proofs he was sent he saw what Ballan­ tyne and his staffhad done and were doing, and by and large he accepted it. This assumption of authorial approval is better founded for Scott than for any other writer, for Scott was the dominant partner in the business which printed his work, and no doubt could have changed the practices of his printers had he so desired. It is this history of the initial creation of Scott’s novels that led the editors of the Edinburgh Edition to propose the first editions as base texts. That such a textual policy has been persuasively theorised by Jerome J. McGann in his A Critique ofModem Textual Criticism (I983) is a bonus: he argues that an authoritative work is usually found not in the artist’s manuscript, but in the printed book, and that there is a collective responsibility in converting an author’s manuscript into print, exercised by author, printer and publisher, and governed by the nature of the understanding between the author and the other parties. In Scott’s case

xiv

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

the exercise of such a collective responsibility produced the first editions of the Waverley Novels. On the whole Scott’s printers fulfilled his expectations. There are normally in excess of 50,000 variants in the first edition of a three-volume novel when compared with the manuscript, and the great majority are in accordance with Scott’s general wishes as described above. But the intermediaries, as the copyist, compositors, proof-readers, and James Ballantyne are collectively described, made mistakes; from time to time they misread the manuscripts, and they did not always understand what Scott had written. This would not have mattered had there not also been procedural failures: the transcripts were not thor­ oughly checked against the original manuscripts; Scott himself does not seem to have read the proofs against the manuscripts and thus did not notice transcription errors which made sense in their context; Ballan­ tyne continued his editing in post-authorial proofs. Furthermore, it has become increasingly evident that, although in theory Scott as partner in the printing firm could get what he wanted, he also succumbed to the pressure of printer and publisher. He often had to accept mistakes both in names and the spelling of names because they were enshrined in print before he realised what had happened. He was obliged to accept the movement of chapters between volumes, or the deletion or addition of material, in the interests of equalising the size of volumes. His work was subject to bowdlerisation, and to a persistent attempt to have him show a ‘high example’ even in the words put in the mouths of his characters; he regularly objected, but conformed nonetheless. From time to time he inserted, under protest, explanations of what was happening in the narrative because the literal-minded Ballantyne required them. The editors of modern texts have a basic working assumption that what is written by the author is more valuable than what is generated by compositors and proof-readers. Even McGann accepts such a position, and argues that while the changes made in the course of translating the manuscript text into print are a feature of the acceptable ‘socialisation’ of the authorial text, they have authority only to the extent that they fulfil the author’s expectations about the public form of the text. The editors of the Edinburgh Edition normally choose the first edition of a novel as base-text, for the first edition usually represents the culmination of the initial creative process, and usually seems closest to the form of his work Scott wished his public to have. But they also recognise the failings of the first editions, and thus after the careful collation of all pre-publica tion materials, and in the light of their investigation into the factors governing the writing and printing of the Waverley Novels, they incorp­ orate into the base-text those manuscript readings which were lost in the production process through accident, error, misunderstanding, or a misguided attempt to ‘improve’. In certain cases they also introduce into the base-texts revisions found in editions published almost immediately

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

XV

after the first, which they believe to be Scott’s, or which complete the intermediaries’ preparation of the text. In addition, the editors correct various kinds of error, such as typographical and copy-editing mistakes including the misnumbering of chapters, inconsistencies in the naming of characters, egregious errors of fact that are not part of the fiction, and failures of sense which a simple emendation can restore. In doing all this the editors follow the model for editing the Waverley Novels which was provided by Claire Lamont in her edition of Waverley (Oxford, I98I): her base-text is the first edition emended in the light of the manuscript. But they have also developed that model because working on the Waver­ ley Novels as a whole has greatly increased knowledge of the practices and procedures followed by Scott, his printers and his publishers in translating holograph manuscripts into printed books. The result is an ‘ideal’ text, such as his first readers might have read had the production process been less pressurised and more considered. The Magnum Opus could have provided an alternative basis for a new edition. In the Advertisement to the Magnum Scott wrote that his insolvency in I826 and the public admission of authorship in I827 restored to him ‘a sort of parental control’, which enabled him to re­ issue his novels ‘in a corrected and... an improved form’. His assertion of authority in word and deed gives the Magnum a status which no editor can ignore. His introductions are fascinating autobiographical essays which write the life of the Author of Waverley. In addition, the Magnum has a considerable significance in the history of culture. This was the first time all Scott’s works of fiction had been gathered together, published in a single uniform edition, and given an official general title, in the process converting diverse narratives into a literary monument, the Waverley Novels. There were, however, two objections to the use of the Magnum as the base-text for the new edition. Firstly, this has been the form of Scott’s work which has been generally available for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; a Magnum-based text is readily accessible to any­ one who wishes to read it. Secondly, a proper recognition of the Mag­ num does not extend to approving its text. When Scott corrected his novels for the Magnum, he marked up printed books (specially pre­ pared by the binder with interleaves, hence the title the ‘Interleaved Set’), but did not perceive the extent to which these had slipped from the text of the first editions. He had no means of recognising that, for example, over 2000 differences had accumulated between the first edi­ tion of Guy Mannering and the text which he corrected, in the I822 octavo edition of the Novels and Tales of the Author of Waverley. The printed text of Redgauntlet which he corrected, in the octavo Tales and Romances of the Author of Waverley (I827), has about 900 divergences from the first edition, none of which was authorially sanctioned. He himself made about 750 corrections to the text of Guy Mannering and

xvi

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

200 to Redgauntlet in the Interleaved Set, but those who assisted in the production of the Magnum were probably responsible for a further I600 changes to Guy Mannering, and I200 to Redgauntlet. Scott marked up a corrupt text, and his assistants generated a systematically cleanedup version of the Waverley Novels. The Magnum constitutes the author’s final version of his novels and thus has its own value, and as the version read by the great Victorians has its own significance and influence. To produce a new edition based on the Magnum would be an entirely legitimate project, but for the reasons given above the Edinburgh editors have chosen the other valid option. What is certain, however, is that any compromise edition, that drew upon both the first and the last editions published in Scott’s lifetime, would be a mistake. In the past editors, following the example of W. W. Greg and Fredson Bowers, would have incorporated into the firstedition text the introductions, notes, revisions and corrections Scott wrote for the Magnum Opus. This would no longer be considered acceptable editorial practice, as it would confound versions of the text produced at different stages of the author’s career. To fuse the two would be to confuse them. Instead, Scott’s own material in the Inter­ leaved Set is so interesting and important that it will be published separately, and in full, in the two parts of Volume 25 of the Edinburgh Edition. For the first time in print the new matter written by Scott for the Magnum Opus will be wholly visible. The Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels aims to provide the first reliable text of Scott’s fiction. It aims to recover the lost Scott, the Scott which was misunderstood as the printers struggled to set and print novels at high speed in often difficult circumstances. It aims in the Historical and Explanatory Notes and in the Glossaries to illuminate the extraordinary range of materials that Scott weaves together in creating his stories. All engaged in fulfilling these aims have found their en­ quiries fundamentally changing their appreciation of Scott. They hope that readers will continue to be equally excited and astonished, and to have their understanding of these remarkable novels transformed by reading them in their new guise. DAVID HEWITT

January I999

THE

PIRATE. BY THE AUTHOR OF “ WAVERLF.Y,

KENILWORTH,'' &c.

Nothing in him ...... But doth suffer a nea-change.

Tempest.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO.;

AND HUBST, BOBINSON, AN» CO.,

LONDON.

I822.

ADVERTISEMENT

The purpose of the following Narrative is to give a detailed and accurate account of certain remarkable incidents which took place in the Orkney Islands, concerning which, the more imperfect traditions and mutilated records of the country only tell us the following errone­ ous particulars:— In the month of January I724-5, a vessel, called the Revenge, bearing twenty large guns, and six smaller, commanded by John Gow, or Goffe, or Smith, came to the Orkney Islands, and was discovered to be a pirate, by various acts of insolence and villainy committed by the crew. These were for some time submitted to, the inhabitants of these remote islands not possessing arms or means of resistance; and so bold was the Captain of these banditti, that he not only came ashore, and gave dancing parties in the village of Stromness, but, before his real character was discovered, engaged the affec­ tions, and received the troth-plight, of a young lady possessed ofsome property. A patriotic individual, James Fea, younger of Clestron, formed the plan of securing the buccaneer, which he effected by a mixture of courage and address, in consequence chiefly of Gow’s vessel having gone on shore near the harbour of Calfsound, on the Island of Eda, not far distant from a house then inhabited by Mr Fea. In the various stratagems by which Mr Fea contrived finally, at the peril of his life, they being well armed and desperate, to make the whole pirates his prisoners, he was much aided by Mr James Laing, the grandfather of the late Malcolm Laing, Esq. the acute and ingenious historian of Scotland during the I7th century. Gow, and others of his crew, suffered, by sentence of the High Court of Admiralty, the punishment their crimes had long deserved. He conducted himself with great audacity when before the Court; and, from an account of the matter, by an eye-witness, seems to have been subjected to some unusual severities, in order to compel him to plead. The words are these: “John Gow would not plead, for which he was brought to the bar, and the Judge ordered that his thumbs should be squeezed by two men, with a whip-cord, till it did break; and then it should be doubled, till it did again break, and then laid threefold, and that the executioners should pull with their whole strength; which sentence Gow endured with a great deal of bold­ ness.” The next morning, (27th May, I725,) when he had seen the 3

THE PIRATE

4

preparations for pressing him to death, his courage gave way, and he told the Marshal of Court, that he would not have given so much trouble, had he been assured of not being hanged in chains. He was then tried, condemned, and executed, with others ofhis crew. It is said, that the lady whose affections Gow had engaged, went up to London to see him before his death, and that, arrived too late, she had the courage to request a sight of his dead body; and then touching the hand of the corpse, she formally resumed the troth-plight which she had bestowed. Without going through this ceremony according to the superstition of the country she could not have escaped a visit from the ghost ofher departed lover, in the event ofher bestowing upon any living suitor, the faith which she had plighted to the dead. This part of the legend may serve as a curious commentary on the beautiful tale of the fine Scottish ballad, which begins, There came a ghost to Margaret’s door, &c.

The common account of this incident farther bears, that Mr Fea, the spirited individual by whose exertions Gow’s career of iniquity was cut short, was so far from receiving any reward from Government, that he could not obtain even countenance enough to protect him against a variety of sham suits, raised against him by Newgate soli­ citors, who acted in the name of Gow, and others of the pirate crew; and the various expences, vexations, prosecutions, and other legal consequences, in which his gallantry involved him, utterly ruined his fortune and his family; making his memory a notable example to all who shall in future take pirates on their own authority. It is to be supposed, for the honour of George the First’s govern­ ment, that the last circumstance, as well as the date, and other particu­ lars of the commonly received story, are inaccurate, since they will be found totally irreconcileable with the following veracious narrative, compiled from materials to which he himselfalone has had access, by

The Author of Waverley. Ist November, I82I.

THE PIRATE VOLUME I

Chapter One

The storm had ceased its wintry roar, Hoarse dash the billows ofthe sea; But who on Thule’s desert shore, Cries, Have I bum’d my harp for thee? Macniel

That long, narrow, and irregular island, usually called the Mainland of Zetland, because it is by far the largest of the Archipe lago, terminates, as is well known to the mariners who navigate the stormy seas which surround the Thule of the ancients, in a cliff of tremendous height, entitled Sumburgh-head, which presents its bare scalp and naked sides to the weight of a tremendous surge, and forms the extreme point of the isle to the south-east. This lofty promontory is constantly exposed to the current of a strong and furious tide, which setting in betwixt the Orkney and Zetland Islands, and running with force only inferior to that of the Pentland Firth, takes its name from the headland we have mentioned, and is called the Roost of Sum burgh; roost being the word given in these isles to currents of this description. On the land side, the promontory is covered with short grass, and slopes steeply down to a little isthmus, upon which the sea has encroached in creeks, which advance from either side of the island, gradually work their way forwards, and seem as if in a short time they would form a junction, and altogether insulate Sumburgh-head, when what is now a cape, will be a lonely mountain islet, severed from the Mainland, of which it is at present the terminating extremity. Man, however, had in former days considered this as a remote or unlikely event; for a Norwegian chief of other times, or, as other accounts said, and as the name ofJarlshofseemed to imply, an ancient 5

6

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. I

Earl of the Orkneys had selected this neck of land as the place for establishing a mansion-house. It has been long entirely deserted, and the vestiges can only be discerned with difficulty; for the loose sand, borne on the tempestuous gales of these stormy regions, has over blown, and almost buried the ruins of the buildings. But in the end of the seventeenth century, a part of the Earl’s mansion was still entire and inhabitable. It was a rude building of rough stone, with nothing about it to gratify the eye, or to excite the imagination;—a large old fashioned barn, with a very steep roof, covered with flags composed of grey sandstone, would perhaps convey the best idea of the place to a modern reader. The windows were few, were very small in size, and were distributed up and down the building with the most perfect contempt of regularity. Against the main building had rested, in former times, certain smaller copartments of the mansion-house, containing offices, or subordinate apartments, necessary for the accommodation of the Earl’s retainers and menials. But these had become ruinous: the rafters had been taken down for fire-wood, or for other purposes; the walls had given way in many places; and, to complete the devastation, the sand had already drifted amongst the ruins, and filled up what had been once the chambers they contained, to the depth of two or three feet. Amid this desolation, the then inhabitants ofJarlshofhad contrived, by constant labour and attention, to keep in order a few roods of land, which had been inclosed as a garden, and which, sheltered by the walls of the house itself, from the relentless sea-blast, produced such vegetables as the climate could bring forth, or rather as the sea-gale would permit to grow; for these islands experience even less of the rigour of cold than is encountered on the mainland of Scotland. But, unsheltered by a wall of some sort or other, it is scarce possible to raise even the most ordinary culinary vegetables; and as for shrubs or trees, they are entirely out of the question, such is the force of the sweeping sea-blast. At a short distance from the mansion, and near to the sea-beach, just where the creek forms a sort of imperfect harbour, in which lay three or four fishing-boats, there were a few most wretched cottages for the inhabitants and tenants of the township of Jarlshof, who held the whole district of the landlord upon such terms as were in these days usually granted to persons of this description, and which, of course, were hard enough. The landlord himself resided upon an estate which he possessed in a more eligible situation, in a different part of the island, and seldom visited his possessions at Sumburgh head. He was an honest, plain Zetland gentleman, somewhat passion ate, the necessary result of being surrounded by dependents; and

[Chap. I]

THE PIRATE

7

somewhat over-convivial in his habits, the consequence, perhaps, of having too much time at his disposal; but frank-tempered, and gener ousto his people, and kind and hospitable to strangers. He was des cended also of an old and noble Norwegian family; a circumstance which rendered him dearer to the lower orders, most of whom are of the same race; while the lairds, or proprietors, are generally of Scot tish extraction, who, at this early period, were even still considered as strangers and intruders. Magnus Troil, who deduced his descent from the very Earl who was supposed to have founded Jarlshof, was peculiarly of this opinion. The present inhabitants of Jarlshof had experienced, on several occasions, the kindness and good will of Magnus Troil, the proprietor of the territory. When Mr Mertoun, such was the name of the present inhabitant of the old mansion, first arrived in Zetland, some years before the story commences, he had received at the house ofMr Troil that warm and cordial hospitality for which the islands are distin guished. No one asked him whence he came, where he was going, what was his purpose in visiting so remote a comer of the empire, or what was likely to be the term ofhis stay. He arrived a perfect stranger, yet was instantly overpowered by a succession of invitations; and in each house which he visited, he found a home as long as he chose to accept it, and lived as one of the family , unnoticed and unnoticing, until he thought proper to remove to some other dwelling. This apparent indifference to the rank, character, and qualities of their guest, did not arise from apathy on the part of his kind hosts, for the islanders had their full share of natural curiosity; but their delicacy deemed it would be an infringement upon the laws of hospitality, to ask questions which their guest might have found it difficult or unpleasing to answer; and instead of endeavouring, as is usual in other countries, to wring out of Mr Mertoun such communications as he might find it agreeable to withhold, the considerate Zetlanders contented themselves with eagerly gathering up such scraps of information as could be collected in the course of conversation. But the rock in an Arabian desart is not more reluctant to afford waters, than Mr Basil Mertoun was niggard in imparting his confid ence, even incidentally; and certainly the politeness of the gentry of Thule was never put to a severer task than when they felt that good breeding enjoined them to abstain from inquiring into the situation of so mysterious a personage. All that was actually known of him was easily summed up. Mr Mertoun had come to Lerwick, then rising into some importance, but not yet acknowledged as the principal town of the islands, in a Dutch vessel, accompanied only by his son, a handsome boy of about

8

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. I

fourteen years old. His own age might exceed forty. The Dutch skip per introduced him to some of the very good friends with whom he used to barter gin and gingerbread for little Zetland bullocks, smoked geese, and stockings of lambs’ wool; and although Meinheer could only say, that “Meinheer Mertoun hab bay his bassage like one gentilmans, and hab given a kreitz-dollar beside to the crew,” this introduc tion served to establish the Dutchman’s passenger in a respectable circle of acquaintances, which gradually enlarged, as it appeared that the stranger was a man of considerable acquirements. This discovery was made as it were perforce; for Mertoun was as unwilling to speak upon general subjects, as upon his own affairs. But he was sometimes led into discussions, which shewed, as it were in spite of himself, the scholar and the man of the world; and, at other times, as if in requital of the hospitality which he experienced, he seemed to compel himself, against his fixed nature, to enter into the society of those around him, especially when it assumed the grave, melancholy, or satirical cast, which best suited the temper of his own mind. Upon these occasions, the Zetlanders were universally of opin ion that he must have had an excellent education, neglected only in one striking particular, namely, that Mr Mertoun scarce knew the stem of a ship from the stem; and in the management of a boat, a cow could not be more ignorant. It seemed astonishing such gross ignor ance of the most necessary art of life, (in the Zetland Isles at least,) should subsist along with his accomplishments in other respects; but so it was. Unless called forth in the manner we have mentioned, the habits of Basil Mertoun were retired and gloomy. From loud mirth he instantly fled; and even the moderated cheerfulness of a friendly party, had the invariable effect of throwing him into deeper dejection than even his usual demeanour indicated. Women are always particularly desirous of investigating mystery, and of alleviating melancholy, especially when these circumstances are united in a handsome man about the prime of life. It is possible, therefore, that amongst the fair-haired and blue-eyed daughters of Thule this mysterious and pensive stranger might have found some one to take upon herself the task of consolation, had he shewn any willingness to accept such kindly offices; but, far from doing so, he seemed even to shun the presence of the sex, to whom in our dis tresses, whether of mind or body, we generally apply for pity and for comfort. To these peculiarities Mr Mertoun added another, which was par ticularly disagreeable to his host and principal patron, Magnus Troil. This magnate of Zetland, descended by the father’s side, as we have

[Chap. I]

THE PIRATE

9

already said, from an ancient Norwegian family by the marriage of its representative with a Danish lady, held the devout opinion that a cup of Geneva or Nantz was specific against all cares and afflictions what soever. These were remedies to which Mr Mertoun never applied his drink was water, and water alone, and no persuasions or entreaties could induce him to taste any stronger beverage than was afforded by the pure spring. Now this Magnus Troil could not tolerate; it was a defiance to the ancient northern laws of conviviality, which, for his own part, he had so rigidly observed, that although he was wont to assert that he had never in his life gone to bed drunk, (that is, in his own sense of the word,) it would have been impossible for him to prove that he had ever resigned himself to slumber in a state of actual and absolute sobriety. It may be therefore asked, what did this stranger bring into society to compensate the displeasure given by his austere and abstemious habits? He had, in the first place, that manner and self-importance which mark a person of some consequence; and although it was conjectured that he could not be rich, yet it was certainly known by his expenditure that neither was he absolutely poor. He had, besides, some powers ofconversation, when, as we have already hinted, he chose to exert them, and his misanthropy or aversion to the business and intercourse of ordinary life, was often expressed in a terse, antithetical manner, which passed for wit, when better was not to be heard. Above all, Mr Mertoun’s secret seemed impenetrable, and his presence had all the interest of a riddle, which men love to read over and over, because they cannot find out the meaning of it. Notwithstanding these recommendations, Mertoun differed in so many material points from his host, that after he had been for some time a guest at his principal residence, Magnus Troil was agreeably surprised when, one evening after they had sate two hours together in absolute silence, drinking brandy and water,—that is, Magnus drinking the alcohol, and Mertoun the element,—the guest asked his host’s permission to occupy, as his tenant, this deserted mansion of Jarlshof, at the extremity of the territory called Dunrossness, and situated just beneath Sumburgh-head. “I shall be handsomely rid of him,” quoth Magnus to himself, “and his kill-joy visage will never again stop the bottle in its round—it will ruin me in lemons, how ever, for his mere look was quite sufficient to sour a whole ocean of punch.” Yet the kind-hearted Zetlander generously and disinterestedly remonstrated with Mr Mertoun on the solitude and inconveniences to which he was about to subject himself. “There was scarce even the most necessary articles of furniture in the house—there was no

I0

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. I

society within many miles—for provisions, the principal article offood would be sour sillocks, and his only company gulls and gannets.” “My good friend,” replied Mertoun, “if you could have named circumstances which would render the residence more eligible to me than any other, it is that there would be neither human luxury nor human society near the place of my retreat—A shelter from the weather for my own head, and for the boy’s, is all I seek for—so name your rent, Mr Troil, and let me be your tenant at Jarlshof.” “Rent?” answered the Zetlander; “why, no great rent for an old house which no one has lived in since my mother’s time, God rest her. And as for shelter, the old walls are thick enough, and will bear many a bang yet. But, Heaven love you, Mr Mertoun, think what you are purposing. For one of us to live at Jarlshof, were a wild scheme enough; but you, who are from another country, whether English, Scotch, or Irish, no one can tell”-----“Nor does it greatly matter,” said Mertoun, somewhat abruptly. “Not a herring’s scale,” answered the Laird; “only that I like you the better for being no Scot, as I trust you are not one Hither they have come like the clack-geese—every chamberlain has brought over a flock of his own name, and his own hatching, for what I know, and here they roost for ever—catch them returning to their own barren Highlands or Lowlands, when they have tasted our Zetland beef, and seen our bonny voes and lochs. No, sir,” (here Magnus proceeded with great animation, sipping from time to time the half-diluted spirit, which at the same time animated his resentment against the intruders, and enabled him to endure the mortifying reflections which it suggested,)—“No, sir, the ancient days and the genuine manners of these Islands are no more—for our ancient possessors, our Petersens, our Feas, our Schlagbrenners, our Thior borns, have given place to Giffords, Scotts, Mouats, men whose names bespeak them or their ancestors strangers to the soil which we the Troils have inhabited long before the days of Turf-Einar, who first taught these Isles the mystery of burning peat for fuel, and who has been handed down to a grateful posterity by a name which records the discovery.” This was a subject upon which the potentate ofJarlshof was usually very diffuse, and Mertoun saw him enter upon it with pleasure, because he knew he would not be called upon to contribute any aid to the conversation, and might therefore indulge his own saturnine humour while the Norwegian Zetlander declaimed on the change of times and inhabitants. But just as Magnus had arrived at the melan choly conclusion, “how probable it was, that in another century scarce a merk—scarce even an ure of land, would be in possession of the

[Chap, I]

THE PIRATE

II

Norse inhabitants, the true Udallers * of Zetland,” he recollected the circumstances of his guest, and stopped suddenly short. “I do not say all this,” he added, interrupting himself, “as if I were unwilling that you should settle on my estate, Mr Mertoun—but for Jarlshof—the plan is a wild one—Come from where you will, I warrant you will say, like other travellers, you come from a better climate than ours, for so say you all. And yet you think of a retreat which the very natives run away from. Will you not take your glass?”—(this was to be considered as interjectional,)—“then here’s to you.” “My good sir,” answered Mertoun, “I am indifferent to climate; if there is but air enough to fill my lungs, I care not if it be the breath of Arabia or of Lapland.” “Air enough you may have,” answered Magnus, “no lack of that — somewhat damp, strangers allege it to be, but we know a corrective for that—Here is to you, Mr Mertoun—You must learn to do so, and to smoke a pipe; and then, as you say, you will find the air of Zetland equal to that of Arabia. But have you seen Jarlshof?” The stranger intimated he had not. “Then,” replied Magnus,“you have no idea of your undertaking. If you think it a comfortable roadstead like this, with the house situated on the side of an inland voe,f that brings the herrings up to your door, you are mistaken, my heart. At Jarlshof you will see nought but the wild waves tumbling on the bare rocks, and the Roost of Sumburgh running at the rate of fifteen knots an hour.” “I shall see nothing at least of the current of human passions,” replied Mertoun. “You will hear nothing but the clanging and screaming of scarfs, sheer-waters, and skua-gulls, from day-break till sun-set.” “I will compound, my friend,” replied the Stranger, “so that I do not hear the chattering ofwomen’s tongues.” “Ah,” said the Norseman, “that is because you hear just now my little Minna and Brenda singing in the garden with your Mordaunt. Now, I would rather listen to their little voices, than the sky-lark which I once heard in Caithness, or the nightingale that I have read of.— What will the girls do for want of their playmate Mordaunt?” “They will shift for themselves,” answered Mertoun; “younger or elder they will find playmates or dupes; but the question is, Mr Troil, will you let to me, as your tenant, this old mansion ofJarlshof?” “Gladly, since you make it your option to live in a spot so desolate.” * The Udallers are the allodial possessors of Zetland, who hold their possessions under the old Norwegian law, instead of the feudal tenures introduced among them from Scotland. ƚ Salt-water lake.

I2

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 2

“And for the rent?” continued Mertoun. “The rent?” replied Magnus; “hum—why, you must have the bit of plantie-cruive, which they once called a garden, and a right in the scathold, and a sixpenny merk of land, that the tenants may fish for you;—eight lispunds of butter, and eight shillings sterling yearly, is not too much?” Mr Mertoun agreed to terms so moderate, and from thenceforward resided chiefly at the solitary mansion which we have described in the beginning of this chapter, conforming not only without complaint, but, as it seemed, with a sullen pleasure, to all the privations which so wild and desolate a situation necessarily imposed on its inhabitants.

Chapter Two ’Tis not alone the scene—the man, Anselmo, The man finds sympathies in these wild wastes, And roughly tumbling seas, which fairer views And smoother waves deny him. AncientDrama

The few inhabitants of the township of Jarlshof had at first heard with alarm that a person of rank superior to their own, was come to reside in the ruinous tenement which they still called the castle. In those days, (for the present times are greatly altered for the better,) the presence of a superior, in such a situation, was almost certain to be attended with additional burthens and exactions, for which, under one pretext or other, feudal customs furnished a thousand apologies. By each of these, a part of the tenants’ hard won and precarious profits was diverted for the use of their powerful neighbour and superior, the tacksman as he was called. But the sub-tenants speedily found that no oppression of this kind was to be apprehended at the hands of Basil Mertoun. His own means, whether large or small, were at least fully adequate to his expences, which, so far as regarded his habits of life, were of the most frugal description. The luxuries of a few books, and some philosophical instruments, with which he was supplied from London as occasion offered, seemed to indicate a degree of wealth unusual in these islands; but, on the other hand, the table and the accommodations at Jarlshof, did not exceed what was maintained by a Zetland proprietor of the most inferior description. The tenants of the hamlet troubled themselves very little about the quality of their superior, as soon as they found that their situation was rather to be mended than rendered worse by his presence; and once relieved from the apprehension of his tyrannizing over them, they laid their heads together to make the most of him by various

[Chap. 2]

THE PIRATE

I3

petty tricks of overcharge and extortion, which for a while the stranger submitted to with the most philosophic indifference. An incident, however, occurred, which put Mr Mertoun’s character in a new light, and effectually checked all future efforts at extravagant imposition. A dispute arose in the kitchen of the Castle betwixt an old govera nte,who acted as housekeeper to Mr Mertoun, and Sweyn Erickson, as good a Zetlander as ever rowed a boat to the haaf* fishing; which dispute, as is usual in such cases, was maintained with such increasing heat and vociferation as to reach the ears of the master, (as he was called,) who, situated in a solitary turret, was deeply employed in examining the contents of a new package of books from London, which, after long expectation, had found its way to Hull, from thence by a whaling vessel to Lerwick, and so to Jarlshof. With more than the usual thrill of indignation which indolent people always feel when roused into action on some unpleasant occasion, Mertoun descended to the scene of contest, and so suddenly, peremptorily, and strictly inquired into the cause of dispute, that the parties, notwithstanding every evasion which they attempted, became unable to disguise from him that their difference respected the several interests to which the honest governante, and no less honest fisherman, were respectively entitled, in an overcharge of about one hundred percent, on a bargain of rock-cod, purchased by the former from the latter, for the use of the family at Jarlshof. When this was fairly ascertained and confessed, Mr Mertoun stood looking upon the culprits with eyes in which the utmost scorn seemed to contend with awakening passion. “Hark you, ye old hag,” said he at length to the housekeeper, “avoid my house this instant; and know that I dismiss you, not for being a liar, a thief, and an ungrateful quean, for these are qualities as proper to you as your name of woman, but for daring, in my house, to scold above your breath.—And for you, you rascal, who suppose you may cheat a stranger as you would flinchƚ a whale, know that I am well acquain ted with the rights which, by delegation from your master, Magnus Troil, I can exercise over you, if I will. Provoke me to a certain pitch, and you shall learn, to your cost, I can break your rest as easily as you can interrupt my leisure. I know the meaning of scat, and wattle, and hawkhen, and hagalef, and every other exaction by which your lords, in ancient and modern days, have wrung your withers; nor is there one of you that shall not rue the day that you could not be content * i.e. The deep-sea fishing, in distinction to that which is practised along shore. ƚ The operation of slicing the blubber from the bones of the whale, is called, technic ally,flinching.

I4

THE PIRATE

Vol. I, ch. 2

with robbing me of my money, but must also break in on my leisure with your atrocious northern clamour, that rivals in discord the screaming of a flight ofArctic gulls.” Nothing better occurred to Swen, in answer to this objurgation, than the preferring a humble request that his honour would be pleased to keep the cod-fish without payment, and say no more about the matter; but by this time Mr Merton had worked up his passions into an ungovernable rage, and with one hand he threw the money at the fisherman’s head, while with the other he pelted him out of the apartment with his own fish. There was so much of appalling and tyrannic fury in the stranger’s manner on this occasion, that Swen neither stopped to collect the money nor take back his commodity, but fled at a precipitate rate to the small hamlet, to tell his comrades that if they provoked Master Merton any farther, he would turn an absolute Pate Stuart * on their hand, and head and hang without either judgment or mercy. Hither also came the discarded housekeeper, to consult with her neighbours and kindred, (for she also was a native of the village,) what she should do to regain the desirable situation from which she had been so suddenly expelled. The old Ranzelar of the village, who had the voice most potential in the deliberations of the township, after hearing what had happened, pronounced that Swen Erickson had gone too far in raising the market upon Mr Merton; and that what ever pretext the tacksman might assume for thus giving way to his anger, the real grievance must have been the charging the rock-cod fish at a penny instead of a halfpenny a-piece. He therefore exhorted all the community never to raise their exactions in future beyond the proportion of threepence upon the shilling, at which rate their master at the Castle could not reasonably be expected to grumble, since, as he was disposed to do them no harm, it was reasonable to think that, in a moderate way, he had no objection to do them good. “And three upon twelve,” said the experienced Ranzelar, “is a decent and moderate profit, and will bring with it God’s blessing and Saint Ronald’s.” Proceeding upon the tariffthus judiciously recommended to them, the inhabitants ofJarlshofcheated Mertoun in future only to the mod erate extent of twenty-five per cent.; a rate to which all nabobs, army contractors, speculators in the funds, and others, whom recent and rapid success has enabled to settle in the country upon a great scale, ought to submit, as very reasonable treatment at the hand of their rus tic neighbours. Mertoun at least seemed of that opinion, for he gave * Meaning, probably, Patrick Stuart, Earl of Orkney, executed for tyranny and oppres sion practised on the inhabitants of these remote islands in the beginning of the seven teenth century.

[Chap. 2]

THE PIRATE

I5

himself no further trouble on the subject of his household expences. The conscript fathers ofJarlshof, having settled their own matters, took next under their consideration the case of Swertha, the banished matron who had been expelled from the Castle, and whom, as an experienced and useful ally, they were highly desirous to restore to her office of housekeeper, should that be found possible. But as their wisdom here failed them, Swertha, in despair, had recourse to the good offices of young Mordaunt Mertoun, with whom she had acquired some favour by her knowledge in old Norwegian ballads, and dismal tales concerning the Trows or Drows, (the Dwarfs of the Scalds) with whom superstitious eld had peopled many a lonely cav ern and brown dale in Dunrossness, as in every other district of Zetland. “Swertha,” said the youth, “I can do but little for you, but you may do something for yourself. My father’s passion resembles the fury of those ancient champions you sing songs about.” “O ay, fish of my heart,” replied the old woman, with a pathetic whine; “the Berserkar were champions who lived before the blessed days of Saint Olave, and who used to run like madmen on swords, and spears, and harpoons, and muskets, and snap them all into pieces as a finner would go through a herring-net, and then, when the fury went off, were as weak and unstable as water.” “That is the very thing, Swertha,” said Mordaunt. “Now, my father never likes to think of his passion after it is over, and is so much of a Berserkar, that, let him be desperate as he will to-day, he will not care about it to-morrow. Therefore, he has not filled up your place in the household at the Castle, and not a mouthful of warm food has been dressed there since you went away, and not a morsel of bread baked, but we have lived just upon whatever cold thing came to hand. Now, Swertha, I will be your warrant, that if you go boldly up to the Castle, and enter upon the discharge of your duties as usual, you will never hear a rough word from him.” Swarthy hesitated at first to obey this bold counsel. She said, “to her thinking, Mr Merton, when he was angry, looked more like a fiend than any Berserker of them all; that the fire flashed from his eyes, and the foam flew from his lips; and that it would be a plain tempting of Providence to put herself again in such a venture.” But, on the encouragement which she received from the son, she determined at length once more to face the parent; and, dressing herself in her ordinary household attire, for so Mor daunt particularly recommended, she slipped into the Castle, and presently resuming the various and numerous occupations which devolved on her, seemed as deeply engaged in household cares as if she had never been out of office.

I6

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 2

The first day of her return to her duty, Swertha made no appear ance in presence of her master, but trusted that, after his three days’ diet on cold meat, a hot dish, dressed with the best of her simple skill, might introduce her favourably to his recollection. When Mordaunt had reported that his father had taken no notice of this change of diet, and when she herself observed that, in passing and repassing him occasionally, her appearance produced no effect upon her singular master, she began to imagine that the whole affair had escaped Mr Mertoun’s memory. Neither was she convinced of the contrary until one day, when happening somewhat to elevate her tone in a dispute with the other maid-servant, her master, who at that moment passed the place of contest, eyed her with a stem glance, and pronounced the single word, Remember, in a tone which taught Swertha the govern ment ofher tongue for many weeks after. If Mertoun was whimsical in his mode of governing his household, he seemed no less so in his plan of educating his son. He shewed the youth but few symptoms ofparental affection; yet, in his ordinary state of mind, the improvement of Mordaunt’s education seemed to be the utmost object of his life. He had both books and information sufficient to discharge the task of tutor in the ordinary branches of knowledge; and in that capacity was regular, calm, and strict, not to say severe, in exacting from his pupil the attention necessary for his profiting. But in the perusal of history, to which their attention was frequently turned, as well as in the study of classic authors, there often occurred facts or sentiments which produced an instant effect upon Mertoun’s mind, and brought on him suddenly what Swertha, Sweyn, and even Mor daunt, came to distinguish by the name of his dark hour. He was aware, in the usual case, of its approach, and retreated to an inner apartment, into which he never permitted even Mordaunt to enter. Here he would abide in seclusion for days, and even weeks, only coming out at uncertain times, to take such food as they had taken care to leave within his reach, which he used in wonderfully small quant ities. At other times, and especially during the winter solstice, when almost every person spends the time within doors in feasting and merriment, this unhappy man would wrap himself in a dark-coloured sea-cloak, and wander out along the stormy beach, or upon the desolate heath, indulging his own gloomy and wayward reveries, under the inclement sky, the rather that he was then most sure to wander unencountered and unobserved. As Mordaunt grew older, he learned to note the particular signs which preceded these fits of gloomy despondency, and to direct such precautions as might insure his unfortunate parent from ill-timed interruption, (which had always the effect of driving him to fury,)

[Chap. 2]

THE PIRATE

I7

while, on the contrary, full provision was made for his subsistence. Mordaunt perceived, that at such periods the melancholy fit of his father was greatly prolonged, if he chanced to present himself to his eyes while the dark hour was upon him. Out of respect, therefore, to his parent, as well as to indulge the love of active exercise and of amusement natural to his period of life, Mordaunt used often alto gether to absent himself from the mansion ofJarlshof, and even from the district, secure that his father, if the dark hour passed away in his absence, would be little disposed to enquire how his son had disposed of his leisure, so he was sure he had not watched his own weak moments, that being the subject on which he entertained the utmost jealousy. At such times, therefore, all the sources of amusement which the country afforded, were open to the younger Mertoun, who, in these intervals of his education, had an opportunity to give full scope to the energies of a bold, active, and daring character. He was often engaged with the youth of the hamlet in those bold and desperate sports, to which the “dreadful trade of the samphire-gatherer” is like a walk upon level ground—often joined those midnight excursions upon the face of the giddy cliffs, to secure the eggs or young of the sea-fowl; and in these daring adventures displayed an address, presence of mind, and activity, which, in one so young, and not a native of the country, astonished the oldest fowlers. At other times, Mordaunt accompanied Sweyn and other fisher men in their long and perilous expeditions to the distant and deep sea, learning under their direction the management of the boat, in which they equal or exceed, perhaps, any natives of the British empire. This exercise had charms for Mordaunt, independently of the fishing alone. At this time, the old Norwegian sagas were much remembered, and often rehearsed by the fishermen, who still preserved amongst them selves the ancient Norse tongue, which was the speech of their fore fathers. In thedark romance of those Scandinavian tales, lay much that was captivating to a youthful ear; and the classic tales of antiquity were rivalled at least, if not excelled, in Mordaunt’s opinion, by the strange legends of Berserkar, of Sea-kings, of dwarfs, giants, and sorcerers, which he heard from the native Zetlanders. Often the scenes around him were assigned as the localities of the wild poems, which, half recited, half chaunted, by voices as hoarse, if not so loud, as the waves over which they floated, pointed out the very bay on which they sailed as the scene of a bloody sea-fight; the scarce-seen heap of stones that beetled over the projecting cape, as the dun or castle of some potent Jarl or noted pirate; the distant and solitary grey

l8

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch.2

stone on the lonely moor, as marking the grave of an hero; the wild cavern, up which the sea rolled in heavy, broad, and unbroken billows, as the dwelling of some dreaded sorceress. The ocean also had its mysteries, the effect of which was aided by the dim winterlight, through which it was imperfectly seen for more than half the year. Its bottomless depths and secret caves contained, according to the account of Sweyn and others, skilled in legendary lore, such wonders as modem navigators reject with disdain. In the quiet moonlight bay, where the waves came rippling to the shore, upon a bed of smooth sand intermingled with shells, the mermaid was still seen to glide along the waters by moonlight, and, mingling her voice with the sighing breeze, was often heard to sing of subterranean wonders, or to chaunt prophesies of future events. The kraken, that hugest of living things, was still supposed to cumber the recesses of the Northern Ocean; and often, when some fog-bank covered the sea at a distance, the eye of the experienced boatman saw the horns of the monstrous leviathan welking and waving amidst the wreaths of mist, and bore away with all press of oar and sail, lest the sudden suction, occasioned by the sinking of the monstrous mass to the bottom, should drag within the grasp of its multifarious feelers his own frail skiff. The sea-snake was also known, which, arising out of the depths of ocean, stretches to the skies his enormous neck, covered with a mane like that of a war-horse, and with its broad glittering eyes, raised mast-head high, looks out, as it seems, for plunder or for victims. Many prodigious stories of these marine monsters, and of many others less known, were then universally received among the Zet landers, whose descendants have not as yet by any means abandoned faith in them. Such legends are, indeed, every where current amongst the vulgar; but the imagination is far more powerfully affected by them on the deep and dangerous seas of the north, amidst precipices and head lands, many hundred feet in height,—amid perilous straits, and cur rents, and eddies,—long sunken reefs of rock, over which the vexed ocean foams and boils,—dark caverns, to whose extremities neither man nor skiff has ever ventured,—lonely, and oft uninhabited isles,— and occasionally the ruins of ancient northern fastnesses, dimly seen by the feeble light of the Arctic winter. To Mordaunt, who had much of romance in his disposition, these superstitions formed a pleasing and interesting exercise of the imagination, while, half doubting, half inclined to believe, he listened to the tales which were chanted concerning these wonders of nature, and creatures of credulous belief, told in the rude but energetic language of the ancient Scalds. But there wanted not softer and lighter amusements, that might

[Chap. 2]

THE PIRATE

I9

seem better suited to Mordant's age, than the wild tales and rude exercises which we have already mentioned. The season of winter, when, from the shortness of the day-light, labour becomes imposs ible, is in Zetland the time of revel, feasting, and merriment. What ever the fisherman has been able to acquire during the summer, is expended, and often wasted, in maintaining the mirth and hospitality of his hearth during this period; while the landholders and gentlemen of the islands gave double loose to their convivial and hospitable dispositions, thronged their houses with guests, and drove away the rigour of the season with jest, glee, and song, the dance, and the wine cup. Amid the revels of this merry, though rigorous season, no youth added more spirit to the dance, or glee to the revel, than the young stranger, Mor daunt Merton. When his father’s state ofmind permit ted, or indeed required his absence, he wandered from house to house a welcome guest wherever he came, and lent his willing voice to the song, and his jest to the revel. A boat, or, if the weather, as was often the case, permitted not that convenience, one ofthe numerous ponies, which, straying in herds about the extensive moors, may be said to be at any man’s commandment, conveyed him from the mansion of one hospitable Zetlander to that of another. None excelled him in per forming the warlike sword-dance, a species of amusement which had been derived from the habits of the ancient Norsemen. He could play upon the gue, and upon the common violin, the melancholy and path etic tunes peculiar to the country; and with great spirit and execution could relieve their monotony with the livelier airs of the North of Scotland. When a party set forth as maskers, or, as they are called in Scotland, guizards, to visit some neighbouring laird, or rich udaller, it augured well of the expedition if Mordaunt Mertoun could be pre vailed upon to undertake the office of skudler, or leader of the band. Upon these occasions, full of fun and frolic, he led his retinue from house to house, bringing mirth where he went, and leaving regret when he departed. Mordaunt became thus generally known, and beloved as generally, through most of the houses composing the patri archal community of the Main Isle; but his visits were most frequently and most willingly paid at the mansion of his father’s landlord and protector, Magnus Troil. It was not entirely the hearty and sincere welcome of the worthy old Magnate, nor the sense that he was in effect his father’s patron, which occasioned these frequent visits. The hand of welcome was indeed received as eagerly as it was sincerely given, while the ancient udaller, raising himself in his huge chair, whereof the inside was lined with well-dressed seal-skins, and the outside composed of massive oak,

20

THE PIRATE

Vol. I;ch. 3

carved by the rude graving-tool of some Hamburgh carpenter, shouted forth his welcome in a tone which might have, in ancient times, hailed the return ofIol, the highest festival of the Goths. There was metal yet more attractive, and younger hearts, whose welcome, if less loud, was as sincere as that of the jolly duller. But it is matter which ought not to be discussed at the conclusion of a chapter.

Chapter Three O, Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, They were twa bonnie lasses; They bigged a bower on yon bum-brae, And theekit it ower wi’ rashes.

Fair Bessie Bell I loo’ed yestreen, And thought I ne’er could alter, But Mary Gray’s twa pawky een Have garr’d my courage faulter. Scots Song

We have already mentioned Minna and Brenda, the daughters of Magnus Troil. Their mother had been dead for many years, and they were now two beautiful girls, the eldest only eighteen, which might be a year or two younger than Mordaunt Mertoun, the second about seventeen.—They were the joy of their father’s heart, and the light of his old eyes; and although indulged to a degree which might have endangered his comfort and their own, they repaid his affection with a love, into which even blind indulgence had not introduced slight regard, or feminine caprice. The difference of their tempers and of their complexions was singularly striking, although combined, as is usual, with a certain degree of family resemblance. The mother of these maidens had been a Scottish lady from the Highlands of Sutherland, the orphan of a noble chief, who, driven out from his own country during the feuds ofthe seventeenth century, had found shelter in these peaceful islands, which, amidst poverty and seclusion, were thus far happy, that they remained unvexed by dis cord, and unstained by civil broil. The father (his name was Saint Clair,) pined for his native glen, his feudal tower, his clansmen, and his fallen authority, and died not long after his arrival in Zetland. The beauty of his orphan daughter, despite her Scottish lineage, melted the stout heart of Magnus Troil. He sued and was listened to, and she became his bride; but dying in the fifth year of their union, left him to mourn his brief period of domestic happiness. From her mother, Minna inherited the stately form and dark eyes, the raven locks, long dark eyelashes and finely-pencilled brows, which

[Chap. 3]

THE PIRATE

2I

shewed she was, on one side at least, a stranger to the blood of Thule. Her cheek, O call it fair, not pale,

was so slightly and delicately tinged with the rose, that many thought the lily had an undue proportion in her complexion. But in that pre dominance of the paler flower, there was nothing sickly or languid. It was the true natural complexion of health, and corresponded in a peculiar degree with features which seemed calculated to express a contemplative and high-minded character. When Minna Troil heard a tale of woe or of injustice, it was then her blood rushed to her cheek, and shewed plainly how warm it beat, notwithstanding the generally serious, composed, and retiring disposition, which her countenance and demeanour seemed to exhibit. If strangers sometimes conceived that these fine features were clouded by melancholy, for which her age and situation could scarce have given occasion, they were soon satis fied, upon farther acquaintance, that the placid, mild quietude of her disposition, and the mental energy of a character which was but little interested in ordinary and trivial occurrences, was the real cause of her gravity. And most, when they knew that her melancholy had no ground in real sorrow, and was only the aspiration of a soul bent on more important objects, than those by which she was surrounded, might have wished her whatever could add to her happiness, but could scarce have desired that, graceful as she was in her natural and unaffected seriousness, she should change that deportment for one more gay. In short, notwithstanding our wish to have avoided that most hackneyed simile of an angel, we cannot avoid saying there was something in the serious beauty of her aspect, in the measured, yet graceful ease of her motions, in the music of her voice, and the serene purity of her eye, that seemed as if Minna Troil belonged naturally to some higher and better sphere, and was only the chance visitant of a world that was scarce worthy of her. The scarce less beautiful, equally lovely, and equally innocent Brenda, was of a complexion as differing from her sister, as they differed in character, taste, and expression. Her profuse locks were of that paly brown which receives from the passing sun-beam a tinge of gold, but darkens again when the ray has passed from it. Her eye, her mouth, the beautiful row of teeth, which, in her innocent vivacity, were frequently disclosed; the fresh, yet not too bright glow of a healthy complexion, tinging a skin like the drifted snow, spoke her genuine Scandinavian descent. A fairy form, less tall than that of Minna, but even more finely moulded into symmetry—a careless, and almost childish lightness of step—an eye that seemed to look on every

22

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 3

object with pleasure, from a natural and serene cheerfulness of dis position, attracted even more general admiration than the charms of her sister, though perhaps that which Minna did excite, might be of a more intense as well as a more reverential character. The dispositions of these lovely sisters were hot less different than their complexions. In the kindly affections, neither could be said to excel the other, so much were they attached to their father and to each other. But the cheerfulness of Brenda mixed itself with the every-day business of life, and seemed inexhaustible in its profusion. The less buoyant spirit of her sister, appeared to bring to society a contented wish to be interested and pleased with what was going forwards, but was rather placidly carried along with the stream of mirth and pleas ure, than disposed to aid its progress by any efforts of her own. She endured mirth, rather than enjoyed it; and the pleasures in which she most delighted, were those of a graver and more solitary cast. The knowledge which is derived from books was beyond her reach. Zet land afforded few opportunities, in those days, of studying the lessons bequeathed By dead men to their kind.

And Magnus Troil, such as we have described him, was not a person within whose mansion the means of such knowledge was to be acquired. But the book of nature was before Minna, that noblest of volumes, where we are ever called to wonder and to admire, even when we cannot understand. The plants of those wild regions, the shells on the shores, and the long list of feathered clans which haunt their cliffs and eyries, were as well known to Minna Troil, as to the most experienced of the fowlers. Her powers of observation were wonderful, and little interrupted by other tones of feeling. The information which she acquired by habits of patient attention, was indelibly rivetted in a naturally powerful memory. She had also a high feeling for the solitary and melancholy grandeur of the scenes in which she was placed. The ocean, in all its varied forms of sublimity and terror, the tremendous cliffs that resound to the ceaseless roar of the billows, and the clang of the sea-fowl, had for Minna a charm in almost every state in which the changing seasons exhibited them. With the enthusiastic feelings proper to the romantic race from which her mother descended, the love of natural objects was to her a passion capable of not only occupying, but at times of agitating her mind. Scenes upon which her sister looked with a sense of transient awe or emotion, which vanished on her return from witnessing them, con tinued long to fill Minna’s imagination, not only in solitude, and in the silence of the night, but in the hours of society. So that sometimes

[Chap. 3]

THE PIRATE

23

when she sat like a beautiful statue, a present member of the domestic circle, her thoughts were far absent, wandering on the wild sea-shore, and amongst the yet wilder mountains of her native isles. And yet, when recalled to conversation, and mingling in it with interest, there were few to whom her friends were more indebted for enhancing its enjoyments; and, although something in her manners claimed defer­ ence (notwithstanding early youth) as well as affection, even her gay, lively, and amiable sister was not more generally beloved than the more retired and pensive Minna. Indeed the two lovely sisters were not only the delight of their friends, but the pride of those islands, where the inhabitants of a certain rank were formed, by the remoteness of their situation and the general hospitality of their habits, into one friendly community. A wandering poet and parcel-musician, who, after going through vari ous fortunes, had returned to end his days as he could in his native islands, had celebrated the daughters of Magnus in a poem, which he entitled Night and Day; and, in his description of Minna, might almost be thought to have anticipated, though only in a rude outline, the exquisite lines of Lord Byron,— She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow’d to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

Their father loved the maidens both so well, that it might be diffi cult to say which he liked best, saving that, perchance, he loved his graver damsel better in the moor, and his merry maiden better by the fireside; that he more desired the society of Minna when he was sad, and that of Brenda when he was mirthful; and, what was nearly the same thing, preferred Minna before noon, and Brenda after the glass had circulated in the evening. But it was still more extraordinary, that the affection of Mordaunt Mertoun seemed to hover with the same impartiality as those of their father betwixt the two lovely sisters. From his boyhood, as we have noticed, he had been a frequent inmate of the residence of Magnus at Burgh Westra, although it lay nearly twenty miles distant from Jarlshof. The impassable character of the country betwixt these places, extending over hills covered with loose and quaking bog, and fre quently intersected by the creeks or arms of the sea, which indent the island on either side, as well as by fresh-water streams and lakes, rendered the journey difficult, and even dangerous, in the dark sea son; yet, as soon as the state of his father’s mind warned him to absent himself, Mordaunt, at every risk, and under every difficulty, was pretty

24

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 3

sure to be found upon the next day at Burgh Westre, having achieved his journey in less time than would have been employed perhaps by the most active native. He was of course set down as a wooer of one of the daughters of Magnus, by the public of Zetland; and when the old udaller's great partiality to the youth was considered, nobody doubted that he might aspire to the hand of either of these distinguished beauties, with as large a share of islets, rocks, moorland, and shore-fishings, as might be the fitting portion of a favoured child, and with the prospect of possessing half the domains of the ancient house of Toil, when their present owner was no more. This seemed all a reasonable speculation, and, in theory at least, better constructed than many that are current through the world as unquestionable facts. But alas! all that sharpness of observation which could be applied to the conduct of the parties, failed to determine the main point, to which of the young persons, namely, the attentions of Mordaunt were peculiarly devoted. He seemed, in general, to treat them as an affectionate and attached brother might have treated two sisters, so equally dear to him that a breath would have turned the scale of affection. Or if at any time, which often happened, the one maiden appeared the more especial object of his attention, it seemed only to be because circumstances called her peculiar talents and disposition into more particular and immediate exercise. They were both accomplished in the simple music ofthe north, and Mordaunt, who was their assistant, and sometimes their preceptor, while they were practising this delightful art, might be now seen assisting Minna in the acquisition of those wild, solemn, and simple airs, to which Scalds and harpers sang of old the deeds of heroes, and presently found equally active in teaching Brenda the more lively and complicated music, which their father’s affection caused to be brought from the English or Scottish capital for the use of his daugh ters. And while conversing with them, Mordaunt, who mingled a strain of deep and ardent enthusiasm with the gay and ungovernable spirits of youth, was equally ready to enter into the wild and poetical visions of Minna, or into the lively, and often humorous chat of her gayer sister. In short, so little did he seem to attach himself to either damsel exclusively, that he was sometimes heard to say, that Minna never looked so lovely as when her light-hearted sister had induced her, for the time, to forget her habitual gravity; or Brenda so interest ing as when she sate listening, a subdued and affected partaker of the deep pathos of her sister Minna. The public were, therefore, to use the hunter’s phrase, at fault in their farther conclusions, and could but determine, after long vacillat-

[Chap. 4]

THE PIRATE

25

ing betwixt the maidens, that Mordaunt was positively to marry one of them, but which could only be determined when time, approaching manhood, or the interference of stout old Magnus, the father, should teach Master Mordaunt Mertoun to know his own mind. “It was a pretty thing, indeed,” they usually concluded, “that he, no native bom, and possessed ofno visible means of subsistence that was known to any one, should presume to hesitate, or affect to have the power of selection and choice, betwixt the two most distinguished beauties of Zetland. If they were Magnus Troil, they would soon be at the bottom of the matter”—and so forth. All which wise remarks were only whis pered, for the hasty disposition of the udaller had too much of the old Norse fire about it to render it safe for any to become an unauthorized intermeddler with his family affairs. And thus stood the relation of Mordaunt Mertoun to the family of Mr Troil of Burgh Westra, when the following incidents took place.

Chapter Four This is no pilgrim’s morning—Yon grey mist Lies upon hill, and dale, and field, and forest, Like the dun wimple of a new-made widow; And, by my faith, although my heart be soft, I’d rather hear that widow weep and sigh, And tell the virtues of the dear-departed, Than, when the tempest sends his voice abroad, Be subject to its fury. The Double Nuptials

The spring was far advanced, when, after a week spent in sport and festivity at Burgh Westra, Mordaunt Mertoun bade adieu to the fam ily, pleading the necessity of his return to Jarlshof. The proposal was combatted by the maidens, and more decidedly by Magnus himself. He saw no occasion whatever for Mordaunt returning to Jarlshof. If his father desired to see him, which, by the way, Magnus did not believe, Mr Mertoun had only to throw himself into the stem of Sweyn’s boat, or betake himself to a poney, if he liked a land journey better, and he would see not only his son, but twenty folks besides, who would be most happy to find that he had not lost the use of his tongue entirely during his long solitude; “although I must own,” added Magnus, “that when he lived amongst us, nobody ever made less use of it.” Mordaunt acquiesced both in what respected his father’s taciturn ity and his dislike to general society; but suggested, at the same time, that the first circumstance rendered his own immediate return more necessary, as he was the usual channel of communication betwixt his

2Ó

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch.4

father and others; and that the second corroborated the same neces sity, since Mr Mertoun’s having no other society whatever, seemed a weighty reason why his son’s should be restored to him without loss of time. As to his father coming to Burgh Westra, “they might as well,” he said, “expect to see Sumburgh Cape come thither.” “And that would be a cumbrous guest,” said Magnus; “but you will miss our dinner to-day. There are the families of Muness, Quendale, Therelivoe, and I know not whom else, are expected; and, besides the thirty that were in the house this blessed night, we shall have as many more as chamber and bower, and barn and boat-house, can furnish with beds, or with barley-straw, and you will leave all this behind you!” “And the blithe dance at night,” added Brenda, in a tone betwixt reproach and vexation; “and the young men from the Isle of Papa that are to dance the sword-dance, whom shall we find to match them, for the honour of the Main?” “There is many a merry dancer on the Mainland, Brenda,” replied Mordaunt, “even if I should never rise on tiptoe again. And where good dancers are found, Brenda Troil will always find the best part ner. I must trip it to-night through the wastes of Dunrossness.” “Do not say so, Mordaunt,” said Minna, who, during this conversa tion, had been looking from the window something anxiously; “go not to-day at least, through the wastes of Dunrossness.” “And why not to-day, Minna,” said Mordaunt, laughing, “any more than to-morrow?” “O, the morning mist lies heavy upon yonder chain of isles, nor has it permitted us since day-break even a single glimpse of Fitful-head, the lofty cape that concludes yon splendid range of mountains. The fowl are winging their way to the shore, and the shell-drake seems, through the mist, as large as the scarf. See, the very shear-waters and Bondies are making to the cliff for shelter.” “And they will ride out a gale against a king’s frigate,” said her father; “there is foul weather when they cut and run.” “Stay, then, with us,” said Minna; “the storm will be dreadful, yet it will be grand to see it from Burgh Westra, if we have no friend exposed to its fury. See, the air is close and sultry, though the season is yet so early, and the day so calm, that not a windel-straw moves on the heath. Stay with us, Mordaunt; the storm which these signs announce will be a dreadful one.” “I must be gone the sooner,” was the conclusion of Mordaunt, who could not deny the signs, which had not escaped his own quick obser vation. “If the storm becomes too fierce, I will abide for the night at Stourburgh.”

[Chap. 4]

THE PIRATE

27

“What!” said Magnus; “will you leave us for the new chamberlain’s new Scots tacksman, who is to teach all us Zetland savages new ways? Take your own gait, my lad, if that is the song you sing.” “Nay,” said Mordaunt; “I had only some curiosity to see the new implements he has brought.” “Ay, ay, ferlies make fools fain. I would like to know if his new plough will bear against a Zetland rock?” answered Magnus. “I will pass Stourburgh on the journey,” said the youth, deferring to his patron’s prejudice against innovation; “if this boding weather break only in rain, as is most probable, I am not likely to be melted in the wetting.” “It will not soften into rain alone,” said Minna; “see how much heavier the clouds fall every moment, and see these weather-gaws that streak the lead-coloured mass with partial gleams of faded red and purple.” “I see them all,” said Mordaunt; “but they only tell me I have no time to tarry here. Adieu, Minna; I will send you the eagle’s feathers, if an eagle can be found on Hoy or Foulah. And fare thee well, my pretty Brenda, and keep a thought for me, should the Papa men dance ever so well.” “Take care of yourself, since go you will,” said both sisters, together. Old Magnus scolded them formally for supposing there was any danger to an active young fellow from a spring gale, whether by sea or land; yet ended by giving his own caution also to Mordaunt, advising him seriously to delay his journey, or at least to stop at Stourburgh. “For,” said he, “second thoughts are best; and as this Scotsman’s howflies right under your lee, why, take any port in a storm. But do not be assured to find the door on latch, let the storm blow ever so hard; there are such matters as bolts and bars in Scotland, though, thanks to Saint Ronald, they are unknown here, save that great lock on the old Castle of Scalloway, that all men run to see—may be they make part of this man’s improvements. But go, Mordaunt, since go you will. You should drink a stirrup-cup now, were you three years older, but boys should never drink, excepting after dinner. I will drink it for you, that good customs may not be broken, or bad luck come of it. Here is your bonally, my lad.” And so saying, he quaffed a rummer glass of brandy with as much impunity as if it had been spring-water. Thus regretted and cautioned on all hands, Mordaunt took leave of the hospitable household, and looking back at the comforts with which it was sur rounded, and the dense smoke that rolled upwards from its chillies, he first recollected the guestless and solitary desolation of Jarlshof, then compared with the sullen and moody melancholy of his father’s

28

THE pirate

Vol. I, ch.4

temper the warm kindness of those whom he was leaving, and could not refrain from a sigh at the thoughts which forced themselves on his imagination. The signs of the tempest did not dishonour the predictions of Minna. Mordaunt had not advanced three hours upon his journey, before the wind, which had been so deadly still in the morning, began at first to wail and sigh, as if bemoaning beforehand the evils which it might perpetrate in its fury, like a madman in the gloomy state of dejection which precedes his fit of violence. Then gradually increas ing, the gale howled, raged, and roared, with the full fury of a northern storm. It was accompanied by showers of rain mixed with hail, which were dashed with the most unrelenting rage against the hills and rocks with which the traveller was surrounded, distracting his attention, in spite of his uttermost exertions, and rendering it very difficult for him to keep the direction of his journey in a country where is neither road, nor even the slightest track to direct the steps of the wanderer, and where he is often interrupted by large pools of water, lakes, and lagoons. All these inland waters were now lashed into sheets of tum bling foam, much of which, carried off by the fury of the whirlwind, was mingled with the gale, and transported far from the waves of which they had lately made a part; while the salt relish of the drift which was pelted against his face, shewed Mordaunt that the spray of the more distant ocean, disturbed to frenzy by the storm, was mingled with that of the inland lakes and streams. Amid this hideous combustion of the elements, Mordaunt Mertoun struggled forward as one to whom such elemental war was famil iar, and who regarded the exertions which it required to withstand its fury, but as a mark of resolution and manhood. He felt even, as happens usually to those who endure great hardships, that the exer tion necessary to subdue them, is in itself a kind of elevating triumph. To see and distinguish his path when the cattle were driven from the hill, and the very fowls from the firmament, was but the stronger proof of his own superiority. “They shall not hear of me at Burgh Westra,” said he to himself, “as they heard of old doited Ringan Ewensen’s boat, that foundered betwixt road-stead and key. I am more of a crags man than to mind fire or water, wave by sea, or quagmire by land.” Thus he struggled on, buffeting with the storm, supplying the want of the usual signs by which travellers directed their course, (for rock, mountain, and headland, were shrouded in mist and darkness,) by the instinctive sagacity with which long acquaintance with these wilds had taught him to mark every minute object which could serve in such circumstances to regulate his course. Thus, we repeat, he struggled onward, occasionally standing still, or even lying down, when the gust

[Chap. 4]

THE PIRATE

29

was most impetuous; making way against it when it was somewhat lulled, by a rapid and bold advance even in its very current; or, when this was impossible, by a movement resembling that of a vessel work ing to windward by short tacks, but never yielding one inch of the way which he had fought so hard to gain. Yet, notwithstanding Mordaunt’s experience and resolution, his situation was sufficiently uncomfortable, and even precarious; not because his sailor’s jacket and trowsers, the common dress of young men through these isles when on a journey, were thoroughly wet, for that might have taken place within the same brieftime, in any ordinary day, in this watery climate. But the real danger was, that, notwith standing his utmost exertions, he made very slow way through brooks that were sending their waters all abroad, through morasses drowned in double deluges of moisture, which rendered all the ordinary passes more than usually dangerous, and repeatedly obliged the traveller to perform a considerable circuit, which in the usual case was unneces sary. Thus repeatedly baffled, notwithstanding his youth and strength, Mordaunt, after maintaining a dogged conflict with wind, rain, and the fatigue of a prolonged journey, was truly happy, when, not without having been more than once mistaken in his road, he at length found himself within sight of the house of Stourburgh, or Harfra, the residence of Mr Triptolemus Yellowley, who was the chosen missionary of the then Chamberlain of Orkney and Zetland, a speculative person, who designed, through the medium of Tripto­ lemus, to introduce into the ultima Thule of the Romans a spirit of improvement, which at this early period was scarce known to exist in Scotland itself. At length, and with much difficulty, Mordaunt reached the house of this worthy agriculturist, the only refuge from the relentless storm which he could hope for several miles; and going straight to the door, with the most undoubting confidence of instant admission, he was not a little surprised to find it not merely latched, which the weather might excuse, but even bolted, a thing which, as Magnus Troil has already intimated, was almost unknown in the Archipelago. To knock, to call, and finally to batter the door with staff and stones, were the natural resources of the youth, who was rendered alike impatient by the pelting of the storm, and by the most unexpected and unusual obs tacles to instant admission. As he was suffered, however, for many minutes to exhaust his impatience in noise and clamour, without receiving any reply, we will employ them in informing the reader who Triptolemus Yellowley was, and how he came by a name so singular. Old Jasper Yellowley, the father of Triptolemus, (though born at the foot of Roseberry-Topping,) had been come over by a certain noble

30

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 4

Scottish Earl, who, proving too far north for canny Yorkshire, had persuaded him to accept of a farm in the Mearns, where, it is unneces sary to add, he found matters very different from what he expected. It was in vain that the stout farmer set manfully to work, to counterbal ance, by superior skill, the inconveniences arising from a cold soil and a weeping climate. These might have been partially overcome, but his neighbourhood to the Grampians exposed him eternally to that spe cies of visitation from the plaided gentry who dwelled within their skirts, which made young Norval a warrior and a hero, but only con verted Jasper Yellowley into a poor man. This was, indeed, balanced in some sort by the impression which his ruddy cheek and robust form had the fortune to make upon Miss Barbara Clinkscale, daughter to the umquhile, and sister to the then existing Clinkscale ofthat ilk. This was thought a horrid and unnatural union in the neighbour hood, considering that the house of Clinkscale had at least as great a share of Scottish pride as of Scottish parsimony, and was amply endowed with both. But Miss Baby had her handsome fortune of two thousand merks at her own disposal, was a woman of spirit who had been major and suijuris, (as the writer who drew the contract assured her,) for full twenty years; so she set consequences and commentaries alike at defiance, and wedded the hearty Yorkshire yeoman. Her brother and her more wealthy kinsmen drew off in disgust, and almost disowned their degraded relative. But the house of Clinkscale was allied (like every other family in Scotland at the time) to a set of relations who were not so nice—tenth and sixteenth cousins, who not only acknowledged their kinswoman Baby after her marriage with Yellowley, but even condescended to eat beans and bacon (though the latter was then the abomination of the Scots as much as of the Jews) with her husband, and would willingly have cemented the friendship by borrowing a little cash from him, had not his good lady (who understood trap as well as any woman in the Mearns) put a negative on this advance to intimacy. Indeed she knew how to make young Deilbelicket, old Dougal Baresword, the Laird of Bandybrawl, and others, pay for the hospitality which she did not think proper to deny them, by rendering them useful in her negociations with the lighthanded lads beyond the Cairn, who, finding their late object of plun der was now allied to “ken’d folks, and owned by them at kirk and market,” became satisfied, on a moderate yearly composition, to desist from their depredations. This eminent success reconciled Jasper to the dominion which his wife began to assume over him; and which was much confirmed by her proving to be—let me see—what is the prettiest mode of express ing it?—in the family way. On this occasion, Mrs Yellowley had a

[Chap. 4]

THE PIRATE

3I

remarkable dream, as is the usual practice of teeming mothers previ ous to the birth of an illustrious offspring. She “was a-dreamed,” as her husband expressed it, that she was safely delivered of a plough, drawn by three yoke of Angus-shire oxen; and being a mighty invest igator into such portents, she sate herself down with her gossips, to consider what the thing might mean. Honest Jasper ventured, with much hesitation, to intimate his own opinion, that the vision had reference rather to things past than things present, and might have been occasioned by his wife’s nerves having been a little startled by meeting in the loan above the house his own great plough with the six oxen, which were the pride of his heart. But the good cummers raised such a hue and cry against this exposition, that Jasper was fain to put his fingers in his ears, and to run out ofthe apartment. “Hear to him,” said an old whigamore carline—“hear till him, wi’ his owsen, that are as an idol to him, even as the calf of Bethel! Na, na —it’s nae pleugh of the flesh that the bonnie lad bairn—for a lad it sall be—shall e’er striddle between the stilts o’—it’s the pleugh of the spirit—and I trust mysell to see him wag the head o’ him in a pu’pit; or, at the warst, on a hill-side.” “Now the deil’s in your whiggery,” said the old lady Glenprosing; “wad ye hae our cummer’s bonnie lad-baim wag the head aff his shouthers like your godly Mess James Guthrie, that ye hald such a clavering about?—Na, na, he sall walk a mair sicker path, and be a dainty curate—and say he should live to be a bishop, what the waur wad he be?” The gauntlet thus fairly flung down by one sybil, was caught up by another, and the controversy raged, roared, or rather screamed, a round of cinnamon-waters serving only like oil to the flame, till Jasper entered with the plough-staff; and by the awe of his presence, and the shame of misbehaving “before the stranger man,” imposed some conditions of silence upon the disputants. I do not know whether it was impatience to give to the light a being destined to such high and doubtful fates, or whether poor Dame Yellowley was rather frightened at the hurly-burly which had taken place in her presence, but she was taken suddenly ill; and, contrary to the formula in such cases used and provided, was soon reported to be “a good deal worse than was to be expected.” She took the opportunity (having still all her wits about her) to extract from her sympathetic husband two promises; first, that he would christen the child, whose birth was like to cost her so dear, by a name indicative of the vision with which she had been favoured; and next, that he would educate him for the ministry. The canny Yorkshireman, thinking she had a good title at present to dictate in such matters, subscribed to all she

32

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 4

required. A man-child was accordingly bom under these conditions, but the state of the mother did not permit her for many days to inquire how far they had been complied with. When she was in some degree convalescent, she was informed, that as it was thought fit the child should be immediately christened, it had received the name ofTriptolemus; the Curate, who was a man of some classical skill, conceiving that this epithet contained a handsome and classical allusion to the visionary plough, with its triple yoke of oxen. Mrs Yellowley was not much delighted with the manner in which her request had been complied with; but grumbling being to as little purpose as in the celebrated case ofTristram Shandy, she e’en sat down contented with the heathenish name, and endeavoured to counteract the effects it might produce upon the taste and feelings of the nominee, by such an education as might put him above the slightest thought of socks, coulters, stilts, mould-boards, or any thing connected with the servile drudgery of the plough. Jasper, sage Yorkshireman, smiled slily in his sleeve, conceiving that young Trippie was likely to prove a chip of the old block, and would rather take after the jolly Yorkshire yeoman, than the gentle but somewhat aigre blood of the house of Clinkscale. He remarked, with suppressed glee, that the tune which best answered the purpose of a lullaby was the “ploughman’s whistle,” and the first words the infant learned to stammer were the names of the oxen; moreover, that the “bern” preferred home-brewed ale to Scotch two-penny, and never quitted hold ofthe tankard with so much reluctance as when there had been, by some manœuvre of Jasper’s own device, a double straik of malt allowed to the brewing, above that which was sanctioned by the most liberal recipe, of which his dame’s household thrift admitted. Besides this, when no other means could be fallen upon to divert an occasional fit of squalling, his father observed that Trip could be always quieted by jingling a bridle at his ear. From all which symp toms, he used to swear in private, that the boy would prove a true Yorkshireman, and mother, and mother’s kin, would have small share ofhim. Meanwhile, and within a year after the birth of Triptolemus, Mrs Yellowley bore a daughter, named after herself Barbara, who, even in earliest infancy, exhibited the pinched nose and thin lips by which the Clinkscale family were distinguished amongst the inhabitants of the Mearns; and as her childhood advanced, the readiness with which she seized, and the tenacity wherewith she detained, the playthings of Triptolemus, besides a desire to bite, pinch, and scratch, on slight, or no provocation, were all considered by attentive observers as proofs that Miss Baby would prove “her mother over again.” Malicious

[Chap. 4]

THE PIRATE

33

people did not stick to say, that the acrimony of the Clinkscale blood had not on this occasion been cooled and sweetened by that of old England; that young Deilbelicket was much about the house, and they could not but think it odd that Mrs Yellowley, who, as the whole world knew, gave nothing for nothing, should be so uncommonly attentive to heap the trencher, and to fill the caup, of an idle blackguard ne’er-doweel. But when folks had once looked upon the austere and awfully virtuous countenance of Mrs Yellowley, they did full justice to her propriety ofconduct, and Deilbelicket’s delicacy of taste. Meantime young Triptolemus having received such instructions as the curate could give him, (for though Dame Yellowley adhered to the persecuted remnant, her jolly husband, edified by the black gown and prayer-book, still conformed to the church as by law established,) was, in due process of time, sent to Saint Andrews to prosecute his studies. He went, it is true, but with an eye turned back with sad remembrances on his father’s plough, his father’s pancakes, and his father’s ale, for which the small beer of the college commons, then termed “through go nimble,” furnished a poor substitute. Yet he advanced in his learning, being found, however, to shew a particular favour to such authors of antiquity as had made the improvement of the soil the object of their researches. He endured the Bucolics of Virgil—the Georgies he had by heart—but the Æneid he could not away with; and he was particularly severe upon the celebrated line expressing a charge of cavalry, because, as he understood the word putrem,* he opined that the combatants, in their inconsiderate ardour, galloped over a new-manured ploughed field. Cato, the Roman Cen sor, was his favourite among classical heroes and philosophers, not on account of the strictness of his morals, but because of his treatise, de Re Rustica. He had ever in his mouth the phrase of Cicero, jam nem inem antepones Catoni. He thought well of Palladius, and of Terentius Varro, but Columella was his pocket companion. To these ancient worthies, he added the more modem Tusser, Hartlib, and other writers on rural economics, not forgetting the lucubrations of the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and such of the better-informed Philo maths, who, instead of loading their almanacks with vain predictions ofpolitical events, directed the attention oftheir readers to that course of cultivation from which the production ofgood crops might be safely predicted, and who, careless of the rise and downfall of empires, contented themselves with pointing out the fit seasons to reap and sow, with a fair guess at the weather which each month will be likely to present; as, for example, that if Heaven pleases, we shall have snow in January, and the author will stake his reputation that July proves, on * Quadrupedumque putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.

34

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 4

the whole, a month of sunshine. Now, although the Rector of Saint Leonard’s was greatly pleased in general, with the quiet, laborious, and studious bent of Triptolemus Yellowley, and deemed him, in so far, worthy of a name of four syllables, having a Latin termination, yet he relished not, by any means, his exclusive attention to his favourite authors. It savoured of the earth, he said, if not of something worse, to have a man’s mind always grovelling in mould, stercorated or unster corated; and he pointed out, but in vain, history, and poetry, and divinity, as more elevating subjects of occupation. Triptolemus Yel lowley was obstinate in his own course. Of the battle of Pharsalia, he thought not as it affected the freedom of the world, but dwelt on the rich crop which the Emathian fields were likely to produce the next season. In vernacular poetry, Triptolemus could scarce be prevailed upon to read a single couplet, excepting old Tusser, as aforesaid, whose Hundred Points of Good Husbandry he had got by heart; and excepting also Piers Ploughman’s Vision, which, charmed with the title, he bought with avidity from a packman, but after reading the two first pages, flung it into the fire as an impudent and misnamed political libel. As to divinity, he summed that matter up by reminding his instructors, that to labour the earth and win his bread with the toil of his body and sweat of his brow, was the lot imposed upon fallen man; and, for his part, he was resolved to discharge, to the best of his abilities, a task so obviously necessary to existence, leaving others to speculate as much as they would, upon the more recondite mysteries of theology. With a spirit so much narrowed and limited to the concerns of rural life, it may be doubted whether the proficiency of Triptolemus in learning, or the use he was like to make of his acquisitions, would have much gratified the ambitious hope of his affectionate mother. It is true, he expressed no reluctance to embrace the profession of a cler gyman, which suited well enough with the habitual personal indolence which sometimes attaches to speculative dispositions. He had views, to speak plainly, (I wish they were peculiar to himself,) of cultivating the glebe six days in the week, preaching on the seventh with due regularity, and dining with some fat franklin or country laird, with whom he could smoke a pipe and drink a tankard after dinner, and mix in sweet conference on the exhaustless subject, Quid faciat lætas segetes.

Now, this plan, besides that it indicated nothing of what was then called the root of the matter, implied necessarily the possession of a manse; and the possession of a manse inferred compliance with the doctrines of prelacy, and other enormities of the time. There was

[Chap. 4]

THE PIRATE

35

some question how far manse and glebe, stipend, victual, and money, might have out-balanced the good lady’s predisposition towards Pres bytery; but her zeal was not put to so severe a trial. She died before her son had completed his studies, leaving her afflicted spouse just as disconsolate as was to be expected. The first act of old Jasper’s undivided administration was to recal his son from Saint Andrews, in order to obtain his assistance in his domestic labours. And here it might have been supposed that our Triptolemus, summoned to carry into practice what he had so fondly studied in theory, must have been, to use a simile which he would have thought lively, like a cow entering upon a clover park. Alas, mistaken thought, and deceitful hopes of mankind! A laughing philosopher, the Democritus ofour day, once compared human life to a table pierced with a number of holes, each of which has a pin made exactly to fit it, but which pins being stuck in hastily, and without selection, chance leads inevitably to the most awkward mis takes. “For, how often do we see,” the orator pathetically concluded, —“how often, I say, do we see the round man stuck into the threecornered hole.” This new illustration of the vagaries of fortune set every one present into convulsions of laughter, excepting one fat aiderman, who seemed to make the case his own, and insisted that it was no jesting matter. To take up the simile, however, which is an excellent one, it is plain that Triptolemus Yellowley had been shaken out of the bag at least a hundred years too soon. If he had come on the stage in our own time, that is, if he had flourished at any time within these thirty or forty years, he could not have missed to have held the office of vice-president of some eminent agricultural society, and to have transacted all the business thereof under the auspices of some noble duke or lord, who, as the matter might happen, either knew, or did not know, the difference betwixt a horse and a cart, and a cart horse. He could not have missed such preferment, for he was exceed ingly learned in all those particulars, which, being of no consequence in actual practice, go of course a great way to constitute the character of a connoisseur in any art, but especially in agriculture. But, alas! Triptolemus Yellowley had, as we already have hinted, come into the world at least a century too soon; for, instead of sitting in an arm chair, with a hammer in his hand, and a bumper of port before him, giving forth the toast,—“To breeding, in all its branches,” his father planted him betwixt the stilts of a plough, and invited him to guide the oxen, on whose beauties he would, in our day, have descanted, and whose rumps he would not have goaded, but have carved. Old Jasper complained, that although no one talked so well of common and several, wheat and rape, fallow and lea, as his learned son, (whom he

36

THE pirate

Vol. I,ch.4

always called Tolimus,) yet, “dang it,” added the senior, “nought thrives wi’ un—nought thrives wi’ un.” It was still worse, when Jasper, becoming frail and ancient, was obliged, as happened in the course of a few years, gradually to yield up the reins of government to the academical neophyte. As if Nature had meant him a spite, he had got one ofthe dourest and most untractable farms on the Mearns, to try conclusions withal, a place which seemed to yield every thing but what the agriculturist wanted; for there were plenty of thistles, which indicates dry land; and store of fem, which is said to intimate deep land; and nettles, which shew where lime hath been applied; and deep furrows in the most unlikely spots, which intimated that it had been cultivated in former days by the Peghts, as popular tradition bore. There was also plenty of stones to keep the ground warm, according to the creed of some farmers, and great abundance of springs to render it cool and sappy, according to the theory of others. It was in vain that, acting alternately on those opinions, poor Triptolemus endeavoured to avail himself of the supposed capabilities of the soil. No kind of butter that might be churned could be made to stick upon his own bread, any more than on that of poor Tusser, whose Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, so useful to others ofhis day, were never to himself worth as many pennies. In fact, excepting an hundred acres of infield, to which old Jasper had early seen the necessity of limiting his labours, there was not a comer of the farm fit for any thing but to break plough-graith, and kill cattle. And then, as for the part which was really tilled with some profit, the expence of the farming establishment of Triptolemus, and his disposition to experiment, soon got rid ofany good arising from the cultivation of it. “The carles and the cart-avers,” he confessed, with a sigh, speaking of his farm-servants and horses, “make it all, and the carles and cart-avers eat it all;” a conclusion which might sum up the year-book ofmany a gentleman-farmer. Matters would have soon been brought to a close with Triptolemus in the present day. He would have got a bank-credit, manoeuvred with wind-bills, dashed out upon a large scale, and soon have seen his crop and stock sequestrated by the Sheriff. But in those days a man could not ruin himself so easily. The whole Scottish tenantry stood upon the same level flat of poverty, so that it was extremely difficult to find any vantage ground, by climbing up to which a man might have an oppor tunity of actually breaking his neck with some eclat. They were pretty much in the situation ofpeople, who, being totally without credit, may indeed suffer from indigence, but cannot possibly become bankrupt. Besides, notwithstanding the failure of Triptolemus’s projects, there

[Chap. 4]

THE PIRATE

37

was to be balanced against the expenditure which they occasioned, all the savings which the extreme economy of his sister Barbara could effect; and in truth her exertions were wonderful. She might have realized, if any one could, the idea of the learned philosopher, who pronounced that sleeping was a fancy, and eating but a habit, and who appeared to the world to have renounced both, until it was unhappily discovered that he had an intrigue with the cook-maid of the family, who indemnified him for his privations by giving him private entrée to the larder, and to a share of her own couch. But no such deceptions were practised by Barbara Yellowley. She was up early, and down late, and seemed, to her over-watched and over-tasked maidens, to be as wakerife as the cat herself. Then, for eating, it appeared that the air was a banquet to her, and she would fain have made it so to her retinue. Her brother, who besides being lazy in his person, was some what luxurious in his appetite, would willingly now and then have tasted a mouthful of animal food, were it but to know how his sheep were fed off; but a proposal to eat a child could not have startled Mistress Barbara more; and, being of a compliant and easy disposi tion, Triptolemus reconciled himself to the necessity of a perpetual Lent, too happy when he could get a scrap ofbutter to his oaten cakes, or (as they lived on the banks of the Eske) escape the daily necessity of eating salmon, whether in or out of season, six days out of the seven. But although Mrs Barbara brought faithfully to the joint stock all savings which her awful powers of economy endeavoured to scrape together, and although the dower of their mother was by degrees expended, or nearly so, in aiding them upon extreme occasions, the term at length approached when it seemed impossible that they could sustain the conflict any longer against the evil star of Triptolemus, as he called it himself, or the natural result of his absurd speculations, as it was termed by others. Luckily at this sad crisis, a god jumped down to their relief out of a machine. In plain English, the noble lord, who owned their farm, arrived at his mansion-house in their neighbour hood, with his coach and six and his running footmen, in the full splendour of the seventeenth century. This person of quality was the son of the nobleman who had brought the ancient Jasper into the country from Yorkshire, and he was, like his father, a fanciful and scheming man. He had schemed well for himself, however, amid the mutations of the time, having obtained for a certain period ofyears, the administration ofthe remote islands of Orkney and Zetland, for payment of a certain rent, with the right of making the most of whatever was the property or revenue of the crown in these districts, under the title of Lord Chamberlain. Now, his lordship had become possessed with a notion, in itself a very

38

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch.4

true one, that much might be done to render this grant available, by improving the culture of the crown lands, both in Orkney and Zet land; and then, having some acquaintance with our friend Tripto lemus, he thought (rather less happily) that he might prove a person capable of furthering his schemes. He sent for him to the great Hall house, and was so much edified by the way in which our friend laid down the law upon every given subject, that he lost no time in securing the co-operation of so valuable an assistant. The terms were arranged much to the mind of Triptolemus, who had already been taught, by many years’ experience, a dark sort of notion, that without undervaluing or doubting for a moment his own skill, it would be quite as well that almost all the trouble and risk should be at the expence of his employer. Indeed the hopes of advant age which he held out to his patron were so considerable, that the Lord Chamberlain dropped every idea of admitting his dependent into any share of the expected profits; for, rude as the arts of agricul ture were in Scotland, they were far superior to those known and practised in the regions of Thule, and Triptolemus Yellowley con ceited himself to be possessed of a degree of insight into these mys teries, far superior to what was possessed or practised in the Mearns. The improvement, therefore, which was to be expected, would bear a double proportion, and the Lord Chamberlain was to reap all the profit, deducing a handsome salary for this steward, Yellowley, together with the accommodation of a house and domestic farm, for the support of his family. Joy seized the withered veins of Mistress Barbara, at hearing this happy termination of what threatened to be so very bad an affair as their lease of Cauldshouthers. “If we cannot,” she said, “provide for our own house, when all is coming in, and nothing going out, surely we must be worse than infidels.” Triptolemus was a busy man for some time, huffing and puffing, and eating and drinking in every change-house, while he ordered and collected together proper implements of agriculture, to be used by the natives of these devoted islands, whose destinies were menaced with this formidable change. Strange tools these would be, if presented before a modem agricultural society; but every thing is relative, nor could the heavy cart-load of timber, called the old Scotch plough, seem more strange to a Scottish farmer of this present day, than the corslets and casques of the soldiers of Cortes might seem to a regi ment of our soldiers. Yet the latter conquered Mexico, and undoubt edly the former would have been a splendid improvement on the state of agriculture in Thule. We have never been able to learn why Triptolemus preferred fixing

[Chap. 5]

THE PIRATE

39

his residence in Zetland, to becoming an inhabitant of the Orkneys. Perhaps he thought the inhabitants of the former Archipelago the more simple and docile of the two kindred tribes; or perhaps he preferred the situation of the house and farm, which he himself was to occupy, (which was indeed a tolerable one,) as preferable to that which he had it in his power to have had upon Pomona, so the main island of the Orkneys is entitled. At Harfra, or, as it was sometimes called, Stourburgh, from the remains of a Pictish fort, which was almost close to the mansion-house, the factor settled himself, in the plenitude of his authority, determined to honour the name he bore by his exertions, in precept and example, to civilize the Zetlanders, and improve their very confined knowledge in the primary arts of human life.

Chapter Five The wind blew keen frae north and east; It blew upon the floor. Quo’ our goodman to our good wife, “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 of the last chapter extremely tedious; but, at any rate, his impa tience will scarce equal that of young Mordaunt Mertoun, who, while the lightning came flash after flash, while the wind, veering and shift ing from point to point, blew with all the fury ofa hurricane, and while the rain was dashed against him in deluges, stood hammering, calling, and roaring at the door of the old Place of Harfra, impatient for admittance, and at a loss to conceive any position of existing circum stances, which could occasion the exclusion of a stranger, especially during such horrible weather. At length, finding his noise and voci feration were equally in vain, he fell back so far from the front of the house as was necessary to enable him to reconnoitre the chimneys; and amidst “storm and shade,” could discover, to the increase of his dismay, that though noon, then the dinner hour of these islands, was now nearly arrived, there was no smoke proceeding from the tunnels of 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 Zetland islands, he was immediately induced to suppose some strange

40

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 5

and unaccountable disaster had befallen the family, and forthwith set himself to discover some place at which he could make forcible entry, in order to ascertain the situation of the inmates, as much as to obtain shelter from the still increasing storm. His present anxiety was, how ever, as much thrown away as his late clamorous importunities for admittance had been. Triptolemus and his sister had heard the whole alarm without, and had already had a sharp dispute on the propriety of opening the door. Mrs Baby, as we have described her, was no willing renderer of the rites of hospitality. In their farm of Cauldshouthers, in the Meams, she had been the dread and abhorrence of all gaberlunzie men, travel ling packmen, gypsies, long remembered beggars, and so forth; nor was there one of them so wily, as she used to boast, as should ever say they had heard the clink of her sneck. In Zetland, where the new settlers were yet strangers to the extreme honesty and simplicity of all classes, suspicion and fear joined with frugality in her desire to exclude all wandering guests of uncertain character; and the second of these motives had its effect on Triptolemus himself, who, though neither suspicious nor penurious, knew good people were scarce, good farmers scarcer, and had a reasonable share of that wisdom which looks towards self-preservation as the first law of nature. These hints may serve as a commentary on the following dialogue which took place betwixt the brother and sister. “Now Good be gracious to us,” said Triptolemus, as he sate thumbing his old school-copy ofVirgil, “here is a pure day for the bear seed!!—Well spoke the wise Mantuan—ventis surgentibus—and then the groans of the mountains, 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 ofours?” “What’s your foolish will?” said Baby, popping her head from out of a dark recess in the kitchen, where she was busy about some nameless deed ofhousewifery. Her brother, who had addressed himself to her more from habit than intention, no sooner saw her sharp red nose, keen grey eyes, with the sharp features thereunto conforming, shaded by the flaps of the loose toy which depended on each side of her eager face, than he bethought himself that his query was like 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 the room, “what for are ye crying on me, and me in the midst of my housewife skep?” “Nay, for nothing at all, Baby,” answered Triptolemus, “saving that

[Chap. 5]

THE PIRATE

4I

I was saying to myself, that here we had the sea, and the wind, and the rain sufficient enough, but where’s the wood? where’s the wood, Baby, answer me that.” “The wood?” answered Baby—“Were I no to take better care ofthe wood than you, brother, there would soon be no more wood about the town than the barber’s block that’s on your own shoulders, Triptolemus. Ifye be thinking of the wreck-wood that the callants brought in yesterday, there was six unces of it gaed to boil your parritch this morning; though, I trow, a carefu’ man wad have ta’en drammock, if breakfast he behoved to have, rather than waste baith meltith and fuel on the same morning.” “That is to say, Baby,” replied Triptolemus, who was somewhat ofa dry joker in his way, “that when we have fire we are not to have food, and when we have food we are not to have fire, these being too great blessings to enjoy both in the same day. Good luck, you do not pro pose we should starve with cold and starve with hunger unico contextu. But to tell you the truth, I could never away with raw oatmeal, slock ened with water, in all my life. Call it drammock, or crowdie, or just what ye list, my vivers must thole fire and water.” “The mair gowk you,” said Baby; “can ye not make your brose of the Sunday, and sup them cauld on the Monday, since ye’re sae dainty? Mony is the fairer face than yours that has licked the lip after suchacogfu’.” “Mercy on us, sister!” said Triptolemus; “at this rate, it’s a finished field with me—I must unyoke the pleugh, and lie down to wait for the dead-thraw. Here is that in this house wad hold all Zetland in meal for a twelvemonth, and ye grudge a cogfu’ of warm parritch to me, that has sic a charge.” “Whisht—hold your silly clavering tongue,” said Baby, looking round with 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 rapping at the outer yate.” “Go and open it then, Baby,” said her brother, glad at any thing that promised to interrupt the dispute. “Go and open it, said he?” echoed Baby, halfangry, halffrightened, and half triumphant, in the superiority ofher understanding over that of her brother—“Go and open it, said you, indeed?—is it to lend robbers a chance to take all that is in the house?” “Robbers!” echoed Triptolemus in his turn; “there are no more robbers in this country than there are lambs at Youle. I tell you, as I have told you an hundred times, there are no Highlandmen to harry us here. This is a land of quiet and honesty. Ofortunati nimium!” “And what good is Saint Ringan to do ye, Tollmus?” said his sister,

42

THE PIRATE

Vol. I, ch. 5

mistaking the quotation for a Catholic invocation. “Besides, if there be no Highlandmen, there may be as bad. I saw sax or seven as illlooking chields gang past the place yesterday, as ever came frae beyont Cloch-na-ben; illfa’rd tools they had in their hands, whaaling knives they caa’d them, but they looked as like whingers as.ae bit aim can look like anither. There is nae honest men carry siccan tools.” Here the knocking and shouts of Mordaunt were very audible betwixt every swell of the terrible blast which was careering without. The brother and sister looked at each other in real perplexity and fear. “If they have heard of the siller,” said Baby, her very nose changing with terror from red to blue, “we are but gane folk.” “Who speaks now, when they should hold their peace?” 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 were stepping on new-laid eggs.” Baby crept to the window, and reported that she saw only “one young chield, clattering and roaring as gin he were daft. How many there might be out of sight, she could not say.” “Out of sight!—nonsense,” said Triptolemus, laying aside the ramrod with which he was loading the piece, with a trembling hand. “I will warrant them out of sight and hearing both—this is some poor fellow catched in the tempest, wants the shelter of our roof, and a little refreshment. Open the door, Baby, it’s a Christian deed.” “But is it a Christian deed of him to come in at the window then?” said Baby, setting up a most doleful shriek, as Mordaunt Mertoun, who had forced open one of the windows, leaped down into the apartment, dripping with water like a river god. Triptolemus, in great tribulation, presented the gun which he had not yet loaded, while the intruder exclaimed, “Hold, hold—what the devil mean you by keep­ ing your doors bolted in weather like this, and levelling your gun at folks’ heads as you would at a sealgh’s?” “And who are you, friend, and what want you?” said Triptolemus, lowering the butt 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-morrow morning to carry me to Jarlshof.” “And you said there were nae caterans or somers here?” said Baby to the agriculturist, reproachfully. “Heard ye ever a breekless loun frae Lochaber tell his mind and his errand mair deftly?—Come, come, friend,” she added, addressing herself to Mordaunt, “put up your pipes and gang your gait; this is the house of his Lordship’s factor, and no place of resett for thiggers or somers.”

[Chap. 5]

THE PIRATE

43

Mordaunt laughed in her face at the simplicity of the request. “Leave built walls,” he said, “and in such a tempest as this? What take you me for?—a gannet or a scarf do you think I am, that your clapping your hands and skirling at me like a madwoman, should drive me from the shelter into the storm?” “And so you propose, young man,” said Triptolemus, gravely, “to stay in my 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 see the lightning? And do you not know this is the only house within I wot not how many miles? Come, my good master and dame, this may be Scottish jesting, but it sounds strange in Zetland ears. You have let out the fire too, and my teeth are dancing a jig in my head with cold; but I’ll soon 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 calculated should have preserved the seeds of fire, without giving them forth, for many hours; then casting his eye round, saw in a corner the stock of drift-wood, which Mistress Baby had served forth by ounces, and transferred two or three logs of it at once to the hearth, which, conscious of such unwonted supply, began to transmit to the chimney such a smoke as had not issued from the Place of Harfra for many a day. While their uninvited guest was thus making himselfat home, Baby kept edging and jogging the factor to turn out the intruder. But for this undertaking, Triptolemus Yellowley felt neither courage nor zeal, nor did circumstances seem at all to warrant the favourable conclusion of any fray in which he might enter with the young stranger. The sinewy limbs and graceful form of Mordaunt Mertoun were seen to great advantage in his simple sea-dress; and with his dark sparkling eye, finely formed head, animated features, close curled dark hair, and bold free looks, the stranger formed a very strong contrast with the host on whom he had intruded himself. Triptolemus was a short, clumsy, duck-legged disciple of Ceres, whose bottle-nose, turned up and handsomely coppered at the extremity, seemed to intimate some thing of an occasional treaty with Bacchus. It was like to be no equal mellay betwixt persons of such unequal form and strength; and the difference betwixt twenty and fifty years was nothing in favour of the weaker party. Besides, the factor was an honest good-natured fellow at bottom, and being soon satisfied that his guest had no other views than those of obtaining refuge from the storm, it would, despite his sister’s instigations, have been his last act to deny a boon so reasonable and necessary to a youth whose exterior was so prepossessing. He

44

THE PIRATE

Vol. I, ch. 5

stood, therefore, considering how he could most gracefully glide into the character of the hospitable landlord, out of that of the churlish defender of his domestic castle, against an unauthorized intrusion, when Baby, who had stood appalled at the extreme familiarity of the stranger’s address and demeanour, now spoke up for herself. “My troth, lad,” said she to Mordaunt, “ye are no blate, to light on at that rate, and the best of wood too—nane of your shamey peats, but good aik timber, nae less maun serve ye!” “You come lightly by it, dame,” said Mordaunt, carelessly; “and you should not grudge the fire what the sea gives you for nothing.— These good ribs of oak did their last duty upon earth and ocean when they could hold no longer together under the brave hearts that manned the bark.” “And that’s true, too,” said the old woman, softening—“this maun be awsome weather by sea. Sit down and warm ye, since the sticks are a-low.” “Ay, ay,” said Triptolemus, “it is a pleasure to see siccan a bonny bleeze. I have na seen the like o’t since I left Cauldshouthers. ” “And shall na see the like o’t again in a hurry,” said Baby, “unless the house take fire, or there suld be a coal-heugh found out.” “And wherefore should not there be a coal-heugh found out?” said the factor, triumphantly—“I say, wherefore should not a coal-heugh be found out in Zetland as well as in Fife, now that the Chamberlain has a far-sighted and discreet man upon the spot to make the neces sary perquisitions? They are baith fishing-stations, I trow.” “I tell you what it is, Tollmus Yellowley,” answered his sister, who had practical reasons to fear of her brother’s opening upon any false scent, “if you begin to promise my Lord sae mony of these bonnie wallies, we’ll no be weel hafted here before we are found out and set a trotting again. If ane was to speak to ye about a gold mine, I ken whae would promise he suld have Portugal pieces clinking in his pouch before the year gaed by.” “And why suld I not?” said Triptolemus—“maybe your head does not know there is a land in Orkney called Ophir, or something very like it; and wherefore might not Solomon, the wise king of the Jews, have sent thither his ships and his servants for four hundred and fifty talents? I hope he knew best where to go or send, and I hope you believe in your Bible, Baby.” Baby was silenced by an appeal to Scripture, however mal apropos, and only answered by an inarticulate humph of incredulity or scorn, while her brother went on addressing Mordaunt.—“Yes, you shall all of you see what a change shall coin introduce, even into such an unpropitious country as yours. Ye have not heard of copper, I warrant,

[Chap. 5]

THE PIRATE

45

or of iron-stone, in these islands neither?” Mordaunt said he had heard there was copper near the Cliffs of Konigsburgh. “Ay, and a copper scum is found on the Loch of Swana too, young man. But the youngest of you, doubtless, thinks himselfa match for such as I am.” Baby, who during all this while had been closely and accurately reconnoitering the youth’s person, now interposed in a manner by her brother totally unexpected. “Ye had mair need, Mr Yellowley, to give the young man some dry clothes, and to see about getting something for him to eat, than to sit there bleezing away with your lang tales, as if the weather were not windy enow without your help. And maybe the lad would drink some bland, or sicklike, if ye had the grace to ask him.” While Triptolemus stood astonished at such a proposal, consider ing the quarter it came from, Mordaunt answered, he “would be very glad to have dry clothes, but begged to be excused from drinking until he had eaten somewhat.” Triptolemus accordingly conducted him into another apartment, and accommodating him with a change of dress, left him to his arrangements, while he himself returned to the kitchen, much puzzled to account for his sister’s unusual fit of hospitality. “She must be fey”* he said, “and in that case has not long to live, and though I fall heir to her tocher-good, I am sorry for it; for she has held the house-gear well together—drawn the girth over tight it may be now and then, but the saddle sits the better. ” When Triptolemus returned to the kitchen, he found his suspicions confirmed, for his sister was in the desperate action of consigning to the pot a smoked goose, which, with others of the same tribe, had long hung in the large chimney, muttering to herself at the same time,—“It maun be eaten sune or syne, and what for no by the puir callant.” “What is this of it, sister?” said Triptolemus. “You have on the girdle and the pot at anes. What day is this wi’ you?” “E’en such a day as the Israelites had beside the flesh-pots ofEgypt, billie Triptolemus; but ye little ken wha ye have in your house this blessed day.” “Troth, and little I do ken,” said Triptolemus, “as little as I would ken the naig I never saw before. I would take the lad for a jagger, but he has rather ower good havings, and he has no pack.” “Ye ken as little as ane of your ain bits of nout, man,” retorted sister Baby; “if ye ken na him, do ye ken Tronda Dronsdaughter?” “Tronda Dronesdauter?” echoed Triptolemus—“how should I but ken her, when I pay her twal pennies Scots by the day, for working * When a person changes his condition suddenly, as when a miser becomes liberal, or a churl good-humoured, he is said, in Scots, to be fey; that is, predestined to speedy death, of which such mutations ofhumour are received as a secure indication.

46

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch.5

in the house here? I trow she works as if the things burned her fingers. I had better give a Scots lass a groat ofEnglish siller.” “And that’s the maist sensible word ye have said this blessed morn ing.—Weel, but Tronda kens this lad weel, and she has often spoke to me about him. They call his father the Silent Man of Sumburgh, and they 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 have stepped ower the tangs, or they have met an uncanny body, or they have turned about the boat against the sun, and then there’s nought to be done that day.” “Weel, weel, brother, ye are so wise,” said Baby, “because ye knapped Latin at Saint Andrews; and can your lair tell me then what the lad has round his halse?” “A Barcelona napkin, as wet as a dishclout, and I have just lent him one of my own owerlays,” said Triptolemus. “A Barcelona napkin!” said Baby, elevating her voice, and then suddenly lowering it, as from apprehension of being overheard—“I say a gold chain.” “A gold chain!” said Triptolemus. “In troth is it, hinny; and how like you that? The folk say here, as Tronda tells me, that the King of the Drows gave it to his father, the Silent Man of Sumburgh.” “I wish you would speak sense, or be the silent woman,” said Triptolemus. “The upshot of it all is, than, 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 God’s sake, and to make friends; and the lad,” added Baby, (for even she was not alto gether above the prejudices of her sex in favour of outward form,) “has a fair face of his ain.” “Ye would have let mony a fair face,” said Triptolemus, “pass the door pining, if it had not been for the gold chain.” “Nae doubt, nae doubt,” replied Barbara; “ye wad not 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 lasses; and so it wad be as much as our good name, and our quiet is worth forbye, 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 this is a man

[Chap. 5]

THE PIRATE

47

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 like 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 ofnot 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 mid-air 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 amuse ment 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 you 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 folks 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 on that day,) “it would be an unco thing to bid ony gudewife in Angus or a’ the Meams 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?”

48

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 5

“I did, to be sure,” replied Mordaunt; “you would not have a poor devil stand beating your deafdoor-cheeks in weather like this?—Here goes something, though, to help the fire,” he added, drawing out the sliding bar ofoak with which the door had been secured, and throwing it on the hearth, whence it was snatched 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 e’en.” “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 a pedlar, called ajagger 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 sate down without farther ceremony. Dame Baby stared “wild as grey goss-hawk,” 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 sharer of her domestic cares, who had been as yet in some remote comer of the mansion, now hobbled into the room, and broke out into exclamations which indic ated 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 Noma of Fitful-head, the most fearful woman in all the isles!” “Where can she have been wandering?” said Mordaunt, not with out some apparent sympathy with the surprise, ifnot 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 well nigh crazy with vexation. “I’ll soon settle her wandering, I sall warrant, ifmy brother has but the soul ofa man in him, or if there be a pair ofjougs at Scalloway.” “The iron was never forged on stithy that would hauld her,” said the old maid-servant. “She comes—she comes—God’s sake speak her fair and canny, or we will have a ravelled hasp on the yamwindles.” 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 pronouncing, with a solemn voice, “The blessing of God

[Chap. 5]

the pirate

49

and Saint Ronald on the open door, and their braid malison and mine upon close-handed churls!” “And wha are ye, that are sae bauld wi’ your blessing and banning in other folks’ houses? What kind of country is this, that folks 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 Mis tress Baby, and what effects it might have produced on the tall 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 in 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 there fore we must hold them excused for their lack of hospitality.” “I lack no hospitality, young man,” said Triptolemus, “miseris succurrere disco—the goose destined to roost in the chimney till Michael mas, 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 plough-share 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 shew we come of what was once noble and generous. I say to you beware—while Noma looks forth at the measureless waters, from the crest of Fitful-head, some thing 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 pronounced this singular tirade, was as striking in appearance as extravagantly lofty in her pretensions and in her lan guage. She might well have represented on the stage, so far as fea tures, 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,

50

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 5

the fire of a dark blue eye, whose hue almost approached to black, and had sprinkled snow on such part 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 coarse 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 ofplanetary signs—her blue apron was embroidered with similar devices, and covered a petticoat of crimson cloth. Strong thick enduring shoes, of the half-dressed leather ofthe 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 pass for a sacrificing knife or dagger, as the imagination of the spectator chose to assign 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 charac ters and figures, forming one of those portable and perpetual calen dars which were used among the ancient natives of Scandinavia, and which, to a superstitious eye, might have passed for a divining rod. Such were the appearance, features, and attire of Noma 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 venera tion. Less pregnant circumstances 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 superstitions of this nature pass 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 impostures. 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 classes, so much of the ancient northern superstition remained, as cherished the original veneration for those possessed of, or affecting supernatural knowledge and power over the elements, which made a constituent part of the ancient Scandinavian creed. At least if the natives of Thule admitted that one class of magicians performed their feats by their alliance with Satan, they devoutly believed that others dealt with spirits of a different and

[Chap. 6]

THE PIRATE

5I

less odious class—the ancient dwarfs, called, in Zetland, Trows or Drows, the modem 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 assigned to her, which signifies one of those fatal sisters who weave the web of human fate, had been conferred in honour of her supernat ural powers. The name by which she had been actually christened was carefully concealed by herself and her parents; for to the discovery they superstitiously annexed some fatal consequences. In these times, the doubt only occurred whether her supposed powers were acquired by lawful means. In our days, it would only 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 super natural 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 such energy of purpose, that it would have been difficult for the greatest sceptic to have doubted the reality ofher enthusiasm, though he might smile at the pretensions to which it gave rise.

Chapter Six ------ 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 Noma, 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 assembled 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 passions had a touch of acidity in them, “to quit the bonny Mearns land to come here, where there is naething but sturdy beggars and gaberlunzies within ane’s house, and heaven’s anger on the outside on’t!”

52

THE PIRATE

Vol. I, ch. 6

“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 Noma, of which, as they were couched in the Norse language, the master ofthe house understood nothing. She listened to them with a haughty and an unmoved air, and replied at length aloud, and in English—“I will not. What ifthis house be strewed in ruins before morning—where would be the world’s want in the crazed projector, and the niggardly pinch-commons, by which it is inhabited? They will needs come to reform Zetland cus toms, let them try how they like a Zetland storm.—You that would not perish, quit this house.” The pedlar or jagger seized on his little knapsack, and began hastily to brace it on his shoulders; the old maid-servant cast a cloak about her shoulders, and both seemed to be in the act of leaving the house. Triptolemus Yellowley, somewhat commoved by these appear ances, asked Mordaunt, with a voice which faultered with apprehen sion, 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. Noma 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 Noma can do?” said the sybil; “thou shalt know her powers are not bounded within such a narrow space. Hear me, Mordaunt, youth of a foreign land, but of a friendly heart— Doest 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 unlimited customs of 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 superstitious feel ings had been daunted by the threats of the supposed sorceress, and who, amidst her eager, narrow, and repining disposition, had 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.” “Hear me, young Mordaunt,” said Norna, “and depart from this

[Chap. 6]

THE PIRATE

53

house. Fate has high views on you—you shall not remain in this hovel to be crushed amid its worthless ruins, with the reliques of its more worthless inhabitants, whose life is as little to the world as the vegeta tion of the house-leek, which now grows on their thatch, and which shall be soon crushed amongst their mangled limbs.” “I—I—I will go forth,” said Yellowley, who, despite of his bearing himself scholarly and wisely, was beginning to be terrified for the issue of the adventure; for the house was old, and the walls rocked formid ably to the blast. “To what purpose?” said his sister. “I trust the Prince of the power of the air has not yet such like power over those that are made in God’s image, that a good house should fall about our heads, because a randy quean (here she darted a fierce glance at the Pythoness) should boast us with her glamour, as if we were sae mony dogs to crouch at her bidding.” “I was only wanting,” said Triptolemus, ashamed ofhis motion, “to look at the bear-braid, which must be sair laid wi’ this tempest; but if this honest woman like to bide wi’ us, I think it were best to let us a’ sit doun canny thegither, till it’s working weather again.” “Honest woman!” echoed Baby—“Foul warlock thief—aroint ye, ye limmer!” she added, addressing Noma directly; “out of an honest house, or, shame fa’ me, but I take the beetle to you!” Noma cast on her one look of supreme contempt, then stepping to the window, seemed engaged in deep contemplation of the heavens, while the old maid-servant, Tronda, drawing close to her mistress, implored, for the sake of all that was dear to man or woman, “do not provoke Norna of Fitful-head. You have no sic woman on the main landof Scotland—she can ride on one of these clouds as easily as man ever rode on a sheltie.” “I shall live to see her ride on the reek of a fat tar-barrel,” said Mistress Baby; “and that will be a fit pacing palfrey for her.” Again Noma regarded the enraged Mrs Baby Yellowley with a look of that unutterable scorn which her haughty features could so well express, and moving to the window which looked to the north-west, from which quarter the gale seemed at present to blow, she stood for some time with her arms crossed, looking out upon the leaden-col oured sky, obscured as it was by the thick drift, which, coming on in successive gusts of tempest, left ever and anon sad and dreary inter vals ofexpectation betwixt the dying and the reviving blast. Noma regarded this war of the elements as one to whom their strife was familiar; yet the stem serenity of her features had in it a cast of awe, and at the same time ofauthority, as the cabalist may be supposed to look upon the spirit he has evoked, and which, though he knows

54

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 6

how to subject him to his spell, bears still an aspect appalling to flesh and blood. The attendants stood by in different attitudes, expressive of their various feelings. Mordaunt, though not indifferent to the risk in which they stood, was more curious than alarmed. He had heard of Noma’s alleged power over the elements, and now expected an opportunity of judging for himself of its reality. Triptolemus Yellowley was confounded at what seemed to be far beyond the bounds of his philosophy; and, if the truth must be spoken, the worthy agriculturist was far more frightened than curious. His sister was not in the least curious on the subject; but it was difficult to say whether anger or fear predominated in her sharp eyes and thin compressed lips. The pedlar and old Tronda, confident that the house would never fail while the redoubted Noma was beneath its roof, held themselves ready for a start the instant she should take her departure. Having looked on the sky for some time in a fixed attitude, and with the most profound silence, Noma at once, yet with a slow and majestic gesture, extended her staff of black oak towards that part of the heavens from which the blast came hardest, and in the midst of its fury chaunted a Norwegian invocation, still preserved in the Island of Unst, under the name of the Song of the Reim-kennar, though some call it the Song of the Tempest. The following is a free translation, it being impossible to render literally many of the elliptical and meta phorical turns of expression peculiar to the ancient Northern poetry:— I. “Stern eagle of the far north-west, Thou that bearest in thy grasp the thunderbolt, Thou whose rushing pinions stir ocean to madness, Thou the destroyer of herds, thou the scatterer of navies, Amidst the scream of thy rage, Amidst the rushing of thy onward wings, Though thy scream be loud as the cry of a perishing million, Though the rushing of thy wings be like the roar of ten thousand waves, Yet hear, in thine ire and thy haste, Hear thou the voice of the Reim-kennar. 2. “Thou hast met the pine-trees of Drontheim, Their dark-green heads lie prostrate beside their uprooted stems; Thou hast met the rider of the ocean, The tall, the strong bark of the fearless rover, And she has struck to thee the topsail That she had not vail’d to a royal armada; Thou hast met the tower that bears its crest among the clouds, The battled massive tower of the Jarl of former days, And the cope-stone of the turret

[Chap. 6]

THE PIRATE

55

Is lying upon its hospitable hearth; But thou too shalt stoop, proud compeller of clouds, When thou hearest the voice of the Reim-kennar. “There are verses that can stop the stag in the forest, Ay, and when the dark-coloured dog is opening on his track; There are verses can make the wild hawk pause on the wing, Like the falcon that wears the hood and the jesses, And who knows the shrill whistle of the fowler; Thou who canst mock at the scream of the drowning mariner, And the crash of the ravaged forest, And the groan of the overwhelmed crowds, When the church hath fallen in the moment of prayer, There are sounds which thou also must list, When they are chaunted by the voice of the Reim-kennar.

4“Enough of woe hast thou wrought on the ocean, The widows wring their hands on the beach; Enough of woe hast thou wrought on the land, The husbandman folds his arms in despair; Cease thou the waving of thy pinions, Let the ocean repose in her dark strength; Cease thou the flashing of thine eye, Let the thunderbolt sleep in the armoury of Odin; Be thou still at my bidding, viewless racer of the north-western heaven, Sleep thou at the voice of Norna the Reim-kennar.”

We have said that Mordaunt was naturally fond of romantic poetry and romantic situation; it is not therefore surprising that he listened with interest to the wild address thus uttered to the wildest wind of the compass, in a tone of such dauntless enthusiasm. But though he had heard so much of the Runic rhyme and of the northern spell, in the country where he had so long dwelt, he was not on this occasion so credulous as to believe that the tempest, which had raged so lately, and which was now declining, was sinking subdued before the charmed verse ofNoma. Certain it was, that the blast seemed passing away, and the apprehended danger was already over; but it was not improbable that this issue had been for some time foreseen by the Pythoness, through signs of the weather, imperceptible to those who had not dwelt long in the country, or had not bestowed on the meteorological phenomena the attention of a strict and close observer. Of Norna’s experience he had no doubt, and that went a far way to explain what seemed supernatural in her demeanour. Yet still the noble counten­ ance, half-shaded by dishevelled tresses, the air of majesty with which, in a tone of menace as well as of command, she addressed the viewless spirit of the tempest, gave him a strong inclination to believe in the ascendancy of the occult arts over the powers of nature; for, if a

56

THE PIRATE

Vol. I, Ch. 6

woman ever moved on earth to whom such authority over the ordinary laws of the universe could belong, Norna of Fitful-head, judging from bearing, figure, and face, was bom to that high destiny. The rest of the company were less slow in receiving conviction. To Tronda and the jagger none was necessary; they had long believed in the full extent of Norna’s authority over the elements. But Tripto lemus and his sister gazed at each other with wondering and alarmed looks, especially when the wind began perceptibly to decline, as was especially visible during the pauses which Norna made betwixt the strophes of her incantation. A long silence followed the last verse, until Norna resumed her chaunt, but with a changed and more sooth ing modulation of voice and tune. “Eagle of the far north-western waters, Thou hast heard the voice of the Reim-kennar, Thou hast closed thy wide sails at her bidding, And folded them in peace by thy side. My blessing be on thy retiring path; When thou stoopest from thy place on high, Soft be thy slumbers in the caverns of the unknown ocean, Rest till destiny shall again awaken thee; Eagle of the north-west, thou hast heard the voice of the Reimkennar.”

“A pretty song that would be to keep the com from shaking in har’st,” whispered the agriculturist to his sister; “we must speak her fair, Baby—she will maybe part with the secret for a hundred pund Scots.” “An hundred fules’ heads,” replied Baby—“bid her five merk of ready siller. I never knew a witch in my life but she was as poor as Job.” Norna turned towards them as if she had guessed their thought; it may be that she did so. She passed them with a look of the most sovereign contempt, and walking to the table on which the prepara tions for Mrs Barbara’s frugal meal were already disposed, she filled a small wooden quaigh from an earthen pitcher which contained bland, a subacid liquor made out of the serous part of the milk. She broke a single morsel from a barley-cake, and having eaten and drunk, returned towards her churlish hosts. “I give you no thanks,” she said, “for my refreshment, for you bid me not welcome to it; and thanks bestowed on a churl are like the dew of heaven on the cliffs of Foulah, where it finds nought that can be refreshed by its influence. I give you no thanks,” she said again, but drawing from her pocket a leathern purse that seemed large and heavy, she added, “I pay you with what you will value more than the gratitude of the whole inhabitants of Hialtland. Say not that Norna of Fitful-head hath eaten of your bread and drank of your cup, and left you sorrowing for the charge to which

[Chap. 6]

THE PIRATE

57

she hath put your house.” So saying, she laid on the table a small piece of antique coin, bearing the rude and half-defaced effigies of some ancient northern king. Triptolemus and his sister exclaimed against this liberality with vehemence; the first protesting that he kept no public, and the other exclaiming, “Is the carline mad? Heard ye ever of ony of the gentle house of Clinkscale that gave meat for siller?” “Or for love either?” muttered her brother; “hand to that, tittie.” “What are ye whittie-whattieing about, ye gowk,” said his gentle sister, who suspected the tenor of his murmurs; “gie the ladie back her bonnie die there, and be blithe to be sae rid on’t—it will be a sclate-stane the mom, if not something worse.” The honest factor lifted the money to return it, yet could not help being struck when he saw the impression, and his hand trembled as he handed it to his sister. “Yes,” said the Pythoness again, as if she read the thoughts of the astonished pair, “you have seen that coin before—beware how you use it—it thrives not with the sordid or the mean-souled—it was won with honourable danger, and must be expended with honourable liberality. The treasure which lies under a cold hearth will one day, like the hidden talent, bear witness against its avaricious possessors.” This last obscure intimation seemed to raise the alarm and the wonder of Mrs Baby and her brother to the uttermost. The latter tried to stammer out something like an invitation to Norna to tarry with them all night, or at least to take share of the “dinner,” so he at first called it; but looking at the company, and remembering the limited contents of the pot, he corrected the phrase, and hoped she would take some part of the “snack, which would be on the table ere a man could loose a pleugh.” “I eat not here—I sleep not here,” replied Norna—“nay, I relieve you not only of my own presence, but I will dismiss your unwelcome guests.—Mordaunt,” she added, addressing young Mertoun, “the dark fit is passed, and your father looks for you this evening.” “Do you return in that direction?” said Mordaunt. “I will but eat a morsel and give you my aid, good mother, on the road—the brooks must be out, and the journey perilous.” “Our ways lie different,” answered the Sybil, “and Norna needs not mortal arm to aid her on the way. I am summoned far to the east, by those who know well how to smooth my passage. For thee, Bryce Snaelsfoot,” she continued, speaking to the pedlar, “speed thee on to Sumburgh—the Roost will afford thee a gallant harvest, and worthy the gathering in. Much goodly ware will ere now be seeking a new owner, and the careful skipper will sleep still enough in the deep haaf,

58

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch.6

and cares not that bale and kist are dashing against the shores.” “Na, na, goodmother,” answered Snaelsfoot, “I desire no man’s life for my private advantage, and am just grateful for the blessing of Providence on my sma’ trade. But doubtless one man’s loss is another’s gain; and as these storms destroy a’ thing on land, it is but fair they suld send us something by sea. Sae, taking the freedom, like yoursell, mother, to borrow a lump of barley bread, and a draught of bland, I will bid good day, and thank you, to this good gentleman and lady, and e’en go on my way to Jarlshof, as you advise.” “Ay,” replied the Pythoness, “where the slaughter is, the eagles will be gathered; and where the wrack is on the shore, the jagger is as busy to purchase spoil as the shark to gorge upon the dead.” This rebuke, if it was intended for such, seemed above the compre hension of the travelling merchant, who, bent upon gain, assumed the knapsack and ellwand, and asked Mordaunt, with the familiarity per mitted in a wild country, whether he would not take company along with him. “I wait to eat some dinner with Mr Yellowley and Mrs Baby,” answered the youth, “and will set forward in half an hour.” “Then I’ll just take my piece in my hand,” said the pedlar. Accord ingly he muttered a benediction, and without more ceremony, helped himself to what, in Mrs Baby’s covetous eyes, appeared to be twothirds of the bread, took a long pull at the jug of bland, seized on a handful of the small fish called sillochs, which the domestic was just placing on the board, and left the room without farther ceremony. “My certie,” said the despoiled Mrs Baby, “there is the chapman’s drouth and his hunger baith, as folks say. If the laws against vagrants be executed this gate—It’s no that I wad shut the door against decent folks,” she said, looking to Mordaunt, “more especially in such judge ment-weather. But I see the goose is dished, poor thing.” This she spoke in a tone of affection for the smoked goose, which, though it had been long an inanimate inhabitant of her chimney, was far more interesting to Mrs Baby in that state, than when it screamed amongst the clouds. Mordaunt laughed and took his seat, then turned to look for Norna, but she had glided from the apartment during the discussion with the pedlar. “I am glad she is gaen, the dour carline,” said Mrs Baby, “though she has left that piece of gowd to be an everlasting shame to us.” “Whisht, mistress, for the love of heaven,” said Tronda Drons daughter; “wha kens where she may be this moment—we are no sure but she may hear us, though we canna see her.” Mistress Baby cast a startled eye around, and instantly recovering herself, for she was naturally courageous as well as violent, she said, “I

[Chap. 6]

THE PIRATE

59

bid her aroint before, and I bid her aroint again, whether she sees me or hears me, or whether she’s ower the cairn and awa.—And you, ye silly sumph,” she said to poor Yellowley, “what do ye stand glowering there for?—You a Saunt Andrews student!—You studied lair and Latin humanities, as you call them, and daunted wi’ the clavers of an auld randie wife! Say your best college grace, man, and witch, or nae witch, we’ll eat our dinner and defy her. And for the value of the gowden piece, it shall never be said I pouched her siller. I will gie it to some poor body—that is, I will test upon it at my death, and keep it for a purse-penny till that day comes, and that’s no using it in the way of spending-siller. Say your best college grace, man, and let us eat and drink in the meantime.” “Ye had mickle better say an oraamus to Saint Ronald, and fling a sixpence ower your left shouther, master,” said Tronda. “That ye may pick it up, ye jaud,” said the implacable Mistress Baby; “it will be lang or ye win the worth of it ony other gate.—Sit down, Triptolemus, and mind na the words of a daft wife.” “Daft or wise,” replied Yellowley, very much disconcerted, “she kens mair than I would wish she kend. It was awfu’ to see sic a wind fa’ at the voice of flesh and blood like oursells—and then yon about the hearth-stane—I cannot but think”-----“If ye cannot but think,” said Mistress Baby, very sharply, “at least ye can haud your tongue.” The agriculturist made no reply, but sate down to their scanty meal, and did the honours of it with unusual heartiness to his new guest, the first of the intruders who had arrived, and the last who left them. The sillochs speedily disappeared, and the smoked goose, with its append ages, took wing so effectually, that Tronda, to whom the polishing of the bones had been destined, found the task accomplished, or nearly so, to her hand. After dinner, the host produced his bottle of brandy, but Mordaunt, whose general habits were as sober almost as those of his father, laid a very light tax upon this unusual exertion ofhospitality. During the meal, they learned so much of young Mordaunt, and of his father, that even Baby resisted his wish to re-assume his wet garments, and pressed him (at the risk of an expensive supper being added to the charges of the day) to tarry with them till the next morning. But what Norna had said excited the youth’s wish to reach home, nor, however far the hospitality of Stourburgh was extended in his behalf, did the house present any particular temptations to induce him to remain there longer. He therefore accepted the loan of the factor’s clothes, promised to return them, and send for his own; and took a civil leaving of his host and Mistress Baby, the latter of whom, however affected by the loss of her goose, could not but think the cost

60

THE pirate

Vol. I,ch.7

well bestowed (since it was to be expended at all) upon so handsome and cheerful a youth.

Chapter Seven She does no work by halves, yon ravening ocean; Engulphing those she strangles, her wild womb Affords the mariners whom she hath dealt on, Their death at once, and sepulchre. Old Play

There were ten “lang Scots miles” betwixt Stourburgh and Jarlshof; and though our pedestrian did not number all the impedi ments which crossed Tam o’ Shanter’s path,—for, in country where there are neither hedges nor stone inclosures, there can be neither “slaps nor stiles,”—yet the number and nature of the “waters and mosses” which he had to cross in his peregrination, were fully suffi cient to balance the account, and to render his journey as toilsome and dangerous as that of the celebrated retreat from Ayr. Neither witch nor warlock crossed Mordaunt’s path, however. The length ofthe day was already considerable, and he arrived safe at Jarlshof by eleven o’clock at night. All was still and dark around the mansion, and it was not till he had whistled twice or thrice beneath Swertha’s window, that she replied to the signal. At the first sound, Swertha fell into an agreeable dream of a young whale-fisher, who some forty years since used to make such a signal beneath the window of her hut; at the second, she waked to remember with a sigh that Johnnie Fea slept sound amongst the frozen waves of Greenland for this many a year, and that she was Mr Mertoun’s gouvemante at Jarlshof; at the third, she arose and opened the win dow. “ Whae is that,” she demanded, “at sic an hour of the night?” “It is I,” said the youth. “And what for come na ye in? The door’s on the latch, and there is a gathering peat on the kitchen fire, and a spunk beside it—ye can light yourain candle.” “All well,” replied Mordaunt; “but I want to know how my father is.” “Just in his ordinary, gude gentleman—asking for you, Master Mordaunt; ye are ower far and ower late in your walks, young gentle man.” “Then the dark hour has passed, Swertha?” “In troth has it, Master Mordaunt,” answered the gouvemante; “and your father is very reasonably good-natured for him, poor gen

[Chap. 7]

THE PIRATE

6I

tleman. I spake to him twice yesterday without his speaking first; and the first time he answered me as civil as you could do, and the neist time he bade me no plague him; and then, thought I, three times were aye canny, so I spake to him again for luck’s-sake, and he called me a chattering old devil, but it was quite and clean in a civil sort of way.” “Enough, enough, Swertha,” answered Mordaunt; “and now get up and find me something to eat, for I have dined but poorly.” “Then you have been at the new folks at Stourburgh? for there is no another house in a’ the Isles but they wad hae gi’en ye the best share of the best they had. Saw ye ought of Norna of the Fitfulhead? She went to Stourburgh this morning, and returned to the town at night.” “Returned!—then she is here—how could she travel three leagues and better in so short a time?” “Wha kens how she travels,” replied Swertha; “but I heard her tell the Ranzelman wi’ my ain lugs, that she intended that day to have gone on to Burgh Westra, to speak with Minna Troil, but she had seen that at Stourburgh (indeed she said at Harfra, for she never calls it by the other name of Stourburgh,) that sent her back to our town. But gang your ways round, and ye shall have plenty of supper. Ours is nae toom pantry, and still less a locked ane, though my master be a stranger, and no just that tight in the upper rigging, as the Ranzelman says.” Mordaunt walked round to the kitchen accordingly, where Swertha’s care speedily accommodated him with a plentiful, though coarse meal, which indemnified him for the scanty hospitality he had experienced at Stourburgh. In the morning, some feelings of fatigue made young Mertoun later than usual in leaving his bed; so that, contrary to what was the ordin ary case, he found his father in the apartment where they eat, and which served them indeed for every common purpose, save that of a bed-chamber or of a kitchen. The son greeted the father in mute reverence, and waited until he should address him. “You were absent yesterday, Mordaunt,” said his father. Mor daunt’s absence had lasted a week and more; but he had often observed that his father never seemed to notice how time passed during the time he was afflicted with his sullen vapours. He assented to what the elder Mr Mertoun had said. “And you were at Burgh Westra, as I think,” continued his father. “Yes, sir,” replied Mordaunt. The elder Mertoun was then silent for some time, and paced the floor in deep silence, with an air of sombre reflection, which seemed as if he was about to relapse into his moody fit. Suddenly turning to his son, however, he observed, in the tone of a query, “Magnus Troil has

62

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch.7

two daughters—they must be now young women; they are thought handsome, of course?” “Very generally, sir,” answered Mordaunt, rather surprised to hear his father making any inquiries about the individuals of a sex which he usually thought so light of, a surprise which was much’increased by the next question, put as abruptly as the former. “Which think you the handsomest?” “I sir?” replied his son with some wonder, but without embarrass ment—“I really am no judge—I—I never considered which was absolutely the handsomest—they are both very pretty young women.” “You evade my question, Mordaunt; perhaps I have some very particular reason for my wish to be acquainted with your taste in this matter. I am not used to waste words for no purpose. I ask you again, which ofMagnus Troil’s daughters you think most handsome?” “Really, sir,” replied Mordaunt—“but you only jest in asking me such a question.” “Young man,” replied Mertoun, with eyes which began to roll and sparkle with impatience, “I never jest. I desire an answer to my ques tion.” “Then, upon my word, sir,” said Mordaunt, “it is not in my power to form a judgment betwixt the young ladies—they are both very pretty, but by no means like each other. Minna is dark-haired, and more grave than her sister—more serious, but by no means either dull or sullen.” “Um,” replied his father; “you have been gravely brought up, and this Minna, I suppose, pleases you most?” “No, sir, really I can give her no preference over her sister Brenda, who is as gay as a lamb in a spring morning—less tall than her sister, but so well formed, and so excellent a dancer”-----“That she is best qualified to amuse the young man who has a dull home and a moody father,” said Mr Mertoun. Nothing in his father’s conduct had ever surprised Mordaunt so much as the obstinacy with which he seemed to pursue a theme so foreign to his general strain of thought, and habits of conversation; but he contented himself with answering once more, “that both the young ladies were highly admirable, but he had never thought of them with the wish to do either injustice by ranking her lower than her sister —that others would probably decide between them as they happened to be partial to a grave or a gay disposition, or to a dark or fair complexion; but that he could see no excellent quality in the one that was not balanced by something equally captivating in the other.” It is possible that even the coolness with which Mordaunt made this explanation might not have satisfied his father concerning the subject

[Chap. 7]

THE PIRATE

63

of investigation; but Swertha at this moment entered with breakfast, and the youth, notwithstanding his late supper, engaged in that meat with an air which satisfied Mertoun that he held it matter of more grave importance than the conversation which they had just held, and that he had nothing more to say upon the subject explanatory of the answers he had already given. He shaded his brow with his hand, and looked long fixedly upon the young man as he was busied with his morning meal. There was neither abstraction nor a sense of being observed in any of his motions; all was frank, natural, and open. “He is fancy-free,” muttered Mertoun to himself—“so young, so lively, and so imaginative, so handsome and attractive in face and person, strange, that at his age, and in his circumstances, he should have avoided the meshes which catch all the world beside.” When the breakfast was over, the elder Mertoun, instead of pro posing, as usual, that his son, who awaited his commands, should betake himself to one branch or other of his studies, assumed his hat and staff, and desired that Mordaunt should accompany him to the top of the cliff, called Sumburgh-head, and from thence look out upon the state of the ocean, agitated as it must still be by the tempest of the preceding day. Mordaunt was at the age when young men willingly exchange sedentary pursuits for active exercise, and he started up with alacrity to comply with his father’s request; and in the course of a few minutes they were mounting together the hill, which, ascending from the land side in a long, steep, and grassy slope, sinks at once from the summit to the sea in an abrupt and tremendous precipice. 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 land scape 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 around 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 assured, 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 assistance of his arm, was an act of youthful deference to advanced age, as well as of filial reverence, and Mertoun seemed at

64

THE pirate

Vol. I,ch.7

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 himselfof 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 paces, 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 circumstances, that he loved him not even while he took much pains of 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 painfully forced upon him than by the hasty churlishness with which Mertoun rejected from a son that assistance 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 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 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 compass of a sea-circled 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 wouldest 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

[Chap. 7]

THE PIRATE

65

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 alto gether displeased at what promised him an opportunity of looking further 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 speakst 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 ofthe 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?” “I really do not know, sir,” said Mordaunt, whom certain recol lections prevented from fully entering into his father’s humour. “You think the matter too serious to be jested with, or perhaps esteem her merchandize too light to be cared after,” continued Mer toun, 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 cur rently bought and sold;—the wretches that sweep yonder boisterous ocean with their nets, pay ransom for the privilege ofbeing drowned in it. What title 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 portion of hell. 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 quantities. Yesterday she was a wholesale dealer—whoever traded with her had too good a pennyworth.” “It is even so,” said the father, pausing on the verge of the wild promontory which they had attained, where the huge precipice sinks

66

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch.7

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 yields to the action of the atmosphere, and becomes split into large masses, that hang loose upon the verge of the precipice, and, detached from it by the fury of the tempests, often descend with great fury to the vexed abyss which lashes the foot of the rock. Numbers of these huge fragments lie strewed beneath the rocks from which they have descended, and among these the tide foams and rages with a fury peculiar to these latitudes. 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 the yesterday’s storm, which had been far too violent 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 sate 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, “God in Heaven! there is a vessel in the Roost.” Mertoun looked to the north-westward, and an object was visible at intervals amid the rolling tide. “She shews no sail,” he observed; and immediately added, after looking at the object through his spy-glass, “She is dismasted, and lies a sheer-hulk upon the water.” “And is drifting on the Sumburgh-head,” said Mordaunt, struck with horror, “without the slightest means of weathering the cape.” “She makes no effort,” replied 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 stem 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 battle-field, 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

[Chap. 7]

THE PIRATE

67

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 shews its black-fin above the waves, now throws to view its huge black side. Now, however, they could more distinctly observe the appearance of the ship, for the huge swelling waves which bore it forwards to the shore, heaved it alternately high upon the surface, and then plunged it 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 it came, the large black hulk seeming larger at every fathom’s length. She came nearer, until she bestrode the summit of

68

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 7

one tremendous billow, which rolled on with her unbroken, till the wave and its burthen were precipitated against the rock, and there the triumph of the elements over the work of human hands was at once completed. One wave, we have said, made the wrecked vessel com pletely 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 quantity of beams, planks, casks, and similar objects, which it 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 a-shore upon a small spit 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 crannies in the rock, a des cent, which, to a spectator, appeared little less 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 enterprize. “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 decay ing 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 ofJarlshof 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 pass, his adventurous and active son had accomplished his more desperate enterprize. 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

[Chap. 7]

THE PIRATE

69

to entrust his weight, gave 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 space 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 spit of sand, stones, 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 which 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 which had, after the first shock, been seen to float upon the waves, was swallowed up in the ocean, 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 which had 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 shore, in which case the man’s death was inevitable. Just as he had made himself aware ofthese circumstances, Mordaunt beheld a huge wave advancing, and hast ened 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 stronger 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 out to sea 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 to the attack, he drew up, upon the small slip of dry sand, both the body ofthe man, 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

70

THE pirate

Vol. I,ch.7

assistance 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 assistance; but his eye could not distin guish 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 shewed youth and comeliness, notwithstanding they were pallid and disfigured. He still breathed, but so feebly, that his respiration seemed 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 hand kerchief 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 assistance, whilst he anxiously looked round for some one who might lend his aid in dragging the unfortunate to a more safe situation. At this moment he beheld a man advancing slowly and cautiously along the beach. He was in hopes, at first, it was his father, but instantly recollected that he had not had time to come round by the circuitous descent, to which he must necessarily have recourse, and besides he saw that the man who approached him was shorter in stature. As he came nearer, Mordaunt was at no loss to recognize the pedlar whom the day before he had met with at Harfra, and who was known to him before upon many occasions. He shouted as loud as he could, “Bryce, hollo! Bryce, come hither!” But the merchant, intent upon picking up some of the spoils of the wreck, and upon dragging them out of reach of the tide, paid for some time little attention to his shouts. When he did at length approach Mordaunt, it was not to lend him his aid, but to remonstrate with him on his rashness in undertaking the charitable office. “Are you mad?” said he; “you that have lived sae lang in Zetland, to risk the saving of a drowning man—wot ye not, if you bring him on life again, he will be sure to do you some capital injury?—Come, Master Mordaunt, bear a hand to what’s mair to the purpose. Help me to get ane or twa of these kists ashore before any body else comes, and we will share, like good Christians, what God sends us, and be thankful.” Mordaunt was indeed no stranger to this inhuman superstition, current at a former period among the lower order of the Zetlanders, and the more generally adopted, perhaps, that it served as an apology for refusing assistance to the unfortunate victims of shipwreck, while they made plunder of their goods. At any rate, the opinion, that to save

[Chap. 7]

THE PIRATE

7I

a drowning man was to run the risk of future injury from him, formed a strange contradiction in the character of these islanders; who, hospitable, generous, and disinterested on all other occasions, were sometimes, nevertheless, induced by this superstition, to refuse their aid in those mortal emergencies, which were so common upon their rocky and stormy coasts. We are happy to add, that the exhortation and example of the proprietors have eradicated even the traces of this inhuman belief, of which there might be some observed within the memory of those now alive. It is strange that the minds of men should have ever been hardened towards those involved in a distress to which they themselves were so constantly exposed; but perhaps the constant sight and consciousness of such danger tends to blunt the feelings to its consequences, whether affecting ourselves or others. Bryce was remarkably tenacious of this ancient belief; the more so, perhaps, that the recruiting of his pack depended less upon the mer chants of Lerwick or Kirkwall, than on the consequences of such a north-western gale as that of the day preceding; for which (being a man who, in his own way, professed great devotion) he seldom failed to express his grateful thanks to heaven. It was indeed said of him, that if he had spent the same time in assisting the wrecked seamen, that he had done in rifling their bales and boxes, he would have saved many lives, and lost much linen. He paid no sort of attention to the repeated entreaties of Mordaunt, although he was now upon the same slip of sand with him—well-known to Bryce as a place on which the eddy was likely to land such spoils as the ocean disgorged—but occupied him self busily in securing and appropriating whatever seemed most port able and of greatest value. At length Mordaunt saw the honest pedlar fix his views upon a strong sea-chest, framed of some Indian wood, well secured by brass plates, and seeming to be of a foreign construc tion. The stout lock resisted all Bryce’s efforts to open it, until, with great composure, he plucked from his pocket a very neat hammer and chisel, and began forcing the hinges. Incensed at his assurance beyond patience, Mordaunt caught up a wooden stretcher which lay near him, and laying his charge softly on the sand, approached Bryce with a menacing gesture, and exclaimed, “You cold-blooded inhuman rascal! either get up instantly and lend me your assistance to recover this man, and bear him out of danger from the surf, or I will not only beat you to a mummy on the spot, but inform Magnus Troil of your thievery, that he may have you flogged till your bones are bare, and then banish you from the main island.” The lid of the chest had just sprung open as this rough address saluted Bryce’s ears, and the inside presented a tempting view of wearing apparel for sea and land, shirts, plain and with lace ruffles,

72

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch.7

a silver compass, a silver-hilted sword, and other valuable articles, which the pedlar well knew to be such as stir in the trade. He was half disposed to start up, draw the sword, which was a cut-and-thrust, and “darraign battaile,” as Spenser says, rather than quit his prize, or brook interruption. Being, though short, a stout square-made person age, and not much past the prime of life, having besides the better weapon, he might have given Mordaunt more trouble than his bene volent knight-errantry deserved. Already, as with vehemence he repeated his injunctions that Bryce should forbear his plunder, and come to the assistance of the dying man, the pedlar retorted with a voice of defiance, “Dinna swear, sir; dinna swear, sir—I will endure no swearing in my presence; and ifyou lay a finger on me, that am taking the lawful spoil of the Egyptians, I will give ye a lesson ye shall remember from this day to Yule.” Mordaunt would speedily have put the pedlar’s courage to the test, but a voice behind him suddenly said, “Forbear!” It was the voice of Norna of the Fitful-head, who, during the heat of their altercation, had approached them unobserved. “Forbear,” she repeated; “and, Bryce, do thou render Mordaunt the assistance he requires. It shall avail thee more, and it is I who say the word, than all that you could win to-day besides.” “It is seenteen-hundred linen,” said the pedlar, giving a tweak to one of the shirts, in that knowing manner with which matrons and judges ascertain the texture of the loom; “it’s seenteen-hundred linen, and as strong as an it were dowlas. Nevertheless, mother, your bidding is to be done; and I would have done Master Mordaunt’s bidding too,” he added, relaxing from his note of defiance, into the deferential whining tone with which he cajoled his customers, “if he hadna made use of profane oaths, which made my very flesh grue, and caused me, in some sort, to forget mysell.” He then took a flask from his pocket, and approached the shipwrecked man. “It’s the best of brandy,” he said; “and if that does na cure him, I ken nought that will.” So saying, he took a preliminary gulp himself, as if to shew the quality of the liquor, and was about to put it to the man’s mouth, when suddenly withholding his hand, he looked at Norna—“You insure me against all risk of evil from him, if I am to render him my help?—You ken yoursel what folks say, mother.” For all other answer, Norna took the bottle from the pedlar’s hand, and began to chafe the temples and throat of the shipwrecked man; directing Mordaunt how to hold his head, so as to afford him the means of disgorging the sea-water which he had swallowed during his immersion. The pedlar looked on inactive for a moment, and then said, “To be

[Chap. 7]

THE PIRATE

73

sure there is not the same risk in helping him now he is out of the water, and lying high and dry on the beach; and, to be sure, the principal danger is, to those that first touch him; and, to be sure, it is a world’s pity to see how these rings are pinching the puir creature’s swalled fingers—they make his hand as blue as a partan’s back before boiling.” So saying, he seized one of the man’s cold hands, which had just, by a tremulous motion, indicated the return of life, and began his charitable work of removing the rings, which seemed to be of some value. “As you love your life, forbear,” said Norna sternly, “or I will lay that on you which shall spoil your travels through the isles.” “Now, for mercy’s sake, mother, say nae mair about it,” said the pedlar, “and I’ll e’en do your pleasure in your ain way. I did feel a rheumatize in my back-spauld yestreen; and it wad be a sair thing for the like of me to be debarred my quiet walk round the country, in the way oftrade—making the honest penny, and helping myselfwith what Providence sends on our coasts.” “Peace, then,” said the woman—“Peace, as thou wouldst not rue it; and take this man on thy broad shoulders. His life is of value, and you will be rewarded.” “I had muckle need,” said the pedlar, pensively looking at the lidless chest, and the other matters which strewed the sand; “for he has corned between me and as mickle spreacherie as wad hae made a man of me for the rest of my life; and now it maun lie here till the next tide sweep it a’ doun the Roost, after them that aught it yesterday morning.” “Fear not,” said Norna, “it will come to man’s use. See, there come carrion-crows, of scent as keen as thine own.” She spoke truly, for several of the people from the hamlet ofJarlshof were now hastening along the beach, to have their share in the spoil. The pedlar beheld their approach with a deep groan. “Ay, ay,” he said, “the folk ofJarlshof, they will make clean wark; they are ken’d for that far and wide; they winna leave the value of a rotten ratlin; and what’s waur, there isna ane o’ them has mense or sense eneugh to give thanks for the mercies when they have gotten them. There is the auld Ranzelman, Niel Ronaldson, that canna walk a mile to hear the minis ter, but he will hirple ten if he hears of a ship embayed.” Norna, however, seemed to possess over him so complete an ascendancy, that he no longer hesitated to take the man, who now gave strong symptoms of reviving existence, upon his shoulders; and, assisted by Mordaunt, trudged along the sea-beach with his burthen, without farther remonstrance. Ere he was borne off, the stranger pointed to the chest, and attempted to mutter something, to which

74

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch.7

Norna replied, “Enough—it shall be secured.” Advancing towards the passage called Erick’s steps, by which they were to ascend the cliff, they met the people from Jarlshof, hastening in the opposite direction. Man and woman, as they passed, reverently made room for Norna, and saluted her—not without expression of fear upon some of their faces. She passed them a few paces, and then turning back called aloud to the Ranzelman, who (though the practice was more common than legal) was attending the rest of the hamlet upon this plundering expedition. “Niel Ronaldson,” she said, “mark my words. There stands yonder a kist, from which the lid has been just prized off. Look it be brought down to your own house at Jarlshof, just as it now is. Beware of moving or touching the slightest article. He were better in his grave, that so much as looks at the contents. I speak not for nought, nor in aught will I be disobeyed.” “Your pleasure shall be done, mother,” said Ronaldson. “I warrant we will not break bulk, since sic is your bidding.” Far behind the rest of the villagers, followed an old woman, talking to herself, and banning her own decrepitude, which kept her the last of the party, yet pressing forward with all her might to get her share of the spoil. When they met her, Mordaunt was astonished to recognize his father’s old housekeeper.—“How now,” he said, “Swertha, what make you so far from home?” “Just e’en daikering out to look after my auld master and your honour,” replied Swertha, who felt like a criminal caught in the man ner; for on more occasions than one, Mr Mertoun had intimated his high disapprobation of such excursions as she was at present engaged in. But Mordaunt was too much engaged with his own thoughts to take much notice of her delinquency. “Have you seen my father?” he said. “And that I have,” replied Swertha—“The gude gentleman was ganging to hirsel himsell doun Erick’s steps, whilk would have been the ending of him, that is in no way a crag’s-man. Sae I e’en gat him wiled away hame—and I was just seeking you that you may gang after him to the hall-house, for, to my thought, he is far frae weel.” “My father unwell?” said Mordaunt, remembering the faintness he had exhibited at the commencement of that morning’s walk. “Far frae weel—far frae weel,” groaned out Swertha, with a piteous shake of the head—“white o’ the gills—white o’ the gills—and him to think of coming down the riva!” “Return home, Mordaunt,” said Norna, who was listening to what passed. “I will see all that is necessary done for this man’s relief, and you will find him at the Ranzelman’s, when you list to inquire. You

[Chap. 8]

THE PIRATE

75

cannot help him more than you already have done.” Mordaunt felt that this was true, and, commanding Swertha to follow him home instantly, betook himself to the path homeward. Swertha hobbled reluctantly after her young master in the same direc tion, until she lost sight of him on his entering the cleft of the rock, then instantly turned about, muttering to herself, “Haste home, in good sooth?—haste home, and lose the best chance of getting a new rokelay and owrelay that I have had these ten years? by my certie, na— It’s seldom sic rich Godsends come on our coast—no since the Jenny and James came ashore in King Charlie’s time.” So saying, she mended her pace as well as she could, and a willing mind making amends for frail limbs, pushed on with wonderful dis patch to put in for her share of the spoil. She soon reached the beach, where the Ranzelman, stuffing his own pouches all the while, was exhorting the rest to part things fair, and be neighbourly, and to give the auld and helpless a share of what was going, which he charitably remarked, would bring a blessing on the shore, and send them “mair wrecks ere winter.”

Chapter Eight He was a lovely youth! I guess The panther in the wilderness Was not so fair as he. And when he chose to sport and play, No dolphin ever was so gay, Upon the tropic sea. Wordsworth

The light foot of Mordaunt Mertoun was not long of bearing him to Jarlshof. He entered the house hastily, for what he himself had observed that morning, corresponded in some degree with the ideas which Swertha’s tale was calculated to excite. He found his father, however, in the inner apartment, reposing himself after his fatigue; and his first question satisfied him that the good dame had practised a little imposition to get rid ofthem both. “Where is this dying man whom you have so wisely ventured your own neck to relieve?” said the elder Mertoun to the younger. “Norna, sir,” replied Mordaunt, “has taken him under her charge. She understands such matters.” “And is quack as well as witch?” said the elder Mertoun. “With all my heart—it is a trouble saved. But I hasted home on Swertha’s hint, to look out for lint and bandages, for her speech was of broken bones.”

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 8

Mordaunt kept silence, well knowing his father would not perse vere in his enquiries upon such a matter, and not willing either to prejudice the old gouvernante, or to excite his father to one of those excesses of passion into which he was apt to burst, when, contrary to his wont, he thought proper to correct the conduct of his domestic. It was late in the day ere old Swertha returned from her expedition, heartily fatigued, and bearing with her a bundle of some bulk, con taining, it would seem, her share of the spoil. Mordaunt instantly sought her out, to charge her with the deceits she had practised on both his father and himself; but the accused matron lacked not her reply. “By her troth,” she said, “she thought it was time to bid Mr Mer toun gang hame and get bandages, when she had seen, with her ain twa een, Mordaunt ganging down the cliff like a wild cat—it was to be thought broken bones would be the end, and lucky if bandages wad do any good—and, by her troth, she might weel tell Mordaunt his father was puirly, and him looking sae white in the gills, (whilk, she wad die upon it, was the very word she used,) and it was a thing that couldna be denied by man at that very moment.” “But, Swertha,” said Mordaunt, as soon as her clamorous defence gave him time to speak in reply, “how came you, that should have been busy with your housewifery and your spinning, to be out this morning at Erick’s steps, in order to take all this unnecessary care of my father and me? And what is in that bundle, Swertha? for I fear, Swertha, you have been transgressing the law, and have been out upon the wrecking system.” “Fair fa’ your sonsy face, and the blessing of Saint Ronald upon you,” said Swertha, in a tone betwixt coaxing and jesting; “would you keep a puir body frae mending hersell, and sae muckle gear lying on the loose sand for the lifting?—Hout, Master Mordaunt, a ship ashore is a sight to wile the minister out ofhis very pu’pit in the middle of his preaching, muckle mair a puir auld ignorant wife frae her rock and her tow—and little did I get for my day’s wark—just some rags o’ cambric things, and a bit or twa of coarse claith, and sic like—The strong and the hearty get a’ thing in this warld.” “Yes, Swertha,” replied Mertoun, “and that is rather hard, as you must have your share of punishment in this world and the next, for robbing the poor mariners.” “Hout, callant, wha wad punish an auld wife like me for a whin duds?—Folk speak muckle black ill of Earl Patrick, but he was a friend to the shore, and made wise laws against ony body helping vessels that were like to gang on the breakers. * —And the mariners, I * This was literally true.

[Chap. 8]

THE PIRATE

77

have heard Bryce Jagger say, lose their right frae the time keel touches sand; and, moreover, they are dead and gane, poor souls—dead and gane, and care little about warld’s wealth now—Nay, nae mair than the great Jarls and Sea-kings, in the Norse days, did about the treas ures that they buried in the tombs and sepulchres auld lang syne. Did I ever tell you the sang, Master Mordaunt, how Olaf Tryguarsen gard hide five gold crouns in the same grave with him?” “No, Swertha,” said Mordaunt, who took pleasure in tormenting the cunning old plunderer—“You never told me that; but I tell you, that the stranger, whom Norna has taken down to the town, will be well enough to-morrow, to ask where you have hidden the goods that you have stolen from the wreck.” “But wha will tell him a word about it, hinnie?” said Swertha, looking slily up in her young master’s face—“The mair by token, since I maun tell ye, that I have a bonnie remnant of silk amang the lave, that will make a dainty waistcoat to yoursell, the first merry-making ye gang to.” Mordaunt could no longer forbear laughing at the cunning with which the old dame proposed to bribe off his evidence by imparting a portion of her plunder; and, desiring her to get ready what provisions she had made for dinner, he returned to his father, whom he still found sitting in the same place, and nearly in the same posture, in which he had left him. When their hasty and frugal meal was finished, Mordaunt announced to his father his purpose of going down to the town, or hamlet, to look after the shipwrecked sailor. The elder Mertoun assented with a nod. “He must be ill accommodated there, sir,” added his son,—a hint which only produced another nod of assent. “He seemed, from his appearance,” pursued Mordaunt, “to be of very good rank—and, admitting these poor people do their best to receive him, in his present weak state, yet”-----“I know what you would say,” said his father, interrupting; “we, you think, ought to do something towards assisting him. Go to him, then— if he lacks money, let him name the sum, and he shall have it; but, for lodging the stranger here, and holding intercourse with him, I neither can, nor will do so. I have retired to this farthest extremity of the British isles, to avoid new friends and new faces, and none such shall intrude on me either their happiness or their misery. When you have known the world half a score of years longer, your early friends will have given you reason to remember them, and to avoid new ones for the rest of your life. Go then—why do you stop?—rid the country of the man—let me see no one about me but those vulgar countenances,

78

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 8

the extent and character of whose petty knavery I know, and can submit to, as to an evil too trifling to cause irritation.” He then threw his purse to his son, and signed to him to depart with all speed. Mordaunt was not long before he reached the village. In the dark abode of Niel Ronaldson, the Ranzelman, he found the stranger, seated by the peat-fire, upon the very chest which had excited the cupidity of the devout Bryce Snaelsfoot, the pedlar. The Ranzelman himselfwas absent, dividing, with all due impartiality, the spoils of the wrecked vessel amongst the natives of the community; listening to, and redressing their complaints of inequality; and (if the matter in hand had not been, from the beginning to end, utterly unjust and indefensible) discharging the part of a wise and prudent magistrate, in all the details relating to it. For at this time, and probably until a much later period, the lower order of the islanders entertained an opinion, common to barbarians elsewhere in the same situation, that whatever was cast on their shores, became their indisputable property. Marjory Bimbister, the worthy spouse of the Ranzelman, was in the charge of the house, and introduced Mordaunt to her guest, saying, with no great ceremony, “This is the young tacksman—you will maybe tell him your name, though you will not tell it to us. If it had not been for his four quarters, it’s but little you would have said to any body, sae lang as life lasted.” The stranger arose, and shook Mordaunt by the hand; observing, he understood that he had been the means of saving his life and his chest. “The rest of the property,” he said, “is, I see, walking the plank; for they are as busy as the devil in a gale of wind.” “And what was the use of your seamanship, then,” said Marjory, “that you couldna keep off the Sumburgh-head? It would have been lang ere Sumburgh-head had come to you.” “Leave us for a moment, good Marjory Bimbister,” said Mordaunt; “I wish some private conversation with this gentleman.” “Gentleman!” said Marjory, with an emphasis; “not but the man is well eneugh to look at,” she added, again surveying him, “but I doubt if there is muckle of the gentleman.” Mordaunt looked at the stranger, and was of a different opinion. He was rather above the middle size, and formed handsomely as well as strongly. Mordaunt’s acquaintance with society was not extensive; but he thought his new acquaintance, to a bold sun-burned handsome countenance, which seemed to have faced various climates, added the frank and open manners of a sailor. He answered cheerfully the inquiries which Mordaunt made after his health; and maintained that one night’s rest would relieve him from all the effects of the disaster he had sustained. But he spoke with bitterness of the avarice and curios

[Chap. 8]

THE PIRATE

79

ity of the Ranzelman and his spouse. “That chattering old woman,” said the stranger, “has persecuted me the whole day for the name of the ship. I think she might be contented with the share she has had of it. I was the principal owner of the vessel that was lost yonder, and they have left me nothing but my wearing apparel. Is there no magistrate, or justice of the peace, in this wild country, that would lend a hand to help one when he is among the breakers?” Mordaunt mentioned Magnus Troil, the principal proprietor, as well as the Fowd, or provincial judge of the district, as the person from whom he was most likely to obtain redress; and regretted that his own youth, and his father’s situation as a retired stranger, should put it out of their power to afford him the protection he required. “Nay, for your part, you have done enough,” said the sailor; “but ifI had five out of the forty brave fellows that are fishes’ food by this time, the devil a man would I ask to do me the right that I could do for myself.” “Forty hands!” said Mordaunt; “you were well manned for the size of the ship.” “Not so well as we needed to be. We mounted ten guns, besides chasers; but our cruize on the main had thinned us of men, and lumbered us up with goods. Six of our guns were in ballast.—Hands! if I had had enough of hands, we would never have miscarried so infernally—the people were knocked up with working the pumps, and so took to their boats, and left me with the vessel, to sink or swim. But the dogs had their pay, and I can afford to pardon them—The boats swamped in the current—all were lost—and here am I.” “You had come north about then, from the West Indies?” said Mordaunt. “Ay, ay; the vessel was the Good Hope of Bristol, a letter of marque. She had fine luck down on the Spanish main, both with commerce and privateering, but the luck’s ended with her now. My name is Clement Cleveland, captain, and part owner, as I said before —I am a Bristol man bom—my father was well known on the Toll-sell —old Clem Cleveland of the College-green.” Mordaunt had no right to inquire farther, and yet it seemed to him as if his own mind was but half satisfied. There was an affectation of bluntness, a sort of defiance in the manner of the stranger, for which circumstances afforded no occasion. Captain Cleveland had suffered injustice from the islanders, but from Mordaunt he had only received kindness and protection; yet he seemed as if he involved all the neigh bourhoodin the wrongs he complained of. Mordaunt looked down and was silent, doubting whether it would be better to take his leave, or

8o

THE PIRATE

Vol. I, ch. 8

to proceed farther in his offers of assistance. Cleveland seemed to guess at his thoughts, for he immediately added, in a conciliating manner,—“I am a plain man, Master Mertoun, for that I understand is your name; and I am a ruined man to boot, and that does not mend one’s good manners. But you have done a kind and friendly part by me, and it may be I think as much of it as if I thanked you more. And so before I leave this place, I’ll give you my fowling-piece. She will put a hundred swan-shot through a Dutchman’s cap at eighty paces—she will carry ball too—I have hit a wild-bull within a hundred-and-fifty yards—but I have two that are as good, or better, so you may keep this for my sake.” “That would be to take my share of the wreck,” answered Mordaunt, laughing. “No such matter,” said Cleveland, undoing a case which contained several guns and pistols,—“you see I have saved my private arm chest, as well as my clothes—that the tall old woman in the dark rigging managed for me. And, between ourselves, it is worth all I have lost; for,” he added, lowering his voice and looking round, “when I speak of being ruined in the hearing of these land-sharks, I do not mean ruined stock and block. No, here is something will do more than shoot sea-fowl.” So saying, he pulled out a great ammunition-pouch marked swan-shot, and shewed Mordaunt hastily that it was full of Spanish pistoles and Portagues (as the broad Portugal pieces were then called). “No, no,” he added, with a smile, “I have ballast enough to trim the vessel again; and now, will you take the piece?” “Since you are willing to give it me,” said Mordaunt, laughing, “with all my heart. I was just going to ask you, in my father’s name,” he added, shewing his purse, “whether you wanted any of that same ballast.” “Thanks, but you see I am provided—take my old acquaintance, and may she serve you as well as she has served me; but you will never make so good a voyage with her. You can shoot, I suppose?” “Tolerably well,” said Mordaunt, admiring the piece, which was a beautiful Spanish barrel gun, inlaid with gold, small in the bore, and of unusual length, such as is chiefly used for shooting sea-fowl, and for ball-practice. “With slugs,” continued the donor, “never gun shot closer; and with single ball, you may kill a seal two hundred yards at sea from the top of the highest peak of this iron-bound coast of yours. But I tell you again, that the old rattler will never do you the service she has done me. “I shall not use her so dexterously, perhaps,” said Mordaunt. “Umph!—perhaps not,” replied Cleveland; “but that is not the

[Chap. 8]

THE PIRATE

8I

question. What say you to shooting the man at the wheel, just as we run aboard of a Spaniard? So the Don was taken aback, and we laid him athwart the hawse, and carried her cutlass in hand; and worth the while she was—stout brigantine—El Santo Francisco—bound for Porto Bello, with gold and negroes. That little bit of lead was worth twenty thousand pistoles.” “I have shot at no such game as yet,” said Mordaunt. “Well, all in good time; we cannot weigh till the tide makes. But you are a tight, handsome, active young man. What is to ail you to take a trip after some of this stuff?” laying his hand on the bag of gold. “My father talks of my travelling soon,” replied Mordaunt, who, bom to hold men-of-wars men in great respect, felt flattered by this invitation from one who appeared a thorough-bred seaman. “I respect him for the thought,” said the Captain; “and I will visit him before I weigh anchor. I have a consort off these islands, and be cursed to her. She’ll find me out somewhere, though she parted company in the bit of a squall, unless she is gone to Davy Jones too— Well, she was better found than us, and not so deep loaded—she must have weathered it. We’ll have a hammock slung for you aboard, and make a sailor and a man of you in the same trip.” “I should like it well enough,” said Mordaunt, who eagerly longed to see more of the world than his lonely situation had hitherto permit ted; “but then my father must decide.” “Your father? pooh!” said Captain Cleveland; “but you are very right,” he added, checking himself. “Gad, I have lived so long at sea, that I cannot think any body has a right to think except the captain and the master. But you are very right. I will go up to the old gentleman this instant, and speak him myself. He lives in that handsome, modem looking building, I suppose, that I see about a quarter ofa mile off?” “In that old half-ruined house,” said Mordaunt, “he does indeed live; but he will see no visitors.” “Then you must drive the point yourself, for I can’t stay in this latitude. Since your father is no magistrate, I must go to see this same Magnus—how call you him? who is not justice of peace, but some thing else that will do the turn as well. These fellows have got two or three things that I must and will have back—let them keep the rest, and be d—d to them. Will you give me a letter to him, just by way of commission?” “It is scarce needful,” said Mordaunt. “It is enough that you are shipwrecked, and need his help;—but yet I may as well furnish you with a letter of introduction.” “There,” said the sailor, producing a writing-case from his chest, “are your writing-tools,—meantime, since bulk has been broken, I

82

THE PIRATE

Vol.I,ch.8

will nail down the hatches, and make sure of the cargo.” While Mordaunt accordingly was engaged in writing to Magnus Troil a letter, setting forth the circumstances in which Captain Cleve land had been thrown upon their coast, the Captain, having first selected and laid aside some wearing-apparel and necessaries enough to fill a knapsack, took in hand hammer and nails, employed himself in securing the lid of his sea-chest, by fastening it down in a most workmanlike manner, and then added the corroborating security of a cord, twisted and knotted with nautical dexterity. “I leave this in your charge,” he said, “all except this,” shewing the bag of gold, “and these,” pointing to a cutlass and pistols, “which may prevent all fur ther risk of my parting company with my Portagues.” “You will find no occasion for weapons in this country, Captain Cleveland,” replied Mordaunt; “a child might travel with a purse of gold from Sumburgh-head to the Scaw of Unst, and no soul would injure him.” “And that’s pretty boldly said, young gentleman, considering what is going on without doors at this moment.” “O,” replied Mordaunt, a little confused, “what comes on land with the tide, they reckon their lawful property. One would think they had studied under Sir Arthegal, who pronounces— For equal right in equal things doth stand, And what the mighty sea hath once possess’d, And plucked quite from all possessors’ hands, Or else by wrecks that wretches hath distress’d, He may dispose, by his resistless might, As thing at random left, to whom he list.”

“I shall think the better of plays and ballads as long as I live, for these very words,” said Captain Cleveland; “and yet I have loved them well enough in my day. But this is good doctrine, and more men than one may trim their sails to such a breeze. What the sea sends is ours, that’s sure enough. However, in case that your good folks should think the land as well as the sea may present them with waiffs and strays, I will make bold to take my cutlass and pistols. Will you cause my chest to be secured in your own house till you hear from me, and use your influence to procure me a guide to shew me the way, and to carry my kitt?” “Will you go by sea or land?” said Mordaunt, in reply. “By sea?” exclaimed Cleveland. “What—in one of their cockle shells, and a cracked cockle-shell, to boot? No, no—land, land, unless I knew my crew, my vessel, and my voyage.” They parted accordingly, Captain Cleveland being supplied with a guide to conduct him to Burgh Westra, and his chest being carefully removed to the hall or mansion-house at Jarlshof.

[Chap. 9]

THE PIRATE

83

Chapter Nine This is a gentle trader, and a prudent. He’s no Autolycus, to blear your eye, With quips of worldly gauds and gamesomeness; But seasons all his glittering merchandize With wholesome doctrines suited to the use, As men sauce goose with sage and rosemary. OldPlay

On the subsequent morning, Mordaunt, in answer to his father’s inquiries, began to give him some account of the shipwrecked mariner, whom he had rescued from the waves. But he had not pro ceededfar in recapitulating the particulars which Cleveland had com municated, ere Mr Mertoun’s looks became disturbed—he arose hastily, and, after pacing twice or thrice across the room, he retired into that inner chamber, to which he usually confined himself, while under the influence of his mental malady. In the evening he re appeared, without any traces of his disorder; but it may be easily supposed that his son avoided recurring to the subject which had affected him. Mordaunt Mertoun was thus left without assistance, to form at his leisure his own opinion respecting the new acquaintance which the sea had sent him; and, upon the whole, he was himself surprised to find the result less favourable to the stranger than he could well account for. There seemed to Mordaunt to be a sort of repelling influence about the man. True, he was a handsome man, of a frank and prepossessing manner, but there was an assumption ofsuperiority about him, which Mordaunt did not quite so much like. Although he was so keen a sportsman as to be delighted with his acquisition of the Spanish barrelled gun, and accordingly mounted and dismounted it with great interest, paying the utmost attention to the most minute parts about the lock and ornaments, he was, upon the whole, inclined to have some scruples about the mode in which he had acquired it. “I should not have accepted,” he thought; “perhaps Captain Cleve land might give it me as a sort of payment for the trifling service I did him; and yet it would have been churlish to refuse it in the way it was offered. I wish he had looked more like a man whom one would have chosen to be obliged to.” But a successful day’s shooting reconciled him with his gun, and he became assured, like most young sportsmen in similar circumstances, that all other pieces were but pop-guns in comparison. But then, to be doomed to shoot gulls and seals, when there were Frenchmen and

84

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 9

Spaniards to be come at—when there were ships to be boarded, and steersmen to be marked off, seemed but a dull and contemptible destiny. His father had mentioned his leaving these islands, and no other mode of occupation occurred to his inexperience, save that of the sea, with which he had been conversant from his infancy. His ambition had formerly aimed no higher than at sharing the fatigues and dangers of a Greenland fishing expedition; for it was in that scene that the old Zetlanders laid most of their perilous adventures. But of late that war was again raging, the history of Sir Francis Drake, Cap tain Morgan, and other bold adventurers, whose exploits he had pur chased from Bryce Snaelsfoot, had made much impression on his mind, and the offer of Captain Cleveland to take him to sea, fre quently recurred to him, although the pleasure of such a project was somewhat damped by a doubt, whether, in the long run, he should not find many objections to his proposed commander. Thus much he already saw, that he was opinionative, and might probably prove arbit rary; and that, since even his kindness was mingled with an assump tion of superiority, his occasional displeasure might contain a great deal more of that disagreeable ingredient than could be palatable to those who sailed under him. And yet, after counting all risks, could his father’s consent but be obtained, with what pleasure, he thought, would he embark in quest of new scenes and strange adventures, in which he proposed to himself to achieve such deeds as should be the theme of many a tale to the lovely sisters of Burgh Westra—tales at which Minna should weep, and Brenda should smile, and both should marvel. And this was to be the reward of his labours and his dangers; for the hearth of Magnus Troil had a magnetic influence over his thoughts, and however they might traverse amid his day-dreams, it was the point where they finally settled. There were times when Mordaunt thought of mentioning to his father the conversation he had with Captain Cleveland, and the sea man’s proposal to him; but the very short and general account which he had given of that person’s history, upon the morning after his departure from the hamlet, had produced a sinister effect upon Mr Mertoun’s mind, and discouraged him from speaking farther on any subject connected with it. It would be time enough, he thought, to mention Captain Cleveland’s proposal, when his consort should arrive, and when he should repeat his offer in a more formal manner; and these he supposed events likely very soon to happen. But days grew to weeks, and weeks were numbered into a month, and he heard nothing from Cleveland; and only learned by an occa sional visit from Bryce Snaelsfoot, that the Captain was residing at Burgh Westra, as one of the family. Mordaunt was somewhat sur

[Chap. 9]

THE PIRATE

85

prised at this, although the unlimited hospitality of the islands, which Magnus Troil, both from fortune and disposition, carried to the utmost extent, made it almost a matter of course that he should remain in the family until he disposed himself otherwise. Still it seemed strange he had not gone to some of the northern isles to inquire after his consort; or that he did not rather chuse to make his residence at Lerwick, where fishing vessels often brought news from the coasts and ports of Scotland and Holland. Again, why did he not send for the chest he had deposited at Jarlshof? and still further, Mordaunt thought it would have been but polite if the stranger had sent him some sort ofmessage in token of remembrance. These subjects of reflection were connected with another still more unpleasant, and more difficult to account for. Until the arrival of this stranger, scarce a week had passed without bringing him some kind greeting, or token of recollection, from Burgh Westra; and pretences were scarce ever wanting for maintaining a constant intercourse. Minna wanted the words of a Norse ballad; or desired to have, for her various collections, feathers, or eggs, or shells, or specimens of the rarer sea-weeds; or Brenda sent a riddle to be resolved, or a song to be learned; or the honest old Udaller,—in a rude manuscript, which might have passed for an ancient Runic inscription,—sent his hearty greetings to his good young friend, with a present of something to make good cheer, and an earnest request he would come to Burgh Westra as soon, and stay there as long, as possible. These kindly tokens of remembrance were often sent by special message; besides which, there was never passenger or traveller who crossed from the one mansion to the other, that did not bring to Mordaunt some friendly greeting from the Udaller and his family. Of late, this inter course had become more and more infrequent; and no messenger from Burgh Westra had visited Jarlshof for several weeks. Mordaunt both observed and felt this alteration, and it dwelt on his mind, while he questioned Bryce as closely as pride and prudence would permit, to ascertain, if possible, the cause of the change. Yet he endeavoured to assume an indifferent air while he asked the jagger whether there was no news in the country. “Great news,” the jagger replied; “and a gay mony of them. That crack-brained carle, the new factor, is for making a change in the bismars and the lispunds; * and our worthy Fowd, Magnus Troil, has sworn, that, sooner than change them for the still-yard, or aught else, he’ll fling Factor Yellowley from Brassa-craig.” “Is that all?” said Mordaunt, very little interested. “All? and aneugh, I think,” replied the pedlar. “How are folks to * These are weights of Norwegian origin, still used in Zetland.

86

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 9

buy and sell, if the weights are changed on them?” “Very true,” replied Mordaunt; “but have you heard of no strange vessels on the coast?” “Six Dutch doggers off Brassay; and, as I hear, a high-quartered galliot thing, with a gaff mainsail, lying in Scalloway Bay. She will be from Norway.” “No ships ofwar, or sloops?” “None,” replied the pedlar, “since the Kite Tender sailed with the impressed men. If it was His will, and our men were out of her, I wish the deep sea had her.” “Were there no news at Burgh Westra?—Were the family all well?” “A’ weel, and weel to do—out-taken, it may be, something ower muckle daffing and laughing—dancing ilk night, they say, wi’ the strange captain that’s living there—he that was ashore on Sumburgh head the tother day—less daffing served him than.” “Daffing! dancing every night!” said Mordaunt, not particularly well satisfied.—“Whom does Captain Cleveland dance with?” “Ony body he likes, I fancy,” said the jagger; “at ony rate, he gars a’ body yonder dance after his fiddle. But I ken little about it, for I am no free in conscience to look upon thae flinging fancies. Folk should mind that life is made but of rotten yam.” “I fancy that it is to keep them in mind ofthat wholesome truth, that you deal in such tender wares, Bryce,” replied Mordaunt, dissatisfied as well with the tenor of the reply, as with the affected scruples of the respondent. “That’s as muckle as to say, that I suld hae minded you was a flinger and a fiddler yoursell, Master Mordaunt; but I am an auld man, and maun unburthen my conscience. But ye will be for the dance, I sall warrant, that’s to be at Burgh Westra, on John’s Even, (Saunt John’s, as the blinded creatures ca’ him;) and nae doubt ye will be for some warldly braws—hose, waistcoats, or sic like. I hae pieces frae Flan ders”—With that he placed his moveable warehouse on the table, and began to unlock it. “Dance?” repeated Mordaunt—“Dance on Saint John’s even?— Were you desired to bid me to it, Bryce?” “Na—but ye ken weel aneugh ye wad be welcome, bidden or no bidden. This captain, how-ca’-ye-him, is to be skudler as they ca’t— the first of the gang, like.” “The devil take him!” said Mordaunt, in impatient surprise. “A’ in gude time,” replied the jagger; “hurry no man’s cattle—the devil will hae his due, I warrant ye, or it winna be for lack of seeking. But it’s true I am telling you, for a’ ye stare like a wild cat; and this saam captain, I-wat-na-his-name, bought ane of the very waistcoats

[Chap. 9]

THE PIRATE

87

that I am ganging to shew ye—purple, wi’ a gowd binding, and bonnily broidered; and I have a piece for you, the neighbour of it, wi’ a green grand; and if ye mean to streak yoursell up beside him, ye maun e’en buy it, for it’s gowd that glances in the lasses’ een now-a-days. See— look till’t,” he added, displaying the pattern in various points of view; “look till it through the light, and till the light through it—wi’ the grain, and against the grain—it shews ony gate—came frae Antwerp a’ the gate—four dollars is the price; and yon captain was sae weel pleased, that he flang down a twenty shilling Jacobus, and bade me keep the change and be damned!—poor silly profane creature, I pity him.” Without inquiring whether the pedlar bestowed his compassion on the worldly imprudence, or the religious deficiencies of Captain Cleveland, Mordaunt turned from him, folded his arms, and paced the apartment, muttering to himself, “Not asked—a stranger to be king of the feast!”—words which he repeated so earnestly, that Bryce caught a part of their import. “As for asking, I am almaist bauld to say, that ye will be asked, Master Mordaunt.” “Did they mention my name then?” said Mordaunt. “I canna preceesely say that,” said Bryce Snaelsfoot; “but ye needna turn away your head sae sourly, like a sealgh when he leaves the shore; for, do ye see, I heard distinctly that a’ the revellers about are to be there; and is’t to be thought they wad leave out you, an auld ken’d freend, and the lightest foot at sic frolics, (Heaven send you a better praise in His ain gude time,) that ever flang at a fiddle-squeak, between this and Unst? Sae I consider ye altogether the same as invited—and ye had best provide yoursell wi’ a waistcoat, for brave and brisk will every man be that’s there—the Lord pity them!” He thus continued to follow with his green glazen eyes, the motions of young Mordaunt Mertoun, who continued to pace the room in a very pensive manner, which the jagger probably misinterpreted, as he thought, like Claudio, that if a man is sad, it must needs be because he lacks money. Bryce therefore, after another pause, thus accosted him. “Ye needna be sad about the matter, Master Mordaunt; for although I got the just price of the article from the captain-man, yet I maun deal freendly wi’ you, as a ken’d freend and customer, and bring the price, as they say, within your purse-mouth—or it’s the same to me to let it lay ower till Martinmas, or e’en to Candlemas. I am decent in the warld, Master Mordaunt—forbid that I should hurry onybody, far mair a freend that has paid me siller afore now. Or I wad be content to swap the garment for the value in feathers or sea-otters skins, or any kind of peltrie—nane kens better than yoursell how to come by sic

88

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. 9

ware—and I am sure I hae furnished you wi’ the primest o’ powder. I dinna ken if I tell’d ye it was out o’ the kist of Captain Plunket, that perished on the Scaw ofUnst, wi’ the armed brig Mary, sax years syne. He was a prime fowler himself, and luck it was that the kist came ashore dry. I sell that to nane but gude marksmen. And so, I was saying, if ye had ony wares ye liked to coup for the waistcoat, I wad be ready to trock wi’ you, for assuredly ye will be wanted at Burgh Westra, on Saint John’s even; and ye wadna like to look waur than the captain—that wadna be setting. ” “I will be there, at least, whether wanted or not,” said Mordaunt, stopping short in his walk, and taking the waistcoat piece hastily out of the pedlar’s hands; “and, as you say, I will not disgrace them.” “Haud a care—haud a care, Master Mordaunt,” exclaimed the pedlar; “ye handle it as it were a wab of wadmaal—ye’ll fray’t to bits— ye might weel say my ware is tender—and ye’ll mind the price is four dollars—Sall I put ye in my book for it?” “No,” said Mordaunt hastily; and, taking out his purse, flung down the money. “Grace to ye to wear the garment,” said the joyous pedlar, “and to me to guide the siller; and protect us frae earthly vanities, and earthly covetousness; and send you the white linen raiment, whilk is mair to be desired than the muslins, and cambrics, and lawns, and silks of this world; and send me the talents which avail more than much fine Spanish gold, or Dutch dollars either—and—but God guide the cal lant, what for are ye wrapping the silk up that gate, like a wisp of hay?” At this moment, old Swertha, the housekeeper, entered, to whom, as if eager to get rid of the subject, Mordaunt threw his purchase, with something like careless disdain; and, telling her to put it aside, snatched his gun, which stood in the comer, threw his shooting accoutrements about him, and without noticing Bryce’s attempt to enter in conversation upon the “braw seal-skin, as saft as doe leather,” which made the sling and cover of his fowling-piece, he left the apartment abruptly. The jagger, with those green goggling and gain-descrying kind of optics, which we have already described, continued gazing for an instant after the customer, who treated his wares with such irrever ence. Swertha also looked after him with some surprise. “The callant’s in a creel,” quoth she. “In a creel?” echoed the pedlar, “he will be as wowf as ever his father was. To guide in that gate a bargain cost him four dollars—very, very Fifish, as the east-country fisher-folks say.” “Four dollars for that green rag!” said Swertha, catching at the

[Chap. I0]

THE PIRATE

89

words which the jagger had unwarily suffered to escape—“that was a bargain indeed! I wonder whether he is the greater fule, or you the mair rogue, Bryce Snaelsfoot.” “I didna say it cost him preceesely four dollars,” said Snaelsfoot; “but if it had, the lad’s siller’s his ain, I hope; and he is auld aneugh to make his ain bargains. Mair by token, the gudes are weel worth the money, and mair.” “Mair by token,” said Swertha coolly, “I will see what his father thinks about it.” “Ye’ll no be sae ill natured, Mrs Swertha,” said the jagger; “that will be but cauld thanks for the bonny owerlay that I hae brought you a’ the way frae Lerwick.” “And a bonnie price ye’ll be setting on’t,” said Swertha; “for that’s the gate your gude deeds end.” “Ye sall hae the fixing of the price yoursell; or it may lie ower till you’re buying something for the house, or for your master, and it can make a’ ae count.” “Troth and that’s true, Bryce Snaelsfoot, I am thinking we’ll want some napery sune—for it’s no to be thought we can spin, and the like, as if there was a mistress in the house; and sae we make nane at hame.” “And that’s what I ca’ walking by the word,” said the jagger. “‘Go unto those that buy and sell;’ there’s muckle profit in that text.” “There is a pleasure in dealing wi’ a discreet man, that can make profit ofony thing,” said Swertha; “and now that I take another look at that daft callant’s waistcoat piece, I think it’s honestly worth four dollars.”

Chapter Ten I have possessed the regulation of the weather and the distribution of the seasons. The sun has listened to my dictates, and passed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my command, have poured forth their waters.— Rasselas

Any sudden cause for anxious and mortifying reflection, which, in advanced age, occasions sullen and pensive inactivity, stimulates youth to eager and active exertion, as if, like the hurt deer, they endeavour to drown the pain of the shaft by the rapidity of motion. When Mordaunt caught up his gun, and rushed out of the house of Jarlshof, he walked on with great activity over waste and wild, without any determined purpose, except that of escaping, if possible, from the

90

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. I0

smart of his own irritation. His pride was effectually mortified by the report of the jagger, which coincided exactly with some doubts he had been led to entertain, by the long and unkind silence of his friends at Burgh Westra. If the fortunes of Caesar had doomed him, as the poet suggests, to have been But the best wrestler on the green,

it is nevertheless to be presumed, that a foil from a rival, in that rustic exercise, would have mortified him as much as a defeat from his rival, when he was struggling for the empery of the world. And even so Mordaunt Mertoun, degraded in his own eyes from the height which he had occupied as the chief amongst the youth of the island, felt vexed and irritated, as well as humbled. The two beautiful sisters also, whose smiles all were so desirous of acquiring, with whom he had lived on terms of such familiar affection, that, with the same ease and innocence, there was unconsciously mixed a shade of deeper though undefined tenderness than characterizes fraternal love, they also seemed to have forgotten him. He could not be ignorant that, in the universal opinion of all Dunrossness, nay, of the whole Mainland, he might have had every chance of being the favoured lover of either; and now at once, and without any failure on his part, he was become so little to them, that he had lost even the consequence of an ordinary acquaintance. The old Udaller, too, whose hearty and sincere charac ter should have been more constant in his friendships, seemed to have been as fickle as his daughters, and poor Mordaunt had at once lost the smiles of the fair, and the favour of the powerful. These were uncomfortable reflections, and he doubled his pace, that he might outstrip them if possible. Without exactly reflecting upon the route which he pursued, Mor daunt walked briskly on through a country where neither hedge, wall, nor inclosure of any kind, interrupts the steps of the wanderer, until he reached a very solitary spot where, embosomed among steep heathy hills, which sunk suddenly down on the verge of the water, lay one of those small fresh-water lakes which are common in the Zetland isles, whose outlets form the sources of the small brooks and rivulets by which the country is watered, and serve to drive the little mills which manufacture their grain. It was a mild summer day; the beams of the sun, as is not uncom mon in Zetland, were moderated and shaded by a silvery haze, which filled the atmosphere, and, destroying the strong contrast of light and shade, gave even to noon the sober livery of the evening twilight. The little lake, not three-quarters of a mile in circuit, lay in profound

[Chap. I0]

the pirate

9I

quiet; its surface undimpled, save when one of the numerous water fowl, which glided on its surface, dived for an instant under it. The depth of the water gave the whole that cerulean tint of bluish green, which occasioned its being called the Green Loch; and at present, it formed so perfect a mirror to the black hills by which it was sur rounded, and which lay reflected on its bosom, that it was difficult to distinguish the water from the land; nay, in the shadowy uncertainty occasioned by the thin haze, a stranger could scarce have been sens ible that a sheet of water lay before him. A scene of more complete solitude, having all its peculiarities heightened by the extreme serenity of the weather, the quiet grey composed tone of the atmosphere, and the perfect silence of the elements, could hardly be imagined. The very waterfowl, who frequented the spot in great numbers, forbore their usual flight and screams, and floated in profound tranquillity upon the silent water. Without taking any determined aim—without having any deter minedpurpose—without almost thinking what he was about, Mor daunt presented his fowling-piece, and fired across the lake. The large swan-shot dimpled its surface like a partial shower of hail—the hills took up the noise of the report, and repeated it again, and again, and again, to all their echoes; the waterfowl took to wing in eddying and confused wheel, answering the echoes with a thousand varying screams, from the deep note of the swabie or swartback, to the queru lous cry ofthe tirracke and kittiewake. Mordaunt looked for a moment on the clamorous crowd with a feeling of resentment, which he felt disposed at the moment to apply to all nature, and all her objects, animate or inanimate, however little concerned with the cause of his internal mortification. “Ay, ay,” he said, “wheel, dive, scream, and clamour as you will, and all because you have seen a strange sight, and heard an unusual sound. There is many a one like you in this round world. But you, at least, shall learn,” he added, as he re-loaded his gun, “that strange sights and strange sounds, ay, and strange acquaintances to boot, have sometimes a little shade of danger connected with them.—But why should I wreak my own vexation on these harmless sea-gulls?” he subjoined, after a moment’s pause; “they have nothing to do with the friends that have forgotten me.—I loved them all so well,—and to be so soon given up for the first stranger whom chance threw on the coast!” As he stood resting upon his gun, and abandoning his mind to the course of these unpleasant reflections, his meditations were unex­ pectedly interrupted by some one touching his shoulder. He looked round, and saw Norna of the Fitful-head, wrapped in her dark and

92

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. I0

ample mantle. She had seen him from the brow of the hill, and had descended to the lake, through a small ravine which concealed her, until she came with noiseless step so close to him that he turned round at her touch. Mordaunt Mertoun was by nature neither timorous nor credulous, and a course of reading more extensive than usual had, in some degree, fortified his mind against the attacks of superstition; but he would have been an actual prodigy, if, living in Zetland in the end of the seventeenth century, he had possessed the philosophy which did not exist in Scotland generally, until at least two generations later. He doubted in his own mind the extent, nay, the very existence, of Norna’s supernatural attributes, which was a high flight of incredulity in the country where they were universally received; but still his incredulity went no farther than doubts. She was unquestionably an extraordinary woman, gifted with an energy above others, acting upon motives peculiar to herself, and apparently independent on mere earthly considerations. Impressed with these ideas, which he had imbibed from his youth, it was not without something like alarm, that he beheld this mysterious female standing of a sudden so close beside him, and looking upon him with such sad and severe eyes, as those with which the Fatal Virgins, who, according to northern mythology, were called the Valkyriur, or “chusers of the slain,” were supposed to regard the young champions whom they selected to share the Banquet of Odin. It was, indeed, reckoned unlucky, to say the least, to meet with Norna suddenly alone, and in a place remote from witnesses; and she was supposed, on such occasions, to have been usually a prophetess of evil, as well as an omen of misfortune, to those who had such a rencontre. There were few or none of the islanders, however familiar ized with her occasional appearance in society, that would not have trembled to meet her on the solitary banks of the Green Loch. “I bring you no evil, Mordaunt Mertoun,” said she, reading per haps something of this superstitious feeling in the looks of the young man. “Evil from me you never felt, and never will.” “Nor do I fear any,” said Mordaunt, exerting himselfto throw aside an apprehension which he felt to be unmanly. “Why should I, mother, you have been ever my friend?” “Yes, Mordaunt, thou art not of our region; but to none of Zetland blood, no, not even to those who sit around the hearth-stone of Magnus Troil, the noble descendants of the ancient Jarls of Orkney, am I more a well-wisher, than I am to thee, thou kind and bravehearted boy. When I hung around thy neck that gifted chain, which all in our isles know was wrought by no earthly artist, but by the Drows, in

[Chap. I0]

THE PIRATE

93

the secret recesses of their caverns, thou wert then but fifteen years old; yet thy foot had been on the Maiden-skerrie of Northmaven, known before but to the webbed sole of the swartback, and thy skiff had been in the deepest sea-cavern of Brinnastir, where the haaf* fish had before slumbered in dark security. Therefore I gave thee that noble gift; and well thou knowst, that since that day, every eye in these isles has looked on thee as a son, or as a brother, endowed beyond other youths, and the favoured of those whose hour of power is when the night meets with the day.”ߙ “Alas! mother,” said Mordaunt, “your kind gift may have given me favour, but it has not been able to keep it for me, or I have not been able to keep it for myself.—What matters it! I shall learn to set as little by others as they do by me. My father says that I shall soon leave these islands, and therefore, Mother Norna, I will return to you your fairy gift, that it may bring more lasting luck to some other than it has done tome.” “Despise not the gift of the nameless race,” said Norna, frowning; then suddenly changing her tone of displeasure to that of mournful solemnity, she added,—“Despise them not, but, O Mordaunt, court them not! Sit down on that grey stone—Thou art the son of my adoption, and I will doff, as far as I may, those attributes that sever me from the common mass of humanity, and speak with you as a parent with a child.” There was a tremulous tone of grief which mingled with the lofti ness of her language and carriage, and was calculated to excite sym pathy, as well as to attract attention. Mordaunt sate down on the rock which she pointed out, a fragment which, with many others that lay scattered around, had been tom by some winter storm from the pre cipice at the foot of which it lay, upon the very verge of the water. Norna took her own seat on a stone at about three feet distance, adjusted her mantle so that little more than her forehead, her eyes, and a single lock of her grey hair were seen from beneath the shade of her dark wadmaal cloak, and then proceeded in a tone in which the imaginary consequence and importance so often assumed by lunacy, * The larger seal, or sea-calf, which seeks the most solitary recesses for its abode. See Dr Edmondston’s Zetland, vol. II. p.294. ߙ The Drows or Trows, the legitimate successors of the northern duergar, and some what allied to the fairies, reside like them in the interior of green hills and caverns, and are most powerful at midnight. They are curious artificers in iron, as well as in the precious metals, and are sometimes propitious to mortals, but more frequently capricious and malevolent. Among the common people of Zetland, their existence still forms an article of universal belief. In the neighbouring isles of Feroe, they are called Foddenskencand, or subterranean people; and Lucas Jacobson Debes, well acquainted with their nature, assures us that they inhabit in those places which are polluted with the effusion of blood, or the practice of any crying sin. They have a government, which seems to be monarchical.

94

the pirate

Vol. i,ch. Io

seemed to contend against the deep workings of some extraordinary and deeply-rooted mental affliction. “I was not always,” she said, “that which I now am. I was not always the wise, the powerful, the commanding, before whom the young stand abashed, and the old uncover their grey heads. There was a time when my appearance did not silence mirth, when I sympathized with human passion, and had my own share in human joy and sorrow. It was a time of helplessness—it was a time of folly—it was a time of idle and unfruitful laughter—it was a time of causeless and senseless tears;—and yet, with its follies and its sorrows and its weaknesses, what would Norna of Fitful-head give to be again the unmarked and happy maiden that she was in her early days! Hear me, Mordaunt, and bear with me; for you hear me utter complaints which have never sounded in mortal ears, and which in mortal ears shall never sound again. I will be what I ought,” she continued, starting up and extend ing her lean and withered arm, “the queen and protectress of these wild and neglected isles,—I will be Her whose foot the wave wets not, save by her permission; ay, even though its rage be at its wildest madness—whose robe the whirlwind respects when it rends the house-rigging from the roof-tree. Bear me witness, Mordaunt Mertoun,—you heard my words at Harfra—you saw the tempest sink before them—Speak, bear me witness!” To have contradicted her in this strain of high-toned enthusiasm, would have been cruel and unavailing, even had Mordaunt been more decidedly convinced that an insane woman, not one of supernatural power, stood before him. “I heard your song,” he replied, “and I saw the tempest abate.” “Abate?” exclaimed Norna, striking the ground impatiently with her staff ofblack oak; “thou speakst it but half—it sunk at once—sunk in shorter space than the child that is hushed to silence by the nurse.— Enough, you know my power—but you know not—mortal man knows not, and never shall know, the price which I paid to attain it. No, Mordaunt, never for the widest power that the ancient Norsemen boasted, when their banners waved victorious from Bergen to Pales tine—never, for all that the round world contains, do thou barter thy peace of mind for such greatness as Norna’s.” She resumed her seat upon the rock, drew the mantle over her face, rested her head upon her hands, and by the convulsive motion which agitated her bosom, appeared to be weeping bitterly. “Good Norna,” said Mordaunt, and paused, scarce knowing what to say that might console the unhappy woman—“Good Norna,” he again resumed, “if there be aught on your mind that troubles it, were you not best to go to the worthy minister of Dunrossness? Men say you

[Chap. Io]

THE PIRATE

95

have not for many years been in a Christian congregation—that can not be well, or right. You are yourself well known as a healer of bodily disease; but when the mind is sick, we should draw to the Physician of our souls.” Norna had raised her person slowly from the stooping posture in which she sate; but at length she started up on her feet, threw back her mantle, extended her arm, and while her lip foamed, and her eye sparkled, exclaimed in a tone resembling a scream,—“Me did you speak—me did you bid seek out a priest!—Would you kill the good man with horror?—Me in a Christian congregation!—Would you have the roof to fall on the sackless assembly, and mingle their blood with their worship? I—I seek to the good Physician!—Would you have the fiend claim his prey openly before God and man?” The extreme agitation of the unhappy speaker naturally led Mordaunt to the conclusion, which was generally adopted and accredited in that superstitious country and period. “Wretched woman,” he said, “if indeed thou hast leagued thyself with the Powers of Evil, why should you not seek even yet for repentance? But do as thou wilt, I cannot, dare not, as a Christian, abide longer with you; and take again your gift,” he said, offering back the chain. “Good can never come of it, if indeed evil hath not come already.” “Be still and hear me, thou foolish boy,” said Norna calmly, as if she had been restored to reason by the alarm and horror which she per ceived in Mordaunt’s countenance; “hear me, I say. I am not of those who have leagued themselves with the Enemy of mankind, or derive skill or power from his ministry. And although the unearthly powers were propitiated by a sacrifice which human tongue can never utter, yet, God knows, my guilt in that offering was no more than that of the blind man who falls from the precipice which he could neither see nor shun. O, leave me not, shun me not in this hour of weakness—remain with me till the temptation be passed, or I will plunge myself into that lake, and rid myself at once of my power and my wretchedness.” Mordaunt, who had always looked up to this singular woman with a sort of affection, occasioned no doubt by the early kindness and dis tinction which she had shewn to him, was readily induced to reassume his seat, and listen to what she had further to say, in hopes that she would gradually overcome the violence ofher agitation. It was not long ere she seemed to have gained the victory her companion expected, for she addressed him in her usually steady and authoritative manner. “It was not of myself, Mordaunt, that I pur posed to speak, when I beheld you from the summit of yonder grey rock, and came down the path to meet with you. My fortunes are fixed beyond change, be it for weal or for woe. For myself I have ceased to

96

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. IO

feel much; but for those whom she loves, Norna of the Fitful-head has still those feelings which link her to her kind. Mark me—there is an eagle, the noblest that builds in these airy precipices, and into that eagle’s nest there has creeped an adder—wilt thou lend thy aid to crush the reptile, and to save the noble brood of the lord of the north sky?” “You must speak more plainly, Norna,” said Mordaunt, “if you would have me understand or answer you. I am no guesser ofriddles.” “In plain language, then, you know well the family ofBurgh Westra —the lovely daughters of the generous old Udaller, Magnus Troil,— Minna and Brenda, I mean—you know them, and you love them.” “I have known them, mother,” replied Mordaunt, “and I have loved them—none knows it better than you yourself.” “To know them once,” said Norna, emphatically, “is to know them always.—To love them once, is to love them for ever.” “To have loved them once, is to wish them well for ever,” replied the youth; “but it is nothing more. To be plain with you, Norna, the family at Burgh Westra have of late totally neglected me. But shew me the means of serving them; I will convince you how much I have remembered old kindness, how little I resent late coldness.” “It is well spoken, and I will put your purpose to the proof,” replied Norna. “Magnus Troil has taken a serpent into his bosom—his lovely daughters are delivered up to the machinations of a villain.” “You mean the stranger, Cleveland?” said Mordaunt. “The stranger who so calls himself,” replied Norna—“the same whom we found flung ashore like a waste heap of sea-weed at the foot of the Sumburgh-cape. I felt that within me, that would have prompted me to let him lie till the tide floated him off, as it had floated him on shore. I repent me I gave not way to it.” “But,” said Mordaunt, “I cannot repent that I did my duty as a Christian man. And what right have I to wish otherwise? If Minna, Brenda, Magnus, and the rest, like this stranger better than me, I have no title to be offended; nay, I might well be laughed at for bringing myself into comparison.” “It is well, and I trust they merit thy unselfish friendship.” “But I cannot perceive,” said Mordaunt, “in what you can propose that I should serve them. I have but just learned by Bryce the jagger, that this Captain Cleveland is all in all with the ladies at Burgh Westra, and with the Udaller himself. I would like ill to intrude myselfwhere I am not welcome, or to place my home-bred merit in comparison with Captain Cleveland’s. He can tell them of battles, when I can only speak of birds-nests—can speak of shooting Frenchmen, when I can only tell of shooting seals—he wears gay clothes, and bears a brave

[Chap, Io]

THE PIRATE

97

countenance; I am plainly dressed, and plainly nurtured. Such gay gallants as he can noose the hearts of those he lives with, as the fowler nooses the guillemot with his rod and line.” “You do wrong to yourself,” replied Norna, “wrong to yourself, and greater wrong to Minna and Brenda; and trust not the reports of Bryce—he is like the greedy chaffer-whale, that will change his course and dive for the most petty coin which a fisher can cast at him. Certain it is, that if you have been lessened in the opinion of Magnus Troil, that sordid fellow hath had some share in it. But let him count his vantage, for my eye is upon him.” “And why, mother,” said Mordaunt, “do you not tell to Magnus what you have told to me?” “Because,” replied Norna, “they who wax wise in their own conceit must be taught a bitter lesson by experience. It was but yesterday that I spoke with Magnus, and what was his reply?—‘Good Norna, you grow old.’ And this was spoken by one bounden to me by so many and such close ties—by the descendant of the ancient Norse earls—this was from Magnus Troil to me; and it was said in behalf of one whom the sea flung forth as rack-weed! Since he despises the counsel of the aged, he shall be taught by that of the young; and well that he is not left to his own folly. Go, therefore, to Burgh Westra as usual upon the Baptist’s festival.” “I have had no invitation,” said Mordaunt; “I am not wanted, not wished for, not thought of—perhaps I shall not be acknowledged if I go thither; and yet, mother, to confess the truth, thither I had thought to go.” “It was a good thought, and to be cherished,” replied Norna; “we seek our friends when they are sick in health, why not when they are sick in mind, and surfeited with prosperity? Do not fail to go—it may be, we shall meet there. Meanwhile our roads lie different. Farewell, and speak not of this meeting.” They parted, and Mordaunt remained standing by the lake, with his eyes fixed on Norna, until her tall dark form became invisible among the windings of the valley down which she wandered, and Mordaunt returned to his father’s mansion, determined to follow counsel which coincided so well with his own wishes.

98

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. II

Chapter Eleven ------ All your ancient customs, And long descended usages, I’ll change. Ye shall not eat nor drink, nor speak nor move, Think, look, or walk, as ye were wont to do; Even your marriage-beds shall know mutation; The bride shall have the stock, the groom the wall; For all old practice will I turn and change, And call it reformation—marry, will I! 'Tis Even that We're at Odds

The festal day approached, and still no invitation arrived for that guest, without whom, but a little space since, no feast could have been held in the island; while, on the other hand, such reports as reached them on every side spoke highly of the favour which Captain Cleve land enjoyed in the family of the old Udaller of Burgh Westra. Swertha and the old Ranzelar shook their heads at these mutations, and reminded Mordaunt, by many a half-hint and inuendo, that he had incurred this eclipse by being so imprudently active to secure the safety of the stranger when he lay at the mercy of the next wave beneath the cliffs of Sumburgh-head. “It is best to let saut water take its gait,” said Swertha; “luck never came ofcrossing it.” “In troth,” said the Ranzelar, “they are wise folks that let wave and withy haud their ain—luck never came of a half-drowned man, or a half-hanged ane either. Who was’t shot Will Peterson off the Noss? —the Dutchman that he saved from sinking, I trow. To fling a drown ing man a plank or a tow, may be the part of a Christian; but I say keep hands affhim, if ye wad live and thrive free frae his danger.” “Ye are a wise man, Ranzelar, and a worthy,” echoed Swertha, with a groan, “and ken how and whan to help a neighbour, as weel as ony man that ever drew a net.” “In troth, I have seen length of days,” ans wered the Ranzelar, “and I have heard what the auld folk said to each other anent sic matters; and nae man in Zetland shall go farther than I will in ony Christian service to a man on firm land; but if he cry help out of the saut waves, that’s another story.” “And yet, to think of this lad Cleveland standing in our Master Mordaunt’s light,” said Swertha, “and with Magnus Troil, that thought him the flower of the island but on Whitsunday last, and Magnus, too, that’s both held (when he’s fresh, honest man) the wisest and wealthiest of Zetland.” “He canna win by it,” said the Ranzelman, with a look of the deepest sagacity. “There’s whiles, Swertha, that the wisest of us (as I

[Chap. II]

THE PIRATE

99

am sure I humbly confess mysel) may be little better than gulls, and can no more win by doing deeds of folly than I can step over Sumburgh-head. It has been my own case once or twice in my life. But we will see soon what ill is to come of all this, for good there cannot come.” And Swertha answered, with the same tone of prophetic wisdom, “Na, na, gude can never come on it, and that is ower truly said.” These doleful predictions, repeated from time to time, had some effect upon Mordaunt. He did not indeed suppose, that the charitable action of relieving a drowning man had subjected him, as a necessary and fatal consequence, to the unpleasant circumstances in which he was placed; yet he felt as if a sort of spell was drawn around him, of which he neither understood the nature or the extent;—that some power, in short, beyond his own controul, was acting upon his destiny, and, as it seemed, with no friendly influence. His curiosity, as well as his anxiety, was highly excited, and he continued determined, at all events, to make his personal appearance at the approaching festival, when he was impressed with the beliefthat something uncommon was necessarily to take place, which should determine his future views and prospects in life. As the elder Mertoun was at this time in his ordinary state of health, it became necessary that his son should intimate to him his intended visit to Burgh Westra. He did so; and his father desired to know the especial reason of his going thither at this particular time. “It is a time of merry-making,” replied the youth; “all the country are assembled.” “And you are doubtless impatient to add another fool to the num ber.—Go—but beware how you walk in the path which you are about to tread—a fall from the cliffs of Foulah were not more fatal.” “May I ask the reason of your caution, sir?” replied Mordaunt, breaking through the reserve which ordinarily subsisted betwixt him and his singular parent. “Magnus Troil,” said the elder Mertoun, “has two daughters—you are of the age when men look upon such gawds with eyes of affection, that they may afterwards learn to curse the day that first opened their eyes upon heaven. I bid you beware of them; for, as sure as that death and sin came into the world by woman, so sure are their soft words, and softer looks, the utter destruction and ruin of all who put faith in them.” Mordaunt had sometimes observed his father’s marked dislike to the female sex, but had never before heard him give vent to it in terms so determined and precise. He replied, that the daughters of Magnus Troil were no more to him than any other females in the islands; “they

I00

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. II

were even of less importance,” he said, “for they had broken off their friendship with him, without assigning any cause.” “And you go to seek the renewal of it,” answered his father. “Silly moth, that hast once escaped the taper without singeing thy wings, you are not contented with the safe obscurity of these wilds, but must hasten back to the flame, which is sure at length to consume thee. Why should I waste arguments in deterring thee from thy inevitable fate?— Go where thy destiny calls thee.” On the succeeding day, which was the eve of the great festival, Mordaunt set forth on his road to Burgh Westra, pondering altern­ ately on the injunctions ofNorna—on the ominous words ofhis father —on the inauspicious auguries of Swertha and the Ranzelar ofJarlshof—and not without experiencing that gloom with which so many concurring circumstances of ill omen combined to oppress his mind. “It bodes me but a cold reception at Burgh Westra,” said he; “but my stay shall be the shorter. I will but find out whether they have been deceived by this sea-faring stranger, or whether they have acted out of pure caprice of temper, and love of change of company. If the first be the case, I will vindicate my character, and let Captain Cleveland look to himself;—ifthe latter, why then, goodnight to Burgh Westra and all its inmates.” As he mentally meditated this last alternative, hurt pride, and a return of fondness for those to whom he supposed he was bidding farewell for ever, brought a tear into his eye, which he dashed off hastily and indignantly, as, mending his pace, he continued on his journey. The weather being now serene and undisturbed, Mordaunt made his way with an ease that formed a striking contrast to the difficulties which he had encountered when he last traversed the same route; yet there was a less pleasing subject for comparison, within his own mind. “My breast,” he said to himself, “was then against the wind, but my heart within was serene and happy. I would I had now the same careless feelings, were they to be bought by battling with the severest storm which ever blew across these lonely hills.” With such thoughts, he arrived about noon at Harfra, the habita­ tion, as the reader may remember, of the ingenious Mr Yellowley. Our traveller had, upon the present occasion, taken care to be quite inde­ pendent of the niggardly hospitality of this mansion, which was now become infamous on that account through the whole island, by bring­ ing with him, in his small knapsack, such provisions as might have sufficed for a longer journey. In courtesy, however, or rather, perhaps, to get rid of his own disquieting thoughts, Mordaunt did not fail to call at the mansion, which he found in singular commotion. Triptolemus

[Chap. Il]

THE PIRATE

I0I

himself, invested with a pair of large jack-boots, went clattering up and down stairs, screaming out questions to his sister and his ser ving-woman Tronda, who replied with shriller and more complicated screeches. At length, Mrs Baby herselfmade her appearance, with her venerable person invested in what was then called a joseph, an ample garment, which had once been green, but now, betwixt stains and patches, had become like the vesture of the patriarch whose name it bore—garment of divers colours. A steeple-crowned hat, the pur chase of some long past moment, in which vanity had got the better of avarice, with a feather which had stood as much wind and rain as if it had been part of a sea-mew’s wing, made up her equipment, save that in her hand she held a silver-mounted whip of antique fashion. This attire, as well as an air of determined bustle in the gait and appearance of Mrs Barbara Yellowley, seemed to bespeak that she was prepared to take a journey, and cared not, as the saying goes, who knew that such was her determination. She was the first that observed Mordaunt on his arrival, and she greeted him with a degree of mingled emotion. “Be good to us!” she exclaimed, “if here is not the canty callant that wears yon thing about his neck, and that snapped up our goose as light as if it had been a sandie-lavrock!” The admiration of the gold chain, which had for merly made so deep an impression on her mind, was marked in the first part of her speech, the recollection of the untimely fate of the smoked goose was commemorated in the second clause. “I will lay the burthen of my life,” she instantly added, “that he is ganging our gate.” “I am bound for Burgh Westra, Mrs Yellowley,” said Mordaunt. “And blithe will we be of your company,” she added—“it’s early days to eat; but if you liked a barley scone and a drink of bland— nathless, it is ill travelling on a full stomach, besides quelling your appetite for the feast that is biding you this day; for all sort of prodigal ity there will doubtless be.” Mordaunt produced his own stores, and, explaining that he did not bear to be burthensome to them on this second occasion, invited them to partake of the provisions he had to offer. Poor Triptolemus, who seldom saw half so good a dinner as his guest’s luncheon, threw himself upon the good cheer, like Sancho on the scum of Camacho’s kettle, and even the lady herself could not resist the temptation, though she gave way to it with more moderation, and with something like a sense of shame. “She had let the fire out,” she said, “for it was a pity wasting fuel in so cold a country, and so she had not thought of getting any thing ready, as they were to set out so soon; and so she could not but say, that the young gentleman’s nacket looked very good;

I02

THE PIRATE

Vol. I,ch. II

and besides, she had some curiosity to see whether the folks in this country cured their beef in the same way they did in the north of Scotland.” Under which combined considerations, Dame Baby made a hearty experiment on the refreshments which thus unexpectedly presented themselves. When their extemporary repast was finished, the factor became solicitous to take the road; and now Mordaunt discovered, that the alacrity with which he had been received by Mistress Baby was not altogether disinterested. Neither she nor the learned Triptolemus felt much disposed to commit themselves to the wilds of Zetland, without the assistance of a guide; and although they could have commanded the assistance of one of their own labouring folks, yet the cautious agriculturist observed, that it would be losing at least one day’s work; and his sister multiplied his apprehensions by echoing back, “One day’s wark?—ye may weel say twenty—for, set ane of their noses within the smell of a kail-pot, and their lugs within the sound of a fiddle, and whistle them back ifye can.” Now the fortunate arrival ofMordaunt, in the very nick of time, not to mention the good cheer which he brought with him, made him as welcome as any one could possibly be to a threshold, which, on all ordinary occasions, abhorred the passage of a guest; nor was Mr Yellowley altogether insensible of the pleasure he promised himself in detailing his plans of improvement to his young companion, and enjoying what his fate seldom assigned him—the company ofa patient and admiring listener. As the factor and his sister were to prosecute their journey on horseback, it only remained to mount their guide and companion—a thing easily accomplished, where there are such numbers of shaggy, long-backed, short-legged ponies running wild upon the extensive moors, which are the common pasturage for the cattle of every town ship, where shelties, geese, swine, goats, sheep, and little Zetland cows, are turned out promiscuously, and often in numbers which can obtain but precarious subsistence from the niggard vegetation. There is, indeed, a right of individual property in all these animals, which are branded or tattooed by each owner with his own peculiar mark; but when any passenger has occasional use for a poney, he never scruples to lay hold of the first which he can catch, puts on a halter, and, having rode him as far as he finds convenient, turns the animal loose to find his way back again as he best can—a matter in which the ponies are sufficiently sagacious. Although this general exercise of property was one of the enorm ities which in due time the factor intended to abolish, yet, like a wise man, he scrupled not, in the meantime, to avail himself of so general a

[Chap. II]

THE PIRATE

IO3

practice, which, he condescended to allow, was particularly conveni­ ent for those who, (as chanced to be his own present case,) had no ponies of their own on which their neighbours could retaliate. Three shelties, therefore, were procured from the hill—little shagged animals, more resembling wild bears than any thing of the horse tribe, yet possessed of no small degree of strength and spirit, and able to endure as much fatigue and indifferent usage as any creatures in the world. Two of these horses were already provided and fully accoutred for the journey. One of them, destined to bear the fair person of Mistress Baby, was decorated with a huge side-saddle of venerable antiquity— a mass, as it were, of cushion and padding, from which depended, on all sides, a housing of ancient tapestry, which, having been originally intended for a horse of ordinary size, covered up the diminutive pal frey over whom it was spread, from the ears to the tail, and from the shoulder to the fetlock, leaving nothing visible but its head, which looked fiercely out from these enfoldments, like the heraldic repres entation of a lion looking out of a bush. Mordaunt gallantly lifted up the fair Mistress Yellowley, and, at the expence of very slight exertion, placed her upon the summit of her mountainous saddle. It is probable, that, on feeling herself thus squired and attended upon, and experien cing the long unwonted consciousness that she was attired in her best array, some thoughts dawned upon Mistress Baby’s mind, which chequered, for an instant, those habitual ideas about thrift, that formed the daily and all-engrossing occupation of her soul. She glanced her eye upon her faded joseph, and on the long housings of her saddle, as she observed, with a smile, to Mordaunt, that “travelling was a pleasant thing in fine weather and agreeable company, if,” she added, glancing a look at a place where the embroidery was somewhat frayed and tattered, “it was not sae wasteful to ane’s horse-furniture.” Meanwhile, her brother stepped stoutly to his steed; and as he chose, notwithstanding the serenity ofthe weather, to throw a long red cloak over his other garments, his poney was even more completely enveloped in drapery than that of his sister. It happened, moreover, to be an animal of an high and contumacious spirit, bouncing and curvetting occasionally under the weight of Triptolemus, with a vivacity which, notwithstanding his Yorkshire descent, rather deranged him in the saddle;—gambades which, as the palfrey itself was not visible, except upon the strictest inspection, had, at a little distance, an effect as if they were the voluntary movements of the cloaked cavalier, without the assistance of any other legs than those with which nature had provided him; and, to any who had viewed Triptolemus under such a persuasion, the gravity, and even distress,

I04

THE PIRATE

Vol. I, ch. II

announced in his countenance, must have made a ridiculous contrast to the vivacious caprioles with which he piaffed along the moor. Mordaunt kept up with this worthy couple, mounted, according to the simplicity of the time and country, on the first and readiest poney which they had been able to press into the service, with no other accoutrement of any kind than the halter which served to guide him; while Mr Yellowley, seeing with pleasure his guide thus readily pro vided with a steed, privately resolved, that this rude custom ofhelping travellers to horses, without leave of the proprietor, should not be abated in Zetland, until he came to possess a herd of ponies belonging in property to himself, and exposed to suffer in the way of retaliation. But to other uses or abuses of the country, Triptolemus Yellowley shewed himself less tolerant. Long and wearisome were the dis courses he held with Mordaunt, or, (to speak much more correctly,) the harangues which he inflicted upon him, concerning the changes which his own advent in these isles was about to occasion. Unskilled as he was in the modem arts by which an estate may be improved to such a high degree that it shall altogether slip through the proprietor’s fingers, Triptolemus had at least the zeal, if not the knowledge, of a whole agricultural society in his own person; nor was he surpassed by any who has followed him, in that noble spirit which scorns to balance profit against outlay, but holds the glory of effecting a great change on the face of the land, to be, like virtue, in a great degree its own reward. No part of the wild and mountainous region over which Mordaunt guided him but what suggested to his active imagination some scheme of improvement and alteration. He would make a road through yon scarce passable glen, where at present nothing but the sure-footed creatures on which they were mounted could tread with any safety. He would substitute better houses for the skeoes, or sheds built of dry stones, in which the inhabitants cured or manufactured their fish— they should brew good ale instead ofbland—they should plant forests where tree never grew, and find mines of treasure where a Danish skilling was accounted a coin of a most respectable denomination. All these mutations, with many others, did the worthy factor resolve upon, speaking at the same time with the utmost confidence of the counten­ ance and assistance which he was to receive from the higher classes, and especially from Magnus Troil. “I will impart some of my ideas to the poor man,” he said, “before we are both many hours older; and you will mark how grateful he will be to the man who brings him knowledge, which is better than wealth.” “I would not have you build too strongly on that,” said Mordaunt, by way of caution; “Magnus Troil’s boat is kittle to trim—he likes his

[Chap. 11]

THE PIRATE

105

own ways, and his country-ways, and you will as soon teach your sheltie to dive like a sealgh, as bring Magnus to take a Scottish fashion in the place of a Norse one;—and yet, if he is steady to his old customs, he may perhaps be as changeable as another in his old friendships.” “Heus tu, inepte!” said the scholar of Saint Andrews, “steady or unsteady, what can it matter?—am I not here in point of trust, and in point of power? and shall a Fowde, by which barbarous appellative this Magnus Troil still calls himself, presume to measure judgment and weigh reasons with me, who represent the full dignity of the Chamberlain ofthe Islands of Orkney and Zetland?” “Still,” said Mordaunt, “I would advise you not to advance too rashly upon his prejudices. Magnus Troil, from the hour of his birth to this day, never saw a greater man than himself, and it is difficult to bridle an old horse for the first time. Besides, he has at no time in his life been a patient listener to long explanations, so it is possible that he may quarrel with your proposed reformation, before you can convince him of its advantages.” “How mean you, young man?” said the factor.—“Is there one who dwells in these islands, who is so wretchedly blind as not to be sensible of their deplorable defects? Can a man,” he added, rising into enthu­ siasm as he spoke, “or even a beast, look at that thing there, which they have the impudence to call a com-mill, without trembling to think that corn should be entrusted to such a miserable molendinary? The wretches are obliged to have at least fifty in each parish, each trun­ dling away upon its paltry mill-stone, under the thatch of a roof no bigger than a bee-skap, instead of a noble and seemly baron’s mill, that you would hear the clack of through the haill country; and that casts the meal through the mill-eye by forpits at a time.” “Ay, ay, brother,” said his sister, “that’s spoken like your wise sell. The mair cost the mair honour—that’s your word ever mair. Can it no creep into your wise head, man, that ilka body grinds their ain nievefu’ of meal, in this country, without plaguing themselves about baron’s mills, and thirls, and sucken, and the like trade? How mony a time I have heard you bell-the-cat with auld Edie Happer, the miller at Grindlebum, and wi’ his very knave too, about in-town and out-town multures—lock, gowpen, and knaveship, and a’ the lave o’t; and now naething less will serve you than to bring in the very same fashery on a wheen puir bodies, that bigg ilk ane a mill for themselves, sic as it is.” “Dinna tell me of gowpen and knaveship!” exclaimed the indignant agriculturist; “better pay half the grist to the miller, to have the rest grunded in a Christian manner, than put good grain into a bairn’s whirligig. Look at it for a moment, Baby—(bide still, ye cursed

106

THE PIRATE

Vol. 1,ch. 11

imp!)”—this interjection was applied to his poney, which began to be extremely impatient, while its rider interrupted his journey, to point out all the weak points ofthe Zetland mill—“look at it, I say—it’s just one degree better than a hand-quern—it has neither wheel nor trindle—neither cog nor happer—(bide still, there’s a canny beast)— it canna grind a bickerfu’ of meal in a quarter of an hour, and that will be mair like a mash for horse than a meltith for man’s use—Where­ fore—bide still, I say—Wherefore—Wherefore—The deil’s in the beast, and nae good, I think!”— As he uttered the last words, the sheltie, which had pranced and curvetted for some time with much impatience, at length got its head betwixt its legs, and at once canted its rider into the little rivulet, which served to drive the depreciated engine he was surveying; then eman­ cipating itself from the folds of the cloak, fled back towards its own wilderness, neighing in scorn, and flinging out its heels at every five yards. Laughing heartily at his disaster, Mordaunt helped the old man to arise; while his sister sarcastically congratulated him on having fallen rather into the shallows of a Zetland rivulet than the depths of a Scottish mill-pond. Disdaining to reply to this sarcasm, Triptolemus, so soon as he had recovered his legs, shaken his ears, and found that the folds of his cloak had saved him from being much wet in the scanty streamlet, exclaimed aloud, “I will have cussers from Lanarkshire— brood mares from Ayrshire—I will not have one of these cursed abortions left on the islands, to break honest folks’ necks—I say, Baby, I will rid the land of them.” “Ye had better wring your ain cloak, Triptolmus,” answered Baby. Mordaunt meanwhile was employing himself in catching another poney, from a herd which strayed at some distance; and, having made a halter out of twisted rushes, he seated the dismayed agriculturist in safety upon a more quiet, though less active poney, than that which he had at first bestrode. But Mr Yellowley’s fall had operated as a considerable sedative upon his spirits, and, for the full space of five miles’ travel, he said scarce a word, leaving full course to the melancholy suspirations and lamentations which his sister Baby bestowed on the old bridle, which the poney had carried off in its flight, and which, she observed, after having lasted for eighteen years come Martinmas, might be now considered as a castaway thing. Finding she had thus the field to herself, the old lady launched forth into a lecture upon economy, according to her own idea of that virtue, which seemed to include a system of privations, which, though observed with the sole purpose of saving money, might, if undertaken upon other prin­

[Chap. 12]

THE PIRATE

107

ciples, have ranked high in the history of a religious ascetic. She was but little interrupted by Mordaunt, who, conscious he was now on the eve of approaching Burgh Westra, employed himself rather in the task of anticipating the nature of the reception he was about to meet with there from two beautiful young women, than with the prosing of an old one, however wisely she might prove that small­ beer was more wholesome than strong ale; and that if her brother had bruised his huckle-bone in his tumble, cumfrey and butter was better to bring him round again, than all the doctors’ drugs in the world. But now the dreary moorlands, over which their path had hitherto lain, were exchanged for a more pleasant prospect, opening on a salt­ water lake, or arm of the sea, which ran up far inland, and was sur­ rounded by flat and fertile ground, producing crops better than the experienced eye of Triptolemus Yellowley had as yet witnessed in Zetland. In the midst of this Goshen stood the mansion of Burgh Westra, screened from the north and east by a ridge of heathy hills which lay behind it, and commanding an interesting prospect of the lake and its parent ocean, as well as the islands, and more distant mountains. From the mansion itself, as well as from almost every cottage in the adjacent hamlet, arose such a rich cloud of vapoury smoke, as shewed, that the preparations for the festival were not confined to the principal residence of Magnus himself, but extended through the whole vicinage. “My certie,” said Mistress Baby Yellowley, “ane wad think the haill town was on fire! The very hill-side smells of their wastefulness, and a hungry heart wad scarce seek better kitchen to a barley scone, than just to waft it in the reek that’s rising out of yon lums.”

Chapter Twelve ______Thou hast described A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius, When love begins to sicken and decay, It useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith. Julius Caesar

If the smell which was wafted from the chimnies of Burgh Westra up to the barren hills by which the mansion was surrounded, could, as Mistress Barbara opined, have refreshed the hungry, the noise which proceeded from thence might have made the very deaf to hear who never heard before. It was a medley of all sounds, and all connected with jollity and kind welcome. Nor were the sights con­ nected with them less animating.

108

THE PIRATE

Vol. 1,ch. 12

Troops of friends were seen in the act of arriving—their dis­ persed ponies flying to the moors in every direction, to recover their own pastures in the best way they could;—such, as we have already said, being the usual mode of discharging the cavalry which had been levied for a day’s service. At a small but commodious harbour, connected with the house and hamlet, those visitors were landing from their boats, who, situated in distant islands, and along the coast, had preferred making their journey by sea. Mordaunt and his companions might see each party pausing frequently to greet each other, and strolling on successively to the house, whose ever open gate received them alternately in such numbers, that it seemed the extent of the mansion, though suited to the opulence and hospitality of the owner, was scarce, on this occasion, sufficient for the guests. Amongst the confused sounds ofmirth and welcome which arose at the entrance of each new company, Mordaunt thought he could dis­ tinguish the loud laugh and hearty salutation of the sire of the man­ sion, and began to feel more deeply than before, the anxious doubt, whether that cordial reception, which was distributed so freely to all others, would be on this occasion extended to him. As they came on, they heard the voluntary scrapings and bravura effusions ofthe gallant fiddlers, who impatiently flung already from their bows those sounds with which they were to animate the evening. The clamour of the cook’s assistants, and the loud scolding tones of the cook himself, were also to be heard—sounds of dissonance at any other time, but which, subdued by others, and by certain happy associations, form no disagreeable part of the full chorus which always precedes a rural feast. Meanwhile, the guests advanced, full each of their own thoughts. Mordaunt’s we have already noticed. Baby was wrapt up in the melan­ choly grief and surprise excited by the positive conviction, that so much victuals had been cooked at once as were necessary to feed all the mouths which were clamouring around her—an enormity of expence, which, though she was no way concerned in bearing it, affected her nerves, as the beholding a massacre would touch those of the most indifferent spectator, however well assured of his own per­ sonal safety. She sickened, in short, at the sight of so much extravag­ ance, like Abyssinian Bruce, when he saw the luckless minstrels of Gondar hacked to pieces by the order of Ras Michael. As for her brother, they being now arrived where the rude and antique instru­ ments of Zetland agriculture lay scattered in the usual confusion of a Scottish barn-yard, his thoughts were at once engrossed in the defi­ ciencies of the one-stilted plough—of the twiscar, with which they dig

[Chap. 12]

THE PIRATE

109

peats—of the sledges, in which they transport commodities—of all and every thing, in short, in which the usages of the islands differed from those of the mainland of Scotland. The sight of these imperfect instruments stirred the blood of Triptolemus Yellowley, as that of the bold warrior rises at seeing the arms and insignia of the enemy with whom he is about to combat; and, faithful to his high emprize, he thought less of the hunger which his journey had occasioned, although about to be satisfied by such a dinner as rarely fell to his lot, than upon the task which he had undertaken, of civilizing the man­ ners, and improving the cultivation, of Zetland. “Jacta est alea” he muttered to himself, “this very day shall prove whether the Zetlanders are worthy of our labours, or whether their minds are as incapable of cultivation as their peat-mosses. Yet let us be cautious, and watch the soft time of speech. I feel, by my own experience, that it were best to let the body, in its present state, take the place of the mind. A mouthful of that same roast beef, which smells so delicately, will form an apt introduction to my grand plan for improving the breed of stock.” By this time the visitors had reached the low but ample front of Magnus Troil’s residence, which seemed of various dates, with large and ill-contrived additions, hastily adapted to the original building, as the increasing estate, or enlarged family, of successive proprietors, appeared to each to demand. Beneath a low-browed, and large porch, supported by two huge carved posts, once the head-ornaments of vessels which had found shipwreck upon the coast, stood Magnus himself, intent on the hospitable toil of receiving and welcoming the numerous guests who successively approached. His strong portly fig­ ure was well adapted to the dress which he wore—a blue coat of an antique cut, lined with scarlet, and laced and looped with gold down the seams and button-holes, and along the ample cuffs. Strong and masculine features, rendered ruddy and brown by frequent exposure to severe weather—a quantity ofmost venerable silver hair, which fell in unshorn profusion from under his gold-laced hat, and was care­ lessly tied with a ribband behind, expressed at once his advanced age, his hasty, yet well-conditioned temper, and his robust constitution. As our travellers approached him, a shade of displeasure seemed to cross his brow, and to interrupt for an instant the honest and hearty burst of hilarity with which he had been in the act of greeting all prior arrivals. When he approached Triptolemus Yellowley, he drew himself up, so as to take full advantage of his size and form, and to mix, as it were, some share of the stately importance of the opulent Udaller with the welcome afforded by the frank and hospitable landlord. “You are welcome, Mr Yellowley,” was his address to the factor;

110

THE PIRATE

Vol. 1,ch. 12

“you are welcome to Westra—the wind has blown you on a rough coast, and we that are the natives must be kind to you as we can. This, I believe, is your sister—Mistress Barbara Yellowley, permit me the honour of a neighbourly salute.”—And so saying, with a daring and self-devoted courtesy, which would find no equal in our degenerate days, he actually ventured to salute the withered cheek of the spin­ stress, who relaxed so much of her usual peevishness of expression, as to receive the courtesy with something which approached to a smile. He then looked full at Mordaunt Mertoun, and, without offering his hand, said, in a tone somewhat broken by suppressed agitation, “You too are welcome, Master Mordaunt.” “Did I not think so,” said Mordaunt, naturally offended by the coldness of his host’s manner, “I had not been here—and it is not yet too late to turn back.” “Young man,” replied Magnus, “you know better than most, that from these doors no man can turn, without an offence to their owner. I pray you, disturb not my guests by your ill-timed scruples. When Magnus Troil says welcome, all are welcome who are within hearing of his voice, and it is an indifferent loud one.—Walk in, my worthy guests, and let us see what cheer my lasses can make you within doors.” So saying, and taking care to make his manner so general to the whole party, that Mordaunt should neither be able to appropriate any particular portion of the welcome to himself, nor yet to complain of being excluded from all share in it, the Udaller ushered the guests into his house, where two large outer rooms, which, on the present occa­ sion, served the purpose of a modem saloon, were already crowded with guests of every description. The furniture was sufficiently simple, and had a character peculiar to the situation of these stormy islands. Magnus Troil was, indeed, like most of the higher class of Zetland proprietors, a friend to the distressed traveller, whether by sea or land, and had repeatedly exerted his whole authority in protecting the property and persons of shipwrecked mariners; yet so frequent were wrecks upon that tre­ mendous coast, and so many unappropriated articles were constantly flung ashore, that the interior of the house bore sufficient witness to the ravages of the ocean, and to the exercise of those rights which the lawyers term Flotsome and Jetsome. The chairs, which were arranged around the walls, were such as are used in cabins, and many of them were of foreign construction; the mirrors and cabinets, which were placed against the walls for ornament or convenience, had, it was plain from their form, been constructed for ship-board, and one or two of the latter were of strange and unknown wood. Even the partition

[Chap. 12]

THE PIRATE

111

which separated the two apartments, seemed constructed out of the bulk-heads of some large vessel, clumsily adapted to the service which it at present performed, by the labour of some native joiner. To a stranger, these evident marks and tokens of human misery might, at the first glance, form a contrast with the scene of mirth with which they were now associated; but to the natives, the association was so familiar, that it did not for a moment interrupt the course of their glee. To the younger part of these revellers the presence of Mordaunt was like a fresh charm of enjoyment. All came around him to marvel at his absence, and all, by their repeated inquiries, plainly shewed that they conceived it had been entirely voluntary on his side. The youth felt that this general acceptation relieved his anxiety on one painful point. Whatever prejudice the family of Burgh Westra might have adopted respecting him, it must be of a private nature; at least he had not the additional pain of finding that he was depreciated in the eyes of society at large; and his vindication, when he found opportunity to make one, would not require to be extended beyond the circle of a single family. This was consoling; though his heart still throbbed with anxiety at the thought of meeting with his estranged, but still beloved friends. Laying the excuse of his absence on his father’s state of health, he made his way through the various groupes of friends and guests, each of whom seemed willing to detain him as long as possible, and having got rid of his travelling companions, who at first stuck fast as burs, by presenting them to one or two families of consequence, he reached at length the door of a small apartment, which, opening from one of the large exterior rooms we have mentioned, Minna and Brenda had been permitted to fit up after their own taste, and to call their peculiar property. Mordaunt had contributed no small share of the invention and mechanical execution employed in fitting up this favourite apartment, and in disposing its ornaments. It was, indeed, during his last resid­ ence at Burgh Westra, as free to his entrance and occupation, as to its proper mistresses. But now, so much were times altered, that he remained with his finger on the latch, uncertain whether he should take the freedom to draw it, until Brenda’s voice pronounced the words “Come in then,” in the tone of one who is interrupted by an unwelcome disturber, who is to be heard and dispatched with all the speed possible. At this signal, Mertoun entered the fanciful cabinet of the sisters, which, by the addition of many ornaments, including some articles of considerable value, had been fitted up for the approaching festival. The daughters of Magnus, at the moment of Mordaunt’s entrance, were seated in deep consultation with the stranger Cleveland, and

112

THE PIRATE

Vol. 1,ch. 12

with a little slight-made old man, whose eye retained all the vivacity of spirit, which had supported him under the thousand vicissitudes of a changeful and precarious life, and which, accompanying him in his old age, rendered his grey hairs less awfully reverend perhaps, but not less beloved, than would a more grave and less imaginative expression of countenance and character. There was even a penetrating shrewd­ ness mingled in the look of curiosity, with which, as he stepped for an instant aside, he seemed to watch the meeting of Mordaunt with the two lovely sisters. The reception the youth met with resembled, in general character, that which he had experienced from Magnus himself; but the maidens could not so well cover their sense of the change of circum­ stances under which they met. Both blushed, as rising and without extending the hand, far less offering the cheek, as the fashion of the times permitted, and almost exacted, they paid to Mordaunt the salu­ tation due to an ordinary acquaintance. But the blush of the elder was one of those transient evidences of flitting emotion, that vanish as fast as the passing thought which excites them. In an instant she stood before Mordaunt calm and cold, returning, with guarded and cautious courtesy, the usual civilities, which, with a faultering voice, Mordaunt endeavoured to present to her. The emotion of Brenda bore, extern­ ally at least, a deeper and more agitating character. Her blush extended over every part ofher beautiful skin which her dress permit­ ted to be visible, including her slender neck, and the upper region of a finely formed bosom. Neither did she even attempt to reply to what share of his confused compliment Mordaunt addressed to her in particular, but regarded him with eyes, in which displeasure was evid­ ently mingled with feelings of regret, and recollections of former times. Mordaunt felt, as it were, assured upon the instant, that the regard of Minna was extinguished, but that it might be yet possible to recover that of the milder Brenda; and such is the waywardness of human fancy, that though he had never hitherto made any distinct difference betwixt these two beautiful and interesting girls, the favour of her, which seemed most absolutely withdrawn, became at the moment the most interesting in his eyes. He was disturbed in these hasty reflections by Cleveland, who advanced, with military frankness, to pay his compliments to his pre­ server, having only delayed long enough to permit the exchange of the ordinary salutations betwixt the visitor and the ladies of the family. He made his approach with so good a grace, that it was impossible for Mordaunt, although he dated his loss of favour at Burgh Westra from this stranger’s appearance on the coast, and domestication in the family, to do less than return his advances as courtesy demanded,

[Chap. 12]

THE PIRATE

113

accept his thanks with an appearance of satisfaction, and hope that his time had past pleasantly since their last meeting. Cleveland was about to answer, when he was anticipated by the little old man, formerly noticed, who now, thrusting himself forward, and seizing Mordaunt’s hand, kissed him on the forehead; and then at the same time echoed and answered his question—“How passes time at Burgh Westra? Was it you that asked it, my prince of the cliff and of the scaur? How should it pass, but with all the wings that beauty and joy can add to help its flight!” “And wit and song, too, my good old friend,” said Mordaunt, halfserious, half-jesting, as he shook the old man cordially by the hand.— “These cannot be wanting, where Claud Halcro comes!” “Jeer me not, Mordaunt, my good lad,” replied the old man; “When your foot is as slow as mine, your wit frozen, and your song out of tune–––” “How can you belie yourself, my good master?” answered Mor­ daunt, who was not unwilling to avail himself of his old friend’s peculiarities to introduce something like conversation, break the awkwardness of this singular meeting, and gain time for observation, ere requiring an explanation of the change of conduct which the family seemed to have adopted towards him. “Say not so,” he continued. “Time, my old friend, lays his hand lightly on the bard. Have I not heard you say, the poet partakes the immortality of the song? and surely the great English poet, you used to tell us of, was elder than yourself when he pulled the bow-oar among all the wits of London.” This alluded to a story which was, as the French term it, Halcro’s chevalde battaille and any allusion to which was certain at once to place him in the saddle, and to push his hobby-horse into full career. His laughing eye kindled with a sort of enthusiasm, which the ordinary folks of this world might have called crazed, while he dashed into the subject which he best loved to talk upon. “Alas, alas! my dear Mordaunt Mertoun—silver is silver, and waxes not dim by use—and pewter is pewter, and grows the longer the duller. It is not for poor Claud Halcro to name himself in the same twelvemonth with the immortal John Dryden. True it is, as I may have told you before, that I have seen that great man, nay I have been in the Wits’ Coffee-house, as it was then called, and had once a pinch out of his own very snuff­ box. I must have told you all how it happened, but here is Captain Cleveland who never heard it.—I lodged, you must know, in Russell Street. I question not but you know Russell Street, Covent Garden, Captain Cleveland?” “I should know its latitude pretty well, Mr Halcro,” said the

114

THE PIRATE

Vol. 1,ch. 12

Captain, smiling; “but I believe you mentioned the circumstance yesterday, and besides we have day’s duty in hand—you must play us this song which we are to study.” “It will not serve the turn now,” said Halcro, “we must think of something that will take in our dear Mordaunt, the first voice in the island, whether for a part or solo. I will never be he will touch a string to you, unless Mordaunt Mertoun is to help us out.—What say you, my fairest Night?—what think you, my sweet Dawn of Day?” he added, addressing the young women, upon whom, as we have said elsewhere, he had long before bestowed these allegorical names. “Mr Mordaunt Mertoun,” said Minna, “has come too late to be of our band on this occasion—it is our misfortune, but it cannot be helped.” “How? what?” said Halcro, hastily—“too late—and you have prac­ tised together all your lives—take my word, my bonnie lasses, that old tunes are sweetest, and old friends surest. Mr Cleveland has a fine bass, that must be allowed; but I would have you trust for the first effect to one of the twenty fine airs you can sing where Mordaunt’s tenor joins so well with your own witchery—here is my lovely Day approves of the change in her heart.” “You were never in your life more mistaken, father Halcro,” said Brenda, her cheeks again reddening, more with displeasure, it seemed, than with shame. “Nay, but how is this?” said the old man, pausing, and looking at them alternately. “What have we got here?—a cloudy Night and a red Morning?—that betokens rough weather—What means all this, young women?—where lies the offence?—in me, I fear; for the blame is always laid upon the oldest when young folks like us go by the ears.” “The blame is not with you, father Halcro,” said Minna, rising, and taking her sister by the arm, “if indeed there be blame any where.” “I should fear then, Minna,” said Mordaunt, endeavouring to soften his tone into one of indifferent pleasantry, “that the new comer has brought the offence along with him.” “When no offence is taken,” replied Minna, with her usual gravity, “it matters not by whom such may have been offered.” “Is it possible, Minna!” exclaimed Mordaunt, “and is it you who speak thus to me?—And you too, Brenda, can you too judge so hardly of me, yet without permitting me one moment of honest and frank explanation?” “Those who should know best,” answered Brenda, in a low but decisive tone of voice, “have told us their pleasure, and it must be done.—Sister, I think we have staid too long here, and will be wanted elsewhere—Mr Mertoun will excuse us on so busy a day.”

[Chap. 12]

THE PIRATE

115

The sisters linked their arms together. Halcro in vain endeavoured to stop them, making, at the same time, a theatrical gesture, and exclaiming, “Now, Day and Night, but this is wondrous strange!”

Then turned to Mordaunt Mertoun, and added,—“The girls are possessed with the spirit of mutability, shewing, as our master Spen­ ser well saith,that Among all living creatures, more or lesse, Change still doth reign, and keep the greater sway.

Captain Cleveland,” he continued, “know you any thing that has happened to put these two juvenile graces out of tune?” “He will lose his reckoning,” answered Cleveland, “that spends time in inquiring why the wind shifts a point, or why a woman changes her mind. Were I Mr Mordaunt, I would not ask the proud wenches another question on such a subject.” “It is a friendly advice, Captain Cleveland,” replied Mordaunt, “and I will not hold it the less so that it has been given unasked. Allow me to inquire if you are yourself as indifferent to the opinion of your female friends as it seems you would have me to be?” “Who, I?” said the Captain, with an air of frank indifference. “I never thought twice upon such a subject. I never saw woman worth thinking twice about after the anchor was a-peak—on shore it is another thing; and I will laugh, sing, dance, and love, if they like it, with twenty girls, were they but halfso pretty as those who have left us, and make them heartily welcome to change their course in the sound of a boatswain’s whistle. It will be odds but I wear as fast as they can.” A patient is seldom pleased with that sort of consolation which is founded on holding light the malady of which he complains; and Mordaunt felt disposed to be offended with Captain Cleveland, both for taking notice of his embarrassment, and intruding upon him his own opinion; and he replied, therefore, somewhat sharply, “that Cap­ tain Cleveland’s sentiments were only suited to such as had the art to become universal favourites wherever chance happened to throw them, and who could not lose in one place more than their merit was sure to gain for them in another.” This was spoken ironically; but there was, to confess the truth, a superior knowledge of the world, and a consciousness of external merit at least about the man, which rendered his interference doubly disagreeable. As Sir Lucius O’Trigger says, there was an air of suc­ cess about Captain Cleveland which was mighty provoking. Young, handsome, and well assured, his air of nautical bluntness sate natur­ ally and easily upon him, and was perhaps particularly well fitted to the simple manners of the remote country in which he found himself; and

116

THE PIRATE

Vol. 1,ch. 12

where, even in the best families, a greater degree of refinement might have rendered his conversation rather less acceptable. He was con­ tented, in the present instance, to smile good-humouredly at the obvious discontent of Mordaunt Mertoun, and replied, “You are angry with me, my good friend, but you cannot make me angry with you. The fair hands of all the pretty women I ever saw in my life would never have fished me up out ofthe Roost of Sumburgh. So pray do not quarrel with me; for here is Mr Halcro witness that I have struck both jack and topsail, and should you fire a broadside into me, cannot return a single shot.” “Ay, ay,” said Halcro, “you must be friends with Captain Cleve­ land, Mordaunt. Never quarrel with your friend, because a woman is whimsical. Why, man, if they kept one humour, how the devil could we make so many songs on them as we do? Even old Dryden himself, glorious old John, could have said little about a girl that was always of one mind—as well write verses upon a mill-pond. It is your tides and your roosts, and your currents and eddies, that come and go, and ebb and flow, (by Heaven! I run into rhyme when I so much as think upon them,) that smile one day, rage the next, flatter and devour, delight and ruin us, and so forth—it is these that give the real soul of poetry. Did you never hear my Adieu to the Lass of Northmaven—that was poor Bet Stimbister, whom I call Mary for the sound’s sake, as I call myself Hacon after my great ancestor Hacon Goldemund, or Haco with the golden mouth, who came to the island with Harold Harfager, and was his chief Scald?—Well, but where was I—O ay—poor Bet Stimbister, she, and partly some debt, was the cause of my leaving the isles of Hialtland, (better so called than Shetland, or Zetland even,) and taking to the broad world. I have had a tramp of it since that time —have battled my way through the world, Captain, as a man of mold may, that has a light head, a light purse, and a heart as light as them both—fought my way, and paid my way—that is, either with money or wit—have seen kings changed and deposed, as you would turn a tenant out of a scathold—knew all the wits of the age, and especially the glorious John Dryden—what man in the islands can say as much, barring lying—I had a pinch out of his own snuff-box—I will tell you how I came by such promotion.” “But the song, Mr Halcro,” said Captain Cleveland. “The song?” answered Halcro, seizing the Captain by the button, —for he was too much accustomed to have his audience escape from him during recitation, not to put in practice all the usual means of prevention—“The song? Why I gave a copy of it, with fifteen others, to the immortal John. You shall hear it—you shall hear them all, if you will but stand still a moment; and you too, my dear boy, Mordaunt

[Chap. 12]

THE PIRATE

117

Mertoun, I have scarce heard a word from your mouth these six months, and now you are running away from me.” So saying, he secured him with his other hand. “Nay, now he has got us both in tow,” said the seaman; “there is nothing for it but hearing him out, though he spins as tough a yarn as ever an old man-of-war’s-man twisted on the watch at midnight.” “Nay, now be silent, be silent, and let one of us speak at once,” said the poet, imperatively; while Cleveland and Mordaunt, looking at each other with a ludicrous expression of resignation to their fate, waited in submission for the well-known and inevitable tale. “I will tell you all about it,” continued Halcro. “I was knocked about the world like other young fellows, doing this, that, and t’other for a livelihood; for, thank God, I could turn my hand to any thing—but loving still the Muses as much as if the ungrateful jades had found me, like so many blockheads, in my own coach and six. However, I held out till my cousin, old Laurence Linklutter, died, and left me the bit of an island yonder; although, by the way, Cultmalindie was as near to him as I was; but Laurence loved wit, though he had little of his own. Well, he left me the wee bit island—it is as barren as Parnassus itself. What then—I have a penny to spend, a penny to keep my purse, a penny to give to the poor—ay, and a bed and a bottle for a friend, as you shall know, boys, ifyou will go back with me when this merriment is over.— But where was I in my story?” “Near port, I hope,” answered Cleveland; but Halcro was too determined a narrator to be interrupted by the broadest hint. “O ay,” he resumed, with the self-satisfied air of one who has recovered the thread of a story, “I was in my old lodgings in Russell Street, with old Timothy Thimblethwaite, the Master Fashioner, then the best-known man about town. He made for all the wits, and for the dull boobies of fortune besides, and made the one pay for the other. He never dunned a wit but for the sake of getting a repartee; and he was in correspondence with all that was worth knowing about town. He had letters from Crowne, and Tate, and Prior, and Tom Brown, and all the famous fellows of the time, with such pellets of wit, that there was no reading them without laughing ready to die, and all ending with craving a further term for payment.” “I should have thought the tailor would have found that jest rather serious,” said Mordaunt. “Not a bit—not a bit—Tim Thimblethwaite (he was a Cumberland-man by birth,)” replied his eulogist, “had the soul of a prince —ay, and died with the fortune of one; for woe betide the custardgorged aiderman that came under Tim’s goose, after he had got one of these letters—egad, he was sure to pay the kain. Why,

118

THE PIRATE

Vol. 1,ch. 12

Thimblethwaite was thought to be the original of little Tom Bibber, in glorious John’s comedy of the Wild Gallant; and I know that he has trusted, ay, and lent John money to boot at a time out of his own pocket when all his fine court friends blew cold enough. He trusted me too, and I have been two months on the score at a time for my upper-room. To be sure, I was obliging in his way—not that I exactly could shape or sew, nor would that have been decorous for a gentleman of good descent; but I—eh, eh—I drew bills—summed up the books” “Carried home the clothes of the wits and aidermen, and got lodging for your labour,” interrupted Cleveland. “No, no—damn it, no,” replied Halcro; “no such thing—you put me out in my story—where was I?” “Nay, the devil help you to the latitude,” said the Captain, extricat­ ing his button from the gripe of the unmerciful bard’s finger and thumb, “for I have no time to take an observation.” So saying, he bolted from the room. “A silly ill-bred conceited fool,” said Halcro, looking after him; “with as little manners as wit in his empty coxcomb. I wonder what Magnus and these silly wenches can see in him—he tells such damn­ able long-winded stories, too, about his adventures and sea-fights— every second word a lie, I doubt not. Mordaunt, my dear boy, take example by that man—that is, take warning by him—never tell long stories about yourself. You are sometimes given to talk too much about your own exploits on craigs and skerries, and the like, which only breaks conversation, and prevents other folks from being heard. Now I see you are impatient to hear out what I was saying—Stop, where about was I?” “I fear we must put it off, Mr Halcro, until after dinner,” said Mordaunt, who also meditated his escape, though desirous of effect­ ing it with more delicacy towards his old acquaintance than Captain Cleveland had thought it necessary to use. “Nay, my dear boy,” said Halcro, seeing himself about to be utterly deserted; “do you not leave me too—never take so bad an example as to set light by old acquaintance, Mordaunt. I have wandered many a weary step in my day; but they were always lightened when I could get hold of the arm of an old friend like yourself.” So saying, he quitted the youth’s coat, and, sliding his hand gently under his arm, grappled him more effectually, to which Mordaunt submitted, a little moved by the poet’s observation upon the unkind­ ness of old acquaintances, under which he himself was an immediate sufferer. But when Halcro renewed his formidable question, “Whereabouts was I?” Mordaunt, preferring his poetry to his prose, reminded him of the song which he said he had written upon his first

[Chap. 12]

THE PIRATE

119

leaving Zetland,—a song to which, indeed, the inquirer was no stranger, but which, as it must be new to the reader, we shall here insert as a favourable specimen of the poetical powers of this tuneful descendant of Haco the Golden-mouthed; for, in the opinion of many tolerable judges, he held a respectable rank among the inditers of madrigals of the period, and was as well qualified to give immortality to his Nancies of the hills or dales, as many a gentle sonnetteer of wit and pleasure about town. He was something of a musician also, and on the present occasion seized upon a sort of lute, and, quitting his victim, prepared the instrument for an accompaniment, speaking all the while that he might lose no time. “I learned the lute,” he said, “from the same man who taught honest Shadwell—plump Tom, as they used to call him—somewhat roughly treated by the glorious John, you remember—Mordaunt, you remember— Methinks I see the new Arion sail, The lute still trembling underneath thy nail, At thy well sharpen’d thumb, from shore to shore, The trebles squeak for fear, the basses roar.

Come, I am indifferently in tune now—what was it to be?—ay, I remember—nay, The Lass of Northmaven is the ditty—poor Bet Stimbister! I have called her Mary in the verses. Betsy does well for an English song; but Mary is more natural here.” So saying, after a short prelude, he sung, with a tolerable voice and some taste, the following verses: “Farewell to Northmaven, Grey Hillswick, farewell! To the calm of thy haven, The storm on thy fell— To each breeze that can vary The mood of thy main, And to thee, bonny Mary! We meet not again. “Farewell the wild ferry, Which Hacon could brave, When the peaks of the Skerry Were white in the wave. There’s a maid may look over These wild waves in vain, For the skiff of her lover— He comes not again. “The vows thou hast broke, On the wild currents fling them; On the quicksand and rock Let the mermaiden sing them. New sweetness they’ll give her

120

THE PIRATE

Vol. 1,ch. 12

Bewildering strain; But there’s one who will never Believe them again. “O were there an island, Though ever so wild, Where woman could smile, and No man be beguiled— Too tempting a snare To poor mortals were given, And the hope would fix there, That should anchor on heaven.”

“I see you are softened, my young friend,” said Halcro, when he had finished his song; “so are most who hear that same ditty. Words and music both mine own; and, without saying much of the wit of it, there is a sort of—eh—eh—simplicity and truth about it, which gets its way to most folks’ heart. Even your father cannot resist it—and he has a heart as impenetrable to poetry and song as Apollo himself could draw an arrow against. But then he has had some ill luck in his time with the women-folks, as is plain from his owing them such a grudge. —Ay, ay, there the charm lies—none of us but has felt the same sore in our day. But come, my dear boy, they are mustering in the hall, men and women both—plagues as they are, we should get on ill without them—but before we go, only mark the last turn— And the hope would fix there;—

that is, in the supposed island—a place which neither was nor will be— That should anchor on heaven.

Now you see, my good young man, there are here none of your heathenish rants, which Rochester, Etheridge, and these wild fellows, used to string together. A parson might sing the song, and his clerk bear the burthen—but there is the confounded bell—we must go now —but never mind—we’ll get into a quiet corner at night, and I’ll tell you all about it.” END OF VOLUME FIRST

THE PIRATE VOLUME 11

Chapter One Full in the midst the polish’d table shines, And the bright goblets, rich with generous wines; Now each partakes the feast, the wine prepares, Portions the food, and each the portion shares; Nor till the rage of thirst and hunger ceased, To the high host approached the sagacious guest. Odyssey

The hospitable profusion of Magnus Troil’s board, the number of guests who feasted in the hall, the much greater number of retainers, attendants, humble friends, and domestics of every poss­ ible description, who revelled without, with the multitude of the still poorer, and less honoured assistants, who came from every hamlet or township within twenty miles round, to share the bounty of the muni­ ficent Udaller, were such as altogether astonished Triptolemus Yel­ lowley, and made him internally doubt whether it would be prudent in him at this time, and amid the full glow of his hospitality, to propose to the host who presided over such a splendid banquet, a radical change in the whole customs and usages of his country. True, the sagacious Triptolemus felt conscious that he possessed in his own person wisdom far superior to that of all the assembled feasters, to say nothing of the landlord, against whose prudence the very extent ofhis hospitality formed, in Yellowley’s opinion, sufficient evidence. But yet the Amphitryon with whom one dines holds, for the time at least, an influence over the minds of his most distinguished guests; and if the dinner be in good style, and the wines of the right quality, it is humbling to see that neither art nor wisdom, scarce external rank itself, can assume their natural and wonted superiority over the distributor ofthese good things, until coffee has been brought in. Triptolemus felt the full weight of this temporary superiority, yet 121

122

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2, ch. 1

he was desirous to do something that might vindicate the vaunts he had made to his sister and his fellow-traveller, and he stole a look at them from time to time, to mark whether he was not sinking in their esteem from postponing his promised lecture upon the enormities of Zetland. But Mrs Barbara was busily engaged in noting and registering the waste incurred in such an entertainment as she had probably never before looked upon, and in admiring the host’s indifference to, and the guests’ absolute negligence of those rules of civility in which her youth had been brought up. The feasters desired to be helped from a dish which was unbroken, and might have figured at supper, with as much freedom as if it had undergone the ravages of half-a-dozen guests: and no one seemed to care—the landlord himself least of all— whether those dishes only were consumed, which, from their nature, are incapable of re-appearance, or whether the assault was extended to the substantial rounds of beef, pasties, and so forth, which, by the rules of good housewifery, are destined to stand two attacks, and which therefore, according to Mrs Barbara’s ideas of politeness, ought not to have been annihilated by the guests upon the first onset, but spared, like Outis in the cave of Polyphemus, to be devoured the last. Lost in the meditations to which these breaches of convivial discipline gave rise, and in the contemplation of an ideal larder of cold meat which she could have saved out of the wreck of roast, boiled, and baked, sufficient to have supplied her cupboard for at least a twelve­ month, Mrs Barbara cared very little whether or not her brother supported in its extent the character which he had calculated upon assuming. Mordaunt Mertoun also was conversant with far other thoughts than those which regarded the proposed reformer of Zetland eco­ nomies. His seat was betwixt two blithe maidens of Thule, who, not taking scorn that he had upon other occasions given preference to the daughters of the Udaller, were glad of the chance which assigned to them the attentions of so distinguished a gallant, who, as being their squire at the feast, might in all probability become their partner in the subsequent dance. But, whilst rendering to his fair neighbours all the usual attentions which society required, Mordaunt kept up a covert, but accurate and close observation, upon his estranged friends, Minna and Brenda. The Udaller himself had a share of his attention; but in him he could remark nothing, except the usual tone of hearty and somewhat boisterous hospitality with which he was accustomed to animate the banquet upon all such occasions of general festivity. But in the differing mien of the two maidens there was much more room for painful remark.

[Chap. 13]

THE PIRATE

123

Captain Cleveland sate betwixt the sisters, was sedulous in his attentions to both, and Mordaunt was so placed, that he could observe all, and hear a great deal, of what passed between them. But Cleve­ land’s peculiar regard seemed devoted to the elder sister. Of this the younger was perhaps conscious, for more than once her eye glanced towards Mordaunt, and, as he thought, with something in it which resembled regret for the interruption of their intercourse, and a sad remembrance of former and more friendly times; while Minna was exclusively engrossed by the attentions of her neighbour; and that it should be so, filled Mordaunt with surprise and resentment. Minna, the serious, the prudent, the reserved, whose countenance and manners indicated so much elevation of character—Minna, the lover of solitude, and of those paths of knowledge in which men walk best without company—the enemy oflight mirth, the friend ofmusing melancholy, and the frequenter of fountain-heads and pathless glens —she whose character seemed, in short, the very reverse of that which might be captivated by the bold, coarse, and daring gallantry of such a man as this Captain Cleveland, gave, nevertheless, her eye and ear to him, as he sate beside her at table, with an interest and a graciousness of attention, which, to Mordaunt, who well knew how to judge of her feelings by her manner, intimated a degree of the highest favour. He observed this, and his heart rose against the favourite by whom he had been thus superseded, as well as against Minna’s indiscreet departure from her own character. “What is there about that man,” he said within himself, “more than the bold and daring assumption of importance which is derived from success in petty enterprizes, and the exercise of petty despotism over a ship’s crew?—his very language is more professional than is used by the superior officers of the British navy; and the wit which has excited so many smiles, seems to me such as Minna would not formerly have endured for an instant. Even Brenda seems less taken with his gal­ lantry than Minna, whom it should have suited so little.” Mordaunt was doubly mistaken in these his angry speculations. In the first place, with an eye which was, in some respects, that of a rival, he criticised far too severely the manners and behaviour of Captain Cleveland. They were unpolished, certainly; which was of less con­ sequence in a country inhabited by so plain and simple a race as the ancient Zetlanders. On the other hand, there was an open, naval frankness in Cleveland’s manners—much natural shrewdness— some appropriate humour—an undoubting confidence in himself— and that enterprizing hardihood of disposition, which, without any other recommendable quality, very often leads to success with the fair sex. But Mordaunt was farther mistaken, in supposing that Cleveland

124

THE

pirate

Vol. 2,ch.1

was likely to be disagreeable to Minna Troil, on account of the opposi­ tion of their characters in so many material particulars. Had his knowledge of the world been a little more extensive, he might have observed, that as unions are often formed betwixt couples differing in complexion and stature, they take place still more frequently betwixt persons totally differing in feeling, in taste, in pursuits, and in under­ standing; and it would not be saying, perhaps, too much, to aver, that two-thirds of the marriages around us have been contracted betwixt persons, who, judging apriori, we should have thought had scarce any charms for each other. A moral and primary cause might be easily assigned for these anomalies, in the wise dispensations of Providence, that the general balance of wit, wisdom, and amiable qualities of all kinds, should be kept up through society at large. For, what a world were it, if the wise were to intermarry only with the wise, the learned with the learned, the amiable with the amiable, nay, even the handsome with the hand­ some? and, is it not evident, that the degraded castes of the foolish, the ignorant, the brutal, and the deformed, (comprehending, by the way, far the greater portion of mankind,) must, when condemned to exclusive intercourse with each other, become gradually as much brutalized in person and disposition as so many ouran-outangs? When, therefore, we see the “gentle joined to the rude,” we may lament the fate of the suffering individual, but we must not the less admire the mysterious disposition of that wise Providence which thus balances the moral good and evil of life;—which secures for a family, unhappy in the dispositions of one parent, a share of better and sweeter blood, transmitted from the other, and preserves to the offspring the affectionate care and protection of at least one of those from whom it is naturally due. Without the frequent occurrence of such alliances and unions—missorted as they seem at first sight—the world could not be that for which Eternal Wisdom has designed it—a place ofmixed good and evil—a place of trial at once, and of suffering, where even the worst ills are chequered with something that renders them tolerable to humble and patient minds, and where the best blessings carry with them a necessary alloy of embittering depreci­ ation. When, indeed, we look a little closer on the causes of those unexpected and ill-suited attachments, we have occasion to acknow­ ledge, that the means by which they are produced do not infer that complete departure from, or inconsistency with, the character of the parties, which we might expect when the result alone is contemplated. The wise purposes which Providence appears to have had in view, by permitting such intermixture of dispositions, tempers, and under­

[Chap. 13]

THE PIRATE

125

standings, in the married state, are not accomplished by any myster­ ious impulse by which, in contradiction to the ordinary laws of nature, men or women are urged to an union with those whom the world see to be unsuitable to them. The freedom of will is permitted to us in the occurrences of ordinary life, as in our moral conduct; and in the former as well as the latter case, is often the means of misguiding those who possess it. Thus it usually happens, more especially to the enthu­ siastic and imaginative, that, having formed a picture of admiration in their own mind, they too often deceive themselves by some faint resemblance in some existing being, whom their fancy as speedily as gratuitously invests with all the attributes necessary to complete the beau ideal of mental perfection. No one, perhaps, even in the happiest marriage, with an object really beloved, ever found all the qualities he expected to possess; but in far too many cases, he finds he has prac­ tised a much higher degree of mental deception, and has erected his airy castle of felicity upon some rainbow, which owed its very exist­ ence only to the peculiar state of the atmosphere. Thus Mordaunt, if better acquainted with life, and with the course of human things, would have been little surprised that such a man as Cleveland, handsome, bold, and animated,—a man who had obvi­ ously lived in danger, and who spoke of it as sport, should have been invested, by a girl of Minna’s fanciful character, with an extensive share of those qualities, which, in her active imagination, were held to fill up the accomplishments of a heroic character. The plain bluntness of his manner, if remote from courtesy, appeared, at least, as widely different from deceit; and, unfashioned as he seemed by forms, he had enough both of natural sense, and natural good-breeding, to support the delusion he had created, at least so far as externals were concerned. It is scarce necessary to add, that these observations apply exclusively to what are called love-matches; for when either party fix their attachment upon the substantial comforts of a rental, or a join­ ture, they cannot be disappointed in the acquisition, although they may be cruelly so in their over-estimation of the happiness it was to afford, or in having too slightly anticipated the disadvantages with which it was to be attended. Having a certain partiality for the dark Beauty whom we have described, we have willingly dedicated this digression, in order to account for a line of conduct which we allow to seem absolutely unnatural in such a narrative as the present, though the most common event in ordinary life; namely, in Minna’s appearing to have over­ estimated the taste, talent, and ability of a handsome young man, who was dedicating to her his whole time and attention, and whose homage rendered her the envy of almost all the other young women of that

120

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2, ch. 1

numerous party. Perhaps, if our fair readers will take the trouble to consult their own bosoms, they will be disposed to allow, that the distinguished good taste exhibited by any individual, who, when his attentions would be agreeable to a whole circle of rivals, selects her as their individual object, entitles him, on the footing of reciprocity, if on no other, to a large share ofher favourable, and even partial esteem. At any rate, if the character shall, after all, be deemed inconsistent and unnatural, it concerns not us, who record the facts as we find them, and pretend no privilege for bringing closer to nature those incidents which may seem to diverge from it; or for reducing to consistence that most inconsistent of all created things—the heart of a beautiful and admired female. Necessity, which teaches all the liberal arts, can render us also adepts in dissimulation; and Mordaunt, though a novice, failed not to profit in her school. It was manifest, that, in order to observe the demeanour of those on whom his attention was fixed, he must needs put constraint on his own, and appear, at least, so much engaged with the damsels betwixt whom he sate, that Minna and Brenda should suppose him indifferent to what was passing around him. The ready cheerfulness of Maddie and Clara Groatsettars, who were esteemed considerable fortunes in the island, and were at this moment too happy in feeling themselves seated somewhat beyond the sphere of vigilance influenced by their aunt, the good old Lady Glowrowrum, met and requited the attempts which Mordaunt made to be lively and entertaining; and they were soon engaged in a gay conversation, to which, as usual on such occasions, the gentleman contributed wit, or what passes for such, and the ladies their prompt laughter and liberal applause. But, amidst this seeming mirth, Mordaunt failed not, from time to time, as covertly as he might, to observe the conduct of the two daughters of Magnus; and still it appeared as if the elder, wrapt up in the conversation of Cleveland, did not cast away a thought on the rest of the company; and as if Brenda, more openly as she conceived his attention withdrawn from her, looked with an expression both anxious and melancholy towards the groupe of which he himself formed a part. He was much moved by the diffidence, as well as the trouble, which her looks seemed to convey, and tacitly formed the resolution of seeking a more full explanation with her in the course of the evening. Noma, he remembered, had stated that these two amiable young women were in danger, the nature of which she left unexplained, but which he suspected to arise out of their mistaking the character of this daring and all-engrossing stranger; and he secretly resolved, that, if possible, he would be the means of detecting Cleveland, and of saving his early friends.

[Chap. 13]

THE PIRATE

127

As he revolved these thoughts, his attention to the Miss Groat­ settars gradually diminished, and perhaps he might altogether have forgotten the necessity of his appearing an uninterested spectator of what was passing, had not the signal been given for the ladies retiring from table. Minna, with a native grace, and somewhat of stateliness in her manner, bent her head to the company in general, with a kinder and more particular expression as her eye reached Cleveland. Brenda, with the blush which attended her slightest personal exertion when exposed to the eyes of others, hurried through the same departing salutation with an embarrassment which almost amounted to awk­ wardness, but which her youth and timidity rendered at once natural and interesting. Again Mordaunt thought that her eye distinguished him amidst the numerous company. For the first time he ventured to encounter and to return the glance; and the consciousness that he had done so, doubled the glow of Brenda’s countenance, while something resembling displeasure was blended with her emotion. When the ladies had retired, the men betook themselves to the deep and serious drinking, which, according to the fashion of the times, preceded the evening exercise of the dance. Old Magnus himself, by precept and example, exhorted them “to make the best use of their time, since the ladies would soon summon them to shake their feet.” At the same time giving the signal to a grey-headed domestic, who stood behind him in the dress of a Dantzic skipper, and who added to many other occupations that of butler, “Eric Scambester,” he said, “has the Good Ship, the Jolly Mariner of Canton, got her cargo on board?” “Choke-full loaded,” answered the Ganymede of Burgh Westra, “with good Nantz, Jamaica sugar, Portugal lemons, not to mention nutmeg and toast and water, taken in from the Shellicoat-spring.” Loud and long laughed the guests at this stated and regular jest betwixt the Udaller and his butler, which always served as a preface to the introduction of a punch-bowl of uncommon size, the gift of the captain of one of the Honourable East India Company’s vessels, which, bound from China homeward, had been driven north about by stress of weather into Lerwick-bay, and had there contrived to get rid of part of the cargo, without very scrupulously reckoning for the King’s duties. Magnus Troil, having been a large customer, besides otherwise obliging Captain Coolie, had been remunerated, on the departure of the ship, with this splendid vehicle of conviviality, at the very sight of which, as old Eric Scambester bent under its weight, a murmur of applause ran through the company. Those nearest this capacious Mediterranean of punch, were

128

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2, ch. 1

accommodated by the Udaller with their portions, dispensed in huge rummer glasses by his own hospitable hand, whilst they who sat at a greater distance replenished their cups by means of a rich silver flagon, facetiously called the Pinnace; which, filled occasionally at the bowl, served to dispense its liquid treasures to the more remote parts of the table, and occasioned many facetious jests on its frequent voyages. The commerce of the Zetlanders with foreign vessels, and homeward bound West Indiamen, had early served to introduce among them the general use of the generous beverage, with which the Jolly Mariner of Canton was loaded; nor was there a man in the Archipelago of Thule more skilled in combining its rich ingredients, than old Eric Scambester, who indeed was known far and wide through the isles by the name of the Punch-maker, after the fashion of the ancient Norwegians, who conferred on Rollo the Walker, and other heroes of their strain, epithets expressive of the feats of strength or dexterity in which they excelled all other men. The good liquor was not slow in performing its office of exhilara­ tion, and, as the revel advanced, some ancient Norse drinking songs were sung with great effect by the guests, tending to shew, that if from want of exercise the martial virtues of their ancestors had decayed among the Zetlanders, they could still actively and intensely enjoy so much of the pleasures of Valhalla as consisted in quaffing the oceans of mead and brown ale, which were promised by Odin to those who should share his Scandinavian paradise. At length, excited by the cup and song, the diffident grew bold, and the modest loquacious—all became desirous of talking, and none were willing to listen—each man mounted his own special hobby-horse, and began eagerly to call on his neighbours to witness his agility. Amongst others, the little bard, who had now got next to our friend Mordaunt Mertoun, evinced a positive determination to commence and conclude, in all its longit­ ude and latitude, the story of his introduction to glorious John Dry­ den; and Triptolemus Yellowley, as his spirits arose, shaking off a feeling of involuntary awe, with which he was impressed by the opu­ lence indicated in all he saw around him, as well as by the respect paid to Magnus Troil by the assembled guests, began to broach, to the astonished and somewhat offended Udaller, some of those projects for ameliorating the islands, which he had boasted of to his fellowtraveller upon their journey of the morning. But the innovations which he suggested, and the reception which they met with at the hand of Magnus Troil, must be told in the next chapter.

[Chap. 14]

THE PIRATE

129

Chapter Two We’ll keep our customs—what is law itself, But old establish’d custom? What religion, (I mean, with one-halfof the men that use it,) Save the good use and wont that carries them To worship how and where their fathers worshipp’d? All things resolve in custom—we’ll keep ours. Old Play

We left the company of Magnus Troil engaged in high wassail and revelry. Mordaunt, who, like his father, shunned the festive cup, did not partake in the cheerfulness which the ship diffused amongst the guests as they unloaded it, and the pinnace, as it circumnavigated the table. But, in low spirits as he seemed, he was the more meet prey for the story-telling Halcro, who had fixed upon him, as in a favour­ able state to play the part of listener, with something of the same instinct that directs the hooded crow to the sick sheep, which will most patiently suffer itself to be made a prey of. Joyfully did the poet avail himself of the advantages afforded by Mordaunt’s absence of mind, and unwillingness to exert himself in measures of active defence. With the unfeeling dexterity peculiar to prosers, he contrived to dribble out his tale to double its usual length, by the exercise of the privilege of unlimited digressions; so that the story, like a horse on the grandpas, seemed to be advancing with rapidity, while, in reality, it scarce was progressive at the rate of a yard in the quarter of an hour. At length, however, he had discussed, in all its various bearings and relations, the history of his friendly landlord, the master-fashioner in Russell Street, including a short sketch of five of his relations, and anecdotes of three of his principal rivals, together with some general observa­ tions upon the dress and fashion of the period; and having marched thus far through the environs and outworks of his story, he arrived at the body of the place, for so the Wits’ Coffee-house might be termed. He paused on the threshold, however, to explain the nature of his landlord’s right occasionally to intrude himself into this well-known temple of the Muses. “It consisted,” said Halcro, “in the two principal points, of bearing and forbearing; for my friend Thimblethwaite was a person of wit himself, and never quarrelled with any jest which the wags who frequented that house were flinging about, like squibs and crackers on a rejoicing night; and then, though some of the wits—ay, and I daresay the greater number, might have had some dealings with him in the way of trade, he was never the person to put any man of genius in

130

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2, ch. 2

unpleasant remembrance of such trifles. And though, my dear young Master Mordaunt, you may think this is but ordinary civility, because in this country it happens seldom that there is either much borrowing or lending, and because, praised be Heaven, there are neither bailiffs nor sheriff-officers to take a poor fellow by the neck, and because there are no prisons to put him into when they have done so, yet, let me tell you, that such a lamb-like forbearance as that of my poor, dear, deceased landlord, Thimblethwaite, is truly uncommon within the London bills of mortality. I could tell you of such things that have happened even to myself, as well as others, with these cursed London tradesmen, as would make your hair stand on end.—But what the devil has put old Magnus into such note? he shouts as if he were trying his voice against a north-west gale of wind.” Loud indeed was the roar of the old Udaller, as, worn out of patience by the schemes of improvement which the factor was now undauntedly pressing upon his consideration, he answered him, (to use an Ossianic phrase,) like a wave upon a rock. “Trees, Sir Factor—talk not to me of trees!—I care not though there never be one on the island, tall enough to hang a coxcomb upon —We will have no trees but those that rise in our havens—the good trees that have yards for boughs, and standing-rigging for leaves.” “But touching the draining of the lake of Braebaster, whereof I spoke to you, Master Magnus Troil,” answered the persevering agri­ culturist, “whilk I opine would be of so much consequence, there are two ways—down the Linklater glen, or by the Scalmester bum—now, having levelled both” “There is a third way, Master Yellowley,” answered the landlord. “I profess I can see none,” replied Triptolemus, with as much good faith as a joker could desire in the subject of his wit, “in respect that the hill called Braebaster on the south, and ane high bank on the north, of whilk I cannot carry the name rightly in my head” “Do not tell us of hills and banks, Master Yellowley—there is a third way of draining the loch, and it is the only one that shall be tried in my day. You say my Lord Chamberlain and I are the joint propri­ etors—so be it—let each of us start an equal proportion of brandy, lime-juice, and sugar, into the loch—a ship’s cargo or two will do the job—let us assemble all the jolly Udallers of the country, and in twenty-four hours you shall see dry ground where the loch of Brae­ baster now is.” A loud laugh of applause, which for a time actually silenced Tripto­ lemus, attended a jest so very well suited to time and place—a jolly toast was given—a merry song was sung—the ship unloaded her sweets—the pinnace made its genial round—the duet betwixt

[Chap. 14]

THE PIRATE

131

Magnus and Triptolemus, which had attracted the attention of the whole company from its superior vehemence, now once more sunk, and merged into the general hum of the convivial table, and the poet Halcro again resumed his usurped possession of the ear of Mordaunt Mertoun. “Whereabouts was I?” he said, with a tone which expressed to his weary listener more plainly than words could, how much ofhis desul­ tory tale yet remained to be told. “O, I remember—we were just at the door of the Wits’ Coffee-house—it was set up by one––– ” “Nay, but, my dear Master Halcro,” said his hearer, somewhat impatiently, “I am desirous to hear of your meeting with Dryden.” “What, with glorious John?—true—ay—where was I? At the Wits’ Coffee-house—well, in at the door we got—the waiters, and so forth, staring at me; for as to Thimblethwaite, honest fellow, his was a wellknown face.—I can tell you a story about that”––– “Nay, but John Dryden,” said Mordaunt, in a tone which deprec­ ated further digressions. “Ay, ay, glorious John—where was I?—Well, as we stood close by the bar, where a fellow sat grinding of coffee, and another putting up tobacco into penny parcels—a pipe and a dish cost just a penny— there and then it was that I had the first peep of him. One Dennis sat near him, who ” “Nay, but John Dryden—what like was he?” demanded Mordaunt. “Like a little fat old man, with his own grey hair, and in a full­ trimmed black suit, that sate close as a glove. Honest Thimblethwaite let no one but himself shape for glorious John, and he had a slashing hand at a sleeve, I promise you—but there is no getting a mouthful of common sense spoken here—damn the Scotsman, he and old Magnus are at it again.” It was very true; and although the interruption did not resemble a thunder-clap, to which the former stentorian exclamation of the Udaller might have been likened, it was a close and clamorous dis­ pute, maintained by question, answer, retort, and repartee, as closely huddled upon each other as the sounds which announce from a dis­ tance a close and sustained fire ofmusketry. “Hear reason, sir?” said the Udaller; “we will hear reason, and speak reason too; and if reason fall short, you shall have rhyme to boot.—Ha, my little friend Halcro!” Though cut off in the middle of his best story, (if that could be said to have a middle, which had neither beginning nor end,) the bard bristled up at the summons, like a corps of light infantry when ordered up to the support of the grenadiers, looked smart, slapped the table with his hand, and denoted his becoming readiness to back his

132

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2, ch. 2

hospitable landlord, as becomes a well entertained guest. Tripto­ lemus was a little daunted at this reinforcement of his adversary; he paused, like a cautious general, in the sweeping attack which he had commenced on the peculiar usages of Zetland, and spoke not again until the Udaller poked him with the insulting query, “Where is your reason now, Master Yellowley, that you were deafening me with a moment syne?” “Be but patient, worthy sir,” replied the agriculturist; “what on earth can you or any man say in defence of that thing you call a plough, in this blinded country? Why, even the savage Highland­ men, in Caithness and Sutherland, can make more work, and better, with their gascromh, or whatever they call it.” “But what ails you at it, sir?” said the Udaller; “let me hear your objections to it. It tills our land, and what would ye more?” “It hath but one handle or stilt,” replied Triptolemus. “And who the devil,” said the poet, aiming at something smart, “would wish to need a pair of stilts, if he can manage to walk with a singleone?” “Or tell me,” said Magnus Troil, “how it were possible for Neil of Lupness, that lost one arm by his fall from the crag of Nekbreckan, to manage a plough with two handles?” “The harness is of raw seal-skin,” said Triptolemus. “It will save dressed leather,” answered Magnus. “It is drawn by four wretched bullocks,” said the agriculturist, “that are yoked breast-fashion; and two women must follow this unhappy instrument, and complete the furrow with a couple of shovels.” “Drink about, Mr Yellowley,” said the Udaller; “and, as you say in Scotland, ‘never fash your thumb.’ Our cattle are too high-spirited to let the one go before the other; our men are too gentle and well nurtured to take the working-field without the women’s company— our ploughs till our land, our land bears us barley; we brew our ale, eat our bread, and make strangers welcome to their share of it—here’s to you, Mr Yellowley.” This was said in a tone meant to be decisive of the question; and, accordingly, Halcro whispered to Mordaunt, “that has settled the matter, and now we will get on with glorious John.—There he sat in his suit of full-trimmed black; two years due was the bill, as mine honest landlord afterwards told me,—and such an eye in his head!— none of your burning blighting falcon eyes, which we poets are apt to make a rout about,—but a soft, full, thoughtful, yet penetrating glance —never saw the like ofit in my life, unless it were Stephen Kleancogg, the fiddler, at Papastour, who” “Nay, but John Dryden,” said Mordaunt, who, for want of better

[Chap. 14]

THE PIRATE

133

amusement, had begun to take a sort of pleasure in keeping the old gentleman to his narrative, as men herd in a restive sheep, when they wish to catch him. He returned to his theme, with his usual phrase of “Ay, true—glorious John—well, sir, he cast this eye, such as I have described it, on mine landlord, ‘and honest Tim,’ said he, ‘what on earth hast thou got there?’ and all the wits, and lords, and gentlemen, that used to crowd round him, like the wenches round a pedlar at a fair, they made way for us, and up we came to the fire-side, where he had his own established chair,—I have heard it was carried to the balcony in summer, but it was by the fire-side when I saw it,—so up came Tim Thimblethwaite, through the midst of them, as bold as a lion, and I followed with a small parcel under my arm, which I had taken up partly to oblige my landlord, as the shop porter was not in the way, and partly that I might be thought to have something to do there, for you are to think there was no admittance at the Wits’ for strangers who had no business there.—I have heard that Sir Charles Sedley said a good thing about that ” “Nay, but you forget glorious John,” said Mordaunt. “Ay, glorious you may well call him. They talk of their Blackmore, and Shadwell, and such like,—not fit to tie the latchets of John’s shoes.—‘Well,’ he said to my landlord, ‘what have you there?’ and he, bowing, I warrant, lower than he would to a duke, said he had made bold to come to shew him the stuff which Lady Elizabeth had chose for his night-gown.—‘And which of your geese is that, Tim, who has got it tucked under his wing?’—‘He is an Orkney goose, if it please you, Mr Dryden,’ said Tim, who had wit at will, ‘and he hath brought a copy of verses for your honour to look at.’—‘Is he amphibi­ ous?’ said glorious John, taking the paper, and methought I could rather have faced a battery of cannon than the crackle it gave as it opened, though he did not speak in a way to dash one neither;—and then he looked at the verses, and he was pleased to say, in a very encouraging way, indeed with a sort of good-humoured smile on his face, and certainly for a fat elderly gentleman,—for I would not com­ pare it to Minna’s smile, or to Brenda’s,—he had the pleasantest smile I ever saw,—‘Why, Tim,’ he said, ‘this goose of yours will prove a swan on your hand.’ With that he smiled a little, and they all laughed, and none louder than those who stood too far off to hear the jest; for every one knew when he smiled there was something worth laughing at, and so took it upon trust; and the word passed through among all the young Templars, and the wits, and the smarts, and there was nothing but question on question who we were; and one French fellow was trying to tell them it was only Monsieur Tim Thimblethwaite; but he made such work with his Dumbletete and

Vol. 2, ch. 2 THE PIRATE 134 Timbletaite, that I thought his explanation would have lasted—” “As long as your own story,” thought Mordaunt; but the narrative was at length finally cut short, by the strong and decided voice of the Udaller. “I will hear no more on it, Mr Factor,” he exclaimed. “At least let me say something about the breed of horses,” said Yellowley, in rather a cry-mercy tone of voice. “Your horses, my dear sir, resemble cats in size, and tigers in devilry!” “For their size,” said Magnus, “they are the easier for us to get off and on them—(as Triptolemus experienced this morning, thought Mordaunt to himself)—and, as for their devilry, let no one mount them that cannot manage them.” A twinge of self-conviction, on the part of the agriculturist, pre­ vented him from reply. He darted a deprecating glance at Mordaunt, as if for the purpose of imploring secrecy respecting his tumble; and the Udaller, who saw his advantage, although he was not aware of the cause, pursued it with the high and stem tone proper to one who had all his life been unaccustomed to meet with, and unapt to endure opposition. “By the blood of Saint Magnus the Martyr,” he said, “but you are a fine fellow, Mr Factor Yellowley! You come to us from a strange land, understanding neither our laws, nor our manners, nor our language, and you propose to become governor of the country, and that we should all be your slaves!” “My pupils, worthy sir, my pupils!” said Yellowley, “and that only for your own proper advantage.” “We are too old to go to school,” said the Zetlander. “I tell you once more, we will sow and reap our grain as our fathers did—we will eat what God sends us, with our doors open to the stranger, even as theirs were open—if there is aught imperfect in our practice, we will amend it in time and season; but the blessed Baptist’s holiday was made for light hearts and quick heels. He that speaks a word more of reason, as you call it, or any thing looks like it, shall swallow a pint of sea-water— he shall, by this hand!—and so, Eric Scambester, fill up the good ship, the Jolly Mariner of Canton, once more, for the benefit of those that will stick by her; and let the rest have a fling with the fiddlers, who have been summoning us this hour. I will warrant every wench is on tiptoe by this time. Come, Mr Yellowley, no unkindness, man—why, man, thou feelest the rolling of the Jolly Mariner still—(for, in truth, honest Tolemus shewed a little unsteadiness of motion, as he rose to attend his host)—but never mind, we shall have thee find thy land­ legs to reel it with yonder bonnebells. Come along, Triptolemus—let me grapple thee fast, least thou trip, old Triptolemus—ha, ha, ha!”

[Chap. 14]

THE PIRATE

135

So saying, the portly though weather-beaten bulk of the Udaller sailed off like a man-of-war that had braved a hundred gales, having his guest in tow like a recent prize. The greater part of the revellers followed their leader with loud jubilee, although there were several staunch topers, who, taking the option left them by the Udaller, remained behind to relieve the Jolly Mariner of a fresh cargo, amidst many a pledge to the health of their absent landlord, and to the prosperity of his roof-tree, with whatsoever other wishes of kindness could be devised, as an apology for another pint-bumper of noble punch. The rest soon thronged the dancing-room, an apartment which partook of the simplicity of the time and of the country. Drawing­ rooms and saloons were unknown in Scotland, save in the houses of the nobility, and of course absolutely so in Zetland. But a long, low, anomalous store-room, sometimes used for the depositation of mer­ chandize, sometimes for putting aside lumber, and a thousand other purposes, was well known to all the youth ofDunrossness, and many a department besides, as the scene of the merry dance, which was sustained with so much glee when Magnus Troil gave his frequent feasts. The first appearance of this ball-room might have shocked a fash­ ionable party, assembled for the quadrille or the waltz. Low as we have stated the apartment to be, it was but imperfectly illuminated by lamps, candles, ship-lanterns, and a variety of other candelabra, which served to throw a dusky light upon the floor, and upon the merchand­ ize and miscellaneous articles which were heaped around; some of them stores for the winter; some, goods destined for exportation; some, the tribute of Neptune, paid at the expence of ship-wrecked vessels, whose owners were unknown; some, articles of barter received by the proprietor, who, like most others at the period, was somewhat of a merchant as well as a landholder, in exchange for the fish, and other articles, the produce of his estate. All these, with the chests, boxes, and bales, which contained them, had been drawn aside, and piled one above the other, in order to give room for the dancers, who, light and lively as if they occupied the most splendid saloon in the parish of Saint James’s, executed their national dances with equal grace and activity. The groupe of old men who looked on, bore no inconsiderable resemblance to a party of aged tritons, engaged in beholding the sports of the sea-nymphs; such a hard look had most of them acquired by contending with the elements, and so much did the shaggy hair and beards, which many of them cultivated after the ancient Norwegian fashion, give their heads the character of these supposed natives of the

136

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2, ch. 2

deep. The young people, on the other hand, were uncommonly hand­ some, tall, well-made, and shapely; the men with long fair hair, and, until broken by the weather, a fresh ruddy complexion, which, in the females, was softened into a bloom of infinite delicacy. Their natural good ear for music qualified them to second to the utmost the exertions of a band, whose strains were by no means contemptible; while the elders, who stood around or sat quiet upon the old sea-chests, which served for chairs, criticised the dancers, as they compared their exe­ cution with their own exertion in former days; or, warmed by the cup and flagon, which continued to circulate amongst them, snapped their fingers, and beat time with their feet to the music. Mordaunt looked upon this scene of universal mirth with the pain­ ful recollection, that he, thrust aside from his pre-eminence, no longer exercised the important duties of chief of the dancers, an office which had been assigned to the stranger Cleveland. Anxious, how­ ever, to suppress the feelings of his own disappointment, which he felt it was neither wise to entertain nor manly to display, he approached his fair neighbours, to whom he had been so acceptable at table, with the purpose of inviting one of them to become his partner in the dance. But the awfully ancient old lady, even the Lady Glowrowrum, who had only tolerated the exuberance ofher nieces’ mirth during the time of dinner, because her situation rendered it then impossible for her to interfere, was not disposed to permit the apprehended renewal of the intimacy implied in Mertoun’s invitation. She therefore took upon herself, in the name of her two nieces, who sat pouting beside her in displeased silence, to inform Mordaunt, after thanking him for his civility, that the hands of her nieces were engaged for that evening; and, as he continued to watch the party at a little distance, he had an opportunity of being convinced that the alleged engagement was a mere apology to get rid of him, when he saw the two good-humoured sisters join the dance, under the auspices of the next young men who asked their hands. Incensed at so marked a slight, and unwilling to expose himself to another, Mordaunt Mertoun drew back from the circle of dancers, shrouded himself amongst the mass of inferior persons who crowded into the bottom of the room as spectators, and there, concealed from the observation of others, digested his own mortification as well as he could, (that is to say, very ill,) and with all the philosophy of his age—that is to say, with none at all.

[Chap. 15]

THE PIRATE

137

Chapter Three A torch for me—let wantons, light of heart, Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels; For I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase— I’ll be a candle-holder, and look on. Romeo andJuliet

The youth, says the moralist Johnson, cares not for the boy’s hobby-horse, nor the man for the youth’s mistress; and therefore the distress ofMordaunt Mertoun, when excluded from the merry dance, may seem trifling to many of my readers, who would, nevertheless, think they did well to be angry if deposed from their usual place in an assembly of a different kind. There lacked not amusement, however, for those whom the dance did not suit, or who were not happy enough to find a partner to their liking. Halcro, now completely in his element, had assembled around him an audience, to whom he was declaiming his poetry with all the enthusiasm ofglorious John himself, and receiv­ ing in return the usual degree of applause allowed to minstrels who recite their own rhymes—so long at least as the author is within hearing of the criticism. Halcro’s poetry might indeed have interested the antiquary as well as the admirer of the Muses, for several of his pieces were translations or imitations from the Scaldic sagas, which continued to be sung by the fishermen of these islands even till a very late period; insomuch, that when Gray’s poems first found their way to Orkney, the old people recognized at once, in the ode of the “Fatal Sisters,” the Runic rhimes which had amused or terrified their infancy under the title of the Magicians, and which the fishers of North Ronaldsha, and other remote isles, used still to sing when asked for a Norse ditty. Half-listening, half-lost in his own reflections, Mordaunt Mertoun stood near the door of the apartment, and in the outer ring of the little circle formed around old Halcro, while the bard chaunted to a low, wild, monotonous air, varied only by the efforts of the singer to give interest and emphasis to particular passages, the following imitation of a Northern war-song. The Song of Harold Harfager The sun is rising dimly red, The wind is wailing low and dread; From his cliff the eagle sallies, Leaves the wolfhis darksome vailles; In the mist the ravens hover, Peep the wild dogs from the cover, Screaming, croaking, baying, yelling,

138

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2, ch. 3

Each in his wild accents telling, “Soon we feast on dead and dying, Fair-hair’d Harold’s flag is flying.”

Many a crest on air is streaming, Many a helmet darkly gleaming, Many an arm the axe uprears, Doom’d to hew the wood of spears. All along the crowded ranks, Horses neigh and armour clanks; Chiefs are shouting, clarions ringing, Louder still the bard is singing, “Gather footmen, gather horsemen, To the field, ye valiant Norsemen! “Halt ye not for food or slumber, View not vantage, count not number; Jolly reapers, forward still, Grow the crop on vale or hill, Thick or scatter’d, stiff or lithe, It shall down before the scythe. Forward with your sickles bright, Reap the harvest of the fight— Onward footmen, onward horsemen, To the charge, ye gallant Norsemen!

“Fatal chuser of the slaughter, O’er you hovers Odin’s daughter; Hear the choice she spreads before ye,— Victory, and wealth, and glory; Or old Valhalla’s roaring hail, Her ever-circling mead and ale, Where for eternity unite The joys of wassail and of fight. Headlong forward, foot and horsemen, Charge and fight, and die like Norsemen!”—

“The poor unhappy blinded heathens!” said Triptolemus, with a sigh deep enough for a groan; “they speak of their eternal cups of ale, and I question if they kenn’d how to good a croft land of grain!” “The cleverer fellows they, neighbour Yellowley,” answered the poet, “if they made ale without barley.” “Barley?—alack-a-day!” replied the more accurate agriculturist, “who ever heard ofbarley in these parts? Bear, my dearest friend, bear is all they have, and wonderment it is to me that they ever see an awn of it. Ye scart the land with a bit thing ye ca’ a pleugh—ye might as weel give it a ritt with the teeth of a redding-kame. O, to see the sock, and the heel, and the sole-clout of a real steady Scottish pleugh, with a chield like a Sampson between the stilts, laying a weight on them would keep down a mountain; twa stately owsen, and as many broad­ breasted horse in the traces, going through soil and till, and leaving a

[Chap. 15]

THE PIRATE

139

fur in the ground would carry off water like a causeyed sieved They that have seen a sight like that, have seen something to crack about in another sort, than those unhappy auld-warld stories of war and slaughter, of which the land has seen even but too mickle, for a’ your singing and soughing awa’ in praise of such blood-thirsty doings, Master Claud Halcro.” “It is a heresy,” said the animated little poet, bridling and drawing himself up, as if the whole defence of the Zetland Archipelago rested on his single arm—“It is a heresy so much as to name one’s native country, if a man is not prepared when and how to defend himself— ay, and to annoy another. The time has been, that if we made not good ale and aquavitæ, we knew well enough where to find that which was ready made to our hand; but now the descendants of Sea-kings and Champions, and Berserkar, are become as incapable of using their swords, as if they were so many women. Ye may praise them for a strong pull on an oar, or a sure foot on a skerry; but what else could glorious John himself say of ye, my good Hialtlanders, that any man would listen to?” “Spoken like an angel, most noble poet,” said Cleveland, who, during an interval of the dance, stood near the party in which this conversation was held. “The old champions you talked to us about yesternight, were the men to make a harp ring—gallant fellows, that were friends to the sea, and enemies to all that sailed on it. Their ships, I suppose, were clumsy enough; but if it is true that they went upon the account as far as the Levant, I scarce believe that ever bolder fellows unloosed a top-sail.” “Ay,” replied Halcro, “there you spoke them right. In those days no man could call their life and means of living their own, unless they dwelt twenty miles out of sight of the blue sea. Why, they had public prayers put up in every church in Europe, for deliverance from the ire of the Normans. In France and England, ay and in Scotland too, for as high as they hold their heads now-a-days, there was not a bay or a haven, but it was freer to our forefathers than to the poor devils of natives; and now we cannot, forsooth, so much as grow our own barley without Scots help—(here he darted a sarcastic glance at the factor) —I would I saw the time we were to measure arms with them again.” “Spoken like a hero once again,” said Cleveland. “Ah!” continued the little bard, “I would it were possible to see our barks, once the water-dragons of the world, swimming with the black­ raven standard waving at the topmast, and their decks glimmering with arms, instead of being heaped up with stock-fish—winning with our fearless hands what the niggard soil denies—paying back all old scorn and modem injury—reaping where we never sowed, and felling

140

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch.3

what we never planted—living and laughing through the world, and smiling when we were summoned to quit it.” So spoke Claud Halcro, in no serious, or at least most certainly in no sober mood, his brain (never the most stable) whizzing under the influence of fifty well-remembered sagas, besides five bumpers of usquebaugh and brandy; and Cleveland, between jest and earnest, clapped him on the shoulder, and again repeated, “Spoken like a hero.” “Spoken like a fool, I think,” said Magnus Troil, whose attention had been also attracted by the vehemence of the little bard—“where would you cruize upon, or against whom?—we are all subjects of one realm, I trow, and I would have you to remember, that your voyage may bring up at Execution-dock.—I like not the Scots—no offence, Mr Yellowley—that is, I would like them well enough if they would stay quiet in their own land, and leave us at peace with our own people, and manners, and fashions; and if they would but abide there till I went to harry them like a mad old Berserkar, I would leave them in peace till the day of judgment. With what the sea sends us, and the land lends us, as the proverb says, and a set of honest neighbourly folks to help us to consume it, so help me Saint Magnus, as I think we are even but too happy!” “I know what war is,” said an old man, “and I would as soon sail through Sumburgh-roost in a cockle-shell, or in a worse loom, as I would venture there again.” “And, pray, what wars knew your valour?” said Halcro, who, though forbearing to contradict his landlord from a sense of respect, was not a whit inclined to abandon his argument. “I was pressed,” answered the old Triton, “to serve under Mon­ trose, when he came here about the sixteen hundred and fifty, and carried a sort of us off, will ye nill ye, to get our throats cut in the wilds of Strathnavem—I shall never forget it—we had been hard put to it for victuals—what would I have given for a luncheon of Burgh Westra beef—ay, or a mess of sour sillocks?—when our Highland­ men brought in a dainty drove of kyloes, much ceremony there was not, for we shot and felled, and flayed and roasted, and broiled, as it came to every man’s hand; till just when our beards were at the greasiest, we heard—God preserve us—a tramp of horse, then twa or three dropping shot,—then came a full salvo,—and then, when the officers were crying on us to stand, and maist of us were looking which way we might run away, down they broke, horse and foot, with old John Urry, or Hurry, or whatever they called him—he hurried us that day, and worried us to boot—and we began to fall as thick as the stots that we were felling five minutes before.”

[Chap. 15]

THE PIRATE

141

“And Montrose,” said the soft voice of the graceful Minna; “what came of Montrose, or how looked he?” “Like a lion with the hunters before him,” answered the old gentle­ man; “but I looked not twice his way, for my own lay right over the hill.” “And so you left him?” said Minna, in a tone of the deepest con­ tempt. “It was no fault of mine, Mistress Minna,” answered the old man, somewhat out of countenance; “but I was there with no choice of my own; and, besides, what good could I have done?—all the rest were running like sheep, and why should I have staid?” “You might have died with him,” said Minna. “And lived with him to all eternity, in immortal verse!” added Claud Halcro. “I thank you, Mistress Minna,” replied the plain-dealing Zet­ lander; “and I thank you, my old friend Claud;—but I would rather drink both your healths, in this good bicker of ale, like a living man as I am, than that you should be making songs in mine honour, for having died forty or fifty years agone. But what signified it,—run or fight, ’twas all one;—they took Montrose, poor fellow, for all his doughty deeds, and they took me that did no doughty deeds at all; and they hanged him, poor man, and as for me” “I trust in Heaven they flogged and pickled you,” said Cleveland, worn out of patience with the dull narrative of the peaceful Zet­ lander’s poltroonery, of which he seemed so wondrous little ashamed. “Flog horses, and pickle beef,” said Magnus. “Why, you have not the vanity to think that, with all your quarter-deck airs, you will make poor old neighbour Haagen ashamed that he was not killed some scores of years since? You have looked on death yourself, my doughty young friend, but it was with the eyes of a young man who wishes to be thought a hero; but we are a peaceful people,—peaceful, that is, as long as any one should be peaceful, and that is till some one has the impudence to wrong us, or our neighbours; and then, perhaps, they may not find our northern blood much cooler in our veins than was that of the old Scandinavians that gave us our names and lineage.— Get ye along, get ye along to the sword-dance, that the strangers that are amongst us may see that our hands and our weapons are not altogether strangers.” A dozen cutlasses, selected hastily from an old arm-chest, and whose rusted hue bespoke how seldom they left the sheath, armed the same number of young Zetlanders, with whom mingled six maidens, led by Minna Troil; and the minstrelsy instantly commenced a tune appropriate to the ancient Norwegian war-dance, the evolutions of

142

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2, ch. 3

which are perhaps still practised in these remote islands. The first movement was graceful and majestic, the youths holding their swords erect, and without much gesture. But the tune, and the corresponding motions of the dancers, became gradually more and more rapid,—they clashed the swords together, in measured time, with a spirit which gave the exercise a dangerous appearance in the eye of the spectator, though the firmness, justice, and accuracy, with which the dancers kept time with the stroke of their weapons, did, in truth, ensure its safety. The most singular part of the exhibition was the courage exhibited by the female performers, who now, sur­ rounded by the swordsmen, seemed like the Sabine maidens in the hands of their Roman lovers; now, moving under the arch of steel which the young men formed, by crossing their weapons over the heads of their fair partners, resembled the band of Amazons when they first joined in the Pyrrhic dance with the followers of Theseus. But by far the most striking and appropriate figure was that of Minna Troil, whom Halcro had long since entitled the Queen of Swords, and who, indeed, moved amidst the swordsmen with an air which seemed to hold all the drawn blades as the proper accompaniment of her person, and the implements of her pleasure. And when the mazes of the dance became more intricate, when the close and continuous clash of the weapons made some of her companions shrink, and shew signs of fear, her cheek, her lip, and her eye, seemed rather to announce, that, at the moment when the weapons flashed fastest, and rung sharpest around her, she was most completely self-possessed, and in her own element. Last of all, when the music had ceased, and she remained for an instant upon the floor by herself, as the rule of the dance required, the swordsmen and maidens, who departed from around her, seemed the guards and the train of some princess, who, dismissed by her signal, were leaving her for a time to solitude. Her own look and attitude, wrapped, as she probably was, in some vision of the imagination, corresponded admirably with the ideal dignity which the spectators ascribed to her; but, almost immediately recollecting herself, she blushed, as if conscious she had been, though but for an instant, the object of undivided attention, and gave her hand grace­ fully to Cleveland, who, though he had not joined in the dance, assumed the duty of conducting her to her seat. As they passed, Mordaunt Mertoun might observe that Cleveland whispered into Minna’s ear, and that her brief reply was accompanied with even more discomposure of countenance than she had mani­ fested when encountering the gaze of the whole assembly. Mor­ daunt’s suspicions were strongly awakened by what he observed, for he knew Minna’s character well, and with what equanimity and indif­

[Chap. 15]

THE PIRATE

143

ference she was in the custom of receiving the usual compliments and gallantries with which her beauty and her situation rendered her sufficiently familiar. “Can it be possible she really loves this stranger?” was the unpleas­ ant thought that instantly shot across Mordaunt’s mind;—“And if she does, what is my interest in the matter?” was the second; and which was quickly followed by the reflection, that, though he claimed no interest at any time but as a friend, and though that interest was now withdrawn, he was still, in consideration of their former intimacy, entitled both to be sorry and angry at her for throwing away her affections on one he judged unworthy of her. In this process of reas­ oning, it is probable that a little mortified vanity, or some indescrib­ able shade of selfish regret, might be endeavouring to assume the disguise of disinterested generosity; but there is so much of base alloy in our very best (unassisted) thoughts, that it is melancholy work to criticize too closely the motives of our most worthy actions; at least we would recommend to every one to let those of his neighbours pass current, however narrowly he may examine the purity ofhis own. The sword-dance was succeeded by various other specimens of the same exercise, and by songs, to which the singers lent their whole soul, while the audience were sure, as occasion offered, to unite in some favourite chorus. It is upon such occasions that music, though of a simple and even a rude character, finds its natural empire over the general bosom, and produces that strong excitement which cannot be attained by the most learned compositions of the first masters, which are caviare to the common ear, although, doubtless, they afford a delight, exquisite in its kind, to those whose natural capacity and education have enabled them to comprehend and relish these difficult and complicated combinations of harmony. It was about midnight when a knocking at the door of the mansion, with the sound of the Gue and the Langspiel, announced, by their tinkling chime, the arrival of fresh revellers, to whom, according to the hospitable custom of the country, the apartments were instantly thrown open.

144

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2, ch. 4

Chapter Four ––––My mind misgives, Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin his fearful date With this night’s revels. Romeo andJuliet

The new comers were, according to the frequent custom of such frolickers all over the world, disguised in a sort of masking habits, and designed to represent the Tritons and Mermaids, with whom ancient tradition and popular belief has peopled the northern seas. The for­ mer, called by Zetlanders of that time, Shoupeltins, were represented by young men grotesquely habited, with false hair and beards, made of flax, and chaplets composed of sea-ware interwoven with shells, and other marine productions, with which also were decorated their light­ blue or greenish mantles of wadmaal, a coarse cloth of domestic manufacture. They had fish-spears, and other emblems of their assumed quality, amongst which the classical taste of Claud Halcro, by whom the mask was arranged, had not forgotten the conch-shells, which were stoutly and hoarsely winded, from time to time, by one or two of the aquatic deities, to the great annoyance of all who stood near them. The Nereids and Water-nymphs who attended on this occasion, displayed, as usual, a little more taste for dress and ornament than was to be seen amongst their male attendants. Fantastic garments of green silk, and other materials of superior cost and fashion, had been con­ trived, so as to imitate their idea of the inhabitants of the waters, and, at the same time, to shew the shape and features of the fair wearers to the best advantage. The bracelets of shells, which adorned the neck, arms, and ancles of the pretty Mermaidens, were, in some cases, intermixed with real pearl; and the appearance, upon the whole, was such as might have done no discredit to the court of Amphitrite, especially when the long bright locks, blue eyes, fair complexions, and pleasing features of the maidens of Thule were taken into considera­ tion. We do not indeed pretend to aver, that any of these seeming Mermaids had so accurately imitated the real syren, as commentators have supposed those attendant on Cleopatra did, who, adopting the fish’s train of their original, were able, nevertheless, to make their “bends,” or “ends,” (said commentators cannot tell which,) “adom­ ings.”* Indeed, had they not left their extremities in their natural state, it would have been impossible for the Zetland syrens to have executed * See some admirable discussion on this passage, in the Variorum Shakespeare.

[Chap. 10]

THE PIRATE

145

the very pretty dances with which they rewarded the company, for the ready admission which had been granted to them. It was soon discovered, that these maskers were no strangers, but a part of the company, who, stealing out some little time before, had thus disguised themselves, in order to give variety to the mirth of the evening. The muse of Claud Halcro, always active on such occasions, had supplied them with an appropriate song, ofwhich we may give the following specimen. The song was alternate betwixt a Nereid or Mer­ maid, and a Merman or Triton—the males and females on either part forming a semi-chorus, which accompanied and bore burthen to the principal singer. I. MERMAID.

Fathoms deep beneath the wave, Stringing beads of glistering pearl, Singing the achievements brave Ofmany an old Norwegian earl; Dwelling where the tempest’s raving Falls as light upon our ear, As the sigh oflover, craving Pity from his lady dear, Children ofwild Thule, we, From the deep caves of the sea, As the lark springs from the lea, Hither come, to share your glee.

II. MERMAN.

From reining of the water-horse, That bounded till the waves were foaming, Watching the infant tempest’s course, Chasing the sea-snake in his roaming; From winding charge-notes on the shell, When the huge whale and sword-fish duel, Or tolling shroudless seamen’s knell, When the winds and waves are cruel; Children ofwild Thule, we Have plough’d such furrows on the sea, As the steer draws on the lea, And hither we come to share your glee. III. MERMAIDS AND MERMEN.

We heard you in our twilight caves, A hundred fathom deep below, For notes of joy can pierce the waves, That drown each sound of war and woe. Those who dwell beneath the sea Love the sons ofThule well;

146

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 4

Thus to aid your mirth, bring we Dance, and song, and sounding shell. Children of dark Thule, know, Those who dwell by haafand voe, Where your daring shallops row, Come to share the festal show.

The final chorus was borne by the whole voices, excepting those carrying the conch-shells, who had been trained to blow them in a sort of rude accompaniment, which had a good effect. The poetry, as well as the performance of the maskers, received great applause from all who pretended to be judges of such matters; but above all, from Triptolemus Yellowley, who, his ear having caught the agricultural sounds of plough and furrow, and his brain being so well drenched, that it could only construe the words in their most literal acceptation, declared roundly, and called Mordaunt to bear witness, that though it was a shame to waste as much good lint as went to form the Tritons’ beards and periwigs, the song contained the only words of common sense which he had heard all that long day. But Mordaunt had not time to answer the appeal, being engaged in attending with the utmost vigilance to the motions ofone of the female maskers, who had given him a private signal as they entered, which induced him, though uncertain who she might prove to be, to expect some communication from her of importance. The syren who had so boldly touched his arm, and had accompanied the gesture with an expression of eye which bespoke his attention, was disguised with a good deal more care than the others, her mantle being loose, and wide enough to conceal her shape completely, and her face hidden beneath a silk mask. He observed that she gradually detached herself from the rest ofthe maskers, and at length placed herself, as if for the advantage of the air, near the door of a chamber which remained open, looked earnestly at him again, and then taking an opportunity, when the attention of the company was fixed upon the rest of her party, she left the apartment. Mordaunt did not hesitate instantly to follow his mysterious guide, for such we may term the masker, as she paused to let him see the direction she was about to take, and then walked swiftly towards the shore ofthe voe or salt-water lake, now lying full before them, its small summer-waves glistening and rippling under the influence of a broad moonlight, which, added to the strong twilight ofthese regions during the summer solstice, left no reason to regret the absence of the sun, the path of whose setting was still visible on the waves of the west, while the horizon on the east side was already beginning to glimmer with the lights of dawn. Mordaunt had therefore no difficulty in keeping sight of his dis­

[Chap. 16]

THE PIRATE

147

guised guide, as she tripped it over height and hollow to the sea-side, and, winding among the rocks, led the way to a spot where his own labours, during the time of his former intimacy at Burgh Westra, had constructed a sheltered and solitary seat, where the daughters of Magnus were accustomed to spend, when the weather was suitable, a good deal of their time. Here, then, was to be the place of explanation; for the masker stopped, and after a moment’s hesitation, sat down on the rustic settle. But, from the lips of whom was he to receive it? Noma had first occurred to him; but her tall figure and slow majestic step were entirely different from the size and gait of the more fairyformed syren, who had preceded him with as light a step as if she had been a real Nereid, who, having remained too late upon the shore, was, under the dread of Amphitrite’s displeasure, hastening to regain her native element. Since it was not Norna, it could be only, he thought, Brenda, who thus singled him out; and when she had seated herself upon the bench, and taken the mask from her face, Brenda it accordingly proved to be. Mordaunt had certainly done nothing to make him dread her presence; and yet, such is the influence of bash­ fulness over the ingenuous youth ofboth sexes, that he experienced all the embarrassment of one who finds himself unexpectedly placed before a person who is justly offended with him. Brenda felt no less embarrassment; but as she had courted this interview, and was sens­ ible it must be a brief one, she was compelled, in spite of herself, to begin the conversation. “Mordaunt,” she said, with a hesitating voice; then correcting her­ self, she proceeded—“You must be surprised, Mr Mertoun, that I should have taken this uncommon freedom.” “It was not till this morning, Brenda,” replied Mordaunt, “that any mark offriendship or intimacy from you or from your sister could have surprised me. I am far more astonished that you should shun me without reason for so many hours, than that you should now allow me an interview. In the name of Heaven, Brenda, in what have I offended you? or why are we on these unusual terms?” “May it not be enough to say,” replied Brenda, looking downward, “that it is my father’s pleasure?” “No, it is not enough,” returned Mertoun. “Your father cannot have so suddenly altered his whole thoughts of me, and his whole actions towards me, without acting under the influence ofsome strong delusion. I ask you but to explain of what nature it is; for I will be contented to be lower in your esteem than the meanest hind in these islands, if I cannot shew that his change of opinion is only grounded upon some infamous deception, or some extraordinary mistake.” “It may be so,” said Brenda—“I hope it is so—that I do hope it is so,

148

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 4

my desire to see you thus in private may well prove to you. But it is difficult—in short, it is impossible for me to explain to you the cause of my father’s resentment. Norna has spoken with him concerning it boldly, and I fear they parted in displeasure; and you well know no light matter could cause that.” “I have observed,” said Mordaunt, “that your father is more attent­ ive to Noma’s counsel, and more complaisant to her peculiarities than to those of others—this I have observed, though he is no willing believer in the supernatural qualities to which she lays claim.” “They are related distantly,” answered Brenda, “and were friends in youth—nay, as I have heard, it was once supposed they would have been married; but Noma’s peculiarities shewed themselves immedi­ ately on her father’s death, and there was an end of that matter, if ever there was any thing in it. But it is certain my father regards her with much interest; and it is, I fear, a sign how deeply his prejudices respecting you must be rooted, since they have in some degree quar­ relled on your account.” “Now, blessings upon you, Brenda, that you have called them pre­ judices,” said Mertoun, warmly and hastily—“a thousand blessings on you—you were ever gentle-hearted—you could not have main­ tained even the shew of unkindness long.” “It was indeed but a shew,” said Brenda, softening gradually into the familiar tone in which they had conversed from infancy; “I could never think, Mordaunt,—never, that is, seriously believe, that you could say aught unkind ofMinna or of me.” “And who dares to say I have?” said Mordaunt, giving way to the natural impetuosity of his disposition—“Who dares to say that I have, and ventures at the same time to hope that I will suffer his tongue to remain in safety betwixt his jaws? By Saint Magnus the Martyr, I will feed the hawks with it!” “Nay, now,” said Brenda, “your anger only terrifies me, and will force me to leave you.” “Leave me,” said he, “without telling me either the calumny, or the name of the villainous calumniator!” “O, there are more than one,” answered Brenda, “that have pos­ sessed my father with an opinion—which I cannot myself tell you— but there are more than one who say”––– “Were they hundreds, Brenda, I will do no less to them than I have said—Sacred Martyr!—to accuse me of speaking unkindly of those whom I most respected and valued under Heaven—I will back to the apartment this instant, and your father shall do me right before all the world.” “Do not go, for the love of Heaven!” said Brenda; “do not go, as

[Chap. 16]

THE PIRATE

149

you would not render me the most unhappy wretch in the world.” “Tell me then, at least, if I guess aright,” said Mordaunt, “when I name this Cleveland for one of those who have slandered me?” “No, no,” said Brenda, vehemently, “you run from one error into another more dangerous. You say you are my friend;—I am willing to be yours:—be but still for a moment, and hear what I have to say;— our interview has lasted but too long already, and every additional moment brings additional danger with it.” “Tell me then,” said Mertoun, much softened by the poor girl’s extreme apprehension and distress, “what it is that you require of me, and, believe me, it is impossible for you to ask aught that I will not do my very uttermost to comply with.” “Well then,—this Captain,” said Brenda, “this Cleveland”––– “I knew it, by Heaven!” said Mordaunt; “my mind assured me that that fellow was, in one way or other, at the bottom of all this mischief and misunderstanding.” “If you cannot be silent, and patient, for an instant,” replied Brenda, “I must instantly quit you; what I meant to say had no relation to you, but to another,—in one word, to my sister Minna. I have nothing to say concerning her dislike to you, but an anxious tale to tell concerning his attention to her.” “It is obvious, striking, and marked,” said Mordaunt; “and, unless my eyes deceive me, it is received as welcome, if, indeed, it is not returned.” “That is the very cause ofmy fear,” said Brenda. “I, too, was struck with the external appearance, frank manners, and romantic conversa­ tion of this man.” “His appearance!” said Mordaunt; “he is stout and well-featured enough, to be sure; but, as old Sinclair of Quendale said to the Spanish admiral, ‘Farcie on his face! I have seen many a fairer hang on the Borough-moor.’—By his manners, he might be captain of a privateer; and by his conversation, the trumpeter to his own puppetshow; for he speaks of little else than his own exploits.” “You are mistaken,” answered Brenda; “he speaks but too well on all that he has seen and learned; besides, he has really been in many distant countries, and in many gallant actions, and he can tell them with as much spirit as modesty. You would think you saw the flash and heard the report of the guns. And he has other tones of talking too— about the delightful trees and fruits of distant climates; and how the people wear no dress, through the whole year, half so warm as our summer gowns, and, indeed, put on little save cambrics and muslins.” “Upon my word, Brenda, he does seem to understand the business of amusing young ladies,” replied Mordaunt.

150

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 4

“He does indeed,” said Brenda, with great simplicity. “I assure you that, at first, I liked him better than Minna did; and yet, though she is so much cleverer than me, I know more of the world than she does; for I have seen more of cities, having been once at Kirkwall; besides that I was thrice at Lerwick, when the Dutch ships were there, and so I should not be very easily deceived in people.” “And pray, Brenda,” said Mertoun, “what was it that made you think less favourably of this young fellow, who seems to be so captivat­ ing?” “Why, at first,” said Brenda, after a moment’s reflection, “he was much livelier; and the stories he told were not quite so melancholy, or so terrible; and he laughed and danced more.” “And, perhaps, at that time, danced oftener with Brenda than with her sister?” added Mordaunt. “No,—I am not sure of that,” said Brenda; “and yet, to speak plain, I could have no suspicion of him at all while he was attending quite equally to us both; for you know that then he could have been no more to us than yourself, Mordaunt Mertoun, or young Swaraster, or any other young man in the islands.” “But, why then,” said Mordaunt, “should you not see him, with patience, become intimate with your sister?—He is wealthy, or seems to be so at least. You say he is accomplished and pleasant;—what else would you desire in a lover for Minna?” “Mordaunt, you forget who we are,” said the maiden, assuming an air of consequence, which sat as gracefully upon her simplicity, as did the different tone in which she had spoken hitherto; “this is a little world of ours this Zetland, and perhaps inferior, at least so strangers say, to other parts of the earth; but it is our own little world, and we, the daughters of Magnus Troil, hold a first rank in it. It would, I think, little become us, who are descended from Sea-kings and Jarls, to throw ourselves away upon a stranger, who comes to our coast, like the eider-duck in spring, from we know not whence, and may leave it, in autumn, to go we know not where.” “And who may ne’ertheless entice a Zetland golden-eye to accom­ pany his migration,” said Mertoun. “I will hear nothing light on such a subject,” replied Brenda, indig­ nantly; “Minna, like myself, is the daughter of Magnus Troil, the friend of strangers, but the Father of Hialtland. He gives them the hospitality they need; but let not the proudest of them think that they can, at their pleasure, ally with his house.” She said this in a tone of considerable warmth, which she instantly softened, as she added, “No, Mordaunt, do not suppose that Minna Troil is capable of so far forgetting what she owes to her father and her

[Chap. 16]

THE PIRATE

151

father’s blood, as to think of marrying this Cleveland; but she may lend an ear to him so long as to destroy her future happiness. She has that sort of mind, into which some feelings sink deeply—You remem­ ber how Ulla Storlson used to go, day by day, to the top of Vossdale­ head, to look for her lover’s ship that was never to return? When I think of her slow step, her pale cheek, her eye, that grew dimmer and dimmer, like the lamp that is half-extinguished for lack of oil,—when I remember the half-fluttered look, of something like hope, with which she ascended the cliff at morning, and the deep dead despair which sat on her forehead when she returned,—when I think on all this, can you wonder that I fear for Minna, whose heart is formed to entertain, with such deep-rooted fidelity, any affection that may be implanted in it?” “I do not wonder,” said Mordaunt, eagerly sympathizing with the poor girl; for, besides the tremulous expression of her voice, the light could almost shew him the tear which trembled in her eye, as she drew the picture to which her fancy assimilated her sister,—“I do not won­ der that you should feel and fear whatever the purest affection can dictate; and if you can but point out to me in what I can serve your sisterly love, you shall find me as ready to venture my life, if necessary, as I have been to go out on the craig to get you the eggs of the guillemot; and, believe me, that whatever has been told to your father or yourself, of my entertaining the slightest thoughts of disrespect or unkindness, is as false as a fiend could devise.” “I believe it,” said Brenda, giving him her hand; “I believe it, and my bosom is lighter, now I have renewed my confidence in so old a friend. How you can aid us, I know not; but it was by the advice, I may say by the commands, of Norna, that I have ventured to make this communication; and I almost wonder,” she added, as she looked around her, “that I have had courage to carry me through it. At present you know all that I can tell you of the risk in which my sister stands. Look after this Cleveland—beware how you quarrel with him, since you must so surely come by the worse with an experienced soldier.” “I do not exactly understand,” said the youth, “how that should so surely be. This I know, that with the good limbs and good heart that God has given me, ay, and with a good cause to boot—I am little afraid of any quarrel which Cleveland can fix upon me.” “Then, if not for your own sake, for Minna’s sake,” said Brenda— “for my father’s—for mine—for all our sakes, avoid any strife with him; but be contented to watch him, and if possible to discover who he is, and what are his intentions towards us. He has talked of going to Orkney, to inquire after the consort with whom he sailed; but day by day, and week by week passes, and he goes not; and while he keeps my

152

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 4

father company over the bottle, and tells Minna romantic stories of foreign people, and distant wars, in wild and unknown regions, the time glides on, and the stranger, of whom we know nothing, save that he is one, becomes gradually closer and more inseparably intimate in our society.—And now farewell. Norna hopes to make your peace with my father, and entreats you not to leave Burgh Westra to­ morrow, however cold my father and my sister may appear towards you. I too,” she said, stretching her hand towards him, “must wear a face ofcold friendship towards the unwelcome visitor, but at heart we are still Brenda and Mordaunt. And now separate quickly, we must not be seen together.” She stretched her hand to him, but withdrew it in some slight confusion, laughing and blushing, when, by a natural impulse, he was about to press it to his lips. He endeavoured for a moment to detain her, for the interview had for him a degree of fascination, which, as often as he had formerly been alone with Brenda, he had never experi­ enced. But she extricated herself from him, and again signing an adieu, and pointing out to him a path different from that which she was herself about to take, tripped towards the house, and was soon hidden from his view by the acclivity. Mordaunt stood gazing after her in a state ofmind, to which, as yet, he had been a stranger. The dubious neutral ground between love and friendship may be long and safely trodden, until he who stands upon it is suddenly called upon to recognize the authority of the one or the other power; and then it most frequently happens, that he who for years supposed himself only to be a friend, finds himself at once transformed into a lover. That such a change in Mordaunt’s feelings should take place from this date, although he himself was unable exactly to distinguish its nature, was to be expected. He found himself at once received, with the most unsuspicious frankness, into the con­ fidence of a beautiful and fascinating young woman, by whom he had, so short a time before, imagined himself despised and disliked; and, if any thing could make a change, in itself so surprising and so pleasing, yet more intoxicating, it was the guileless and open-hearted simplicity of Brenda, that cast an enchantment over every thing which she did or said. The scene, too, might have had its effects, though there was little occasion for its aid. But a fair face looks yet fairer under the light of the moon, and a sweet voice sounds yet sweeter amongst the whispering sounds ofa summer night. Mordaunt, therefore, who was by this time returned to the house, was disposed to listen with unusual patience and complacency to the enthusiastic declamation pronounced upon moonlight by Claud Halcro, whose ecstacies had been awakened on the subject by a short turn in the open air, undertaken to qualify the

[Chap. l6]

THE PIRATE

153

vapours of the good liquor, which he had not spared during the festival. “The sun, my boy,” he said, “is every wretched labourer’s daylantem—it comes glaring yonder, out of the east, to summon up a whole world to labour and to misery; whereas the merry moon lights all of us to mirth and to love.” “And to madness, or she is much belied,” said Mordaunt, by way of saying something. “Let it be so,” answered Halcro, “so she does not turn us melan­ choly mad. My dear young friend, the folks of this pains-taking world are far too anxious about possessing all their wits, or having them, as they say, about them. At least I know I have been often called half­ witted, and I am sure I have gone through the world as well as if I had double the quantity. But stop—where was I? O, touching and con­ cerning the moon—why, man, she is the very soul of love and of poetry. I question if there was ever a true lover in existence who had not got at least as far as 'O thou,’ in a sonnet in her praise.” “The moon,” said the factor, who was now beginning to speak very thick, “ripens com, at least the old folks said so—and she fills nuts also, whilk is of less matter—sparge nuces,pueri” “A fine, a fine,” said the Udaller, who was now in his altitudes; “the factor speaks Greek—by the bones of my holy name-sake, Saint Magnus, he shall drink off the yawl full of punch, unless he gives us a song on the spot!” “Too much water drowned the miller,” answered Triptolemus. “My brain has more need of draining than of being drenched with more liquor.” “Sing then,” said the despotic landlord, “for no one shall speak any other language here, save honest Norse, jolly Dutch, or Danske, or broad Scots, at the least of it. So, Eric Scambester, produce the yawl, and fill it to the brim, as a charge for demurrage.” Ere the vessel could reach the agriculturist, he, who saw it under way, and steering towards him by short tacks, (for Scambester himself was by this time not over steady in his course,) made a desperate effort, and began to sing, or rather to croak forth a Yorkshire harvest­ home ballad, which his father used to sing when he was a little mellow, and which went to the tune of “Hey Dobbin, away with the waggon.” The rueful aspect of the singer, and the desperately discordant tones ofhis voice, formed so delightful a contrast with the jollity ofthe words and tune, that honest Triptolemus afforded the same sort of amuse­ ment which a reveller might give, by appearing on a festival-day in the holiday coat of his grandfather. The jest concluded the evening, for even the mighty and strong-headed Magnus himself had confessed

154

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 5

the influence of the sleepy god. The guests went offas best they might, each to his separate crib and resting-place, and in a short time the mansion, which was of late so noisy, was hushed into perfect silence.

Chapter Five They man their boats, and all the young men arm, With whatsoever might the monsters harm; Pikes, halberts, spits, and darts that wound afar, The tools of peace, and implements of war. Now was the time for vigorous lads to shew What love or honour could incite them to;— A goodly theatre, where rocks are round With reverend age and lovely lasses crown’d. Battle ofthe Summer Islands

The morning which succeeds such a feast as that of Magnus Troil, usually lacks a little of the zest which seasoned the revels of the preceding day, as the fashionable reader may have observed at a public breakfast during the race-week in a country town; for, in what is called the best society, these lingering moments are usually spent by the company, each apart in their own dressing-rooms. At Burgh Westra, it will readily be believed, no such space for retirement was afforded; and the lasses, with their paler cheeks, the elder dames, with many a wink and yawn, were compelled to meet with the men, (headaches and all,) just three hours after they had parted from each other. Eric Scambester had done all that man could to supply the full means of diverting the ennui of the morning meal. The board groaned with rounds of hung beef, made after the fashion of Zetland—with pasties—with baked meats—with fish dressed and cured in all vari­ ous manners; nay, with the foreign delicacies of tea, coffee, and chocolate; for, as we have already had occasion to remark, the situ­ ation ofthese islands made them early acquainted with various articles of foreign luxury, which were, as yet, but little known in Scotland, where, at a much later period than that we write of, one pound of green tea was dressed like cabbage, and another converted into a vegetable sauce for salt beef, by the ignorance of the good housewives to whom they had been sent as rare presents. Besides these preparations, the table exhibited whatever mighty potions are resorted to by bons vivants, under the facetious name of a “hair of the dog that bit you.” There was the potent Irish Usquebaugh —right Nantz—genuine Schiedamm—Aquavitæ from Caithness— and Golden Wasser from Hamburgh; there was rum of formidable antiquity, and cordials from the Leeward Islands. After these details, it were needless to mention the stout home-brewed ale—the German

[Chap. 17]

THE PIRATE

155

Mum, and Schwartz-beer—and still more would it be beneath our dignity to dwell upon the innumerable sorts of pottage and flummery, together with the bland, and various preparations of milk, for those who preferred thinner potations. No wonder that the sight of so much good cheer awakened the appetite and raised the spirits of the fatigued revellers. The young men began immediately to seek out their partners of the preceding evening, and to renew the small talk which had driven the night so merrily away; while Magnus, with his stout old Norse kindred, encouraged, by precept and example, those of elder days and graver mood, to a substantial flirtation with the good things before them. Still, however, there was a long period to be filled up before dinner; for the most protracted breakfast cannot well last above an hour; and it was to be feared that Claud Halcro meditated the occupation of this vacant morning with a formidable recitation of his own verses, besides telling, at its full length, the whole history of his introduction to glorious John Dryden. But fortune relieved the guests of Burgh Westra from this threatened infliction, by sending them means of amusement peculiarly suited to their taste and habits. Most of the guests were using their toothpick, some were beginning to talk of what was to be done next, when, with haste in his step, and fire in his eye, Eric Scambester, a harpoon in hand, came to announce to the company, that there was a whale on shore, or nearly so, at the throat ofthe voe. Then you might have seen such a joyous, boisterous, and universal bustle, as only the love of sport, so deeply implanted in our natures, can possibly inspire. A set of country squires, about to beat for the first woodcocks of the season, were a comparison as petty, in respect to the glee, as in regard to the importance of the object; the battue, upon a strong cover in Ettrick-forest, for the destruction ofthe foxes; the insurrection of the sportsmen of the Lennox, when one of the Duke’s deer gets out from Inch-Mirran; nay, the joyous sally of the fox-chase itself, with all its blithe accompaniments of hound and horn, fall far short of the animation with which the gallant sons of Thule set off to encounter the monster, whom the sea had sent for their amusement at so opportune a conjuncture. The multifarious stores of Burgh Westra were rummaged hastily for all sort of arms, which could be used on such an occasion. Har­ poons, swords, pikes, and halberts, fell to the lot of some; others contented themselves with hay-forks, spits, and whatever else could be found, that was at once long and sharp. Thus hastily equipped, one division under command of Captain Cleveland, hastened to man the boats which lay in the little haven, while the rest of the party hastened by land to the scene of action.

156

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 5

Poor Triptolemus was interrupted in a plan, which he, too, had formed against the patience of the Zetlanders, and which was to have consisted in a lecture upon the agriculture, and the capabilities of the country, by this sudden hubbub, which put an end at once to Halcro’s poetry, and to his no less formidable prose. It may be easily imagined, that he took very little interest in the sport which was so suddenly substituted for his lucubrations, and he would not even have deigned to have looked upon the active scene which was about to take place, had he not been stimulated thereunto by the exhortations of Mistress Baby. “Pit yoursell forward, man,” said that provident person, “pit yoursell forward—wha kens whare a blessing may light?—they say that a’ men share and share equals-aquals in the creature’s ulzie, and a pint o’t wad be worth siller, to light the crusie in the lang dark nights that they speak of—pit yoursell forwards, man—there’s a graip to ye —faint heart never wan fair lady—wha kens but what when it’s fresh, it may eat weel enough, and spare butter?” What zeal was added to Triptolemus’s motions, by the prospect of eating fresh train-oil, instead of butter, we know not; but, as better might not be, he brandished the rural implement (a stable-fork) with which he was armed, and went down to wage battle with the whale. The situation in which the enemy’s ill fate had placed him, was particularly favourable to the enterprize of the islanders. A tide of unusual height, had carried the animal over a large bar of sand, into the voe or creek in which he was now lying. So soon as he found the water ebbing, he became sensible of his danger, and had made des­ perate efforts to get over the shallow water, where the waves broke on the bar; but hitherto he had rather injured than mended his condition, having got himself partly aground, and lying therefore particularly exposed to the meditated attack. At this moment the enemy came down upon him. The front ranks consisted of the young and hardy, armed in the miscellaneous manner we have described; while, to witness and animate their efforts, the young women, and the elderly persons of both sexes, took their place among the rocks, which over­ hung the scene of action. As the boats had to double a little headland, ere they opened the mouth of the voe, those who came by land to the shores of the inlet, had time to make the necessary reconnoissances upon the force and situation of the enemy, on whom they were about to commence a simultaneous attack by land and sea. This duty, the stout-hearted and experienced general would entrust to no eyes but his own; and, indeed, his external appearance, and his sage conduct, rendered him alike qualified for the command which he enjoyed. His gold-laced hat was exchanged for a bear-skin

[Chap. 17]

THE PIRATE

157

cap, his suit of blue broad-cloth, with its scarlet lining, and loops, and frogs of bullion, had given place to a red flannel jacket, with buttons of black horn, over which he wore a seal-skin shirt, curiously seamed and plaited on the bosom, such as are used by the Esquimaux, and some­ times by the Greenland whale-fishers. Sea-boots of a formidable size completed his dress, and, in his hand, he held a huge whaling-knife, which he brandished, as if impatient to employ it in the operation of flinching the huge animal which lay before them, the act of separating, that is, its flesh from its bones. Upon closer examination, however, he was obliged to confess, that the sport to which he had conducted his friends, however much it corresponded with the magnificent scale of his hospitality, was likely to be attended with its own peculiar dangers and difficulties. The animal, upwards ofsixty feet in length, was lying perfectly still, in a deep part of the voe into which it had weltered, and where it seemed to await the return of tide, of which it was probably assured by instinct. A council of experienced harpooners was instantly called, and it was agreed that an effort should be made to noose the tail of this torpid leviathan, by casting a cable around it, to be made fast by anchors to the shore, and thus to secure against his escape, in case the tide should make before they were able to dispatch him. Three boats were destined to this delicate piece of service, one of which the Udal­ ler himself proposed to command, while Cleveland and Mertoun were to direct the two others. This being decided, they sat down on the strand, waiting with impatience, until the naval part of the force should arrive in the voe. It was during this interval, that Triptolemus Yellowley, after measuring with his eyes the extraordinary size of the whale, observed, that in his poor mind, “A wain with six owsen, or with sixty owsen either, if they were the owsen of the country, could not drag siccan a huge creature from the water, where it was now lying, to the sea-beach.” Trifling as this remark may seem to the reader, it was connected with a subject which always fired the blood of the old Udaller, who, glancing upon Triptolemus a quick and stern look, asked him what the devil it signified, supposing a hundred oxen could not drag the whale upon the beach? Mr Yellowley, though not much liking the tone with which the question was put, felt that his dignity and his profit compelled him to answer as follows:—“Nay, sir—you know yoursell, Master Magnus Troil, and every one knows that knows any thing, that whales of siccan size as may not be masterfully dragged on shore by the instrumentality of one wain with six owsen, are the right and property of the Admiral, wha is at this time the same noble Lord who is, moreover, Chamberlain ofthese isles.”

158

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 5

“And I tell you, Mr Triptolemus Yellowley," said the Udaller, “as I would tell your master if he were here, that every man who risks his life to bring that fish ashore, shall have an equal share and partition, according to our ancient and loveable Norse custom and wit; nay, if there is so much as a woman looking on, that will but touch the cable, she shall be partner with us; ay, and more than all that, if she will but say there is reason for it, we will assign a portion to the babe that is unborn.” The strict principle ofequity, which dictated this last arrangement, occasioned laughter among the men, and some slight confusion amongst the women. The factor, however, thought it shame to be so easily daunted. “Suum cuique tribuito” said he; “I will stand for my lord’s right and my own.” “Will you?” replied Magnus; “then, by the Martyr’s bones, you shall have no law of partition but that of God and Saint Olave, which we had before either factor, or treasurer, or admiral, were heard of— All shall share that lend a hand, and never a one else.—So you, Master Factor, shall be busy as well as other folks, and think yourself lucky to share like other folks. Jump into that boat, (for the boats had by this time pulled round the headland,) and you, my lads, make way for the factor in the stern-sheets—he shall be the first man this blessed day that shall strike the fish.” The loud authoritative voice, and habit of absolute command inferred in the Udaller’s whole manner, together with the conscious want of favourers and backing amongst the rest of the company, rendered it difficult for Triptolemus to evade compliance, although he was thus about to be placed in a situation equally novel and peril­ ous. He was still, however, hesitating, and attempting an expostulation with a voice in which anger was qualified by fear, and both thinly disguised under an attempt to be jocular, and to represent the whole as a jest, when he heard the voice of Baby maundering in his ear,— “Wad he lose his share of the ulzie, and the lang Zetland winter coming on, when the lightest day in December is not so clear as a moonless night in the Mearns?” This domestic instigation, in addition to those of fear of the Udal­ ler, and shame to seem less courageous than others, so inflamed the agriculturist’s spirit, that he shook his graip aloft, and entered the boat with the air of Neptune himself, carrying on high his trident. The three boats destined for this perilous service, now approached the dark mass, which lay like an islet, in the deepest part of the voe, and suffered them to approach, without shewing any sign of anima­ tion. Silently, and with such precaution as the extreme delicacy of the operation required, the intrepid adventurers, after the failure of their

[Chap. 17]

THE PIRATE

159

first attempt, and the expenditure of considerable time, succeeded in casting a cable around the body of the torpid monster, and in carrying the ends of it ashore, where an hundred hands were instantly employed in securing them. But ere this was accomplished, the tide began to make fast, and the Udaller informed his assistants, that either the fish must be killed, or at least greatly wounded, ere the depth of water on the bar was sufficient to float him; or that he was not unlikely to escape from their joint prowess. “Wherefore,” said he, “we must set to work, and the factor shall have the honour to make the first throw.” The valiant Triptolemus caught the word; and it is necessary to say that the patience of the whale, in suffering himself to be noosed without resistance, had abated his terrors, and very much lowered the creature in his opinion. He protested the fish had no more wit, and scarcely more activity, than a black snail; and, influenced by this undue contempt of the adversary, he waited neither for a further signal, nor a better weapon, nor a more suitable position, but, rising in his energy, hurled his graip with all his force against the unfortunate whale. The boats had not yet retreated from him, to the distance necessary to ensure safety, when this injudicious commencement of the war took place. Magnus Troil, who had only jested with the factor, and had reserved the launching the first spear against the whale to some much more skilful hand, had just time to exclaim, “Mind yourselves, lads, or we are all swamped,” when the monster, roused at once from inactivity by the blow of the factor’s missile, blew, with a noise resem­ bling the explosion of a steam-engine, a huge shower of water into the air, and at the same time began to lash the waves with its tail in every direction. The boat in which Magnus presided received the shower of brine which the animal spouted into the air; and the adven­ turous Triptolemus, who had a full share of the immersion, was so much astonished and terrified by the consequences of his own valor­ ous deed, that he tumbled backwards amongst the feet of the people, who, too busy to attend to him, were actively engaged in getting the boat into shoal water, out of the whale’s reach. Here he lay for some minutes, trampled on by the feet of the boatmen, until they lay on their oars to bale, when the Udaller ordered them to pull to shore, and land this spare hand, who had commenced the fishing so inauspi­ ciously. While this was doing, the other boats had also pulled off to safer distance, and now, from these as well as from the shore, the unfortu­ nate native of the deep was overwhelmed by all kind of missiles,— harpoons and spears flew against him on all sides—guns were fired,

160

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch.5

and each various means of annoyance plied which could excite him to exhaust his strength in useless rage. When the animal found that he was locked in by shallows on all sides, and became sensible, at the same time, of the strain of the cable on his body, the convulsive efforts which he made to escape, accompanied with sounds resembling deep and loud groans, would have moved the compassion of all but a practised whale-fisher. The repeated showers which he spouted into the air began now to be mingled with blood, and the waves which surrounded him assumed the same crimson appearance. Meantime the attempts of the assailants were redoubled; but Mordaunt Mer­ toun and Cleveland, in particular, exerted themselves to the utter­ most, contending who should display most courage in approaching the monster, so tremendous in its agonies, and should inflict the most deep and deadly wound upon its huge bulk. The contest seemed at last pretty well over; for although the animal continued from time to time to make frantic exertions for liberty, yet its strength appeared so much exhausted, that, even with assistance of the tide, which had now risen considerably, it was thought it could scarce extricate itself. Magnus gave the signal to venture upon the whale more nearly, calling out at the same time, “Close in, lads, she is not half so mad now —Now, Mr Factor, look for a winter’s oil for the two lamps at Harfra —Pull close in, lads.” Ere his orders could be obeyed, the other two boats had anticipated his purpose; and Mordaunt Mertoun, eager to distinguish himself above Cleveland, had, with the whole strength he possessed, plunged a half-pike into the body of the animal. But the leviathan, like a nation whose resources appear totally exhausted by previous losses and calamities, collected his whole remaining force for an effort, which proved at once desperate and successful. The wound last received, had probably reached through his external defences ofblub­ ber, and attained some very sensitive part of the system, for he roared aloud, as he sent to the sky a mingled sheet of brine and blood, and snapping the strong cable like a twig, overset Mertoun’s boat with a blow of his tail, shot himself, by a mighty effort, over the bar, upon which the tide had now risen considerably, and made out to sea, carrying with him a whole grove of the implements which had been planted in his body, and leaving behind him, on the waters, a dark red trace of his course. “There goes to sea your cruise of oil, Master Yellowley,” said Magnus, “and you must consume mutton suet, or go to bed in the dark.” “Operamet oleumperdidi,” muttered Triptolemus; “but if they catch

[Chap. 17]

THE PIRATE

161

me whale-fishing again, I will consent that the fish shall swallow me as he did Jonah.” “But where is Mordaunt Mertoun all this while?” exclaimed Claud Halcro; and it was instantly perceived that the youth, who had been stunned when his boat was stove, was unable to swim to shore as the other sailors did, and now floated senseless upon the waves. We have noticed the strange and inhuman prejudice which ren­ dered the Zetlanders of that period unwilling to assist those whom they saw in the act of drowning, though that is the calamity to which the islanders are most frequently exposed. Three men, how­ ever, soared above this superstition. The first was Claud Halcro, who threw himself from a small rock headlong into the waves, forgetting, as he himself afterwards stated, that he could not swim; and if possessed of the harp of Arion, had no dolphin in attendance. The first plunge which the poet made in deep water reminded him of these deficien­ cies, and he was fain to cling to the rock from which he had dived, and was at length glad to regain the shore, at the expence of a ducking. Magnus Troil, whose honest heart forgot his late coolness towards Mordaunt, when he saw the youth’s danger, would instantly have brought him more effectual assistance, but Eric Scambester held him fast. “Hout, sir—hout,” exclaimed that faithful attendant—“Captain Cleveland has a grip of Mr Mordaunt—just let the twa strangers help ilk other, and stand by the upshot. The light of the country is no to be quenched for the like of them. Bide still, sir, I say—Bredness Voe is not a bowl of punch, that a man can be fished out like a toast with a

long spoon.” This sage remonstrance would have been altogether lost upon Magnus, had he not observed that Cleveland had in fact jumped out of the boat, and swum to Mertoun’s assistance, and was keeping him afloat till the boat came to the aid of both. So soon as the immediate danger which called so loudly for assistance was thus ended, the honest Udaller’s desire to render aid terminated also; and recollect­ ing the causes of offence which he had, or thought he had, against Mordaunt Mertoun, he shook offhis butler’s hold, and turning scorn­ fully from the beach, called Eric an old fool for supposing that he cared whether the young fellow sank or swam. Still, however, amid his assumed indifference, Magnus could not help peeping over the heads of the circle, which, surrounding Mor­ daunt so soon as he was brought on shore, were charitably employed in endeavouring to recal him to life; and he was not able to attain the appearance of absolute unconcern, until the young man sat up on the beach, and shewed plainly that the accident had been attended with no

162

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 5

material consequences. It was then first that, cursing the assistants for not giving the lad a glass of brandy, he walked sullenly away, as if totally unconcerned in his fate. The women, always accurate in observing the tell-tale emotions of each other, failed not to remark, that when the sisters ofBurgh Westra saw Mordaunt immersed in the waves, Minna grew as pale as death, while Brenda uttered successive shrieks of terror. But though there were some nods, winks, and hints, that auld acquaintance were not easily forgot, it was, on the whole, candidly admitted, that less than such marks of interest could scarce have been expected, when they saw the companion of their early youth in the act of perishing before their eyes. Whatever interest Mordaunt’s condition excited while it seemed perilous, began to abate as he recovered himself; and when his senses were fully restored, only Claud Halcro, with two or three others, were standing by him. About ten paces off stood Cleveland—his hair and clothes dropping water, and his features wearing so peculiar an expression, as immediately to arrest the attention ofMordaunt. There was a suppressed smile on his cheek, and a look of pride in his eye, that implied liberation from a painful restraint, and something resembling gratified scorn. Claud Halcro hastened to intimate to Mordaunt, that he owed his life to Cleveland; and the youth, rising from the ground, and losing all other feelings in those of gratitude, stepped forward with his hand stretched out, to offer his warmest thanks to his pre­ server. But he stopped short in surprise, as Cleveland, stepping back a pace or two, folded his arms on his breast, and declined to accept his proffered hand. He drew back in turn, and gazed with astonishment at the ungracious manner, and almost insulting look, with which Cleve­ land, who had formerly rather expressed a frank cordiality, or at least, openness of bearing, now, after having thus rendered him a most important service, chose to receive his thanks. “It is enough,” said Cleveland, observing his surprise, “and it is unnecessary to say more about it. I have paid back my debt, and we are now equal.” “You are more than equal with me, Mr Cleveland,” answered Mer­ toun, “because you endangered your life to do for me what I did for you without the slightest risk;—besides,” he added, trying to give the discourse a more pleasant turn, “I have your rifle gun to boot.” “Cowards only count danger for any point ofthe game,” said Cleve­ land. “Danger has been my consort for life, and sailed with me on a thousand worse voyages;—and for rifles, I have enough of my own, and you may see, when you will, which can use them best.” There was something in the tone with which this was said, that

[Chap. 17]

THE PIRATE

163

struck Mordaunt strongly; it was miching malicho, as Hamlet says, and meant mischief. Cleveland saw his surprise, came close up to him, and spoke in a low tone of voice:—“Hark ye, my young brother. There is a custom amongst us gentlemen of fortune, that when we follow the same chase, and take the wind out of each other’s sails, we think sixty yards of the sea-beach, and a brace of rifles, are no bad way of making our odds evens.” “I do not understand you, Captain Cleveland,” said Mordaunt. “I do not suppose you do,—I did not suppose you would,” said the Captain; and turning on his heel, with a smile that resembled a sneer, Mordaunt saw him mingle with the guests, and very soon beheld him at the side of Minna, who was talking to him with animated features that seemed to thank him for his gallant and generous conduct. “If it were not for Brenda,” thought Mordaunt, “I almost wish he had left me in the voe, for no one seems to care whether I am alive or dead—two rifles and sixty yards of sea-beach—is that what he points at?—it may come,—but not on the day he has saved my life with risk ofhis own.” While he was thus musing, Eric Scambester was whispering to Halcro, “If these two lads do not do each other mischief, there is no faith in freits. Master Mordaunt saves Cleveland,—well—Cleveland, in requital, has turned all the sunshine of Burgh Westra to his own side of the house; and think what it is to lose favour in such a house as this, where the punch-kettle is never allowed to cool! Well, now that Cleveland in his turn has been such a fool as to fish Mordaunt out of the voe, see if he does not give him sour sillocks for stock-fish.” “Pshaw, pshaw!” replied the poet, “that is all old women’s fancies, my friend Eric; for what says glorious Dryden—sainted John,— The yellow gall, that in your bosom floats, Engenders all those melancholy thoughts.”

“Saint John, or Saint James either, may be mistaken in the matter,” said Eric; “for I think neither of them lived in Zetland. I only say, that if there is faith in old saws, these two lads will do each other a mis­ chief; and, if they do, I trust it will light on Mordaunt Mertoun.” “And why, Eric Scambester,” said Halcro, hastily and angrily, “should you wish ill to that poor young man, that is worth fifty of the other?” “Let every one roose the ford as he finds it,” replied Eric; “Master Mordaunt is all for wan water, like his old dog-fish of a father; now Captain Cleveland takes his glass like an honest fellow and a gentle­ man.” “Rightly reasoned, and in thine own division,” said Halcro; and breaking off their conversation, took his way back to Burgh Westra, to

164

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 6

which the guests of Magnus were now returning, discussing as they went, with much animation, the various incidents of their attack upon the whale, and not a little scandalized that it should have baffled all their exertions. “I hope Captain Donderdrecht of the Eintracht of Rotterdam will never hear of it,” said Magnus; “he would swear donner and blizstein, we were only fit to fish flounders.”

Chapter Six And helter-skelter have I rode to thee, And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys, And golden times, and happy news of price. Ancient Pistol

Fortune, who seems at times to bear a conscience, owed the hospitable Udaller some amends, and accordingly repaid to Burgh Westra the disappointment occasioned by the unsuccessful whale­ fishing, by sending thither, on the evening of the day in which that incident happened, no less a person than the jagger, or travelling merchant, as he styled himself, Bryce Snaelsfoot, who arrived in great pomp, himself on one poney, and his pack of goods, swelled to nearly double its usual size, forming the burthen ofanother, which was led by a bare-headed, bare-legged boy. As Bryce announced himself the bearer of important news, he was introduced into the dining apartment, where, (for that primitive age was no respecter of persons,) he was permitted to sit down at a side­ table, and amply supplied with provisions and good liquor; while the attentive hospitality of Magnus permitted no questions to be put to him, until, his hunger and thirst appeased, he announced, with the sense of importance attached to distant travels, that he had just yester­ day arrived at Lerwick from Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney, and would have been here yesterday, but it blew hard off the Fitful-head. “We had no wind here,” said Magnus. “There is somebody has not been sleeping then,” said the pedlar, “and her name begins with N; but Heaven is above all.” “But the news from Orkney, Bryce, instead of croaking about a capful of wind?” “Such news,” replied Bryce, “as has not been heard this thirty years —not since Cromwell’s time.” “There is not another Revolution, is there?” said Halcro; “King James has not come back, as blithe King Charlie did, has he?” “It’s news,” replied the pedlar, “that are worth twenty kings, and kingdoms to boot of them; for what good did the evolutions ever do

[Chap. 18]

THE PIRATE

165

us? and I dare say we have seen a dozen, great and sma’.” “Are any Indiamen come north about?” said Magnus Troil. “Ye are nearer the mark, Fowde,” said the jagger; “but it is nae Indiaman, but a gallant armed vessel, choak-full of merchandize, that they part with so easy that a decent man like mysel can afford to give the country the best pennyworths you ever saw; and that you will say, when I open that pack, for I count to carry it back another sort lighter than when I brought it here.” “Ay, ay, Bryce,” said the Udaller, “you must have had good bar­ gains if you sell cheap; but what ship was it?” “Cannot justly say—I spoke to nobody but the captain, who was a discreet man; but she had been down on the Spanish Main, for she has silks and sattins, and tobacco, I warrant you, and wine, and no lack of sugar, and bonnie wallies baith of silver and gowd, and a bonnie dredging of gold dust into the bargain.” “What like was she?” said Cleveland, who seemed to give much attention. “A stout ship,” said the itinerant merchant, “schooner-rigged, sails like a dolphin they say, carries twelve guns, and is pierced for twenty.” “Did you hear the captain’s name?” said Cleveland, speaking rather lower than his usual tone. “I just ca’d him the Captain,” replied Bryce Snaelsfoot; “for I make it a rule never to ask questions at them I deal with in the way of trade; for there is many an honest captain, begging your pardon, Captain Cleveland, that does not care to have his name tacked to his title; and as long as we ken what bargains we are making, what signifies it wha we are making them wi’, ye ken.” “Bryce Snaelsfoot is a cautious man,” said the Udaller, laughing; “he knows a fool may ask more questions than a wise man cares to answer.” “I have dealt with the fair traders in my day,” replied Snaelsfoot, “and I ken nae use in blurting braid out with a man’s name at every moment; but I will uphold this gentleman to be a gallant commander —ay, and a kind one too; for every one of his crew is as brave in apparel as himself nearly—the very foremast-men have their silken scarfs, I have seen many a lady wear a warse, and think hersel nae sma’ drink—and for siller buttons, and buckles, and the lave of sic vanities, there is nae end of them.” “Ideots!” muttered Cleveland between his teeth; and then added, “I suppose they are often ashore, to shew all their bravery to the lasses ofKirkwall?” “Ne’er a bit of that are they. The Captain will scarce let them stir ashore without the boatswain go in the boat—as rough a tarpaulin as

166

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 6

ever swab’d a deck—and you may as weel catch a cat without his claws, as him without his cutlass and his double brace of pistols about him; every man stands as much in awe ofhim as of the commander himsel.” “That must be Hawkins, or the devil,” said Cleveland. “Aweel, Captain,” replied the jagger, “be he the tane or the tither, or a wee bit o’ baith, mind it is you that give him these names, and not I.” “Why, Captain Cleveland,” said the Udaller, “this may prove the very consort you spoke of.” “They must have had some good luck then, to put them in better plight than when I left them.—Did they speak of having lost their consort, pedlar?” “In troth did they,” said Bryce; “that is, they said something about a partner that had gone down to Davie Jones in these seas.” “And did you tell them what you knew of her?” said the Udaller. “And wha the devil wad hae been the fule then?” said the pedlar, “that I suld say so; when they kend what came of the ship, the next question wad have been about the cargo,—and ye wad not have had me bring down an armed vessel on the coast, to harrie the poor folk about a wheen rags of duds that the sea flung upon their shores?” “Besides what might have been found in your own pack, you scoun­ drel!” said Magnus Troil, an observation which produced a loud laugh. The Udaller could not help joining in the hilarity which applauded his own jest; but instantly composing his countenance, he said, in an unusually grave tone, “You may laugh, my friends; but this is a matter which brings both a curse and a shame on the country; and till we learn to regard the rights of them that suffer by the winds and waves, we shall deserve to be oppressed and hag-ridden, as we have been and are, by the superior strength ofthe strangers who rule us.” The company hung their heads at the rebuke of Magnus Troil. Perhaps some, even of the better class, might be conscience-struck on their own account; and all of them were sensible that the appetite for plunder, on the part of the tenants and inferiors, was not at all times restrained with sufficient strictness. But Cleveland made answer gaily, “If these honest fellows be my comrades, I will answer for them that they will never trouble the country about a parcel of chests, hammocks, and such trumpery, that the roost hove ashore out of my poor sloop. What signifies to them whether the trash went to Bryce Snaelsfoot, or to the bottom, or to the devil? So unbuckle thy pack, Bryce, and shew the ladies thy cargo, and perhaps we may see something that will please them.” “It cannot be his consort,” said Brenda, in a whisper to her sister; “he would have shewn more joy at their appearance.”

[Chap. 18]

THE PIRATE

167

“It must be the vessel,” answered Minna; “I saw his eye glisten at the thought ofbeing again united to the partners of his dangers.” “Perhaps it glistened,” said her sister, still apart, “at the thought of leaving Zetland; it is difficult to guess the thought of the heart from the glance of the eye.” “Judge not at least unkindly of a friend’s thought,” said Minna; “and then, Brenda, if you are mistaken, the fault rests not with you.” During this dialogue Bryce Snaelsfoot was busied in uncoiling the carefully arranged cordage of his pack, which amounted to six good yards of dressed seal-skin, curiously complicated and secured by all manner of knots and buckles. He was considerably interrupted in the task by the Udaller and others, who pressed him with questions respecting the stranger vessel. “Were the officers often ashore? and how were they received by the people of Kirkwall?” said Magnus Troil. “Excellently well,” answered Bryce Snaelsfoot; “and the Captain and one or two of his men had been at some of the vanities and dances which went forward in the town; but there had been some word about customs, or king’s duties, or the like, and some ofthe higher folks, that took upon them as magistrates, or the like, had had words with the captain, and he refused to satisfy them; and then it was like he was more coldly looked on, and he spoke of carrying the ship round to Stromness, or the Langhope, for she lay under the guns of the battery at Kirkwall. But he (Bryce) thought she wald bide at Kirkwall till the summer-fair was over, for all that.” “The Orkney gentry,” said Magnus Troil, “are always in a hurry to draw the Scotch collar tighter round their own neck. Is it not enough that we must pay scat and mattle, which were all the public dues under our old Norse government; but must they come over us with king’s dues and customs besides? It is the part of an honest man to resist these things. I have done so all my life, and will do so to the end of it.” There was a loud jubilee and shout of applause amongst the guests, who were (some of them at least,) better pleased with Magnus Troil’s latitudinarian principles with respect to the public revenue, which were extremely natural to those living in so secluded a situation, and subjected to many additional exactions, than they had been with the rigour of his judgment on the subject of wrecked goods. But Minna’s inexperienced feelings carried her farther than her father, while she whispered to Brenda, not unheard by Cleveland, that the tame spirit of the Orcadians had missed every chance which late incidents had given to emancipate these islands from the Scottish yoke. “Why,” she said, “should we not, under so many changes as late times have introduced, have seized the opportunity to shake off an

168

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 6

allegiance which is not justly due from us, and to return to the protec­ tion of Denmark, our parent country? Why should we yet hesitate to do this, but that the gentry of Orkney have mixed families and friend­ ship so much with our invaders, that they have become dead to the throb of the heroic Norse blood, which they derived from their ancestors!” The latter part ofthis patriotic speech happened to reach the aston­ ished ears of our friend Triptolemus, who, having a sincere devotion for the Protestant succession, and the Revolution established, was surprised into the ejaculation, “As the old cock crows the young cock learns—hen I should say, mistress, and I crave your pardon ifI say any thing amiss in either gender. But it is a happy country where the father declares against the king’s customs, and the daughter against the king’s crown; and, in my judgment, it can end in naething but trees and tows.” “Trees are scarce amongst us,” said Magnus; “and for ropes, we need them for our rigging, and cannot spare them to be shirt collars.” “And whoever,” said the Captain, “takes umbrage at what this young lady says, had better keep his ears and tongue for safer employ­ ment than such an adventure.” “Ay, ay,” said Triptolemus, “it helps the matter much to speak truths, whilk are as unwelcome to a proud stomach as wet clover to a cow’s, in a land where lads are ready to draw the whittle if a lassie but looks awry. But what manners are to be expected in a country where folks call a pleugh-sock a markal?” “Hark ye, Master Yellowley,” said the Captain, smiling, “I hope my manners are not among those abuses which you come hither to reform; any experiment on them may be dangerous.” “As well as difficult,” said Triptolemus drily; “but fear nothing, Captain Cleveland, from my remonstrances. My labours regard the men and things of the earth, and not the men and things of the sea,— you are not ofmy element.” “Let us be friends then, old clod-compeller,” said the Captain. “Clod-compeller!” said the agriculturist, bethinking himself of the lore of his earlier days; “Clod-compeller pro Cloud-compeller, Νεφεληγετερα Ζευς—grœcum est,—in which voyage came you by that phrase?” “I have travelled books as well as seas in my day,” said the Captain; “but my last voyages have been of a sort to make me forget my early cruizes through classic knowledge. But come here, Bryce has cast off the lashings—come all hands, and let us see if he has aught in his cargo that is worth looking upon.” With a proud, and, at the same time, a wily smile, did the crafty

[Chap. 18]

THE PIRATE

169

pedlar display a collection of wares far superior to those which usually filled his packages, and, in particular, some stuffs and embroideries, ofsuch beauty and curiosity, fringed, flowered, and worked, with such art and magnificence, upon foreign and arabesque patterns, that the sight might have dazzled a far more brilliant company than the simple race of Thule. All beheld and admired, while Mistress Baby Yellowley, holding up her hands, protested it was a sin even to look upon such extravagance, and worse than murther so much as to ask the price of them. Others, however, were more courageous; and the prices demanded by the merchant, if they were not, as he himself declared, something just more than nothing—short only of an absolute free gift of his wares, were nevertheless so moderate, as to shew that he himself must have made an easy acquisition of the goods, judging by the rate at which he offered to part with them. Accordingly, the cheapness of the articles created a rapid sale; for in Zetland, as well as elsewhere, wise folks buy more from the prudential desire to secure a good bargain, than from any real occasion for the purchase. The Lady Glowrowrum bought seven petticoats and twelve stomachers on this sole principle, and other matrons present rivalled her in this sagacious species of economy. The Udaller was also a considerable purchaser; but the principal customer for whatever could please the eye of beauty, was the gallant Captain Cleveland, who rummaged the jagger’s stores in selecting presents for the ladies of the party, in which Minna and Brenda Troil were especially remembered. “I fear,” said Magnus Troil, “that the young women are to consider these pretty presents as keep-sakes, and that all this liberality is only a sure sign we are soon to lose you?” This question seemed to embarrass him to whom it was put. “I scarce know,” he said, with some hesitation, “whether this vessel is my consort or no—I must take a trip to Kirkwall to make sure ofthat matter, and then I hope to return to Dunrossness to bid you all farewell.” “In that case,” said the Udaller, after a moment’s pause, “I think I may carry you thither. I should be at the Kirkwall fair, to settle with the merchants I have consigned my fish to, and I have often promised Minna and Brenda that they should see the fair. Perhaps also your consort, or these strangers, whoever they be, may have some mer­ chandize that will suit me. I love to see my rigging-loft well stocked with goods, almost as much as to see it full of dancers. We will go to Orkney in my own brig, and I can offer you a hammock if you will.” The offer seemed so acceptable to Cleveland, that, after pouring himself forth in thanks, he seemed determined to mark his joy by

170

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 6

exhausting Bryce Snaelsfoot’s treasures in liberality to the company. The contents of a purse of gold were transferred to the jagger, with a facility and indifference on the part of its former owner, which argued either the greatest profusion, or consciousness of superior and inex­ haustible wealth; so that Baby whispered to her brother, that, “if he could afford to fling away money at this rate, the lad had made a better voyage in a broken ship, than all the skippers of Dundee had made in their hail anes for a twelvemonth past.” But the aigre feeling in which she made this remark was much mollified, when Cleveland, whose object it seemed that evening to be to buy golden opinions of all sorts of men, approached her with a garment somewhat resembling in shape the Scottish plaid, but woven of a sort of wool so soft, that it felt to the touch as if it were composed of eider-down. This, he said, was a part of a Spanish lady’s dress, called a mantilla; as it would exactly fit the size of Mrs Baby Yellowley, and was very well suited for the fogs of the climate of Zetland, he entreated her to wear it for his sake. The lady, with as much condescending sweetness as her countenance was able to express, not only consented to receive this mark of gallantry, but permitted the donor to arrange the mantilla upon her projecting and bony shoulder-blades, where, said Claud Halcro, “it hung, for all the world, as if it had been stretched betwixt a couple of cloak­ pins.” While the Captain was performing this piece of courtesy, much to the entertainment ofthe company, which, it may be presumed, was his principal object from the beginning, Mordaunt Mertoun made pur­ chase of a small golden chaplet, with the private intention of present­ ing it to Brenda, when he should find an opportunity. The price was fixed, and the article was laid aside. Claud Halcro also shewed some desire of possessing a silver box of antique shape, for depositing tobacco, which he was in the habit of using in considerable quantity. But the bard seldom had current coin in promptitude, and indeed, in his wandering way of life, had little occasion for any; and Bryce, on the other hand, his having been hitherto a ready-money trade, protested, that his very moderate profits upon such rare and choice articles, would not allow of his affording credit to the purchaser. Mordaunt gathered the import of this conversation from the mode in which they whispered together, while the bard seemed to advance a wishful finger towards the box in question, and the cautious pedlar detained it with the weight of his whole hand, as if he had been afraid it would literally make itself wings, and fly into Claud Halcro’s pocket. Mordaunt Mertoun at this moment, desirous to gratify an old acquaintance, laid the price of the box on the table, and said he would not permit Master

[Chap. 18]

the pirate

171

Halcro to purchase that box, as he had settled in his own mind to make him a present of it. “I cannot think upon robbing you, my dear young friend,” said the poet; “but the truth is, that that same box does remind me strangely of glorious John’s, out of which I had the honour to take a pinch at theWits’ Coffee-house, for which I think more highly of my right­ hand finger and thumb than any other part of my body; only you must allow me to pay you back the price when my Urkaster stock-fish come to market.” “Settle that as you like betwixt you,” said the jagger, taking up Mordaunt’s money; “the box is bought and sold.” “And how dare you sell over again,” said Captain Cleveland, sud­ denly interfering, “what you already have sold to me?” All were surprised at this interjection, which was hastily made, as Cleveland, having turned from Mistress Baby, had become suddenly, and, as it seemed, not without emotion, aware what articles Bryce Snaelsfoot was now disposing of. To his short and fierce question the jagger, afraid probably to contradict a customer of his description, answered only by stammering, that “the Lord knew he meant nae offence.” “How, sir! no offence!” said the seaman, “and dispose of my prop­ erty?” extending his hand at the same time to the box and chaplet; “restore the young gentleman’s money, and learn to keep your course on the meridian of honesty.” The jagger, confused and reluctant, pulled out his leathern pouch to repay to Mordaunt the money he had just deposited in it; but the youth was not to be so satisfied. “The articles,” he said, “were bought and sold—these were your own words, Bryce Snaelsfoot, in Master Halcro’s hearing; and I will suffer neither you nor any other to deprive me of my property.” “Your property, young man?” said Cleveland; “it is mine,—I spoke to Bryce respecting them an instant before I turned from the table.” “I—I—I had not just heard distinctly,” said Bryce, evidently unwilling to offend either party. “Come, come,” said the Udaller, “we will have no quarrelling about baubles; we shall be summoned presently to the rigging-loft,”—so he used to call the apartment used as a ball-room; “and we must all go in good humour; the things shall remain with Bryce for to-night, and to­ morrow I will myself settle whom they shall belong to.” The laws of the Udaller in his own house were absolute as those of the Medes. The two young men, regarding each other with looks of sullen displeasure, drew off in different directions. It is seldom that the second day of a prolonged festival equals the

172

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 6

first. The spirits, as well as the limbs, are jaded, and unequal to the renewed expenditure of animation and exertion; and the dance at Burgh Westra was sustained with much less mirth than on the preced­ ing evening. It was yet an hour from midnight, when even the reluctant Magnus Troil, after regretting the degeneracy of the times, and wish­ ing he could transfuse into the modem Hialtlanders some of the vigour which still animated his own frame, found himselfcompelled to give the signal for general retreat. Just as this took place, Halcro, leading Mordaunt Mertoun a little aside, said he had a message to him from Captain Cleveland. “A message?” said Mordaunt, his heart beating somewhat thick as he spoke—“A challenge, I suppose?” “A challenge!” repeated Halcro; “who ever heard of a challenge in our quiet islands? do you think that I look like a carrier of challenges, and to you of all men living?—I am none of those fighting fools, as glorious John calls them; and it was not quite a message I had to deliver—only thus far,—this Captain Cleveland, I find, hath set his heart upon having these articles you looked at.” “He shall not have them, I swear to you,” replied Mordaunt Mer­ toun. “Nay, but hear me,” said Halcro; “it seems that, by the marks or arms that are upon them, he knows that they were formerly his prop­ erty. Now, were you to give me the box, as you promise, I fairly tell you I should give the man back his own.” “And Brenda might do the like,” thought Mordaunt to himself, and instantly replied aloud, “I have thought better of it—my friend Cap­ tain Cleveland shall have the toys he sets such store by, but it is on one sole condition.” “Nay, you will spoil all with your conditions,” said Halcro; “for, as glorious John says, conditions are but”––– “Hear me, I say, with patience.—My condition is, that he keep the toys in exchange for the rifle-gun I accepted from him, which will leave no obligation between us on either side.” “I see where you would be—this is Sebastian and Dorax all over. Well, you may let the jagger know he is to deliver the things to Cleve­ land—I think he is mad to have them on any terms—and I will let Cleveland know the condition annexed, otherwise honest Bryce might come by two payments instead of one; and I believe his conscience would not choke upon it.” With these words, Halcro went to seek out Cleveland, while Mor­ daunt, observing Snaelsfoot, who, as a sort of privileged person, had thrust himself into the crowd at the bottom of the dancing-room, went up to him, and gave him directions to deliver the disputed articles to

[Chap. 18]

THE PIRATE

173

Cleveland as soon as he had an opportunity. “Ye are in the right, Master Mordaunt,” said the jagger; “ye are a prudent and a sensible lad—a calm answer tumeth away wrath—and mysel, I sall be willing to please you in ony trifling matter in my sma’ way; for, between the Udaller of Burgh Westra and Captain Cleve­ land, a man is, as it were, atween the de’il and the deep sea; and it was like that the Udaller wald, in the end, have taken your part in the dispute, for he is a man that loves justice.” “Which apparently you care very little about, Master Snaelsfoot,” said Mordaunt, “otherwise there could have been no dispute whatso­ ever, the right being so clearly on my side, if you had pleased to bear witness according to the dictates of truth.” “Mr Mordaunt,” said the jagger, “I must own there was, as it were, a colouring or shadow of justice on your side; but then, the justice that I meddle with is only justice in the way of trade, to have an ellwand of due length, if it be not something worn out with leaning on it in my lang and painful journies, and to buy and sell by just weight and measure, twenty-four merks to the lispund; but I have nothing to do, to do justice betwixt man and man, like a Fowde or a Law-right-man at a lawting lang syne.” “No one asked you to do so, but only to give evidence according to your conscience,” replied Mordaunt, not greatly pleased either with the part the jagger had acted during the dispute, or the construction which he seemed to put on his own motives for yielding up the point. But Bryce Snaelsfoot wanted not his answer. “My conscience,” he said, “Mr Mordaunt, is as tender as ony man’s in my degree; but she is something of a timersome nature, cannot abide angry folks, and can never speak above her breath, when there is aught of a fray going forward. Indeed, she hath at all times a small and low voice.” “Which you are not much in the habit of listening to,” said Mor­ daunt. “There is that on your ain breast that proves the contrary,” said Bryce, resolutely. “In my breast?” said Mordaunt, somewhat angrily, “what know I of you?” “I said on your breast, Master Mordaunt, and not in it. I am sure nae eye that looks on that waistcoat upon your own gallant brisket, but will say, that the merchant who sold such a piece for four dollars had justice and conscience, and a kind heart to a customer to the boot of a’ that; sae ye shouldna be sae thrawart wi’ me for having spared the breath of my mouth in a fool’s quarrel.” “I thrawart?” said Mordaunt; “pooh, you silly man! I have no quarrel with you.”

174

THE pirate

Vol.2,ch.7

“I am glad of it,” said the travelling merchant; “I will quarrel with no man, with my will—least of all with an old customer; and if you will walk by my advice, you will quarrel nane with Captain Cleveland. He is like one of yon cutters and slashers that have come into Kirkwall, that think as little of slicing a man, as we do of flinching a whale—it’s their trade to fight, and they live by it; and so they have the advantage of the like of you, that only take it up at your own hand, and in the way of pastime, when you hae nothing better to do.” The company were now almost all dispersed; and Mordaunt, laughing at the jagger’s caution, bid him good night, and went to his own place of repose, which had been assigned to him by Eric Scambester, (who acted the part of chamberlain as well as butler,) in a small room, or rather closet, in one of the out-houses, furnished for the occasion with the hammock of a sailor.

Chapter Seven I pass like night from land to land, I have strange power of speech; So soon as e’er his face I see, I know the man that must hear me, To him my tale I teach. Coleridge’s Rime ofthe Ancient Mariner

The daughters of Magnus Troil shared the same bed, in a cham­ ber which had been that of their parents before the death of their mother. Magnus, who suffered grievously under that dispensation of Providence, had become disgusted with the apartment. The nuptial chamber was abandoned to the pledges of his deprived affection, of whom the eldest was at that period only four years old, or thereabouts; and, having been theirs in infancy, continued, though now tricked and adorned according to the best fashion of the islands, and the taste of the lovely sisters themselves, to be their sleeping-room, or, in the old Norse dialect, their bower. It had been for many years the scene of the most intimate confid­ ence, if that could be called confidence, where, in truth, there was nothing to be confided; where neither sister had a secret; and where every thought that had birth in the bosom of the one was, without either hesitation or doubt, confided to the other as spontaneously as it had arisen. But, since Cleveland’s abode in the mansion of Burgh Westra, each of the lovely sisters had entertained thoughts which are not lightly or easily communicated, unless she who speaks them has previously assured herself that the confidence will be kindly received.

[Chap. 19]

THE PIRATE

175

Minna had noticed what other and less interested observers had been unable to perceive, that Cleveland, namely, held a lower rank in Brenda’s opinion than her own. And Brenda, on her side, thought that Minna had hastily and unjustly joined in the prejudices which had been excited against Mordaunt Mertoun in the mind of their father. Each was sensible that she was no longer the same to her sister; and this conviction was a painful addition to other painful apprehensions which they supposed they had to struggle with. Their manner towards each other was, in outward appearance, and in all the little cares by which affection can be expressed, even more assiduously kind than before, as if both, conscious that their internal reserve was a breach of their sisterly union, strove to atone for it by double assiduity in those external marks of affection, which, at other times, when there was nothing to hide, might be omitted without inferring any con­ sequences. On the night referred to in particular, the sisters felt more espe­ cially the decay of the confidence which used to exist betwixt them. The proposed voyage to Kirkwall, and that at the time ofthe fair, when persons of every degree in these islands repair there, either for busi­ ness or amusement, was like to be an important incident in lives usually so simple and uniform as theirs; and a few months ago Minna and Brenda would have lain awake halfthe night, anticipating, in their talk with each other, all that was likely to happen on so momentous an occasion. But now the subject was just mentioned, and suffered to drop, as if the topic was likely to produce difference betwixt them, or to call forth a more open display of their several opinions than either was willing to make to the other. Yet such was their natural openness and gentleness of disposition, that each sister imputed to herself the fault that there was aught like estrangement existing between them, and when, having finished their devotions, and betaken themselves to their common couch, they folded each other in their arms, and exchanged a sisterly kiss, and a sisterly good night, they seemed mutually to ask pardon, and to exchange forgiveness, although neither said a word of offence, either offered or received; and both were soon plunged in that light and yet profound repose, which is only enjoyed when love sinks down on the eyes of youth and innocence. On the night to which the story relates, both sisters were visited by dreams, which, though varied by the moods and habits ofthe sleepers, bore yet a strange general resemblance to each other. Minna dreamed that she was in one of the most lonely recesses of the beach, called Swartaster, where the incessant operation of the waves, indenting a calcareous rock, has formed a deep helier, which, in

176

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 7

the language of the island, means a subterranean cavern, into which the tide ebbs and flows. Many of these run to an extraordinary and unascertained depth underground, and are the safe retreat ofcormor­ ants and seals, whom it is neither easy nor safe to pursue to their extreme recesses. Amongst these, this helier of Swartaster was accounted peculiarly inaccessible, and shunned both by fowlers and by seamen, on account of sharp angles and turnings in the cave itself, as well as the sunken rocks which rendered it very dangerous for skiffs or boats to advance far into it, especially if there was the usual swell of an island tide. From the dark-browed mouth of this cavern, it seemed to Minna, in her dream, that she beheld a mermaid issue, not in the classical dress of a Nereid, as in Claud Halcro’s mask of the preceding evening, but with comb and glass in hand according, and lashing the waves with that long scaly train, which, in the traditions ofthe country, forms so frightful a contrast with the fair face, long tresses, and dis­ played bosom ofa human and earthly female ofsurprizing beauty. She seemed to beckon to Minna, while her wild notes rang sadly in her ear, and denounced, in prophetic sounds, calamity and woe. The vision of Brenda was of a different description, yet equally melancholy. She sat, as she thought, in her favourite bower, sur­ rounded by her father and a party of his most beloved friends, amongst whom Mordaunt Mertoun was not forgotten. She was required to sing; and she strove to entertain them with a lively song, in which she was accounted eminently successful, and which she sung with such simple, yet natural humour, as seldom failed to produce shouts of laughter and applause, while all who could, or who could not sing, were irresistibly compelled to lend their voices to the chorus. But, on this occasion, it seemed as if her own voice refused all its usual duty, and as if, while she felt herself unable to express the words of the well-known air, it assumed, in her own despite, the deep tones and wild and melancholy notes of Norna of Fitful-head, for the purpose of chaunting some Runic rhyme, resembling those sung by the heathen priests of old, when the victim (too often human) was bound to the fatal altar of Odin or of Thor. At length the two sisters at once started from sleep, and, uttering a low scream of fear, clasped themselves in each other’s arms. For their fancy had not altogether played them false; the sounds which had suggested their dreams were real, and sung within their apartment. They knew the voice well, indeed, and yet, knowing to whom it belonged, their surprise and fear were scarce the less, when they saw the well-known Norna of Fitful-head, seated by the chimney of the apartment, which, during the summer season, contained an iron lamp well trimmed, and, in winter, a fire of wood or of turf.

[Chap. 19]

THE PIRATE

177

She was wrapped in her long and ample garment of wadmaal, and moved her body slowly to and fro over the pale flame of the lamp, as she sang lines to the following purpose, in a slow, sad, and almost an unearthly accent: “For leagues along the watery way, Through gulph and stream my course has been; The billows know my Runic lay, And smooth’d their crests to silent green. “The billows know my Runic lay,— The gulph grows smooth, the stream is still; But human hearts, more wild than they, Know but the rule of wayward will. “One hour is mine, in all the year, To tell my woes,—and one alone; When gleams this magic lamp, ’tis here,— When dies the mystic light, ’tis gone.

“Daughters of northern Magnus, hail! The lamp is lit, the flame is clear,— To you I come to tell my tale, Awake, arise, my tale to hear!”—

Noma was well known to the daughters of Troil, but it was not without emotion, although varied by their respective dispositions, that they beheld her so unexpectedly, and at such an hour. Their opinions with respect to the supernatural attributes to which she pretended, were extremely different. Minna, with an unusual intensity of imagination, although superior in talent to her sister, was more apt to listen to and delight in every tale of wonder, and was at all times more willing to admit impressions which gave her fancy scope and exercise, without minutely examining their reality. Brenda, on the other hand, had, in her gaiety, a slight propensity to satire, and was often tempted to laugh at the very cir­ cumstances upon which Minna founded her imaginative dreams; and, like all who love the ludicrous, she did not readily suffer herselfto be imposed upon, or overawed, by pompous pretensions of any kind whatsoever. But as her nerves were weaker and more irritable than those of her sister, she often paid involuntary homage, by her fears, to ideas which her reason disowned; and hence, Claud Halcro used to say, in reference to many of the traditionary superstitions around Burgh Westra, that Minna believed them without trembling, and that Brenda trembled without believing them. In our own more enlight­ ened days, there are few whose undoubting mind and native courage have felt Minna’s high-wrought tone of enthusiasm; and perhaps still fewer, who have not, at one time or other, felt, like Brenda, their

178

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch.7

nerves confess the influence of terrors which their reason disowned and despised. Under the influence of such different feelings, Minna, when the first moment of surprise was over, prepared to spring from her bed, and go to greet Norna, who, she doubted not, had come on some errand fraught with fate; while Brenda, who only beheld in her a woman partially deranged in her understanding, and who yet, from the extravagance of her claims, regarded her as an undefined object of awe, or rather terror, detained her sister by an eager and terrified grasp, while she whispered in her ear an eager entreaty that she would call for assistance. But the soul ofMinna was too highly wrought up by the crisis at which her fate seemed to have arrived, to permit her to follow the dictates of her sister’s fears; and, extricating herself from Brenda’s hold, she hastily threw on a loose night-gown, and stepping boldly across the apartment, while her heart throbbed rather with high excitement than with fear, she thus addressed her singular visitor: “Norna, if your mission regards us, as your words seem to express, there is one of us, at least, who will receive its import with reverence, but without fear.” “Noma, dear Norna,” said the tremulous voice of Brenda,—who, feeling no safety in the bed after Minna had quitted it, had followed her, as fugitives crowd into the rear of an advancing army, because they dare not remain behind, and who now stood half concealed by her sister, and holding fast by the skirts of her gown,—“Norna, dear Norna,” she said, “whatever you are to say, let it be to-morrow. I will call Euphane Fea the housekeeper, and she will find you a bed for the night.” “No bed for me,” said their nocturnal visitor; “no closing of the eyes for me; they have watched as shelf and stack appeared and disappeared betwixt Burgh Westra and Orkney—they have seen the Man of Hoy sink into the sea, and the Peak of Hengcliff arise from it, and yet they have not tasted of slumber; nor must they slumber now till my task is ended. Sit down, then, Minna, and thou, my silly trem­ bler, sit down, while I trim my lamp—don your clothes, for the tale is long, and ere ’tis done, ye will shiver with worse than cold.” “For Heaven’s sake, then, put it off till day-light, dear Norna,” said Brenda; “the dawn cannot be far distant; and if you are to tell us of any thing frightful, let it be by day-light, and not by the dim glimmer of that blue lamp.” “Patience, fool!” said their nocturnal visitor. “Not by day-light should Norna tell a tale that might blot the sun out of heaven, and blight the hopes of the hundred boats that will leave this shore ere noon, to commence their deep-sea fishing,—ay, and of the hundred

[Chap. 19]

THE PIRATE

179

families that will await their return. The demon, whom the sounds will not fail to awaken, must shake his dark wings over a shipless and a boatless sea, as he rushes from his mountain to drink the accents of horror he loves so well to listen to.” “Have pity on Brenda’s fears, good Norna,” said the elder sister, “and at least postpone this frightful communication to another place and hour.” “Maiden, no!” replied Norna, sternly; “it must be told while that lamp yet bums. Mine is no day-light tale—by that lamp it must be told, which is framed out of the gibbet-irons of the cruel Lord of Wodensvoe, who murdered his brother; and has for its nourishment —enough that it never came either from the fish or from the fruit!— See, it waxes dim and dimmer, nor must my tale last longer than its flame endureth. Sit ye down there while I sit here opposite to you, and place the lamp betwixt us; for within the sphere of its light the demon dares not venture.” The sisters obeyed, Minna casting a slow, awestruck, yet deter­ mined look all around, as if to see the being who, according to the doubtful words of Norna, hovered in their neighbourhood; while Brenda’s fear was mingled with some share both of anger and of impatience. Norna paid no attention to either, but began her story in the following words: “Ye know, my daughters, that your blood is allied to mine, but in what degree ye know not; for there was early hostility betwixt your grandsire and him who had the misfortune to call me daughter.—Let me term him by his Christian name of Erlend, for that which marks our relation I dare not bestow. Your grandsire Olave was the brother of Erlend. But when the wide udal possessions of their father Rolfe Troil, the most rich and well estated of any who descended from the old Norse stock, were divided betwixt the brothers, the Fowde gave to Erlend his father’s lands in Orkney, and reserved for Olave those of Hialtland. Discord arose between the brethren; for Erlend held that he was wronged; and when the Lawting * with the Raddmen and Law-right-men confirmed the division, he went in wrath to Orkney, cursing Hialtland and its inhabitants—cursing his brother and his blood. “But the love of the rock and of the mountain still wrought on Erlend’s mind, and he fixed his dwelling not on the soft hills of Orphir, or the green plains of Gramesey, but on the wild and moun­ tainous Isle of Hoy, whose summit rises to the sky like the cliffs of * The Lawting was the Comitia, or Supreme Court of the country, being retained both in Orkney and Zetland, and presenting, in their constitution, the rude origin of a parlia­ ment.

180

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 7

Foulah and of Feroe. * He knew, that unhappy Erlend, whatever of legendary lore Scald and Bard had left behind them; and to teach me that knowledge, which was to cost us both so dear, was the chief occupation of his old age. I learned to visit each lonely barrow—each lofty cairn—to tell its appropriate tale, and to sooth with rhimes in his praise the spirit of the stem warrior who dwelt within. I knew, where the sacrifices were made of yore to Thor and to Odin, on what stones the blood of the victims flowed—where stood the dark-browed priest —where the crested chiefs, who consulted the will of the idol—where the more distant crowd of inferior worshippers, who looked on in awe or terror. The places most shunned by the timid peasants, had no terrors for me: I dared walk on the fairy circle, and sleep by the magic spring. “But for my misfortune, I was chiefly fond to linger about the Dwarfie Stone, as it is called, a relique of antiquity, which strangers look on with curiosity, and the natives with awe. It is a huge fragment of a rock, which lies in a broken and rude valley, full of stones and precipices, in the recesses of the Ward-hill of Hoy. The inside of the stone has two couches, hewn by no earthly hand, and having a small passage between them. The door-way is now open to the weather; but beside it lies the huge stone, which, adapted to grooves, still visible in the entrance, once had served to open and to close this extraordinary dwelling, which Trolld, a dwarffamous in the northern sagas, was said to have framed for his own favourite residence. The lonely shepherd avoids the place, for at sun-rise, high noon, or sun-set, the mis­ shapen form of the necromantic owner may sometimes be still seen sitting by the Dwarfie Stone.† I feared not the apparition, for, Minna, my heart was as bold, and my hand was as innocent, as yours. In my childish courage, I was even but too presumptuous, and the thirst after things unattainable led me, like our primitive mother, to desire increase of knowledge, even by prohibited means. I longed to possess * And from which hill of Hoy, at midsummer, the sun may be seen, it is said, at mid­ night. So says the geographer Bleau, although, according to Dr Wallace, it cannot be the true body of the sun which is visible, but only its image refracted through some watery cloud upon the horizon. † Dr Wallace gives the following account of this curiosity: “There is in Hoy, lying betwixt two hills, a stone called the Dwarfie Stone, which is one entire rock, thirty-six feet long, eighteen feet broad, nine feet thick, hollowed within by the hands of some mason, (for the prints of the irons are to be seen on it to this day) with a square hole of about two feet high for the entry, and a stone proportionable standing before it for a door. Within, at one end, is a bed, excellently cut out of the stone, wherein two men may lie together, at their full length; at the other end is a couch, and in the middle, a hearth for a fire, with a hole cut above for the chimney. It stands in a desolate melancholy place, more than a mile from any inhabited house, and all the ground about is nothing but high heath and heather. It is thought to have been the residence of some melancholy hermit.”—Description of the Islands ofOrkney, 12mo. 1700. p.51.

[Chap. 19]

THE PIRATE

181

the power of the Voluspæ and divining women of our ancient race; to wield, like them, command over the elements; and to summon the ghosts of deceased heroes from their caverns, that they might recite their daring deeds, and impart to me their hidden treasures. Often when watching by the Dwarfie Stone, with mine eyes fixed on the Ward-hill, which rises above that gloomy valley, I have distinguished, among the dark rocks, that wonderful carbuncle, which gleams ruddy as a furnace to them who view it from beneath, but has ever become invisible to him whose daring foot has scaled the precipices from which it darts its splendour. * My vain and youthful bosom burnt to investigate these and an hundred other mysteries, which the Sagas that I perused, or learned from Erlend, rather indicated than explained; and in my daring mood, I called on the Lord ofthe Dwarfie Stone to aid me in attaining knowledge inaccessible to mere mortals.” “And the evil spirit heard your summons,” said Minna, her blood curdling as she listened. “Hush,” said Norna, lowering her voice, “vex him not with reproach—he is with us—he hears us even now.” Brenda started from her seat,—“I will to Euphane Fea’s chamber,” she said, “and leave you, Minna and Norna, to finish your stories of hobgoblins and of dwarfs at your own leisure. I care not for them at any time, but I will not endure them at midnight, and by this pale lamplight.” She was accordingly in the act of leaving the room, when her sister detained her. “Is this the courage,” she said, “ofher that disbelieves whatever the history of our fathers tells us of supernatural prodigy? What Norna has to tell concerns the fate, perhaps, of our father and his house;—if I can listen to it, trusting that God and my innocence will protect me from all that is of malign influence, you, Brenda, who believe not in such influence, have surely no cause to tremble. Credit me, that for the guiltless there is no fear.” “There may be no danger,” said Brenda, unable to suppress her natural turn for humour, “but, as the old jest book says, there is much fear. However, Minna, I will stay with you, the rather,” she added, in a * “At the west end of this stone, (i.e. the Dwarfie Stone,) stands an exceeding high mountain of a steep ascent, called the Wart-Hill of Hoy, near the top of which, in the months of May, June, and July, about midnight, is seen something that shines and sparkles admirably, and which is often seen a great way off. It hath shined more brightly before than it does now; and though many have climbed up the hill, and attempted to search for it, yet they could find nothing. The vulgar talk of it as some enchanted carbuncle, but I take it rather to be some water sliding down the face of a smooth rock, which, when the sun, at such a time, shines upon, the reflection causeth that admirable splendour.”—Description of Orkney, p.52.

182

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 7

whisper, “that I am loth to leave you alone with this frightful woman, and that I have a dark staircase and long passage betwixt and Euphane Fea, else I would have her here ere I were five minutes older.” “Call no one hither, maiden, upon peril of thy life,” said Norna; “and interrupt not my tale again, for it cannot and must not be told after that charmed light has ceased to bum.” “And I thank Heaven,” said Brenda to herself, “that the oil burns low in the cruize; I am sorely tempted to lend it a puff—But then Norna would be alone with us in the dark, and that would be worse.” So saying, she submitted to her fate, and sat down, determined to listen with all the equanimity which she could command to the remaining part of Norna’s tale, which went on as follows:— “It happened on a hot summer day, and just about the hour of noon,” continued Norna, “as I sat by the Dwarfie Stone, with my eyes fixed on the Ward-hill, whence the mysterious and ever-burning car­ buncle shed its rays more brightly than usual, and repined in my heart at the restricted bounds of human knowledge, until at length I could not help exclaiming, in the words of an ancient Saga, “Dwellers of the mountain, rise, Trolld the powerful, Haims the wise! Ye who taught weak woman’s tongue Words that sway the wise and strong,— Ye who taught weak woman’s hand How to wield the magic wand, And wake the gales on Foulah’s steep, Or lull wild Sumburgh’s waves to sleep!— Still are ye yet?—Not yours the power You knew in Odin’s mightier hour. What are ye now but empty names, Powerful Trolld, sagacious Haims, That, lightly spoken, lightly heard, Float on the air like thistle’s beard?”

“I had scarce uttered these verses,” continued Norna, “ere the sky, which had been till then unusually clear, grew so suddenly dark around me, that it seemed more like midnight than noon. A single flash of lightning shewed me at once the desolate landscape of heath, morass, mountain, and precipice which lay around; a single clap of thunder wakened all the echoes of the Ward-hill, which continued so long to repeat the sound, that it seemed some rock, rent by the thun­ derbolt from the summit, was rolling over cliff and precipice into the valley. Immediately after, fell a burst of rain so precipitous, that I was fain to shun its pelting, by creeping into the interior of the mysterious stone. “I seated myself on the larger stone couch, which is cut at the farther end of the cavity, and, with my eyes fixed on the smaller bed,

[Chap. 19]

THE PIRATE

183

wearied myself with conjectures respecting the origin and purpose of my singular place of refuge. Had it been really the work of that power­ ful Trolld, to whom the poetry of the Scalds referred it? Or was it the tomb of some Scandinavian chief, interred with his arms and his wealth, perhaps also with his immolated wife, that what he loved best in life might not in death be divided from him? Or was it the abode of penance, chosen by some devoted anchorite of later days? Or the idle work of some wandering mechanic, whom chance, and whim, and leisure, had thrust upon such an undertaking?—I tell you the thoughts that then floated through my brain, that ye may know that what ensued was not the vision of a prejudiced or prepossessed ima­ gination, but an apparition, as certain as it was awful. “Sleep had gradually crept on me, amidst my lucubrations, when I was startled from my slumbers by a second clap of thunder; and, when I awoke, I saw, through the dim light which the upper aperture admit­ ted, the unshapely and indistinct form of Trolld the dwarf, seated opposite to me on the lesser couch, which his square and mis-shaped bulk seemed absolutely to fill up. I was startled, but not affrightened; for the blood of the ancient race of Lochlin was warm in my veins. He spoke, and his words were of Norse, so old, that few, save my father, or I myself, could have comprehended their import,—such language as was spoken in these islands ere Olave planted the cross on the ruins of heathenism. His meaning was dark also and obscure, like that which the pagan priests were wont to deliver, in the name oftheir idols, to the tribes that assembled at the Helgafels * This was the import,— “A thousand winters dark have flown, Since o’er the threshold ofmy stone A votaress pass’d, my power to own. Visitor bold Ofthe mansion of Trolld, Maiden haughty ofheart, Who hast hither presumed,— Ungifted, undoom’d, Thou shalt not depart; The power thou dost covet O’er tempest and wave, Shall be thine, thou proud maiden, By beach and by cave,— By stack1 and by skerry,2 by noup,3 and by voe,4 By air5 and by wick,6 and by helyer7 and gio,8 And by every wild shore which the northern winds know, 1 Stack. A precipitous rock, rising out of the sea. 2 Skerry. A flat insulated rock, not subject to the overflowing of the sea. 3 Noup. A round-headed eminence. 4 Voe. A creek, or inlet of the sea. 5 Air. An open sea-beach. 6 Wick. An open bay. 7 Helyer. A cavern into which the tide flows. 8 Gio. A deep ravine which admits the sea.

* Or consecrated mountain, used by the Scandinavian priests, for the purposes of their idol-worship.

184

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 7

And the northern tides lave. But thoughthisshall be given thee, thou desperately brave, I doom thee that never the gift thou shalt have, Till thou reave thy life’s giver Of the gift which he gave.”

“I answered him in nearly the same strain; for the spirit of the ancient Scalds of our race was upon me, and far from fearing the phantom, with whom I sat cooped within so narrow a space, I felt the impulse of that high courage which thrust the ancient Cham­ pions and Druidesses upon contests with the invisible world, when they thought that the earth no longer contained enemies worthy to be subdued by them. Therefore did I answer him thus: “Dark are thy words, and severe, Thou dweller in the stone; But trembling and fear To her are unknown, Who hath sought thee here, In thy dwelling lone. Come what comes soever, The worst I can endure; Life is but a short fever, And Death is the cure.”

“The demon scowled at me, as if at once incensed and overawed; and then, coiling himself up in a thick and sulphurous vapour, he disappeared from his place. I did not, till that moment, feel the influ­ ence of fright, but then it seized me. I rushed into the open air, where the tempest had passed away, and all was pure and serene. After a moment’s breathless pause, I hasted home, musing by the way on the words of the phantom, which I could not, as often happens, recall so distinctly to memory at the time as I have been since able to do. “It may seem strange that such an apparition should, in time, have glided from my mind, like a vision of the night—but so it was. I brought myself to believe it the work of fancy—I thought I had lived too much in solitude, and had given way too much to the feelings inspired by my favourite studies. I abandoned them for a time, and I mixed with the youth of my age. I was upon a visit at Kirkwall when I learned to know your father, whom business had brought thither. He easily found access to the relation with whom I lived, who was anxious to compose, if possible, the feud which divided our families. Your father, maidens, has been rather hardened than changed by years—he had the same manly form, the same old Norse frankness of manner and of heart, the same upright courage and honesty of disposition, with more of the gentle ingenuousness of youth, an eager desire to please, a willingness to be pleased, and a vivacity of spirits which survives not our early years. But though he was thus worthy of love,

[Chap. 19]

THE PIRATE

185

and though Erlend wrote to me, authorizing his attachment, there was another—a stranger, Minna, a fatal stranger—full of arts unknown to us, and graces which to the plain manners of your father were unknown. Yes, he walked, indeed, amongst us like a being of another and of a superior race.—Ye look on me as if it were strange that I should have attractions for such a lover; but I present nothing that can remind you that Norna ofthe Fitful-head was once admired and loved as Ulla Troil—the change betwixt the animated body and the corpse, after decease, is scarce more awful and absolute than I have sustained, while I yet linger on earth. Look on me, maidens—look on me by this glimmering light—Can ye believe that these hagard and weatherwasted features—these eyes, which have been almost converted to stone, by looking upon sights of terror—these locks, that, mingled with gray, now stream out, the shattered pennons ofa sinking vessel— that these, and she to whom they belong, could once be the objects of fond affection? But the waning lamp sinks fast, and let it sink while I tell my infamy. We loved in secret—we met in secret, till I gave the last proof of fatal and of guilty passion!—And now beam out, thou magic glimmer—shine out a little space, thou flame so powerful even in thy feebleness—bid him who hovers near us, keep his dark pinions aloof from the circle thou doest illuminate—live but a little till the worst be told, and then sink when thou wilt into darkness, as black as my guilt and sorrow.” While she spoke thus, she drew together the remaining nutriment of the lamp, and trimmed its decaying flame; then again, with a hollow voice, and in broken sentences, pursued her narrative. “I must waste little time in words. My love was discovered, but not my guilt. Erlend came to Pomona in anger, and transported me to our solitary dwelling in Hoy. He commanded me to see my lover no more, and to receive Magnus, in whom he was willing to forgive the offences of his father, as my future husband. Alas, I no longer deserved his attachment—my only wish was to escape from my father’s dwelling, to conceal my shame in my lover’s arms. Let me do him justice—he was faithful—too, too faithful—his perfidy would have bereft me of my senses; but the fatal consequences of his fidelity have done me a tenfold injury.” She paused, and then resumed with the wild tone ofinsanity, “It has made me the powerful and the despairing Sovereign of the Seas and Winds.” She paused a second time after this wild exclamation, and resumed her narrative in a more composed manner. “My lover came in secret to Hoy, to concert measures for my flight, and I agreed to meet him, that we might fix the time when his vessel should come into the Sound. I left the house at midnight.”

186

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 8

Here she appeared to gasp with agony, and went on with her tale by broken and interrupted sentences. “I left the house at midnight—I had to pass by my father’s door, and I perceived it was open—I thought he watched us, and that the sound ofmy steps might not break his slumber, I closed the fatal door—a light and trivial action—but, God in Heaven! what were the consequences!—At morn, the room was full of suffocating vapour—my father was dead—dead through my act—dead through my disobedience—dead through my infamy! All that follows is mist and darkness—a choking, suffocating, stifling mist envelopes all that I said and did, all that was said and done, until I became assured that my doom was accomplished, and walked forth the calm and terrible being you now behold me—the Queen of the Elements—the sharer in the power of those beings to whom man and his passions give such sport as the tortures of the dog-fish afford the fisherman, when he pierces his eyes with thorns, and turns him once more into his native element, to traverse the waves in blindness and agony. No, maidens, she whom you see before you is impassive to the follies of which your minds are the sport. I am she that have made the offering—I am she that bereaved the giver of the gift of life which he gave me—the dark saying has been interpreted by my deed, and I am taken from humanity, to be something pre-eminently powerful, pre­ eminently wretched.” As she spoke thus, the light, which had been long quivering, leaped high for an instant, and seemed about to expire, when Norna interrupting herself, said hastily, “No more now—he comes—he comes—enough that ye know me, and the right I have to advise and to command you.—Approach now, proud Spirit! if thou wilt.” So saying, she extinguished the lamp, and passed out of the apart­ ment with her usual loftiness of step, as Minna could observe from its measured cadence.

Chapter Eight Is all the counsel that we two have shared— The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us—O, and is all forgot? Midsummer Night 's Dream

The attention of Minna was powerfully arrested by this tale of terror, which accorded with and explained many broken hints respecting Norna, which she had heard from her father, and other near relations, and she was for a time so lost in surprise, not unmingled with horror, that she did not even attempt to speak to her

[Chap. 20]

THE PIRATE

187

sister Brenda. When, at length, she called her by her name, she received no answer, and, on touching her hand, she found it cold as ice. Alarmed to the uttermost, she threw open the lattice and the window-shutters, and admitted at once the free air and the pale glimmer of the hyperborean summer night. She then became sensible that her sister was in a swoon. All thoughts concerning Norna, her frightful tale, and her mysterious connection with the invisible world, at once vanished from Minna’s thoughts, and she hastily ran to the apartment of the old house-keeper, to summon her aid, without reflecting for a moment what sights she might encounter in the long dark passages which she had to traverse. The old woman hastened to Brenda’s assistance, and instantly applied such remedies as her experience suggested; but the poor girl’s nervous system had been so much agitated by the horrible tale she had just heard, that, when recovered from her swoon, her utmost endeav­ ours to compose her mind could not prevent her falling into a hyster­ ical fit of some duration. This also was subdued by the experience of old Euphane Fea, who was well versed in all the simple pharmacy used by the natives of Zetland, and who, after administering a composing draught, distilled from simples and wild flowers, at length saw her patient resigned to sleep. Minna stretched herself beside her sister, kissed her cheek, and courted slumber in her turn; but the more she invoked it, the farther it seemed to fly from her eye-lids; and ifat times she was disposed to sink into repose, the voice of the involuntary parricide seemed again to sound in her ears, and startled her into consciousness. The early morning hour at which they were accustomed to arise found the state of the sisters different from what might have been expected. A sound sleep had restored the spirit of Brenda’s light­ some eye, and the rose on her laughing cheek; the transient indis­ position of the preceding night having left as little trouble on her look, as the fantastic terrors of Norna’s tale had been able to impress on her imagination. The looks of Minna, on the contrary, were melancholy, downcast, and apparently exhausted by watching and anxiety. They said at first little to each other, as if afraid of touching a subject so fraught with emotion as the scene of the preceding night. It was not until they had performed together their devotions, as usual, that Brenda, while lacing her sister’s boddice, for they rendered the services of the toilet to each other reciprocally, became sensible of the paleness of her sister’s looks; and having ascertained, by a glance at the mirror, that her own did not wear the same dejection, she kissed Minna’s cheek, and said affection­ ately, “Claud Halcro was right, my dearest sister, when his poetical

188

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 8

folly gave us these names of Night and Day.” “And wherefore should you say so now?” said Minna. “Because we each are bravest in the season that we take our name from: I was frightened well nigh to death, by hearing those things last night, which you endured with courageous firmness; and now, when it is broad light, I can think of them with composure, while you look as pale as a spirit who is surprised by sun-rise.” “You are lucky, Brenda,” said her sister, gravely, “who can so soon forget such a tale of wonder and of horror.” “The horror,” said Brenda, “is never to be forgotten, unless one could hope that the unfortunate woman’s excited imagination, which shews itself so active in conjuring up apparitions, may have fixed on her an imaginary crime.” “You believe nothing, then,” said Minna, “of her interview at the Dwarfie Stone, that wondrous place, of which so many tales are told, and which, for so many centuries, has been reverenced as the work of a dæmon, and as his abode?” “I believe,” said Brenda, “that our unhappy relative is no impostor, —and therefore I believe that she was at the Dwarfie Stone during a thunder-storm, that she sought shelter in it, and that, during a swoon, or during sleep, perhaps, some dream visited her, concerned with the popular traditions with which she was so conversant—But I cannot easily believe more.” “And yet the event,” said Minna, “corresponded to the dark intima­ tions of the vision.” “Pardon me,” said Brenda, “I rather think the dream would never have been put into shape, or perhaps remembered at all, but for the event. She told us herself she had nearly forgot the vision, till after her father’s dreadful death,—and who shall warrant how much of what she then supposed herself to remember was not the creation of her own fancy, disordered as it naturally was by the horrid accident? Had she really seen and conversed with a necromantic dwarf, she was like to remember the conversation long enough—at least I am sure I should.” “Brenda,” replied Minna, “you have heard the good minister of the Cross Kirk say, that human wisdom was worse than folly, when it was applied to mysteries beyond its comprehension; and that if we believed no more than we could understand, we should resist the evidence of our senses, which presented us at every turn circum­ stances as certain as they are unintelligible.” “You are too learned yourself, sister,” answered Brenda, “to need the assistance of the good minister of Cross Kirk; but I think his doctrine only related to the mysteries of our religion, which it is our

[Chap. 20]

THE PIRATE

189

duty to receive without investigation or doubt—but in things occur­ ring in common life, as God has bestowed reason upon us, we cannot act wrong in employing it. But you, my dear Minna, have a warmer fancy than mine, and are willing to receive all these wonderful stories for truth, because you love to think of sorcerers, and dwarfs, and water-spirits, and would like much to have a little trow, or fairy, as the Scotch call them, with a green coat, and a pair of wings as brilliant as the hues of the starling’s neck, specially to attend on you.” “It would spare you at least the trouble of lacing my boddice,” said Minna, “and of lacing it wrong too; for in the heat of your argument you have missed two pye-holes.” “That error shall be presently mended,” said Brenda; “and then, as one of our friends might say, I will haul taut and belay—but you draw your breath so deeply, that it will be a difficult matter.” “I only sighed,” said Minna, in some confusion, “to think how soon you can trifle with and ridicule the misfortunes of this extraordinary woman.” “I do not ridicule them, God knows,” replied Brenda, somewhat angrily; “it is you, Minna, who turn all I say in truth and kindness, to something harsh or wicked. I look on Norna as a woman of very extraordinary abilities, which are very often reconciled with a strong cast of insanity; and I consider her as better skilled in the signs of the weather than any woman in Zetland. But that she has any power over the elements, I no more believe, than I do in the nursery stories of King Erick, who could make the wind blow from the point he set his cap to.” Minna, somewhat nettled with the obstinate incredulity of her sis­ ter, replied sharply, “And yet, Brenda—this woman, half mad­ woman, and the rest impostor, is the person by whom you chuse to be advised in the matter next your own heart at this moment.” “I do not know what you mean,” said Brenda, colouring deeply, and shifting to get away from her sister. But as she was now undergoing the ceremony of being laced in her turn, her sister had the means of holding her fast by the silken string with which she was fastening the boddice, and, tapping her on the neck, which expressed, by its sudden writhe, and sudden change to a scarlet hue, as much pettish confusion as she had desired to provoke, she added, more mildly, “Is it not strange, Brenda, that, used as we have been by the stranger Mordaunt Mertoun, whose assurance has brought him uninvited to a house where his presence is so unacceptable, you should still look or think of him with favour? Surely, that you do so should be a proof to you, that there are such things as spells in the country that you yourself labour under—it is not for nought that Mordaunt wears a chain of elfin gold

190

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 8

—Look to it, Brenda, and be wise in time.” “I have nothing to do with Mordaunt Mertoun,” answered Brenda, hastily, “nor do I know or care what he or any other young man wears about his neck. I could see all the gold chains of all the bailies of Edinburgh, that Lady Glowrowrum speaks so much of, without falling in fancy with one of the wearers.” And, having thus complied with the female rule of pleading not guilty in general to such an indictment, she immediately resumed, in a different tone, “But, to say the truth, Minna, I think you, and all of you, have judged far too hastily about this young friend of ours, who has been so long our most intimate companion. Mind! Mordaunt Mertoun is no more to me than he is to you—yourself best know how little difference he made betwixt us; and that, chain or no chain, he lived with us like a brother with two sisters; and yet you can turn him off at once, because a wandering seaman, of whom we know nothing, and a peddling jagger, whom we well know to be a thief, a cheat, and a liar, speak words and carry tales in his disfavour. I do not believe he ever said he could have his choice of either of us, and only waited to see which was to have Burgh Westra and Bredness Voe—I do not believe he ever spoke such a word, or harboured such a thought, as that of making a choice between us.” “Perhaps,” said Minna, coldly, “you may have had reason to know that his choice was already determined.” “I will not endure this,” said Brenda, giving way to her natural vivacity, and springing from between her sister’s hands; then turning round and facing her, while her glowing cheek was rivalled in the deepness of its crimson, by as much of her neck and bosom as the upper part of the half-laced boddice permitted to be visible,—“Even from you, Minna,” she said, “I will not endure this! You know that all my life I have spoken the truth, and that I love the truth; and I tell you, that Mordaunt Mertoun never in his life made distinction betwixt you and me, until----- ” Here some feeling of consciousness stopped her short, and her sister replied, with a smile, “Until when, Brenda? Methinks, your love of truth seems choked with the sentence you were bringing out.” “Until you ceased to do him the justice he deserves,” said Brenda, firmly, “since I must speak out. I have little doubt that he will not long throw away his friendship on you, who hold it so lightly.” “Be it so,” said Minna; “you are secure from my rivalry, either in his love or friendship. But bethink you better, Brenda—this is no scandal of Cleveland’s—Cleveland is incapable of slander—no falsehood of Bryce Snaelsfoot—not one of our friends or acquaintance but what says it has been the common talk of the island, that the daughters of Magnus Troil were, patiently awaiting the choice of the nameless and

[Chap. 20]

THE pirate

191

birthless stranger, Mordaunt Mertoun.—Is it fitting that this should be said of us, the descendants of a Norwegian Jarl, and the daughters of the first Udaller in Zetland? or, would it be modest or maidenly to submit to it unresented, were we the meanest lasses that ever lifted a milking-pail?” “The tongues of fools are a feckless matter,” replied Brenda, warmly; “I will never quit my own thoughts of an innocent friend for the gossip of the island, which can put the worst meaning on the most innocent actions.” “Hear but what our friends say,” repeated Minna; “hear but the Lady Glowrowrum; hear but Maddie and Clara Groatsettars.” “If I were to hear Lady Glowrowrum,” said Brenda, steadily, “I should listen to the worst tongue in Zetland; and as for Maddie and Clara Groatsettars, they were both blithe enough to get Mordaunt to sit betwixt them at dinner the day before yesterday, as you might have observed yourself, but that your ear was better engaged.” “Your eyes, at least, have been but indifferently engaged, Brenda,” retorted the elder sister, “since they were fixed on a young man whom all the world but yourself believes to have talked of us with the most insolent presumption; and even if he be innocently charged, Lady Glowrowrum says it is unmaidenly and bold of you even to look in the direction where he sits, knowing it must confirm such reports.” “I will look which way I please,” said Brenda, growing still warmer; “Lady Glowrowrum shall neither rule my thoughts, nor my words, nor my eyes. I hold Mordaunt Mertoun to be innocent,—I will look at him as such,—I will speak of him as such; and if I did not speak to him also, and behave to him as usual, it is in obedience to my father, and not for what Lady Glowrowrum, and all her nieces, had she twenty instead of two, could think, wink, nod, or tattle, about the matter that concerns them not.” “Alas! Brenda,” answered Minna, with calmness, “this vivacity is more than is required for the defence of the character of a mere friend!—Beware—He who wrecked Norna’s peace for ever, was a stranger, admitted to her affections against the will of her family.” “He was a stranger,” replied Brenda, with emphasis, “not only in birth, but in manners. She had not been bred up with him from her youth,—she had not known the gentleness, the frankness of his disposition, by an intimacy of many years. He was indeed a stranger, in character, temper, birth, manners, and morals,—some wandering adventurer, perhaps, whom chance or tempest had thrown upon the islands, and who knew how to mask a false heart with a frank brow. My good sister, take home your own warning. There are other strangers at Burgh Westra, besides this poor Mordaunt Mertoun.”

192

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch.8

Minna seemed for a moment overwhelmed with the rapidity with which her sister retorted her suspicion and her caution. But her natural loftiness of disposition enabled her to reply with assumed composure. “Were I to treat you, Brenda, with the want of confidence you shew towards me, I might reply that Cleveland is no more to me than Mordaunt was; or than young Swaraster, or Lawrence Ericson, or any other favourite guest of my father’s now is. But I scorn to deceive you, or to disguise my thoughts,—I love Clement Cleveland.” “Do not say so, my dearest sister,” said Brenda, abandoning at once the air of acrimony with which the conversation had been latterly conducted, and throwing her arms around her sister’s neck, with looks, and with a tone, of the most earnest affection,—“do not say so, I implore you! I will renounce Mordaunt Mertoun,—I will swear never to speak to him again; but do not repeat that you love this Cleveland!” “And why should I not repeat,” said Minna, disengaging herself gently from her sister’s grasp, “a sentiment in which I glory? The boldness, the strength and energy of his character, to which command is natural, and fear unknown,—these very properties, which alarm you for my happiness, are the qualities which insure it. Remember, Brenda, that when your foot loved the calm smooth sea-beach of the summer sea, mine ever delighted in the summit ofthe precipice, when the waves are in fury.” “And it is even that which I dread,” said Brenda; “it is even that adventurous disposition which now is urging you to the brink of a precipice more dangerous than ever was washed by a spring-tide. This man,—do not frown, I will say no slander of him;—but is he not, even in your own partial judgment, stem and overbearing? accus­ tomed, as you say, to command; but, for that very reason, command­ ing where he has no right to do so, and leading when it would most become him to follow? rushing on danger, rather for its own sake, than for any other object? And can you think of being yoked with a spirit so unsettled and stormy, whose life has hitherto been led in scenes of death and peril, and who, even while sitting by your side, cannot disguise his impatience again to engage in them? A lover, methinks, should love his mistress better than his own life; but yours, my dear Minna, loves her less than the pleasure of inflicting death on others.” “And it is even for that I love him,” said Minna. “I am a daughter of the old dames of Norway, who could send their lovers to battle with a smile, and slay them, with their own hands, if they returned with dishonour. My lover must scorn the mockeries by which our degraded race strive for distinction, or practise them only in sport, and in earn­ est of nobler dangers. No whale-striking bird-nesting favourite for

[Chap.20]

THE PIRATE

193

me; my lover must be a Sea-king, or what else modem times may give that draws near to that lofty character.” “Alas, my sister!” said Brenda, “it is now that I must in earnest begin to believe the force of spells and of charms. You remember the Spanish story which you took from me long since, because I said, in your admiration of the chivalry of the olden times of Scandinavia, you rivalled the extravagance of the hero.—Ah, Minna! your colour shews that your conscience checks you, and reminds you of the book I mean; —is it more wise, think you, to mistake a wind-mill for a giant, or the commander ofa paltry corsair for a Kiempe, or a Vi-king?” Minna did indeed colour with anger at this insinuation, of which, perhaps, she felt in some degree the truth. “You have a right,” she said, “to insult me, because you are pos­ sessed ofmy secret.” Brenda’s soft heart could not resist this charge of unkindness; she adjured her sister to pardon her, and the natural kindness of Minna’s heart could not resist her entreaties. “We are unhappy,” she said, as she dried her sister’s tears, “that we cannot see with the same eyes—let us not make each other more so by mutual insult and unkindness. You have my secret—it will not, per­ haps, long be one, for my father shall have the confidence to which he is entitled, so soon as certain circumstances will permit me to offer it. Meantime, I repeat, you have my secret, and I more than suspect that I have yours in exchange, though you refuse to own it.” “How, Minna!” said Brenda, “would you have me acknowledge for any one such feelings as you allude to, ere he has said the least word that could justify such a confession?” “Surely not; but a hidden fire may be distinguished by heat as well as flame.” “You understand these signs, Minna,” said Brenda, hanging down her head, and in vain endeavouring to suppress the temptation to repartee which her sister’s remark offered; “but I can only say, that, if I love at all, it shall not be until I have been asked to do so once or twice at least, which has not yet chanced to me. But do not let us renew our quarrel, and rather let us think why Norna should have told us that horrible tale, and to what she expects it should lead.” “It must have been as a caution,” replied Minna—“a caution which our situation, and, I will not deny it, which mine in particular might seem to her to call for;—but I am alike strong in my own innocence, and in the honour of Cleveland.” Brenda would fain have replied, that she did not confide so abso­ lutely in the latter security as in the first; but she was prudent, and, forbearing to awaken the former painful discussion, only replied, “It is

194

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 9

strange that Norna should have said nothing more of her lover— surely he could not desert her in the extremity of misery to which he had reduced her?” “There may be agonies of distress,” said Minna, after a pause, “in which the mind is so much jarred, that it ceases to be responsive even to the feelings which have most engrossed it;—her sorrow for her lover may have been swallowed up in horror and despair.” “Or he may have fled from the islands, in fear of our father’s vengeance,” said Brenda. “If for fear, or faintness of heart,” said Minna, looking upward, “he was capable of flying from the ruin which he had occasioned, I trust he has long ere this sustained the punishment which Heaven reserves for the most base and dastardly of traitors and ofcowards.—Come, sister, we are ere this expected at the breakfast board.” And they went thither, arm in arm, with much more of confidence than had lately subsisted betwixt them; the little quarrel which had taken place having served the purpose of a bourasque, or sudden squall, which dispels mists and vapours, and leaves fair weather behind it. On their way to the breakfasting apartment, they agreed that it was unnecessary, and might be imprudent, to communicate to their father the circumstance of the nocturnal visit, or to let him observe that they now knew more than formerly of the melancholy history of Norna.

Chapter Nine But lost to me, for ever lost those joys, Which reason scatters, and which time destroys. ***** No more the midnight fairy train I view, All in the merry moonlight tippling dew. Even the last lingering fiction of the brain, The churchyard ghost, is now at rest again. The Library

The moral bard, from whom we borrow the motto to this chap­ ter, has touched a theme with which most readers have some feelings that vibrate unconsciously. Superstition, when not arrayed in her full horrors, but laying a gentle hand only on her suppliant’s head, had charms which we fail not to regret, even in those stages of society from which her influence is well nigh banished by the light of reason and general education. At least, in more ignorant periods, her system of ideal terrors had something in them interesting to minds which had few means of excitement. This is more especially true of those lighter modifications of superstitious feelings and practices which mingle in

[Chap. 21]

THE PIRATE

195

the amusements of the ruder ages, and are, like the auguries of Hallow-e’en in Scotland, considered partly as matter ofmerriment, partly as sad and prophetic earnest. And, with similar feelings, people even of tolerable education have, in our times, sought the cell of a fortuneteller, upon a frolic, as it is termed, and yet not always in a disposition absolutely sceptical towards the responses they receive. When the sisters ofBurgh Westra arrived in the apartment destined for a breakfast, as ample as that which we have described on the preceding morning, and had undergone a jocular rebuke from the Udaller for their late attendance, they found the company, most of whom had already breakfasted, engaged in an ancient Norwegian custom, of the character which we have just described. It seems to have been borrowed from those poems of the Scalds, in which champions and heroines are so often represented as seeking to know their destiny from some sorceress or prophetess, who, as in the legend called by Gray the Descent of Odin, awakens by the force of Runic rhyme the unwilling revealer of the doom of fate, and compels from her answers, often of dubious import, but which were then believed to express some shadow of the events of futurity. An old sybil, Euphane Fea, the housekeeper we have already men­ tioned, was installed in the recess of a large window, studiously dark­ ened by bear-skins and other miscellaneous drapery, so as to give it something the appearance of a Laplander’s hut, and accommodated, like a confessional chair, with an aperture, which permitted the person within to hear with ease whatever questions should be put, though not to see the querist. Here seated, the voluspa, or sybil, was to listen to the rythmical inquiries which should be made to her, and to return an extemporaneous answer. The drapery was supposed to prevent her from seeing by what individuals she was consulted, and the intended or accidental reference which the answer given under such circum­ stances bore to the situation of the person by whom the question was asked, often furnished food for laughter, and sometimes, as it hap­ pened, for more serious reflection. The sybil was usually chosen from her possessing the talent of improvisation in the Norse poetry; no unusual accomplishment, where the minds of many were stored with old verses, and where the rules of metrical composition are uncom­ monly simple. The questions were also put in verse; but as this power of extemporaneous composition, though common, could not be sup­ posed universal, the medium of an interpreter might be used by any querist, which interpreter, holding the consulter of the oracle by the hand, and standing by the place from which the oracles were issued, had the task of rendering into verse the subject of inquiry. On the present occasion, Claud Halcro was summoned, by the

196

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 9

universal voice, to perform the part of interpreter; and, after shaking his head, and muttering some apology for decay of memory and poet­ ical powers, contradicted at once by his own conscious smile of con­ fidence and by the general shout of the company, the light-hearted old man came forwards to play his part in the proposed entertainment. But just as it was about to commence, the arrangement of parts was singularly altered. Noma of the Fitful-head, whom every one except­ ing the two sisters believed to be at the distance of many miles, suddenly, and without greeting, entered the apartment, walked majestically up to the bear-skin tabernacle, and signed to the female who was there seated to abdicate her sanctuary. The old woman came forth, shaking her head, and looking like one overwhelmed with fear; nor, indeed, were there many in the company who saw with absolute composure the sudden appearance of a person, so well known and so generally feared as Noma. She paused a moment at the entrance of the tent; and, as she raised the skin which formed the entrance, she looked up to the north, as if imploring from that quarter a strain of inspiration; then signing to the surprised guests that they might approach in succession the shrine in which she was about to install herself, she entered the tent, and was shrouded from their sight. But this was a different sport from what the company had medit­ ated, and to most of them seemed to present so much more of earnest than of game, that there was no alacrity shewn to consult the oracle. The character and pretensions of Noma seemed to almost all present too serious for the part which she had assumed; the men whispered to each other, and the women, according to Claud Halcro, realized the description of glorious John Dryden,— With horror shuddering, on a heap they ran.

The pause was interrupted by the loud manly voice of the Udaller. “Why does the game stand still, my masters? Are you afraid because my kinswoman is to play our Voluspa? it is kindly done in her, to do for us what none in the isles can do so well; and we will not baulk our sport for it, but rather go on the merrier.” There was still a pause in the company, and Magnus Troil added, “It shall never be said that my kinswoman sat in her bower unhalsed, as if she were some of the old mountain-giantesses, and all from faint heart. I will speak first myself; but the rhime comes worse from my tongue than when I was a score of years younger. Claud Halcro, you must stand by me.” Hand in hand they approached the shrine of the supposed sybil, and after a moment’s consultation together, Halcro expressed the

[Chap.2l]

THE PIRATE

197

query of his friend and patron. Now, the Udaller, like many persons of consequence in Zetland, who, as Sir Robert Sibbald has testified for them, had begun thus early to apply both to commerce and navigation, was concerned to some extent in the whale-fishery of the season, and the bard had been directed to put into his halting verse an inquiry concerning its success. Claud Halcro. “Mother darksome, Mother dread— Dweller on the Fitful-head, Thou canst see what deeds are done Under the never-setting sun. Look through sleet, and look through frost, Look to Greenland’s caves and coast,— By the ice-berg is a sail Chasing of the swarthy whale; Mother doubtful, Mother dread, Tell us, has the good ship sped?”

The jest seemed to turn to earnest, as all, bending their heads around, listened to the voice of Norna, who, without a moment’s hesitation, answered from the recesses of the tent in which she was inclosed, Norna. “The thought of the aged is ever on gear,— On his fishing, his furrow, his flock, and his steer; But thrive may his fishing, flock, furrow, and herd, While the aged for anguish shall tear his grey beard.”

There was a momentary pause, during which Triptolemus had time to whisper, “Iften witches and as many warlocks were to swear it, I will never believe that a decent man will either fash his beard or himself about any thing, so long as stock and crop goes as it should do.” But the voice from within the tent resumed its low monotonous tone of recitation, and, interrupting farther commentary, proceeded as follows:— Norna. “The ship, well-laden as bark need be, Lies deep in the furrow of the Iceland sea;— The breeze for Zetland blows fair and soft, And gaily the garland * is fluttering aloft: Seven good fishes have spouted their last, And their jaw-bones are hanging to yard and mast;† Two are for Lerwick, and two for Kirkwall,— Three for Burgh Westra, the choicest of all.” * The garland is an artificial coronet, composed of ribbands by those young women who take interest in a whaling vessel or her crew: it is always displayed from the rigging, and preserved with great care during the voyage. † The best oil exudes from the jaw-bones of the whales, which, for the purpose of collecting it, are suspended to the masts of the vessel.

198

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 9

“Now the powers abune look down and protect us!” said Bryce Snaelsfoot; “for it is mair than woman’s wit that has spaed out that ferly. I saw them at North Ronaldsha, that had seen the good bark, the Olave of Lerwick, that our worthy patron has such a great share in that she may be called his own in a manner, and they had broomed * the bark, and, as sure as there are stars in heaven, she answered them for seven fish, exact as Norna has tell’d us in her rhime.” “Umph—seven fish exactly? and you heard it at North Ronald­ sha?” said Captain Cleveland, “and I suppose told it as a good piece of news when you came hither?” “It never crossed my tongue, Captain,” answered the pedlar; “I have kend mony chapmen, travelling merchants, and such like, neg­ lect their goods to carry clashes and clavers up and down, from one country-side to another; but that is no traffic of mine. I dinna believe I have mentioned the Olave’s having made up her cargo to three folks since I crossed to Dunrossness.” “But if one of those three had spoke the news over again, and it is two to one that such a thing happened, the old lady prophecies upon velvet.” Such was the speech of Cleveland, addressed to Magnus Troil, and heard without any applause. The Udaller’s respect for his country extended to its superstitions, and so did the interest which he took in his unfortunate kinswoman. If he never rendered a precise assent to her high supernatural pretensions, he was not at least desirous of hearing them disputed by others. “Norna,” he said, “his cousin, (an emphasis on the word,) held no communication with Bryce Snaelsfoot, or his acquaintances. He did not pretend to explain how she came by her information; but he had always remarked that Scotsmen, and indeed strangers in general, when they came to Zetland, were ready to find reasons for things which remained sufficiently obscure to those whose ancestors had dwelt there for ages.” Captain Cleveland took the hint, and bowed, without attempting to defend his own scepticism. “And now forward, my brave hearts,” said the Udaller; “and may all hear as good tidings as I have; three whales cannot but yield—let me think how many hogsheads.” There was an obvious reluctance on the part of the guests to be the next in consulting the oracle of the tent. “Gude news are welcome to some folks, if they came frae the de’il * There is established among whalers a sort of telegraphic signal, in which a certain number of motions, made with a broom, express to any other vessel the number of fish which they have caught.

[Chap. 21]

THE PIRATE

199

himsell,” said Mistress Baby Yellowley, addressing the Lady Glow­ rowrum, for a similarity of disposition in some respects had made a sort of intimacy betwixt them; “but I think, my leddy, that this has ower mickle of rank witchcraft in it to have the countenance of douce Christian folks like you and me, my leddy.” “There may be something in what you say, my dame,” replied the good Lady Glowrowrum; “but we Hialtlanders are no just like other folk; and this woman, if she be a witch, being the Fowde’s friend and near kinswoman, it will be ill ta’en if we haena our fortunes spaed like a’ the rest of them; and sae my nieces may e’en step forward in their turn, and nae harm dune. They will hae time to repent, ye ken, in the course of nature, if there be ony thing wrang in it, Mistress Yellowley.” While others remained under similar uncertainty and apprehen­ sion, Halcro, who saw by the knitting of the old Udaller’s brows, and by a certain impatient shuffle of his right foot, like the motion of a man who with difficulty refrains from stamping, that his patience began to wax rather thin, gallantly declared, that he himself would, in his own person, and not as a prolocutor for others, put the next query to the Pythoness. He paused a minute—collected his rhimes, and thus addressed her: Claud Halcro. “Mother doubtful, Mother dread, Dweller of the Fitful-head, Thou hast conn’d full many a rhime, That lives upon the surge of time: Tell me, shall my lays be sung, Like Hacon’s of the golden tongue, Long after Halcro’s dead and gone? Or, shall Hialdand’s minstrel own One note to rival glorious John?”

The voice of the sybil immediately replied, from her sanctuary, Norna. “The infant loves the rattle’s noise; Age, double childhood, hath its toys; But different far the descant rings, As strikes a different hand the strings. The eagle mounts the polar sky— The Imber-goose, unskill’d to fly, Must be content to glide along, Where seal and sea-dog list his song.”

Halcro bit his lip, shrugged his shoulders, and then, instantly recovering his good humour, and the ready, though slovenly power of extemporaneous composition, with which long habit had invested him, he gallantly rejoined,

200

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 9

Claud Halcro. “Be mine the Imber-goose to play, And haunt lone cave and silent bay;— The archer’s aim so shall I shun— So shall I ’scape the levell’d gun— Content my verse’s tuneless jingle, With Thule’s sounding tides to mingle, While, to the ear of wondering wight, Upon the distant headland’s height, Soften’d by murmur of the sea, The rude sounds seem like harmony!”

As the little bard stepped back, with an alert gait, and satisfied air, general applause followed the spirited manner in which he had acqui­ esced in the doom which levelled him with an Imber-goose. But his resigned and courageous submission did not even yet encourage any other person to consult the redoubted Norna. “The coward fools!” said the Udaller. “Are you too afraid, Cap­ tain Cleveland, to speak to an old woman?—Ask her any thing— Ask her whether the twelve-gun sloop at Kirkwall be your consort or no.” Cleveland looked at Minna, and, probably conceiving that she watched with anxiety his answer to her father’s question, he collected himself, after a moment’s hesitation. “I never was afraid of man or woman.—Master Halcro, you have heard the question which our host desires me to ask—put it in my name, and in your own way—I pretend to as little skill in poetry as I do in witchcraft.” Halcro did not wait to be invited twice, but, grasping Captain Cleveland’s hand in his, according to the form which the game prescribed, he put the query which the Udaller had dictated to the stranger, in the following words: Claud Halcro. “Mother doubtful, Mother dread, Dweller of the Fitful-head, A gallant bark from far abroad, Saint Magnus hath her in his road, With guns and firelocks not a few— A silken and a scarlet crew, Deep stored with precious merchandize, Of gold, and goods of rare devize— What hath this our comrade bold Of interest in bark, goods, and gold?”

There was a pause of unusual duration ere the oracle would return any answer; and when she replied, it was in a lower, though an equally decided tone, with that which she had hitherto employed.—

[Chap. 21]

THE PIRATE

201

Norna. “Gold is ruddy, fair, and free, Blood is crimson, and dark to see;— I looked out on Saint Magnus Bay, And I saw a falcon that hath struck her prey,— A gobbit of flesh in her beak she bore, And talons and singles are dripping with gore; Let he that asks after them look on his hand, And if there is blood on’t, he’s one of their band.”

Cleveland smiled scornfully, and held out his hand,—“Few men have been on the Spanish Main as often as I have, without having had to do with the Guarda Costas once and again; but there never was aught like a stain on my hand that a wet towel would not wipe away.” The Udaller added his voice potential—“There is never peace with Spaniards beyond the Line,—I have heard Captain Tragendeck and honest old Commodore Bummelaer say so an hundred times, and they have both been down in the Bay of Honduras, and all there­ abouts.—I hate all Spaniards, since they came here and reft the Fair Isle men of their vivers in 1588.1 have heard my grandfather speak of it—And there is an old Dutch history somewhere about the house, that shews what work they made in the Low Countries long since.— There is neither mercy nor faith in them.” “True—true, my old friend,” said Cleveland; “they are as jealous of their Indian possessions as an old man of his young bride; and if they can catch you at disadvantage, the mines for your life is the word, —and so we fight them with our colours nailed to the mast.” “That is the way,” shouted the Udaller; “the old British jack should never down. When I think of the wooden walls, I almost think myself an Englishman, only it would be becoming too like my Scots neighbours;—but come, no offence to any here, gentlemen— all are friends, and all are welcome.—Come, Brenda, go on with the play—do you speak next, you have Norse rhimes enough we all know.” “But none that suits the game we play at, father,” said Brenda, drawing back. “Nonsense!” said her father, pushing her onward, while Halcro seized on her reluctant hand; “never let mistimed modesty mar hon­ est mirth—Speak for Brenda, Halcro—it is your trade to interpret maidens’ thoughts.” The poet bowed to the beautiful young woman with the devotion of a poet and the gallantry of a traveller, and having, in a whisper, reminded her that she was in no way responsible for the nonsense he was about to speak, he paused, looked upward, simpered as if he

202

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch.9

had caught a sudden idea, and at length set off in the following verses:— Claud Halcro. “Mother doubtful, Mother dread— Dweller of the Fitful-head, Well thou know’st it is thy task To tell what Beauty will not ask;— Then steep thy words in wine and milk, And weave a doom of gold and silk,— For we would know, shall Brenda prove In love, and happy in her love?”

The prophetess replied almost immediately from behind her cur­ tain:— Norna. “Untouch’d by love, the maiden’s breast Is like the snow on Rona’s crest, High seated in the middle sky, In bright and barren purity; But by the sunbeam gently kiss’d, Scarce by the gazing eye ’tis miss’d, Ere down the lonely valley stealing, Fresh grass and growth its course revealing, It cheers the flock, revives the flower, And decks some happy shepherd’s bower.”

“A comfortable doctrine, and most justly spoken,” said the Udaller, seizing the blushing Brenda, as she was endeavouring to escape— “never think shame for the matter, my girl—to be the mistress of some honest man’s house, and the means of maintaining some old Norse name, making neighbours happy, the poor easy, and relieving strangers, is the most creditable lot a young woman can look to, and I heartily wish it to all here. Come, who speaks next—good husbands are going—Maddie Groatsettar—my pretty Clara, come and have your share.” The Lady Glowrowrum shook her head, and “could not,” she said, “altogether approve” “Enough said—enough said,” replied Magnus; “no compulsion; but the play shall go on till we are tired of it. Here, Minna—I have you at command. Stand forth, my girl—there are plenty of things to be ashamed of besides old fashioned and innocent pleasantry—Come, I will speak for you myself—I am sure I can remember rhime enough for it.” There was a slight colour which passed rapidly over Minna’s face, but she instantly regained her composure, and stood erect by her father, as one superior to any little jest to which her situation might give rise. Her father, after some rubbing of his brow, and other mechanical

[Chap. 21]

THE PIRATE

203

efforts to assist his memory, at length recovered verse sufficient to put the following query, though in less gallant strains than those of Hal­ cro:— Magnus Troil. “Mother speak, and do not tarry, Here’s a maiden fain would marry. Shall she marry, ay or not? If she marry, what’s her lot?”

A deep sigh was uttered within the tabernacle of the soothsayer, as if she compassionated the subject of the doom which she was obliged to pronounce. She then, as usual, returned her response. Norna. “Untouch’d by love, the maiden’s breast Is like the snow on Rona’s crest; So pure, so free from earthy dye, It seems, whilst leaning on the sky, Part of the heaven to which ’tis nigh; But passion, like the wild March rain, May soil the wreath with many a stain. We gaze—the lovely vision’s gone— A torrent fills the bed of stone, That hurrying to destruction’s shock, Leaps headlong from the lofty rock.”

The Udaller heard this reply with high resentment. “By the bones of the Martyr,” he said, his brown visage becoming suddenly ruddy, “this is an abuse of courtesy! and, were it any but yourself that had classed my daughter’s name and the word destruction together, they had better have left the word unspoken. But, come forth of the tent, thou old galdragon,” he added, with a smile—“I should have known that thou canst not long joy in any thing that smacks of mirth, God help thee.” His summons received no answer; and after waiting a moment, he again addressed her—“Nay, never be sullen with me, kinswoman, though I did speak a hasty word—thou knowest I bear malice to no one, least of all to thee—so come forth and let us shake hands.—Thou mightest have foretold the wreck ofmy ship and boats, or a bad herring-fishery, and I should have said never a word; but Minna or Brenda, you know, are things that touch me nearer. But come out, shake hands, and there let there be an end on’t.” Norna returned no answer whatsoever to his repeated invocations, and the company began to look upon each other with some surprise, when the Udaller, raising the skin which covered the entrance of the tent, discovered that the interior was empty. The wonder was now general, and not unmixed with fear; for it seemed impossible that Norna could, in any manner, have escaped from the tabernacle in which she was inclosed without having been observed by the

204

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 10

company. Gone, however, she was, and the Udaller, after a moment’s consideration, dropt the skin-curtain again over the entrance of the tent. “My friends,” he said, with a cheerful countenance, “we have long known my kinswoman, and that her ways are not like those of the ordinary folks of this world. But she means well by Hialtland, and hath the love of a sister for me, and for my house; and no guest of mine needs either to fear evil, or to take offence at her hand. I have little doubt she will be with us at dinner time.” “Now, heaven forbid!” said Mrs Baby Yellowley—“for, my gude Leddy Glowrowrum, to tell your leddyship the truth, I likena cum­ mers that can come and gae like a glance of the sun, or the whip of a whirlwind.” “Speak lower, speak lower,” said the Lady Glowrowrum, “and be thankful that yon carline hasna ta’en the house-side away wi’ her. The like of her have played warse pranks, and so has she hersell, unless she is the sairer leed on.” Similar murmurs ran through the rest of the company, until the Udaller uplifted his stentorian and imperative voice to put them to silence, and invited, or rather commanded, the attendance of his guests to behold the boats set off for the haafor deep-sea fishery. “The wind had been high since sunrise,” he said, “and had kept the boats in the bay, but now it was favourable, and they would sail immediately.” This sudden alteration of the weather occasioned sundry nods and winks amongst the guests, who were not indisposed to connect it with Norna’s sudden disappearance; but without giving vent to observa­ tions which could not but be disagreeable to their host, they followed his stately step to the shore, as the herd of deer follows the leading stag, with all manner ofrespectful observance.

Chapter Ten There was a laughing devil in his sneer, That raised emotions both of rage and fear; And where his frown of hatred darkly fell, Hope withering fled—and Mercy sigh’d farewell. The Corsair, Canto I

The ling or white fishery is the principal employment of the natives of Zetland, and was formerly that upon which the gentry chiefly depended for their income, and the poor for their subsistence. The season is, therefore, like the harvest of an agricultural country,

[Chap. 22]

THE PIRATE

205

the busiest and most important, as well as the most animating period of the year. The fishermen of each district assemble at particular stations, with their boats and crews, and erect upon the shore small huts, com­ posed of shingle, and covered with turf, for their temporary lodging, and skeos, or drying-houses, for the fish; so that the lonely beach at once assumes the appearance of an Indian town. The banks to which they repair for the haaf fishing are often many miles distant from the station where the fish is dried; so that they are always twenty or thirty hours absent, frequently longer, and under unfavourable circum­ stances of wind and tide, they remain at sea with a very small stock of provisions, and in a boat of a construction which seems extremely slender, for two or three days, and are sometimes heard of no more. The departure of the fishers, therefore, on this occupation, has in it a character of danger and of suffering, which renders it dignified, and the anxiety of the females who remain on the beach, watching the departure of the lessening boat, or anxiously looking out for its return, gives pathos to the scene. * The scene, therefore, was in busy and anxious animation, when the Udaller and his friends appeared on the beach. The various crews of about thirty boats, amounting each to from three to five or six men, were taking leave of their wives and female relatives, and jumping on board their long Norway skiffs, where their lines and tackle lay ready stowed. Magnus was not an idle spectator of the scene; he went from one place to another inquiring into the state of their provisions for the voyage, and their preparations for the fishery—now and then, with a rough Dutch or Norse oath, abusing them for blockheads, for going to sea with their boats indifferently found, but always ending by ordering from his own stores a gallon of gin, a lispund of meal, or some similar essential addition to their stock. The hardy sailors, on receiving such favours, expressed their thanks in the brief gruff manner that their landlord best approved; but the women were more clamorous in their * Dr Edmondston, the ingenious author of A View of the Ancient and Present State of the Zetland Islands, has placed this part of the subject in an interesting light. “It is truly painful to witness the anxiety and distress which the wives of these poor men suffer on the approach of a storm. Regardless of fatigue, they leave their homes, and fly to the spot where they expect their husbands to land, or ascend the summit of a rock, to look out for them on the bosom of the deep. Should they get a glimpse of a sail, they watch, with trembling solicitude, its alternate rise and disappearance on the waves; and though often tranquillized by the safe arrival of the objects of their search, yet it sometimes is their lot ‘to hail the bark that never can return.’ Subject to the influence of a variable climate, and engaged on a sea naturally tempestuous, with rapid currents, scarcely a season passes over without the occurrence of some fatal accident or hairbreadth escape.”—View, &c. of the Zetland Islands, vol.I. p.238. Many interesting particulars respecting the fisheries and agriculture of Zetland, as well as its antiquities, may be found in the work we have quoted.

206

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 10

gratitude, which Magnus was often obliged to silence by cursing all female tongues from Eve’s downwards. At length all were on board and ready, the sails were hoisted, the signal for departure given, the rowers began to pull, and all started from the shore, in strong emulation to get first to the fishing ground, and to have their lines set before the rest; an exploit to which no little consequence was attached by the boat’s crew who should be happy enough to perform it. While they were yet within hearing of the shore, they chaunted an ancient Norse ditty, appropriate to the occasion, of which Claud Hal­ cro had executed the following liberal translation: “Farewell, merry maidens, to dance, song, and laugh, For the brave lads of Westra are bound for the Haaf; And we must have labour, and hunger, and pain, Ere we dance with the maids ofDunrossness again. “For now, in our trim boats of Noroway deal, We must dance on the waves, with the porpuss and seal. The breeze it shall pipe, so it pipe not too high, And the gull be our songstress whene’er she flits by. “Sing on, my brave bird, while we follow, like thee, By bank, shoal, and quicksand, the swarms of the sea; And when twenty-score fishes are straining my line, Sing louder, brave bird, for their spoils shall be thine.

“We’ll sing while we bait, and we’ll sing when we haul, For the deeps of the Haaf have enough for us all: There is torsk for the gentle, and skate for the carle, And there’s wealth for bold Magnus, the son of the earl. “Huzza! my brave comrades, give way for the Haaf, We shall sooner come back to the dance and the laugh; For life without mirth is a lamp without oil; Then, mirth and long life to the bold Magnus Troil!”

The rude words of the song were soon drowned in the ripple of the waves, but the tune continued long to mingle with the sound of wind and sea, and the boats were like so many black specks on the surface of the ocean, diminishing by degrees as they bore far and farrer sea­ ward; while the ear still could distinguish touches of the human voice, almost drowned amid that ofthe elements. The fishermen’s wives looked their last after the parting sails, and were now departing slowly, with downcast and anxious looks, towards the huts in which they were to make arrangements for preparing and drying the fish, with which they hoped to see their husbands and friends return deeply loaded. Here and there an old sybil displayed the superior importance of her experience, by predicting, from the

[Chap. 22]

THE PIRATE

207

appearance of the atmosphere, that the wind would be fair or foul, while others recommended a vow to the Kirk of Saint Ninian’s, for the safety of their men and boats, (an ancient Catholic superstition, not yet wholly abolished;) and others, but in a low and timorous tone, regretted to their companions, that Norna of Fitful-head had been suffered to depart in discontent that morning from Burgh Westra, “and, of all days that were in the year, that they suld have contrived to give her displeasure on the very first day of the white fishing!” The gentry, guests of Magnus Troil, having whiled away as much time as could be so disposed of, in viewing the little armament set sail, and in conversing with the poor women who had seen their friends embark in it, began now to separate into various groups and parties, which strolled in different directions, as fancy led them, to enjoy what may be called the clear-obscure of a Zetland summer day, which, though wanting the brilliant sunshine that cheers other countries during the fine season, has a mild and pleasing character of its own, which softens while it saddens landscapes, which, in their own lonely, bare, and monotonous tone, have something in them stem as well as barren. In one of the loneliest recesses of the coast, where a deep indenture of the rocks gave the tide access to the cavern, or, as it is called, the Helier of Swartaster, Minna Troil was walking with Captain Cleve­ land. They had chosen probably that walk, as being little liable to interruption from others; for as the force of the tide rendered the place unfit either for fishing or sailing, so it was not the ordinary resort of walkers, on account of its being the supposed habitation of a mer­ maid, a race which Norwegian superstition invests with magical as well as mischievous qualities. Here, therefore, Minna wandered with her lover. A small spit of milk-white sand, that stretched beneath one of the precipices which walled in the creek on either side, afforded them space for a dry, firm, and pleasant walk of about an hundred yards, terminated at one extremity by a dark stretch of the bay, which, scarce touched by the wind, seemed almost as smooth as glass, and which was seen from between two lofty rocks, the jaws of the creek, or indenture, which approached each other above, as if they wished to meet over the dark tide that separated them. The other end of their promenade was closed by a lofty and almost unscaleable precipice, the abode of hundreds of sea-fowl of different kinds, in the bottom of which the huge helyer, or sea-cave, itself yawned, as if for the purpose ofswallowing up the advancing tide, which it seemed to receive into an abyss of immeasurable depth and extent. The entrance to this dismal cavern consisted not in a single arch, as usual, but was divided into

208

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 10

two, by a huge pillar of natural rock, which, rising out of the sea, and extending to the top of the cavern, seemed to lend its support to the roof, and thus formed a double portal to the helyer, on which the fishermen and peasants had bestowed the rude name of the Devil’s Nostrils. In this wild scene, lonely and undisturbed but by the clang of the sea-fowl, Cleveland had already met with Minna Troil more than once; for with her it was a favourite walk, as the objects which it presented agreed peculiarly with her love of the wild, the melancholy, and the wonderful. But now the conversation in which she was so earnestly engaged, was such as entirely to withdraw her attention, as well as that of her companion, from the scenery around them. “You cannot deny it,” she said; “you have given way to feelings respecting this young man which indicate prejudice and violence,— the prejudice unmerited, as far as you are concerned at least, and the violence equally imprudent and unjustifiable.” “I should have thought,” replied Cleveland, “that the service I rendered him yesterday might have freed me from such a charge. I do not talk of my own risk, for I have lived in danger, and love it; it is not every one, however, would have ventured so near the furious animal to save one with whom they had no connection.” “It is not every one, indeed, who would have done so,” answered Minna, gravely; “but it is every one who has courage and generosity. The giddy-brained Claud Halcro would have done as much as you, had his strength been equal to his courage,—my father would have done as much, though having such just cause of resentment against the young man, for his vain and braggart abuse of our hospitality. Do not, therefore, boast ofyour exploit too much, my good friend, lest you should make me think that it required too great an effort. I know you love not Mordaunt Mertoun, though you exposed your own life to save his.” “Will you allow nothing, then,” said Cleveland, “for the long misery I was made to endure from the common and prevailing report, that this beardless bird-hunter stood betwixt me and what I on earth coveted most—the affections ofMinna Troil?” He spoke in a tone at once impassioned and insinuating, and his whole language and manner seemed to express a grace and elegance, which formed the most striking contrast with the speech and gesture of the unpolished seaman, which he usually affected or exhibited. But his apology was unsatisfactory to Minna. “You have known,” she said, “perhaps too soon, and too well, how little truth there is in the report—how little you had to fear,—if you indeed feared,—that Mertoun, or any other, had interest with Minna Troil.—Nay, truce to thanks and protestations; I would accept it as

[Chap. 22]

THE PIRATE

209

the best proof of gratitude, that you would be reconciled with this youth, or at least avoid every quarrel with him.” “That we should be friends, Minna, is impossible,” replied Cleve­ land; “even the love I bear you, the most powerful emotion that my heart ever knew, cannot work that miracle.” “And why, I pray you?” said Minna; “there have been no evil offices between you, but rather an exchange of mutual services; why can you not be friends?—I have many reasons to wish it.” “And can you then forget the slights which he has cast upon Brenda, and on yourself, and on your father’s house?” “I can forgive them all,” said Minna;—“can you not say so much, who have in truth received no offence?” Cleveland looked down, and paused for an instant, then raised his head and replied, “I might easily deceive you, Minna, and promise you what my soul tells me is an impossibility; but I am forced to use too much deceit with others, and with you I will use none. I cannot be friend to this young man;—there is a natural dislike—an instinctive aversion—a something like a principle of repugnance in our mutual nature, which makes us odious to each other. Ask himself—he will tell you he has the same antipathy against me. The obligation he con­ ferred on me was a bridle to my resentment; but I was so galled by the restraint, that I could have gnawed the curb till my lips were bloody.” “You have worn what you are wont to call your iron mask so long, that your features,” replied Minna, “retain the impression of its rigid­ ity, even when it is removed.” “You do me injustice, Minna,” replied her lover, “and you are angry with me because I deal with you plainly and honestly. Plainly and honestly, however, will I say, that I cannot be Mertoun’s friend, but it shall be his own fault, not mine, if I am ever his enemy. I seek not to injure him, but do not ask me to love him. And of this remain satisfied, that it would be vain even if I could do so; for as sure as I attempted any advances towards his confidence, so sure would I be to awaken his disgust and suspicion. Leave us to the exercise of our natural feelings, which, as they will unquestionably keep us as far separate as possible, are most likely to prevent any possible interference with each other.— Does this satisfy you?” “It must,” said Minna, “since you tell me there is no remedy.—And now tell me why you looked so grave when you heard ofyour consort’s arrival, for that it is her I have no doubt, in the port of Kirkwall?” “I fear,” replied Cleveland, “the consequences of that vessel’s arrival with her crew, as comprehending the ruin ofmy fondest hopes. I had made some progress in your father’s favour, and, with time, might have made more, when hither come Goffe and Hawkins to

210

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 10

blight my prospects for ever. I told you on what terms we parted. I then commanded a vessel braver and better found than their own, with a crew who, at my slightest nod, would have faced fiends armed with their own fiery element; but I now stand alone, a single man, destitute of all means to overawe or to restrain them; and they will soon shew so plainly the ungovernable license of their habits and dispositions, that ruin to themselves and me will in all probability be the consequence.” “Do not fear it,” said Minna; “my father can never be so unjust as to hold you liable for the offences of others.” “But what will Magnus Troil say to my own, fair Minna?” said Cleveland, smiling. “My father is a Norwegian,” said Minna, “one of an oppressed race, who will not care whether you fought against the Spaniards, who are the tyrants of the New World, or against the Dutch and English, who have succeeded to their usurped dominion. His own ancestors supported and exercised the freedom of the seas in those gallant barks, whose pennons were the dread of all Europe.” “I fear, nevertheless,” said Cleveland, smiling, “that the descend­ ant of an ancient Sea-King will scarce acknowledge a fitting acquaint­ ance in a modem rover. I have not disguised from you that I have reason to fear the English laws; and Magnus, though a great enemy to taxes, imposts, scatt, wattle, and so forth, has no idea of latitude upon points of a more general character;—he would willingly reeve a rope to the yard-arm for the benefit of an unfortunate buccaneer.” “Do not suppose so,” said Minna; “he himself suffers too much oppression from the tyrannical laws of our proud neighbours of Scot­ land. I trust he will soon be able to rise in resistance against them. The enemy—such I will call them—are now divided amongst themselves, and every vessel from their coast brings intelligence of fresh commo­ tions—the Highlands against the Lowlands—the Williamites against the Jacobites—the Whigs against the Tories, and, to sum the whole, the kingdom of England against that of Scotland. What is there, as Claud Halcro well hinted, to prevent our availing ourselves of the quarrels of these robbers, to assert the independence of which we are deprived?” “To hoist the raven standard on the Castle of Scalloway,” said Cleveland, in imitation of her tone and manner, “and proclaim your father Earl Magnus the First!” “Earl Magnus the Seventh, if it pleases you,” replied Minna; “for six of his ancestors have worn the coronet before him.—You laugh at my ardour, but what is there to prevent all this?” “Nothing will prevent it,” replied Cleveland, “because it will never be attempted—Any thing might prevent it, that is equal in strength to

[Chap.22]

THE PIRATE

211

the long-boat of a British man-of-war.” “You treat us with scorn, sir,” replied Minna; “yet yourself should know what a few resolved men may perform.” “But they must be armed, Minna,” replied Cleveland, “and willing to place their lives upon each desperate adventure.—Think not of such visions. Denmark has been cut down into a second-rate king­ dom, incapable of exchanging a single broadside with England; and, in these islands, the love of independence has been suppressed by a long term of subjection, or shews itself but in a few muttered growls over the bowl and bottle.—And, were your men as willing warriors as their ancestors, what could the unarmed crews of a few fishing-boats do against the British navy?—Think no more of it, sweet Minna—it is a dream, and I must term it so, though it makes your eye so bright, and your step so noble.” “It is indeed a dream!” said Minna, looking down, “and it ill becomes a daughter of Hialtland to look or to move like a free woman —Our eye should be on the ground, and our step slow and reluctant, as that of one who obeys a task-master.” “There are lands,” said Cleveland, “in which the eye may look bright upon groves of the palm and the cocoa, and where the foot may move light as a galley under sail, over fields carpetted with flowers, and savannahs surrounded by aromatic thickets, and where subjection is unknown, except that of the brave to the bravest, and of all to the most beautiful.” Minna paused a moment ere she replied, and then answered, “No, Cleveland, my own rude country has charms for me, even desolate as you think it, and depressed as it surely is, which no other land on earth can present to me. I endeavour in vain to represent to myself those visions of trees, and of groves, which my eye never saw; but my imagination can conceive no sight in nature more sublime than those waves, when agitated by a storm, or more beautiful, than when they come, as they now do, rolling in calm tranquillity to the shore. Not the fairest scene in a foreign land,—not the brightest sun-beam that ever shone upon the richest landscape, would win my thoughts for a moment from that lofty rock, misty hill, and wide-rolling ocean. Hialt­ land is the land of my deceased ancestors, and of my living father; and in Hialtland I will live and die.” “Then in Hialtland,” answered Cleveland, “will I too live and die. I will not go to Kirkwall,—I will not make my existence known to my comrades, from whom it were else hard for me to escape. Your father loves me, Minna; who knows whether long attention, anxious care might not bring him to receive me into his family. Who would regard the length of a voyage that was certain to terminate in happiness?”

212

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 10

“Dream not of such an issue,” said Minna; “it is impossible. While you live in my father’s house,—while you receive his assistance, and share his table, you will find him the generous friend, and the hearty host; but touch him on what concerns his name and family, and the frank-hearted Udaller will start up before you the haughty and proud descendant of a Norwegian Jarl. See, a moment’s suspicion has fallen on Mordaunt Mertoun, and he has banished from his favour the youth whom he so lately loved as a son. No one must ally with his house that is not of untainted northern descent.” “And mine may be so, for aught that is known to me upon the subject,” said Cleveland. “How!” said Minna; “have you any reason to believe yourself of Norse descent?” “I have told you before,” replied Cleveland, “that my family is totally unknown to me. I spent my earliest days upon a solitary planta­ tion, in the little island ofTortuga, under the charge ofmy father, then a different person from what he afterwards became. We were plun­ dered by the Spaniards, and reduced to such extremity ofpoverty, that my father, in desperation, and in thirst of revenge, took up arms, and having become chief of a little band, who were in the same circum­ stances, became a buccaneer, as it is called, and cruized against Spain, with various vicissitudes of good and bad fortune, until, while he interfered to check some violence of his companions, he fell by their hands—no uncommon fate among the captains of these rovers. But whence my father came, or what was the place ofhis birth, I know not, fair Minna, nor have I ever had a curious thought on the subject.” “He was a Briton, at least, your unfortunate father?” said Minna. “I have no doubt of it,” said Cleveland; “his name, which I have rendered too formidable to be openly spoken, is an English one; and his acquaintance with the English language, and even with English literature, together with the pains which he took, in better days, to teach me both, plainly spoke him to be an Englishman. If the rude bearing which I display towards others is not the genuine character of my mind and manners, it is to my father, Minna, that I owe any share of better thoughts and principles, which may render me worthy, in some small degree, of your notice and approbation. And yet it some­ times seems to me, that I have two different characters; for I cannot almost believe, that I, who now walk this lone beach with the lovely Minna Troil, and am permitted to speak to her of the passion which I have cherished, have ever been the daring leader of the bold band whose name was as terrible as a tornado.” “You had not been permitted,” said Minna, “to use that bold lan­ guage towards the daughter of Magnus Troil, had you not been the

[Chap. 22]

THE PIRATE

213

brave and undaunted leader, who, with so small means, has made his name so formidable. My heart is like that of a maiden of the ancient days, and is to be won, not by fair words, but by gallant deeds.” “Alas! that heart,” said Cleveland; “and what is it that I may do— what is it that man can do, to win in it the interest which I desire?” “Rejoin your friends—pursue your fortunes—leave the rest to des­ tiny,” said Minna. “Should you return, the leader of a gallant fleet, who can tell what may befal?” “And what shall assure me, that, when I return—if return I ever shall—I may not find Minna Troil a bride or a spouse?—No, Minna, I will not trust to destiny the only object worth attaining, which my stormy voyage in life has yet offered me.” “Hear me,” said Minna. “I will bind myself to you, if you dare accept such an engagement, by the promise of Odin, the most sacred of our northern rites which are yet practised amongst us, that I will never favour another, until you resign the pretensions which I have given to you.—Will that satisfy you?—for more I cannot—more I will not give.” “Then with that,” said Cleveland, after a moment’s pause, “I must perforce be satisfied;—but remember, it is yourself that throw me back upon a mode of life which the laws of Britain denounce as criminal, and which the violent passions of the daring men by whom it is pursued, have rendered infamous.” “But I,” said Minna, “am superior to such prejudices. In warring with England, I see their laws in no other light than as if you were engaged with an enemy, who, in fulness of pride and power, has declared he will give his antagonist no quarter—a brave man will not fight the worse for this—And, for the manners of your comrades, so that they do not infect your own, why should their evil report attach to you?” Cleveland gazed at her as she spoke, with a degree of wondering admiration, in which, at the same time, there lurked a smile at her simplicity. “I could not,” he said, “have believed, that such high courage could have been found united with such ignorance ofthe world, as the world is now wielded. For my manners, they who best know me will readily allow, that I have done my best, at the risk ofmy popularity, and of my life itself, to mitigate the ferocity of my mates; but how can you teach humanity to men burning with vengeance against the world by whom they are proscribed, or teach them temperance and moderation in enjoying the pleasures which chance throws in their way, to vary a life which would be otherwise one constant scene of peril and hardship? But this promise, Minna—this promise, which is all I am to receive in

214

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 10

guerdon for my faithful attachment—let me at least lose no time in claiming it.” “It must not be rendered here, but in Kirkwall.—We must invoke, to witness the engagement, the Spirit which presides over the ancient circle of Stennis. But perhaps you fear to name the ancient Father of the Slain too, the Severe, the Terrible.” Cleveland smiled. “Do me the justice to think, lovely Minna, that I am little subject to fear real causes of terror; and for those which are visionary, I have no sympathy whatsoever.” “You believe not in them, then,” said Minna, “and are so far better suited to be Brenda’s lover than mine.” “I will believe,” replied Cleveland, “in whatever you believe. The whole inhabitants of that Valhalla, about which you converse so much with that fiddling, rhiming fool, Claud Halcro—all these shall become living and existing things to my credulity. But, Minna, do not ask me to fear any of them.” “Fear! no—not to fear them, surely,” replied the maiden; “for, not before Thor or Odin, when they appeared in the fulness of their terrors, did the heroes of my dauntless race yield one foot in retreat. But when you make this boast, bethink you that you defy an enemy ofa kind you have never yet encountered.” “Not in these northern latitudes,” said the lover, with a smile, “where hitherto I have seen but angels; but I have faced, in my time, the demons of the Equinoctial Line, which we rovers suppose to be as powerful, and as malignant, as those of the North.” “Have you then witnessed those wonders that are beyond the visible world?” said Minna, with some degree of awe. Cleveland composed his countenance, and replied,—“A short while before my father’s death, I came, though then very young, into the command of a sloop, manned with thirty as desperate fellows as ever handled a musket. We cruized for a long while with bad success, taking nothing but wretched small-craft, which were destined to catch turtle, or otherwise loaded with coarse and worthless trumpery. I had much ado to prevent my comrades from avenging upon the crews of those baubling shallops the disappointment which they had occa­ sioned to us. At length, we grew desperate, and made a descent on a village where we were told we should intercept the mules of a certain Spanish governor, laden with treasure. We succeeded in carrying the place; but while I endeavoured to save the inhabitants from the fury of my followers, the muleteers, with their precious cargo, escaped into the neighbouring woods. This filled up the measure of my unpopu­ larity. My people, who had been long discontented, became openly

[Chap.22]

THE PIRATE

215

mutinous. I was deposed from my command, in solemn council, and condemned, as having too little luck and too much humanity for the profession I had undertaken, to be marooned,* as the phrase goes, on one of those little sandy, bushy islets, which are called, in the West Indies, keys, and which are frequented only by turtle and by sea-fowl. Many of them are supposed to be haunted—some by the demons worshipped by the old inhabitants—others by Caciques and others, whom the Spaniards had put to death by torture, to compel them to discover their hidden treasures, and others by the various spectres in which sailors of all nations have implicit faith. My place of banish­ ment, called Coffin-key, about two leagues and a half to the south­ east of Bermudas, was so infamous as the resort of these supernatural inhabitants, that I believe the wealth of Mexico would not have per­ suaded the bravest of the scoundrels who put me ashore there, to have spent an hour on the islet alone, even in broad day-light; and when they rowed off, they pulled for the sloop like men that dared not cast their eyes behind them. And there they left me to subsist myself as I might, on a speck of unproductive sand, surrounded by the boundless Atlantic, and haunted, as they supposed, by malignant demons.” “And what was the consequence?” said Minna, eagerly. “I supported life,” said the adventurer, “at the expence of such sea­ fowl as were silly enough to let me approach so near as to knock them down with a stick; and by means of turtle eggs, when these complais­ ant birds became better acquainted with the mischievous disposition of the human species, and more shy of course ofmy advances.” “And the demons of whom you spoke?—” continued Minna. “I had my secret apprehensions upon their account,” said Cleve­ land: “In open day-light, or in absolute darkness, I did not greatly apprehend their approach; but in the misty dawn of the morning, or when evening was about to fall, I saw, for the first week of my abode on the key, many a dim and undefined spectre,—now resem­ bling a Spaniard, with his capa wrapped around him, and his huge sombrero, as large as an umbrella, upon his head,—now a Dutch sailor, with his rough cap and trunk-hose,—and now an Indian Cacique, with his feathery crown and long lance of cane.” “Did you not approach and address them?” said Minna. “I always approached them,” replied the seaman; “but,—I grieve to disappoint your expectations, my fair friend,—whenere I drew near them the phantom changed into a bush, or a piece of drift-wood, or a wreath of mist, or some such cause of deception, until at last I was taught by experience to cheat myself no longer with such visions, and * To maroon a seaman, signified to abandon him on a desolate coast or island—a piece of cruelty often practised by Pirates and Buccaneers.

216

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 10

continued a solitary inhabitant of Coffin-key, as little alarmed by visionary terrors, as I ever was in the great cabin of a stout vessel, with a score ofcompanions around me.” “You cheated me into listening to a tale of nothing,” said Minna; “but how long did you continue on the island?” “Four weeks of miserable existence,” said Cleveland, “when I was relieved by the crew of a vessel which came thither a-turtling. Yet my miserable seclusion was not entirely useless to me, for on that spit of barren sand I found the iron mask, which has since been my chief security against treason, or mutiny of my followers. It was there I formed the resolution to seem no softer hearted, nor better instructed —no more humane, and no more scrupulous, than those with whom fortune had leagued me. I thought over my former story, and saw that seeming more brave, skilful, and enterprizing than others, had gained me command and respect, and that seeming more gently nurtured, and more civilized than they, had made them envy and hate me as a being of another species. I agreed with myself, then, that since I could not lay aside my superiority of intellect and education, I would do my best to disguise, and to sink in the rude seaman, all appearance of better feeling and better accomplishment. I foresaw then what has since happened, that, under the appearance of daring obduracy, I should acquire such a habitual command over my followers, that I might use it for the ensurance of discipline, and for relieving the distresses of the wretches who fell under our power. I saw, in short, that, to attain power, I must assume the external semblance, at least, of those over whom it was to be exercised. The tidings ofmy father’s fate, while it excited me to wrath and to revenge, confirmed the resolution I had adopted. He also had fallen a victim to his superiority of mind, morals, and manners, above those whom he commanded. They were wont to call him the Gentleman; and, unquestionably, they thought he waited some favourable opportunity to reconcile himself, perhaps at their expence, with those existing forms of society with which his habits seemed best to suit, and, even therefore, they murdered him. Nature and Justice alike called on me for revenge. I was soon at the head of a new body of the adventurers, who are so numerous in those islands. I sought not after those by whom I had been myselfmarooned, but on the wretches who betrayed my father I took a revenge so severe, that it was of itself sufficient to stamp me with the character of that inexorable ferocity which I was desirous to be thought to possess, and which, perhaps, was gradually creeping on my disposition in actual earnest. My manner, speech, and conduct, seemed so totally changed, that those who formerly knew me were disposed to ascribe the altera­ tion to my intercourse with the demons who haunted the sands of

[Chap. 22]

THE PIRATE

217

Coffin-key; nay, there were some, superstitious enough to believe that I had actually formed a league with them.” “I tremble to hear the rest!” said Minna; “did you not become the monster of courage and cruelty whose character you assumed?” “If I have escaped being so, it is to you, Minna,” replied Cleveland, “that the wonder must be ascribed. It is true, I have always endeav­ oured to distinguish myself rather by acts of the most adventurous valour, than by schemes ofrevenge or ofplunder, and at length I could save lives by a rude jest, and sometimes, by the excess of the measures which I myself proposed, could induce those under me to intercede in favour of prisoners; so that the seeming severity of my character has better served the cause of humanity, than had I appeared directly devoted to it.” He ceased, and, as Minna replied not a word, both remained silent for a little space, when Cleveland again resumed the discourse. “You are silent,” he said, “Miss Troil, and I have injured myself in your opinion by the frankness with which I have laid my character before you; I may truly say that my natural disposition has been controlled, but not altered, by the untoward circumstances in which I am placed.” “I am uncertain,” said Minna, after a moment’s consideration, “whether you had been thus candid, had you not known I should soon see your comrades, and discover from their conversation and their manners what you would otherwise gladly have concealed.” “You do me injustice, Minna, cruel injustice. From the instant that you knew me to be a sailor of fortune, an adventurer, a buccaneer, or, ifyou will have the broad word, a Pirate , what had you to expect less than what I have told you?” “You speak too truly,” said Minna. “All this I might have anticip­ ated, and I know not how I should have expected it otherwise. But it seemed to me that a war on the cruel and superstitious Spaniards had in it something ennobling—something that refined the fierce employ­ ment to which you have just now given its true and dreaded name. I thought that the independent warriors of the Western Ocean, raised up, as it were, to punish the wrongs of so many murdered and plun­ dered tribes, must have had something of noble elevation, like the Sons of the North, whose long galleys avenged on so many coasts the oppressions of degenerate Rome. This I thought, and this I dreamed —I grieve that I am awakened and undeceived. Yet I blame you not for the erring of my own fancy.—Farewell, we must now part.” “Say at least,” said Cleveland, “that you do not hold me in horror for having told you the truth.” “I must have time for reflection,” said Minna, “time to weigh what

21 8

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,Ch. 11

you have said, ere I can fully understand my own feelings. Thus much, however, I can say even now, that he who pursues the sordid purpose of plunder, by means of blood-cruelty, and who must veil his remains of natural remorse under an affectation of superior profligacy, is not, and cannot be, the lover whom Minna Troil expected to find in Cleveland; and if she still love him, it must be as a penitent, and not as a hero.” So saying, she extricated herself from his grasp, (for he still endeav­ oured to detain her,) making an imperative sign to him to forbear from following her.—“She is gone,” said Cleveland, looking after her; “wild and fanciful as she is, I was unprepared for this.—She startled not at the name of my perilous course of life, yet seems totally unpre­ pared for the evil which must necessarily attend it; and so all the merit I have gained with my resemblance to a Norse Champion, or King of the Sea, is to be lost at once, because a gang of pirates do not prove to be a choir of saints. I would that Goffe, Hawkins, and the rest had been at the bottom of the Race of Portland—I would the Pentland Firth had swept them to hell rather than to Orkney! I will not, how­ ever, quit the chase of this angel for all that these fiends can do. I will —I must to Orkney before the Udaller makes his voyage thither—our meeting might alarm even his blunt understanding, although, thank Heaven, in this wild country, men know the nature ofour trade only by hearsay, through our honest friends the Dutch, who take care never to speak very ill of those they make money by.—Well, if Fortune would but stand my friend with this beautiful enthusiast, I would pursue her wheel no further at sea, but set myself down amongst these rocks, as happy as if they were so many groves ofbananas and palmettoes.” With these, and such thoughts, half rolling in his bosom, half expressed in indistinct hints and murmurs, the pirate Cleveland returned to the mansion ofBurgh Westra.

Chapter Eleven There was shaking of hands, and sorrow of heart, For the hour was approaching when merry folks must part; So we call’d for our horses, and ask’d for our way, While the jolly old landlord said, “Nothing’s to pay.” Liliput, a Poem

We do not dwell upon the festivities of the day, which had nothing in them to interest the reader particularly. The table groaned under the usual plenty, which was disposed of by the guests with the usual appetite—the bowl of punch was filled and emptied with the

[Chap. 23]

THE PIRATE

219

same celerity as usual—the men quaffed, and the women laughed— Claud Halcro rhimed, punned, and praised John Dryden—the Udal­ ler bumpered and sung choruses—and the evening concluded, as usual, in the Rigging-loft, as it was Magnus Troil’s pleasure to term the dancing apartment. It was then and there that Cleveland, approaching Magnus, where he sat betwixt his two daughters, intimated his intention of going to Kirkwall in a small brig, which Bryce Snaelsfoot, who had disposed of his goods with unprecedented celerity, had freighted thither, to pro­ cure a supply. Magnus heard the sudden proposal of his guest with surprise, not unmingled with displeasure, and demanded sharply of Cleveland, how long it was since he had learned to prefer Bryce Snaelsfoot’s company to his own. Cleveland answered, with his usual bluntness of manner, that time and tide tarried for no one, and that he had his own particular reasons for making his trip to Kirkwall sooner than the Udaller proposed to set sail—that he hoped to meet with him and his daughters at the great fair, which was now closely approach­ ing, and might perhaps find it possible to return to Zetland alongst with them. While he spoke thus, Brenda kept her eye as much upon her sister as it was possible to do, without exciting general observation. She remarked, that Minna’s pale cheek became yet paler while Cleveland spoke, and that she seemed, by compressing her lips, and slightly knitting her brows, to be in the act of repressing the effects of strong interior emotion. But she spoke not; and when Cleveland, having bidden adieu to the Udaller, approached to salute her, as was then the custom, she received his farewell without trusting herself to attempt a reply. Brenda had her own trial approaching; for Mordaunt Mertoun, once so much loved by her father, was now in the act of making his cold parting from him, without receiving a single look of friendly regard. There was, indeed, sarcasm in the tone with which Magnus wished the youth a good journey, and recommended to him, if he met a bonny lass by the way, not to dream that she was in love, because she chanced to laugh at him. Mertoun coloured at what he felt as an insult, though it was but half intelligible to him; but he remembered Brenda, and suppressed every feeling of resentment. He proceeded to take his leave of the sisters. Minna, whose heart was considerably softened towards him, received his farewell with some degree of interest; but Brenda’s was so visible in the kindness of her manner, and the mois­ ture which gathered in her eye, that it was noticed even by the Udaller, who exclaimed, half-angrily, “Why, ay, lass, that may be right enow,

220

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 11

for he was an old acquaintance; but mind! I have no will that he remain one.” Mertoun, who was slowly leaving the apartment, halfoverheard this disparaging observation, and half turned round to resent it. But his purpose failed when he saw that Brenda had been obliged to have recourse to her handkerchiefto hide her emotion, and the sense that it was excited by his departure, obliterated every thought of her father’s unkindness. He retired,—the other guests followed his example; and many ofthem, like Cleveland and himself, took their leave over-night, with the purpose of commencing their homeward journey on the succeeding morning. That night, the mutual sorrow of Minna and Brenda, if it could not wholly remove the reserve which had estranged the sisters from each other, at least melted all its frozen and unkindly symptoms. They wept in each other’s arms; and though neither spoke, yet each became dearer to the other; because they felt that the grief which called forth these drops had a source common to them both. It is probable, that though Brenda’s tears were most abundant, the grief of Minna was most deeply seated; for long after the younger had sobbed herself to sleep, like a child, upon her sister’s bosom, Minna lay awake, watching the dubious twilight, while tear after tear slowly gathered in her eye, and found a current down her cheek, as soon as it became too heavy to be supported by her long black silken eye-lashes. As she lay, bewildered among the sorrowful thoughts which supplied these tears, she was surprised to distinguish, beneath the window, the sounds of music. At first she supposed it was some freak of Claud Halcro, whose fantastic humour sometimes indulged itself in such serenades. But it was not the gue of the old minstrel, but the guitar which she heard; an instrument which no one in the island knew how to touch except Cleveland, who had learned, in his intercourse with the South American Spaniards, to play on it with superior execution. Perhaps it was in these climates also that he had learned the song, which, though he now sung it under the window ofa maiden ofThule, had certainly never been composed for the native of a climate so northerly and so severe, since it spoke of productions of the earth and skies which are there unknown. 1.

“Love wakes and weeps While Beauty sleeps! O for Music’s softest numbers, To prompt a theme, For Beauty’s dream, Soft as the pillow ofher slumbers.

[Chap. 23]

THE PIRATE

221

2.

“Through groves of palm Sigh gales of balm, Fire-flies on the air are wheeling; While through the gloom Comes soft perfume, The distant beds of flowers revealing. 3. “O wake and live, No dream can give A shadow’d bliss, the real excelling; No longer sleep, From lattice peep, And list the tale that Love is telling.”

The voice of Cleveland was deep, rich, and manly, and accorded well with the Spanish air, to which the words, probably a translation from the same language, had been adapted. His invocation would not probably have been fruitless, could Minna have arisen without awak­ ening her sister. But that was impossible; for Brenda, who, as we already mentioned, had wept bitterly before she had sunk into repose, now lay with her face on her sister’s neck, and one arm stretched around her, in the attitude of a child which has cried itself to sleep in the arms of her nurse. It was impossible for Minna to extricate herself from her grasp without awaking her; and she could not, therefore, execute her hasty purpose, of donning her gown, and hastening to the window to speak with Cleveland, who, she had no doubt, had resorted to this contrivance, to procure an interview. The restraint was suffici­ ently provoking, for it was more than probable that her lover came to take his last farewell; but that Brenda, inimical as she had seemed to be of late towards Cleveland, should awake and witness it, was a thought not to be endured. There was a short pause, in which Minna endeavoured more than once, with as much gentleness as possible, to unclasp Brenda’s arm from her neck; but whenever she attempted it the slumberer muttered some little pettish sound, like a child disturbed in its sleep, which sufficiently shewed that perseverance in the attempt would awaken her fully. To her great vexation, therefore, Minna was compelled to remain still and silent; when her lover, as if determined upon gaining her ear by music of another strain, sung the following fragment of a sea­ ditty. “Farewell! Farewell! the voice you hear, Has left its last soft tone with you,— Its next must join the seaward cheer, And shout among the shouting crew.

222

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,Ch. 11

“The accents which I scarce could form Beneath your frown’s controuling check, Must give the word, above the storm, To cut the mast, and clear the wreck.

“The timid eye I dared not raise,— The hand, that shook when press’d to thine, Must point the guns upon the chase,— Must bid the brandished cutlass shine. “To all I love, or hope, or fear,— Honour, or own, a long adieu! To all that life has soft and dear, Farewell! save memory ofyou!”

He was again silent; and again she, to whom the serenade was addressed, strove in vain to arise without rousing her sister. It was impossible; and she had nothing before her but the unhappy thought that Cleveland was taking leave in his desolation, without a single glance, or a single word. He, too, whose temper was so fiery, yet who subjected his violent mood with such sedulous attention to her will,— could she but have stolen a moment but to say adieu—to caution him against new quarrels with Mertoun—to implore him to detach himself from such comrades as he had described,—could she but have done thus, who could say what effect such parting admonitions might have had upon his character—nay, upon the future events ofhis life? Tantalized by such thoughts, Minna was about to make another and decisive effort, when she heard voices beneath the window, and thought she could distinguish that they were those of Cleveland and Mertoun, speaking in a sharp tone, which, at the same time, seemed cautiously suppressed, as if the speakers feared being overheard. Alarm now mingled with her former desire to rise from bed, and she accomplished at once the purpose which she had so often attempted in vain. Brenda’s arm was unloosed from her sister’s neck, without the sleeper receiving more alarm than provoked two or three unintelli­ gible murmurs; while, with equal speed and silence, Minna put on some part of her dress, with the intention to steal to the window. But, ere she could accomplish this, the sound of the voices without was exchanged for that of blows and struggling, which terminated sud­ denly by a deep groan. Terrified at this last signal of mischief, Minna sprang to the win­ dow, and endeavoured to open it, for the persons were so close under the walls of the house that she could not see them, save by putting her head out of the casement. The iron hasp was stiff and rusted, and, as generally happens, the haste with which she laboured to undo it only rendered the task more difficult. When it was accomplished, and

[Chap. 23]

THE PIRATE

223

Minna had eagerly thrust her body half out at the casement, those who had created the sounds which alarmed her were become invisible, excepting that she saw a shadow cross the moonlight, the substance of which must have been in the act of turning a comer, which concealed it from her sight. The shadow moved slowly, and seemed that of a man who supported another upon his shoulders; an indication which put the climax to Minna’s agony ofmind. The window was not above eight feet from the ground, and she hesitated not to throw herself from it hastily, and to pursue the object which had excited her terror. But when she came to the comer of the buildings from which the shadow seemed to have been projected, she discovered nothing which could point out the way that the figure had gone; and, after a moment’s consideration, became sensible that all attempts at pursuit would be alike wild and fruitless. Besides all the projections and recesses of the many-angled mansion, and its numerous offices— besides the various cellars, store-houses, stables, and so forth, which defied her solitary search, there was a range of low rocks, stretching down to the little haven, and which were, in fact, a continuation of the ridge which formed its pier. These rocks had many indentures, hol­ lows, and caverns, into any one of which the figure to which the shadow belonged might have retired with his fatal burthen; for fatal, she feared, it was most likely to prove. A moment’s reflection, as we have said, convinced Minna of the folly of farther pursuit; her next thought was to alarm the family; but what tale had she to tell, and of whom was that tale to be told?—On the other hand, the wounded man—if indeed he was wounded—alas, if indeed he were not mortally wounded,—might not be past the reach of assistance; and, with this idea, she was about to raise her voice, when she was interrupted by that of Claud Halcro, who was returning apparently from the haven, and singing, in his manner, a scrap of an old Norse ditty, which might run thus in English:— “And you shall deal the funeral dole; Ay, deal it, mother mine, To weary body, and to heavy soul, The white bread and the wine. “And you shall deal my horses ofpride; Ay, deal them, mother mine; And you shall deal my lands so wide, And deal my castles nine. “But deal not vengeance for the deed, And deal not for the crime; The body to its place, and the soul to Heaven’s grace, And the rest in God’s own time.”

224

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 11

The singular adaptation of these rhimes to the situation in which she found herself, seemed to Minna like a warning from heaven. We are speaking of a land of omens and superstitions, and perhaps will scarce be understood by those whose limited imagination cannot con­ ceive how strongly these operate upon the human mind during a certain progress of society. A line of Virgil, turned up casually, was received in the seventeenth century, and in the court ofEngland, as an intimation of future events; and no wonder that a maiden of the distant and wild isles of Zetland should have considered, as an injunc­ tion from Heaven, verses which happened to convey a sense analog­ ous to her present situation. “I will be silent,” she muttered,—“I will seal my lips— The body to its place, and the soul to Heaven’s grace, And the rest in God’s own time.”

“Who speaks there?” said Claud Halcro, in some alarm; for he had not, in his travels in foreign parts, been able by any means to rid himself of his native superstitions. In the condition to which fear and horror had reduced her, Minna was at first unable to reply; and Halcro, fixing his eyes upon the female white figure, which he saw indistinctly, for she stood in the shadow of the house, and the morning was thick and misty, began to conjure her in an ancient rhime which occurred to him as suited for the occasion, and which had in its gibberish a wild and unearthly sound, which may be lost in the ensuing translation:— “Saint Magnus, controul thee, that Martyr of treason; Saint Ronan, rebuke thee, with rhyme and with reason; By the mass of Saint Martin, the might of Saint Mary, Be thou gone, or thy weird shall be worse if thou tarry! If of good, go hence and hallow thee,— If of ill, let the earth swallow thee,— If thou’rt of air, let the grey mist fold thee,— If ofearth, let the swart mine hold thee,— Ifa Pixie, seek thy ring,— If a Nixie, seek thy spring;— If on middle earth thou’st been Slave of sorrow, shame, and sin, Hast eat the bread of toil and strife, And dree’d the lot which men call life, Begone to thy stone! for thy coffin is scant of thee, The worm, thy play-fellow, wails for the want of thee;— Hence, houseless ghost! let the earth hide thee, Till Michael shall blow the blast, see that there thou bide thee!— Phantom, fly hence! take the Cross for a token, Hence pass till Hallowmass!—my spell is spoken.”

“It is I, Halcro,” muttered Minna, in a tone so thin and low, that it might have passed for the faint reply of the conjured phantom.

[Chap. 23]

THE PIRATE

225

“You!—you!” said Halcro, his tone of alarm changing to one of extreme surprise; “by this moonlight, which is waning, and so it is!— Who could have thought to find you, my most lovely Night, wandering abroad in your own element!—But you saw them, I reckon, as well as I —bold enough in you to follow them, though.” “Saw whom?—follow whom?” said Minna, hoping to gain some information on the subject of her fears and her anxiety. “The corpse-lights which danced at the haven,” replied Halcro; “they bode no good, I promise you—you wot well what the old rhyme says— Where corpse-light Dances bright, Be it by day or night, Be it by light or dark, There shall corpse lie stiffand stark.

I went half as far as the haven to look after them, but they had vanished. I think I saw a boat put off, however,—some one bound for the haaf, I suppose.—I would we had good news of this fishing—there was Noma left us in anger, and then these corpse-lights! —Well, God help the while. I am an old man, and can but wish that all were well over.—But how now, my pretty Minna? tears in your eyes!—And now that I see you in the fair moonlight, barefooted too, by Saint Magnus!—Were there no stockings of Zetland wool soft enough for these pretty feet and ancles, that glance so white in the moon-beam? —What, silent!—angry, perhaps,” he added, in a more serious tone, “at my nonsense. For shame, silly maiden!—Remember I am old enough to be your father, and have always loved you as my child.” “I am not angry,” said Minna, constraining herself to speak—“But heard you nothing?—saw you nothing?—they must have passed you.” “They!” said Claud Halcro; “what mean you by they?—is it the corpse-lights?—No, they did not pass by me, but I think they have passed by you, and blighted you with their influence, for you are as pale as a spectre.—Come, come, Minna,” he added, opening a side­ door of the dwelling, “these moonlight walks are fitter for old poets than for young maidens—and so lightly clad as you are, maiden, you should take care how you give yourself to the breezes of a Zetland night, for they bring more sleet than odours on their wings—Go to your bed, maiden, go—for, as glorious John says—or, as he does not say—for I cannot remember how his verse chimes—but, as I say myself, in a pretty poem, written when my muse was in her teens, Menseful maiden ne’er should rise, Till the first beam tinge the skies; Silk-fringed eyelids still should close, Till the sun has kiss’d the rose;

226

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 11

Maiden’s foot we should not view, Mark’d with tiny print on dew, Till the opening flowerets spread Carpet meet for beauty’s tread—

Stay, what comes next?—let me see.” When the spirit ofrecitation seized on Claud Halcro, he forgot time and place, and might have kept his companion in the cold air for half an hour, giving poetical reasons why she ought to have been in bed. But she interrupted him by the question, earnestly pronounced, yet in a voice which was scarce articulate, holding Halcro, at the same time with a trembling and convulsive grasp, as if to support herself from falling,—“Saw you no one in the boat which put to sea but now?” “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 herselfcautiously 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 Mer­ toun’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 ques­ tions to which the small still voice ofinterior conviction answered, that her lover Cleveland, from character, temper, and habit, was most likely to have been the survivor of the fray. She received from the reflection an involuntary consolation, which she almost detested her­ self for admitting, when she recollected that it was at once darkened with her lover’s guilt, and embittered with the destruction ofBrenda’s happiness for ever. “Innocent, unhappy sister!” such were her reflections; “thou that art ten times better than me, because so unpretending—so unassum­

[Chap. 23]

THE PIRATE

227

ing 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 protec­ tion 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 com­ manding 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 day-break,—a squall, heavy with wind and rain, such as are 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 fisher-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 if they feared 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 sun-beams, dispersing the clouds which drifted to leeward, shone full through the lattice, when Minna first started from the profound sleep into which fatigue

228

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 11

and mental exhaustion had lulled her, and raising herself on her arm, began to recal 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 some­ thing of these strange noises, as he was stirring at the time.” With that she sprang from bed, but hardly stood upright on the floor, ere her sister exclaimed, “Gracious Heaven! Minna, what ails your foot—your ancle?” 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 there. 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 ofher terror, Brenda was hanging about her, and, with many an eager inquiry, 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 for prevent­ ing 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 harshly refused, and stood gazing at Minna with looks in which there was more ofsurprise and mortified affection than ofresentment, 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,

[Chap. 23]

THE PIRATE

229

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 planta-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 ancle. 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, 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 the breakfast, where she assumed her place amongst the guests; but with a countenance so pale and hagard, 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, concern­ ing a distemperature which seemed rather mental than corporeal. Some hinted the maiden had been struck with an evil eye, and some­ thing they muttered about Noma 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 land-louper, 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 con­ nection with the Burgh Westra family was by the side of the lass’s mother, who was a canny Scotswoman, like herself. “For, as to these Troils, you see, Dame Yellowley, for as high as

230

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,Ch. 12

they hold their head, they say that ken, (winking sagaciously,) that there is a bee in the bannet;—that Noma, as they call her, for it’s no her right name neither, is at whiles far beside her right mind,—and they that ken the cause, say the Fowde 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 well as other folk. At ony rate there is a kind of a wildness in the blood. Ye ken very weel daft folk downa bide to be contradicted, dame; and I’ll say that for the Fowde—he likes to be contradicted as ill as ony man in Zet­ land. But it shall never be said that I said ony ill of his house that I am sae nearly connected wi’. Only ye will mind, dame, it is through the Sinclairs that we are a-kin, 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, so 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 Clink­ scales is as gude as ony Glowrowrum amang them.” The guests, meanwhile, were fast taking their departure, scarcely noticed by Magnus, who was so much engrossed with Minna’s indis­ position, 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 Twelve But this sad evil which doth her infest, Doth course ofnatural cause far exceed, And housed is within her hollow brest, 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 MordauntMer­ toun, as he had promised at his departure, should have returned to his father’s abode at Jarlshof, but there were no tidings ofhis return. Such delay might, at another time, have excited little curiosity and no anxi­ ety; 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

[Chap. 24]

THE PIRATE

231

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 stem uniformity of composure, his countenance, like the surface of a midnight lake, suffered 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 quar­ ters, 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 ofthe very nature of this reserved and unsocial being, at least since his retreat into the utter solitude ofJarlshof, to endure no one to start a subject of conver­ sation, or to put any question to him, that did not arise out of urgent and pressing emergency. Swertha was sensible, therefore, that, in order favourably to open the discourse which she proposed to hold with her master, she must contrive that it should originate with him­ self. To accomplish her 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 little preparations as if he was to have a guest or companion at dinner. The stratagem 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

232

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 12

young Master Mordaunt, poor 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, some­ body should take thought about Master 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-love, is a bundle of ideotical 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 master, Master Mordaunt, even although he was, as she might well say, the very sea-calf of her heart; but ony other father, but his honor himsel, wad have had speirings made after the poor lad, and him gane this eight days from Burgh Westra, and naebody kend when or where he had gane. There was nae a bairn in the hoff 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 struck mute 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 stem features could express. But Swertha, who, as she afterwards acquainted the Ranzel­ man, was wonderfully supported during the whole scene, would not be controuled by the loud voice and ferocious look of her master, but

[Chap. 24]

THE PIRATE

233

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 brawest lad in the country lost, and cast away, as it were, before his een, and nae ane asking what was comed 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 fool,—but if Master Mordaunt should have settled down in the Roost, as mair than ae boat had been lost in that wearyfu’ 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 fool 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. “Oho!” quoth Swertha to herself, as she hastened on the commis­ sion, “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 shewed that they had not been touched for many years. With some difficulty Swertha extracted the cork ofone ofthem, by the help of a fork—for cork-screw 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.

234

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 12

“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 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 three­ score, 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 hear­ ing, 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 inter­ est 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 expence 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 percentage 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. “Abune 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 douna 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 speaks 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

[Chap. 24]

THE PIRATE

235

hire of the boats and of the men, (for the search was to be by sea and land), he found himselfat once cut short by Mertoun, who shewed 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 recompence to be afforded for their exertions in the search; for it was not more unlikely that Mertoun should be as well informed of what was just and proper upon this head as 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 Erick­ son 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 hesitation, by promising him a recompence beyond what he dared have ventured to ask, with an additional gratu­ ity, 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 at which inquiry should be made after the young man; and having undertaken faithfully that the inquiry 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 speir her a question, and ifshe liked to answer it, could tell more about Master 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 house-keeper, 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 ofthe 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 ofmy 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, forbye that the Fowde himsel would let her want naething.” “But what is that to my son?” said Mertoun, impatiently. “I dinna ken—she took unco pleasure in Master Mordaunt from the time she first saw him, and mony a braw thing she gave him at ae time or another, forbye the gowd chain that hangs about his bonny craig—folks say it is of fairy gold—I ken na what gold it is, but Bryce

236

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 12

Snaelsfoot says that the value will mount to an hundred punds Eng­ lish, 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 Ronald­ son, “muckle sooner than other folk, and that is Heaven’s truth.—But as to going to the kirk, or the kirk-yard, to spier 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, “wald walk by my rede, I wald 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 peculiar turns.” Mertoun made no answer, but throwing his cloak loosely around him, (for the day was misty with passing showers,) and leaving the ruinous mansion ofJarlshof, 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 ofhis dwelling. The Ranzehnan 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* folks run fast,” added the Ranzehnan; “and the thing that we are bom to, we cannot win bye.—I have known them that tried to stop folks that were fey.— You have heard of Helen Embersen of Camsory, how she stopped all the boles and windows about the house, that her gude-man might not see day-light, 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 good-man’s safety— but ne’er may care, for there she found him drowned in the masking* Fey is an epithet applied to those who are fated, which seems to be the derivation of it, or predestined to death, and who are supposed by the Scottish common people to rush upon their doom, as if carried forward by some irresistible impulse.

[Chap. 25]

THE PIRATE

237

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 ofboat-hire will ye see.” “Weel, weel, good dame,” said the Ranzelman, “we will launch as fast as we can. And by good luck, neither Clawsen’s boat, nor Peter Grot’s, are out to the haaf this morning, for a rabbit ran across them 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 Noma kens muckle mair than other folks, but wise woman ye cannot call her.—Our tacksman here, Master 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 may be you, Swertha—but what may, in some sense or other, be called a fule.” “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?”

Chapter Thirteen I do love these ancient ruins— We never tread upon them but we set Our foot upon some reverend history, And questionless, here, in this open court, (Which now lies naked to the injuries Of stormy weather) some men lie interr’d, Loved the Church so well, and gave so largely to it, They thought it should have canopied their bones Till dooms-day ;—but all things have their end— Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men, Must have like death which we have. Duchess ofMalfy

The ruinous church of Saint Ninian’s had, in its time, enjoyed great celebrity; for that mighty system ofsuperstition, which spread its roots over all Europe, had not failed to extend them even to this remote archipelago, and Zetland had, in the Catholic times, her saints, her shrines, and her reliques, which, though little known

238

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 13

elsewhere, attracted the homage and commanded the observance of the simple inhabitants of Thule. Their devotion to this church of Saint Ninian, or, as he was provincially termed, Saint Ringan, situ­ ated, as the edifice was, close to the sea-beach, and serving, in many points, as a landmark to their boats, was particularly obstinate, and was connected with so much superstitious ceremonial and credulity, that the reformed clergy thought it best, by an order of their Church Courts, to prohibit all spiritual service within its walls, as tending to foster the rooted faith of the simple and rude people around in saint­ worship, and other erroneous doctrines of the Romish Church. After the church of Saint Ninian’s had been thus denounced as a seat of idolatry, and desecrated of course, the public worship was transferred to another church; and the roof, with its lead and its rafters, having been stripped from the little rude old Gothic building, it was left in the wilderness to the mercy of the elements. The fury of the uncontrouled winds, which howled along an exposed space of shifting sands, (for the soil resembled that which we have described at Jarlshof,) very soon choked up nave and aisle; and on the north-west side, which was chiefly exposed to the wind, hid the outside walls more than half way upwards with mounds of drifted sand, over which the gable-ends of the building, with the little belfrey, which was built above its nave, arose in ragged and shattered nakedness of ruin. Yet, deserted as it was, the Kirk of Saint Ringan’s still retained some semblance of the ancient homage formerly rendered there. The rude and ignorant fishermen of Dunrossness observed a practice, of which they themselves had well nigh forgot the origin, and from which the Protestant Clergy in vain endeavoured to deter them.—When their boats were in extreme peril, it was common amongst them to propose to vow an awmous, as they termed it, that is, an alms, to Saint Ringan; and when the danger was over, they never failed to absolve themselves of their vow, by coming singly and secretly to the old church, and putting offtheir shoes and stockings at the entrance ofthe church-yard, walking thrice around the ruins, observing that they did so in the course of the sun. When the circuit was completed for the third time, the votary dropped his offering, usually a small silver coin, through the mullions of a lanceolated window, which opened into a side aisle, and then retired, avoiding carefully to look behind him till he was beyond the precincts which had once been hallowed ground; for it was believed that the skeleton of the saint received the offering in hiş bony hand, and shewed his ghastly death’s-head at the window into which it was thrown. Indeed, the scene was rendered more appalling to weak and ignor­ ant minds, because the same stormy and eddying winds which, on the

[Chap. 25]

THE PIRATE

239

one side of the church, threatened to bury the ruins with sand, and had, in fact, heaped it up in huge quantities, so as almost to hide the side-wall with its buttresses, seemed bent on uncovering the graves of those who had been laid to their long rest on the south-eastern quar­ ter; and, after an unusually hard gale, the coffins, and sometimes the very corpses, of those who had been interred without the usual cear­ ments, were discovered, in a ghastly manner, to the eyes ofthe living. It was to this desolated place of worship that the elder Mertoun now proceeded, though without any of those religious or superstitious purposes with which the church of Saint Ringan’s was usually approached. He was totally without the superstitious fears of the country,—nay, from the sequestered and sullen manner in which he lived, withdrawing himself from human society even when assembled for worship, it was currently believed that he erred on the more fatal side, and believed rather too little than too much of that which the Church receives. As he entered the little bay, on the shore, and almost on the beach of which the ruins are situated, he could not help pausing for an instant, and becoming sensible that the scene, as calculated to operate on human feelings, had been selected with much judgment as the site ofa religious house.—In front lay the sea, into which two head-lands, which formed the extremities of the bay, projected their gigantic causeways of dark and sable rocks, on the ledges of which the gulls, scouries, and other sea-fowl, appeared like flakes of snow; while, upon the lower ranges of the cliff, stood whole lines of cormorants, drawn up alongside of each other, like soldiers in their battle array, and other living thing was there none to see. The sea, although not in a tempestuous state, was disturbed enough to rush on these capes with a sound like distant thunder, and the billows, which rose in sheets of foam half way up these sable rocks, formed a contrast of colouring equally striking and awful. Betwixt the extremities, or capes, of these projecting head-lands, there rolled, on the day when Mertoun visited the scene, a deep and dense aggregation of clouds, through which no human eye could penetrate, and which, bounding the vision, and excluding all view of the distant ocean, rendered it no unapt representation of the sea in the Vision of Mirza, whose extent was concealed by vapours and clouds and storms. The ground rising steeply from the sea-beach, permitted no view into the interior of the country, and seemed a scene of irre­ trievable barrenness, where scrubby and stunted heath, intermixed with the long bent, or coarse grass, which first covers sandy soils, were the only vegetables that could be seen. Upon a natural elevation, which rose above the beach in the very bottom of the bay, and receded

240

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 13

a little from the sea, so as to be without reach of the waves, arose the half-buried ruin which we have already described, surrounded by a wasted, half-ruinous, and mouldering wall, which, breached in sev­ eral places, served still to divide the precincts of the cemetery. The mariners who were driven by accident into this solitary bay, pretended that the church was occasionally observed to be full of lights, and, from that circumstance, were used to prophecy shipwrecks and deaths by sea. As Mertoun approached near to the chapel, he adopted, insensibly, and perhaps without much premeditation, measures to avoid being himself seen, until he came close under the wall of the burial-ground, which he approached, as it chanced, on that side where the sand was blown from the graves, in the manner we have described. Here, looking through one of the gaps in the wall, which time had made, he beheld the person whom he sought, occupied in a manner which assorted well with the ideas popularly entertained of her char­ acter, but which was otherwise sufficiently extraordinary. She was employed beside a rude monument, on one side of which was represented the rough outline of a cavalier, or knight, on horse­ back, while on the other appeared a shield, with the armorial bearings so defaced as not to be intelligible; which scutcheon was suspended by one angle, contrary to the modem custom, which usually places them straight and upright. At the foot of this pillar was believed to repose, as Mertoun had formerly heard, the bones of Ribolt Troil, one of the remote ancestors of Magnus, and a man renowned for deeds of valorous emprize in the fifteenth century. From the grave of this warrior Noma of the Fitful-head seemed busied in shovelling the sand, an easy task where it was so light and loose; so that it seemed plain that she would shortly complete what the rude winds had begun, and make bare the bones which lay there interred. As she laboured she muttered her magic song; for without the Runic rhyme no form of northern superstition was ever performed. We have perhaps pre­ served too many examples of these incantations; but we cannot help attempting to translate that which follows:— “Champion, famed for warlike toil, Art thou silent, Ribolt Troil? Sand, and dust, and pebbly stones, Are leaving bare thy giant bones. Who dared touch the wild bear’s skin Ye slumber’d on, while life was in?— A woman now, or babe, may come And cast the covering from thy tomb. “Yet be not wrathful, Chief, nor blight Mine eyes or ears with sound or sight!

[Chap. 25]

THE PIRATE

241

I come not, with unhallow’d tread, To wake the slumbers of the dead, Or lay thy giant reliques bare; But what I seek thou well can’st spare. Be it to my hand allow’d To shear a merk’s weight from thy shroud; Yet leave thee sheeted lead enough To shield thy bones from weather rough.

“See, I draw my magic knife— Never while thou wert in life Laid’st thou still for sloth or fear, When point and edge were glittering near; See, the cearments now I sever— Waken now, or sleep for ever! Thou wilt not wake—the deed is done,— The prize I sought is fairly won. “Thanks, Ribolt, thanks,—for this the sea Shall smooth its ruffled crest for thee,— And while afar its billows foam, Subside to peace near Ribolt’s tomb. Thanks, Ribolt, thanks—for this the might Of wild winds raging at their height, When to thy place of slumber nigh, Shall soften to a lullaby. “She, the dame of doubt and dread, Norna of the Fitful-head, Mighty in her own despite— Miserable in her might; In despair and frenzy great,— In her greatness desolate; Wisest, wickedest who lives, Well can keep the word she gives.”

While Norna chaunted the first part of this rhyme, she completed the task of laying bare a part of the leaden coffin of the ancient warrior, and severed from it, with much caution and apparent awe, a portion of the metal. She then reverentially threw back the sand upon the coffin; and by the time she had finished her song, no trace remained that the secrets ofthe sepulchre had been violated. Mertoun remained gazing on her from behind the church-yard wall during the whole ceremony, not from any impression ofveneration for her or her employment, but because he conceived that to interrupt a madwoman in her act of madness, was not the best way to obtain from her such intelligence as she might have to impart. Meanwhile he had full time to consider her figure, although her face was obscured by her dishevelled hair, and by the hood of her dark mantle, which permitted no more to be visible than a Druidess would probably have exhibited at the celebration of her mystical rites. Mertoun had often heard of

242

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 13

Norna before; nay, it is most probable that he might have seen her repeatedly, for she was in the vicinity ofJarlshof more than once since his residence there. But the absurd stories which were in circulation respecting her, prevented his paying any attention to a person whom he regarded as either an impostor, or a madwoman, or a compound of both. Yet, now that his attention was, by circumstances, involuntarily fixed upon her person and deportment, he could not help acknow­ ledging to himself that she was either a complete enthusiast, or rehearsed her part so admirably, that no Pythoness of ancient times could have excelled her. The dignity and solemnity of her gestures,— the sonorous, yet impressive tone of the voice with which she attested the departed spirit whose mortal reliques she ventured to disturb, were such as failed not to make an impression upon him, careless and indifferent as he generally appeared to all that went on around him. But no sooner was her singular occupation terminated, than, entering the church-yard with some difficulty, by clambering over the dis­ jointed ruins of the wall, he made Noma aware of his presence. Far from starting, or expressing the least surprise at his appearance in a place so solitary, she said, in a tone that seemed to intimate that he had been expected, “So,—you have sought me at last?” “And found you,” replied Mertoun, judging he would best intro­ duce the inquiries he had to make, by assuming a tone which corres­ ponded to her own. “Yes!” she replied, “found me you have, and in the place where all men must meet—amid the tabernacles of the dead.” “Here we must, indeed, meet at last,” replied Mertoun, glancing his eyes on the desolate scene around, where head-stones, half cov­ ered in sand, and others, from which the same wind had stripped the soil on which they rested, covered with the inscriptions, and sculp­ tured with the emblems of mortality, were the most conspicuous objects;—“here, as in the house of death, all men must meet at length; and happy those that come soonest to the quiet haven.” “He that dares desire this haven,” said Noma, “must have steered a steady course in the voyage of life. I dare not hope for such quiet harbour. Darest thou expect it? or has the course thou hast kept deserved it?” “It matters not to my present purpose,” replied Mertoun; “I have to ask you what tidings you know of my son Mordaunt Mertoun?” “A father,” replied the Sybil, “asks of a stranger what tidings she has of his son! How should I know aught of him? the cormorant says not to the mallard, where is my brood?” “Lay aside this useless affectation ofmystery,” said Mertoun; “with the vulgar it has its effect, but upon me it is thrown away. The people

[Chap. 25]

THE PIRATE

243

ofJarlshof have told me that you do know, or may know, something of Mordaunt Mertoun, who has not returned home after the festival of Saint John’s, held in the house of your relative, Magnus Troil. Give me such information, if indeed you have it to give; and it shall be recompensed, if the means ofrecompence are in my power.” “The wide round of earth,” replied Noma, “holds nothing that I would call a recompence for the slightest word that I throw away upon a living ear. But for thy son, if thou would’st see him in life, repair to the approaching Fair of Kirkwall, in Orkney.” “And wherefore thither?” said Mertoun; “I know he had no pur­ pose in that direction.” “We drive on the stream of fate,” answered Norna, “without oar or rudder. You had no purpose this morning of visiting the Kirk of Saint Ringan, yet you are here;—you had no purpose but a minute hence of being at Kirkwall, and yet you will go thither.” “Not unless the cause is more distinctly explained to me. I am no believer, dame, in those who assert your supernatural powers.” “You shall believe in them ere we part,” said Noma. “As yet you know but little of me, nor shall you know more. But I know enough of you, and could convince you with one word that I do so.” “Convince me then,” said Mertoun; “for unless I am so convinced, there is little chance of my following your counsel.” “Mark, then,” said Norna, “what I have to say on your son’s score, else what I shall say to you on your own will banish every other thought from your memory. You shall go to the approaching Fair at Kirkwall; and, on the fifth day of the Fair, you shall walk, at the hour of noon, in the outer aisle of the Cathedral of Saint Magnus, and there you shall meet a person who will give you tidings of your son.” “You must speak more distinctly, dame,” returned Mertoun, scornfully, “if you hope that I should follow your counsel. I have been fooled in my time by women, but never so grossly as you seem willing to gull me.” “Hearken, then!” said the old woman. “The word which I speak shall touch the nearest secret of thy life, and thrill thee through nerve and bone.” So saying, she whispered a word into Mertoun’s ear, the effect of which seemed almost magical. He remained fixed and motionless with surprise, as, waving her arm slowly aloft, with an air ofsuperiority and triumph, Norna glided from him, turned around a comer of the ruins, and was soon out of sight. Mertoun offered not to follow, or to trace her. “We fly from our fate in vain!” he said, as he began to recover himself; and turning, he left behind him the desolate ruins with their cemetery. As he looked back

244

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 13

from the very last point at which the church was visible, he saw the figure of Noma, muffled in her mantle, standing on the very summit of the ruined tower, and stretching out in the sea-breeze something which resembled a white pennon, or flag. A feeling of horror, similar to that excited by her last words, again thrilled through his bosom, and he hastened onwards with unwonted speed, until he had left the church of Saint Ninian’s, with its bay of sand, far behind him. Upon his arrival at Jarlshof, the alteration in his countenance was so great, that Swertha conjectured he was about to fall into one of those fits of deep melancholy which she termed his dark hour. “And what better could be expected,” thought Swertha, “when he must needs go visit Norna of the Fitful-head, when she was in the haunted Kirk of Saint Ninian’s?” But without testifying any farther symptoms of an alienated mind, than that of deep and sullen dejection, her master acquainted her with his intention to go to the Fair of Kirkwall,—a thing so contrary to his usual habits, that the housekeeper well nigh refused to credit her ears. Shortly after he heard, with apparent indifference, the accounts returned by the different persons who had been sent out in quest of Mordaunt, by sea and land, who all of them returned without any tidings. The equanimity with which Mertoun heard the report oftheir bad success, convinced Swertha still more firmly, that in his interview with Norna, that issue had been predicted to him by the Sybil whom he had consulted. The township were yet more surprised, when their tacksman, Mr Mertoun, as if on some sudden resolution, made preparations to visit Kirkwall during the Fair, although he had hitherto avoided sedulously all such places of public resort. Swertha puzzled herself a good deal without being able to penetrate this mystery; and vexed herself still more concerning the fate of her young master. But her concern was much softened by the deposit of a sum of money, seeming, however moderate in itself, a treasure in her eyes, which her master put into her hands, acquainting her, at the same time, that he had taken his passage for Kirkwall, in a small bark belonging to the proprietor of the island ofMousa.

[Chap. 26]

THE PIRATE

245

Chapter Fourteen Nae langer she wept,—her tears were a’ spent,— Despair it was come, and she thought it content; She thought it content, but her cheek it grew pale, And she droop’d, like a lily broke down by the hail. Continuation ofAuld Robin Gray

The condition of Minna much resembled that of the village heroine in Lady Anne Lindsay’s beautiful ballad. Her natural firm­ ness of mind prevented her from sinking under the pressure of the horrible secret, which haunted her while awake, and was yet more tormenting during her broken and harried slumbers. There is no grief so dreadful as that which we dare not communicate, and in which we can neither ask nor desire sympathy; and when to this is added the burthen ofa guilty mystery to an innocent bosom, there is little wonder that Minna’s health should have sank under the burthen. To the friends around, her habits and manners, nay, her temper, seemed altered to such an extraordinary degree, that it is no wonder that some should have ascribed the change to witchcraft, and some to incipient madness. She became unable to bear the solitude in which she formerly delighted to spend her time; yet when she hurried into society, it was without either joining in, or attending to what passed. Generally she appeared wrapped in sad, and even sullen abstraction, until her attention was suddenly roused by some casual mention ofthe name of Cleveland, or of Mordaunt Mertoun, at which she started, with the horror of one who sees the lighted match applied to a charged mine, and expects to be instantly involved in the horrors of the explo­ sion. And when she observed that the discovery was not yet made, it was so far from being a consolation, that she almost wished the worst was known, rather than endure the continued agonies ofsuspense. Her conduct towards her sister was so variable, yet uniformly so painful to the kind-hearted Brenda, that it seemed to all around, one of the strongest features of her malady. Sometimes Minna was impelled to seek her sister’s company, as if by the consciousness that they were common sufferers by a misfortune of which she herself alone could grasp the extent; and then suddenly the feeling of the injury which Brenda had received through the supposed agency of Cleveland, made her unable to bear her presence, and still less to endure the consolation which her sister, mistaking the nature of her malady, vainly endeavoured to administer. Frequently, also, did it happen, that, while Brenda was imploring her sister to take comfort, she incautiously touched upon some subject which thrilled to the very

246

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 14

centre of her soul; so that, unable to conceal her agony, Minna rushed hastily from the apartment. All these different moods, though they too much resembled, to one who knew not their real source, the caprices of unkind estrangement, Brenda endured with such prevailing and unruffled gentleness of disposition, that Minna was frequently moved to shed floods of tears upon her neck; and, perhaps, the moments in which she did so, though embittered by the recollection that her fatal secret concerned the destruction of Brenda’s happiness as well as her own, were still, softened as they were by sisterly affection, the most endurable moments of this most miserable period ofher life. The effects of the alternations of moping melancholy, fearful agita­ tion, and bursts of nervous feeling, were soon visible on the poor young woman’s face and person. She became pale and emaciated; her eye lost the steady quiet look of happiness and innocence, and was alternately dim and wild, as she was acted upon by a general feeling of her own distressful condition, or by some quicker and more poignant sense of agony. Her very features seemed to change, and become sharp and eager, and her voice, which, in its ordinary tones, was low and placid, now sometimes sank in indistinct mutterings, and some­ times was raised beyond the natural key, in hasty and abrupt exclama­ tions. When in company with others, she was sullenly silent, and when she ventured into solitude, was observed (for it was now thought very proper to watch her on such occasions,) to speak much to herself. The pharmacy of the islands was in vain resorted to by Minna’s anxious father. Sages of both sexes, who knew the virtues of every herb which drinks the dew, and augmented these virtues by words of might, used while they prepared and applied the medicines, were attended with no benefit; and Magnus, in the utmost anxiety, was at last induced to have recourse to the advice of his kinswoman, Norna of the Fitful-head, although, owing to circumstances, noticed in the course of the story, there was at this time some estrangement between them. His first application was in vain.—Noma was then at her usual place of residence, upon the sea-coast, near the head-land from which she usually took her designation; but, although Eric Scambester himselfbrought the message, she refused positively to see him, or to return any answer. Magnus was angry at the slight put upon his messenger and mes­ sage, but his anxiety on Minna’s account, as well as the respect which he had for Noma’s real misfortunes and imputed wisdom and power, prevented him from indulging, on the present occasion, his usual irritability of disposition. On the contrary, he determined to make an application to his kinswoman in his own person. He kept his purpose, however, to himself, and only desired his daughters to be in readiness

[Chap. 26]

THE PIRATE

247

to attend him upon a visit to a relation whom he had not seen for some time, and directed them, at the same time, to carry some provisions along with them, as the journey was distant, and they might perhaps find their friend unprovided. Unaccustomed to ask explanations of his pleasure, and hoping that exercise and the amusement of such an excursion might be of service to her sister, Brenda, upon whom all household and family charges now devolved, caused the necessary preparations to be made for the expedition; and, on the next morning, they were engaged in tracing the long and tedious course of beach and of moorland, which, only varied by occasional patches of oats and barley, where a little ground had been selected for cultivation, divided Burgh Westra from the north-western extremity of the Mainland, (as the principal island is called,) which terminates in the cape called Fitful-head, as the south­ western point ends in the cape of Sumburgh. On they went, through wild and over wold, the Udaller bestriding a strong, square-made, well-barrelled palfrey, of Norwegian breed, somewhat taller, and yet as stout, as the ordinary ponies of the coun­ try; while Minna and Brenda, famed, amongst other accom­ plishments, for their horsemanship, rode two of those hardy animals, which, bred and reared with more pains than is usually bestowed, shewed, both by the neatness of their form and their activity, that the race, so much and so carelessly neglected, is capable of being improved into beauty without losing any thing of its spirit or vigour. They were attended by two servants on horseback, and two on foot, secure that the last circumstance would be no delay to their journey, because a great part of the way was so rugged, or so marshy, that the horses could only move at a foot’s pace; and that, wherever they met with any considerable track of hard and even ground, they had only to borrow from the nearest herd of ponies the use of a couple for the accommodation oftheir pedestrians. The journey was a melancholy one, and little conversation passed, except when the Udaller, pressed by impatience and vexation, urged his poney to a quick pace, and again, recollecting Minna’s weak state of health, slackened to a walk, and reiterated inquiries how she felt herself, and whether the fatigue was not too much for her. At noon the party halted and partook of some refreshment, for which they had made ample provision, beside a pleasant spring, the pureness of whose waters, however, did not suit the Udaller’s palate, until quali­ fied by a liberal addition of right Nantz. After he had a second, yea and a third time, filled and emptied a large silver travelling cup, embossed with a German Cupid smoking a pipe, and a German Bacchus empty­ ing his flask down the throat of a bear, he began to become more

248

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 14

talkative than vexation had permitted him to be during the early part of their journey, and thus addressed his daughters. “Well, children, we are within a league or two of Norna’s dwelling, and we will soon see how the old spell-mutterer will receive us.” Minna interrupted her father with a faint exclamation, while Brenda, surprised to a great degree, exclaimed, “Is it then to Norna that we are to make this visit?—Heaven forbid!” “And wherefore should Heaven forbid?” said the Udaller, knitting his brows; “wherefore, I would gladly know, should Heaven forbid me to visit my kinswoman, whose skill may be of use to your sister, if any woman in Zetland, or man either, can be of service to her?—You are a fool, Brenda,—your sister has more sense.—Cheer up, Minna!— thou wert ever wont to like her songs and stories, and used to hang about her neck, when little Brenda cried and ran from her like a Spanish merchant-man from a Dutch caper.”* “I wish she may not frighten me as much to-day, father,” replied Brenda, desirous of indulging Minna in her taciturnity, and at the same time to amuse her father by sustaining the conversation; “I have heard so much ofher dwelling, that I am rather alarmed at the thought of going there uninvited.” “Thou art a fool,” said Magnus, “to think that a visit from her kinsfolks can ever come amiss to a kind, hearty, Hialtland heart, like my cousin Norna’s.—And, now I think on’t, I will be sworn that is the reason why she would not receive Eric Scambester!—It is many a long day since I have seen her chimney smoke, and I have never carried you thither—she hath indeed some right to call me unkind. But I will tell her the truth—and that is, that, though such be the fashion, I do not think it is fair or honest to eat up the substance of lone women-folks, as we do that of our brother Udallers, when we roll about from house to house in the winter season, until we gather like a snow-ball, and eat up all wherever we come.” “There is no fear of our putting Norna to any distress just now,” replied Brenda, “for I have ample provision of every thing that we can possibly need—fish, and bacon, and salted mutton, and dried geese— more than we could eat in a week, besides enough of liquor for you, father.” “Right, right, my girl!” said the Udaller; “a well-found ship makes a merry voyage—so we will only want the kindness of Norna’s roof, and a little bedding for you; for, as to myself, my sea-cloak, and honest dry boards of Norway deal, suit me better than your eider-down cushions and mattresses. So that Norna will have the pleasure of * A light-armed vessel of the seventeenth century, adapted for privateering, and much used by the Dutch.

[Chap.26]

THE PIRATE

249

seeing us without having a stiver’s worth of trouble.” “I wish she may think it a pleasure, sir,” replied Brenda. “Why, what does the girl mean, in the name of the Martyr?” replied Magnus Troil; “doest thou think my kinswoman is a heathen, who will not rejoice to see her own flesh and blood?—I would I were as sure of a good year’s fishing!—No, no! I only fear we may find her from home at present, for she is often a wanderer, and all with think­ ing over much on what can never be helped.” Minna sighed deeply as her father spoke, and the Udaller went on— “Doest thou sigh at that, my girl?—why, ’tis the fault of half the world—let it never be thine own, Minna.” Another suppressed sigh intimated that the caution came too late. “I believe you are afraid of my cousin as well as Brenda is,” said the Udaller, gazing on her pale countenance; “if so, speak the word, and we will return back again as if we had the wind on our quarter, and were running fifteen knots by the line.” “Do, for Heaven’s sake, sister, let us return!” said Brenda, implor­ ingly; “you know—you remember—you must be well aware that Norna can do nought to help you.” “It is but too true,” said Minna, in a subdued voice; “but I know not —she may answer a question—a question that only the miserable dare ask at the miserable.” “Nay, my kinswoman is no miser,” answered the Udaller, who only heard the beginning of the word; “a good income she has, both in Orkney and here, and many a fair lispund of butter is paid to her. But the poor have the best share of it, and shame fall the Zetlander who begrudges them; the rest she spends, I wot not how, in her journeys through the islands. But you will laugh to see her house, and Nick Strumpfer, whom she calls Pacolet—many folks think Nick is the devil; but he is flesh and blood, like any of us—his father lived in Græmsay.—I shall be glad to see Nick again.” While the Udaller thus ran on, Brenda, who, in recompence for a less portion of imagination than her sister, was gifted with sound com­ mon sense, was debating with herself the probable effect of this visit on her sister’s health. She came finally to the resolution of speaking with her father aside, upon the first occasion which their journey should afford. To him she determined to communicate the whole par­ ticulars of their nocturnal interview with Norna, to which, amongst other agitating causes, she attributed the depression of Minna’s spirits, and then make himselfthe judge whether he ought to persist in his visit to a person so singular, and expose his daughter to all the shock which her nerves might possibly receive from the interview.

250

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 14

Just as she had arrived at this conclusion, her father, dashing the crumbs from his laced waistcoat with one hand, and receiving with the other a fourth cup of brandy and water, drank it devoutly to the suc­ cess of their voyage, and ordered all to be in readiness to set forward. Whilst they were saddling the ponies, Brenda, with some difficulty, contrived to make her father understand she wished to speak with him in private—no small surprise to the honest Udaller, who, though secret as the grave in the very few things where he considered secrecy as of importance, was so far from practising mystery in general, that his most important affairs were often discussed by him openly in pres­ ence of his whole family, the servants included. But far greater was his astonishment, when, remaining purposely with his daughter Brenda, a little in the wake, as he termed it, of the other riders, he heard the whole account of Norna’s visit to Burgh Westra, and of the communication with which she had then astoun­ ded his daughters. For a long time he could utter nothing but interjec­ tions, and ended with a thousand curses on his kinswoman’s folly in telling his daughters such a history of horror. “I have often heard,” said the Udaller, “that she was quite mad, with all her wisdom, and all her knowledge of the seasons; and, by the bones of my namesake, the Martyr, I begin now to believe it most assuredly. I know no more how to steer than if I had lost my compass. Had I known this before we set out, I think I had remained at home— But now that we have come so far, and that Noma expects us–––” “Expects us, father!” said Brenda; “how can that be possible?” “Why, that I know not—but she that can tell how the wind is to blow, can tell which way we are designing to ride. She must not be provoked;—perhaps she has done my family this ill for the words I had with her about that lad Mordaunt Mertoun, and if so, she can undo it again;—and so she shall, or I will know the cause wherefore. —But I will try fair words first.” Finding it thus settled that they were to go forward, Brenda endeav­ oured next to learn from her father whether Norna’s tale was founded in reality. He shook his head, groaned bitterly, and, in a few words, acknowledged the whole, so far as concerned her intrigue with a stranger; and her father’s death, of which she became the accidental and most innocent cause, was a matter of sad and indisputable truth. “For her infant,” he said, “he could never learn what became of it.” “Her infant!” exclaimed Brenda; “she spoke not a word of her infant!” “Then I wish my tongue had been blistered,” said the Udaller, “when I told you of it.—I see that, young and old, a man has no better chance of keeping a secret from you women, than an eel to keep

[Chap.26]

THE PIRATE

251

himself in his hold when he is sniggled with a loop of horse-hair— sooner or later the fisher teazes him out of his hole, when he has once the noose round his neck.” “But the infant, my father?” said Brenda, still insisting on the particulars of this extraordinary story, “what became of it?” “Carried off, I fancy, by the blackguard Vaughan,” answered the Udaller, with a gruff accent, which plainly betokened how weary he was ofthe subject. “By Vaughan?” said Brenda, “the lover of poor Norna, doubtless! —what sort ofman was he, father?” “Why, much like other men, I fancy,” answered the Udaller; “I never saw him in my life.—He kept company with the Scottish fam­ ilies at Kirkwall; and I with the good old Norse folks—Ah! if Norna had dwelled always amongst her own kin, and not kept company with her Scottish acquaintance, she would have known nothing of Vaughan, and things might have been otherwise—But then I should not have known any thing ofyour blessed mother, Brenda—and that,” he said, his large blue eyes shining with a tear, “would have saved me a short joy and a long sorrow.” “Noma could but ill have supplied my mother’s place to you, father, as a companion and a friend—that is, judging from all that I have heard,” said Brenda, with some hesitation. But Magnus, softened by recollections of his beloved wife, answered her with more indulgence than she expected. “I would have been content,” he said, “to have wedded Norna at that time. It would have been the soldering of an old quarrel—the healing of an old sore. All our blood relations wished it, and, situated as I was, especially not having seen your blessed mother, I had little will to oppose their counsels. You must not judge ofNorna or ofme by such an appearance as we now present to you—She was young and beautiful, and I gamesome as a Highland buck, and little caring what haven I made for, having, as I thought, more than one under my lee. But Norna preferred this man Vaughan, and, as I told you before, it was, perhaps, the best kindness she could have done to me.” “Ah, poor kinswoman!” said Brenda. “But believe you, father, in the high powers which she claims—in the mysterious vision of the dwarf—in the–––” She was interrupted in these questions by Magnus, to whom they were obviously displeasing. “I believe, Brenda,” he said, “according to the belief of my fore­ fathers—I pretend not to be a wiser man than they were in their time, —and they all believed that, in cases of great worldly distress, Provid­ ence opened the eyes of the mind, and afforded the sufferers a vision

252

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 14

of futurity. It was but a trimming of the boat, with reverence,”—here he touched his hat reverentially; “and, after all the shifting of ballast, poor Norna is as heavily loaded in the bows as ever was an Orkneyman’s yaul at the dog-fishing—she has more than affliction enough on board to balance whatever gifts she may have had in the midst of her calamity. They are as painful to her, poor soul, as a crown of thorns would be to her brows, though it were the badge of the empire of Denmark. And do not you, Brenda, seek to be wiser than your fathers. Your sister Minna, before she was so ill, had as much reverence for whatever was produced in Norse, as if it had been in the Pope’s bull, which is all written in pure Latin.” “Poor Norna!” repeated Brenda; “and her child—was it never recovered?” “What do I know of her child,” said the Udaller, more gruffly than before, “except that she was very ill, both before and after the birth, though we kept her as merry as we could with pipe and harp, and so forth;—the child had come before its time into this bustling world, so it is likely it has been long dead.—But you know nothing of all these matters, Brenda; so get along for a foolish girl, and ask no more questions about what it does not become you to inquire into.” So saying, the Udaller gave his sturdy little palfrey the spur, and cantering forward over rough and smooth, while the poney’s accuracy and firmness of step put all difficulties of the path at secure defiance, he placed himself soon by the side of the melancholy Minna, and permitted her sister to have no further share in his conversation than as it was addressed to them jointly. She could but comfort herselfwith the hope, that, as Minna’s disease appeared to have its seat in the imagination, the remedies recommended by Norna might have some chance of being effectual, since, in all probability, they would be addressed to the same faculty. Their way had hitherto held chiefly over moss and moor, varied occasionally by the necessity of making a circuit around the heads of those long lagoons, called voes, which run up into and indent the country in such a manner, that, though the Mainland of Zetland may be thirty miles, or more, in length, there is, perhaps, no part ofit which is more than three miles distant from the salt water. But they had now approached the north-western extremity of the isle, and travelled along the top of an immense ridge of rocks, which had for ages withstood the rage of the Northern Ocean, and of all the winds by which it is buffeted. At length exclaimed Magnus to his daughter, “There is Norna’s dwelling!—Look up, Minna, my love, for if this does not make you laugh, nothing will.—Saw you ever any thing but an osprey that would

[Chap. 27]

THE PIRATE

253

have made such a nest for herself as that is?—By my namesake’s bones, there is not the like of it that living thing ever dwelt in, (having no wings and the use of reason,) unless it chanced to be the Frawa­ Stack off Papa, where the King’s daughter of Noroway was shut up to keep her from her lovers—and all to little purpose, if the tale be true;* for, maidens, I would have you to wot that it is hard to keep flax from the lowe.”†

Chapter

Fifteen

Thrice from the cavern’s darksome womb Her groaning voice arose; And come, my daughter, fearless come, And fearless tell thy woes.

Mickle

The dwelling of Norna, though none but a native of Zetland, familiar, during his whole life, with every variety of rock-scenery, could have seen any thing ludicrous in this situation, was not unaptly compared by Magnus Troil to the eyrie of the osprey, or sea-eagle. It was very small, and had been fabricated out of one of those dens which are called Burghs and Picts-houses in Zetland, and Duns on the mainland of Scotland and in the Hebrides, and which seem to be the first effort at architecture,—the connecting link betwixt a fox’s hole in a cairn of loose stones, and an attempt to construct a human habitation out of the same materials, without the use of lime or cement of any kind,—without any timber, so far as can be seen from their remains, —without any knowledge of the arch or of the stair. Such as they are, however, the numerous remains of these dwellings in Orkney and Zetland where there is one found on every headland, islet, or point of vantage, which could afford the inhabitants additional means of defence, tend to prove that the remote people by whom these Burghs were constructed, were a numerous race, and that the islands had then a much greater population, than, from other circumstances, we might have been led to anticipate. The Burgh of which we at present speak had been altered and repaired at a later period, probably by some petty despot, or sea-rover, who, tempted by the security of the situation, which occupied the whole ofa projecting point ofrock, and was divided from the mainland by a rent or chasm of some depth, had built some additions to it in the rudest style of Gothic defensive architecture; had plaistered * The Fraw-Stack, or Maiden-Rock, an inaccessible cliff, divided by a narrow gulph from the island of Papa, has on the summit some ruins, concerning which there is a legend similar to that of Danae. †Lowe—flame.

254

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 15

the inside with lime and clay, and broke out windows for the admis­ sion of light and air; and finally, by roofing it over, and dividing it into stories, by means of beams of wreck-wood, had converted the whole into a tower, resembling a pyramidical dovecot, formed of a double wall, still containing within its thickness that set of circular galleries, or concentric rungs, which is proper to all the forts of this primitive construction, and which seem to have constituted the only shelter which they were originally qualified to afford to their shivering inhab­ itants. This singular habitation, built out of the loose stones which lay scattered around, and exposed for ages to the vicissitudes of the elements, was as grey, weather-beaten, and wasted, as the rock on which it was founded, and from which it could not easily be distin­ guished, so completely did it resemble in colour, and so little did it differ in regularity of shape, from a pinnacle or fragment of the cliff. Minna’s habitual indifference to all that of late had passed around her, was for a moment suspended by the sight of an abode, which, at another and happier period of her life, would have attracted at once her curiosity and her wonder. Even now she seemed to feel interest as she gazed upon this singular retreat, and recollected it was that of certain misery and probable insanity, connected, as its inhabitant asserted, and Minna’s faith admitted, with power over the elements, and the capacity of intercourse with the invisible world. “Our kinswoman,” she said, “has chosen her dwelling well, with no more of earth than a sea-fowl might rest upon, and all around sightless tempests and raging waves. Despair and magical power could not have a fitter residence.” Brenda, on the other hand, shuddered when she looked on the dwelling to which they were advancing, by a difficult, dangerous, and precarious path, which sometimes, to her great terror, approached the very verge of the precipice; so that, Zetlander as she was, and confid­ ent as she had reason to be in the steadiness and sagacity of the sure­ footed poney, she could scarce suppress an inclination to giddiness, especially at one point, when, being foremost ofthe party, and turning a sharp angle of the rock, her feet, as they projected from the side of the poney, hung for an instant sheer over the ledge of the precipice, so that there was nothing save empty space betwixt the sole of her shoe and the white foam of the vexed ocean, which dashed, howled, and foamed, five hundred feet below. What would have driven a maiden of another country to delirium, gave her but a momentary uneasiness, which was instantly lost in the hope that the impression which the scene appeared to make on her sister’s imagination might be favour­ able to her cure.

[Chap. 27]

THE PIRATE

255

She could not help looking back to see how Minna should pass the point of peril, which she herself had just rounded; and could hear the strong voice of the Udaller, though to him such rough paths were familiar as the smooth sea-beach, call, in a tone of some anxiety, “Take heed, Jarto,”* as Minna, with an eager look, dropped her bridle, and stretched forward her arms, and even her body, over the precipice, in the attitude of the wild swan, when, balancing itself, and spreading its broad pinions, it prepares to launch from the cliff upon the bosom of the winds. Brenda felt, at that instant, a pang of acute and unutterable terror, which left a strong impression on her nerves, even when relieved, as it instantly was, by her sister recovering herself and sitting upright on her saddle, the opportunity and temptation, (if she felt it,) passing away, as the quiet steady animal which supported her rounded the projecting angle, and turned its patient and firm foot from the verge ofthe precipice. They now attained a more level and open space of ground, being the flat top of an isthmus ofprojecting rock, narrowing again towards a point, where it was terminated by the chasm which separated the small peak, or stack, occupied by Norna’s habitation, from the main ridge of cliff and precipice. This natural fosse, which seemed to have been the work of some convulsion of nature, was deep, dark, and irregular, narrower towards the bottom, which could not be distinctly seen, and widest at top, having the appearance as ifthat part ofthe cliffoccupied by the building had been half rent away from the isthmus which it terminated,—an idea favoured by the angle at which it seemed to recede from the land, and slope sea-ward, with the building which crowned it. This angle of projection was so considerable, that it required recol­ lection to dispel the idea that the rock, so much removed from the perpendicular, was about to precipitate itself sea-ward, with its old tower; and many a timorous person would have been afraid to put foot upon it, lest an addition of weight, so inconsiderable as that of the human body, should hasten a catastrophe which seemed at every instant impending. Without troubling himself about such fantasies, the Udaller rode towards the tower, and there dismounting alongst with his daughters, gave the ponies in charge to one of their domestics, with direction to disencumber them of their burthens, and turn them out for rest and refreshment upon the nearest heath. This done, they approached the gate, which seemed formerly to have connected with the land by a rude draw-bridge, some ofthe apparatus of which was still visible. But the rest had been long demolished, and was replaced by a stationary *Jarto,—My dear.

256

THE PIRATE

Vol. 2,ch. 15

foot-bridge, formed of barrel-staves covered with turf, very narrow and ledgeless, and supported by a sort of arch, constructed out of the jaw-bones of the whale. Along this “brigg of dread” the Udaller stepped with his usual portly majesty of stride, which threatened its demolition and his own at the same time; his daughters trode more lightly and more safely after him, and the party stood before the low and rugged portal of Norna’s habitation. “If she should be abroad after all,” said Magnus, as he plied the black oaken door with repeated blows; “but if so we will at least lie by a day for her return, and make Nick Strumpfer pay us demurrage in bland and brandy.” As he spoke the door opened, and displayed, to the alarm of Brenda, and the surprise of Minna herself, a square-made dwarf, about four feet five inches high, with a head of most portentous size, and features correspondent—namely, a huge mouth, a tremendous nose, with large black nostrils, which seemed to have slit upwards, blabber-lips of an unconscionable size, and huge wall-eyes, with which he leered, sneered, grinned, and goggled on the Udaller as an old acquaintance, without uttering however a single word. The young women could hardly persuade themselves that they did not see before their eyes the very demon Trolld, who made such a distinguished figure in Norna’s legend. Their father went on addressing this uncouth apparition in terms of such condescending friendship as the better sort apply to their inferiors, when they wish, for any immediate purpose, to conciliate or coax them,—a tone, by the by, which gener­ ally contains, in its very familiarity, as much offence as the more direct assumption of distance and superiority. “Ha, Nick! honest Nick!” said the Udaller, “here you are, lively and lovely as Saint Nicholas your namesake, when he is carved with an axe for the head-piece of a Dutch dogger. How doest thou do, Nick, or Pacolet, if you like that better? Nicholas, here are my two daugh­ ters, nearly as handsome as thyself thou seest.” Nick grinned, and did a clumsy obeisance by way of courtesy, but kept his broad mis-shapen person firmly placed in the door-way. “Daughters,” continued the Udaller, who seemed to have his reasons for speaking this Cerberus fair, at least according to his own notions ofpropitiation,—“this is Nick Strumpfer, maidens, whom his mistress calls Pacolet, being a light-limbed dwarf, as you see, like he that wont to fly about, like a Scourie, on his wooden hobby-horse, in the old story-book of Valentine and Orson, that you, Minna, used to read whilst you were a child. I assure you he can keep his mistress’s counsel, and never told one of her secrets in his life—ha, ha, ha!” The ugly dwarf grinned ten times wider than before, and shewed

[Chap. 27]

THE PIRATE

257

the meaning of the Udaller’s jest, by opening his immense jaws, and throwing back his head, so as to discover, that, in the immense cavity of his mouth, there only remained the small shrivelled remnant of a tongue, capable perhaps of assisting him in swallowing his food, but unequal to the formation ofarticulate sounds. Whether this organ had been curtailed by cruelty, or injured by disease, it was impossible to guess; but that the unfortunate being had not been originally dumb, was evident from his retaining the sense of hearing. Having made this horrible exhibition, he repaid the Udaller’s mirth with a loud, horrid, and discordant laugh, which had something in it the more hideous that his mirth seemed to be excited by his own misery. The sisters looked on each other in silence and fear, and even the Udaller seemed disconcerted. “And how now?” he proceeded, after a minute’s pause. “When did’st thou wash that throat of thine, that is about the width of the Pentland Frith, with a cup of brandy? Ha, Nick! I have that with me which is sound stuff, boy, ha!” The dwarf bent his beetle-brows, shook his mis-shapen head, and made a quick sharp indication, throwing his right hand up to his shoulder with the thumb pointed backwards. “What! my kinswoman will be angry?” said the Udaller, compre­ hending the signal. “Shalt have a flask to carouse when she is from home, old acquaintance;—lips and throats may swallow though they cannot speak.” Pacolet grinned a grim assent. “And now,” said the Udaller, “stand out of the way, Pacolet, and let me carry my daughters to see their kinswoman. By the bones of Saint Magnus, it shall be a good turn in thy way.—Nay, never shake thy head, man; for ifthy mistress be at home, see her we will.” The dwarf again intimated the impossibility of their being admit­ ted, partly by signs, partly by mumbling some uncouth and most disagreeable sounds, and the Udaller’s mood began to arise. “Tittle tattle, man,” said he; “trouble not me with thy gibberish, but stand out of the way, and the blame, if there be any, shall rest with me. So saying, Magnus Troil laid his sturdy hand upon the collar of the recusant dwarfs jacket of blue wadmaal, and, with a strong, but not a violent grasp, removed him from the door-way, pushed him gently aside, and entered, followed by his two daughters, whom a sense of apprehension, arising out of all which they saw and heard, kept very close to him. A crooked and dusky passage, through which Magnus led the way, was dimly enlightened by a shot-hole, communicating with the interior of the building, and originally intended doubtless to

258

THE PIRATE

Vol.2,ch. 15

command the entrance by a hagbut or culverin. As they approached nearer, for they walked slowly and with hesitation, the light, imperfect as it was, was suddenly obscured; and, on looking upward to discern the cause, Brenda was startled to observe the pale and obscurely-seen countenance of Norna gazing downwards upon them, without speak­ ing a word. There was nothing extraordinary in this, as the mistress of the mansion might be naturally enough looking out to see what guests were thus suddenly and unceremoniously intruding themselves on her presence. Still, however, the natural paleness of her features, exaggerated by the light in which they were at present exhibited,—the immoveable sternness of her look, which shewed neither kindness nor courtesy of civil reception,—her dead silence, and the singular appearance of every thing about her dwelling, augmented the dismay which Brenda had already conceived. Magnus Troil and Minna had walked slowly forward, without observing the apparition of their sin­ gular hostess. END OF VOLUME SECOND

THE PIRATE VOLUME III

Chapter

One The witch then raised her wither’d arm, And waved her wand on high, And, while she spoke the mutter’d charm, Dark lightning fill’d her eye.

Mickle

“This should be the stair,” said the Udaller, blundering in the dark against some steps of irregular ascent—“This should be the stair, unless my memory greatly fail me; ay, and there she sits,” he added, pausing at a half-open door, “with all her tackle about her as usual, and as busy, doubtless, as the devil in a gale of wind.” As he made this irreverent comparison, he entered, followed by his daughters, the darkened apartment in which Norna was seated, amidst a confused collection of books of various languages, parch­ ment scrolls, tablets and stones inscribed with the straight and angular characters ofthe Runic alphabet, and similar articles which the vulgar connected with the exercise of the forbidden arts. There were also lying in the chamber, or hung over the rude and ill-contrived chimney, an old shirt of mail, with the head-piece, battle-axe, and lance, which had once belonged to it; and on a shelf were disposed, in great order, several of those curious stone-axes, formed of green granite, which are often found in these islands, where they are called thunderbolts by the common people, who usually preserve them as a charm of security against the effects of lightning; also a stone sacrificial knife, used perhaps for immolating human victims, and one or two of the brazen implements called Celts, the purpose of which has troubled the repose of so many antiquaries. A variety of other articles, some of which had neither name nor were capable of description, lay in confu­ sion about the apartment; and in one corner, on a quantity of withered 259

260

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 1

sea-weed, reposed what seemed, at first view, to be a large unshapely dog, but, when seen more closely, proved to be a tame seal, which it had been Norna’s amusement to domesticate. This uncouth favourite bristled up in its comer, upon the arrival of so many strangers, with an alertness similar to that which a terrestrial dog would have displayed on a similar occasion; but Norna remained motionless, seated behind a table of rough granite, propped up by mis-shapen feet of the same material, which, besides the old book with which she seemed to be busied, sustained a cake of the coarse unleavened bread used by the poor peasants ofNorway, together with a jar of water. Magnus Troil remained a minute in silence gazing upon his kins­ woman, while the singularity of her mansion inspired Brenda with much fear, and changed, though but for a moment, the melancholy and abstracted mood of Minna, into a feeling of interest not unmixed with awe. The silence was interrupted by the Udaller, who, unwilling on the one hand to give his kinswoman offence, and desirous on the other to shew that he was not daunted by a reception so singular, opened the conversation thus:— “I give you good e’en, cousin Norna—my daughters and I have come far to see you.” Norna raised her eyes from her volume, looked full at her visitors, then let them quietly sink down on the leaf with which she seemed to be engaged. “Nay, cousin,” said Magnus, “take your own time—our business with you can wait your leisure.—See here, Minna, what a fair prospect here is of the cape, scarce a quarter of a mile off; you may see the billows breaking on it topmast high. Our kinswoman has got a pretty seal too—here, sealchie, my man, whew, whew!” The seal took no further notice of the Udaller’s advances to acquaintance, than by uttering a low growl. “He is not so well trained,” continued the Udaller, affecting an air of ease and unconcern, “as Peter MacRaw’s, the old piper of Storno­ way, who had a seal that flapped its tail to the tune of Caberfae, and acknowledged no other whatsoever. Well, cousin,” he concluded, observing that Norna closed her book, “are you going to give us a welcome at last, or must we go further than our blood-relation’s house to seek one, and that when the evening is wearing late apace?” “Ye dull and hard-hearted generation, as deaf as the adder to the voice of the charmer,” answered Norna, addressing them, “why come ye to me?—You have slighted every warning I could give of the com­ ing harm, and now that it hath come upon you, ye seek my counsel when it can avail you nothing.”

[Chap. 28]

THE PIRATE

261

“Look you, kinswoman,” said the Udaller, with his usual frankness, and boldness of manner and accent, “I must needs tell you that your courtesy is something of the coarsest and the coldest. I cannot say that I ever saw an adder, in regard there are none in these parts; but touching my own thoughts of what such a thing may be, it cannot be termed suitable comparison to me or to my daughters, and that I would have you to know. For old acquaintance, and certain other reasons, I do not leave your house upon the instant; but as I come hither in all kindness and civility, so I pray you to receive me with the like, otherwise we will depart, and leave shame on your inhospitable threshold.” “How!” said Noma, “dare you use such bold language in the house of one from whom all men, from whom you yourself, come to solicit counsel and aid? They who speak to the Reimkennar, must lower their voice to her before whom winds and waves hush both blast and billow.” “Blast and billow may hush themselves if they will,” replied the peremptory Udaller, “but that will not I. I speak in the house of my friend as in my own, and strike sail to none.” “And hope ye by this rudeness to compel me to answer to your interrogatories?” replied Norna. “Kinswoman,” replied Magnus Troil, “I know not so much as you of the old Norse sagas, but this I know, that when kempies were wont, long since, to seek the habitations of the gall-dragons and spaewomen, they came with their axes on their shoulders, and their good drawn swords in their hands, and compelled the power whom they invoked to listen to and to answer them, ay were it Odin himself.” “Kinsman,” replied Norna, arising from her seat and coming for­ wards, “thou hast spoken well and in good time for thyself and thy daughter; for hadst thou turned from my threshold without extorting an answer, morning’s sun had never again shone upon you. The spirits who serve me are jealous, and will not be employed in aught that may benefit humanity, unless their service is commanded by the undaunted importunity of the brave and of the free. And now speak, what wouldst thou have of me?” “My daughter’s health,” replied Magnus, “which no remedies have been able to restore.” “Thy daughter’s health,” answered Norna; “and what is the maiden’s ailment?” “The physician,” said Troil, “must name the disease. All that I can tell thee of it is”––– “Be silent,” said Norna, interrupting him, “I know all thou canst tell me, and more than thou thyself knowest. Sit down all of you—and

262

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 1

thou, maiden,” she said, addressing Minna, “sit thou in that chair,” pointing to the place she had just left, “once the seat of Geirvada, at whose voice the stars hid their beams, and the moon herself grew pale.” Minna moved with slow and tremulous step towards the rude seat which was thus indicated to her, which was composed of stone, formed into the shape of a chair by the rough and unskilful hand of some ancient Gothic artist. Brenda, creeping as close as possible to her father, seated herself alongst with him upon a bench at some distance from Minna, and kept her eyes, with a mixture of fear, pity, and anxiety, closely fixed upon her. It would be difficult altogether to decypher the emotions by which this amiable and affectionate girl was agitated at the moment. Defi­ cient in her sister’s predominating quality of high imagination, and little credulous, of course, to the marvellous, she could not but enter­ tain some vague and indefinite fears on her own account, concerning the nature of the scene which was soon to take place. But these were in a manner swallowed up in her apprehensions on her sister’s account, who, with a frame so much weakened, spirits so much exhausted, and a mind so susceptible of the impressions which all around her was calculated to excite, now sat passively resigned to the agency of one, whose treatment might produce the most baneful effects upon such a subject. Brenda gazed at Minna, who sat in that rude chair of dark stone, her finely formed shape and limbs making the strongest contrast with its ponderous and irregular angles, her cheek and lips as pale as clay, and her eyes turned upward, and lighted with the mix of resignation and excited enthusiasm, which belonged to her disease and her character. The younger sister then looked on Noma, who muttered to herself in a low monotonous manner, as, gliding from one place to another, she collected different articles, which she placed one by one on the table. And lastly, Brenda looked anxiously to her father, to gather, if poss­ ible, from his countenance, whether he entertained any part of her own fears for the consequences of the scene which was to ensue, considering the state of Minna’s health and spirits. But Magnus Troil seemed to have no such apprehensions, but viewed with stem com­ posure Norna’s preparations; and appeared to wait the event with the composure of one, who, confident in the skill of a medical artist, sees him preparing to enter upon some important and painful operation, in the issue of which he is interested by friendship or by affection. Noma, meanwhile, went onward with her preparations, until she had placed on the stone table a variety of miscellaneous articles, and amongst the rest, a small chafing dish full of charcoal, a crucible, and a

[Chap. 28]

THE PIRATE

263

piece of thin sheet-lead. She then spoke aloud—“It is well that I was aware of your coming hither—ay, long before you yourself had resolved it—how should I else have been prepared for that which is now to be done?—Maiden,” she continued, addressing Minna, “where lies thy pain?” The patient answered, by pressing her hand to the left side of her bosom. “Even so,” replied Noma, “even so—’tis the site of weal or woe. And you, her father and her sister, think not this the idle speech of one who talks by guess—if I can tell the ill, it may be that I shall be able to render that less severe, which may not, by any aid, be wholly amended. —The heart—ay, the heart—touch that, and the eye grows dim, the pulse fails, the wholesome stream of our blood is choked and troubled, our limbs decay like sapless sea-weed in a summer’s sun; our better views of existence are passed and gone; what remains is the dream of lost happiness, or the fear of inevitable evil. But the Reim­ kennar must to her work—well it is that I have prepared the means.” She threw off her long dark-coloured mantle, and stood before them in her short jacket of light-blue wadmaal, with its skirt of the same stuff, fancifully embroidered with black velvet, and bound at the waist with a chain or girdle of silver, formed into singular devices. Noma next undid the fillet which bound her grizzled hair, and shak­ ing her head wildly, caused it to fall in dishevelled abundance over her face and around her shoulders, so as almost entirely to hide her features. She then placed a small crucible on the chafing dish already mentioned,—dropped a few drops from a vial on the charcoal below, —pointed towards it her wrinkled fore-finger, which she had previ­ ously moistened with liquid from another small bottle, and said with a deep voice, “Fire, do thy duty;”—and the words were no sooner spoken, than, probably by some chemical combination of which the spectators were not aware, the charcoal which was under the crucible became slowly ignited; while Noma, as if impatient ofthe delay, threw hastily back her disordered tresses, and, while her features reflected back the sparkles and red light of the fire, and her eyes flashed from amongst her hair like those of a wild animal from its cover, blew fiercely till the whole was in an intense glow. She paused a moment from her toil, and muttering that the elemental spirit must be thanked, recited in her usual monotonous, yet wild mode of chaunting, the following verses— “Thou so needful, yet so dread, With cloudy crest, and wing of red; Thou, without whose genial breath The North would sleep the sleep of death;

264

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 1

Who deign’st to warm the cottage hearth, Yet hurls proud palaces to earth,— Brightest, keenest of the Powers, Which form and rule this world of ours, With my rhyme ofRunic, I Thank thee for thy agency.”

She then severed a portion from the small mass of sheet-lead which lay upon the table, and, placing it in the crucible, subjected it to the action ofthe lighted charcoal, and, as it melted, she sang— “Old Reimkennar, to thy art Mother Hertha sends her part; She, whose gracious bounty gives Needful food to all that lives. From the deep mine of the North, Came the mystic metal forth, Doom’d, amidst disjointed stones, Long to cear a champion’s bones, Disinhumed my charms to aid— Mother Earth, my thanks are paid.”

She then poured out some water from the jar into a large cup, or goblet, and sung once more, as she slowly stirred it round with the end ofher staff— “Girdle of our islands dear, Element ofWater, hear! Thou whose power can overwhelm Broken mounds and ruined realm On the lowly Belgian strand; All thy fiercest rage can never Of our soil a furlong sever From our rock-defended land; Play there gently thou thy part, To assist old Norna’s art.”

She then, with a pair of pincers, removed the crucible from the chafing dish, and poured the lead, now entirely melted, into the bowl of water, repeating at the same time— “Elements, each other greeting, Gifts and power attend your meeting!”

The melted lead, spattering as it fell into the water, formed, of course, the usual combination of irregular forms which is familiar to all who in childhood have made the experiment, and from which, according to our childish fancy, we may have selected portions bear­ ing some resemblance to domestic articles—the tools of mechanics, or the like. Norna seemed to busy herself in some such researches, for she examined the mass of lead with scrupulous attention, and detached it into different portions, without apparently being able to find a fragment in the form which she desired. At length she again muttered, rather as speaking to herself than to her guests, “He, the Viewless, will not be omitted,—he will have his

[Chap. 28]

THE PIRATE

265

tribute even in the work to which he gives nothing.—Stem Compeller of the clouds, thou also shalt hear the voice of the Reimkennar.” Thus speaking, Norna once more threw the lead into the crucible, where, hissing and sputtering as the wet metal touched the sides of the red-hot vessel, it was soon again reduced to a state of fusion. The Sybil meantime turned to a comer of the apartment, and opening suddenly a window which looked to the north-west, let in the fitful radiance of the sun, now lying almost level upon a great mass of red clouds, which, boding future tempest, occupied the edge of the hori­ zon, and seemed to brood over the billows of the boundless sea. Turning to this quarter, from which a low hollow-moaning breeze then blew, Norna addressed the spirit of the winds, in tones which seemed to resemble his own: “Thou, that over billows dark Safely send’st the fisher’s bark,— Giving him a path and motion Through the wilderness of ocean; Thou, that when the billows brave ye, On the shelves can’st drive the navy,— Did’st thou chafe as one neglected, While thy brethren were respected? To appease thee, see, I tear This full grasp of grizzled hair; Oft thy breath hath through it sung, Softening to my magic tongue,— Now ’tis thine to bid it fly Through the wide expanse of sky, ’Mid the countless swarms to sail Of wild-fowl wheeling on thy gale; Take thy portion and rejoice,— Spirit, thou hast heard my voice!”—

Norna accompanied these words with the action which they described, tearing a lock of hair with vehemence from her head, and strewing it upon the wind as she continued her recitation. She then shut the casement, and again involved the chamber in the dubious twilight, which best suited her character and occupation. The melted lead was once more emptied into the water, and the various whimsical conformations which it received from the operation were examined with great care by the Sybil, who at length seemed to intimate, by voice and gesture, that her spell had been successful. She selected from the fused metal a piece about the size of a small nut, bearing in shape a close resemblance to that of the human heart, and approaching Minna, again spoke in song:— “She who sits by haunted well, Is subject to the Nixie’s spell; She who walks on lonely beach, To the Mermaid’s charmed speech;

266

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 1

She who walks round ring of green, Offends the peevish Fairy Queen; And she who takes rest in the Dwarfie’s cave, A weary weird of woe shall have. “By ring, by spring, by cave, by shore, Minna Troil has braved all this and more; And yet hath the root of her sorrow and ill A source that’s more deep and more mystical still.”—

Minna, whose attention had been latterly something disturbed by reflections on her own secret sorrow, now suddenly recalled it, and looked eagerly on Norna as if she expected to learn from her rhimes something of deep interest. The northern Sybil, meanwhile, pro­ ceeded to pierce the piece of lead, which bore the form of a heart, and to fix in it a piece of gold wire, by which it might be attached to a chain or neck-lace. She then proceeded in her rhime. “Thou art within a demon’s hold, More wise than Heims, more strong than Trolld; No syren sings so sweet as he,— No fay springs lighter on the lea; No elfin power hath half the art To sooth, to move, to wring the heart,— Life-blood from the cheek to drain, Drench the eye, and dry the vein. Maiden, ere we farther go, Doest thou note me, aye or no?”

Minna replied in the same rythmical manner, which, in jest and earnest, was frequently used by the ancient Scandinavians:— “I mark thee, my mother, both word, look, and sign; Speak on with thy riddle—to read it be mine.”

“Now, Heaven and every saint be praised!” said Magnus; “they are the first words to the purpose, which she hath spoken these many days.” “And they are the last which she shall speak for many a month,” said Noma, incensed at the interruption, “if you again break the progress ofmy spell. Turn your faces to the wall, and look not hitherward again, under penalty of my severe displeasure. You, Magnus Troil, from hard-hearted audacity of spirit, and you, Brenda, from wanton and idle disbelief in that which is beyond your bounded comprehension, are unworthy to look on this mystic work; and the glance of your eyes mingles with, and weakens my spell; for the powers cannot brook distrust.” Unaccustomed to be addressed in a tone so peremptory, Magnus would have made some angry reply; but reflecting that the health of Minna was at stake, and considering that she who spoke was a woman of many sorrows, he suppressed his anger, bowed his head, shrugged

[Chap. 28]

THE PIRATE

267

his shoulders, assumed the prescribed posture, averting his head from the table, and turning towards the wall. Brenda did the same, on receiving a sign from her father, and both remained profoundly silent. Norna then addressed Minna once more:— “Mark me! for the word I speak Shall bring the colour to thy cheek. This leaden heart, so light of cost, The symbol of a treasure lost, Thou shalt wear in hope and in peace, That the cause of your sickness and sorrow may cease, When crimson foot meets crimson hand In the Martyr’s Aisle, and in Orkney-land.”—

Minna coloured deeply at the last couplet, intimating, as she failed not to interpret it, that Norna was completely acquainted with the secret cause of her sorrow. The same conviction led the maiden to hope in the favourable issue, which the Sybil seemed to prophesy; and not venturing to express her feelings in any manner more intelligible, she pressed Norna’s withered hand with all the warmth of affection, first to her breast and then to her lips, bedewing it at the same time with her tears. With more of human feeling than she usually exhibited, Norna extricated her hand from the grasp of the poor girl, whose tears now flowed freely, and then, with more tenderness ofmanner than she had yet shewn, she knotted the leaden heart to a chain of gold, and hung it around Minna’s neck, singing as she performed that last branch of the spell,— “Be patient, be patient, for Patience hath power To ward us in sorrow, like mantle in shower; A fairy gift you best may hold In a chain of fairy gold;— The chain and the gift are each a true token, That not without warrant old Norna has spoken; But thy nearest and dearest must never behold them, Till time shall accomplish the truths I have told them.”

The verses being concluded, Norna carefully arranged the chain around her patient’s neck so as to hide it in her bosom, and thus ended the spell,—a spell which, at the moment I record these incidents, has been lately practised in Zetland, where any decline of health, without apparent cause, is imputed by the lower orders to a demon having stolen the heart from the body of the patient, and where the experi­ ment of supplying the deprivation by a leaden one, prepared in the manner described, has been resorted to within these few years. In a metaphorical sense, the disease may be considered as a general one in all parts of the world; but, as this simple and original remedy is peculiar to the isles of Thule, it were unpardonable not to preserve it

268

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 2

at length, in a narrative connected with Scottish antiquities. A second time Norna reminded her patient, that if she shewed, or spoke of, the fairy gifts, their virtue would be lost— a belief so common as to be received into the superstitions of all nations. Lastly, unbuttoning the collar which she had just fastened, she shewed her a link of the gold chain, which Minna instantly recognized as that for­ merly given by Norna to Mordaunt Mertoun. This seemed to intimate he was yet alive, and under Norna’s protection; and she gazed on her with the most eager curiosity. But the Sybil imposed her finger on her lips in token of silence, and a second time involved the chain in those folds which modestly and closely veiled one of the most beautiful, as well as one of the kindest bosoms in the world. Norna then extinguished the lighted charcoal, and, as the water hissed upon the glowing embers, commanded Magnus and Brenda to look around, and behold her task accomplished.

Chapter Two See yonder woman, whom our swains revere, And dread in secret, while they take her counsel When sweetheart shall be kind, or when cross dame shall die; Where lurks the thief who stole the silver tankard, And how the pestilent murrain may be cured.— This sage adviser’s mad, stark mad, my friend; Yet, in her madness, hath the art and cunning To wring fools’ secrets from their inmost bosoms, And pay inquirers with the coin they gave her. Old Play

It seemed as if Norna had indeed full right to claim the gratitude of the Udaller for the improved condition of his daughter’s health. She once more threw open the window, and Minna, drying her eyes and advancing with affectionate confidence, threw herself on her father’s neck, and asked his forgiveness for the trouble she had of late occa­ sioned to him. It is unnecessary to add, that this was at once granted, with a full, though rough burst of parental tenderness, and as many close embraces as if his child had been just rescued from the jaws of death. When Magnus had dismissed Minna from his arms, to throw herself into those of her sister, and express to her, rather by kisses and tears than in words, the regret she entertained for her late wayward conduct, the Udaller thought proper, in the meantime, to pay his thanks to their hostess, whose skill had proved so efficacious. But scarce had he come out with, “Much respected kinswoman, I am but a plain old Norse-man,”—when she interrupted him, by pressing her finger on her lips.

[Chap. 29]

THE PIRATE

269

“There are those around us,” she said, “who must hear no mortal voice, witness no sacrifice to mortal feelings—there are times when they mutiny even against me, their sovereign mistress, because I am still shrouded in the flesh of humanity. Fear, therefore, and be silent. I, whose deeds have raised me from the low-sheltered valley of life, where dwell its social wants and common charities;—I, who have bereft the Giver of the Gift which he gave, and stand alone on a cliff of immeasurable height, detached from earth, save from the small por­ tion that supports my miserable tread—I alone am fit to cope with these sullen mates. Fear not, therefore, but yet be not too bold, and let this night to you be one of fasting and of prayer.” If the Udaller had not, before the commencement of the operation, been disposed to dispute the commands of the Sybil, it may be well believed he was less so now, that it had terminated to all appearance so fortunately. So he sat him down in silence, and seized upon a volume which lay near him as a sort of desperate effort to divert ennui, for on no other occasion had Magnus been known to have recourse to a book for that purpose. It chanced to be a book much to his mind, being the well-known work of Olaus Magnus, upon the manners of the ancient Northern nations. The book is unluckily in the Latin language, and the Danske or Dutch were either of them much more familiar to the Udaller. But then it was the fine edition, which contains representa­ tions of the war-chariots, fishing exploits, warlike exercises, and domestic employments of the Scandinavians, executed on copper­ plates; and thus the information which the work refused to the under­ standing, was addressed to the eye, which, as is well known both to old and young, answers the purpose of amusement as well, if not better. Meanwhile the two sisters, pressed as close to each other’s side as two flowers on the same stalk, sate with their arms reciprocally passed over each other’s shoulder, as if they feared some new and unforeseen cause of coldness was about to snatch them from each other’s side, and interrupt the sister-like harmony which had been but just restored. Norna sat opposite to them, sometimes revolving the large parchment volume with which they had found her employed at their entrance, and sometimes gazing on the sisters with a fixed look, in which an interest of a kind unusually tender seemed occasionally to disturb the stem and rigorous solemnity of her countenance. All was still and silent as death, and the subsiding emotions of Brenda had not yet permitted her to wonder whether the remaining hours of the evening were to be passed in the same manner, when the scene of tranquillity was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the dwarf Pacolet, or, as the Udaller called him, Nicholas Strumpfer. Norna darted an angry glance on the intruder, who seemed to

270

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 2

deprecate her resentment by holding up his hands and uttering a babbling sound; then, instantly resorting to his usual mode of conver­ sation, he expressed himself by a variety of signs made rapidly upon his fingers, and as rapidly answered by his mistress, so that the young women, who had never heard of such an art, and now saw it practised by two beings so singular, almost conceived their mutual intelligence the work of enchantment. When they had ceased their intercourse, Noma turned to Magnus Troil with much haughtiness, and said, “How, my kinsman? have you so far forgot yourself, as to bring earthly food into the house of the Reimkennar, and make preparations in the dwelling of Power and of Despair, for refection, and wassail, and revelry?—Speak not—answer not,” she said; “the duration of the cure which was wrought even now depends on your silence and obedi­ ence—bandy but a single look or word with me, and the latter condi­ tion ofthat maiden shall be worse than the first.” This threat was an effectual charm upon the tongue of the Udaller, though he longed to indulge it in vindication of his conduct. “Follow me all of you,” said Noma, striding to the door of the apartment, “and see that no one look backward—we leave not this apartment empty, though we, the children of mortality, be removed from it.” She went out, and the Udaller signed to his daughters to follow, and to obey her injunction. The Sybil moved swifter than her guests down the rude descent, (such it might rather be termed, than a proper staircase,) which led to the lower apartment. Magnus and his daugh­ ters, when they entered the chamber, found their own attendants aghast at the presence and proceedings of Norna of the Fitful-head. They had been previously employed in arranging the provisions which they had brought along with them, so as to present a comfort­ able cold meal, as soon as the appetite of the Udaller, which was as regular as the return of tide, should induce him to desire some refreshment; and now they stood staring in fear and surprise, while Norna, seizing upon one article after another, and well supported by the zealous activity of Pacolet, flung their whole preparations out of the rude aperture which served for a window, and over the cliff, from which the ancient Burg arose, into the ocean, which raged and foamed beneath. Vifda, (dried beef) hams, and pickled pork, flew after each other into empty space, smoked geese were restored to the air, and cured fish to the sea, their native elements indeed, but which they were no longer capable of traversing; and the devastation proceeded so rapidly that the Udaller could scarce secure from the wreck his silver drinking cup; while the large leathern flask of brandy, which was destined to supply his favourite beverage, was sent to follow the

[Chap. 29]

THE PIRATE

271

rest of the supper, by the hands of Pacolet, who regarded, at the same time, the disappointed Udaller with a malicious grin, as if, notwith­ standing his own natural taste for the liquor, he enjoyed the disap­ pointment and surprise ofMagnus Troil still more than he would have relished sharing his enjoyment. The destruction of the brandy flask exhausted the patience of Magnus, who roared out in a tone of no small displeasure, “Why, kinswoman, this is wasteful madness—where, and on what, would you have us sup?” “Where you will,” answered Noma, “and on what you will—but not in my dwelling, and not on the food with which you have profaned it. Vex my spirit no more, but begone every one of you—you have been here too long for my good, perhaps for your own.” “How, kinswoman,” said Magnus, “would you make outcasts of us at this time of night, when even a Scotsman would not turn a stranger from the door?—Bethink you, dame, it is shame on our lineage for ever, if this squall of yours should force us to slip cables, and go to sea so scantily provided.” “Be silent, and depart,” said Norna; “let it suffice you have got that for which you came. I have no harbourage for mortal guests, no provision to relieve human wants. There is beneath the cliff a beach of the finest sand, a stream of water as pure as the well of Kildinguie, and the rocks bear dulse as wholesome as that of Guiydin; and well you wot, that the well of Kildinguie and the dulse of Guiydin will cure all maladies save Black Death.”* “And well I wot,” said the Udaller, “that I would eat corrupted sea­ weed like a starling, or salted seal’s flesh like the men of Burraforth, or whilks, buckies, and lampits, like the poor sneaks of Stroma, rather than break wheat bread and drink red wine in a house where it is begrudged me.—And yet,” he said, checking himself, “I am wrong, very wrong, my cousin, to speak thus to you, and I should rather thank you for what you have done, than upbraid you for following your own ways. But I see you are impatient—we will be all under way presently. —And you, ye knaves,” addressing his servants, “that were in such hurry with your service before it was lacked, get out of doors with you presently, and manage to catch the ponies; for I see we must make for another harbour to-night, if we would not sleep with an empty stom­ ach, and on a hard bed.” The domestics of Magnus, already sufficiently alarmed at the viol­ ence of Norna’s conduct, scarce waited the imperious command of their master to evacuate her dwelling with all dispatch; and the Udal­ ler, with a daughter on each arm, was in the act of following them, * So at least says an Orkney proverb.

272

THE PIRATE

Vol.3,ch.2

when Norna said emphatically, “Stop!” They obeyed, and again turned towards her. She held out her hand to Magnus, which the placable Udaller instantly folded in his own ample palm. “Magnus,” she said, “we part by necessity, but, I trust, not in anger?” “Surely not, cousin,” said the warm-hearted Udaller, well nigh stammering in his hasty disclamation of all unkindness,—“most assuredly not. I never bear ill will to any one, much less to one of my own blood, and who has piloted me with her advice through many a rough tide, as I would pilot a boat betwixt Swona and Stroma, through all the waws, wells, and swelchies of the Pentland Firth.” “Enough,” said Noma, “and now farewell, with such a blessing as I dare bestow—not a word more!—Maidens,” she added, “draw near, and let me kiss your brows.” The Sybil was obeyed by Minna with awe, and by Brenda with fear; the one overmastered by the warmth of her imagination, the other by the natural timidity of her constitution. Norna then dismissed them, and in two minutes afterwards they found themselves beyond the bridge, and standing upon the rocky platform in front of the ancient Pictish Burg, which it was the pleasure of this sequestered female to inhabit. The night, for it was now fallen, was unusually serene. A bright twilight, which glimmered far over the surface of the sea, sup­ plied the brief absence of the summer’s sun; and the waves seemed to sleep under its influence, so faint and slumberous was the sound with which one after another rolled on and burst against the foot of the cliff on which they stood. In front of them stood the rugged fortress, seeming, in the uniform greyness of the atmosphere, as aged, as shapeless, and as massive, as the rock on which it was founded. There was neither sight nor sound that indicated human habitation, save that from one rude shot-hole glimmered the flame of the feeble lamp by which the Sybil was probably pursuing her mystical and nocturnal studies, shooting upon the twilight, in which it was soon lost and confounded, a single line of tiny light; bearing the same proportion to that of the atmosphere, as the aged woman and her serf, the sole inhabitants of that desert, did to the solitude with which they were surrounded. For several minutes, the party, thus suddenly and unexpectedly expelled from the shelter where they had reckoned to spend the night, stood in silence, each wrapt in their own separate reflections. Minna, her thoughts fixed on the mystical consolation which she had received, in vain endeavoured to extract from the words of Norna a more distinct and intelligible meaning; and the Udaller had not yet recovered his surprise at the extrusion to which he had been thus

[Chap. 29]

THE PIRATE

273

whimsically subjected, under circumstances that prohibited him from resenting as an insult, treatment, which, in all other respects, was so shocking to the genial hospitality of his nature, that he still felt like one disposed to be angry, if he but knew how to set about it. Brenda was the first who brought matters to a point, by asking where they were to go, and how they were to spend the night. The question, which was asked in a tone, that, amidst its simplicity, had something dolorous in it, changed entirely the train of her father’s ideas; and the unexpected perplexity of their situation now striking him in a comic point of view, he laughed till his very eyes run over, while every rock around him rung, and the sleeping sea-fowl were startled from their repose, by the loud hearty explosions of his obstreperous hilarity. The Udaller’s daughters, eagerly representing to their father the risk of displeasing Norna by this unlimited indulgence of his mirth, united their efforts to drag him to a farther distance from her dwelling. Magnus, yielding to their strength, which, feeble as it was, his own fit of laughing rendered him incapable of resisting, suffered himself to be pulled to a considerable distance from the entrance of the Burg, and then escaping from their hands, and sitting down, or rather suffering himselfto drop, upon a large stone which lay conveniently by the way­ side, he again laughed so long and lustily, that his vexed and anxious daughters became afraid that there was something more than natural in these repeated convulsions. At length his mirth exhausted both itself and the Udaller’s strength. He groaned heavily, wiped his eyes, and said, not without feeling some desire to renew his obstreperous cachinnation, “Now, by the bones of Saint Magnus, my ancestor and namesake, one would imagine that being turned out of doors, at this time of night, was nothing short of an absolutely exquisite jest; for I have shaken my sides till I am sore at it. There we sat, made snug for the night, and I made as sure of a good supper and a can as ever I had been of either,—and here we are all taken aback; and then poor Brenda’s doleful voice, and melancholy question, of what is to be done, and where are we to sleep! In good faith, unless one of these knaves, who must needs torment the poor woman by their trencher-work before it was wanted, can make amends by telling us of some snug port under our lee, we have no other course for it but to steer through the twilight on the bearing of Burgh Westra, and rough it out as well as we can by the way. I am sorry but for you, girls; for many a cruize have I been upon when we were on shorter allowance than we are like to have now.—I would I had but secured a morsel for you, and a drop for myself; and then there had been but little to complain of.”

274

THE PIRATE

Vol.3,ch.2

Both sisters hastened to assure the Udaller that they felt not the least occasion for food. “Why, that is well,” said Magnus; “and so being the case, I will not complain of my own appetite, though it is sharper than convenient. And the rascal, Nicholas Strumpfer,—what a leer the villain gave me as he started the good Nantz into the salt-water! He grinned, the knave, like a seal on a skerry.—Had it not been for vexing my poor kinswoman Norna, I would have sent his mis-begotten body, and mis­ shapen jolterhead, after my bonny flask, as surely as Saint Magnus lies at Kirkwall!” By this time the servants returned with the ponies, which they had very soon caught—these sensible animals finding nothing so captivat­ ing in the pastures where they had been suffered to stray, as inclined them to resist the invitation again to subject themselves to saddle and bridle. The prospects ofthe party were also considerably improved by learning that the contents of their sumpter-ponies’ burthen had not been entirely exhausted,—a small basket having fortunately escaped the rage of Norna and Pacolet, by the rapidity with which one of the servants had caught up and removed it. The same domestic, an alert and ready-witted fellow, had observed upon the beach, not above three miles distant from the Burg, and about a quarter of a mile off their straight path, a deserted Skio, or fisherman’s hut, and suggested that they should occupy it for the rest of the night, in order that the ponies might be refreshed, and the young ladies spend the night under cover from the night air. When we are delivered from great and serious dangers, our mood is, or ought to be, grave, in proportion to the peril we have escaped, and the gratitude due to protecting Providence. But few things raise the spirits more naturally, or more harmlessly, than when means of extrication from any of the lesser embarrassments of life are suddenly presented to us; and such was the case in the present instance. The Udaller, relieved from the apprehensions for his daughters suffering from fatigue, and himself from too much appetite and too little food, carolled Norse ditties, as he spurred Bergen through the twilight, with as much glee and gallantry as if the night-ride had been entirely a matter of his own free choice. Brenda lent her voice to some of his choruses, which were echoed in ruder notes by the servants, who, in that simple state ofsociety, were not considered as guilty ofany breach of respect by mingling their voices with the song. Minna, indeed, was as yet unequal to such an effort; but she compelled herself to assume some share in the general hilarity of the meeting; and, contrary to her conduct since the fatal morning which concluded the Festival of Saint John, she seemed to take her usual interest in what was going on

[Chap. 29]

THE PIRATE

275

around her, and answered with kindness and readiness the repeated inquiries concerning her health, with which the Udaller every now and then interrupted his carol. And thus they proceeded by night, a happier party by far than they had been when they traced the same route on the preceding morning, making light of the difficulties of the way, and promising themselves shelter and a comfortable night’s rest in the deserted hut which they were now about to approach, and which they expected to find in a state of darkness and solitude. But it was the lot of the Udaller that day to be deceived more than once in his calculations. “And which way lies this cabin of yours, Laurie?” said the Udaller, addressing the intelligent domestic of whom we just spoke. “Yonder it should be,” said Laurence Scholey, “at the head of the Voe—but, by my faith, if it be the place, there are folks there before us —God and Saint Ronan send that they be canny company!” In truth there was a light in the deserted hut, strong enough to glimmer through every chink of the shingles and wreck-wood of which it was constructed, and to give the whole cabin the appearance ofa smithy seen by night. The universal superstition of the Zetlanders seized upon Magnus and his escort. “They are Trows,” said one voice. “They are witches,” murmured another. “They are mermaids,” muttered a third; “only hear their wild sing­ ing!” All stopped; and, in effect, some notes of music were audible, which Brenda, with a voice that quivered a little, yet had a turn of arch ridicule in its tone, pronounced to be the sound of a fiddle. “Fiddle or fiend,” said the Udaller, who, if he believed in such nightly apparitions as had struck terror into his retinue, certainly feared them not—“fiddle or fiend, may the devil wash me if a witch cheats me out of supper to-night, for the second time.” So saying, he dismounted, clenched his trusty truncheon in his hand, and advanced towards the hut, followed by Laurence Scholey alone; the rest of his retinue continuing stationary on the beach, beside his daughters and the ponies.

276

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 3

Chapter Three What ho, my jovial mates! come on! we’ll frolic it Like fairies frisking in the merry moonshine, Seen by the curtal friar, who, from some christening Or some blithe bridal, hies belated cell-ward— He starts, and changes his bold bottle swagger To churchman’s pace professional, and ransacking His treacherous memory for some holy hymn, Finds but the roundel of the midnight catch. OldPlay

The stride of the Udaller relaxed nothing ofits length or of its firmness as he approached the glimmering cabin, from which he now heard distinctly the sound of the fiddle. But if still long and firm, his steps succeeded each other rather more slowly than usual; for, like a cautious, though a brave general, Magnus was willing to reconnoitre his enemy before assailing him. The trusty Laurence Scholey, who kept close behind his master, now whispered into his ear, “So help me, sir, as I believe that the ghaist, if ghaist it be, that plays so bravely on the fiddle, must be the ghaist of Master Claud Halcro, or his wraith at least; for never was bow drawn across thairm which brought out the gude auld spring of‘Fair and Lucky,’ so like his ain.” Magnus was himself much of the same opinion; for he knew the blithe minstrelsy ofthe spirited little old man, and hailed the hut with a hearty hilloah, which was immediately replied to by the cheery note of his ancient mess-mate, and Halcro himself presently made his appearance on the beach. The Udaller now signed to his retinue to come up, whilst he asked his friend, after a kind greeting and much shaking of hands, “How the devil he came to sit there playing old tunes in so desolate a place, like an owl whooping to the moon?” “And tell me rather, Fowde,” said Claud Halcro, “how you come to be within hearing of me?—ay, by my word, and with your bonny daughters too?—Jarto Minna and Jarto Brenda, I bid you welcome to these yellow sands—and there shake hands, as glorious John, or some other body, says upon the same occasion. And how come you here like two fair swans, making day out of twilight, and turning all you step upon to silver?” “You shall know all about them presently,” answered Magnus; “but what mess-mates have you got in the hut with you? I think I hear some one speaking.” “None,” replied Claud Halcro, “but that poor creature the Factor, and my imp of a boy, Giles. I—but come in—come in—here you will

[Chap. 30]

THE PIRATE

277

find us starving in comfort—not so much as a mouthful of sour sil­ lochs to be had for love or money.” “That may be in a small part helped,” said the Udaller; “for though the best of our supper is gone over the Fitful crags to the sealchies and the dog-fish, yet we have got something in the kit still.—Here, Laurie, bring up the vifda.” “Jokul, jokul!”* was Laurence’s joyful answer; and he hastened for the basket, while the party entered the hut. Here, in a cabin which smelled strongly of dried fish, and whose sides and roof were jet-black with smoke, they found the unhappy Triptolemus Yellowley, seated beside a fire made of dried sea-weed, mingled with some peats and wreck-wood; his sole companion a barefooted yellow-haired Zetland boy, who acted occasionally as a kind of page to Claud Halcro, bearing his fiddle on his shoulders, saddling his poney, and rendering him similar duties ofkindly observ­ ance. The disconsolate agriculturist, for such his visage betokened him, displayed little surprise, and less animation, at the arrival of the Udaller and his companions, until, after the party had drawn close to the fire, (a neighbourhood which the dampness of the night-air ren­ dered far from disagreeable,) the panier was opened and a tolerable supply of barley-bread and hung beef, besides a flask of brandy, (no doubt smaller than that which the relentless hand of Pacolet had emptied into the ocean,) gave assurances of a tolerable supper. Then, indeed, the worthy Factor grinned, chuckled, rubbed his hands, and inquired after all friends at Burgh Westra. When they had all partaken of this needful refreshment, the Udal­ ler repeated his inquiries at Halcro, and more particularly at the Factor, how they came to be nestled in such a remote comer at such an hour of night. “Maister Magnus Troil,” said Triptolemus, when a second cup had given him spirits to tell his tale ofwoe, “I would not have you think that it is a little thing that disturbs me. I came of that grain that takes a sair wind to shake it. I have seen many a Martinmas and many a Whitsun­ day in my day, whilk are the times peculiarly grievous to those of my craft, and I could aye bide the bang; but I think I am like to be dung ower a’thegither in this damned country of yours—Gude forgie me for swearing—but evil communication corrupteth good manners.” “Now, Heaven guide us,” said the Udaller, “what is the matter with the man? Why, man, if you will put your plough into new land, you must look to have it hank on a stone now and then—You must set us an example of patience, seeing you come here for our improvement.” “And the de’il was in my feet when I did so,” said the Factor; “I had * Jokul,—Yes, sir; a Norse expression still in common use.

278

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 3

better have set myself to improve the cairn on Clochnaben.” “But what is it, after all,” said the Udaller, “that has befallen you?— what is it that you complain of?” “Of every thing that has chanced to me since I landed on this island, which I believe was accursed at the very creation,” said the agricultur­ ist, “and assigned as a fitting station for somers, thieves, whores, (I beg the leddies’ pardon,) witches, bitches, and evil spirits.” “By my faith, a goodly catalogue,” said Magnus; “and there has been the day, that if I had heard you give out the half of it, I should have turned improver myself, and have tried to amend your manners with a cudgel.” “Bear with me,” said the Factor, “Master Fowde, or Master Udal­ ler, or whatever else they may call you, and as you are strong be pitiful, and consider the luckless lot of any inexperienced person who lights upon this earthly paradise of yours. He asks for drink, they bring him sour whey—no disparagement to your brandy, Fowde, which is excel­ lent—You ask for meat, and they bring you sour fish that Satan might choke upon—You call your labourers together and bid them work; it proves Saint Magnus’s day, or Saint Ronan’s day, or some infernal saint or other—or else, perhaps, they have come over the bed with the wrong foot foremost, or they have seen an owl, or a rabbit has crossed them, or they have dreamed of a roasted horse—in short, nothing is to be done—Give them a spade, and they work as if it burned their fingers; but set them to dancing, and see when they will tire of funking and flinging.” “And why should they, poor bodies,” said Claud Halcro, “as long as there are good fiddlers to play to them?” “Ay, ay,” said Triptolemus, shaking his head, “you are a proper person to uphold them in such a humour. Well, to proceed:—I till a piece of my best ground; down comes a sturdy beggar that wants a kail-yard, or a planta-cruive, as you call it, and he claps down an inclosure in the middle of my bit shot of com, as lightly as if he was baith laird and tenant, and gainsay him wha likes, there he plants his kail-plants! I sit down to my sorrowful dinner, thinking to have peace and quietness there at least; when in comes one, two, three, four, or half a dozen of skelping long lads, frae some foolery or anither, misca’ me for barring my ain door against them, and eat up half of what my sister’s providence—and she is not over bountiful—has provided for my dinner. Then in comes a witch with an ellwand in her hand, and she raises the wind or lays it, whichever she likes, majors up and down my house as if she was mistress of it, and I am bounden to thank heaven if she carries not the broadside of it away with her!” “Still,” said the Fowde, “this is no answer to my question—how the

[Chap. 30]

THE PIRATE

279

foul fiend I come to find you at moorings here?” “Have patience, worthy sir,” replied the afflicted Factor, “and lis­ ten to what I have to say, for I fancy it will be as well to tell you the whole matter. You must know, I once thought that I had gotten a small God-send, that might have made all these matters easier.” “How! a God-send! Do you mean a wreck, Master Factor?” exclaimed Magnus; “shame upon you, that should have set example toothers!” “It was no wreck,” said the Factor; “but if you must needs know, it chanced that as I raised an hearth-stane in one of the old chambers at Stourburgh, (for my sister is minded that there is little use in mair fire-places about a house but one, and I wanted the stane to knock bear upon)—when, what should I light on but a horn full of old coins, silver the maist feck of them, but wi’ a bit sprinkling of gold amang them too. Weel, I thought this was a dainty windfa’, and so thought Baby, and we were the mair willing to put up with a place where there were siccan braw nest-eggs—and we slade down the hearth-stane cannily over the horn, which seemed to me to be the very cornucopia, or horn of abundance; and for further security, Baby wad visit the room maybe twenty times in the day, and mysell at an orra time, to the boot of a’ that.” “On my word, and a very pretty amusement,” said Claud Halcro, “to look over a horn of one’s own siller. I question if glorious John Dryden ever enjoyed such a pastime in his life—I am sure I never did.” “Yes, but you forget, Jarto Claud,” said the Udaller, “that the Factor was only counting over the money for my Lord the Chamber­ lain. As he is so keen for his Lordship’s rights in whales and wrecks, he would not surely forget him in treasure-trove.” “A-hem! a-hem! a-he—he—hem!” ejaculated Triptolemus, seized at the moment with an awkward fit of coughing,—“no doubt my Lord’s right in the matter would have been considered, being in the hand of one, though I say it, as just as can be found in Angus-shire. But mark what happened of late! One day, as I went up to see that all was safe and snug, and just to count out the share that should have been his Lordship’s—for surely the labourer, as one may call the finder, is worthy of his hire—nay, some learned men say, that when the finder, in point of trust and in point of power, representeth the dominus or lord superior, he taketh the whole; but let that pass, as a kittle question in apicibusjuris, as we wont to say at Saint Andrews— Well, sir and ladies, when I went to the upper chamber, what should I see but an ugsome, ill-shaped, and most uncouth dwarf, that wanted but hoofs and horns to have made an utter devil of him, counting over

280

the pirate

Vol. 3,ch. 3

the very hornfull of siller! I am no timorous man, Master Fowde, but judging that I suld proceed with caution in such a matter—for I had reason to believe that there was devilry in it—I accosted him in Latin, (whilk it is maist becoming to speak to aught whilk taketh upon it as a goblin,) and conjured him in nomine, and so forth, with such words as my poor learning could furnish ofa suddenly, whilk, to say truth, were not so many, nor altogether so purely latineezed as might have been, had I not been few years at college, and mony at the pleugh. Well, sirs, he started at first, as one that heareth that which he expects not; but presently recovering himself, he wawls on me with his grey een, like a wild cat, and opens his mouth, whilk resembled the mouth of an oven, for the de’il a tongue he had in it that I could spy, and took upon his ugly self, altogether, the air and bearing of a bull-dog, whilk I have seen loosed at a fair upon a mad staig; whereupon I was something daunted, and withdrew myself to call upon sister Baby, who fears neither dog nor devil, when there is in question the little penny siller. And truly she raise to the fray as I hae seen the Lindsays and Ogilvies bristle up, when Donald MacDonnoch, or the like, made a start down frae the Highlands on the braes of Islay. But an auld useless carline, called Tronda Dronsdaughter, (they might call her Drone the sell of her, without farther addition,) flung hersell right in my sister’s gate, and yelloched and skirled, that you would have thought her a whole generation of hounds; whereupon I judged it best to make ae yoking of it, and stap the pleugh until I got my sister’s assistance. Whilk when I had done, and we mounted the stair to the apartment in which the said dwarf, devil, or other apparition was to be seen, dwarf, horn, and siller, were as clean gane as if the cat had lickit the place where I saw them.” Here Triptolemus paused in his extraordinary narrative, while the rest of the party looked upon each other in surprise, and the Udaller muttered to Claud Halcro—“By all tokens, this must have been either the devil or Nicholas Strumpfer; and if it were him, he is more of a goblin than e’er I gave him credit for, and I shall be apt to rate him as such in future.” Then addressing the Factor, he inquired—“Saw ye nought how this dwarf of yours parted company?” “As I shall answer it, no,” answered Triptolemus, with a cautious look around him as if daunted by the recollection, “neither I nor Baby, who had her wits more about her, not having seen this unseemly vision, could perceive any way by whilk he made evasion. Only Tronda said she saw him flee forth of the window of the west roundel of the auld house, upon a dragon, as she averred. But, as the dragon is held a fabellous animal, I suld pronounce her averment to rest upon deceptio visus”

[Chap. 30]

THE PIRATE

281

“But may we not ask farther,” said Brenda, stimulated by curiosity to know as much of her cousin Norna’s family as was possible, “how all this operated upon Master Yellowley, so as to occasion his being in this place at so unseasonable an hour?” “Seasonable it must be, Mistress Brenda, since it brought us into your sweet company,” answered Claud Halcro, whose mercurial brain far outstripped the slow conceptions of the agriculturist, and who became impatient of being so long silent. “To say the truth, it was I, Mistress Brenda, who recommended to our friend the Factor, whose house I chanced to call at just after this mischance, (and where, by the way, owing doubtless to the hurry of their spirits, I was but poorly received,) to make a visit to our other friend at Fitful-head, well judging from certain points of the story, at which my other and more particular friend than either (looking at Magnus) may chance to form a guess, that they who break a head are the best to find a plaister. And as our friend the Factor scrupled travelling on horseback, in respect of some tumbles from our ponies” ––– “Which are incarnate devils,” said Triptolemus aloud, muttering under his breath, “like every live thing that I have found in Zetland.” “Well, Fowde,” continued Halcro, “I undertook to carry him to Fitful-head in my little boat, which Giles and I can manage as if it were an Admiral’s barge full manned; and Master Triptolemus Yel­ lowley will tell you how seamanlike I piloted him to the little haven, within a quarter ofa mile of Norna’s dwelling.” “I wish to heaven you had brought me as safe back again,” said the Factor. “Why, to be sure,” replied the minstrel, “I am, as glorious John says,— A daring pilot in extremity, Pleased with the danger when the waves go high, I seek the storm—but, for a calm unfit, Will steer too near the sands, to shew my wit.”

“I shewed little wit in entrusting myself to your charge,” said Triptolemus; “and you still less when you upset the boat at the throat of the Voe, as you call it, when even the poor bairn, that was mair than half drowned, told you that you were carrying too much sail; and then ye wad fasten the rape to the bit stick on the boat-side, that ye might have time to play on the fiddle.” “What!” said the Udaller, “make fast the sheets to the thwart? a most unseamanlike practice, Claud Halcro.” “And sae came of it,” replied the agriculturist; “for the neist blast, and we are never lang without ane in these parts, whomled us as a gudewife would whomle a bowie, and ne’er a thing wad Maister

282

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 3

Halcro save but his fiddle. His puir bairn swam out like a water­ spaniel, and I swattered hard for my life, wi’ the help of ane of the oars; and here we are, comfortless creatures, that, till a good wind blew you here, had naething to eat but a mouthful ofNorway rusk, that has mair saw-dust than rye-meal in it, and tastes liker turpentine than any thing else.” “I thought we heard you very merry,” said Brenda, “as we came along the beach.” “Ye heard a fiddle, Mistress Brindie,” said the Factor; “and maybe ye may think there can be nae dearth of mess, where that is skirling. But then it was Maister Claud Halcro’s fiddle, whilk, I am apt to think, wald skirl at his father’s death-bed, or at his ain, sae lang as his fingers could pinch thairm. And it was nae sma’ aggravation of my misfortune to have him bumming a’ sorts ofsprings,—Norse and Scots, Highland and Lalland, English and Italian, in my lug, as if nothing had hap­ pened that was amiss, and we all in such stress and perplexity.” “Why, I told you sorrow would never right the boat, Factor,” said the thoughtless minstrel, “and I did my best to make you merry; if I failed, it was neither my fault nor my fiddle’s. I have drawn the bow across it before glorious John Dryden himself.” “I will hear no stories about glorious John Dryden,” answered the Udaller, who dreaded Halcro’s narratives as much as Triptolemus did his music. “I will hear nought of him, but one story to every three bowls of punch,—it is our old paction, you know. But tell me instead, what said Noma to you about your errand?” “Ay, there was anither fine up-shot,” said Master Yellowley. “She wadna look at us, or listen to us; only she bathered our acquaintance, Master Halcro here, who thought he could have sae much to say wi’ her, with about a score of questions about your family and household estate, Master Magnus Troil; and when she had gotten a’ she wanted out of him, I thought she wad hae dung him ower the craig, like an empty pea-cod.” “And for yourself?” said the Udaller. “She wadna listen to my story, nor hear sae much as a word that I had to say,” answered Triptolemus; “and sae much for them that seek to witches and familiar spirits.” “You needed not to have had recourse to Norna’s wisdom, Master Factor,” said Minna, not unwilling, perhaps, to stop his railing against the friend who had so lately rendered her service; “the youngest child in Orkney could have told you, that fairy treasures, if they are not wisely employed for the good of others, as well as of those to whom they are imparted, do not dwell long with their possessors.” “Your humble servant to command, Mistress Minnie,” said

[Chap. 30]

THE PIRATE

283

Triptolemus; “I thank ye for the hint,—and I am blithe that you have gotten your wits—I beg pardon, I meant your health—into the barn­ yard again. For the treasure, I neither used nor abused it,—they that live in the house wi’ my sister Baby wad find it hard to do either:—and as for speaking of it, whilk they say muckle offends them whom we in Scotland call Good Neighbours, and you call Drows, the face of the auld Norse kings on the coins themselves might have spoken as much about it as ever I did.” “The Factor,” said Claud Halcro, not unwilling to seize the oppor­ tunity of revenging himself on Triptolemus, for disgracing his sea­ manship and disparaging his music,—“the Factor was so scrupulous, as to keep the thing quiet even from his master, the Lord Chamberlain; but now that the matter has ta’en wind, he is likely to have to account to his master for that which is no longer in his possession; for the Lord Chamberlain will be in no hurry, I think, to believe the story of the dwarf. Neither do I think, (winking to the Udaller,) that Norna gave credit to a word of so odd a story; and I dare say that was the reason that she received us, I must needs say, in a very dry manner. I rather think she knew that Triptolemus, our friend here, had found some other hiding hole for the money, and that the story of the goblin was all his own invention. For my part, I will never believe there was such a dwarf to be seen as the creature Master Yellowley describes, until I set my own eyes on him.” “Then you may do so at this moment,” said the Factor; “for, by ––––, (he muttered a deep asseveration as he sprung on his feet in great horror,) there the creature is!” All turned their eyes in the direction in which he pointed, and saw the hideous mis-shapen figure of Pacolet, with his eyes fixed and glaring at them through the smoke. He had stolen upon their conver­ sation unperceived, until the Factor’s eye lighted upon him in the manner we have described. There was something so ghastly in his sudden and unexpected appearance, that even the Udaller, to whom his form was familiar, could not help starting. Neither pleased with himself for having testified this degree ofemotion, however slight, nor with the dwarf who had given cause to it, Magnus asked him sharply, what was his business there? Pacolet replied by producing a letter, which he gave to the Udaller, uttering a sound resembling the word Shogh. “That is the Highlandman’s language,” said the Udaller—“did’st thou learn that, Nicholas, when you lost your own?” Pacolet nodded, and signed to him to read his letter. “That is no such easy matter by fire-light, my good friend,” replied the Udaller; “but it may concern Minna, and we must try.”

284

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 3

Brenda offered her assistance, but the Udaller answered, “No, no, my girl,—Norna’s letters must be read by those they are written to. Give the knave, Strumpfer, a drop ofbrandy the while, though he little deserves it at my hands, considering the grin with which he sent the good Nantz down the craig this morning, as if it had been so much ditch-water.” “Will you be this honest gentleman’s cup-bearer—his Ganymede, friend Yellowley, or shall I?” said Claud Halcro aside to the Factor; while Magnus Troil, having carefully wiped the spectacles, which he produced from a large copper-case, had disposed them on his nose, and was studying the epistle of Norna. “I would not touch him, or go near him, for all the Carse of Gowrie,” said the Factor, whose fears were by no means entirely removed, though he saw that the dwarf was received as a creature of flesh and blood by the rest of the company; “but I pray you to ask him what he has done with my horn of coin?” The dwarf, who heard the question, threw back his head, and displayed his enormous throat, pointing to it with his finger. “Nay, if he has swallowed them there is no more to be said,” replied the Factor; “only I hope he will thrive on them as a cow on wet clover. He is dame Noma’s servant it’s like,—such man, such mistress! But if theft and witchcraft are to go unpunished in this land, my Lord must find another factor; for I have been used to live in a country where men’s warldly gear was keeped from infang and outfang thief, as well as their immortal souls from the claws of the de’il and his cummers,— sain and save us!” The agriculturist was perhaps the less reserved in expressing his complaints, that the Udaller was for the present out ofhearing, having drawn Claud Halcro apart into another comer of the hut. “And tell me,” said he, “friend Halcro, what errand took thee to Sumburgh, since I reckon it was scarce the mere pleasure of sailing in partnership with yonder barnacle?” “In faith, Fowde,” said the Bard, “and if you will have the truth, I went to speak to Norna on your affairs.” “On my affairs?” replied the Udaller; “on what affairs ofmine?” “Just touching your daughter’s health. I heard that Noma refused your message, and would not see Eric Scambester. Now, said I to myself, I have scarce joyed in meat, or drink, or music, or aught else, since Jarto Minna has been so ill; and I may say, literally as well as figuratively, that my day and night have been made sorrowful to me. In short, I thought I might have some more interest with old Norna than another, as Scalds and wise women were always accounted something akin; and I undertook the journey with the hope to be of some use to

[Chap. 30]

THE PIRATE

285

my old friend and his lovely daughters.” “And it was most kindly done of you, good warm-hearted Claud,” said the Udaller, shaking him warmly by the hand,—“I ever said you shewed the good old Norse heart amongst all thy fiddling and thy folly. Why, man, never wince for the matter, but be blithe that thy heart is better than thy head. Well,—and I warrant you got no answer from Noma?” “None to purpose,” replied Claud Halcro; “but she held me close to question about Minna’s illness too,—and I told her how I had met her abroad the other morning in no very good weather, and how her sister Brenda said she had hurt her foot;—in short, I told her all and every thing I knew.” “And something more besides, it would seem,” said the Udaller; “for I, at least, never heard before that Minna had hurt herself.” “O, a scratch! a mere scratch!” said the old man; “but I was startled about it—terrified lest it had been the bite of a dog, or some hurt from a venomous thing. I told all to Norna, however.” “And what,” answered the Udaller, “did she say, in the way of reply?” “She bade me begone about my business, and told me that the issue would be known at the Kirkwall Fair; and said just the like to this noodle of a Factor—it was all that either ofus got for our labour,” said Halcro. “That is strange,” said Magnus. “My kinswoman writes me in this letter not to fail going thither with my daughters. This Fair runs strongly in her head;—one would think she intended to lead the market, and yet she has nothing to buy or to sell there which I know of. And so you came away as wise as you went, and swamped your boat at the mouth of the Voe?” “Why, how could I help it?” said the poet. “I had set the boy to steer, and as the flaw came suddenly off shore, I could not let go the tack and play on the fiddle at the same time. But it is all well enough,—salt­ water never harmed Zetlander, so he could get out of it; and, as Heaven would have it, we were within man’s depth of the shore, and chancing to find this skio, we should have done well enough, with shelter and fire, and are much better than well with your good cheer and good company. But it wears late, and Night and Day must be both as sleepy as old Midnight can make them. There is an inner crib here, where the fishers slept,—somewhat fragrant with the smell of their fish, but that is wholesome. They shall bestow themselves there, with help of what cloaks you have, and then we will have one cup ofbrandy, and one stave of glorious John, or some little trifle of my own, and so sleep as sound as cobblers.”

286

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 4

“Two glasses of brandy, if you please,” said the Udaller, “if our stores do not run dry; and not a single stave of glorious John or of any one else to-night.” And this being arranged agreeably to the peremptory pleasure of the Udaller, the whole party consigned themselves to slumber for the night, and on the next day departed for their several habitations, Claud Halcro having previously arranged with the Udaller that he would accompany him and his daughters on their proposed visit to Kirkwall.

Chapter Four By this hand, thou think’st me as far in the devil’s book, as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persist­ ency. Let the end try the man.... Albeit I could tell to thee, (as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend,) I could be sad, and sad indeed too. Henry IV. Part 2d

We must now change the scene from Zetland to Orkney, and request our readers to accompany us to the ruins ofan elegant, though ancient structure, called the Earl’s Palace. These remains, though much dilapidated, still exist in the neighbourhood of the massive and venerable pile, which Norwegian devotion dedicated to Saint Magnus the Martyr, and, being contiguous to the Bishop’s Palace, which is also ruinous, the place is impressive, as exhibiting vestiges of the mutations both in Church and State which have affected Orkney, as well as countries more exposed to such convulsions. Several parts of these ruinous buildings might be selected (under suitable modifica­ tions) as the model of a Gothic mansion, providing architects would be contented rather to imitate what is really beautiful in that species of building, than to make a medley of the caprices of the order, con­ founding the military, ecclesiastical, and domestic styles of all ages at random, with additional fantasies and combinations of their own device, “all formed out of the builder’s brain.” The Earl’s Palace forms three sides of an oblong square, and has, even in its ruins, the air of an elegant yet massive structure, uniting, as was usual in the residence of feudal princes, the character of a palace and of a castle. A great banquetting-hall, communicating with several large rounds, or projecting turret-rooms, and having at either end an immense chimney, testifies the ancient Northern hospitality of the Earls of Orkney, and communicates, almost in the modem fashion, with a gallery, or withdrawing-room, of corresponding dimensions, and having, like the hall, its projecting turrets. The lordly

[Chap. 31]

THE PIRATE

287

hall itself is lighted by a fine Gothic window of shafted stone at one end, and is entered by a spacious and elegant staircase, consisting of three flights of stone steps. The exterior ornaments and proportions of the ancient building are also very handsome; but, being totally unprotected, this remnant of the pomp and grandeur of Earls, who assumed the license as well as the dignity of petty sovereigns, is now fast crumbling to decay, and has suffered considerably since the date of our story. With folded arms and downcast looks, the pirate Cleveland was pacing slowly the ruined hall which we have just described, a place of retirement which he had probably chosen because it was distant from public resort. His dress was considerably altered from that which he usually wore in Zetland, and seemed a sort of uniform, richly laced, and exhibiting no small quantity of embroidery; a hat with a plume, and a small-sword, very handsomely mounted, then the constant companion of every one who assumed the rank of a gentleman, shewed his pretensions to that character. But if his exterior was so far improved, it seemed to be otherwise with his health and spirits. He was pale, and had lost both the fire of his eye and the vivacity of his step, and his whole appearance indicated melancholy of mind, or suffering ofbody, or a combination ofboth evils. As Cleveland thus paced these ancient ruins, a young man, ofa light and slender form, whose showy dress seemed to have been studied with care, yet exhibited more extravagance than judgement or taste, whose manner was a janty affectation of the free and easy rake of the period, and the expression of whose countenance was lively, with a cast of effrontery, tripped up the staircase, entered the hall, and pre­ sented himself to Cleveland, who merely nodded to him, and pulling his hat deeper over his brows, resumed his solitary and discontented promenade. The stranger adjusted his own hat, nodded in return, took snuff, with the air of a petit maitre, from a richly chased gold box, offered it to Cleveland as he paced, and being repulsed rather coldly, replaced the box in his pocket, folded his arms in his turn, and stood looking with fixed attention on his motions whose solitude he had interrupted. At length Cleveland stopped short, as if impatient of being longer the subject of his observation, and said abruptly, “Why can I not be left alone for half an hour, and what the devil is it that you want?” “I am glad you spoke first,” answered the stranger, carelessly; “I was determined to know whether you were Clement Cleveland, or Clement’s ghost, and they say ghosts never take the first word, so I now set it down for yourself in life and limb; and here is a fine old hurly-house you have found out for an owl to hide himself in at

288

the pirate

Vol.3,ch.4

mid-day, or a ghost to revisit the pale glimpses of the moon, as the divine Shakespeare says.” “Well, well,” answered Cleveland abruptly, “your jest is made, and now let us have your earnest.” “In earnest, then, Captain Cleveland,” replied his companion, “I think you know me for your friend.” “I am content to suppose so,” replied Cleveland. “It is more than supposition,” replied the young man; “I have proved it—proved it both here and elsewhere.” “Well, well,” answered Cleveland, “I admit you have been always a friendly fellow—and what then?” “Well, well—and what then?” replied the other; “this is but a brief way of thanking folks. Look you, Captain, here is Benson, Barlow, Dick Fletcher, and a few others of us who wished you well, have kept your old comrade Captain Goffe in these seas upon the look-out for you, when he and Hawkins, and the greater part of the ship’s com­ pany, would fain have been down on the Spanish Main, and at the old trade.” “And I wish to God that you had all gone about your business,” said Cleveland, “and left me to my fate.” “Which would have been to be informed against and hanged, Cap­ tain, the first time that one of these Dutch or English rascals, whom you have lightened of their cargoes, came to set eyes upon you, and no place more likely to meet with sea-faring men, than in these Islands. And here, to save you from such a risk, we have been wasting our precious time here, till folks are grown very peery; and when we have no more goods or money to spend amongst them, the fellows will be for grabbing the ship.” “Well then, why do you not sail off without me?” said Cleveland— “There has been fair partition, and all have had their share—let all do as they like. I have lost my ship, and having been once a Captain, I will not go to sea under command of Goffe or any other man. Besides, you know well enough that both Hawkins and he bear me ill-will for keeping them from sinking the Spanish brig, with the poor devils of negroes on board.” “Why, what the foul fiend is the matter with thee?” said his com­ panion; “Are you Clement Cleveland, our own old true-hearted Clem of the Cleugh, and do you talk of being afraid of Hawkins and Goffe, and a score of such fellows, when you have myself, and Barlow, and Dick Fletcher at your back? When was it we deserted you, either in council or in fight, that you should be afraid ofour flinching now? And as for serving under Goffe, I hope it is no new thing for gentlemen of fortune who are going on the account, to change a Captain now and

[Chap. 31]

THE PIRATE

289

then. Let us alone for that, Captain you shall be; for death rock me asleep if I serve under that fellow Goffe, who is as very a blood-hound as ever sucked bitch—no, no, I thank you—my Captain must have a little of the gentleman about him, howsoever. Besides, you know, it was you who first dipped my hands in the dirty water, and turned me from a stroller by land, to a rover by sea.” “Alas, poor Bunce!” said Cleveland, “you owe me little thanks for that service.” “That is as you take it,” replied Bunce; “for my part, I see no harm in levying contributions on the public either one way or tother. But I wish you would forget that name of Bunce, and call me Altamont, as I have often desired you to do. I hope a gentleman of the roving trade has as good a right to have an alias as a stroller, and I never stepped on boards but what I was Altamont at the least.” “Well then, Jack Altamont,” replied Cleveland, “since Altamont is the word” “Yes, but Captain, Jack is not the word, though Altamont be so. Jack Altamont?—why, ’tis a velvet coat with paper lace—Let it be Frederick, Captain; Frederick Altamont is all of a piece.” “Frederick be it then, with all my heart,” said Cleveland; “and pray tell me, which of your names will sound best at the head of the Last Speech, Confession, and Dying Words ofJohn Bunce, alias Frederick Altamont, who was this morning hanged at Execution-dock, for the crime of Piracy upon the High Seas?” “Faith, I cannot answer that question, without another can of grog, Captain; so if you will go down with me to Bet Haldane’s on the quay, I will bestow some thought on the matter, with the help of a right pipe of Trinidado. We will have the gallon bowl filled with the best stuff you ever tasted, and I know some smart wenches who will help us to drain it. But you shake your head—you’re not in the vein?—Well then, I will stay with you; for by this hand, Clem, you shift me not off. Only I will ferret you out of this burrow of old stones, and carry you into sunshine and fair air.—Where shall we go?” “Where you will,” said Cleveland, “so that you keep out of the way of our own rascals, and all others.” “Why, then,” replied Bunce, “you and I will up to the Hill of Whiteford, which overlooks the town, and walk together as gravely and honestly as a pair of well employed attorneys.” As they proceeded to leave the ruinous castle, Bunce, turning back to look at it, thus addressed his companion: “Hark ye, Captain, doest thou know who last inhabited this old cock-loft?” “An Earl of the Orkneys, they say,” replied Cleveland.

290

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 4

“And are you avised what death he died of?” said Bunce; “for I have heard that it was ofa tight neck-collar—a hempen fever, or the like.” “The people here do say,” replied Cleveland, “that his lordship, some hundred years ago, had the mishap to become acquainted with the nature ofa loop and a leap in the air.” “Why, la ye there now!” said Bunce; “there was some credit in being hanged in those days, and in such worshipful company. And what might his lordship have done to deserve such promotion?” “Plundered the liege subjects, they say,” replied Cleveland; “slain and wounded them, fired upon his Majesty’s flag, and so forth.” “Near a-kin to a gentleman rover, then,” said Bunce, making a theatrical bow towards the old building; “and, therefore, my most potent, grave, and reverend Signior Earl, I crave leave to call you my loving cousin, and bid you most heartily adieu. I leave you in the good company of rats and mice, and so forth, and I carry with me an honest gentleman, who, having of late had no more heart than a mouse, is now desirous to run away from his profession and friends like a rat, and would therefore be a most fitting denizen of your Earlship’s palace.” “I would advise you not to speak so loud, my good friend, Frederick Altamont, or John Bunce,” said Cleveland; “when you were on the stage, you might safely rant as loud as you listed; but, in your present profession, of which you are so fond, every man speaks under correc­ tion of the yard-arm, and a running noose.” The comrades left the little town of Kirkwall in silence, and ascended the Hill of Whiteford, which raises its brow of dark heath, uninterrupted by inclosures or cultivation of any kind, to the north­ ward of the ancient Burgh of Saint Magnus. The plain at the foot of the hill was already occupied by numbers of persons who were engaged in making preparations for the Fair of Saint Olla, to be held upon the ensuing day, and which forms a general rendezvous to all the neighbouring islands of Orkney, and is even frequented by many persons from the more distant archipelago of Zetland. It is, in the words of the Proclamation, “a free Mercat and Fair, holden at the good Burgh of Kirkwall on the third of August, being Saint Ollaw’s day,” and continuing for an indefinite space thereafter, extending from three days to a week, and upwards. The Fair is of great antiquity, and derives its name from Olaus, Olave, or Ollaw, the celebrated Monarch of Norway, who, rather by the edge of his sword than any milder argument, introduced Christianity into those isles, and was respected as the patron of Kirkwall some time before he shared that honour with Saint Magnus the Martyr. It was no part of Cleveland’s purpose to mingle in the busy scene

[Chap. 31]

THE PIRATE

291

which was here going on; and, turning their route to the left, they soon ascended into undisturbed solitude, save where the grouse, more plentiful in Orkney, perhaps, than in any other part of the British dominions, rose in covey, and went off before them. Having con­ tinued to ascend till they had well nigh reached the summit of the conical hill, both turned round, as with one consent, to look at and admire the prospect beneath. The lively bustle which extended between the foot of the hill and the town, gave life and variety to that part of the scene; then was seen the town itself, out of which arose, like a great mass, superior in proportion as it seemed to the whole burgh, the ancient Cathedral of Saint Magnus, ofthe heaviest order ofGothic architecture, but grand, solemn, and stately, the work of a distant age, and of a powerful hand. The quay, with the shipping, lent additional vivacity to the scene; and not only the whole beautiful bay, which lies betwixt the promontories of Inganess and Quantemess, at the bottom of which Kirkwall is situated, but all the sea, so far as visible, and in particular the whole strait betwixt the island of Shapinsha and that called Pomona, or the Mainland, was covered and enlivened by a variety of boats and small vessels, freighted from distant islands to convey passengers or mer­ chandize to the Fair of Saint Ollaw. Having attained the point by which this fair and busy prospect was most completely commanded, each of the strangers, in seaman fash­ ion, had recourse to his spy-glass, to assist the naked eye in consider­ ing the bay of Kirkwall, and the numerous vessels by which it was traversed. But the attention of the two companions seemed to be arrested by different objects. That ofBunce, or Altamont, as he chose to call himself, was rivetted to the armed sloop, where, conspicuous by her square rigging and length of beam, with the English jack and pennon, which they had the precaution to keep flying, she lay among the merchant vessels, as distinguished from them by the trim neatness of her appearance, as a trained soldier amongst a crowd of clowns. “Yonder she lies,” said Bunce; “I wish to God she was in the bay of Honduras—you captain, on the quarter-deck, I your lieutenant, and Fletcher quarter-master, and fifty stout fellows under us—I should not wish to see these blasted heaths and rocks again for one while!— And captain you shall soon be. The old brute Goffe gets drunk as a lord every day, swaggers, and shoots, and cuts among the crew; and besides, he has quarrelled with the people here so damnably, that they will scarce let water or provisions go on board of us, and we expect an open breach every day.” As Bunce received no answer, he turned short round on his com­ panion, and perceiving his attention otherwise engaged, exclaimed,—

292

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 4

“What the devil is the matter with you? or what can you see in all that trumpery small-craft, which is only loaded with stock-fish and ling, and smoked geese, and tubs of butter that is worse than tallow—the cargoes of the whole lumped together would not be worth the flash of a pistol.—No, no, give me such a chase as we might see from the mast­ head off the island of Trinidado. Your Don, rolling as deep in the water as a grampus, deep-loaden with rum, sugar, and bales of tobacco, and all the rest ingots, moidores, and gold dust; then set all sail, clear the deck, stand to quarters, up with the Jolly Roger*—we near her—we make her out to be well manned and armed.” “Twenty guns on her lower deck,” said Cleveland. “Forty, ifyou will,” retorted Bunce, “and we have but ten mounted —never mind—the Don blazes away—never mind yet, my brave lads —run her alongside, and on board with you—to work, with your grenadoes, your cutlasses, pole-axes, and pistols—the Don cries Miserecordia, and we share the cargo without co licencio Seignior.” “By my faith,” said Cleveland, “thou takest so kindly to the trade, that all the world may see that no honest man was spoiled when you were made a pirate. But you shall not prevail on me to go farther in the devil’s road with you; for you know yourself that what is got over his back is spent—you wot how. In a week, or a month at most, the rum and the sugar is out, the bales of tobacco have become smoke, the moidores, ingots, and gold dust, have got out of our hands, into those of the quiet, honest, conscientious folks who will, at Port Royal and elsewhere, wink hard on our trade as long as we have money, but not a jot beyond. Then we have cold looks, and it may be a hint is given to the Judge Marshal; for when our pockets are worth nothing, our honest friends, rather than want, will make money upon our heads. Then comes a high gallows and a short halter, and so dies the Gentle­ man Rover. I tell thee I will leave this trade; and when I turn my glass from one of these barks and boats to another, there is not the worst of them which I would not row for life, rather than continue to be what I have been. These poor men make the sea a means of honest livelihood and friendly communication between shore and shore, for the mutual benefit of the inhabitants; but we have made it a road to the ruin of others, and to our own destruction here and in eternity.—I am deter­ mined to turn honest man, and use this life no longer!” “And where will your honesty take up its abode, if it please you?” said Bunce.—“You have broke the laws of every nation, and the hand of the law will detect and crush you wherever you may take refuge.— Cleveland, I speak to you more seriously than I am wont to do. I have * The pirates gave this name to the black flag, which, with many horrible devices to enhance its terrors, was their favourite ensign.

[Chap. 31]

THE PIRATE

293

had my reflections too, and they have been bad enough and bitter enough, though they lasted but a few minutes, to spoil me weeks of joviality. But here is the matter,—what can we do but go on as we have done, unless we have a direct purpose ofadorning the yard-arm?” “We may claim the benefit of the proclamation to those of our sort who come in and surrender,” said Cleveland. “Umph!” answered his companion, drily; “the date of that day of grace has been for some time over, and they may take the penalty or grant the pardon at their pleasure. Were I you, I would not put my neck in such a venture.” “Why, others have been admitted but lately to favour, and why should not I?” said Cleveland. “Ay,” replied his associate, “Harry Glasby and some others have been spared; but Glasby did what was called good service, in betray­ ing his comrades, and retaking the Jolly Fortune; and that I think you would scorn, even to be revenged of the brute Goffe yonder.” “I would die a thousand times sooner,” said Cleveland. “I will be sworn for it,” said Bunce; “and the others were forecastle fellows—petty larceny rogues, scarce worth the hemp it would have cost to hang them. But your name has stood too high amongst the gentlemen of fortune for you to get off so easily. You are the prime buck ofthe herd, and will be marked accordingly.” “And why so, I pray you?” said Cleveland; “you know well enough my aim, Jack.” “Frederick, ifyou please,” said Bunce. “The devil take your folly!—prithee keep thy wit, and let us be grave for a moment.” “For a moment—be it so,” said Bunce; “but I feel the spirit of Altamont coming fast upon me,—I have been a grave man for ten minutes already.” “Be so then for a little longer,” said Cleveland: “I know, Jack, that you really love me; and since we have come thus far in this talk, I will trust you entirely. Now tell me why should I be refused the benefit of this gracious proclamation? I have borne a rough outside, as thou knowest; but, in time of need, I can shew the number of lives which I have been the means of saving, the property which I have restored to those who owned it, when, without my intercession, it would have been wantonly destroyed. In short, Bunce, I can shew” –––– “That you were as gentle a thief as Robin Hood himself,” said Bunce, “and for that reason, I, Fletcher, and the better sort amongst us, love you, as one who saves the character of us Gentlemen Rovers from utter reprobation.—Well, suppose your pardon made out, what are you to do next?—what class in society will receive you?—with

294

the pirate

Vol.3,ch.4

whom will you associate? Old Drake, in Queen Bess’s time, could plunder Peru and Mexico without a line of commission to shew for it, and, blessed be her memory, he was knighted for it on his return. And there was Hal Morgan, the Welchman, nearer our own time, in the days of merry King Charles, brought all his gettings home, had his estate and his country-house, and who but he. But that is all ended now—once a pirate, and an outcast for ever. The poor devil may go and live, shunned and despised by every one, in some obscure sea­ port, with such part of his guilty earnings as courtiers and clerks leave him—for pardons do not pass the seals for nothing;—and when he takes his walk along the pier, if a stranger asks, who is the down­ looking, swarthy, melancholy man, for whom all make way, as if he brought the plague in his person, the answer shall be, that is such-aone, the pardoned pirate!—No honest man will speak to him,—no woman of repute will give her hand.” “Your picture is too highly coloured, Jack,” said Cleveland, sud­ denly interrupting his friend; “there are women—there is one at least, that would be true to her lover, even if he were what you have described.” Bunce was silent for a moment, and looked fixedly at his friend. “By my soul!” he said at length, “I begin to think myself a conjuror. Unlikely as it all was, I could not help suspecting from the beginning that there was a girl in the case. Why, this is worse than Prince Volscius in love, ha! ha! ha!” “Laugh as you will,” said Cleveland, “it is true;—there is a maiden who is contented to love me, pirate as I am; and I will fairly own to you, Jack, that though I have often at times detested our roving life, and myself for following it, yet I doubt if I could have found resolution to make the break which I have now resolved on, but for her sake.” “Why, then, God-a-mercy!” replied Bunce, “there is no speaking sense to a madman; and love in one of your trade, Captain, is little better than lunacy. The girl must be a rare creature, for a wise man to risk hanging for her. But harkye, may she not be a little touched as well as yourself?—and is it not sympathy that has done it? She is, I under­ stand, not one of our ordinary cockatrices, but a girl of conduct and character.” “Both are as undoubted as that she is the most beautiful and bewitching creature whom the eye ever opened upon,” answered Cleveland. “And she loves thee, knowing thee, most noble Captain, to be a commander among those gentlemen of fortune whom the vulgar call pirates?” “Even so—I am assured of it,” said Cleveland.

[Chap. 31]

THE PIRATE

295

“Why, then,” answered Bunce, “she is either mad in good earnest, as I said before, or she does not know what a pirate is.” “You are right in the last point,” replied Cleveland. “She has been bred in such remote simplicity, and utter ignorance ofwhat is evil, that she compares our occupation with that of the old Northmen, who swept sea and haven with their victorious galleys, established colonies, conquered countries, and took the name of Sea-kings.” “And a better one it is than that of pirate, and comes much to the same purpose, I dare say,” said Bunce. “But this must be a mettled wench. Why did you not bring her aboard? methinks it was pity to baulk her fancy.” “And do you think,” said Cleveland, “that I could so utterly play the part of a fallen spirit as to avail myself of her enthusiastic error, and bring an angel of beauty and innocence acquainted with such a hell as exists on board of yonder infernal ship of ours?—I tell you, my friend, that were all my former sins doubled in weight and in dye, such a villainy would have outglared and outweighed them all.” “Why, then, Captain Cleveland,” said his confidant, “methinks it was but a fool’s part to come hither at all. The news must one day have gone abroad, that the celebrated pirate, Captain Cleveland, with his good sloop the Revenge, had been lost on the Mainland of Zetland, and all hands perished; so you would have remained hid both from friend and enemy, and might have married your pretty Zetlander, and converted your sash and scarf into fishing-nets, and your cutlass into a harpoon, and swept the seas for fish instead of florins.” “And so I had determined,” said the Captain; “but a Jagger, as they call them here, like a meddling, peddling thief as he is, brought down intelligence to Zetland of your lying here, and I was fain to set off, to see if you were the consort of whom I had told them, long before I thought of leaving the roving trade.” “Ay,” said Bunce, “and so far you judged well. For as you had heard ofour being at Kirkwall, so we should have soon learned that you were at Zetland; and some of us for friendship, some for hatred, and some for fear ofyour playing Harry Glasby upon us, would have come down for the purpose of getting you into our company again.” “I suspected as much,” said the Captain, “and therefore was fain to decline the courteous offer of a friend, who proposed to bring me here about this time. Besides, Jack, I recollected that, as you say, my pardon will not pass the seals without money, my own was waxing low—no wonder, thou knowst I was never a churl of it.” “And so you came for your share of the cobs?” replied his friend— “It was wisely done; and we shared honourably—so far Goffe has acted up to articles, it must be allowed. But keep your purpose of

296

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. 4

leaving him close in your breast, for I dread his playing you some dog’s trick or other; for he certainly thought himself heir of your share, and will hardly forgive your coming alive to disappoint him.” “I fear him not,” said Cleveland, “and he knows that well. I would I were as well clear of the consequences of having been his comrade, as I hold myself to be of all those which may attend his ill-will. Another unhappy job I may be troubled with—I hurt a young fellow, who has been my plague for some time, in an unhappy brawl that chanced the morning I left Zetland.” “Is he dead?” asked Bunce; “it is a more serious question here, than it would be on the Grand Caimains or the Bahama Islands where a brace or two of fellows may be shot in a morning, and no more heard of or asked about them than if they were so many wood-pigeons. But here it may be otherwise; so I hope you have not made your friend immortal.” “I hope not,” said the Captain, “though my anger has been fatal to those who have given me less provocation. To say the truth, I was sorry for the lad notwithstanding, and especially as I was forced to leave him in mad keeping.” “In mad keeping?” said Bunce; “why, what means that?” “You shall hear,” replied his friend. “In the first place, you are to know, this young man came suddenly on me while I was trying to gain Minna’s ear for a private interview before I set sail, that I might explain my purpose to her. Now to be broken in on by the accursed rudeness of this young fellow at such a moment” ––– “The interruption deserved death,” said Bunce, “by all the laws of love and honour!” “A truce with your ends of plays, Jack, and listen one moment.— The brisk youth thought proper to retort, when I commanded him to be gone. I am not, thou knowest, very patient, and enforced my com­ mands with a blow, which he returned as roundly. We struggled, till I became desirous that we should part at any rate, which I could only effect by a stroke of my poniard, which, according to old use, I have, thou knowest, always about me. I had scarce done this when I repented; but there was no time to think of any thing save escape and concealment, for if the house rose on me, I was lost; as the fiery old man, who is head of the family, would have done justice on me had I been his brother. I took the body hastily on my shoulders to carry it down to the sea-shore, with the hasty purpose of throwing it into a riva, as they call them, or chasm of great depth, where it would have been long enough in being discovered. This done, I intended to jump into the boat which I had lying ready, and set sail for Kirkwall. But as I walked hastily towards the beach with my burthen, the poor young

[Chap. 3I]

THE PIRATE

297

fellow groaned, and so apprized me that the wound had not been instantly fatal. I was by this time well concealed amongst the rocks, and far from desiring to complete my crime, I laid the young man on the ground, and was doing what I could to staunch the blood, when suddenly an old woman stood before me. She was a person whom I had frequently seen while in Zetland, and to whom they ascribe the character of a sorceress, or, as the negroes say, an Obi woman. She demanded the wounded man of me, and I was too much pressed for time to hesitate complying with her request. More she was about to say to me, when we heard the voice of a silly old man, belonging to the family, singing at some distance. She then pressed her finger on her lip as a sign of secrecy, whistled very low, and a shapeless, deformed brute of a dwarf coming to her assistance, they carried the wounded man into one of the caverns with which the place abounds, and I got to my boat and to sea with all expedition. If that old hag be, as they say, connected with the King of the Air, she favoured me that morning with a turn of her calling. For not even the West Indian tornadoes, which we have weathered together, made a wilder racket than the squall that drove me so far out of our course, that, without a pocketcompass, which I chanced to have about me, I should never have recovered the Fair Isle for which we run, and where I found a brig which brought me to this place. But whether the old woman meant me weal or woe, here we came at length in safety from the sea, and here I remain at land, in doubt and difficulties ofmore kinds than one.'' “O the devil take the Sumburgh-head,” said Bunce, “or whatever they call the rock that you knocked our clever little Revenge against!” “Do not say I knocked her on the rock,” said Cleveland; “have I not told you fifty times, ifthe cowards had not taken to their boat, though I shewed them the danger, and told them they would be all swamped, which happened the instant they cast off the painter, she would have been afloat at this moment? Had they stood by me and the ship, their lives would have been saved; had I gone with them, mine would have been lost; who can say which is for the best?” “Well,” replied his friend, “I know your case now, and can the better help and advise. I will be true to you, Clement, as the blade to the hilt; but I cannot think that you should leave us. As the old Scottish song says, ‘Waes my heart that we should sunder.’—But come, you will aboard with us to-day.” “I have no other place of refuge,” said Cleveland, with a sigh. He then once more ran his eyes over the bay, directed his spy-glass upon several of the vessels which traversed its surface, in hopes, doubtless, of discerning the vessel of Magnus Troil, and then fol lowed his companion down the hill in silence.

298

THE PIRATE

Vo. 3, ch. 5

Chapter Five I strive like to the vessel in the tide-way, Which, lacking favouring breeze, hath not the power To stem the powerful current.—Even so, Resolving daily to forsake my vices, Habit, strong circumstance, renew’d temptation, Sweep me to sea again.—O heavenly breath, Fill thou my sails, and aid the feeble vessel, Which ne’er can reach the blessed port without thee! 'Tis Odds when Evens meet

Cleveland, with his confidant Bunce, descended the hill for a time in silence, until at length the latter renewed their conversation. “You have taken this fellow’s wound more on your conscience than you need, Captain—I have known you do more and think less on’t.” “Not on such slight provocation, Jack,” replied Cleveland. “Besides, the lad saved my life; and say that I requited him the favour, still we should not have met on such evil terms; but I trust that he may receive aid from that woman, who has certainly strange skill in simples.” “And over simpletons, Captain,” said his friend, “in which class I must e’en put you down, if you think more on this subject. That you should be made a fool of by a young woman, why, it is many an honest man’s case;—but to puzzle your pate about the mummeries of an old one, is far too great a folly to indulge a friend in. Talk to me of your Minna, since so you call her, as much as you will; but you have no title to trouble your faithful squire-errant with your old mumping magi cian. And now here we are once more amongst the booths and tents, which these good folks are pitching—let us look and see whether we may not find some fun and frolic amongst them. In merry England, now, you would have seen, on such an occasion, two or three bands of strollers, as many fire-eaters and conjurors, as many shows of wild beasts; but amongst these grave folks, there is nothing but what savours of business and of commodity—no, not so much as a single squall from my merry gossip Punch and his rib Joan.” As Bunce thus spoke, Cleveland cast his eyes on some very gay clothes, which, with other articles, hung out upon one of the booths, that had a good deal more of ornament and exterior decoration than the rest. There was in front a smart sign of canvas painted, announ cing the variety of goods which the owner of the booth, Bryce Snaels foot, had upon sale, and the reasonable prices at which he proposed to offer them to the public. For the further gratification of the spectator, the sign bore on the opposite side an emblematic device, resembling

[Chap. 32]

THE PIRATE

299

our first parents in their vegetable garments, with this legend— “Poor sinners whom the snake deceives, Are fain to cover them with leaves. Zetland hath no leaves, ’tis true, Because that trees are none, or few; But we have flax and taits of woo’, For linen cloth and wadmaal blue; And we have many of foreign knacks Of finer welt, than woo’ or flax. Ye gallanty Lambmas lads* appear, And bring your Lambmas sisters here, Bryce Snaelsfoot spares not cost or care, To pleasure every gentle pair.”

While Cleveland was perusing these goodly rhimes, which brought to his mind Claud Halcro, to whom, as the poet laureat of the islands, ready with his talent alike in the service of the great and small, they probably owed their origin, the worthy proprietor ofthe booth, having cast eye upon him, began with a hasty and a trembling hand to remove some of the garments, which, as the sale only commenced upon the ensuing day, he had exposed either for the purpose of airing them, or to excite the admiration ofthe spectators. “By my word, Captain,” whispered Bunce to Cleveland, “you must have had that fellow under your clutches one day, and he remembers one gripe of your talons, and fears another. See how fast he is packing his wares out of sight so soon as he set eyes on you.” “His wares?” said Cleveland, on looking more attentively at his proceedings; “By heaven, they are my clothes which I left in a chest at Jarlshof when the Revenge was lost there.—Why, Bryce Snaelsfoot, thou thief, dog, and villain, what means this? Have you not made enough ofus by cheap buying and dear selling, that you have seized on my trunk and wearing apparel?” Bryce Snaelsfoot, who probably would otherwise not have been willing to see his friend the Captain, was now by the vivacity of his attack obliged to pay attention to him. He first whispered to his little foot page, by whom, as we have already noticed, he was usually attended, “Run to the town-council-house, Jarto, and tell the provost and baillies they maun send some of their officers speedily, for here is like to be wild wark in the fair.” So having said, and having seconded his commands by a push on the shoulder of his messenger, which sent him spinning out of the shop as fast as heels could carry him, Bryce Snaelsfoot turned to his * It was anciently a custom at Saint Ollaw’s Fair at Kirkwall, that the young people of the lower class, and of either sex, associated in pairs for the period of the Fair, during which the couple were termed Lambmas brother and sister. It is easy to conceive that the exclusive familiarity arising out of this custom was liable to abuse, the rather that it is said little scandal was attached to the indiscretions which it occasioned.

300

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 5

old acquaintance, and with that amplification of words and exaggera tion of manner, which in Scotland is called “making a phrase,” he ejaculated—“The Lord be gude to us! the worthy Captain Cleve land, that we were all sae grieved about, returned to relieve our hearts again! Wat have my cheeks been for you, (here Bryce wiped his eyes,) and blithe am I now to see you restored to your sorrowing friends.” “My sorrowing friends, you rascal!” said Cleveland; “I will give you better cause for sorrow than ever you had on my account, if you do not tell me instantly where you stole all my clothes.” “Stole!” ejaculated Bryce, casting up his eyes to heaven; “now the Powers be gude to us!—the poor gentleman has lost his reason in that weary gale of wind.” “Why, you insolent rascal!” said Cleveland, grasping the cane which he carried, “do you think to bamboozle me with your impud ence? As you would have a whole head on your shoulders, and your bones in a whole skin one minute longer, tell me where the devil you stole my wearing apparel.” Bryce Snaelsfoot ejaculated once more a repetition of the word “Stole! Now Heaven be gude to us!” but at the same time conscious that the Captain was likely to be sudden in execution, cast an anxious look to the town, to see the loitering aid of the civil power advance to his rescue. “I insist on an instant answer,” said the Captain, with upraised weapon, “or else I will beat you to a mummy, and throw out all your frippery upon the common.” Meanwhile, Master John Bunce, who considered the whole affair as an excellent good jest, and not the worse one that it made Cleveland very angry, seized hold of the Captain’s arm, and without any idea of ultimately preventing him from executing his threats, interfered just so much as was necessary to protract a discussion so amusing. “Nay, let the honest man speak,” he said, “messmate; he has as fine a cozening face as ever stood on a knavish pair of shoulders, and his are the true flourishes of eloquence, in the course of which men snip the cloth an inch too short. Now, I wish you to consider that you are both of a trade,—he measures bales by the yard, and you by the sword, —and so I will not have him chop’d up till he has had a fair chase.” “You are a fool!” said Cleveland, endeavouring to shake his friend off.—“Let me go; for by Heaven I will be foul of him!” “Hold him fast,” said the pedlar, “good dear merry gentleman, hold him fast!” “Then say something for yourself,” said Bunce; “use your gob-box, man; patter away, or by my soul I will let him loose on you!” “He says I stole these goods,” said Bryce, who now saw himself run

[Chap. 32]

THE PIRATE

30I

so close, that pleading to the charge became inevitable. “Now, how could I steal them, when they are mine by fair and lawful purchase?” “Purchase! you beggarly vagrant!” said Cleveland; “from whom did you dare to buy my clothes? or who had the impudence to sell them?” “Just that worthy professor, MrsSwertha, the housekeeper at Jarlshof, who acted as your executor,” said the pedlar; “and a grieved heart she had.” “And so she was resolved to make a heavy pocket of it, I suppose,” said the Captain; “but how did she dare to sell the things left in her charge?” “Why, she acted all for the best, good woman!” said the pedlar, anxious to protract the discussion until the arrival of succours; “and if you will but hear reason, I am ready to account with you for the chest and all that it holds.” “Speak out then, and let us have none of thy damnable evasions,” said Captain Cleveland; “if you shew ever so little purpose of being somewhat honest for once in thy life, I will not beat thee.” “Why you see, noble Captain,” said the pedlar,—and then mut tered to himself, “plague on Pate Peterson’s cripple knee, they will be waiting on him, hirpling useless body!” then resumed aloud—“The country, ye see, is in great perplexity,—great perplexity indeed,— much perplexity truly. There was your honour missing, that was loved by great and small—clean missing—no where to be heard of—a lost man—umquhile—dead—defunct.” “You shall find me alive to your cost, you scoundrel!” said the irritable Captain. “Weel, but take patience,—ye will not hear a body speak,” said the Jagger.—“Then there was the lad Mordaunt Mertoun——” “Ha!” said the Captain, “what of him?” “Cannot be heard of,” said the pedlar, “clean and clear tint,—a gone youth;—fallen, it is thought, frae the craig into the sea—he was aye venturous. I have had dealings with him for furs and feathers, whilk he swapped against powder and shot and the like; and now he has worn out from among us—clean retired—utterly evanished, like the last puff of an auld wife’s tobacco pipe.” “But what is all this to the Captain’s clothes, my dear friend?” said Bunce; “I must positively beat you myself until you come to the point.” “Weel, weel,—patience, patience,” said Bryce, waving his hand; “you will get all time enough. Weel, there are two folks gane, as I said, forbye the distress at Burgh Westra about Mistress Minna’s sad ail ment------ ”

302

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 5

“Bring not her into your buffoonery, sirrah,” said Cleveland, in a tone of anger, not so loud, but far deeper and more concentrated than he had hitherto used; “for if you name her with less than reverence, I will crop the ears out of your head, and make you swallow them on the spot!” “He, he, he!” faintly laughed the Jagger; “that were a pleasant jest! you are pleased to be witty. But to say naething ofBurgh Westra, there is the carle at Jarlshof, he that was the auld Mertoun, Mordaunt’s father, whom men thought as fast bound to the place he dwelt in as the Sumburgh-head itsell, naething maun serve him but he is lost as weel as the lave about whom I have spoken. And there’s Magnus Troil, (wi’ favour be he named,) taking horse; and there is pleasant Master Claud Halcro taking boat, whilk he steers worst ofany man in Zetland, his head running on rambling rhimes; and the Factor body is on the stir—the Scots Factor,—he that is aye speaking of dikes and delving, and such unprofitable wark, which has naething of merchandize in it, and he is on the lang trot too; so that ye might say, upon a manner, the tae half of the Mainland of Zetland is lost, and the other is running to and fro seeking it—awfu’ times!” Captain Cleveland had subdued his passion, and listened to this tirade ofthe worthy man of merchandize, with impatience indeed, yet not without hope of hearing something that might concern him. But his companion was now become impatient in his turn:—“The clothes!” he exclaimed, “the clothes, the clothes, the clothes!” accompanying each repetition of the words with a flourish of his cane, the dexterity of which consisted in coming mighty near the Jagger’s ears without actually touching him. The Jagger, shrinking from each of these demonstrations, con tinued to exclaim, “Nay, sir—good sir—worthy sir—for the clothes— I found the worthy dame in great distress on account of her old master, and on account of her young master, and on account of worthy Captain Cleveland; and because of the distress of the worthy Fowde’s family, and the trouble of the great Fowde himself,—and because of the Factor, and in respect of Claud Halcro, and on other accounts and respects. Also we mingled our sorrows and our tears with a bottle, as the holy text hath it, and called in the Ranzelman to our council, a worthy man, Niel Ronaldson by name, who hath a good reputation.” Here another flourish of the cane came so very near that it partly touched his ear. The Jagger started back, and the truth, or that which he desired should be considered as such, bolted from him without more circumlocution; as a cork, after much unnecessary buzzing and fizzing, springs forth from a bottle of spruce-beer. “In brief, what the de’il mair would you have of it?—the woman

[Chap. 32]

THE PIRATE

303

sold me the kist of clothes—they are mine by purchase, and that is what I will live and die upon.” “In other words,” said Cleveland, “this greedy old hag had the impudence to sell what was none of hers; and you, honest Bryce Snaelsfoot, had the assurance to be the purchaser.” “Ou dear, Captain,” said the conscientious pedlar, “what wad ye hae had twa poor folk to do? There was yoursell gane that aught the things, and Master Mordaunt was gane that had them in keeping, and the things were but damply put up, where they were rotting with moth and mould, and”—— “And so this old thief sold them, and you bought them, I suppose, just to keep them from spoiling,” said Cleveland. “Weel then,” said the merchant, “I am thinking, noble Captain, that wad be just the gate of it.” “Well then, hark ye, you impudent scoundrel,” said the Captain. “I do not wish to dirty my fingers with you, or to make any disturbance in this place”—— “Good reason for that, Captain—aha!” said the Jagger slily. “I will break your bones if you speak another word,” replied Cleve­ land. “Take notice—I offer you fair terms—give me back the black leathern pocket-book with the lock upon it, and the purse with the doubloons, with some few of the clothes I want, and keep the rest in the devil’s name.” “Doubloons!!!”—exclaimed the Jagger, with an exaltation of voice intended to indicate the utmost extremity of surprise,—“What do I ken of doubloons? my dealing was for doublets, and not for doubloons —If there were doubloons in the kist, doubtless Swertha will have them in safe keeping for your honour—the damp couldna harm the gold, ye ken.” “Give me back my pocket-book and my goods, you rascally thief,” said Cleveland, “or without a word more I will beat your brains out!” The wily Jagger, casting eye around him, saw that succour was near, in the shape of a party of officers, six in number; for several rencontres with the crew ofthe Fortune’s Favourite had taught the magistrates of Kirkwall to strengthen their police parties when these strangers were inquestion. “Ye had better keep the thiefto suit yoursell, honoured Captain,” said the Jagger, emboldened by the approach of the civil power; “for wha kens how a’ these fine goods and bonny-dies were come by?” This was uttered with such provoking slyness of look and tone, that Cleveland made no further delay, but, seizing upon the Jagger by the collar, dragged him over his temporary counter, which was, with all the goods displayed thereon, overset in the scuffle; and holding him

304

THE pirate

Vol.3,ch.5

with one hand, inflicted on him with the other a severe beating with his cane. All this was done so suddenly and with such energy, that Bryce Snaelsfoot, though rather a stout man, was totally surprised by the vivacity of the attack, and made scarce any other effort at extricating himself than by roaring for assistance like a bull-calf. The “loitering aid” being at length come up, the officers made an effort to seize on Cleveland, and by their united exertions succeeded in compelling him to quit hold of the pedlar, in order to defend himself from their assault. This he did with infinite strength, resolution, and dexterity, being at the same time well seconded by his friend Jack Bunce, who had seen with infinite glee the drubbing sustained by the pedlar, and now combated tightly to save his companion from the consequences. But as there had been for some time a growing feud between the town’s people and the crew of the rover, the former, provoked by the insolent deportment of the seamen, had resolved to stand by each other, and to aid the civil power upon such occasions of riot as should occur in future; and so many assistants came in to the rescue of the constables, that Cleveland, after fighting most manfully, was at length brought to the ground and made prisoner. His more fortunate com panion had escaped by speed of foot, so soon as he saw that the day must needs be determined against them. The proud heart of Cleveland, which, even in its perversion, had in its feelings something of original nobleness, was like to burst, when he felt himself borne down in this unworthy brawl—dragged into the town as a prisoner, and hurried through the streets towards the Coun cil-house, where the magistrates of the burgh were then seated in council. The probability of imprisonment, with all its consequences, rushed also upon his mind, and he cursed an hundred times the folly which had not rather submitted to the pedlar’s knavery, than involved him in so perilous an embarrassment. But just as they approached the door ofthe Council-house, which is situated in the middle of the little town, the face of matters was suddenly changed by a new and unexpected incident. Bunce, who had designed by his precipitate retreat to serve as well his friend as himself, had hied him to the haven, where the boat of the Fortune’s Favourite was then lying, and called the coxswain and boat’s crew to the assistance of Cleveland. They now appeared on the scene, fierce desperadoes, as became their calling, with fea­ tures bronzed by the tropical suns under which they had pursued it. They rushed at once amongst the crowd, laying about them with their stretchers, and, forcing their way up to Cleveland, speedily delivered him from the hands of the officers, who were totally unprepared to resist an attack so furious and so sudden, and carried him off in

[Chap. 33]

THE PIRATE

305

triumph towards the quay, two or three of their number facing about from time to time to keep back the crowd, whose efforts to recover the prisoner were the less violent, that most of the seamen were armed with pistols and cutlasses, as well as with the less lethal weapons which alone they had as yet made use of. They gained their boat in safety, and jumped into it, carrying along with them Cleveland, to whom circumstances seemed to offer no other refuge, and pushed off for their vessel, singing in chorus to their oars an old ditty, of which the natives of Kirkwall could only hear the first stanza: “Thus said the Rover To his gallant crew, ‘Up with die black flag, Down with the blue!— Fire on the main-top, Fire on the bow, Fire on the gun-deck, Fire down below. ’ ”

The wild chorus of their voices was heard long after the words ceased to be intelligible.—And thus was the pirate Cleveland again thrown almost involuntarily amongst those desperate associates, from whom he had so often resolved to detach himself.

Chapter Six Parental love, my friend, has power o’er wisdom, And is the charm which, like the falconer’s lure, Can bring from heaven the highest soaring spirits.— So, when famed Prospero doff’d his magic robe, It was Miranda pluck’d it from his shoulders. OldPlay

Our wandering narrative must now return to Mordaunt Mertoun.—We left him in the perilous condition of one who has received a severe wound, and we now find him in the situation of a convalescent, pale indeed, and feeble, from the loss of much blood, and the effects of a fever which had followed on the injury, but so far fortunate, that the weapon, having glanced on the ribs, had only occa sioned a great effusion of blood, without touching any vital part, and was now well nigh healed; so efficacious were the vulnerary plants and salves with which it had been treated by the sage Norna ofFitful-head. The matron and her patient now sat together in a dwelling in a remote island. He had been transported during his illness, and ere he had perfect consciousness, first to her singular habitation near Fitfulhead, and thence to her present abode, by one of the fishing-boats on the station of Burgh Westra. For such was the command possessed by

306

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 6

Norna over the superstitious character of her countrymen, that she never failed to find faithful agents to execute her commands, whatever these happened to be; and as her orders were generally given under injunctions of the strictest secrecy, men reciprocally wondered at occurrences which had in fact been produced by their own agency and that of their neighbours, and in which, had they communicated freely with each other, no shadow of the marvellous would have remained. Mordaunt was now seated by the fire, in an apartment indifferently well furnished, having a book in his hand, which he looked upon from time to time with signs of ennui and of impatience; feelings which at length so far overcame him, that, flinging the volume on the table, he fixed his eyes on the fire, and assumed the attitude of one who is engaged in unpleasant meditation. Norna, who sat opposite to him, and appeared busy in the composi tion of some drug, or unguent, anxiously left her seat, and approach ing Mordaunt, felt his pulse, making at the same time the most affectionate inquiries whether he felt any sudden pain, and where it was seated. The manner in which Mordaunt replied to these earnest inquiries, although worded so as to express gratitude for her kindness, while he disclaimed any feeling of indisposition, did not seem to give satisfaction to the Pythoness. “Ungrateful boy!” she said, “for whom I have done so much; you whom I have rescued, by my power and skill, from the very gates of death,—are you already so weary of me, that you cannot refrain from shewing how desirous you are to spend, at a distance from me, the very first intelligent days of the life which I have restored to thee?” “You do me injustice, my kind preserver,” replied Mordaunt; “I am not tired of your society; but I have duties which recall me to ordinary life.” “Duties?” repeated Norna; “and what duties can or ought to inter fere with the gratitude which you owe to me?—Duties? Your thoughts are on the use of your gun, or on clambering among the rocks in quest ofsea-fowl—for these exercises your strength doth not yet fit you, and yet these are the duties to which you are so anxious to return.” “Not so, my good and kind mistress,” said Mordaunt.—“To name one duty out of many which makes me seek to leave you, now that my strength permits, let me mention that ofa son to his father.” “To your father?” said Norna, with a sort of laugh that had some thing in it almost frantic. “O! you know not how we can, in these islands, at once cancel such duties! And for your father,” she added, proceeding more calmly, “what has he done for you to deserve the regard and duty you speak of?—Is he not the same, who, as you have long since told me, left you for so many years poorly nourished among

[Chap. 33]

THE PIRATE

307

strangers, without inquiring whether you were alive or dead, and only sending, from time to time, supplies in such fashion, as men relieve the leprous wretch to whom they fling alms from a distance? And, in these latter years, when he had made you the companion ofhis misery, he has been by starts your pedagogue, by starts your tormentor, but never, Mordaunt, never your father.” “Something of truth there is in what you say,” replied Mordaunt; “my father is not fond; but he is, and has ever been, effectively kind. Men have not their affections in their power; and it is a child’s duty to be grateful for the benefits which he receives, even when coldly con ferred. My father has conferred instruction on me, and I am con vinced he loves me; he is unfortunate, and even if he loved me not”—— “And he does not love you,” said Norna, hastily; “he never loved any thing, or any one, save himself.—He is unfortunate, but well are his misfortunes deserved.—O, Mordaunt, you have one parent only, —one parent, who loves you as the drops of the heart-blood!” “I know I have but one parent,” replied Mordaunt—“my mother has been long dead; but your words contradict each other.” “They do not—they do not,” said Norna, in a paroxysm of the deepest feeling; “you have but one parent,—your unhappy mother is not dead—I would to God that she were! but she is not dead. Thy mother is the only parent who loves thee; and I—I, Mordaunt,” throwing herself on his neck, “am that most unhappy,—yet more happy mother.” She closed him in a strict and convulsive embrace, and tears, the first perhaps which she had shed for many years, burst in torrents as she sobbed on his neck. Astonished at what he heard, felt, and saw,— moved by the excess of her agitation, yet disposed to ascribe this burst of passion to insanity, Mordaunt vainly endeavoured to tranquillize the mind ofthis extraordinary person. “Ungrateful boy!” she said; “who but a mother would have watched over thee as I have watched? From the instant I saw thy father, when he little knew by whom he was observed, a space now many years back, I knew him well, and under his charge I saw you then a stripling, while Nature, speaking loud in my bosom , assured me thou wert blood of my blood, and bone of my bone. Think how often you have wondered at finding me, when least expected, in your places of pastime and resort! Think how often my eye has watched you on the giddy precipices, and muttered those charms which subdue the evil demons who shew themselves to the climber on the giddiest point of his path, and force him to quit his hold! Did I not hang around thy neck, in pledge of thy safety, that chain of gold which an Elfin King

308

the pirate

Vol.3,ch.6

gave to the founder of our race? Would I have given that dear gift to any but to the son of my bosom?—Mordaunt, my power has done that for thee that a mere mortal mother would dread to think of.—I have conjured the Mermaid at midnight that thy bark might be prosperous on the haaf!—I have hushed the winds, and navies have flapped their empty sails against the mast in inactivity, that you might safely indulge your sport upon the crags!” Mordaunt, perceiving that she was growing yet wilder in her talk, endeavoured to frame an answer which should be at once indulgent, soothing, and calculated to allay the rising warmth of her imagination. “Dear Norna,” he said, “I have indeed many reasons to call you mother, who have bestowed so many benefits upon me, and from me you shall ever receive the affection and duty of a child. But the chain you mentioned, it has vanished from my neck—I have not seen it since the ruffian stabbed me.” “Alas! and can you think of it at this moment?” said Norna, in a sorrowful accent.—“But be it so;—and know it was I took it from thy neck, and tied it around the neck of her who is dearest to you, in token that the union betwixt you, which has been the only earthly wish which I have had the power to form, shall yet, even yet, be accomplished— ay, although hell should open to forbid the banns!” “Alas!” said Mordaunt, with a sigh, “you remember not the differ ence betwixt our situation—Her father is wealthy and of ancient birth.” “Not more wealthy than will be the heir of Norna of Fitful-head,” answered the Pythoness—“not of better or more ancient blood than that which flows in thy veins, derived from thy mother, the descendant of the same Jarls and Sea-kings from whom Magnus boasts his origin. —Or doest thou think, like the pedant and fanatic strangers who have come amongst us, that thy blood is dishonoured because my union with thy father did not receive the sanction of a priest?—Know, that we were wedded after the ancient manner of the Norse—our hands were clasped within the circle of Odin, with such deep vows of eternal fidelity, as even the laws of these usurping Scots would have sanc tioned as equivalent to a blessing before the altar. To the offspring of such a union, Magnus has nought to object. It was weak—it was criminal on my part, but it conveyed no infamy to the birth ofmy son.” The composed and collected manner in which Norna argued these points began to impose upon Mordaunt an incipient belief in the truth of what she said; and indeed she added so many circumstances, satisfactorily and rationally connected with each other, as seemed to confute the notion that her story was altogether the delusion of that insanity which sometimes shewed itself in her speech and actions. A

[Chap. 33]

THE PIRATE

309

thousand confused ideas rushed upon him, when he supposed it possible that the unhappy person before him might actually have a right to claim from him the respect and affection due to a parent from a son. He could only surmount them by turning his mind to a differ ent, and scarce less interesting topic, resolving within himself to take time for farther inquiry and mature consideration, ere he either rejected or admitted the claim which Norna preferred upon his affec tion and duty. His benefactress, at least, she undoubtedly was, and he could not err in paying her, as such, the respect and attention due from a son to a mother; and so far, therefore, he might gratify Norna without otherwise standing committed. “And do you then really think, my mother, (since so you bid me term you),” said Mordaunt, “that the proud Magnus Troil may, by any inducements, be prevailed upon to relinquish the angry feelings which he has of late adopted towards me, and to permit my addresses to his daughter Brenda?” “Brenda?” repeated Norna—“who talks of Brenda?—it is of Minna that I spoke to you.” “But it was of Brenda that I thought,” replied Mordaunt, “of her that I now think, and of her alone that I will ever think.” “Impossible, my son!” replied Norna. “You cannot be so dull of heart, so poor of spirit, as to prefer the idle mirth and housewife simplicity of the younger sister, to the deep feeling and high mind of the noble-spirited Minna. Who would stoop to gather the lowly violet, that might have the rose for stretching out his hand?” “Some think the lowliest flowers are the sweetest,” replied Mor daunt, “and in that faith will I live and die.” “You dare not tell me so,” answered Norna, fiercely; then instantly changing her tone, and taking his hand in the most affectionate man ner, she proceeded:—“You must not—you will not tell me so, my dear son—you will not break a mother’s heart in the very first hour in which she has embraced her child!—Nay, do not answer, but hear me. You must wed Minna—I have bound around her neck a fatal amulet, on which the happiness of both depends. The labours of my life have for years had this direction. Thus it must be, and not otherwise—Minna must be the bride ofmy son!” “But is not Brenda equally near, equally dear to you?” replied Mordaunt. “As near in blood,” said Norna, “but not so dear, no not halfso dear in affection. Minna’s mild, yet high and contemplative spirit, renders her a companion meet for one, whose ways, like mine, are beyond the ordinary paths of this world. Brenda is a thing of common and ordinary life, an idle laugher and scoffer, who would level art with

310

THE PIRATE

Vol.3,ch.6

ignorance, and reduce power to weakness, by disbelieving and turning into ridicule whatever is beyond the grasp of her shallow intellect.” “She is, indeed,” answered Mordaunt, “neither superstitious nor enthusiastic, and I love her the better for it. Remember also, my mother, that she returns my affection, and that Minna, if she love any one, loves the stranger Cleveland.” “She does not—she dare not,” answered Norna, “nor dare he pursue her farther. I told him when first he came to Burgh Westra, that I destined her for you.” “And to that rash annunciation,” said Mordaunt, “I owe this man’s persevering enmity—my wound, and well nigh the loss ofmy life. See, my mother, to what point your intrigues have already conducted us, and in heaven’s name prosecute them no further.” It seemed as if this reproach struck Norna with the force at once, and vivacity of lightning; for she struck her forehead with her hand, and seemed about to drop from her seat. Mordaunt, greatly shocked, hastened to catch her in his arms, and, though scarce knowing what to say, attempted to utter some incoherent expressions. “Spare me, heaven, spare me!” were the first words which she muttered; “do not let my crime be avenged by his means.—Yes, young man,” she said, after a pause, “you have dared to tell what I dared not tell myself—you have pressed that upon me, which, if it be truth, I cannot believe, and yet continue to live.” Mordaunt in vain endeavoured to interrupt her with protestations of his ignorance how he had offended or grieved her, and of his extreme regret that he had unintentionally done either. She pro ceeded, while her voice trembled wildly, with vehemence. “Yes! you have touched on that dark suspicion which poisons the consciousness of my power,—the sole boon which was given me in exchange for innocence and for peace of mind! Your voice joins that of the dæmon which, even while the elements confess me their mis tress, whispers to me, ‘Norna, this is but delusion—your power rests but in the idle belief of the ignorant, supported by a thousand petty artifices of your own.’—This is what Brenda says—this is what you would say; and false, scandalously false as it is, there are rebellious thoughts in this wild brain of mine, (touching her forehead with her finger as she spoke,) that, like an insurrection in an invaded country, rise to take part against their distressed sovereign.—Spare me, my son!” she continued, in a voice of supplication, “spare me!—the sovereignty of which your words would deprive me, is no enviable exaltation. Few would covet to rule over gibbering ghosts, and hold sway over nothing more substantial than howling winds, and raging currents. My throne is a cloud, my sceptre a meteor, my realm is only

[Chap. 33]

THE PIRATE

3II

peopled with phantoms; but I must either cease to be, or continue the mightiest as well as the most miserable of beings!” “Do not speak thus mournfully, my dear and unhappy benefact ress,” said Mordaunt, much affected; “I will think of your power, whatever you would have me believe. But for your own sake, view the matter otherwise. Turn your thoughts from such agitating and mys tical studies—from such wild subjects of contemplation, into another and a better channel. Life will again have charms, and religion will have comforts for you.” She listened to him with some composure, as if she weighed his counsel, and desired to be guided by it; but as he ended, she shook her head and exclaimed— “It cannot be—I must remain the dreaded—the mystical—the Reimkennar—the controuler of the elements, or I must be no more. I have no alternative, no middle station. My post must be high on yon lofty headland, where never stood human foot save mine—or I must sleep at the bottom of the unfathomable ocean, its white billows booming over my senseless corpse. The parricide shall never also be denounced as the impostor.” “The parricide!” echoed Mordaunt, stepping back in horror. “Yes, my son!” answered Norna, with a stem composure, even more frightful than her former impetuosity, “within these fatal walls my father met his death by my means. In yonder chamber was he found a livid and lifeless corpse. Beware of filial disobedience, for such are its fruits.” So saying, she arose and left the apartment, where Mordaunt remained alone to meditate at leisure upon the extraordinary com munication which he had received. He himself had been taught by his father a disbelief in the ordinary superstitions of Zetland; and he now saw that Norna, however ingenious in duping others, could not alto gether impose on herself. This was a strong circumstance in favour of her sanity of intellect; but, on the other hand, her imputing to herself the guilt of parricide seemed so wild and improbable, as, in Mor daunt’s opinion, to throw much doubt upon her other assertions. He had leisure enough to make up his mind on these particulars, for no one approached the solitary dwelling, of which Norna, her dwarf, and he himself, were the sole inhabitants. The island in which it stood is rude, bold, and lofty, or rather, indeed, consists entirely of three hills—one huge mountain divided into three summits, with the chasms, rents, and vallies which descend from its summit to the sea, while its crest, rising to great height, and shivered into rocks which seem almost inaccessible, intercepts the mists as they drive from the Atlantic, and, often obscured from the human eye, forms the dark and

3I2

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 7

unmolested retreat of hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey. The soil of the island is wet, mossy, cold, and unproductive, pre senting a sterile and desolate appearance, excepting where the sides of small rivulets, or mountain ravines, are fringed with dwarf bushes of birch, hazel, and wild currant, some of them so tall as to be denomin ated trees, in that bleak and bare country. But the view from the sea-beach, which was Mordaunt’s favourite walk, when his convalescent state began to permit him to take exer cise, had charms which compensated the wild appearance ofthe inter or. A broad and beautiful sound, or strait, divides this lonely and mountainous island from Pomona, and in the centre of that sound lies, like a tablet composed of emerald, the beautiful and verdant little island of Græmsay. On the distant Mainland is seen the town or village of Stromness, the excellence of whose haven is generally evinced by a considerable number of shipping in the road-stead, and from the bay growing narrower, and lessening as it recedes, runs inland into Pomona, where its tide fills the fine sheet of water called the Loch of Stennis. On this beach Mordaunt was wont to wander for hours, with an eye not insensible to the beauties of the view, though his thoughts were agitated with the most embarrassing meditations on his own situation. He was resolved to leave the island as soon as the establishment of his health permitted him to travel; yet gratitude to Norna, of whom he was at least the adopted, if not the real son, would not allow him to depart without her permission, even if he could obtain means of conveyance, ofwhich he saw little possibility. It was only by importun ity that he extorted from his hostess a promise, that, if he would consent to regulate his motions according to her directions, she would herself convey him to the capital of the Orkney Islands, when the approaching Fair of Saint Olla should take place there.

Chapter Seven Hark to the insult loud, the bitter sneer, The fierce threat answering to the brutal jeer; Oaths fly like pistol-shots, and vengeful words Clash with each other like conflicting swords.— The robbers’ quarrel by such sounds is shewn, And true men have some chance to gain their own. Captivity, a Poem

When Cleveland, borne off in triumph from his assailants in Kirkwall, found himself once more on board the pirate-vessel, his arrival was hailed with hearty cheers by a considerable part of the

[Chap. 34]

THE PIRATE

3I3

crew, who rushed to shake hands with him, and offer their congratula tions on his return; for the situation of a Buccaneer Captain raised him very little above a level with the lowest of his crew, who, in all social intercourse, claimed the privilege ofbeing his equals. When his faction, for so these clamorous friends might be termed, had expressed their own greetings, they hurried Cleveland forward to the stem, where Goffe, their present commander, was seated on a gun, listening in a sullen and discontented manner to the shout which announced Cleveland’s welcome. He was a man betwixt forty and fifty, rather under the middle size, but so very strongly made, that his crew used to compare him to a sixty-four cut down. Black-haired, bull-necked, and beetle-browed, his clumsy strength and ferocious countenance contrasted strongly with the manly figure and open countenance of Cleveland, in which even the practice of his atrocious profession had been unable to eradicate a natural grace of motion and generosity of expression. The two piratical captains looked upon each other for some time in silence, while the partizans of each gathered around him. The elder part of the crew were the principal adherents of Goffe, while the young fellows, amongst whom Jack Bunce was a principal leader and agitator, were in general attached to Cleveland. At length Goffe broke silence.—“You are welcome aboard, Cap tain Cleveland.—Smash my taffrail! I suppose you think yourself commodore yet! but that was over, by G—, when you lost your ship, and bed—d!” And here, once for all, we may take notice, that it was the gracious custom of this commander to mix his words and oaths in nearly equal proportions, which he was wont to call shotting his discourse. As we delight not, however, in the discharge of such artillery, we will only indicate by a space like this------ the places in which these expletives occurred; and thus, if the reader will pardon a very poor pun, we will reduce Captain Goffe’s volley ofsharp-shot into an explosion ofblank cartridges. To his insinuation that he was come on board to assume the chief command, Cleveland replied, that he neither desired, nor would accept, any such promotion, but would only ask Captain Goffe for a cast of the boat, to put him ashore in one of the other islands, as he had no wish either to command Goffe, or to remain in a vessel under his orders. “And why not under my orders, brother?” demanded Goffe, very austerely; “— — — Are you too good a man,— — — with your cheese-toaster and your gib there,— — to serve under my orders, and be d—d to you, where there are so many gentlemen that are elder and better seamen than yourself?” “I wonder which of these capital seamen it was,” said Cleveland,

3I4

the pirate

Vol. 3,ch. 7

coolly, “that laid the ship under the fire of yon six-gun battery, that could blow her out of the water, if they had a mind, before you could either cut or slip? Elder and better sailors than I may like to serve under such a lubber, but I beg to be excused for my own share, Captain—that’s all I have got to tell you.” “By G—, I think you are both mad!” said Hawkins, the boatswain —“a meeting with sword and pistol may be devilish good fun in its way, when no better is to be had; but who the devil that had common sense, amongst a set of gentlemen in our condition, would fall aquarrelling with each other, to let these duck-winged, webb-footed islanders have a chance of knocking us all upon the head!” “Well said, old Hawkins!” said Derrick the quarter-master, who was an officer of very considerable importance amongst these rovers; “I say, if the two captains won’t agree to live together quietly, and club both heart and head to defend the vessel, why, d—n me, depose them both, say I, and chuse another in their stead!” “Meaning yourself, I suppose, Master Quarter-Master!” said Jack Bunce; “but that cock won’t fight.—He that is to command gentle men, should be a gentleman himself, I think; and I give my vote for Captain Cleveland, as spirited and as gentleman-like a man as ever daf'd the world aside and bid it pass!” “What! you call yourself a gentleman, I warrant!” retorted Derrick; “why,— — your eyes! a tailor would make a better out of the worst suit of rags in your strolling wardrobe!—It is a shame for men ofspirit to have such a Jack-a-dandy scarecrow on board!” Jack Bunce was so incensed at these base comparisons, that, with out more ado, he laid his hand on his sword. The carpenter, however, and boatswain interfered, the former brandishing his broad axe, and swearing he would put the skull of the first who should strike a blow past clouting, and the latter reminding them, that, by their articles, all quarrelling, striking, or more especially fighting on board, was strictly prohibited; and that if any gentlemen had a quarrel to settle, they were to go ashore, and decide it with cutlass and pistol at the sight of two of their messmates. “I have no quarrel with any one,— — —!” said Goffe, sullenly; “Captain Cleveland has wandered about among the islands here, amusing himself,— — —! and we have wasted our time and property in waiting for him, when we might have been adding twenty or thirty thousand dollars to the stock-purse. However, if it pleases the rest of the gentlemen-adventurers, I shall not grumble about it,-------!” “I propose,” said the boatswain, “that there should be a general council called in the great cabin, according to our articles, that we may consider what course we are to hold in this matter.”

[Chap. 34]

THE PIRATE

3I5

A general assent followed the boatswain’s proposal; for every one found his own account in these general councils, in which each of the rovers had a free vote. By far the greater part of the crew only valued this franchise, as it allowed them, upon such solemn occasions, an unlimited quantity of liquor—a right which they failed not to exer cise to the uttermost, by way of aiding their deliberations. But a few amongst the adventurers, who united some degree of judgment with the daring and profligate character of their profession, were wont, at such periods, to limit themselves within the bounds of comparative sobriety, and by these, under the apparent form ofa vote ofthe general council, all things of moment relating to the voyage and undertaking ofthe pirates were in fact determined. The rest ofthe crew, when they recovered from their intoxication, were easily persuaded that the res olution adopted had been the legitimate effort of the combined wis dom of the whole senate. Upon the present occasion, the debauch had proceeded until the greater part of the crew were, as usual, displaying inebriation in all its most brutal and disgraceful shapes—swearing empty and unmeaning oaths—venting the most horrid imprecations in the mere gaiety of their heart—singing songs, the ribaldry ofwhich was only equalled by their profaneness, and, from the middle of this earthly hell, the two Captains, together with one or two oftheir principal adherents, as also the carpenter and boatswain, who always took a lead on such occa sions, had drawn together into a pandæmonium, or privy council of their own, to consider what was to be done; for, as the boatswain metaphorically observed, they were in a narrow channel, and behoved to keep sounding the tide-way. When they began their consultations, the friends of Goffe remarked, to their great displeasure, that he had not observed the wholesome rule to which we have just alluded; but that, in endeavour ing to drown his mortification at the sudden appearance of Cleveland, and the reception he met from the crew, the elder Captain had not been able to do so without overflowing his reason at the same time. His natural sullen taciturnity had prevented this from being observed until the council began its deliberations, when it proved impossible to hide it. The first person who spoke was Cleveland, who said, that, so far from wishing the command of the vessel, he desired no favour at any one’s hand, except to land him upon some island or holm at a distance from Kirkwall, and leave him to shift for himself. The boatswain remonstrated strongly against this resolution. “The lads,” he said, “all knew Cleveland, and could trust his sea manship, as well as his courage; besides, he never let the grog get

3I6

the pirate

Vol. 3,ch. 7

quite uppermost, and was always in proper trim, either to sail the ship or to fight the ship, whereby she was never without some one to keep her course when he was on board.—And as for the noble Captain Goffe,” continued the mediator, “he is as stout a heart as ever broke biscuit, and that I will uphold him; but then, when he has his grog aboard—I speak it to his face—he is so damned funny with his cranks and his jests, that there is no living with him. You all remember how nigh he had run the ship on that cursed Horse of Copinsha, as they call it, just by way of frolic; and then you know how he fired off his pistols under the table, when we were at the great council, and shot Jack Jenkins in the knee, and cost the poor devil his leg, with his pleasantry.” “Jack Jenkins was not a chip the worse,” said the carpenter; “I took the leg off with my saw as well as any loblolly-boy in the land could have done—heated my broad axe, and seared the stump—ay, by ------ ! and made a jury-leg that he shambles about with as well as ever he did—for Jack could never cut a feather.”* “You are a clever fellow, carpenter!” replied the boatswain, “ad—d clever fellow! but I had rather you tried your saw and red-hot axe upon the ship’s knee-timbers than on mine, sink me!—But that here is not the case—The question is, if we shall part with Captain Cleve land here, who is a man ofthought and action, whereby it is my belief it would be heaving the pilot overboard when the gale is blowing on a lee-shore. And I must say, it is not the part of a true heart to leave his mates, who have been here waiting for him till they have missed stays. Our water is well nigh out, and we have junketed till provisions are low with us. We cannot sail without provisions—we cannot get provisions without the good will of the Kirkwall folks. If we remain here longer, the Halcyon frigate will be down upon us—she was seen offPeterhead two days since,—and we shall hang up at the yard-arm to be sundried. Now, Captain Cleveland will get us out of the hobble, if any can. He can play the gentleman with these Kirkwall folks, and knows how to deal with them on fair terms, and foul too, if there be occasion for it.” “And so you would turn honest Captain Goffe a-grazing, would ye?” said an old weather-beaten pirate, who had but one eye; “what though he has his humours, and made my eye dowse the glim in his fancies and frolics, he is as honest a fellow as ever walked a quarterdeck, for all that; and d—n me but I stand by him so long as ’tother lantern is lit!” “Why, you would not hear me out,” said Hawkins; “a man might as * A ship going fast through the sea is said to cut a feather, alluding to the ripple which she throws off from her bows.

[Chap. 34]

THE PIRATE

3I7

well talk to so many negers!—I tell you I propose that Cleveland shall only be Captain from one, post meridiem, to five, a. m., during which time Goffe is always drunk.” The Captain of whom he last spoke gave sufficient proof of the truth ofhis words, by uttering an inarticulate growl, and attempting to present a pistol at the mediator Hawkins. “Why, look ye now!” said Derrick, “there is all the sense he has, to get drunk on council-day, like one of these poor silly fellows!” “Ay,” said Bunce, “drunk as Davy’s sow, in the face of the field, fray, and senate!” “But nevertheless,” continued Derrick, “it will never do to have two captains in the same day. I think week about might suit better—and let Cleveland take the first turn.” “There are as good here as any of them,” said Hawkins; “howsomdever, I object nothing to Captain Cleveland, and I think he may help us into deep water as well as another.” “Ay,” exclaimed Bunce, “and a better figure he will make at bring ing these Kirkwallers to order than his sober predecessor!—So Cap tain Cleveland for ever!” “Stop, gentlemen,” said Cleveland, who had hitherto been silent; “I hope you will not chuse me Captain without my own consent?” “Ay, by the blue vault of heaven will we,” said Bunce, “if it be pro bono publico!” “But hear me, at least!” said Cleveland—“I do consent to take command of the vessel, since you wish it, and because I see you will ill get out of the scrape without me.” “Then I say, Cleveland for ever again!” shouted Bunce. “Be quiet, prithee, dear Bunce!—honest Altamont!” said Cleve land.—“I undertake the business on this condition; that when I have got the ship cleared for her voyage, with provisions, and so forth, you will be content to restore Captain Goffe to the command, as I said before, and put me ashore somewhere, to shift for myself—You will then be sure it is impossible I can betray you, since I will remain with you to the last moment.” “Ay, and after the last moment too, by the blue vault! or I mistake the matter,” muttered Bunce to himself. The matter was now put to the vote; and so confident were the crew in Cleveland’s superior address and management, that the temporary deposition of Goffe found little opposition even amongst his own partizans, who reasonably enough observed, “he might at least have kept sober to look after his own business—E’en let him put it to right again himselfnext morning, if he will.” But when the next morning came, the drunken part of the crew,

3I8

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 7

being informed of the issue of the deliberations of the council, to which they were virtually held to have assented, shewed such a super ior sense of Cleveland’s merits, that Goffe, sulky and malcontent as he was, judged it wisest for the present to suppress his feelings of resent ment until a safer opportunity for suffering them to explode, and to submit to the degradation which so frequently took place among a piratical crew. Cleveland, on his part, resolved to take upon him, with spirit and without loss of time, the task of extricating his ship’s company from their perilous situation. For this purpose, he ordered the boat, with the purpose of going ashore in person, carrying with him twelve of the stoutest and best men of the ship’s company, all very handsomely appointed, (for the success of their nefarious profession had enabled the privates to assume nearly as gay dresses as their officers,) and above all, each man sufficiently armed with cutlass and pistols, and several having pole-axes and poniards. Cleveland himself was gallantly dressed in a blue coat, lined with crimson silk, and laced with gold very richly, crimson damask waistcoat and breeches, a velvet cap, richly embroidered, with a white feather, white silk stockings, and red-heeled shoes, which were the extremity of finery amongst the gallants of the day. He had a gold chain several times folded round his neck, which sustained a whistle of the same metal, the ensign of his authority. Above all, he wore a decoration peculiar to those daring depredators, who, besides one, or perhaps two brace of pistols at their belts, had usually two additional brace, of the finest mounting and workmanship, suspended over their shoulders in a sort of sling or scarf of crimson ribband. The hilt and mounting of the Captain’s sword corresponded in value to the rest of his equipment, and his natural good mien was so well adapted to the whole equipment, that when he appeared on deck, he was received with a general shout by the crew, who, as in other popular societies, judge a great deal by the eye. Cleveland took with him in the boat, amongst others, his predeces sor in office, Goffe, who was also very richly dressed, but who, not having the advantage of such an exterior as Cleveland’s, looked like a boorish clown in the dress of a courtier, or rather like a vulgar-faced footpad decked in the spoils of some one whom he had murthered, and whose claim to the property of his garments is rendered doubtful in the eyes of all who look on him, by the mixture of awkwardness, remorse, cruelty, and insolence, which clouds his countenance. Cleveland probably chose to take Goffe ashore with him, to prevent his having any opportunity, during his absence, to debauch the crew from their allegiance. In this guise they left the ship, and singing to

[Chap. 34]

THE PIRATE

3I9

their oars, while the water foamed higher at the chorus, soon reached the quay of Kirkwall. The command of the vessel was in the meantime entrusted to Bunce, upon whose allegiance Cleveland knew that he might perfectly depend, and, in a private conversation with him of some length, he gave him directions how to act in such emergencies as might occur. These arrangements being made, and Bunce having been repeatedly charged to stand upon his guard alike against the adherents of Goffe and any attempt from the shore, the boat put off. As she approached the harbour, Cleveland displayed a white flag, and could observe that their appearance seemed to occasion a good deal of bustle and alarm. People were seen running to and fro, and some of them appeared to be getting under arms. The battery was manned hastily, and the English colours displayed. These were alarming symptoms, the rather that Cleveland knew that, though there were no artillery-men in Kirkwall, yet there were many sailors perfectly com petent to the management of great guns, and willing enough to under take such service in case of need. Noting these hostile preparations with a heedful eye, but suffering nothing like doubt or anxiety to appear on his countenance, Cleveland ran the boat right for the quay, on which several people, armed with muskets, rifles, and fowling-pieces, and others with half-pikes and whaling-knives, were now assembled, as if to oppose his landing. Apparently, however, they had not positively determined what meas ures they were to pursue; for when the boat reached the quay, those immediately opposite bore back, and suffered Cleveland and his party to leap ashore without hindrance. They immediately drew up on the quay, excepting two, who, as their Captain had commanded, remained in the boat, which they put off to a little distance;—a manœuvre which, while it placed the boat (the only one belonging to the sloop) out of danger of being seized, indicated a sort of careless confidence in Cleveland and his party, which was calculated to intim idate their opponents. The Kirkwallers, however, shewed the old Northern blood, put a manly face upon the matter, and stood on the quay, with their arms shouldered, directly opposite to the rovers, and blocking up against them the street which leads to the town. Cleveland was the first who spoke, as the parties stood thus looking upon each other.—“How is this, gentlemen burghers?” he said; “are you Orkney folks turned Highlandmen, that you are all under arms so early this morning? or have you manned the quay to give me the honour of a salute, upon taking the command ofmy ship?” The burghers looked on each other, and one of them replied to

320

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 7

Cleveland—“We do not know who you are; it was that other man,”— pointing to Goffe—“who used to come ashore as Captain.” “That other gentleman is my mate, and commands in my absence,” said Cleveland;—“but what is that to the purpose? I wish to speak with your Lord Mayor, or whatsoever you call him.” “The Provost is sitting in council with the Magistrates,” answered the spokesman. “So much the better,” replied Cleveland.—“Where do their Wor ships meet?” “In the Council-house,” answered the other. “Then make way for us, gentlemen, if you please, for my people and I are going there.” There was a whisper among the town’s-people; but several were unresolved upon engaging in a desperate, and perhaps an unneces sary conflict, with desperate men; and the more determined citizens formed the hasty reflection that the strangers might be more easily mastered in the house, or perhaps in the narrow streets which they had to traverse, than when they stood drawn up and prepared for battle upon the quay. They suffered them, therefore, to proceed unmolested; and Cleveland, moving very slowly, keeping his people close together, suffering no one to press upon the flanks of his little detachment, and making four men, who constituted his rear-guard, turn round and face to the rear from time to time, rendered it, by his caution, a very dangerous task to make any attempt upon them. In this manner they ascended the narrow street, and reached the Council-house, where the Magistrates were actually sitting, as the citizen had informed Cleveland. Here the inhabitants began to press forwards, with the purpose of mingling with the pirates, and availing themselves of the crowd in the narrow entrance, to secure as many as they could, without allowing them room for the free use of their weapons. But this also had Cleveland foreseen, and, ere entering the council-room, he caused the entrance to be cleared and secured, commanding four of his men to face down the street, and as many to confront the crowd who were thrusting each other forwards from above. The burghers recoiled back from the ferocious, swarthy, and sun-burned countenances, as well as the levelled arms, of these desperadoes, and Cleveland, with the rest of his party, entered the council-room, where the Magistrates were sitting in council, with very little attendance. These gentlemen were thus separated effectu ally from the citizens, who looked to them for orders, and were per haps more completely at the mercy of Cleveland, than he, with his little handful of men, could be said to be at that of the multitude by whom they were surrounded.

[Chap. 34]

THE PIRATE

32I

The Magistrates seemed sensible of their danger; for they looked upon each other in some confusion, when Cleveland thus addressed them: “Good morrow, gentlemen,—I hope there is no unkindness betwixt us. I am come to talk with you about getting supplies for my ship yonder in the road-stead—we cannot sail without them.” “Your ship, sir?” said the Provost, who was a man of sense and spirit,—“how do we know that you are her Captain?” “Look at me,” said Cleveland, “and you will, I think, scarce ask the question again.” The Magistrate looked at him, and accordingly did not think proper to pursue that part of the inquiry, but proceeded to say—“And if you are her Captain, whence comes she, and where is she bound for? You look too much like a man-of-war’s man to be master of a trader, and we know that you do not belong to the British navy.” “There are more men-of-war on the sea than sail under the British flag,” replied Cleveland; “but say that I were commander of a freetrader here, willing to exchange tobacco, brandy, gin, and such like, for cured fish and hides, why, I do not think I deserve so very bad usage from the merchants of Kirkwall as to deny me provisions for my money!” “Look you, Captain,” said the Town-Clerk, “it is not that we are so very strait-laced neither—for when gentlemen ofyour cloth come this way, it is as weel, as I tauld the Provost, just to do as the collier did when he met the devil,—and that is, to have naething to say to them, if they have naething to say to us;—and there is the gentleman,” point ing to Goffe, “that was Captain before you, and may be Captain after you,”—(“The cuckold speaks truth in that,” muttered Goffe,)—“he knows well how handsomely we entertained him, till he and his men took upon them to run through the town like hellicat devils.—I see one of them there!—that was the very fellow that stopped my servantwench on the street, as she carried the lantern hame before me, and insulted her before my face!” “If it please your noble Mayorship’s honour and glory,” said Der rick, the fellow at whom the Town-clerk pointed, “it was not I that brought-to the bit of a tender that carried the lantern in the poop—it was quite a different sort ofa person.” “Who was it then, sir?” said the Provost. “Why, please your majesty’s worship,” said Derrick, making several sea-bows, and describing as nearly as he could the exterior of the worthy Magistrate himself, “he was an elderly gentleman,—Dutchbuilt, round in the stem, with a white wig and a red nose—very like your majesty, I think;” then turning to a comrade, he added, “Jack,

322

THE PIRATE

Vol.3,ch.7

don’t you think the fellow that wanted to kiss the pretty with the lantern t’other night was very like his worship?” “By God, Tom Derrick,” answered the party appealed to, “I believe it is the very man!” “This is insolence which we can make you repent of, gentlemen!” said the Magistrate, justly irritated at their effrontery; “you have behaved in this town, as ifyou were in an Indian village at Madagascar. You yourself, Captain, if captain you be, were at the head of another riot, no farther since than yesterday. We will give you no provisions till we know better whom we are supplying. And do not think to bully us; when I shake this handkerchief out at the window, which is at my elbow, your ship goes to the bottom. Remember she lies under the guns ofour battery.” “And how many of these guns are honeycombed, Mr Mayor?” said Cleveland. He put the question by chance; but instantly perceived from a sort of confusion which the Provost in vain endeavoured to hide, that the artillery of Kirkwall was not in the best order. “Come, come, Mr Mayor,” he said, “bullying will go down with us as little as with you. Your guns yonder will do more harm to the poor old sailors who are to work them, than to our sloop; and ifwe bring a broadside to bear on the town, why, your wives’ crockery will be in some danger. And then to talk to us of seamen being a little frolicsome ashore, why, when are they otherwise? You have the Greenland whalers playing the devil among you every now and then; and the very Dutchmen cut capers in the streets of Kirkwall, like porpoises before a gale of wind. I am told you are a man of sense, and I am sure you and I could settle this matter in the course of a five minutes palaver.” “Well, sir,” said the Provost, “I will hear what you have to say, ifyou will walk this way.” Cleveland accordingly followed him into a small interior apartment, and, when there, addressed the Provost thus: “I will lay aside my pistols, sir, if you are afraid of them.” “Damn your pistols,” answered the Provost, “I have served the king, and fear the smell of powder as little as you do.” “So much the better,” said Cleveland, “for you will hear me the more coolly.—Let us be what perhaps you suspect us, or let us be any thing else, what, in the name of Heaven, can you get by keeping us here, but blows and blood-shed? For which, believe me, we are much better provided than you can pretend to be. The point is a plain one— you are desirous to be rid of us—we are desirous to be gone. Let us have the means of departure, and we leave you instantly.” “Look ye, Captain,” said the Provost, “I thirst for no man’s blood. You are a pretty fellow, as there were many among the buccaneers in

[Chap. 35]

THE PIRATE

323

my time—but there is no harm in wishing you a better trade. You should have the stores and welcome, for your money, so you would make these seas clear of you. But then, here lies the rub. The Halcyon frigate is expected in these parts immediately; when she hears of you she will be at you; for there is nothing the White Lapelle loves better than a rover—you are seldom without cargo of dollars. Well, he comes down, gets you under his stern,”— “Blows us into the air, if you please,” said Cleveland. “Nay, that must be as you please, Captain,” said the Provost; “but then, what is to come of the good town of Kirkwall, that has been packing and peeling with the King’s enemies? The burgh will be laid under a round fine, and it may be that the Provost may not come off so easily.” “Well, then,” said Cleveland, “I see where your pinch lies. Now, suppose that I run round this island of yours, and get into the roadstead at Stromness. We could get what we want put on board there, without Kirkwall or the Provost seeming to have any hand in it; or, if it should be ever questioned, your want of force, and our superior strength, will make a sufficient apology.” “That may be,” said the Provost; “but if I suffer you to leave your present station, and go elsewhere, I must have some security that you will not do harm to the country.” “And we,” said Cleveland, “must have some security on our side, that you will not detain us, by dribbling out time till the Halcyon is on the coast. Now, I am myself perfectly willing to continue on shore as a hostage, on the one side, providing you will give me your word not to betray me, and send some magistrate, or person of consequence, aboard the sloop, where his safety will be a guarantee for mine.” The Provost shook his head, and intimated it would be difficult to find a person willing to place himself as a hostage in such a perilous condition; but said he would propose the arrangement to such of the council as were fit to be trusted with a matter of such weight.

Chapter Eight I left my poor plough to go ploughing the deep!

Dibdin

When the Provost and Cleveland had returned into the public council-room, the former retired a second time with such of his brethren as he thought proper to advise with; and, while they were engaged in discussing Cleveland’s proposal, refreshments were offered to him and his people. These the Captain permitted his people

324

THE PIRATE

Vol.3,ch.8

to partake of, but with the greatest precaution against surprisal, one party relieving the guard, whilst the others were at their food. He himself, in the meanwhile, walked up and down the apartment, and conversed upon indifferent subjects with those present, like a person quite at his ease. Amongst these individuals he saw, somewhat to his surprise, Triptolemus Yellowley, who chancing to be at Kirkwall, had been summoned by the Magistrates, as representative, in a certain degree, of the Lord Chamberlain, to attend council on this occasion. Cleve land immediately renewed the acquaintance which he had formed with the agriculturist at Burgh Westra, and asked him his present business in Orkney. “Just to look after some of my little plans, Captain Cleveland. I am weary of fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus yonder, and I just cam ower to see how my orchard was thriving, whilk I had planted four or five miles from Kirkwall, it may be an year bygane, and how the bees were thriving, whereof I had imported nine skeps, for the improve ment of the country, and for the turning of the heather-bloom into wax and honey.” “And they thrive, I hope,” said Cleveland, who, however little inter ested in the matter, sustained the conversation, as if to break the chilly and embarrassed silence which hung upon the company assembled. “Thrive!” replied Triptolemus; “they thrive like every thing else in this country, and that is the backward way.” “Want of care, I suppose,” said Cleveland. “The contrary, sir, quite and clean the contrary,” replied the Fac tor; “they died ofower mickle care, like Lucky Christie’s chickens.—I asked to see the skeps, and cunning and joyful did the fallow look who was to have taken care of them—‘Had there been ony body in charge but mysell,’ he said, ‘ye might have seen the skeps, or whatever you ca’ them; but there wad hae been as mony solan-geese as flees in them, if it had nae been for my four quarters; for I watched them so closely, that I saw them a’ creeping out at the little holes one sunny morning, and if I had not stopped the leak on the instant with a bit clay, the de’il a bee, or flee, or whatever they are, would have been left in the skeps, as ye ca’ them!’—In a word, sir, he had clagged up the hives, as if the puir things had had the pestilence, and my bees were as dead as if they had been smeaked—and so ends my hope, generandi gloria mellis, as Virgiliushathit.” “There is an end ofyour mead, then,” replied Cleveland; “but what is your chance of cyder?—How does the orchard thrive?” “O, Captain! this same Solomon of the Orcadian Ophir—I am sure no man need to send thither to fetch either talents of gold or talents of

[Chap. 35]

THE PIRATE

325

sense!—I say, this wise man had watered the young apple-trees, in his great tenderness, with hot water, and they are perished, root-andbranch! But what avails grieving?—And I wish you would tell me, instead, what is all the din that these good folks are making about pirates? and what for are all these ill-looking men, that are armed like so mony Highlandmen, assembled in the judgment-chamber?—For I am just come from the other side ofthe island, and have heard nothing distinct about it.—And, now I look at you yoursell, Captain, I think you have mair of these foolish pistolets about you than should suffice an honest man in quiet times!” “And so think I too,” said the pacific Triton, old Haagen, who had been an unwilling follower of the daring Montrose; “if you had been in the Glen of Edderachyllis, when we were sae sair worried by Sir John Worry”-----“You have forgot the whole matter, neighbour Haagen,” said the Factor; “Sir John Urry was on your side, and was ta’en with Mon trose; by the saam token, he lost his head!” “Did he?” said the Triton.—“I believe you may be right; for he changed sides mair than anes, and wha kens whilk he died for?—But always he was there, and so was I;—a fight there was, and I never wish to see another!” The entrance of the Provost here interrupted their desultory con versation.—“We have determined,” he said, “Captain, that your ship shall go round to Stromness, or Scalpa-flow, to take in stores, in order that there may be no more quarrels between the Fair folks and your seamen. And as you wish to stay on shore to see the Fair, we intend to send a respectable gentleman on board your vessel to pilot her round the Mainland, as the navigation is but ticklish.” “Spoken like a sensible and quiet magistrate, Mr Mayor,” said Cleveland, “and no otherwise than as I expected.—And what gentle man is to honour our quarter-deck during my absence?” “We have fixed that too, Captain Cleveland,” said the Provost; “you may be sure we were each more desirous than another to go upon so pleasant a voyage, and in such good company; but being Fair time, most of us have some affairs in hand—I myself, in respect of my office, cannot be well spared—the eldest Baillie’s wife is lying-in— the Treasurer does not agree with the sea—two Baillies have the gout —the other two are absent from town—and the other fifteen members ofcouncil are all engaged on particular business.” “All that I can tell you, Mr Mayor,” said Cleveland, raising his voice, “is, that I expect”-----“A moment’s patience, if you please, Captain,” said the Provost, interrupting him—“So that we have come to the resolution that

326

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 8

worthy Mr Triptolemus Yellowley, who is Factor to the Lord Cham berlain of these islands, shall, in respect of his official situation, be preferred to the honour and pleasure of accompanying you.” “Me!” said the astonished Triptolemus; “what the devil should I do going on your voyages?—my business is on dry land!” “The gentlemen want a pilot,” said the Provost, whispering him, “and there is no eviting giving them one.” “Do they want to go bump on shore, then?” said the Factor— “how the devil should I pilot them, that never touched rudder in my life?” “Hush!—hush!—be silent!” said the Provost; “if the people of this town heard ye say such a word, your utility, and respect, and rank, and every thing else, is clean gone!—No man is any thing with us island folks, unless he can hand, reef, and steer!—besides, it is but a mere form; and we will send old Pate Sinclair to help you. You will have nothing to do but to eat, drink, and be merry all day.” “Eat and drink?” said the Factor, not able to comprehend exactly why this piece of duty was pressed upon him so hastily, and yet not very capable of resisting or extricating himself from the toils of the more knowing Provost—“Eat and drink!—that is all very well; but, to speak truth, the sea does not agree with me any mair than with the Treasurer; and I have always a better appetite for eating and drinking ashore.” “Hush, hush, hush!” again said the Provost, in an under-tone of earnest expostulation; “would you actually ruin your character out and out?—A Factor of the High Chamberlain of the Isles of Orkney and Zetland, and not like the sea!—you might as well say you are a Highlander, and do not like whisky!” “You must settle it somehow, gentlemen,” said Captain Cleveland; “it is time we were under way—Mr Triptolemus Yellowley, are we to be honoured with your company?” “I am sure, Captain Cleveland,” stammered the Factor, “I would have no objection to go onywhere with you—only------“ “He has no objection,” said the Provost, catching at the first limb of the sentence, without awaiting the conclusion. “He has no objection,” cried the Treasurer. “He has no objection,” sung out the whole four Bailies together; and the fifteen Councillors, all catching up the same phrase of assent, repeated it in chorus, with the additions of—“good man”—“public spirited”—“honourable gentleman”—“burgh eternally obliged”— “where will you find such a worthy Factor?” and so forth. Astonished and confused at the praises with which he was over whelmed on all sides, and in no shape understanding the nature of the

[Chap. 35]

THE PIRATE

327

transaction, the astounded and overwhelmed agriculturist became incapable of resisting the part of the Kirkwall Curtius thus insidiously forced upon him, and was delivered up by Captain Cleveland to his party, with the strictest injunctions to treat him with honour and attention. Goffe and his companions began now to lead him off, amid the applauses of the whole meeting, after the manner in which the victim of ancient days was garlanded and greeted by shouts, when consigned to the priests, for the purpose of being led to the altar as a sacrifice for the commonweal. It was while they thus conducted, and in a manner forced him out of the council-chamber, that poor Tripto lemus, much alarmed at finding that Cleveland, in whom he had some confidence, was to remain behind the party, tried, when just going out at the door, the effect of one remonstrating bellow.—“Nay, but, Provost!—Captain!—Baillies!—Treasurer!—Councillors!—ifCap tain Cleveland does not go aboard to protect me, it is nae bargain, and go I will not, unless I am trailed with cart-rapes!” His protest was, however, drowned in the unanimous chorus of the Magistrates and Councillors returning him thanks for his public spirit —wishing him a good voyage—and praying to Heaven for his happy and speedy return. Stunned and overwhelmed, and thinking, ifhe had any distinct thoughts at all, that remonstrance was in vain, where friends and strangers seemed alike determined to carry the point against him,Triptolemus, without farther resistance, suffered himself to be conducted into the street, where the pirate’s boat’s crew, assem bling around him, began to move slowly towards the quay, many ofthe townsfolks following out ofcuriosity, but without any attempt at inter ference or annoyance; for the pacific compromise which the dexterity of the first Magistrate had achieved was unanimously approved of as a much better settlement of the disputes betwixt them and the strangers, than might have been attained by the dubious issue of an appeal to arms. Meanwhile, as they went slowly along, Triptolemus had time to study the appearance, countenance, and dress of those into whose hands he had been thus delivered, and began to imagine that he read in their looks not only the general expression of a desperate charac ter, but some sinister intentions directed towards himself. He was alarmed by the truculent looks of Goffe, in particular, who, holding his arm with a gripe which resembled in delicacy of touch the com pression of a smith’s vice, cast on him from the outer comer of his eye oblique glances, like those which the eagle throws upon the prey which she has clutched, ere yet she proceeds to plume it. At length Yellowley’s fears got so far the better of his prudence, that he fairly asked his terrible conductor, in a sort of crying whisper, “Are you

328

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch.8

going to murther me, Captain, in the face of the laws baith of God and ofman?” “Hold your peace, if you are wise,” said Goffe, who had his own reasons for desiring to increase the panic of his captive; “we have not murthered a man these three months, and why should you put us in mind of it?” “You are but jesting, I hope, good worthy Captain,” replied Tripto lemus. “This is worse than witches, dwarfs, dirking of whales, and cowping of cobles, put all together!—this is an away-ganging crop, with a vengeance!—What good, in Heaven’s name, would murther ing me do to you?” “We might have some pleasure in it, at least,” said Goffe.—“Look these fellows in the face, and see if you see one among them that would not rather kill a man than let it alone.—But we will speak more of that when you have first had a taste of the bilboes—unless, indeed, you come down with a handsome round handful of Chili boards* for your ransom.” “As I shall live by bread, Captain,” answered the Factor, “that misbegotten dwarf has carried offthe whole homful of silver!” “A cat-and-nine-tails will make you find it again,” said Goffe, gruffly; “flogging and pickling is an excellent receipt to bring a man’s wealth into his mind—twisting a bow-string round his skull till the eyes start a little is a very good way too.” “Captain,” replied Yellowley, stoutly, “I have no money—seldom an improver has.—We turn pasture to tillage, and barley into aits, and heather into greensward, and the pooryarpha, as the benighted crea tures here call their peat-bogs, into baittle grass-land; but we seldom make any thing of it that comes back to our ain pouch.—The carles and the cart-avers make it all, and the carles and the cart-avers eat it all, and the de’il clink doun with it!” “Well, well,” said Goffe, “if you be really a poor fellow, as you pretend, I’ll stand your friend;” then stooping his head so as to reach the ear of the Factor, who stood on tip-toe with anxiety, he said, “If you love your life, do not enter the boat with us!” “But how am I to get away from you, while you hold me so fast by the arm, that I could not get off if the whole year’s crop of Scotland depended on it?” “Harkye, you gudgeon,” said Goffe, “just when you come to the water’s edge, and when the fellows are jumping in and taking their oars, slew yourself round suddenly to the larboard—I will let go your arm—and then cut and run for your life!” Triptolemus did as he was desired, Goffe’s willing hand relaxed the * Commonly called by landsmen Spanish dollars.

[Chap. 35]

THE PIRATE

329

grasp as he had promised, the agriculturist trundled off like a foot-ball that has just received a strong impulse from the foot of one of the players, and, with celerity which surprised himself as well as all beholders, fled through the town of Kirkwall. Nay, such was the impetus of his retreat, that, as if the grasp ofthe pirate was still open to pounce upon him, he never stopped till he had traversed the whole town, and attained the open country on the other side. They who had seen him that day—his hat and wig lost in the sudden effort he had made to bolt forwards, his gravat awry, and his waistcoat unbuttoned, —and who had an opportunity ofcomparing his round spherical form and short legs with the portentous speed at which he scoured through the streets, might well say, that if Fury ministers arms, Fear confers wings. There was no pursuit after the agriculturist; and though a musket or two were presented, for the purpose of sending a leaden messenger after him, yet Goffe, turning peace-maker for once in his life, so exaggerated the dangers which would attend a breach of the truce with the people of Kirkwall, that he prevailed upon the boat’s-crew to forbear any active hostilities, and to pull off for their vessel with all dispatch. The burghers, who regarded the escape of Triptolemus as a tri umph on their side, gave the boat three cheers, by way of insulting farewell; while the Magistrates, on the other hand, entertained great anxiety respecting the probable consequences of this breach of art icles betwixt them and the pirates; and, could they have seized upon the fugitive very privately, instead of comforting him with a civic feast in honour of the agility which he displayed, it is likely they might have delivered the run-away hostage once more into the hands of his foe men. But it was impossible to set their face publicly to such an act of violence, and therefore they contented themselves with closely watch ing Cleveland, whom they determined to make responsible for any aggression which might be attempted by the pirates. Cleveland, on his part, easily conjectured that the motive which Goffe had for suffering the hostage to escape was to leave him answerable for all con sequences, and, relying more on the attachment and intelligence of his friend and adherent Frederick Altamont, alias Jack Bunce, than on any thing else, expected the result with considerable anxiety, since the Magistrates, though they continued to treat him with civility, plainly intimated they would regulate his treatment upon the behaviour of the crew, though he no longer commanded them. It was not, however, without some reason that he reckoned on the devoted fidelity of Bunce; for no sooner did that trusty adherent receive from Goffe, and the boat’s crew, the news of the escape of

330

Vol.3,ch.9

the pirate

Triptolemus, than he immediately concluded it had been favoured by the late Captain, in order that, Cleveland being either put to death or consigned to hopeless imprisonment, Goffe might be called upon to resume the command ofthe vessel. “But the drunken old captain shall miss his mark,” said Bunce to his confederate Fletcher; “or else I am contented to quit the name of Altamont, and be called Jack Bunce, or Jack Dunce, if you like it better, to the end of the chapter.” Availing himself accordingly of a sort of nautical eloquence, which his enemies termed slack-jaw, Bunce set before the crew, in a most animated manner, the disgrace which they all sustained by their Cap tain remaining, as he was pleased to term it, in the bilboes, without any hostage to answer for his safety, and succeeded so far, that, besides exciting a good deal of discontent against Goffe, he brought the crew to the resolution of seizing the first vessel of a tolerable appearance, and declaring that the ship, crew, and cargo, should be dealt with according to the usage which Cleveland should receive on shore. It was judged at the same time proper to try the faith ofthe Orcadians, by removing from the road-stead of Kirkwall, and going round to that of Stromness, where, according to the treaty betwixt Provost Torfe and Captain Cleveland, they were to victual their sloop. They resolved, in the meantime, to entrust the command of the vessel to a council, consisting of Goffe, the boatswain, and Bunce himself, until Cleve land should be in a situation to resume his command. These resolutions having been proposed and acceded to, they weighed anchor, and got their sloop under way, without experiencing any opposition or annoyance from the battery, which relieved them of one important apprehension incidental to their situation.

Chapter Nine Clap on more sail, pursue, up with your fights, Give fire—she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all.

Shakespeare

A very handsome brig, which, with several other vessels, was the property ofMagnus Troil, the great Zetland Udaller, had received on board that Magnate himself, his two lovely daughters, and the facetious Claud Halcro, who, for friendship’s sake chiefly, and the love of beauty proper to his poetical calling, attended them on their journey from Zetland to the capital of Orkney, to which Norna had referred them, as the place where her mystical oracles should at length receive a satisfactory explanation. They passed at a distance the tre-

[Chap. 36]

THE PIRATE

33I

mendous cliffs of the lonely spot of earth called the Fair Isle, which, at an equal distance from either Archipelago, lies in the sea which divides Orkney from Zetland, and at length, after some baffling winds, made the Start of Sanda. Off the headland so named, they became involved in a strong current, well known by those who fre quent these seas, as the Roost of the Start, which carried them consid erably out of their course, and, joined to an adverse wind, forced them to keep on the east side of the island of Stronsa, and, finally, com pelled them to lie bye for the night in Papa Sound, since the navigation in dark or thick weather, amongst so many low islands, is neither safe nor pleasant. On the ensuing morning, they resumed their voyage under more favourable auspices, and coasting along the island of Stronsa, whose flat, verdant, and comparatively fertile shores, formed a strong con trast to the dun hills and dark cliffs of their own islands, they doubled the cape called the Lambhead, and stood away for Kirkwall. They had scarce opened the beautiful bay betwixt Pomona and Shapinsha, and the sisters were admiring the massive church of Saint Magnus, as it was first seen to rise from amongst the inferior buildings of Kirkwall, when the eyes of Magnus and of Claud Halcro were attracted by an object which they thought more interesting. This was an armed sloop with her sails set, which had just left the anchorage in the bay, and was running before the wind by which the brig of the Udaller was beating in. “A tight thing that, by my ancestor’s bones,” said the old Udaller; “but I cannot make out of what country, as she shews no colours. Spanish built, I should think her.” “Ay, ay,” said Claud Halcro, “she has all the luck of it. She runs before the wind that we must battle with, which is the wonted way of the world. As glorious John says, With roomy deck, and guns ofmighty strength, Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves, Deep in her draught, and warlike in her length, She seems a sea-wasp flying on the waves.”

Brenda could not help telling Halcro, when he had spouted this stanza with great enthusiasm, “that though the description was more like a first-rate than a sloop, yet the simile of the sea-wasp served but indifferently for either.” “A sea-wasp,” said Magnus, looking with some surprise, as the sloop, shifting her course, suddenly bore down on them. “Egad, I wish she may not shew us presently that she has a sting.” What the Udaller said in jest, was fulfilled in earnest; for, without hoisting colours, or hailing, two shots were discharged from the sloop,

332

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 9

one of which ran dipping and dancing upon the water, just ahead of the Zetlander’s bows, while the other went through her main-sail. Magnus caught up a speaking-trumpet and hailed the sloop, to demand what she was, and what was the meaning of this unprovoked aggression. He was only answered by the stern command, “Down top-sails instantly, and lay your main-sail to the mast—you shall see who we are presently.” There was no means within the reach ofpossibility by which obedi ence could be evaded, where it would instantly have been enforced by a broadside; and with much fear on the part of the sisters and Claud Halcro, mixed with anger and astonishment on that ofthe Udaller, the brig lay-to to await the commands of the captors. The sloop immedi ately lowered a boat, with six armed hands, commanded by Jack Bunce, which rowed directly for their prize. As they approached her, Claud Halcro whispered to the Udaller, “If what we hear of buccan eers be true, these men, with their silk scarfs and vests, have the very cut of them.” “My daughters! my daughters!” muttered Magnus to himself, with such an agony as only a father could feel—“go down below, and hide yourselves, girls, while I------ ” He threw down his speaking-trumpet, and seized on a handspike, while his daughters, more afraid of the consequences of his fiery temper to himself than of any thing else, hung round him, and begged him to make no resistance. Claud Halcro united his entreaties, add ing, “It were best pacify the fellows with fair words.—They might,” he said, “be Dunkirkers, or insolent man-of-war’s men on a frolic.” “No, no,” answered Magnus, “it is the sloop which the Jagger told us of—but I will take your advice—I will have patience for these girls’ sakes; yet”-----He had no time to conclude the sentence, for Bunce jumped on board with his party, and drawing his cutlass, struck it upon the companion-ladder, and declared the ship was theirs. “By what warrant or authority do you stop us on the high seas?” said Magnus. “Here are half a dozen of warrants,” said Bunce, shewing the pistols which were hung around him, according to a pirate fashion already mentioned, “chuse which you like, old gentleman, and you shall have perusal ofit presently.” “That is to say, you intend to rob us?” said Magnus.—“So be it— we have no means to help it—only be civil to the women, and take what you please from the vessel—there is not much, but I will and can make it worth more, ifyou use us well.” “Civil to the women!” said Fletcher, who had also come on board

[Chap. 36]

THE PIRATE

333

with the gang-—“when were we else than civil to them? ay, and kind to boot?—Look here, Jack Bunce!—what a trim-going little thing here is!—By God, she shall make a cruize with us, come of old Squaretoes what will!” He seized upon the terrified Brenda with one hand, and insolently pulled back with the other the hood of the mantle in which she had muffled herself. “Help, father!—help, Minna!” exclaimed the affrighted girl, unconscious at the moment that they were unable to render her assist ance. Magnus again uplifted the handspike, but Bunce stopped his hand. —“Avast, father!” he said, “or you will make a bad voyage of it presently—And you, Fletcher, let go the girl!” “And d—n me! why should I let her go?” said Fletcher. “Because I command you, Dick,” said the other, “and because I’ll make it a quarrel else.—And now let me know, beauties, is there one of you bears that queer heathen name of Minna, for which I have a certain sort of regard?” “Gallant sir!” said Halcro, “unquestionably it is because you have some poetry in your heart.” “I have had enough ofit in my mouth in my time,” answered Bunce; “but that day is by, old gentleman—however, I shall soon find out which of these girls is Minna.—Throw back your mufflings from your faces, and don’t be afraid, my bright Lindamiras, no one here shall meddle with you to do you wrong.—On my soul, two pretty wenches —I wish I were at sea in an egg-shell, and a rock under my lee-bow, ifI would wish a better leaguer-lass than the worst ofthem! Hark you, my girls, which of you would like to swing in a rover’s hammock?—you should have gold for the gathering!” The terrified girls clung close together, and grew pale at the bold and familiar language of the desperate libertine. “Nay, don’t be frightened,” said he; “no one shall serve under the noble Altamont but by her own free choice—There is no pressing amongst gentlemen of fortune. And do not look so shy upon me neither, as if I spoke of what you never thought of before. One of you, at least, has heard of Captain Cleveland, the Rover.” Brenda grew still paler, but the blood mounted at once in Minna’s cheeks, on hearing the name of her lover thus unexpectedly intro duced; for the scene was in itself so confounding, that the idea of the vessel’s being the consort of which Cleveland had spoken at Burgh Westra had occurred to no one save the Udaller. “I see how it is,” said Bunce, with a familiar nod, “and I will hold my course accordingly. You need not be afraid of any injury, father,” he

334

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 9

added, addressing Magnus familiarly; “and though I have made many a pretty girl pay tribute in my time, yet yours shall go ashore without either wrong or ransom.” “If you will assure me of that,” said Magnus, “you are as welcome to the brig and cargo as ever I made man welcome to a can of punch.” “And it is no bad thing that same can of punch,” said Bunce, “if we had any one here that could mix it well.” “I will do it,” said Claud Halcro, “with any man that ever squeezed lemon,—Eric Scambester, the punch-maker of Burgh Westra, being alone excepted.” “And you are within a grapnell’s length of him too,” said the Udal ler.—“Go down below, my girls,” he added, “and send up the rare old rum and the punch-bowl.” “The punch-bowl!” said Fletcher; “I say the bucket, d—n me!— Talk of bowls in the caboose of a paltry merchantman, but not to gentlemen strollers—rovers, I would say,” correcting himself, as he observed that Bunce looked sour at the mistake. “And I say these two pretty girls shall stay on deck and fill my can,” said Bunce; “I deserve some attendance at least for all my generosity.” “And they shall fill mine too,” said Fletcher—“they shall fill it to the brim, and I will have a kiss for every drop they spill—broil me if I won’t!” “Why then I tell you you shan’t!” said Bunce; “for I’ll be d—d ifany one shall kiss Minna but one, and that’s neither you nor I; and her other little bit of a consort shall scape for company;—there are plenty of willing wenches in Orkney. And so, now I think on it, these girls shall go down below and bolt themselves into the cabin, and we will have the punch up here on deck, al fresco, as the old gentleman proposes.” “Why, Jack, I wish you knew your own mind,” said Fletcher; “I have been your mess-mate these two years, and I love you; and yet flay me like a wild bullock, if you have not as many humours as a monkey! —And what shall we have to make a little fun of, since you have sent the girls down below?” “Why, we will have Master Punch-maker here,” answered Bunce, “to give us toasts and sing us songs—And in the meantime, you there, stand by sheets and tacks, and get her under way!—and you, steers­ man, as you would keep your brains in your skull, keep her under the stern of the sloop.—If you attempt to play us any trick, I will scuttle your sconce as if it were an old calabash!” The vessel was accordingly got under way, and moved slowly on in the wake of the sloop, which, as had been previously agreed upon, held her course not to return to the Bay of Kirkwall, but for an

[Chap. 36]

THE PIRATE

335

excellent roadstead called Inganess Bay, formed by a promontory which extends to the eastward two or three miles from the Orcadian metropolis, and where the vessels might conveniently lie at anchor, while the rovers maintained any communication with the Magistrates which the new state of things seemed to require. Meantime Claud Halcro had exerted his utmost talents in com pounding a bucket-full of punch for the use of the pirates, which they drank out of large cans; the ordinary seamen, as well as Bunce and Fletcher, who acted as officers, dipping them into the bucket with very little ceremony, as they came and went upon their duty. Magnus, who was particularly apprehensive that liquor might awaken the brutal passions of these desperadoes, was yet so much astonished at the quantities which he saw them drink, without producing any visible effect upon their reason, that he could not help expressing his surprise to Bunce himself, who, wild as he was, yet appeared by far the most civil and conversable ofhis party, and whom he was, perhaps, desirous to conciliate, by a compliment ofwhich all boon topers know the value. “Bones of Saint Magnus!” said the Udaller, “I used to think I took off my can like a gentleman; but to see your meh swallow, Captain, one would think their stomachs were as bottomless as the hole of Laifell in Foulah, which I have sounded myself with a line of an hundred fathom.” “In our way of life, sir,” answered Bunce, “there is no stint till the duty calls, or the puncheon is drank out.” “By my word, sir,” said Claud Halcro, “I believe there is not one among your people but could drink out the mickle bicker of Scapa, which was always offered to the Bishop of Orkney brimful of the best bummock that ever was brewed.” “If drinking could make them bishops,” said Bunce, “I should have a reverend crew of them; but, as they have no other clerical qualities about them, I do not propose that they shall get drunk to-day; so we will cut our drink with a song.” “And I’ll sing it, by--- !” said or swore Dick Fletcher, and instantly struck up the old ditty— “It was a ship, and a ship of fame, Launch’d offthe stocks, bound for the main, With a hundred and fifty brisk young men, All picked and chosen every one.”

“I would sooner be keel-hauled than hear that song over again,” said Bunce; “and confound your lantern jaws, you can squeeze noth ing else out of them.” “By-- ” said Fletcher, “I will sing my song, whether you like it or no;” and again he sung, with the doleful tone of a north-easter

336

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch.9

whistling through sheet and shrouds, “Captain Glen was our captain’s name; A very gallant and brisk young man; As bold a sailor’s ere went to sea, And we were bound for High Barbary.”

“I tell you again,” said Bunce, “we will have none of your screechowl music here; and I’ll be d—d if you shall sit here and make that infernal noise.” “Why then, I’ll tell you what,” said Fletcher, getting up, “I’ll sing when I walk about, and I hope there is no harm in that, Jack Bunce.” And so getting up from his seat, he began to walk up and down the sloop, croaking out his long and disastrous ballad. “You see how I manage them,” said Bunce, with a smile of selfapplause—“allow that fellow two strides on his own way, and you make a mutineer of him for life. But I tie him short up, and he follows me as kindly as a fowler’s spaniel, after he has got a good beating.— And now your toast and your song, sir,” addressing Halcro; “or rather your song without your toast. I have got a toast for myself. Here is success to all roving blades, and confusion to all honest men!” “I should be sorry to drink that toast, ifI could help it,” said Magnus Troil. “What, you reckon yourselfone of the honest folks, I warrant,” said Bunce.—“Tell me your trade, and I’ll tell you what I think of it. As for the punch-maker here, I knew him at first glance to be a tailor, who has, therefore, no more pretensions to be honest than not to be mangy. But you are some High Dutch skipper, I warrant me, that tramples on the cross when he is in Japan, and denies his religion for a day’s gain.” “No,” replied the Udaller, “I am a gentleman ofZetland.” “O, what,” retorted the satirical Mr Bunce, “you are come from the happy climate where gin is a groat a bottle, and where there is daylight for ever?” “At your service, Captain,” said the Udaller, suppressing with much pain some disposition to resent these jests on his country, although under every risk, and at all disadvantage. “At my service!” said Bunce—“Ay, if there was a rope stretched from the wreck to the beach, you would be at my service to cut the hawser, make floatsome and jetsome of ship and cargo, and well if you did not give me a rap on the head with the back of the cutty-axe; and you call yourself honest? But never mind—here goes the aforesaid toast—and do you sing me a song, Master Fashioner; and look it be as good as your punch.” Halcro internally praying for the powers of a new Timotheus, to turn his strain and check his pride, as glorious John had it, began a

[Chap. 36]

the pirate

337

heart-soothing ditty with the following lines: “Maidens fresh as fairest rose, Listen to this lay of mine.”

“I will hear nothing ofmaidens or roses,” said Bunce; “it puts me in mind what sort of a cargo we have got on board; and, by------ , I will be true to my messmate and my captain as long as I can.—And now I think on’t, I’ll have no more punch either—that last cup made innova tion, and I am not to play Cassio to-night—and if I drink not, nobody else shall.” So saying, he manfully kicked over the bucket, which, notwithstanding the repeated applications made to it, was still half full, got up from his seat, shook himselfa little to rights, as he expressed it, cocked his hat, and walking the quarter-deck with an air of dignity, gave, by word and signal, the orders for bringing the ships to anchor, which were readily obeyed by both, Goffe being then, in all probability, past any rational state of interference. The Udaller, in the meantime, condoled with Halcro on their situ ation. “It is bad enough,” said the tough old Norseman; “for these are rank rogues—and yet, were it not for the girls, I should not fear them. That young vapouring fellow, who seems to command, is not such a bom devil as he might have been.” “He has queer humours, though,” said Halcro; “and I wish we were loose from him. To kick down a bucket halffull of the best punch ever was made, and to cut me short in the sweetest song I ever wrote, —I promise you, I do not know what he may do next—it is next door to madness.” Meanwhile the ships being brought to anchor, the valiant Lieuten ant Bunce called upon Fletcher, and resuming his seat by his unwill ing passengers, he told them they should see what message he was about to send to the wittols of Kirkwall, as they were something concerned in it. “It shall run in Dick’s name,” he said, “as well as in mine. I love to give the poor young fellow a little countenance now and then—don’t I, Dick, you d—d stupid ass?” “Why, yes, Jack Bunce,” said Dick, “I can’t say but as you do; only you are always bullocking one about something or other too—but, howsomdever, d’ye see”-----“Enough said—belay your jaw, Dick,” said Bunce, and proceeded to write his epistle, which, being read aloud, proved to be of the following tenor: “For the Mayor and Aldermen of Kirkwall—Gentle men, As, contrary to your good faith given, you have not sent us on board a hostage for the safety of our Captain remaining on shore at your request, these come to tell you, we are not men to be trifled with. We have already in our possession a brig, with a family of distinction,

338

THE PIRATE

Vol.3,ch.9

its owners and passengers; and as you deal with our Captain, so will we deal with them in every respect. And as this is the first, so assure yourselves it shall not be the last damage which we will do to your town and trade, if you do not send on board our Captain, and supply us with stores according to treaty. “Given on board the brig Mergoose of Burgh Westra, lying in Inganess Bay. Witness our hands, commanders of the Fortune’s Favourite, and gentlemen adventurers.” He then subscribed himself Frederick Altamont, and handed the letter to Fletcher, who read the said subscription with much diffi culty; and admiring the sound of it very much, swore he would have a new name himself, and the rather that Fletcher was the most crabbed word to spell and conster, he believed, in the whole dictionary. He subscribed himselfaccordingly Timothy Tugmutton. “Will you not add a few lines to the coxcombs?” said Bunce, addressing Magnus. “Not I,” returned the Udaller, stubborn in his ideas of right and wrong, even in so formidable an emergency. “The Magistrates of Kirkwall know their duty, and were I they—” But here the recol lection that his daughters were at the mercy of these ruffians, blanked the bold visage of Magnus Troil, and checked the defiance which was just about to issue from his lips. “D—n me,” said Bunce, who easily conjectured what was passing in the mind of his prisoner—“that pause would have told well on the stage—it would have brought down pit, box, and gallery, egad, as Bayes has it.” “I will hear nothing of Bayes,” said Claud Halcro, (himself a little elevated,) “it is an impudent satire on glorious John; but he tickled Buckingham off for it— In the first rank of these did Zimri stand; A man so various------”

“Hold your peace,” said Bunce, drowning the voice of the admirer of Dryden in louder and more vehement asseveration, “the Rehearsal is the best farce ever was written—and I’ll make him kiss the gunner’s daughter that denies it. D—n me, I was the best Prince Prettyman ever walked the boards— Sometimes a fisher’s son, sometimes a prince.

But let us to business.—Hark ye, old gentleman, (to Magnus,) you have a sort of sulkiness about you, for which some of my profession would cut your ears out of your head, and broil them for your dinner with red pepper. I have known Goffe do so to a poor devil, for looking sour and dangerous when he saw his sloop go to Davy Jones’ locker with his only son on board. But I’m a spirit of another sort; and if you

[Chap. 36]

THE PIRATE

339

or the ladies are ill used, it shall be the Kirkwall people’s fault, and not mine, and that’s fair; and so you had better let them know your condition, and your circumstances, and so forth,—and that’s fair too.” Magnus, thus exhorted, took up the pen, and attempted to write; but his high spirit so struggled with his paternal anxiety, that his hand refused its office. “I cannot help it,” he said, after one or two illegible attempts to write—“I cannot form a letter, if all our lives depended upon it.” And he could not, with his utmost efforts, so suppress the convul sing emotions which he experienced, but what they agitated his whole frame. The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so, in great calamities, it sometimes happens, that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character. In the present case, Claud Halcro was fortunately able to perform the task which the deeper feelings of his friend and patron refused. He took the pen, and, in as few words as possible, explained the situation in which they were placed, and the cruel risks to which they were exposed, insinuating, at the same time, as delicately as he could express it, that, to the magistrates of the country, the life and honour of its citizens should be a dearer object than even the apprehension or punishment of the guilty; taking care, however, to qualify the last expression as much as possible, for fear of giving umbrage to the pirates. Bunce read over the letter, which fortunately met his approbation; and, on seeing the name of Claud Halcro at the bottom, he exclaimed, in great surprise, and with more energetic expressions of asseveration than we chuse to record—“Why, you are the little fellow that played the fiddle to old Manager Gadabout’s company, at Hogs Norton, the first season I came out there! I thought I knew your catch-word of glorious John.” At another time this recognition might not have been very grateful to Halcro’s minstrel pride; but, as matters stood with him, the discov ery of a golden mine would not have made him more happy. He instantly remembered the very hopeful young performer who came out in Don Sebastian, and judiciously added, that the muse ofglorious John had never received such excellent support during the time that he was first (he might have added, and only) violin to Mr Gadabout’s company. “Why, yes,” said Bunce, “I believe you are right—I think I might have shaken the scene as well as Booth or Betterton either. But I was destined to figure on other boards, (striking his foot upon the deck,) and I believe I must stick by them, till I find no board at all to support

340

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 9

me. But now, old acquaintance, I will do something for you—slew yourselfthis way a bit—I would have you solus.” They leaned over the taffrail, while Bunce whispered with more seriousness than he usually shewed, “I am sorry for this honest old Heart of Norway pine—blight me if I am not—and for the daughters too—besides, I have my own reasons for befriending one of them. I can be a wild fellow with a willing lass of the game; but to such decent and innocent creatures— d—n me, I am Scipio at Numantia, and Alexander in the tent of Darius. You remember how I touch off Alexander, (here he started into heroics.) Thus from the grave I rise to save my love; All draw your swords, with wings oflightning move. When I rush on, sure none will dare to stay— ’Tis beauty calls, and glory shews the way.”

Claud Halcro failed not to bestow the necessary commendations on his declamation, declaring that, in his opinion as an honest man, he had always thought Mr Altamont’s giving that speech far superior in tone and energy to Betterton. Bunce, or Altamont, wrung his hand tenderly. “Ah, you flatter me, my dear friend,” he said; “yet, why had not the public some of your judgment!—I should not then have been at this pass. Heaven knows, my dear Mr Halcro—heaven knows with what pleasure I could keep you on board with me, just that I might have one friend who loves as much to hear, as I do to recite, the choicest pieces of our finest dramatic authors. The most of us are beasts—and, for the Kirkwall hostage yonder, he uses me, egad, as I use Fletcher, I think, and huffs me the more, the more I do for him. But how delightful it would be in a tropic night, when the ship was hanging on the breeze, with a broad and steady sail, for me to rehearse Alexander, with you for my pit, box, and gallery! Nay, for you are a follower of the muses, as I remember, who knows but you and I might be the means of inspiring, like Orpheus and Eurydice, a pure taste into our companions, and soften ing their manners, while we excited their better feelings?” This was spoken with so much unction, that Claud Halcro began to be afraid he had both made the actual punch over potent, and had mixed too many bewitching ingredients in the cup offlattery which he had administered; and that, under the influence of both potions, the sentimental pirate might detain him by force, merely to realize the scenes which his imagination presented. The conjuncture was, how ever, too delicate to admit of any active effort, on Halcro’s part, to redeem his blunder, and therefore he only returned the tender pres sure of his friend’s hand, and uttered the interjection, “Alas,” in as pathetic a tone as he could.

[Chap. 36]

THE PIRATE

34I

Bunce immediately resumed: “You are right, my friend, these are but vain visions of felicity, and it remains but for the unhappy Alta mont to serve the friend to whom he is now to bid farewell. I have determined to put you and the two girls ashore, with Fletcher for your protection; and so call up the young women, and let them be gone before the devil get aboard of me, or of some one else. You will carry my letter to the magistrates, and second it with your own eloquence, and assure them, that if they hurt but one hair of Cleveland’s head, there will be the devil to pay, and no pitch hot.” Relieved at heart by this unexpected termination of Bunce’s har angue, Halcro descended the companion ladder two steps at a time, and knocking at the cabin door, could scarce find intelligible language enough to say his errand. The sisters hearing, with unexpected joy, that they were to be set ashore, muffled themselves in their cloaks, and when they learned that the boat was hoisted out, came hastily on deck, where they were apprized, for the first time, to their great horror, that their father was still to remain on board of the pirate. “We will remain with him at every risk,” said Minna—“we may be some assistance to him, were it but for an instant—we will live and die with him.” “We will aid him more surely,” said Brenda, who comprehended the nature of their situation better than Minna, “by interesting the people of Kirkwall to grant these gentlemen’s demands.” “Spoken like an angel of sense and beauty,” said Bunce; “and now away with you; for, d—n me, if this is not like having a lighted linstock in the powder-room—if you speak another word more, confound me if I know how I shall bring myself to part with you.” “Go, in God’s name, my daughters,” said Magnus. “I am in God’s hand; and when you are gone I shall care little for myself—and I shall think and say, as long as I live, that this good gentleman deserves a better trade—go—go—away with you”—for they yet lingered in unwillingness to leave him. “Stay not to kiss,” said Bunce, “for fear I be tempted to ask my share. Into the boat with you—yet stop an instant.” He drew the three captives apart—“Fletcher,” said he, “will answer for the rest of the fellows, and will see you safe off the sea-beach. But how to answer for Fletcher, I know not, except by trusting Master Halcro with this little guarantee.” He offered the minstrel a small double-barrelled pistol, which, he said, was loaded with a brace of balls. Minna observed Halcro’s hand tremble as he stretched it out to take the weapon. “Give it to me, sir,” she said, taking it from the outlaw; “and trust to me for defending my sister and myself.”

342

THE PIRATE

Vol.3,ch.9

“Bravo, bravo!” shouted Bunce. “There spoke a wench worthy of Cleveland, the King of Rovers.” “Cleveland?” repeated Minna, “do you then know Cleveland?” “Know him! Is there a man alive,” said Bunce, “that knows better than I do the best and stoutest fellow ever stepped betwixt stern and stern? When he is out of the bilboes, as please Heaven he shall soon be, I reckon to see you come on board of us, and reign the queen of every sea we sail over.—You have got the little guardian, I suppose you know how to use it. If Fletcher behaves ill to you, you need only draw up this piece of iron with your thumb, so—and if he persists, it is but crooking your pretty forefinger thus, and I shall lose the most dutiful messmate that ever man had—though, d—n the dog, he will deserve his death if he disobeys my orders. And now, into the boat—but stay, one kiss for Cleveland’s sake.” Brenda, in deadly terror, endured his courtesy, but Minna, step ping back with disdain, offered her hand. Bunce laughed, but kissed, with a theatrical air, the fair hand which she extended as a ransom for her lips, and at length the sisters and Halcro were placed in the boat, which rowed off under Fletcher’s command. Bunce stood on the quarter-deck, soliloquizing after the manner of his original profession. “Were this told at Port Royal now, or on the Isle of Providence, or in the Petits Guaves, I wonder what they would say of me? Why, that I was a good-natured milksop—a Jack-a-lent— an ass.—Well, let them. I have done enough ofbad to think about; it is worth while doing one good action, if it were but for the rarity of the thing, and to put one in good humour with one’s self.” Then turning to Magnus Troil, he proceeded—“By------ these are bona robas, these daughters of yours. The eldest would make her fortune on the London boards. What a dashing attitude the jade had with her, as she seized the pistol—d—n me, that touch would have brought the house down. What a Roxalana the bitch would have made!” (for, in his oratory, Bunce, like Sancho’s gossip, Thomas Cecial, was apt to use the most energetic word which came to hand, without accurately considering its propriety). “I would give my share ofthe next prize but to hear her spout Away, be gone, and give a whirlwind room, Or I will blow you up like dust.—Avaunt! Madness but meanly represents my rage.

And then, again, that little, soft, shy, tearful trembler, for Statira, to hear her recite, He speaks the kindest words, and looks such things, Vows with such passion, swears with so much grace, That’tis a kind ofheaven to be deluded by him.

[Chap. 37]

THE PIRATE

343

What a play we might have run up!—I was a beast not to think of it before I sent them off—I to be Alexander—Claud Halcro, Lysimachus—this old gentleman might have made a Clitus, for a pinch. I was an ideot not to think of it!” There was much in this effusion which might have displeased the Udaller; but, to speak truth, he paid no attention to it. His eye, and, finally, his spy-glass, was employed in watching the return of his daughters to the shore. He saw them land on the beach, and, accom panied by Halcro, and another man, (Fletcher doubtless,) he saw them ascend the acclivity, and proceed upon the road to Kirkwall, and he could even distinguish that Minna, as if considering herself as the guardian of the party, walked a little aloof from the rest, on the watch, as it seemed, against surprise, and ready to act as occasion should require. At length, as the Udaller was just about to lose sight of them, he had the exquisite satisfaction to see the party halt, and the pirate leave them, after a space just long enough for a civil farewell, and proceed slowly back, on his return to the beach. Blessing the Great Being who had thus relieved him from the most agonizing fears which a father can feel, the worthy Udaller, from that instant, stood resigned to his own fate, whatsoever that might be.

Chapter Ten Over the mountains and under the waves, Over the fountains and under the graves, Over floods that are deepest, Which Neptune obey, Over rocks that are steepest, Love will find out the way. Old Song

The parting of Fletcher from Claud Halcro and the sisters of Burgh Westra, on the spot where it took place, was partly occasioned by a small party of armed men being seen at a distance in the act of advancing from Kirkwall, an apparition hidden from the Udaller’s spy-glass by the swell of the ground, but quite visible to the pirate, whom it determined to consult his own safety by a speedy return to his boat. He was just turning away, when Minna occasioned the short delay which her father had observed. “Stop,” she said; “I command you!—Tell your leader from me, that whatever the answer may be from Kirkwall, he shall carry his vessel, nevertheless, round to Stromness. And, being anchored there, let him send a boat ashore for Captain Cleveland when he shall see a smoke on the Bridge of Broisgar.”

344

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. IO

Fletcher had thought, like his messmate Bunce, of asking a kiss, at least, for the trouble of escorting these beautiful young women; and, perhaps, neither the terror of the approaching Kirkwall men, nor of Minna’s weapon, might have prevented his being insolent. But the name of his Captain, and still more, the unappalled, dignified, and commanding manner of Minna Troil, overawed him. He made a sea­ bow, promised to keep a sharp look-out, and returning to his boat, went on board with his message. As Halcro and the sisters proceeded to advance towards the party whom they saw on the Kirkwall road, and who, on their part, had halted as if to observe them, Brenda, relieved from the fears of Fletcher’s presence, which had hitherto kept her silent, exclaimed, “Merciful Heaven!—Minna, in what hands have we left our dear father?” “In the hands of brave men,” said Minna, steadily—“I fear not for him.” “As brave as you please,” said Claud Halcro, “but very dangerous rogues for all that.—I know that fellow Altamont, as he calls himself, though that is not his right name neither, as deboshed a dog as ever made a bam ring with blood and blank verse. He began with Barnwell, and every body thought he would end with the gallows, like the last scene in Venice Preserved.” “It matters not,” said Minna—“the wilder the waves, the more powerful is the voice that rules them. The name alone of Cleveland ruled the mood of the fiercest amongst them.” “I am sorry for Cleveland,” said Brenda, “if such are his compan ions,—but I care little for him in comparison to my father.” “Reserve your compassion for those who need it,” said Minna, “and fear nothing for our father.—God knows, every silver hair on his head is to me worth the treasure of an unsunned mine; but I know that he is safe while in yonder vessel, and I know that he will be soon safe onshore.” “I would I could see it,” said Claud Halcro; “but I fear the Kirkwall people, supposing Cleveland to be such as I dread, will not dare to exchange him against the Udaller. The Scots have severe laws against theft-boot, as they call it.” “But who are those on the road before us?” said Brenda; “and why do they halt there so jealously?” “They are a patrole of the militia,” answered Halcro. “Glorious John touches them off a little sharply,—but then John was a Jacob ite,— Mouths without hands, maintain’d at vast expence, In peace a charge, in war a weak defence;

[Chap. 37]

THE PIRATE

345

Stout once a month, they march, a blustering band, And ever, but in time of need, at hand.

I fancy they halted just now, taking us, as they saw us on the brow of the hill, for a party of the sloop’s men, and, now they can distinguish that you wear petticoats, they are moving on again.” They came on accordingly, and proved to be, as Claud Halcro had suggested, a patrole sent out to watch the motions of the pirates, and to prevent their attempting descents to damage the country. They heartily congratulated Claud Halcro, who was well known to more than one of them, upon his escape from captivity; and the commander of the party, while offering every assistance to the ladies, could not help condoling with them on the circumstances in which their father stood, hinting, though in a delicate and doubtful manner, the difficulties which might be in the way of his liberation. When they arrived at Kirkwall, and obtained an audience of the Provost and one or two of the Magistrates, these difficulties were more plainly insisted upon.—“The Halcyon frigate is upon the coast,” said the Provost; “she was seen off Duncansbay-head; and though I have the deepest respect for Mr Troil of Burgh Westra, yet I shall be answerable to law if I release from prison the Captain of this suspi cious vessel, on account of the safety of any individual who may be unhappily endangered by his detention. This man is now known to be the heart and soul of these buccaneers, and am I at liberty to send him on board, that he may plunder the country, or perhaps go fight the King’s ship?—for he has impudence enough for any thing.” “Courage enough for any thing, you mean, Mr Provost,” said Minna, unable to restrain her displeasure. “Why, you may call it as you please, Miss Troil,” said the worthy Magistrate; “but, in my opinion, that sort of courage which proposes to fight singly against two is little better than a kind ofpractical impud ence.” “But our father?” said Brenda, in a tone of the most earnest entreaty—“our father—the friend, I may say the father, ofhis country —to whom so many look for kindness, and so many for actual support —whose loss would be the extinction ofa beacon in a storm—will you indeed weigh the risk which he runs, against such a trifling thing as letting an unfortunate man from prison, to seek his unhappy fate elsewhere?” “Miss Brenda is right,” said Claud Halcro; “I am for let-a-be for let-a-be, as the boys say; and never fash about a warrant of liberation, Provost, but just take a fool’s counsel, and let the goodman of the jail forget to draw his bolt on the wicket, or leave a chink of a window open, or the like, and we will be rid of the rover, and have the one best

346

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. IO

honest fellow in Orkney or Zetland on the lee-side of a bowl of punch with us in five hours.” The Provost replied in nearly the same terms as before, that he had the highest respect for Mr Magnus Troil ofBurgh Westra, but that he could not suffer his consideration for any individual, however respect able, to interfere with the discharge of his duty. Minna then addressed her sister in a tone of calm and sarcastic displeasure.—“You forget,” she said, “Brenda, that you are talking of the safety of a poor insignificant Udaller of Zetland to no less a person than the Chief Magistrate of the metropolis of Orkney—can you expect so great a person to condescend to such a trifling subject of consideration? It will be time enough for the Provost to think of complying with the terms sent to him—for comply with them at length he both must and will—when the Church of Saint Magnus is beat down about his ears.” “You may be angry with me, my pretty young lady,” said the good humoured Provost Torfe, “but I cannot be offended with you. The Church of Saint Magnus has stood many a day, and I think will outlive both you and me, much more yonder pack of unhanged dogs. And besides that your father is halfan Orkneyman, and has both estate and friends among us, I would, I give you my word, do as much for a Zetlander in distress as I would for any one, excepting one of our own native Kirkwallers, who are doubtless to be preferred. And if you will take up your lodgings here with my wife and myself, we will endeavour to shew you,” continued he, “that you are as welcome in Kirkwall as ever you could be made in Lerwick or Scalloway.” Minna deigned no reply to this good humoured invitation, but Brenda declined it in civil terms, pleading the necessity of taking up their abode with a wealthy widow of Kirkwall, a relation, who already expected them. Halcro made another attempt to move the Provost, but found him inexorable.—“The Collector of the Customs had already threat ened,” he said, “to inform against him for entering into treaty, or, as he called it, packing and peeling with those strangers, even when it seemed the only means of preventing a bloody affray in the town; and, should he now forego the advantage afforded by the imprisonment of Cleveland and the escape of the Factor, he might incur something worse than censure.” The burthen of the whole was, “that he was sorry for the Udaller, he was sorry even for the lad Cleveland, who had some sparks of honour about him; but his duty was imperious, and must be obeyed.” The Provost then precluded further argument, by observing, that another affair from Zetland called for his immediate attention. A gentleman named Mertoun, residing at Jarlshof, had

[Chap. 37]

THE PIRATE

347

made complaint against Snaelsfoot the Jagger for having assisted a domestic of his in embezzling some valuable articles which had been deposited in his custody, and he was about to take examinations on the subject, and cause them to be restored to Mr Mertoun, who was accountable for them to the right owner. In all this information, there was nothing which seemed interesting to the sisters excepting the word Mertoun, which went like a dagger to the heart of Minna, when she recollected the circumstances under which Mordaunt Mertoun had disappeared, and which, with an emo tion less painful, though still of a melancholy nature, called a faint blush into Brenda’s cheek, and a slight degree of moisture into her eye. But it was soon evident that the Magistrate spoke not of Mor daunt, but of his father; and the daughters ofMagnus, little interested in his detail, took leave of the Provost to go to their own lodgings. When they arrived at their relation’s, Minna made it her business to learn, by such inquiries as she could make without exciting suspicion, what was the situation of the unfortunate Cleveland, which she soon discovered to be exceedingly precarious. The Provost had not, indeed, committed him to close custody, as Claud Halcro had anti cipated, recollecting, perhaps, the favourable circumstances under which he had surrendered himself, and loth, till the moment of the last necessity, altogether to break faith with him. But although left appar ently at large, he was strictly watched by persons well armed and appointed for the purpose, who had directions to detain him by force, ifhe attempted to pass certain narrow precincts which were allotted to him. He was quartered in a strong room within what is called the King’s Castle, and at night his chamber door was locked on the outside, and a sufficient guard mounted to prevent his escape. He therefore enjoyed only the degree of liberty which the cat, in her cruel sport, is sometimes pleased to permit to the mouse which she has clutched; and yet, such was the terror of the resources, the courage, and ferocity of the pirate Captain, that the Provost was blamed by the Collector, and many other sage citizens of Kirkwall, for permitting him to be at large upon any conditions. It may be well believed that, under such circumstances, Cleveland had no desire to seek any place of public resort, conscious that he was the object of a mixed feeling of curiosity and terror. His favourite place of exercise, therefore, was the external aisles of the Cathedral of Saint Magnus, of which the eastern end alone is fitted up for public worship. This solemn old edifice, having escaped the ravage which attended the first convulsions of the Reformation, still retains some appearance of episcopal dignity. This place of worship is separated by a screen from the nave and western limb of the cross, and the whole is

348

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. IO

preserved in a state of cleanliness and decency, which might be well proposed as an example to the proud piles of Westminster and Saint Paul’s. It was in this exterior part of the Cathedral that Cleveland was permitted to walk, the rather that his guards, by watching the single open entrance, had the means, with very little inconvenience to them selves, of preventing any possible attempt at escape. The place itself was well suited to his melancholy circumstances. The lofty and vaul ted roof rises upon ranges of Saxon pillars, of massive size, four of which, still larger than the rest, once supported the lofty spire, which, long since destroyed by accident, has been rebuilded upon a disproportioned and truncated plan. The light is admitted at the eastern end through a lofty, well proportioned, and richly ornamented Gothic window, and the pavement is covered with inscriptions, in different languages, distinguishing the graves of noble Orcadians, who have at different times been deposited within the sacred precincts. Here walked Cleveland, musing over the events of a mis-spent life, which it seemed probable might be brought to a violent and shameful close, while he was yet in the prime of youth. “With these dead,” he said, looking on the pavement, “will I soon be numbered—but no holy man will speak a blessing—no friendly hand register an inscription— no proud descendant sculpture armorial bearings over the grave ofthe pirate Cleveland. My whitening bones will swing in the gibbet-irons on some wild beach or lonely cape, that will be esteemed fatal and accursed for my sake. The old mariner, as he passes the sound, will shake his head, and tell of my name and actions as a warning to his younger comrades.—But Minna!—Minna!—what will be thy thoughts when the news reaches thee?—Would to God the tidings were drowned in the deepest whirlpool betwixt Kirkwall and Burgh Westra ere they came to her ear!—and O, would to Heaven that we had never met, since we never can meet again!” He lifted up his eyes as he spoke, and Minna Troil stood before him. Her face was pale, and her hair dishevelled, but her look was composed and firm, with its usual expression of high-minded melan­ choly. She was still shrouded in the large mantle which she had assumed on leaving the vessel. Cleveland’s first emotion was aston ishment, his next was joy, not unmixed with awe. He would have exclaimed—he would have thrown himself at her feet, but she imposed at once silence and composure on him, by raising her finger, and saying, in a low but commanding accent—“Be cautious—we are observed—there are men without—they let me enter with difficulty. I dare not remain long—they would think—they might believe—O, Cleveland! I have hazarded every thing to save you!”

[Chap. 37]

THE PIRATE

349

“To save me?—alas! poor Minna!” answered Cleveland; “to save me is impossible—enough that I have seen you once more, were it but to say, for ever farewell!” “We must indeed say farewell,” said Minna; “for fate and your guilt have divided us for ever.—Cleveland, I have seen your associates— need I tell you more—need I say that I know now what a pirate is?” “You have been in the ruffians’ power!” said Cleveland, with a start of agony—“Did they presume----- ” “Cleveland,” replied Minna, “they presumed nothing—your name was a spell over them; by the power of that spell over those ferocious banditti, and by that alone, I was reminded of the qualities I once thought my Cleveland’s!” “Yes,” said Cleveland, proudly, “my name has and shall have power over them, when they are at the wildest; and had they harmed you by one rude word, they should have found—Yet what do I rave about—I am a prisoner!” “You shall be so no longer,” said Minna—“Your safety—the safety of my dear father, all demand your instant freedom. I have formed a scheme for your liberty, which, boldly executed, cannot fail. The light is failing without—muffle yourselfin my cloak, and you will easily pass the guards—I have given them the means of carousing, and they are deeply engaged. Haste to the Loch of Stennis, and hide yourself till day dawns; then make a smoke on the point where the land, stretching into the lake on each side, divides it nearly in two at the Bridge of Broisgar. Your vessel, which lies not far distant, will send a boat ashore—Do not hesitate an instant.” “But you, Minna!—should this wild scheme succeed,” said Cleve land—“what is to become of you?” “For my share in your escape,” answered the maiden, “the honesty ofmy own intention—the honesty ofmy intention will vindicate me in the sight of Heaven, and the safety of my father, whose fate depends on yours, will be my excuse to man.” In a few words, she gave him the history of their capture, and its consequences. Cleveland cast up his eyes and raised his hands to heaven, in thankfulness for the escape of the sisters from his evil companions, and then hastily added, “But you are right, Minna, I must fly at all rates—for your father’s sake I must fly. Here, then, we part—yet not, I trust, for ever.” “For ever!” answered a voice, that sounded as from a sepulchral vault. They started, looked around them, and then gazed on each other. It seemed as if the echoes of the building had returned Cleveland’s last words, but the pronunciation was too emphatically accented.

350

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. I0

“Yes, for ever!” said Norna of the Fitful-head, stepping forward from behind one of the massive Saxon pillars which support the roof of the Cathedral.—“Here meet the crimson foot and the crimson hand—well for both that the wound is healed whence that crimson was derived—well for both, but best for him who shed it.—Here, then, you meet—and meet for the last time!” “Not so,” said Cleveland, as if about to take Minna’s hand—“to separate me from Minna, while I have life, must be the work ofherself alone.” “Away!” said Norna, stepping betwixt them, “away with such vain folly!—nourish no vain dreams of future meetings—you part here, and you part for ever. The hawk pairs not with the dove—guilt matches not with innocence. Minna Troil, you look for the last time on this bold and criminal man—Cleveland, you behold Minna for the last time!” “And dream you,” said Cleveland, indignantly, “that your mum mery imposes on me, and that I am among the fools who see more than trick in your pretended art?” “Forbear, Cleveland, forbear,” said Minna, her hereditary awe of Norna augmented by the circumstance of her sudden appearance. “O, forbear—she is powerful—she is but too powerful. And do you, O Norna, remember my father’s safety is linked with Cleveland’s.” “And it is well for Cleveland that I do remember it,” replied the Pythoness—“and that, for the sake of one, I am here to aid both—you with your childish purpose of passing one of his bulk and stature under the disguise of a few paltry folds of wadmaal—what would your device have procured him but instant restraint with bolt and shackle? I will save him—I will place him in security on board his bark. But let him renounce these shores for ever, and carry elsewhere the terrors of his sable flag, and his yet blacker name; for ifsun rises twice, and finds him still at anchor, his blood be on his own head.—Ay—look to each other—look the last look that I permit to frail affection, and say, if ye can say it, Farewell for ever.” “Obey her,” stammered Minna; “remonstrate not, but obey her.” Cleveland, grasping her hand, and kissing it ardently, said, but so low that she only could hear it, “Farewell, Minna, but not for ever.” “And now, maiden, begone,” said Norna, “and leave the rest to the Reimkennar.” “One word more,” said Minna, “and I obey you—tell me but if I have caught aright your meaning—is Mordaunt Mertoun safe and recovered?” “Recovered, and safe,” said Norna, “else woe to the hand that shed his blood!”

[Chap. 37]

THE PIRATE

35I

Minna slowly sought the door of the Cathedral, and turned back from time to time to look at the shadowy form ofNorna, and the stately and military figure of Cleveland, as they stood together in the deepen ing gloom of the ancient cathedral. When she looked back a second time, they were in motion, and Cleveland followed the matron, as with a slow and solemn step she glided towards one of the side aisles. When Minna looked back a third time, their figures were no longer visible. She collected herself, and walked on to the western door by which she had entered, and listened for an instant to the guard who talked together on the outside. “The Zetland girl stays a long time with this pirate fellow,” said one. “I wish they have not more to speak about than the ransom of her father.” “Ay, truly,” answered another, “the wenches will have more symp athy with a handsome young pirate than an old bed-ridden burgher.” Their discourse was here interrupted by her of whom they were speaking; and, as if taken in the manner, they pulled off their hats, made their awkward obeisances, and looked a little confused. Minna returned to the house where she lodged, much affected, yet, on the whole, pleased with the result of her expedition, which seemed to put her father out of danger, and assured her at once of the escape of Cleveland and of the safety of young Mordaunt. She hastened to communicate both pieces of intelligence to Brenda, who joined her in thankfulness to heaven, and was herself well nigh persuaded to believe in Norna’s supernatural pretensions, so much was she pleased with the manner in which they had been employed. Some time was spent in exchanging their mutual congratulations, and mingling tears ofhope, mixed with apprehension, when, at a late hour in the evening, they were interrupted by Claud Halcro, who, full ofa fidgetting sort of importance, not unmingled with fear, came to acquaint them, that the prisoner, Cleveland, had disappeared from the Cathedral, in which he had been permitted to walk, and that the Provost, having been informed that Minna was accessary to his flight, was coming in a mighty quandary to make inquiry into the circumstances. When the worthy Magistrate arrived, Minna did not conceal from him her own wish that Cleveland should make his escape, as the only means which she saw of redeeming her father from imminent dan ger. But that she had any actual accession to his flight she positively denied, and stated, “that she had parted from Cleveland in the Cathedral, more than two hours since, and then left him in company with a third person, whose name she did not conceive herself obliged to communicate.” “It is not needful, Miss Minna Troil,” answered Provost Torfe;

352

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. IO

“for although no person but this Captain Cleveland and yourself was seen to enter the Kirk of Saint Magnus this day, we know well enough that your cousin, old Ulla Troil, whom you Zetlanders call Norna of Fitful-head, has been cruizing up and down, upon sea and land, and air, for what I know, in boats and on ponies, and it may be on broomsticks; and here has been her dumb Drow, too, coming and going, and playing the spy on every one. And a good spy he is, for he can hear every thing, and tell nothing again, unless to his mistress. And we know, besides, that she can enter the Kirk when all the doors are fast, and has been seen there more than once, God save us from the evil one. And so, without farther questions asked, I conclude it was old Norna whom you left in the Kirk with this slashing blade; and if so, they may catch them again that can. I cannot but say, however, pretty Mistress Minna, that you Zetland folks seem to forget both law and gospel, when you use the help of witchcraft to fetch delinquents out of a legal prison; and the least that you, or your cousin, or your father, can do, is to use influence with this wild fellow to go away as soon as possible, without hurting the town or trade, and then there will be little harm in what has chanced; for, heaven knows, I did not seek the poor lad’s life, so I could get my hands free of him without blame; and far less did I wish that through his imprisonment any harm should come to worthy Magnus Troil ofBurgh Westra.” “I see where the shoe pinches you, Mr Provost,” said Claud Halcro, “and I am sure I can answer for my friend Mr Troil, as well as for myself, that we will say and do all in our power with this man Cleve land, to make him leave the coast directly.” “And I,” said Minna, “am so convinced that what you recommend is best for all parties, that my sister and I will set off early to-morrow morning to the House of Stennis, if Mr Halcro will give us his escort, to receive my father when he comes ashore, to acquaint him with your wish, and to use every influence to induce this unhappy man to leave the country.” Provost Torfe looked upon her with some surprise. “It is not every young woman,” he said, “would wish to move eight miles nearer to a band of pirates.” “We run no risk,” said Claud Halcro interfering. “The House of Stennis is strong; and my cousin, whom it belongs to, has men and arms within it—the young ladies are as safe there as in Kirkwall, and much good may arise from an early communication betwixt Magnus Troil and his daughters. And happy I am to see that in your case, my good old friend—as glorious John says, After much debate, The man prevail above the magistrate.”

[Chap. 38]

THE PIRATE

353

The Provost smiled, nodded his head, and indicated, as far as he thought he could do with decency, how happy he should be if the Fortune’s Favourite, and her disorderly crew, would leave Orkney without farther interference or violence on either side. He could not authorize their being supplied from the shore, he said; but, either for fear or favour, they were certain to get provisions at Stromness. This pacific magistrate then took leave of Halcro and the two ladies, who proposed the next morning to transfer their residence to the House of Stennis, situated upon the banks of the salt-water lake of the same name, and about four miles by water from the Road of Stromness, where the rovers’ vessel was lying.Chapter Eleven

Fly, Fleance, fly!—Thou mayst escape. Macbeth

It was one branch of the various arts by which Norna endeav oured to maintain her pretensions to supernatural powers, that she had made herself familiarly and practically acquainted with all the secret passes and recesses, whether natural or artificial, which she could hear of, whether by tradition or otherwise, and was, by such knowledge, often enabled to perform feats which were otherwise unaccountable. Thus, when she escaped from the tabernacle at Burgh Westra, it was by a sliding board which covered a secret passage in the wall, known to none but herself and Magnus, who, she was well assured, would not betray her. The profusion also, with which she lavished a considerable income, otherwise of no use to her, enabled her to procure the earliest intelligence respecting whatever she desired to know, and, at the same time, to secure all other assistance necessary to carry her plans into effect. Cleveland, upon the present occasion, had opportunity to admire both her sagacity and her resources. Upon her applying some means of forcible pressure, a door, which was concealed under some rich wooden sculpture in the screen which divides the eastern aisle from the rest of the Cathedral, opened, and disclosed a dark narrow winding passage, into which she entered, telling Cleveland, in a whisper, to follow, and be sure he shut the door behind him. He obeyed, and followed her in darkness and silence, sometimes descending steps, of the number of which she always apprized him, sometimes ascending, and often turning at short angles. The air was more free than he could have expected, the passage being ventilated at different parts by unseen and ingeniously contrived

354

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. II

spiracles, which communicated with the open air. At length their long course ended, by Norna drawing aside a sliding pannel, which, open ing behind a wooden, or box-bed, as it is called in Scotland, admitted them into an ancient, but very mean apartment, having a latticed window, and a groined roof. The furniture was much dilapidated; and its only ornaments were, on the one side of the wall, a garland offaded ribbands, such as are used to decorate whale vessels; and on the other, an escutcheon, bearing an Earl’s arms and coronet, surrounded with the usual emblems of mortality. The mattock and spade, which lay in one comer, together with the appearance of an old man, who, in a rusty black coat, and slouched hat, sat reading by a table, announced that they were in the habitation ofthe church-beadle, or sexton, and in the presence of that respectable functionary. When his attention was attracted by the noise of the sliding pannel, he arose, and testifying much respect, but no surprise, took his shad owy hat from his thin grey locks, and stood uncovered in the presence ofNorna, with an air ofprofound humility. “Be faithful,” said Norna to the old man, “and beware you shew not to any living mortal, the secret path to the Sanctuary.” The old man bowed in token of obedience, and of thanks, for she put money in his hand as she spoke. With a faultering voice, he expressed his hope that she would remember his son, who was on the Greenland voyage, that he might return fortunate and safe, as he had done last year, when he brought back the garland, pointing to that upon the wall. “My cauldron shall boil, and my rhyme shall be said in his behalf,” answered Norna. “Waits Pacolet without with the horses?” The old sexton assented, and the Pythoness, commanding Cleve land to follow her, went through a back door of the apartment into a small garden, corresponding, in its desolate appearance, to the habita tion they had just quitted, The low and broken wall easily permitted them to pass into another and larger garden, though not much better kept, and a gate, which was upon the latch, let them into a long and winding lane, through which, Norna having whispered to her com panion that it was the only dangerous place on their road, they walked with a hasty pace. It was now nearly dark, and the inhabitants of the poor dwellings, on either hand, had betaken themselves to their houses. They saw only one woman, who was looking from her door, but blessed herself, and retired into her house with precipitation, when she saw the tall figure of Norna stalk past her with long strides. The lane conducted them into the country, where the dumb dwarf of Norna waited with three horses, ensconced behind the wall of a deserted shed. On one of these Norna instantly seated herself, Cleve-

[Chap. 38]

THE PIRATE

355

land mounted another, and, followed by Pacolet on the third, they moved sharply on through the darkness; the active and spirited animals on which they rode being of a breed rather taller than those reared in Zetland. After more than an hour’s smart riding, in which Norna acted as guide, they stopped before a hovel, so desolate in appearance, that it resembled rather a cattle-shed than a cottage. “Here you must remain till dawn, when your signal can be seen from your vessel,” said Norna, consigning the horses to the care of Pacolet, and leading the way into the wretched hovel, which she presently illuminated by lighting the small iron lamp which she usually carried along with her. “It is a poor,” she said, “but a safe place of refuge; for were we pursued hither, the earth would yawn and admit us into its recesses ere you were taken; for know, that this ground is sacred to the Gods of old Valhalla.—And now say, man of mischief and ofblood, are you friend or foe to Norna, the sole priestess of these disowned deities?” “How is it possible for me to be your enemy?” said Cleveland— “common gratitude”-----“Common gratitude,” said Norna, interrupting him, “is a common word—and words are the common pay which fools accept at the hand of knaves; but Norna must be requited by actions—by sacrifices.” “Well, mother, name your request.” “That you never seek to see Minna Troil again, and that you leave this coast in twenty-four hours,” answered Norna. “It is impossible,” said the Captain; “I cannot be soon enough found in the sea-stores which the sloop must have.” “You can. I will take care you are fully supplied; and Caithness and the Hebrides are not far distant—you can depart if you will.” “And why should I,” said the Captain, “ifI will not?” “Because your stay endangers others,” said Norna, “and will prove your own destruction. Hear me with attention. From the first moment I saw you lying senseless on the sand beneath the cliffs of Sumburgh, I read that in your countenance which linked you with me, and those who were dear to me; but whether for good or evil, was hidden from mine eyes. I aided in saving your life—in preserving your property. I aided in doing so, the very youth whom you have crossed in his dearest affections—crossed by tale-bearing and slander.” “I slander Mertoun!” exclaimed the Captain. “By heaven, I scarce mentioned his name at Burgh Westra, if it is that which you mean. The pedling fellow Bryce, meaning, I believe, to be my friend, because he found something could be made by me, did, I have since heard, carry tattle or truth, I know not which, to the old man, which

356

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. II

was confirmed by the report of the whole island. But, for me, I scarce thought of him as a rival, else I had taken a more honourable way to rid myself ofhim.” “Was the point of your double-edged knife, directed to the bosom of an unarmed man, intended to carve out that more honourable way?” said Norna, sternly. Cleveland was conscience-struck, and remained silent for an instant, ere he replied, “There, indeed, I was wrong; but he is, I thank heaven, recovered, and welcome to an honourable satisfaction.” “Cleveland,” said the Pythoness, “No! The fiend who impels you is powerful; but with me he shall not strive. You are ofthat temperament which the dark Influences desire as the tools of their agency; bold, haughty, and undaunted, unrestrained by principle, and having only in its room a wild sense of indomitable pride, which such men call honour. Such you are, and as such your course through life has been —onward and unrestrained, bloody and tempestuous. By me, how ever, it shall be controlled,” she concluded, stretching out her staff, as if in the attitude of determined authority—“ay, even although the demon who presides over it should even now arise in his terrors.” Cleveland laughed scornfully. “Good mother,” he said, “reserve such language for the rude sailor that implores you to bestow on him a fair wind, or the poor fisherman that asks success to his nets and lines. I have been long inaccessible both to fear and to superstition. Call forth your demon, ifyou command one, and place him before me. The man that has spent years in company with incarnate devils, can scarce dread the presence ofa disembodied fiend.” This was said with a careless and desperate bitterness of spirit, which proved too powerfully energetic even for the delusions of Norna’s insanity; and it was with a hollow and tremulous voice that she asked Cleveland—“For what, then, do you hold me, if you deny the power I have bought so dearly?” “You have wisdom, mother,” said Cleveland; “at least you have art, and art is power. I hold you for one who knows how to steer upon the great current ofevents, but I deny your power to change its course. Do not, therefore, waste words in quoting terrors for which I have no feeling, but tell me at once, wherefore you would have me depart?” “Because I will have you see Minna no more,” answered Norna— “Because Minna is the destined bride of him whom men call Mord aunt Mertoun—Because ifyou depart not within twenty-four hours, utter destruction awaits you. In these plain words there is no meta­ physical delusion—Answer me as plainly.” “In as plain words, then,” answered Cleveland, “I will not leave these islands—not, at least, till I have seen Minna Troil; and never

[Chap. 38]

THE PIRATE

357

shall your Mordaunt possess her while I live.” “Hear him!” said Norna—“hear a mortal man spurn at the means of prolonging his life!—hear a sinful—a most sinful being, refuse the time which fate yet affords for repentance, and for the salvation of an immortal soul!—Behold him how he stands erect, bold and confident in his youthful strength and courage! My eyes, unused to tears—even my eyes, which have so little cause to weep for him, are blinded with sorrow, to think what so fair a form will be ere the second sun-set.” “Mother,” said Cleveland, firmly, yet with some touch of sorrow in his voice, “I in part understand your threats. You know more than we do of the course of the Halcyon—perhaps have the means (for I acknowledge you have shewn wonderful skill of combination in such affairs) of directing her cruize our way. Be it so,—I will not depart from my purpose for that risk. If the frigate comes hither, we have still our shoal water to trust to; and I think they will scarce cut us out with boats, as if we were a Spanish xebeck. I am therefore resolved I will hoist once more the flag under which I have cruized, avail ourselves of the thousand chances which have helped us in greater odds, and at the worst, fight the vessel to the very last; and, when mortal man can do no more, it is but snapping a pistol in the powder-room, and as we have lived, so will we die.” There was a dead pause as Cleveland ended; and it was broken by his resuming, in a softer tone—“You have heard my answer, mother; let us debate it no further, but part in peace. I would willingly leave you a remembrance, that you may not forget a poor fellow to whom your services have been useful, and who parts with you in no unkindness, however unfriendly you are to his dearest interests.—Nay, do not shun to accept such a trifle,” he said, forcing upon Norna the little silver enchased box which had been once the subject of strife betwixt Mertoun and him; “it is not for the sake of the metal, which I know you value not, but simply as a memorial that you have met him of whom many a strange tale will hereafter be told in the seas which he has traversed.” “I accept your gift,” said Norna, “in token that, if I have in aught been accessary to your fate, it was as the involuntary and grieving agent of other powers. Well did you say we direct not the current of the events, which hurry us forward, and render our utmost efforts unavailing; even as the wells ofTuftiloe* can wheel the stoutest vessel * A well, in the language of those seas, denotes one of those whirlpools, or circular eddies, which wheel and boil with astonishing strength, and are very dangerous. Hence the distinction, in old English, betwixt wells and waves, the latter signifying the direct onward course of the tide, and the former the smooth, glassy, oily-looking whirlpools, whose strength seems to the eye almost irresistible.

358

the pirate

Vol. 3,ch. II

round and around, in despite of either sail or steerage.—Pacolet!” she exclaimed, in a louder voice, “what, ho! Pacolet!” A large stone, which lay at the side ofthe wall ofthe hovel, fell as she spoke, and to Cleveland’s surprise, if not somewhat to his fear, the misshapen form of the dwarf was seen, like some overgrown reptile, extricating himself out of a subterranean passage, the entrance to which the stone had covered. Norna, as if impressed by what Cleveland had said on the subject of her supernatural pretensions, was so far from endeavouring to avail herself of this opportunity to enforce them, that she hasted to explain the phenomenon he had witnessed. “Such passages,” she said, “to which the entrances are carefully concealed, are frequently found in these islands—the places ofretreat of the ancient inhabitants, where they sought refuge from the rage of the Normans, the pirates of that day. It was that you might avail yourself of this, in case of need, that I brought you hither. Should you observe signs of pursuit, you may either lurk in the bowels ofthe earth until it has passed by, or escape, if you will, through the farther entrance near the lake, by which Pacolet entered but now.—And now farewell! Think on what I have said; for as sure as you now move and breathe a living man, so surely is your doom fixed and sealed, unless, within four-and-twenty hours, you have doubled the Burgh-head.” “Farewell, mother!” said Cleveland, as she departed, bending a look upon him, in which, as he could perceive by the lamp, sorrow was mingled with displeasure. The interview, which thus concluded, left a powerful effect even upon the mind of Cleveland, accustomed as he was to imminent dangers and to hair-breadth escapes. He in vain attempted to shake off the impression left by the words of Norna, which he felt the more impressive, because they were in a great measure divested of her wonted mystical tone, which he contemned. A thousand times he regretted that he had from time to time delayed the resolution, which he had long adopted, to quit his dreadful and dangerous trade; and as often he firmly determined, that, could he but see Minna Troil once more, were it but for a last farewell, he would leave the sloop, so soon as his comrades were extricated from their perilous situation, endeav our to obtain the benefit of the King’s pardon, and distinguish him self, ifpossible, in some more honourable course of warfare. This resolution, to which he again and again pledged himself, had at length a sedative effect upon his mental perturbance, and, wrapt in his cloak, he enjoyed, for a time, that imperfect repose which exhausted nature demands as her tribute, even from those who are situated on the verge of the most imminent danger. But, how far

[Chap. 38]

THE PIRATE

359

soever the guilty may satisfy his own mind, and stupify the feelings of remorse, by such a conditional repentance, we may well question whether it is not, in the sight of Heaven, rather a presumptuous aggravation, than an expiation of his sins. When Cleveland awoke, the grey dawn was already mingling with the twilight of an Orcadian night. He found himself on the verge of a beautiful sheet of water, which, close by the place where he had rested, was nearly divided by two tongues of land that approach each other from the opposing sides of the lake, and are in some degree united by the Bridge of Broisgar, a long causeway, containing open ings to permit the flow and reflux of the tide. Behind him, and fronting to the Bridge, stood that remarkable semi-circle of huge upright stones, which has no rival in Britain, excepting the inimitable monument at Stonehenge. These immense blocks of stone, all of them above twelve feet, and several being even fourteen or fifteen feet in height, stood around the pirate in the grey light of the dawning, like the phantom forms of antediluvian giants, who, shrouded in the habiliments of the dead, came to revisit, by this pale light, the earth which they had plagued by their oppression and polluted by their sins, till they brought down upon it the vengeance of long-suffering Heaven. Cleveland was less interested by this singular monument of antiquity than by the distant view of Stromness, which he could as yet scarce discover. He lost no time in striking a light, by the assistance of one of his pistols, and some wet fems supplied him with fuel sufficient to make the appointed signal. It had been earnestly watched for on board the sloop; for Goffe’s incapacity became daily more apparent; and even his most steady adherents agreed it would be best to submit to Cleveland’s command till they got back to the West Indies. Bunce, who came with the boat to bring off his favourite com mander, danced, cursed, shouted, and spouted for joy, when he saw him once more at freedom. “They had already,” he said, “made some progress in victualling the sloop, and they might have made more, but for that drunken old swab Goffe, who minded nothing but splicing the main-brace.” The boat’s crew were inspired with the same enthusiasm, and rowed so hard, that, although the tide was against them, and the air of wind failed, they soon placed Cleveland once more on the quarterdeck of the vessel which it was his misfortune to command. The first exercise of the Captain’s power was to make known to Magnus Troil that he was at full freedom to depart—that he was willing to make him any compensation in his power, for the interrup tion of his voyage to Kirkwall; and that Captain Cleveland was

360

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, Ch. I2

desirous, if agreeable to Mr Troil, to pay his respects to him on board his brig—thank him for former favours, and apologize for the circum stances attending his detention. To Bunce, who, as the most civilized of the crew, Cleveland had entrusted this message, the old plain-dealing Udaller made the fol lowing answer:—“Tell your Captain that I should be glad to think he had never stopped any one upon the high sea, save such as have suffered as little as I have. Say, too, that if we are to continue friends, we will be most so at a distance; for I like the sound of his cannon balls as little by sea, as he would like the whistle of a bullet by land from my rifle-gun. Say, in a word, that I am sorry I was mistaken in him, and that he would have done better to have reserved for the Spaniard the usage he is bestowing on his countrymen.” “And so that is your message, old Snapcholerick?” said Bunce— “now, stap my vitals ifI have not a mind to do your errand for you over the left shoulder, and teach you more respect for gentlemen of for­ tune. But I won’t, and chiefly for the sake of your two pretty wenches, not to mention my old friend Claud Halcro, the very visage of whom brought back all the old days of scene-shifting and candle-snuffing. So good morrow to you, Gaffer Seal’s-cap, and all is said that need pass between us.” No sooner did the boat put off with the pirates, who left the brig, and now returned to their own vessel, than Magnus, in order to avoid reposing unnecessary confidence in the honour of these gentlemen of fortune, as they called themselves, got his brig under way; and the wind coming favourably round, and increasing as the sun rose, he crowded all sail for Scalpa-flow, intending there to disembark and go by land to Kirkwall, where he expected to meet his daughters and his friend Claud Halcro.

Chapter Twelve Now, Emma, now the last reflection make, What thou wouldst follow, what thou must forsake. By our ill-omen’d stars and adverse Heaven, No middle object to thy choice is given. Henry and Emma

The sun was high in heaven: the boats were busily fetching off from the shore the promised supply of provisions and water, which, as many fishing skiffs were employed in the service, were got on board with unexpected speed, and stowed away by the crew ofthe sloop, with equal dispatch. All worked with good will; for all, save Cleveland himself, were weary of a coast where every moment increased their

[Chap. 39]

THE PIRATE

36I

danger, and where, which they esteemed a worse misfortune, there was no booty to be won. Bunce and Derrick took the immediate direction of this duty, while Cleveland, walking the deck alone, and in silence, only interfered from time to time, to give some order which circumstances required, and then relapsed into his own sad reflec tions. There are two sorts of men whom situations of guilt, terror, and commotion, bring forward as prominent agents. The first are spirits so naturally moulded and fitted for deeds of horror, that they stalk forth from their lurking-places like actual demons, to work in their native element, as the hideous apparition of the Bearded Man came forth at Versailles, on the memorable 6th October I789, the delighted execu tioner of the victims delivered up to him by a blood-thirsty rabble. But Cleveland belonged to the second class of these unfortunate beings, who are involved in evil rather by the concurrence of external circum stances than by natural inclination, being indeed one in whom his first engaging in this lawless mode of life, as the follower of his father, nay, perhaps, even his pursuing it as his father’s avenger, carried with it something of mitigation and apology;—one also who often con sidered his guilty situation with horror, and had made repeated, though ineffectual, efforts to escape from it. Such thoughts ofremorse were now rolling in his mind, and he may be forgiven, if recollections of Minna mingled with and aided them. He looked around, too, on his mates, and, profligate and hardened as he knew them to be, he could not think of their paying the penalty of his obstinacy. “We shall be ready to sail with the ebb tide,” he said to himself—“why should I endanger these men, by detaining them till the hour of danger, predicted by that singular woman, shall arrive? Her intelligence, howsoever acquired, has been always strangely accurate; and her warning was as solemn as if a mother were to apprize an erring son of his crimes, and his approaching punishment. Besides, what chance is there that I can again see Minna? She is at Kirkwall, doubtless, and to hold my course thither would be to steer right upon the rocks. No, I will not endanger these poor fellows—I will sail with the ebb tide. On the desolate Hebrides, or on the northwest coast of Ireland, I will leave the vessel, and return hither in some disguise—yet, why should I return, since it will perhaps be only to see Minna the bride of Mordaunt?—No—let the vessel sail with this ebb tide without me. I will abide and take my fate.” His meditations were here interrupted by Jack Bunce, who, hailing him noble Captain, said they were ready to sail when he pleased. “When you please, Bunce; for I shall leave the command with you, and go ashore at Stromness,” said Cleveland.

362

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, Ch. I2

“You shall do no such matter, by Heaven!” answered Bunce. “The command with me, truly! and how the devil am I to get the crew to obey me? Why, even Dick Fletcher rides rusty on me now and then. You know well enough that without you, we shall be all at each other’s throats in half an hour; and if you desert us, what a rope’s end does it signify whether we are destroyed by the king’s cruizers, or by each other? Come, come, noble Captain, there are black-eyed girls enough in the world, but where will you find so tight a sea-boat as the little Favourite here, manned as she is with a set oftearing lads, Fit to disturb the peace ofall the world, And rule it when ’tis wildest!”

“You are a precious fool, Jack Bunce,” said Cleveland, half angry, and, in despite ofhimself, halfdiverted by the false tones and exagger­ ated gesture of the stage-struck pirate. “It may be so, noble Captain,” answered Bunce, “and it may be that I have my comrades in my folly. Here are you, now, going to play All for Love, and the World Well Lost, and yet you cannot bear a harm­ less bounce in blank verse—Well, I can talk prose for the matter, for I have news enough to tell—and strange news too—ay, and stirring news to boot.” “Well, prithee deliver them (to speak thy own cant,) like a man of this world.” “The Stromness fishers will accept nothing for the provisions and trouble,” said Bunce—“there is a wonder for you!” “And for what reason, I pray?” said Cleveland; “it is the first time I have ever heard of cash being refused at a sea-port.” “True—they commonly lay the charges on as thick as if they were caulking. But here is the matter. The owner of the brig yonder, the father ofyour fair Imoinda, stands paymaster, by way of thanks for the civility with which we treated his daughters, and that we may not meet our due, as he calls it, on these shores.” “It is like the frank-hearted old Udaller!” said Cleveland; “but is he then at Stromness? I thought he was to have crossed the island for Kirkwall.” “He did so purpose,” said Bunce; “but more folks than King Dun­ can change the course of their voyage. He was no sooner ashore, than he was met with by a meddling old witch of these parts, who has her finger in every man’s pye, and by her counsel he changed his purpose of going to Kirkwall, and lies at anchor for the present in yonder white house, that you may see with your glass up the lake yonder. I am told the old woman clubbed also to pay for the sloop’s stores. Why she should shell out the boards I cannot conceive an idea, except that she is said to be a witch, and may befriend us as so many devils.”

[Chap. 39]

THE PIRATE

363

“But who told you all this?” said Cleveland, without using his spyglass, or seeming so much interested in the news as his comrade had expected. “Why,” replied Bunce, “I made a trip ashore this morning to the village, and had a can with an old acquaintance, who had been sent by Master Troil to look after matters, and I fished it all out of him, and more too than I am desirous of telling you, noble Captain.” “And who is your intelligencer?” said Cleveland; “has he got no name?” “Why, he is an old, fiddling, foppish acquaintance of mine, called Halcro, ifyou must know,” said Bunce. “Halcro?” echoed Cleveland, his eyes sparkling with surprise— “Claud Halcro?—why, he went ashore at Inganess with Minna and her sister—Where are they?” “Why, that is just what I did not want to tell you,” replied the confidant—“yet hang me if I can help it, for I cannot baulk a fine situation.—That start had a fine effect—O ay, and the spy-glass is turned on the House of Stennis now!—Well, yonder they are, it must be confessed—indifferently well guarded too. Some of the old witch’s people are come over from that mountain of an island—Hoy, as they call it; and the old gentleman has got some fellows under arms him self. But what of all that, noble Captain—give you but the word, and we snap up the wenches to-night—clap them under hatches—man the cap-stern by day-break—up top-sails—and sail with the morningtide.” “You sicken me with your villainy,” said Cleveland, turning away from him. “Umph!—villainy, and sicken you?” said Bunce—“Now, pray, what have I said but what has been done a thousand times by gentle men of fortune like ourselves?” “Mention it not again,” said Cleveland; then took a turn along the deck, in deep meditation, and coming back to Bunce, took him by the hand, and said, “Jack, I will see her once more.” “With all my heart,” said Bunce, sullenly. “Once more will I see her, and it may be to abjure at her feet this cursed trade, and expiate my offences”-----“At the gallows!” said Bunce, completing the sentence—“With all my heart!—confess and be hanged is a most reverend proverb.” “Nay—but, dear Jack!” said Cleveland. “Dear Jack!” answered Bunce, in the same sullen tone—“a dear sight you have been to dear Jack. But hold your own course—I have done with canning for you—I should but sicken you with my villainous counsels.”

364

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. I2

“Now must I sooth this silly fellow as if he were a spoiled child,” said Cleveland, speaking at Bunce, but not to him; “and yet he has sense enough, and bravery enough too; and one would think, kind ness enough to know that men don’t pick their words during a gale of wind.” “Why, that’s true, Clement,” said Bunce, “and there is my hand upon it—And, now I think upon’t, you shall have your last interview, for it’s out of my line to prevent a parting scene; and what signifies a tide—we can sail by to-morrow’s ebb as well as by this.” Cleveland sighed, for Norna’s prediction rushed on his mind; but the opportunity of a last meeting with Minna was too tempting to be resigned either for presentiment or for prediction. “I will go presently ashore to the place where they all are,” said Bunce; “and the payment of these stores shall serve me for a pretext; and I will carry any letter or message from you to Minna with the dexterity of a valet de chambre.” “But they have armed men—you may be in danger,” said Cleve land. “Not a whit—not a whit,” replied Bunce. “I protected the wenches when they were in my power; I warrant their father will neither wrong me, nor see me wronged.” “You say true,” said Cleveland, “it is not in his nature. I will instantly write a note to Minna.” And he ran down to the cabin for that purpose, where he wasted much paper, ere with a trembling hand, and throbbing heart, he achieved such a letter as he hoped might prevail on Minna to permit him a farewell meeting on the succeeding morn ing. His adherent, Bunce, in the meanwhile, sought out Fletcher, of whose support to second any motion whatsoever, he accounted him self perfectly sure; and, followed by this trusty satellite, he intruded himself on the awful presence of Hawkins the boatswain, and Der rick the quarter-master, who were regaling themselves with a can of rumbo, after the fatiguing duty of the day. “Here comes he can tell us,” said Derrick.—“So, Master Lieuten ant, for so we must call you now, I think, let us have a peep into your counsels—When will the anchor be a-trip?” “When it pleases heaven, Master Quarter-master,” answered Bunce, “for I know no more than the stern-post.” “Why, d—n my buttons,” said Derrick, “do we not weigh this tide?” “Or to-morrow’s tide, at farthest?” said the Boatswain—“Why, what have we been slaving the whole company for, to get all these stores aboard?”

[Chap. 39]

THE PIRATE

365

“Gentlemen,” said Bunce, “you are to know that Cupid has laid our Captain on board, carried the vessel, and nailed down his wits under hatches.” “What sort of play-stuff is all this?” said the Boatswain gruffly. “If you have any thing to tell us, say it in a word, like a man.” “Howsomdever,” said Fletcher, “I always think Jack Bunce speaks like a man, and acts like a man too—and so, d’ye see”----“Hold your peace, dear Dick, best of bullybacks, be silent,” said Bunce—“Gentlemen, in one word, the Captain is in love.” “Why, now, only think of that!” said the Boatswain; “not but that I have been in love as often as any man, when the ship was laid up.” “Well, but,” continued Bunce, “Captain Cleveland is in love—Yes —Prince Volscius is in love; and though that’s the cue for laughing on the stage, it is no laughing matter here. He expects to meet the girl tomorrow, for the last time; and that, we all know, leads to another meeting, and another, and so on till the Halcyon is down on us, and then we may look for more kicks than halfpence.” “By —,” said the Boatswain, with a sounding oath, “we’ll have a mutiny, and not allow him to go ashore,—eh, Derrick?” “And the best way too,” said Derrick. “What d’ye think of it, Jack Bunce?” said Fletcher, in whose ears this counsel sounded very sagely, but who still bent a wistful look upon his companion. “Why, look ye, gentlemen,” said Bunce, “I will mutiny none, and stop my vitals if any one of you shall.” “Why then I won’t, for one,” said Fletcher; “but what are we to do, since howsomdever”-----“Stopper your jaw, Dick, will you?” said Bunce.—“Now, Boat swain, I am partly of your mind, that the Captain must be brought to reason by a little wholesome force. But you all know he has the spirit of a lion, and will do nothing unless he is allowed to hold his own course. Well, I’ll go ashore and make this appointment. The girl comes to the rendezvous in the morning, and the Captain goes ashore. We take a good boat’s crew with us, to row against tide and current, and we will be ready at the signal, to jump ashore and bring off the Captain and the girl, whether they will or no. The child will not quarrel with us, since we bring off his whirligig alongst with him; and if he is still fractious, why, we will weigh anchor without his orders, and let him come to his senses at leisure, and know his friends another time.” “Why this has a face with it, Master Derrick,” said Hawkins. “Jack Bunce is always right,” said Fletcher; “howsomdever, the Captain will shoot some of us, that is certain.” “Hold your jaw, Dick,” said Bunce; “pray who the devil cares, do

366

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, Ch. I2

you think, whether you are shot or hung?” “Why, it don’t much argufy for the matter of that,” replied Dick; “howsomdever”-----“Be quiet, I tell you,” said his inexorable patron, “and hear me out. —We will take him at unawares, so that he shall neither have time to use cutlass or pops; and I myself, for the dear love I bear him, will be the first to lay him on his back. There is a nice tight-going bit of a pinnace, that is a consort of this chase of the Captain’s,—if I have an opportunity, I’ll snap her up on my own account.” “Yes, yes,” said Derrick, “let you alone for keeping on the look-out for your own comforts.” “Nay, faith,” said Bunce, “I only snatch at them when they come fairly in my way, or are purchased by dint of my own wit; and none of you could have fallen on such a plan as this. We shall have the Captain with us, head, hand, and heart and all, besides making a scene fit to finish a comedy. So I will go ashore to make the appointment, and do you possess some of the gentlemen who are still sober, and fit to be trusted, with the knowledge ofour intentions.” Bunce, with his friend Fletcher, departed accordingly, and the two veteran pirates remained looking at each other in silence, until the Boatswain spoke at last. “B— me, Derrick, if I like these two daffadandilly young fellows; they are not the true breed. Why, they are no more like the rovers I have known, than this sloop is to a first-rate. Why, there was old Sharpe that read prayers to his ship’s company every Sunday, what would he have said to have heard it proposed to bring two wenches on board?” “And what would tough old Black Beard have said,” answered his companion, “if they had expected to keep them to themselves? They deserve to be made to walk the plank for their impudence; or to be tied back to back and set a-diving, and I care not how soon.” “Ay, but who is to command the ship then?” said Hawkins. “Why, what ails you at old Goffe?” answered Derrick. “Why, he has sucked the monkey so long and so often,” said the Boatswain, “that the best ofhim is buff'd. He is little better than an old woman when he is sober, and he is roaring mad when he is drunk—we have had enough of Goffe.” “Why then what d’ye say to yourself, or to me, Boatswain?” demanded the Quarter-Master. “I am content to toss up for it.” “Rot it, no,” answered the Boatswain, after a moment’s considera tion; “if we were within the trade-winds, we might either of us make a shift; but it will take all Cleveland’s navigation to get us there; and so, I think, there is nothing like Bunce’s project for the present. Hark, he calls for the boat—I must go on deck and have

[Chap. 39]

THE PIRATE

367

her lowered for his honour, d— his eyes.” The boat was lowered accordingly, made its voyage up the lake with safety, and landed Bunce within a few hundred yards of the old mansion-house of Stennis. Upon arriving in front of the house, he found that hasty measures had been taken to put it in a state of defence, the lower windows being barricaded, with places left for use of musketry, and a ship-gun being placed so as to command the entrance, which was besides guarded by two centinels. Bunce demanded admission at the gate, which was briefly and unceremoni ously refused to him, with an exhortation to him, at the same time, to begone about his business before worse came of it. As he continued, however, importunately to insist on seeing some one of the family, and stated his business to be of the most urgent nature, Claud Halcro at length appeared, and with more peevishness than belonged to his usual manner, that admirer of glorious John expostulated with his old acquaintance upon his pertinacious folly. “You are,” he said, “like foolish moths fluttering about a candle, which is sure at last to consume you.” “And you,” said Bunce, “are a set of stingless drones, whom we can smoke out of your defences at our pleasure, with half a dozen of handgranadoes.” “Smoke a fool’s head!” said Halcro; “take my advice, and mind your own matters, or there will be those upon you will smoke you to purpose. Either begone, or tell me in two words what you want; for you are like to receive no welcome here save from a blunderbuss. We are men enough of ourselves; and here is young Mordaunt Mertoun come from Hoy, whom your Captain so nearly murthered.” “Tush, man,” said Bunce, “he did but let out a little malapert blood.” “We want no such phlebotomy here,” said Claud Halcro; “and besides, your patient turns out to be nearer allied to us than either you or we thought of; so you may think how little welcome the Captain or any of his crew are like to be here.” “Well; but what if I bring money for the stores sent on aboard?” “Keep it till it is asked of you,” said Halcro. “There are two bad paymasters—he that pays too soon, and he that does not pay at all.” “Well then, let me at least give our thanks to the donor,” said Bunce. “Keep them, too, till they are asked for,” answered the poet. “So this is all the welcome I have of you for old acquaintance sake?” said Bunce. “Why, what can I do for you, Master Altamont?” said Halcro, somewhat moved—“If young Mordaunt had had his own will, he

368

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, Ch. I2

would have welcomed you with the Red Burgundy, Number a thou sand. For God’s sake begone, else the stage direction will be, Enter guard, and seize Altamont.” “I will not give you the trouble,” said Bunce, “but will make my exit instantly.—Stay a moment—I had almost forgot that I have a slip of paper for the tallest of your girls there—Minna, ay, Minna is her name. It is a farewell from Captain Cleveland—you cannot refuse to give it her.” “Ah, poor fellow!” said Halcro—“I comprehend—I comprehend —Farewell, fair Armida— ’Mid pikes and mid bullets, mid tempests and fire, The danger is less than in hopeless desire.

Tell me but this—is there poetry in it?” “Choke full to the seal, with song, sonnet, and elegy,” answered Bunce; “but let her have it cautiously and secretly.” “Tush, man!—teach me to deliver a billet-doux!—me, who have been in the Wits’ Coffee-house, and have seen all the toasts of the Kit-Cat Club!—Minna shall have it then, for old acquaintance sake, Mr Altamont, and for your Captain’s sake too, who has less ofthe core of devil about him than his trade requires. There can be no harm in a farewell letter.” “Farewell then, old boy, for ever and a day,” said Bunce; and seizing the poet’s hand, gave it so hearty a gripe, that he left him roaring, and shaking his fist, like a dog when a hot cinder has fallen on his foot. Leaving the rover to return on board the vessel, we remain with the family of Magnus Troil, assembled at their kinsman’s mansion of Stennis, where they maintained a constant and careful watch against surprise. Mordaunt Mertoun had been received with much kindness by Magnus Troil, when he came to his assistance, with a small party of Norna’s dependants, placed by her under his command. The Udaller was easily satisfied that the reports instilled into his ears by the Jagger, in zealous desire to augment his favour towards his more profitable customer, Cleveland, by diminishing that of Mertoun, were without foundation. They had, indeed, been confirmed by the good Lady Glowrowrum, and by common fame, both of whom were pleased to represent Mordaunt Mertoun as an arrogant pretender to the favour of the sisters of Burgh Westra, who only hesitated, sultan-like, on whom he should bestow the handkerchief. But common fame, Magnus considered, was a common liar, and he was sometimes dis posed (where scandal was concerned) to regard the good Lady Glowrowrum as rather an uncommon specimen of the same genus. He

[Chap.40]

THE PIRATE

369

therefore received Mordaunt once more into full favour, listened with much surprise to the claim which Norna laid to the young man’s duty, and with no less interest to her intention of surrendering to him the considerable property which she had inherited from her father. Nay, it is even probable that, though he gave no immediate answer to her hints concerning an union betwixt his eldest daughter and her heir, he might think such an alliance recommended, as well by the young man’s personal merits, as by the claim it gave of reuniting the very large estate which had been divided betwixt his own father and that of Norna. At all events, the Udaller received his young friend with much kindness, and he and the proprietor of the mansion joined in entrust ing to him, as the youngest and most active of the party, the charge of commanding the night-watch, and relieving the centinels around the House of Stennis.

Chapter Thirteen Of an outlawe, this is the lawe— That men him take and bind, Without pitie hang’d to be, And waive with the wind. The Ballad ofthe Nut Brown Maid

Mordaunt had caused the centinels who had been on duty since midnight to be relieved ere the peep of day, and having given direc tions that the guard should be again changed at sun-rise, he had retired to a small parlour, and placing his arms beside him, was slum bering in an easy chair, when he felt himselfpulled by the watch-cloak in which he was enveloped. “Is it sun-rise,” said he, “already?” as, starting up, he discovered the first beams lying level upon the horizon. “Mordaunt!” said a voice, every note of which thrilled to his heart. He turned his eyes on the speaker, and Brenda Troil, to his joyful astonishment, stood before him. As he was about to address her eagerly, he was checked by observing the signs of sorrow and discom posure in her pale cheeks, trembling lips, and brimful eyes. “Mordaunt,” she said, “you must do Minna and me a favour—you must allow us to leave the house quietly, and without alarming any one, in order to go as far as the Standing Stones of Stennis.” “What freak can this be, dearest Brenda?” said Mordaunt, much amazed at the request—“some Orcadian observance of superstition, perhaps; but the time is too dangerous, and my charge from your father too strict, that I should permit you to pass without his consent.

370

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. I3

Consider, dearest Brenda, I am a soldier on duty, and must obey orders.” “Mordaunt,” said Brenda hastily, “this is no jesting matter. Minna’s reason, nay, Minna’s life, depends on your giving us this permission.” “And for what purpose?” said Mordaunt—“let me at least know that.” “For a wild and a desperate purpose,” replied Brenda—“It is that she may meet Cleveland.” “Cleveland!” said Mordaunt—“should the villain come ashore, he shall be welcomed with a shower of rifle-balls. Let me within a hun dred yards of him,” he added, grasping his piece, “and all the mischief he has done me shall be balanced with an ounce bullet!” “His death will drive Minna frantic,” said Brenda; “and he who injures Minna, Brenda will never again look upon.” “This is madness—raving madness!” said Mordaunt—“Consider your honour—consider your duty.” “I can consider nothing but Minna’s danger,” said Brenda, break ing into a flood of tears; “her former illness was nothing to the state she has been in all night. She holds in her hand his letter, written in characters of fire, rather than of ink, imploring her to see him for a last farewell, as she would save a mortal body and an immortal soul—pledging himself for her safety, and declaring no power shall force him from the coast till he has seen her.—You must let us pass.” “It is impossible!” replied Mordaunt, in great perplexity—“This ruffian has imprecations enough, doubtless, at his fingers’ ends, but what better pledge has he to offer?—I cannot permit Minna to go.” “I suppose,” said Brenda, somewhat reproachfully, while she dried her tears, yet still continued sobbing, “that there is something in what Norna spoke ofbetwixt Minna and you; and that you are too jealous of this poor wretch to allow him even to speak with her an instant before his departure.” “You are unjust,” said Mordaunt, hurt, and yet somewhat flattered by her suspicion, “you are as unjust as you are imprudent. You know —you cannot but know—that Minna is chiefly dear to me as your sister. Tell me, Brenda—and tell me truly—if I aid you in this folly, have you no suspicion of the Pirate’s faith?” “No, none,” said Brenda; “if I had any, do you think I would urge you thus?—He is wild and unhappy, but I think we may in this trust him.” “Is the appointed place the Standing Stones, and the time daybreak?” again demanded Mordaunt.

[Chap.40]

THE PIRATE

37I

“It is, and the time is come,” said Brenda—“for Heaven’s sake let us depart!” “I will myself,” said Mordaunt, “relieve the centinel at the front door for a few minutes, and suffer you to pass—You will not protract this interview, so full of danger?” “We will not,” said Brenda; “and you, on your part, you will not avail yourself of this unhappy man’s venturing hither, to harm or to seize him?” “Rely on my honour,” said Mordaunt; “he shall have no harm, unless he offers any.” “Then I go to call my sister,” said Brenda, and tripped out of the apartment. Mordaunt considered the matter for an instant, and then going to the centinel at the front door, he told him to run instantly to the mainguard, and order the whole to turn out with their arms—to see the order obeyed, and to return when they were in readiness. Meantime, he himself, he said, would remain upon the post. During the interval of the centinel’s absence, the front door was slowly opened, and Minna and Brenda appeared, muffled in their mantles. The former leaned on her sister, and kept her face bent on the ground, as one who felt ashamed of the step she was about to take. Brenda also passed her lover in silence, but threw back upon him a look of gratitude and affection, which doubled, if possible, his anxiety for their safety. The sisters, in the meanwhile, passed out of sight of the house, when Minna, whose step, till that time, had been faint and feeble, began to erect her person, and to walk with a pace so firm and so swift, that Brenda, who had some difficulty to keep up with her, could not forbear remonstrating on the imprudence of hurrying her spirits, and exhausting her force, by such unnecessary haste. “Fear not, my dearest sister,” said Minna; “the spirit which I now feel will, and must, sustain me through this dreadful interview. I could not but move with a drooping head and dejected pace, while I was in view of one who must necessarily deem me deserving of his pity or his scorn. But you know, my dearest Brenda, and Cleveland shall also know, that the love I bore to that unhappy man, was as pure as the rays of that sun, that is now reflected on the waves. And I dare attest that glorious sun, and yonder blue heaven, to bear me witness, that, but to urge him to change his unhappy course of life, I had not, for all the temptations this round world holds, ever consented to see him more.” As she spoke thus, in a tone which afforded much confidence to Brenda, the sisters attained the summit of a rising ground, whence they commanded a full view of the Orcadian Stonehenge, consisting of a huge circle and semi-circle of the Standing Stones, as they are

372

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. I3

called, which already glimmed a greyish white in the rising sun, and projected far to the westward their long gigantic shadows. At another time, the scene would have operated powerfully on the imaginative mind of Minna, and interested the curiosity at least of her less sensit ive sister. But, at this moment, neither was at leisure to receive the impressions which this stupendous monument of antiquity is so well calculated to impress on the feelings of those who behold it; for they saw, in the lower lake, beneath what is termed the Bridge of Broisgar, a boat well manned and armed, which had disembarked one of its crew, who advanced alone, and wrapped in a naval cloak, towards that monumental circle which they themselves were about to reach from another quarter. “They are many, and they are armed,” said the startled Brenda, in a whisper to her sister. “It is for precaution’s sake,” answered Minna, “which, alas, their condition renders but too necessary. Fear no treachery from him— that, at least, is not his vice.” As she spoke, or shortly afterwards, she attained the centre of the circle, on which, in the midst of the tall erect pillars of rude stone that are raised around, lies one flat and prostrate, supported by short stone-pillars, of which some reliques are still visible, that had once served, perhaps, the purpose of an altar. “Here,” she said, “in heathen times (if we may believe legends, which have cost me but too dear,) our ancestors offered sacrifices to heathen deities—And here will I, from my soul, renounce, abjure, and offer up to a better and a more merciful God than was known to them, the vain ideas with which my youthful imagination has been seduced.” She stood by the prostrate table of stone, and saw Cleveland advance towards her, with a timid pace, and a downcast look, as different from his usual character and bearing, as Minna’s high look and lofty demeanour, and calm contemplative posture, was distant from that of the love-lorn and broken-hearted maiden, whose weight had almost borne down the support of her sister as she left the House of Stennis. If the belief of those is true, who assign these singular monuments exclusively to the Druids, Minna might have seemed the Haxa, or high priestess of the order, from whom some champion of the tribe expected inauguration. Or, if we hold the circles of Gothic and Scandinavian origin, she might have seemed a descended Vision of Freya, the spouse of the Thundering Deity, before whom some bold Sea-king or champion bent with an awe, which no mere mortal terror could have inflicted upon him. Brenda, overwhelmed with inexpressible fear and doubt, remained a pace or two behind, anxiously observing the motions of Cleveland, and attending to noth-

[Chap. 40]

THE PIRATE

373

ing else which passed around, save to him and to her sister. Cleveland approached within two yards of Minna, and bent his head to the ground. There was a dead pause, until Minna said, in a firm but melancholy tone, “Unhappy man, why didst thou seek this aggravation of our woe? Depart in peace, and may Heaven direct thee to abetter course than that which thy life has yet held.” “Heaven will not aid me,” said Cleveland, “exceptingby your voice. I came hither rude and wild, scarce knowing that my trade, my desper ate trade, was more criminal in the sight ofman or ofheaven, than that ofthose privateers whom your law acknowledges. I was bred in it, and, but for the wishes you have encouraged me to form, I should have perhaps died in it, desperate and impenitent. O, do not throw me from you—let me do something to redeem what I have done amiss, and do not leave your own work half-finished!” “Cleveland,” said Minna, “I will not reproach you with abusing my inexperience, or with availing yourself of those delusions which the credulity of early youth had flung around me, and which led me to confound your fatal course of life with the deeds ofour ancient heroes. Alas, when I saw your followers that illusion was no more!—but I do not upbraid you with its having existed. Go, Cleveland; detach your self from those miserable wretches with whom you are associated, and believe me, that if heaven yet grants you the means of distinguishing your name by one good or glorious action, there are eyes left in these lonely islands, that will weep as much for joy as—as—they must now do for sorrow.” “And is this all?” said Cleveland; “and may I not hope, that if I extricate myself from my present associates—if I can gain my pardon by being as bold in the right, as I have been too often in the wrong cause—ifafter a term, I care not how long—but still a term which may have an end, I can boast of having redeemed my fame—may I not— may I not hope that Minna may forgive what my God and my country shall have pardoned?” “Never, Cleveland, never!” said Minna, with the utmost firmness; “on this spot we part, and part for ever, and part without longer indulgence. Think of me as of one dead, if you continue as you now are; but if, which may heaven grant, you change your fatal course, think of me then as one, whose morning and evening prayers will be for your happiness, though she has lost her own—Farewell, Cleve land!” He kneeled, overpowered by his own bitter feelings, to take the hand which she held out to him, and in that instant, his confidant Bunce, starting from behind one of the large upright pillars, his eyes wet with tears, exclaimed—

374

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3,ch. I3

“Never saw such a parting scene on any stage. But I’ll be d—d ifyou make your exit as you expect.” And so saying, ere Cleveland could employ either remonstrance or resistance, and indeed before he could get upon his feet, he easily secured him by pulling him down on his back, so that two or three of the boat’s crew seized him by the arms and legs, and began to hurry him towards the lake. Minna and Brenda shrieked, and attempted to fly, but Derrick snatched up the former with as much ease as a falcon pounces on a pigeon; while Bunce, with an oath or two, which were intended to be of a consolatory nature, seized on Brenda, and the whole party, with two or three of the other pirates, who, stealing from the water-side, had accompanied them on the ambuscade, began hastily to run towards the boat, which was left in charge of two of their number. Their course, however, was unexpectedly, and, for their criminal purpose, fatally interrupted. When Mordaunt Mertoun had turned out his guard in arms, it was with the natural purpose of watching over the safety of the two sisters. They had accordingly closely observed the motions of the pirates, and when they saw so many of them leave the boat and steal towards the place ofrendezvous assigned to Cleveland, they naturally suspected treachery, and by cover of an old hollow way or trench, which perhaps had anciently been connected with the monumental circle, they had thrown themselves unperceived between the pirates and their boat. At the cries of the sisters, they started up and placed themselves in the way of the ruffians, presenting their pieces, which, notwithstanding, they dared not fire, for fear of hurting the young ladies, secured as they were in the rude grasp of the marauders. Mordaunt, however, advanced with the speed of a wild deer on Bunce, who, loth to quit his prey, yet unable to defend himself other wise, turned to this side and that alternately, exposing Brenda to the blows which Mordaunt offered at him. This defence, however, proved in vain against a youth possessed of the lightest foot and most active hand ever known in Zetland, and after a feint or two, Mordaunt brought the pirate to the ground with a stroke from the butt of the carabine, which he dared not use otherwise. At the same time firearms were discharged on either side by those who were liable to no such cause of forbearance, and the pirates who had hold of Cleveland, dropped him, naturally enough, to provide for their own defence or retreat. But they only added to the number of their enemies; for Cleveland, perceiving Minna in the arms of Derrick, snatched her from the ruffian with one hand, and with the other shot him dead on the spot. Two or three more of the pirates fell or were taken, the rest fled to their boat, pushed off, and fired repeatedly on the Orcadian

[Chap. 40]

THE PIRATE

375

party, which they returned, with little injury on either side. Meanwhile Mordaunt, having first seen that the sisters were at liberty and in full flight towards the house, advanced on Cleveland with his cutlass drawn. The pirate presented a pistol, and calling out at the same time,—“Mordaunt, I never missed my aim,” he fired it into the air, and threw it into the lake; then drew his cutlass, brandished it round his head, and flung that also as far as his arm could send it, in the same direction. Yet such was the universal belief of his personal strength and resources, that Mordaunt still used precaution, as, advancing on Cleveland, he asked ifhe surrendered. “I surrender to no man,” said the Pirate-captain; “but you may see I have thrown away my weapons.” He was immediately seized by some of the Orcadians without his offering any resistance; but the instant interference of Mordaunt prevented his being roughly treated, or bound. The victors conducted him to a well-secured upper apartment in the House of Stennis, and planted a centinel at the door. Bunce and Fletcher, both of whom had been stretched on the field during the skirmish, were lodged in the same chamber; and two prisoners, who appeared of lower rank, were confined in a vault belonging to the mansion. Without pretending to describe the joy of Magnus Troil, who, when awakened by the noise and firing, found his daughters safe, and his enemy a prisoner, we shall only say, it was so great, that he forgot, for the time at least, to inquire what circumstances they were which had called them out of the house of Stennis and placed them in danger; and that he hugged Mordaunt to his breast a thousand times, as their preserver; and swore as often by the bones of his sainted namesake, that if he had a thousand daughters, so tight a lad, and so true a friend, should have the choice of them, let Lady Glowrowrum say what she would. A very different scene was passing in the prison-chamber of the unfortunate Cleveland and his associates. The Captain sat by the window, his eyes bent on the prospect of the sea which it presented, and was seemingly so intent on it, as to be insensible of the presence of the others. Jack Bunce stood meditating some ends of verse, in order to make his advances towards a reconciliation with Cleveland; for he began to be sensible, from the consequences, that the part he had played towards his captain, however well intended, was neither lucky in its issue, nor likely to be well taken. His admirer and adherent Fletcher lay half asleep, as it seemed, on a truckle-bed in the room, without the least attempt to interfere in the conversation which ensued. “Nay, but speak to me, Clement,” said the penitent Lieutenant, “if

376

THE PIRATE

Vol.3,ch. I3

it be but to swear at me for my stupidity.— What, not an oath?—Nay, then the world goes hard, If Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.”

“I prithee peace, and begone!” said Cleveland; “I have one bosomfriend left yet, and you will make me bestow its contents on you, or on myself.” “I have it!” said Bunce, “I have it!” and on he went, in the vein of Jaffier— “Then, by the hell I merit, I’ll not leave thee, Till to thyself at least thou’rt reconciled, However thy resentment deal with me!”

“I pray you once more to be silent,” said Cleveland—“Is it not enough that you have undone me with your treachery, but you must stun me with your silly buffoonery?—I would not have believed you would have lifted a finger against me, Jack, of any man or devil in yonder unhappy ship.” “Who, I?” exclaimed Bunce, “I lift a finger against you!—And if I did, it was in pure love, and to make you the happiest fellow that ever trode a deck, with your mistress beside you, and fifty fine fellows at your command. Here is Dick Fletcher can bear witness I did all for the best, if he would but speak, instead of lolloping there like a Dutch dogger laid up to be careened.—Get up, Dick, and speak for me, won’t you?” “Why, yes, Jack Bunce,” answered Fletcher, raising himself with difficulty, and speaking feebly, “I will ifI can—and you know I always thought you spoke and did for the best—but howsomdever, d’ye see, it has turned out for the worst this time, for I am bleeding to death, I think.” “You cannot be such an ass!” said Jack Bunce, springing to his assistance, as did Cleveland. But human aid came too late—he sunk back on the bed, and, turning on his face, expired without a groan. “I always thought him a d—d fool,” said Bunce, as he wiped a tear from his eye, “but never such a consummate ideot as to hop the perch so sillily.—I have lost the best follower—” and he again wiped his eye. Cleveland looked on the dead body, the rugged features of which had remained unaltered by the death-pang—“A bull-dog,” he said, “of the true British breed, and, with a better counsellor, would have been a better man.” “You may say that of some other folks too, Captain, if you are minded to do them justice,” said Bunce. “I may indeed, and especially of yourself,” said Cleveland, in reply. “Why then, say, Jack, Iforgive you” said Bunce; “it’s but a short word, and soon spoken.”

[Chap.40]

THE PIRATE

377

“I forgive you from all my soul, Jack,” said Cleveland, who had resumed his situation at the window; “and the rather that your folly is oflittle consequence—the morning is come that must bring ruin on us all.” “What, you are thinking of the old woman’s prophecy you spoke of?” said Bunce. “It will soon be accomplished,” answered Cleveland. “Come hither; what do you take yon large square-rigged vessel for, that you see doubling the head-land on the east, and opening the Bay of Stromness?” “Why, I can’t make her well out,” said Bunce, “but yonder is old Goffe, takes her for a West Indiaman loaded with rum and sugar, I suppose, for d—n me if he does not slip cable, and stand out to her!” “Instead of running into the shoal-water, which was his only safety,” said Cleveland—“The fool! the dotard! the drivelling, drunken ideot!—he will get his liquor hot enough; for yon is the Halcyon—See, she hoists her colours and fires a broad-side! and there will soon be an end of the Fortune’s Favourite! I only hope they will fight her to the last plank. The Boatswain used to be staunch enough, and so is Goffe, though an incarnate demon.—Now she shoots away, with all the sail she can spread, and that shews some sense.” “Up goes the Jolly Hodge, the old black flag, with the death’s head and hour glass, and that shews some spunk.” “The hour glass is turned for us, Jack, for this bout—our sand is running fast.—Fire away yet, my roving lads—the deep sea or the blue sky, rather than a rope and a yard-arm.” There was a moment of anxious and dead silence; the sloop, though hard pressed, maintaining still a running fight, and the frigate continuing in full chase, but scarce returning a shot. At length the vessels neared each other, so as to shew that the man-of-war’s men intended to board the sloop, instead of sinking her, probably to secure the plunder which might be on the pirate vessel. “Now Goffe—now Boatswain!” exclaimed Cleveland, in an ecstacy of impatience, and as if they could have heard his commands, “stand by sheets and tacks—rake her with a broadside, when you are under her bows, then about ship, and go off on the other tack like a wild goose. The sails shiver—the helm’s a-lee—Ah!—deep-sea sink the lubbers!—they miss stays, and the frigate runs them aboard!” Accordingly the various manœuvres of the chase had brought them so near, that Cleveland, with his spy-glass, could see the man-ofwar’s men boarding by the yards and boltsprit, in irresistible num bers, their naked cutlasses flashing in the sun, when, at that critical

378

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. I3

moment, both ships were enveloped in a cloud of thick black smoke, which suddenly arose on board the captured pirate. “Exeunt omnes,” said Bunce, with clasped hands. “There went the Fortune’s Favourite, ship and crew,” said Cleve land, at the same instant. But the smoke immediately clearing away, shewed that the damage had only been partial, and that from want of a sufficient quantity of powder, the pirates had failed in their desperate attempt to blow up their vessel with the Halcyon. Shortly after the action was over, Captain Weatherport of the Hal cyon sent an officer and a party of marines to the House of Stennis, to demand those of the pirate crew who were there prisoners, and, in particular, Cleveland and Bunce, who acted as Captain and Lieuten ant of the gang. This was a demand which was not to be resisted, though Magnus Troil wished sincerely that the roof under which he lived could have been allowed as an asylum at least to Cleveland. But the officer’s orders were peremptory; and he added, it was Captain Weatherport’s intention to land the other prisoners, and send the whole, with a sufficient escort, across the island to Kirkwall, in order to undergo an examination there before the civil authorities, previous to their being sent off to London for trial at the High Court of Admiralty. Magnus could therefore only intercede for good usage to Cleveland, and that he might not be stripped or plundered, which the officer, struck by his good mien, and compassionating his situation, readily promised. The honest Udaller would have said something in the way of comfort to Cleveland himself, but he could not find words to express it, and only shook his hand. “Old friend,” said Cleveland, “you may have much to complain of —yet you pity instead of exulting over me—for the sake of you and yours, I will never harm human being more. Take this from me—my last hope, but my last temptation also”—he drew from his bosom a pocket-pistol, and gave it to Magnus Troil. “Remember me to—but no—let every one forget me.—I am your prisoner, sir,” said he to the officer. “And I also,” said poor Bunce; and putting on a theatrical counten ance, he ranted, with no very perceptible faultering in his tone, the words of Pierre: Captain, you should be a gentleman of honour; Keep off the rabble, that I may have room To entertain my fate, and die with decency.”

[Chap. 4I]

THE PIRATE

379

Chapter Fourteen Joy, joy, in London now!

Southey

The news of the capture of the rover soon reached to Kirk wall, about an hour before noon, and filled all men with wonder and with joy. Little business was that day done at the Fair, whilst people of all ages and occupations streamed from the place to see the prisoners as they were marched towards Kirkwall, and to triumph in the differ ent appearance which they now bore from that which they had exhib ited when ranting, swaggering, and bullying in the streets ofthat town. The bayonets of the marines were soon seen to glisten in the sun, and then came on the melancholy troop of captives, hand-cuffed two and two together. Their finery had been partly tom from them by their captors, partly hung in rags about them; many were wounded and covered with blood, many blackened and scorched with the explosion, by which a few of the most desperate had in vain strove to blow up the vessel. Most of them seemed sullen and impenitent, some were more becomingly affected with their condition, and a few braved it out, and sang the same ribald songs to which they had made the streets of Kirkwall ring when they were in their frolics. The Boatswain and Goffe, coupled together, exhausted themselves in threats and imprecations against each other; the former charging Goffe with want of seamanship, and the latter alleging that the Boat swain had prevented him firing the powder that was stowed forward, and so sending them all to the other world together. Last came Cleve land and Bunce, who were permitted to walk unshackled; the decent melancholy, yet resolved manner of the former, contrasting strongly with the stage strut and swagger which poor Jack thought it fitting to assume, in order to conceal some less dignified emotions. The former was looked upon with compassion, the latter with a mixture of scorn and pity; while most of the others inspired horror, and even fear, by their looks and their language. There was one individual in Kirkwall, who was so far from hasten ing to see the sight which attracted all eyes, that he was not even aware of the event which agitated the town. This was the elder Mertoun, whose residence Kirkwall had been for two or three days, part of which had been spent in attending to some judicial proceedings, undertaken at the instance of the Procurator Fiscal, against that grave professor, Bryce Snaelsfoot. In consequence of an inquisition into the proceedings of this worthy trader, Cleveland’s chest, with his papers

380

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. I4

and other matters therein contained, had been restored to Mertoun, as the lawful custodier thereof, until the right owner should be in a situation to establish his right to them. Mertoun was at first desirous to throw back upon Justice the charge which she was disposed to entrust him with; but, on perusing one or two of the papers, he hastily changed his mind—in broken words, requested the Magistrate to let the chest be sent to his lodgings, and, hastening homeward, bolted himself into his room, to consider and digest the singular information that chance had thus conveyed to him, and which increased, in a tenfold degree, his impatience for an interview with the mysterious Norna of Fitful-head. It may be remembered that she had required ofhim, when they met in the Church-yard of Saint Ninian’s, to attend in the outer aisle of the Cathedral of Saint Magnus, at the hour of noon, on the fifth day of the Fair of Saint Olla, there to meet a person by whom the fate of Mor daunt would be explained to him.—“It must be herself,” he said; “and that I should see her at this moment is indispensable. How to find her sooner, I know not; and better lose a few hours even in this exigence, than offend her by a premature attempt to force myself on her presence Long, therefore, before noon—long before the town of Kirkwall was agitated by the news of the events on the other side of the island, the elder Mertoun was pacing the deserted aisle of the Cathedral, awaiting, with agonizing eagerness, the expected communication from Norna. The bell tolled twelve—no door opened—no one was seen to enter the Cathedral; but the last sounds had not ceased to reverberate through the vaulted roof, when, gliding from one of the interior side-aisles, Norna stood before him. Mertoun, indifferent to the apparent mystery of her sudden approach, (with the secret of which the reader is acquainted,) went up to her at once, with earnest ejaculation—“Ulla—Ulla Troil—aid me to save our most unhappy boy!” “To Ulla Troil,” said Norna, “I answer not—I gave that name to the winds, on the night that cost me a father!” “Speak not of that night of horror,” said Mertoun; “we have need of our reason—let us not think on recollections which may destroy it —but aid me, if thou canst, to save our unfortunate child!” “Vaughan,” answered Norna, “he is already saved—long since saved; think you a mother’s hand—and that of such a mother as I am—would await your crawling, tardy, ineffectual assistance? No, Vaughan—I make myself known to you, but to shew my triumph over you—it is the only revenge which the powerful Norna permits herself to take for the wrongs ofUlla Troil.”

[Chap. 4I]

THE PIRATE

38I

“Have you indeed saved him—saved him from the murderous crew?—speak!—and speak truth!—I will believe every thing—all you would require me to assent to!—prove to me only he is escaped and safe!” “Escaped and safe, by my means,” said Norna—“safe, and in assurance of an honoured and happy alliance. Yes, great unbeliever! —yes, wise and self-opinioned infidel!—these were the works of Norna! I knew you many a year since; but never had I made myself known to you, save with the triumphant consciousness of having con trolled the destiny that threatened my son. All combined against— planets which threatened drowning—combinations which menaced blood—but my skill was superior to all.—I arranged—I combined—I found means—I made them—each disaster has been averted;—and what infidel on earth, or stubborn demon beyond the bounds of earth, shall hereafter deny my power?” The wild ecstacy with which she spoke, so much resembled tri umphant insanity, that Mertoun answered—“Were your pretensions less lofty, and your speech more plain, I should be better assured of my son’s safety.” “Doubt on, vain sceptic!” said Norna—“And yet know, that not only is our son safe, but vengeance is mine, though I sought it not— vengeance on the powerful implement of the darker Influences by whom my schemes were so often thwarted, and even the life ofmy son endangered.—Yes, take it as a guarantee of the truth of my speech, that Cleveland—the pirate Cleveland—even now enters Kirkwall as a prisoner, and will soon expiate with his life the having shed blood which is of kin to Norna’s.” “Who didst thou say was prisoner?” exclaimed Mertoun, with a voice of thunder—“Who, woman, didst thou say should expiate his crimes with his life?” “Cleveland—the pirate Cleveland!” answered Norna; “and by me, whose counsel he scorned, he has been permitted to meet his fate.” “Thou most wretched of women!” said Mertoun, speaking from between his clenched teeth,—“thou hast slain thy son, as well as thy father!” “My son!—what son?—what mean you?—Mordaunt is your son —your only son!” exclaimed Norna—“is he not?—tell me quickly— is he not?” “Mordaunt is indeed my son,” said Mertoun—“the laws, at least, give him to me as such—But O, unhappy Ulla! Cleveland is your son as well as mine—blood of our blood, bone of our bone; and ifyou have given him to death, I will end my wretched life alongst with him!” “Stay—hold—stop, Vaughan!” said Norna; “I am not yet

382

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. I4

overcome—prove but to me the truth of what you say, I would find help, if I should evoke hell!—But prove your words, else believe them I cannot.” “Thou help! wretched, over-weening woman!—in what have thy combinations and thy stratagems—the legerdemain of lunacy—the mere quackery of insanity—in what have these involved thee?—And yet I will speak to thee as reasonable—nay, I will admit thee as power ful—Hear then, Ulla, the proofs which you demand, and find a remedy, ifthou canst:— “When I fled from Orkney,” he continued, after a pause—“it is now five and twenty years since—I bore with me the unhappy offspring to whom you had given light. It was sent to me by one ofyour kinswomen, with an account ofyour illness, which was soon followed by a generally received belief of your death. It avails not to tell in what misery I left Europe. I found refuge in Hispaniola, where, after a lapse of two or three years, a fair young Spaniard undertook the task of comforter. I married her—she became mother of the youth called Mordaunt Mertoun.” “You married her!” said Norna, in a tone of deep reproach. “I did, Ulla,” answered Mertoun; “but you were avenged. She proved faithless, and her infidelity left me in doubts whether the child she bore me had a right to call me father—But I also was avenged.” “You murthered her!” said Norna, with a dreadful shriek. “I did that,” said Mertoun, without a more direct reply, “which made an instant flight from Hispaniola necessary. Your son I carried with me to Tortuga, where we had a small settlement. Mordaunt Vaughan, my son by marriage, about three or four years younger, was residing in Port Royal, for the advantages of an English education. I resolved never to see him again, but I continued to support him. Our settlement was plundered by the Spaniards, when Clement was but fifteen—Want came to aid despair and a troubled conscience. I became a corsair, and involved Clement in the same desperate trade. His skill and bravery, though then a mere boy, gained him a separate command; and while we were on different cruises, my crew rose on me, and left me for dead on the beach of one of the Bermudas. I recovered, however, and my first inquiries, after a tedious illness, were after Clement. He, I heard, had been also marooned by a rebelli­ ous crew, and put ashore on a desert islet, to perish with want—I believed he had so perished.” “And what assures you that he did not?” said Ulla; “or how comes this Cleveland to be identified with Vaughan?” “To change a name is common with such adventurers,” answered Mertoun, “and Clement had apparently found that of Vaughan had

[Chap.4I]

THE PIRATE

383

become too notorious—and this change, in his case, prevented my hearing any tidings of him. It was then that remorse seized me, and that, detesting all nature, but especially the sex to which Louisa belonged, I resolved to do penance in the wild islands of Zetland for the rest of my life. To subject myself to fasts and to the scourge, was the advice of the holy Catholic priests, whom I consulted. But I devised a nobler penance—I determined to bring with me the unhappy boy Mordaunt, and to keep always before me the living memorial of my misery and my guilt. I have done so, and I have thought over both, till reason has often trembled on her throne. And now, to drive me to utter madness, my Clement—my own, my undoubted son—revives from the dead to be consigned to an infam ous death, by the machinations of his own mother!” “Away, away!” said Norna, with a laugh, when she had heard the story to an end, “this is a legend framed by the old corsair, to interest my aid in favour of a guilty comrade. How could I mistake Mordaunt for my son, their ages being so different?” “The dark complexion and manly stature may have done much,” said Basil Mertoun; “strong imagination must have done the rest.” “But give me proofs—give me proofs that this Cleveland is my son, and believe me, the sun shall sooner sink in the east, than they shall have power to harm a hair of his head.” “These papers, these journals,” said Mertoun, offering the pocketbook. “I cannot read them,” she said, after an effort, “my brain is dizzy.” “Clement had also tokens which you may remember, but they must have become the booty of his captors. He had a silver box with a Runic inscription, with which in far other days you presented me—a golden chaplet”-----“A box!” said Norna, hastily; “Cleveland gave me one but a day since—I have never looked at it till now.” Eagerly she pulled it out—eagerly examined the legend around the lid, and as eagerly exclaimed—“They may now indeed call me Reimkennar, for by this rhime I know myself murderess of my son, as well as ofmy father!” The conviction of the strong delusion under which she had laboured, was so overwhelming, that she sunk down at the foot of one of the pillars—Mertoun shouted for help, though in despair ofreceiv ing any; the sexton, however, entered, and hopeless of all assistance from Norna, the distracted father rushed out to learn, if possible, the fate of his son.

384

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. I5

Chapter Fifteen Go, some of you, cry a reprieve! Beggar's Opera

Captain Weatherport had, before this time, reached Kirkwall in person, and was received with great joy and thankfulness by the Magistrates, who had assembled in council for the purpose. The Provost, in particular, expressed himselfdelighted with the providen tial arrival of the Halcyon, at the very conjuncture when the Pirate could not escape her. The Captain looked a little surprised, and said —“For that, sir, you may thank the information you yourself sup plied.” “That I supplied?” said the Provost, somewhat astonished. “Yes, sir,” answered Captain Weatherport, “I understand you to be George Torfe, Chief Magistrate of Kirkwall, who subscribes this letter.” The astonished Provost took the letter addressed to Captain Weatherport of the Halcyon, stating the arrival, force, &c. of the pirates’ vessel; but adding, that they had heard of the Halcyon being on the coast, and that they were on their guard and ready to baffle her, by going among the shoals, and through the islands, and holms, where the frigate could not easily follow; and at the worst, they were desper ate enough to propose running the sloop ashore and blowing her up, by which much booty and treasure would be lost to the captors. The letter, therefore, suggested, that the Halcyon should cruise betwixt Duncansbay Head and Cape Wrath, for two or three days, to relieve the pirates of the alarm her neighbourhood occasioned, and lull them into security, the more especially as the letter-writer knew it to be their intention, if the frigate left the coast, to go into Stromness Bay, and there put their guns ashore for some necessary repairs, or even for careening, if they could find means. The letter concluded by assuring Captain Weatherport, that ifhe could bring his frigate into Stromness Bay on the morning of the 7th August, he would have a good bargain of the pirates—ifsooner, he was not unlikely to miss them. “This letter is not of my writing or subscribing, Captain Weather port,” said the Provost; “nor would I have ventured to advise any delay in your coming hither.” The Captain was surprised in his turn. “All I know is, that it reached me when I was in the bay of Thurso, and that I gave the boat’s crew that brought it five dollars for crossing the Pentland Firth in very rough weather. They had a dumb dwarf as coxswain, the ugliest

[Chap. 42]

THE PIRATE

385

urchin my eyes ever opened upon. I gave you much credit for the accuracy of your intelligence, Mr Provost.” “It is lucky as it is,” said the Provost; “yet I question whether the writer of this letter would not rather that you had found the nest cold and the bird flown.” So saying, he handed the letter to Magnus Troil, who returned it with a smile, but without any observation, aware, doubtless, with the sagacious reader, that Norna had her own reasons for calculating with accuracy on the date ofthe Halcyon’s arrival. Without puzzling himselffurther concerning a circumstance which seemed inexplicable, the Captain requested that the examinations might proceed; and Cleveland and Altamont, as he chose to be called, were brought up the first of the pirate crew, on the charge of having acted as Captain and Lieutenant. They had just commenced the examination, when, after some expostulation with the officers who kept the door, Basil Mertoun burst into the apartment and exclaimed, “Take the old victim for the young one!—I am Basil Vaughan, too well known on the windward station—take my life, and spare my son’s!” All were astonished, and none more than Magnus Troil, who hast ily explained to the Magistrates and Captain Weatherport, that this gentleman had been living peacefully and honestly on the Mainland of Zetland for many years. “In that case,” said the Captain, “I wash my hands ofthe poor man, for he is safe, under two proclamations of mercy; and, by my soul, when I see them hanging on each other’s neck, I wish I could say as much for the son.” “But how is it—how can it be?” said the Provost; “we always called the old man Mertoun, and the young, Cleveland, and now it seems they are both named Vaughan.” “Vaughan,” answered Magnus, “is a name which I have some reason to remember; and, from what I have lately heard from my cousin Norna, that old man has a right to bear it.” “And, I trust, the young man also,” said the Captain, who had been looking over a memorandum. “Listen to me a moment,” added he, addressing the younger Vaughan, whom we have hitherto called Cleveland. “Hark you, sir, your name is said to be Clement Vaughan —are you the same, who, then a mere boy, commanded a party of rovers, who, about eight or nine years ago, pillaged a Spanish village called Quempoa, on the Spanish Main, with the purpose of seizing some treasure?” “It will avail me nothing to deny it,” answered the prisoner. “No,” said Captain Weatherport, “but it may do you service to

386

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. 15

admit it. Well, the muleteers escaped with the treasure, while you were engaged in protecting, at the hazard of your own life, the honour of two Spanish ladies against the brutality of your followers. Do you remember any thing of this?” “I am sure I do,” said Jack Bunce; “for our Captain here was marooned for his gallantry, and I narrowly escaped flogging and pick ling for having taken his part.” “When these points are established,” said Captain Weatherport, “Vaughan’s life is safe—the women he saved were persons of quality, daughters to the governor of the province, and application was long since made, by the grateful Spaniard, to our government, for favour to be shewn to their preserver. I had special orders about Clement Vaughan, when I had a commission for cruizing upon the pirates, in the West Indies, six or seven years since. But Vaughan was gone then as a name amongst them; and I heard enough of Cleveland in his room. However, Captain, be you Cleveland or Vaughan, I think I can assure you a free pardon when you arrive in London.” Cleveland bowed, and the blood mounted to his face. Mertoun fell on his knees, and exhausted himself in thanksgiving to Heaven. They were removed, amidst the sympathizing sobs of the spectators. “And now, good Master Lieutenant, what have you got to say for yourself,” said Captain Weatherport to the ci-devant Roscius. “Why, little or nothing, please your honour; only that I wish your honour could find my name in that book of mercy you have in your hand; for I stood by Captain Clement Vaughan in that Quempoa business.” “You call yourself Frederick Altamont?” said Captain Weather port. “I can see no such name here; one John Bonne, or Bunce, the lady put on her tablets.” “Why, that is me—that is I myself, Captain—I can prove it; and I am determined, though the sound be something plebeian, rather to live Jack Bunce, than to hang as Frederick Altamont.” “In that case,” said the Captain, “I can give you some hopes as John Bunce.” “Thank your noble worship,” shouted Bunce; then changing his tone, he said, “Ah, since an alias has such virtue, poor Dick Fletcher might have come off as Timothy Tugmutton; but howsomdever, d’ye see, to use his own phrase”-----“Away with the Lieutenant,” said the Captain, “and bring forward Goffe and the other fellows; there will be ropes reeved for some of them, I think.” And this prediction promised to be amply fulfilled, so strong was the proof which was brought against them. The Halcyon was accordingly ordered round to carry the whole

[Chap. 42]

THE PIRATE

387

prisoners to London, for which she set sail in the course of two days. During the time that the unfortunate Cleveland remained at Kirk wall, he was treated with civility by the Captain of the Halcyon; and the kindness of his old acquaintance, Magnus Troil, who knew in secret how closely he was allied to his blood, pressed on him accom modations of every kind, more than he could be prevailed on to accept. Norna, whose interest in the unhappy prisoner was still more deep, was at this time unable to express it. The sexton had found her lying on the pavement of the Church in a swoon, and when she recovered, her mind for the time had totally lost its equipoise, and it became necessary to place her under the restraint of watchful attendants. Of the sisters of Burgh Westra, Cleveland only heard that they remained ill, in consequence of the fright to which they had been subjected, until the evening before the Halcyon set sail, when he received, by a private conveyance, the following billet:—“Farewell, Cleveland—We part for ever, and it is right that we should—be virtuous and be happy. The delusions which a solitary education and limited acquaintance with the modem world had spread around me, are gone and dissipated for ever. But in you, I am sure, I have been thus far free from error—that you are one to whom good is naturally more attractive than evil, and whom only necessity, example, and habit, have forced into your late course of life. Think ofme as one who no longer exists, unless you should become as much the object of general praise, as now of general reproach; and then think of me as one who will rejoice in your reviving fame, though she must never see you more!”—The note was signed M. T.; and Cleveland, with a deep emotion which he testified even by tears, read it an hundred times over, and then clasped it to his bosom. Mordaunt Mertoun heard by letter from his father, but in a very different style. Basil bade him farewell for ever, and acquitted him henceforward from the duties of a son, as one on whom he, notwithstanding the exertions of many years, had found himself unable to bestow the affections of a parent. The letter informed him of a recess in the old house of Jarlshof, in which the writer had deposited a considerable quantity of specie and of treasure, which he desired Mordaunt to use as his own. “You need not fear,” the letter bore, “either that you lay yourself under obligation to me, or that you are sharing the spoils of piracy. What is now given over to you, is almost entirely the property of your deceased mother, Louisa Gonzaga, and is yours by every right. Let us forgive each other,” was the conclusion, “as they who must meet no more.”—And they never met more; for the elder Mertoun, against whom no charge was ever preferred, disap peared after the fate of Cleveland was determined, and was generally

388

the pirate

Vol. 3,ch. I5

believed to have retired into a foreign convent. The fate of Cleveland will be most briefly expressed in a letter which Minna received within two months after the Halcyon left Kirk wall. The family were then assembled at Burgh Westra, and Mor daunt was a member of it for the time, the good Udaller thinking he could never sufficiently repay the activity which he had shewn in the defence of his daughters. Norna, then beginning to recover from her temporary alienation of mind, was a guest in the family, and Minna, who was sedulous in her attention upon this unfortunate victim of mental delusion, was seated with her, watching each symptom of reviving reason, when the letter we allude to was placed in her hands. “Minna,” it said—“dearest Minna!—farewell, and for ever. Believe me, I never meant you wrong—never. From the moment I came to know you, I resolved to detach myself from my hateful com rades, and had framed a thousand schemes, which have proved as vain as they deserved to be—for why, or how, should the fate of one so lovely, pure, and innocent, be involved with that ofone so guilty?—Of these dreams I will speak no more. The stern reality of my situation is much milder than I either expected or deserved; and the little good I did has outweighed, in the minds of honourable and merciful judges, much that was evil and criminal. I have not only been exempted from the ignominious death to which several of my compeers are sen tenced; but Captain Weatherport, about once more to sail for the Spanish Main, under the apprehension of an immediate war with that country, has generously solicited and obtained permission to employ me, and two or three ofmy less guilty associates, in the same service— a measure recommended to himselfby his own generous compassion, and to others by our knowledge of the coast, and of local circum stances, which, by whatsoever means acquired, we now hope to use for the service of our country. Minna, you will hear my name pro nounced with honour, or you will never hear it again. Ifvirtue can give happiness, I need not wish it to you, for it is yours already.—Farewell, Minna.” Minna wept so bitterly over this letter, that it attracted the attention of the convalescent Norna. She snatched it from the hand of her kinswoman, and read it over at first with the confused air of one to whom it conveyed no intelligence—then with a dawn ofrecollection— then with a burst of mingled joy and grief, in which she dropped it from her hand. Minna snatched it up, and retired with her treasure to her own apartment. From that time Norna appeared to assume a different character. Her dress was changed to one of a more simple and less imposing character. Her dwarf was dismissed, with ample provision for his

[Chap. 42]

THE PIRATE

389

future comfort. She shewed no desire of resuming her erratick life; and directed her observatory, as it might be called, on Fitful-head, to be dismantled. She refused the name of Norna, and would only be addressed by her real appellation of Ulla Troil. But the most import ant change remained behind. Formerly, from the dreadful dictates of spiritual despair, arising out of the circumstances of her father’s death, she seemed to have considered herself as an outcast from divine grace; besides that, enveloped in the vain occult sciences which she pretended to practise, her study, like that of Chaucer’s physician, had been “but little on the Bible.” Now, the sacred volume was sel dom laid aside; and, to the poor ignorant people who came as formerly to invoke her power over the elements, she only replied—“The winds are in the hollow of His handy—Her conversion was not, perhaps, altogether rational; for this, the state of a mind disordered by such a complication of horrid incidents, probably prevented. But it seemed to be sincere, and was certainly useful. She appeared deeply to repent of her former presumptuous attempts to interfere with the course of human events, superintended as they are by far higher powers, and expressed bitter compunction when such her former pretensions were in any manner recalled to her memory. She still shewed a partiality to Mordaunt though, perhaps arising chiefly from habit; nor was it easy to know how much or how little she remembered of the complicated events in which she had been connected. When she died, which was about four years after the events we have commemorated, it was found that at the special and earnest request of Minna Troil, she had con veyed her very considerable property to Brenda. A clause in her will specially directed, that all the books, implements of her laboratory, and other things connected with her former studies, should be com mitted to the flames. About two years before Norna’s death, Brenda was wedded to Mordaunt Mertoun. It was some time before old Magnus Troil, with all his affection for his daughter, and all his partiality for Mordaunt, was able frankly to reconcile himself to this match. But Mordaunt’s accomplishments were peculiarly to the Udaller’s taste, and the old man felt the impossibility of supplying his place in his family so abso lutely, that at length his Norse blood gave way to the natural feelings of the heart, and he comforted his pride while he looked around him, and saw what he considered as the encroachments of the Scottish gentry upon the country, (so Zetland is fondly termed by its inhabitants,) that as well “his daughter married the son of an English pirate, as of a Scottish thief,” in scornful allusion to the Highland and Border families, to whom Zetland owes many respectable land holders; but whose ancestors were generally esteemed more

390

THE PIRATE

Vol. 3, ch. I5

renowned for ancient family and high courage, than for accurately regarding the trifling distinctions of Meum and Tuum. The jovial old man lived to the extremity of human life, with the happy prospect of a numerous succession in the family of his younger daughter; and having his board cheered alternately by the minstrelsy of Claud Hal cro, and enlightened by the lucubrations of Mr Triptolemus Yellow ley, who, laying aside his high pretensions, was, when he became better acquainted with the manners of the islanders, and remembered the various misadventures which had attended his premature attempts at reformation, an honest and useful representative of his principal, and never so happy as when he could escape from the spare commons of his sister Barbara, to the genial table of the Udaller. Barbara’s temper also was much softened by the unexpected restoration of the horn of silver coins, (the property of Norna,) which she had concealed in the old mansion of Stourburgh, for achieving some of her myster ious plans, but which she now restored to those by whom it had been accidentally discovered, with an intimation, however, that it would again disappear unless a reasonable portion was expended on the sustenance of the family; a precaution to which Tronda Dronsdaughter, (probably an agent of Norna,) owed her escape from a slow and wasting death by inanition. Mordaunt and Brenda were as happy as our mortal condition per mits us to be. They admired and loved each other—enjoyed easy circumstances—had duties to discharge which they did not neglect; and, clear in conscience as light of heart, laughed, sang, danced, daffed the world aside, and bid it pass. But Minna—the high and imaginative Minna—she, gifted with such depth of feeling and enthusiasm, yet doomed to see both blighted in early youth, because, with the inexperience of a disposition equally romantic and ignorant, she had built the fabric of her happiness on a quicksand instead of a rock,—was she, could she be happy? Reader, she was so; for, whatever may be alleged to the contrary by the sceptic and the scomer, to each duty performed there is assigned a degree of mental peace and high consciousness of honourable exertion, corres ponding to the difficulty of the task accomplished. That rest of the body which succeeds to hard and industrious toil, is not to be com pared to the repose which the spirit enjoys under similar circum stances. Her resignation, however, and the constant attention which she paid to her father, her sister, the afflicted Norna, and to all who had claims on her, were neither Minna’s sole nor her most precious source of comfort. Like Norna, but under a more regulated judgment, she learned to exchange the visions of wild enthusiasm which had excited and misled her imagination, for a truer and a purer connection

[Chap. 42]

THE PIRATE

39I

with the world beyond us, than could be learned from the sagas of heathen bards, or the visions of later rhymers. To this she owed the support by which she was enabled, after various accounts of the hon ourable and gallant conduct of Cleveland, to read with resignation, and even with a sense of comfort, mingled with sorrow, that he had at length fallen, leading the way in a gallant and honourable enterprize, which was successfully accomplished by those followers, to whom his determined bravery had opened the road. Bunce, his fantastic fol lower in good, as formerly in evil, transmitted an account to Minna of this melancholy event, in terms which shewed, that though his head was weak, his heart had not been utterly corrupted by the lawless life which he for some time led, or at least that it had been amended by the change; and that he himself had gained credit and promotion in the same action, seemed to be of little consequence to him, compared with the loss of his old captain and comrade.* Minna read the intelli gence, and thanked heaven, even while the eyes which she lifted up were streaming with tears, that the death of Cleveland had been in the bed of honour; nay she even had the courage to add her gratitude, that he had been snatched from a situation of temptation ere circum stances had overcome his new-born virtue; and so strongly did this reflection operate, that her life, after the immediate pain of this event had passed away, seemed not only as resigned, but even more cheerful than before. Her thoughts, however, were detached from the world, and only visited it, with an interest like that which guardian angels take for their charge, in behalf of those friends with whom she lived in love, or of the poor whom she could serve and comfort. Thus passed her life, enjoying, from all who approached her, an affection enhanced by reverence; insomuch, that when her friends sorrowed for her death, which arrived at a late period of her existence, they were comforted by the fond reflection, that the humanity which she then laid down, was the only circumstance which placed her, in the words of Scripture, “a little lower than the angels!” THE END

* We have been able to learn nothing with certainty of Bunce’s fate; but our friend Dr Dryasdust believes he may be identified with an old gentleman, who, in the beginning of the reign of George I. attended the Rose Coffee-house regularly, went to the theatre every night, told mercilessly long stories about the Spanish Main, controlled reckonings, and bullied waiters, and was generally known by the name of Captain Bounce.

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

I. THE GENESIS OF THE PIRATE 2. THE COMPOSITION OF THE pirate: the Timetable; the Manuscript; the Proofs; from Proofs

to First Edition; the Printing; the Advertisement; Cancels 3. the later editions: Second Edition, Volumes I & 2; Second Setting, Volume 3, A-N; ‘Third’ Edition; Novels and Romances of the Author of Waverley; octavo Novels and Romances; duodecimo Novels and Romances; eighteenmo Novels and Romances; the Interleaved Set; the Magnum 4. the present text: the base-text; emendations from the Manu script; punctuation; volume divisions; names; factual errors; misquota tions; spelling; conclusion. The following conventions are used in transcriptions from Scott’s manuscript and proofs: deletions are enclosed 〈thus〉 and insertions ↑thus↓; superscript letters are lowered without comment. The same conventions are used as appropriate for indicating variants between the printed editions.

I. THE GENESIS OF THE PIRATE

During his cruise from 29 July to 8 September I8I4 with the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners, Scott spent two weeks around Shetland, Fair Isle, and Orkney. Exhibiting his intense curiosity and powers of observation, he learned much about the physical features, the fishing and agricultural economies, the superstitions, and the manners of the islands. On the final day at Stromness, in Orkney, an old ‘Pythoness’ told him the story of the pirate, John Gow: She told us she remembered Gow the pirate, who was born near the House of Clestrom, and afterwards commenced buccanier. He came to his native country about I725, with a snow which he com manded, carried off two women from one of the islands, and com mitted other enormities. At length, while he was dining in a house in the Island of Eda, the islanders, headed by Malcolm Laing’s grandfather, made him prisoner and sent him to London, where he was hanged. While at Stromness, he made love to a Miss Gordon, who pledged her faith to him by shaking hands, an engagement which, in her idea, could not be dissolved without her going to London to seek back again her ‘faith and troth,’ by shaking hands with him again after execution.I Each of the ideas in this story reappears, transformed, in The Pirate. Scott was under contract to write five novels after Kenilworth.2 In a letter of 2I August I820 John Ballantyne, Scott’s friend and literary agent, laid out for Archibald Constable, Scott’s Edinburgh publisher, specific terms for the as yet unnamed and unimagined next novel: 393

394

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

In the capacity ofagent for the Author of Waverley &c & with his authority, I hereby offer you his next work of Fiction No I2000 to be printed in four volumes conform to Kenilworth & Ivanhoe on the following terms. The work to be finished before June next. Ist You take as in the case of Kenilworth James &John Ballantyne to be third sharers on their making good a third of the advances. 2d. You furnish paper @ I2mos date of pay printing at the same, redrawing in these terms. 3d Two thousand four hundred pounds are to be immediately paid the Author: viz sixteen hundred by you & Eight hundred by J & J Ballantyne. 4d. The author shall (including the above) immediately receive through me in total compensation of his share of profits on these I2,000 copies Four Thousand & five hundred pounds thus Incash 2400 your bill to me @ 2 mo 500 Your two bills @ 3 mos II50 Our@4mos 450

4500 And you will accordingly redraw one third of these your bills, on Jas. &Jn Ballantyne3

On 25 December I820, two days before the completion of Kenil worth,4Constable wrote to Scott: If you have not already resolved, might I presume to hint at a subject for the next, or for the Succeeding Work? ‘The Bucanier’ is I think un-occupied ground—three of [the] Regicides ifI mistake not went to New England after the Restoration and endured great hardships there taken by Pirates, Shipwrecked, etc.5

Scott must have responded positively for on 28 January I82I Constable wrote to his partner, Robert Cadell: ‘I have not yet seen either of the Ballantynes about Kenilworth but I shall go down to them tomorrow & perhaps find an opening to talk to John about his Books of the Buc aneir’.6 But the story Constable proposed was not the story which Scott had in mind. The three regicides who crossed the Atlantic and found refuge in New England were John Dixwell, Edward Whalley, and Whal ley’s son-in-law, William Goffe. According to tradition,7 when Hadley, Massachusetts, was attacked by Indians in I675, Goffe suddenly appeared, rallied the settlers, and saved them from destruction. James Fenimore Cooper exploited this tradition in The Wept ofWish-ton-Wish (I829): his mysterious stranger, Submission, is based on Goffe. Con stable’s suggestion that Scott write about pirates may well have been a stimulus; it certainly had an effect on Scott for in the Advertisement to The Pirate Scott identifies Gow with Goffe, saying that the Orkney pirate was ‘Gow, or Goffe, or Smith’ (3.8−9),8 and the Goffe story appears in Peveril of the Peak,9 except that it is Whalley instead of Goffe who

COMPOSITION

395

rescues Hadley. But clearly this tale is not significant for the novel that Scottbeganto write in April I82I. 2. THE COMPOSITION OF THE PIRATE

The Timetable. The Pirate was the only novel Scott wrote in I82I. He had published eleven works of fiction in the preceding seven years and was to publish six more in the following four years, but almost exactly a year elapsed between Constable’s suggestion of‘The Bucanier’ and the publication of The Pirate. In January I82I Scott went to London ‘at the request of the other Clerks of Session, that he might watch over the pro gress of an Act of Parliament, designed to relieve them from a consider able part of their drudgery’;I0 he returned to Edinburgh on I0 April and to Abbotsford on the I7th. On I8 and I9 April John Ballantyne noted: ‘Had an interview with Sir Walter regarding my Kelso intentions.... He also showed me the “Buccaneer” begun.’II Scott proceeded slowly. As always he had other literary projects on the go. His edition of Richard Franck’s Northern Memoirs appeared in January I82I. He completed ‘Private Letters of the Seventeenth Cen tury’, giving a sketch of life during the early part of the reign ofJames VI and I, in March, and his account of the life and works of Tobias Smollett for Ballantyne’s Novelists’ Library in June. The latter work was to influence Scott’s handling of the sea chapters in The Pirate.I2 According to Lockhart he had begun editing Lord Fountainhall’s Chronological Notes on Scottish Affairs, from I680 to I70I, published July I822, while still working on The Pirate.I3 He also proceeded slowly because of signi ficant building activity at Abbotsford during the summer. Finally, Scott proceeded slowly because of the unfamiliar nature of the material in The Pirate. He had previously been writing about historical events that had taken place in locations well known to him or, at least, about well-known historical characters and contexts. Now he was creating an original romance in a strange land. Thus, requiring background material on the history, topography, and agriculture of Orkney and Zetland, he re quested the works of Barry, Sibbald, and Tusser from Robert Cadell on 22 May.I4 In a postscript he noted, ‘Being in full activity the sooner I have these the better’.I5 Still, progress remained slow, by Scott’s stand ards. Throughout June, a month in which John Ballantyne died, Scott was shuttling between Abbotsford, Blair-Adam (home of his friend and colleague William Adam), and Edinburgh. He left for London on I3 July to attend the coronation of George IV on the I9th, and did not return to Abbotsford until 30 or 3I July. On 9 August he could finally write to James Ballantyne, ‘I send the end ofVoII'.I6 The pace quickened. Scott was now securely established at Abbots ford for two months. On 27 September he wrote to William Erskine, his close friend and the Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland, inviting him to Abbotsford and saying ‘I want to talk to you about the locale of Zetland,

396

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

for I am making my bricks with a very limited allowance of straw’.I7 Lockhart draws an idyllic picture of that late summer and early autumn,I8 and recalls ‘the constant and eager delight with which Erskine watched the progress of the tale’.I9 This request for help prob ably indicates that he was now working on the final chapter of Volume 2 because it involves a sudden change of location: the Troils travel from Burgh Westra to Fitful-head to visit Norna in her fantastic Burgh, which is then described in considerable detail (253.I4-54.I5). Scott un doubtedly relied upon Erskine’s knowledge of the local terrain in order to describe the Troils’ pilgrimage to a different area of the island (247.9-3I; 252.3I-40; 254.28-43; 255.I6-34), an area that Scott himself had not traversed. But the description of the Burgh itself in The Pirate is an artistic elaboration of Scott’s original diary entry : Went ashore, and see the very ancient castle ofMousa, which stands close on the sea-shore. It is a Pictish fortress, the most entire probably in the world. In form it resembles a dice-box, for the truncated cone is continued only to a certain height, after which it begins to rise perpendicularly, or rather with a tendency to expand outwards. The building is round, and has been surrounded with an outer-wall, of which hardly the slightest vestiges now remain. It is composed of a layer of stones, without cement; they are not of large size, but rather small and thin. To give a vulgar comparison, it resembles an old ruinous pigeon-house.20

On 30 September Scott wrote to Constable, ‘The thing you wot off is cracking on well’.2I According to Lockhart, Daniel Terry, the actor and theatre director, was in Abbotsford about the middle of October, and was given a chapter ‘about Norna of the Fitful-Head, in the third vol ume of The Pirate'.22 This reference is undoubtedly to the penultimate chapter, in which Norna reappears and meets her dramatic end, and it therefore follows that The Pirate was finished in the second half of October.23Lockhart’s story is certainly embellished: he conflates Scott’s writing the conclusion of The Pirate with his beginning The Fortunes of Nigel, but the experimental ‘Private Letters of the Seventeenth Cen tury’, which constitutes his first attempt on Nigel material and which Lockhart says was abandoned in the autumn of I82I, was in fact fin ished and printed while Scott was in London in March I82I,24 and the first chapter of the novel proper was probably completed after Christ mas that year.25 Nonetheless, Lockhart tells a good story, and there may well have been some interchange with Terry about The Pirate, and, possibly, the ‘Private Letters’. In any case Scott must have finished The Pirate in late October for the introductory Advertisement is dated ‘Ist November, I82I’(4.32). The Manuscript. The Morris L. Parrish Collection of Victorian Nov­ elists at Princeton contains one of America’s finest collections of fiction

COMPOSITION

397 by Walter Scott. It includes a complete set of the first editions of the Waverley Novels, all in their original boards, and—the crown jewel— the nearly complete manuscript of The Pirate. The Princeton manuscript of The Pirate comes bound in dark brown leather with the crest of Robert Cadell, Scott’s last publisher, in gold on the covers. On the fly-leaf of the manuscript is the following note in Cadell’s autograph: A part of this, the Original Manuscript of the Pirate, purchased by me at Auction on I9th August I83I. What makes it complete I received from Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford on 9th April I83I. Rob Cadell I834 Upon Cadell’s death, the manuscript passed to his second daughter, Frances Cadell Stevenson, and from her to her own daughter, who sold it in I9I8. In that year it was offered for sale for £550 by Messrs. MacLehose and Sons, the Glasgow booksellers, and was bought by Herschel V. Jones, the American collector. Jones died in I928,26 and the manuscript then disappeared until it was purchased in I957 for the Princeton Library from an undisclosed source. The Princeton manuscript contains 22I quarto leaves but, despite Cadell’s claim, is not quite complete. Seven leaves (ff. 66-72) belong to the Scottish Borders Council.27 One leaf of the 229-leaf manuscript, the final leaf ofVolume 2, remains missing. The paper of the manuscript is dated ‘I8I7’ throughout.28 A fullsized leaf measures 26.8x20.4 cm, but most leaves are slightly smaller. Scott crammed the rectos full, using all available space, running together narration and dialogue, making additions above the lines, at the foot of one recto, and in the left-hand margins. He reserved the versos for further additions and revisions. A typical recto contains 55 lines of writing, nearly I000 words; a verso may contain from a single word to nearly a full page of writing. The leaves still bear evidence of folding that shows how the manuscript was sent in instalments to the copyist in Edinburgh. The first two leaves contain Scott’s ‘Advertisement’ to the novel, dated ‘Ist November I82I’. The third leaf reads: ‘The Pirate/ vol I’. The remaining 2I8 leaves are devoted to the novel itself, but eight rectos (ff. I0I, I09, II4, I25, I33, I44, I79,2I9) are blank, and were inserted by Scott for the purpose of creating a verso on which he could add new material, presumably after he had sent off a package of manuscript to the copyist. Seven rectos (ff. 70, 75, I08, I47, I59, I60,222) have signific antly empty space: one (f. 70) comes at the end of Volume I, and another (f. 222) at the end of the novel; two (ff. I08, I47) seem to be related to poetry which was due to be added; ff. I59 and I60 together make up a full leaf; while f. 75 (most unusually) has a badly garbled quotation from Romeo andJuliet as the motto to Chapter 3 of Volume 2,

398

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

but he then begins the new chapter on the next leaf with a far more accurate version of the quotation. The amount of white space is un usual, but it indicates both that Scott was retaining nothing when he sent parcels of manuscript away to be copied, and that he was finding the composition of relevant poetry harder than writing dialogue or prose narrative. Indeed, while there is more original poetry in The Pirate than in any other of the Waverley Novels, it would seem to have come less easily than in the first decade of Scott’s career as author. Altogether I59 of the 22I versos contain text. In addition, a small scrap of paper, with 2I words on it, has been glued to the recto of f. I93. But three other additions have been lost. Scott signals that the ‘North ern war-song’ will appear on the ‘opposite side’ of f. 76, but the forty stanzas of ‘The Song of Harold Harfager’ are not in the Princeton manuscript. Likewise, only one stanza of Norna’s four-stanza song (‘For leagues along the watery way’) on f. 97 appears in the manuscript. Scott indicates that he will add the additional stanzas on a ‘P. A.’ (paper apart), but today there is a hole and dried glue in the left margin. Scott also indicates (f. I89) that he will add prose material on a piece of paper, but the two additional paragraphs are found only in print (337.I7-26 in this edition). The text of the manuscript is divided into three volumes, which was the form in which the novel appeared. The manuscript reveals that the first volume originally contained only twelve chapters and that the first edition’s thirteenth was transferred from being the first of Volume 2 to be the last of Volume I. The seven leaves of The Pirate owned by the Scottish Borders Council are the final seven leaves of Chapter I2, the original close of Volume I(. Scott’s own numbering of folios is inconsist ent throughout: for example, he numbers two consecutive leaves ‘25’ and the nexttwo ‘26’. However, leaves have been bound in the wrong order: in Volume I, ff. 30-32 should run 32, 30, 3I, and in Volume 2, ff. II6 and II7 have been transposed. The one missing leaf of The Pirate is the last leaf of Volume 2. Volume 3 is complete and in order. The condition of the manuscript is far from perfect. Ten rectos (ff. 42,43,49, 53-57, 59, 62) have cuttings or erosions at the right margin that compromise the text. Folios 85 and 86 have bad cuts at the bottom, causing the loss of several words. Folio I54 has a small hole at the left margin, compromising three words. Still, in a manuscript of I8I,000 words, written more than I78 years ago, the original Pirate comes through loud and clear. Study of the manuscript provides a unique insight into the develop ment of the text and the imagination of the artist. Scott’s mind reveals itself in the handling of hundreds of minute particulars; he is a painstak ing craftsman, straining to communicate in the most precise, vivid, and appropriate words. The father of historical fiction cares about numbers, dates, distances,

COMPOSITION

399

and places. Mordaunt Mertoun is fourteen (not twelve, as originally in the manuscript) when he arrives in Zetland (8.I). Basil Mertoun’s rent is originally in manuscript six lispunds of butter and six shillings yearly, then eight lispunds and eight shillings, and finally eight lispunds and eight shillings sterling (I2.5). Magnus Troil’s residence at Burgh Westra lay ‘nearly twenty’ miles(not fifteen, as originally) distant from the Mertouns at Jarlshof (23.37). There were ‘ten 〈eight〉 lang Scots miles’ betwixt Jarlshof and the Yellowleys at Stourburgh (60.9). Mr. Yellowley said scarce a word ‘for the full space of five 〈two〉 miles’ travel (I06.34). People came ‘from every hamlet or township within twenty miles round’ (not ‘from every quarter’) to share the bounty of Magnus Troil (I2I.I6-I7). The deeds of Montrose took place ‘scores 〈twenty〉 of years since’ (I4I.29). A deserted Skio, or fisherman’s hut, is ‘not above three miles distant from the Burg, and about a quarter 〈half〉 of a mile off’ the straight path (274.20-2I). Scott places his characters firmly in time and space. Likewise, he strives for the most precise word or expression. In the manuscript, the original ‘village’ is changed to a ‘small hamlet’ (I4.I4). The original ‘islands’ are more accurately described as ‘islets’ (24.8). Generic ‘waters’ become ‘lakes and streams’ (28.24). A ‘poker’ is really ‘fire-tongs’ (43.I5). The generic ‘seaman’ becomes a ‘careful skipper’ (57.43). Cleveland’s ‘broken’ chest is merely ‘lidless’ (73.22). The ‘mountains’ of Zetland are reduced to ‘hills’ (9I.20). Old Haagen would as soon ‘sail 〈go〉’ through Sumburgh-roost in a cockle-shell (I40.22-23). The party goers were, according to the ‘frequent 〈universal〉’ custom of such frolickers all over the world, disguised in masking habits (I44.7-8). An ‘English’ ballad becomes a ‘Yorkshire’ harvest-home ballad (I53 35-36). Cleveland’s ‘ship’ is more accur ately described as his ‘consort’ (I66.9). The Zetland ‘pedlar’ is really a ‘jagger’ (I7I.25), and his ‘purse’ a ‘leathern pouch’ (I7I.25). Mor daunt tells the immoral jagger that there would have been no dispute ‘if you had been pleased to bear witness according to the dictates of truth 〈your conscience〉’ (I73.II-I2). A ‘setteen’ of meal becomes a ‘lispund’ (205.29). Cleveland, the Pirate, speaks of hoisting the raven standard on the ‘Castle of Scalloway 〈Scotland〉’ (2I0.36). He spent his earliest days upon a ‘solitary plantation 〈settlement〉’ (2I2.I5-I6). It is not a Spanish ‘brig’, but a Spanish ‘merchant man’, that would run from a Dutch caper (248.I5). Norna’s solitary habitation was built out of the ‘loose 〈same〉 stones’ (254.I0) that lay scattered around, and was singular enough to rouse Minna out of her ‘indifference 〈grief)’ (254.I6). Minna’s disease may be con sidered as a general one, ‘in a metaphorical sense 〈in one sense〉’ (267.42-43). Magnus’s ‘able’ domestic becomes, specifically, ‘readywitted’ (274.20). Mordaunt’s ‘strong belief’ becomes ‘a disposition to believe’ and finally ‘an incipient belief’ (308.39). Derrick is not

400

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

just a ‘person’, but an ‘officer’ (3I4.I3). The meeting of the Orkney magistrates took place not in a mere ‘hall’, but a ‘council-room’ (320.38). Triptolemus Yellowley suffered himself to be ‘conducted (dragged)’ into the street (327.24). Two verses of Dryden’s poetry are more accurately described as ‘lines’ than as a ‘stanza’ (337.I). Cleveland’s dramatic farewell to Minna takes place in a ‘Cathedral (Abbey)’ (35I.40). Scott’s search for the most precise, most accurate word or expression is relentless. In the same spirit of artistic integrity, Scott often replaces a perfectly adequate word or expression with something more vivid. Mordaunt heard the ‘tempest (wind)’ abate (94.27). Norna raised herself from a ‘stooping (reclining)’ posture (95.5). The ‘deep Colouring’ of the young men’s complexions is changed to ‘fresh’ and ‘ruddy’ (I36.3). Halcro was not merely ‘reciting’ but ‘declaiming’ his poetry (I37.I5). The unpleasant thought that ‘crossed’ Mordaunt’s mind now ‘shot across’ (I43.5). The young men wore not merely ‘flaxen’ hair but ‘false hair and beards made of flax’ (I44.I2-I3). Cleveland claimed origin ally that Denmark was incapable of‘sustaining the resentment’ of Eng land; Scott changes this to ‘incapable of exchanging a single broadside with England’ (2II.7). Cleveland reveals that his father became a pirate and cruised against Spain with various vicissitudes of‘time’; Scott im proves this to ‘good and bad fortune’ (2I2.22). Norna says that he who dares desire the haven of death must have ‘steered (made)’ a steady course in the voyage of life (242.33-34). When Magnus brought Minna to the house of Norna for a cure, he awaited the event with the composure of one who, confiding in the skill of a medical artist, sees him preparing to ‘enter upon some important and painful operation (exercise his skill)’ (262.39). After Norna’s successful operation, Magnus acknowledges she has piloted him through many a ‘rough tide (day)’ (272.I0). Halcro tells how he set the boy ‘(at the helm) to steer’ (285.30). Yellowley asks, what is all the ‘din (work)’ that the good folks are making about pirates (325.4). Bunce wishes success to all roving ‘blades (boys)’, and confusion to all honest men (336.I9). Fletcher complains that ‘Fletcher’ is the ‘most crabbed (worst)’ word to spell and conster in the whole dictionary (338.I2). Halcro compares Bunce’s declaiming of poetry to making a bam ring with ‘blood and blank verse (hexameters)’ (344.20). Norna describes the original inhabitants who sought refuge from the Normans in ‘places of retreat (abodes)’ (358.I3). Mertoun originally described how his rebellious pirate crew ‘put me on shore on one of the’ beaches; Scott improves this to ‘left me for dead on the beach of one of the Bermudas’ (382.35). Little do even admirers of Scott realise what pains this lord of language takes in his manuscripts. A goodly number of the preceding examples use the language of the sea, which pervades this novel about island peoples. Similarly, Scott

COMPOSITION

40I

fashions his language to make it expressive of the character, occupation, age, and sex of the speakers. Even the most minor of characters, an unnamed carpenter, is given a distinctive voice in his one speech: “Jack Jenkins was not a hair the worse... I took the leg offwith my saw as well as any loblolly boy in the land could have done heated my broad axe and seard the wound—aye by------ and made a jury leg that he shambles about with as well as ever he did for Jack could never cut a feather.” (3I6.I3-I7) But Scott reconsiders and makes two improvements in the carpenter’s speech. Jack Jenkins was now not a ‘chip’ the worse, and the carpenter seared the ‘stump’. If Scott delights so much in the language of this walk-on character, you can imagine the care he takes with his major players. Similarly, writing in I82I, he tries to avoid anachronisms and inac curacies in this novel set in late seventeenth-century Zetland and Orkney. He may make mistakes, but he is not careless. In the basic activities of drinking and eating, for example, he strives to find the appropriate word. The narrator imagines Triptolemus Yellowley with a ‘bumper 〈bottle〉’ of port before him (35.37). Magnus Troil orders a ‘gallon 〈bottle or two〉’ of gin (205.29). He offers Nick Strumpfer a ‘drop 〈glass〉’ of brandy (284.3). Bunce declares that Minna and Brenda shall stay on deck and fill my ‘can 〈glass〉’ (334.I8). Tripto lemus was happy when he could get a scrap of butter to his ‘oaten cakes 〈bread〉’ (37.20), and he spoke of a pure day for the ‘bear 〈barley〉 seed’ (40.25-26). Study of the manuscript reveals the same concern with accuracy in literary and historical matters. When Halcro makes an anachronistic reference to Alexander Pope, Scott corrects to Blackmore and Shadwell (I33.I9-20). When Scott incorrectly titles Dr Wallace’s book, in a footnote on the Dwarfie Stone, he corrects to Description of 〈History of〉 the Islands ofOrkney (I80.45). When he misquotes The Faerie Queen in an epigraph, he corrects to ‘But this sad evil which doth her infest 〈molest〉’ (230.28). He first writes that Old ‘Morgan’, in Queen Bess’s time, could plunder Peru and Mexico, but then corrects to ‘Drake’ (294.I). When Scott does not know an historical, geographical, or literary fact, he often leaves a blank in the manuscript, and fills it later. These later insertions include the year in which the Spaniards plun dered the Fair Isle (20I.20), identifications of Saint Ringan’s 〈Cross-〉 Kirk (235.32) and the Hill of Whitford or Whiteford (twice, 290.26), the direction of the Hill of Whiteford in relation to the Burgh of Saint Magnus (290.27-28), four lines of poetry by John Dryden (33I.3I-34), and an anachronistic reference to The History of George Barnwell (344.20). Scott’s capacious but imprecise memory is sup ported by a willingness to do research. Most admirable perhaps are Scott’s lengthier struggles to find the

402

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

right word or expression. Upon Norna’s first entrance into the story, she is described as a woman tall enough almost to touch the top of the door with her ‘hat’, but then Scott tries ‘high head’, gives it up and tries ‘crownd hat’, but finally determines on ‘cap’ (48.42). He also changes her ‘square stick’ into a ‘staff’ (50.I8). In one of his original poems in the manuscript, Scott writes of stringing beads of ‘threaded’ pearl, changes to ‘silvery’ pearl, and finally achieves ‘glistering’ pearl (I45.I5). He changes ‘slope’ to ‘project’ but finally returns to ‘slope’ (255.26). Thus far, all of these examples of Scott’s craftsmanship have involved small units, from a single word to a short phrase. But he also revises larger blocks of material and adds to existing material. The fortunetelling scene, for example, originally began simply enough: ‘and here seated it was her part to listen to . . .’. But Scott decided on a more impressive setting: and accomodated like a confessional chair with an aperture which permitted the person within to hear with ease whatever questions should be put though not to see the querist. Here seated the voluspa or sybil was to listen to... (I95.23-26) In fact, the visibly most striking feature of Scott’s manuscript is that he frequently adds new material and revises old material; he rarely eliminates. He makes use of what he has, and increases it. Scott’s additions range from a mere ------ (3I4.40), representing one of Captain Goffe’s curses, to a few words, such as the narrator’s descrip­ tion of the Earth as a place of trial at once and of suffering where even the worst ills are chequered with something that renders them tolerable to ↑humble and patient ↓ minds... (I24.32-34) and up to additional pages of narrative and dialogue. The overwhelming majority appear to have been added to the original text almost immedi ately and are best considered as part of the original composition. They include every kind of material that is found in the text as a whole. To the student of Scott’s manuscript, the pattern of additions can highlight Scott’s particular interests. He frequently adds material, for example, to his developing portrait of Clement Cleveland, refining his conception of the pirate, and complicating the reader’s response. On Cleveland’s first appearance, Scott adds to his original description, ‘and his features shewd youth and comeliness notwithstanding they were pallid and disfigured’ (70.8-I0). Additional speeches given to Cleve land present a more mixed picture: He answerd cheerfully the enquiries which Mordaunt made after his health and maintaind that one nights rest would relieve him from all the effects of the disaster he had sustaind. But he spoke with bitterness of the greed and curiosity of the Ranzelman and his spouse. (78.40-79.I) He characterises himself in another added passage that describes the

COMPOSITION

403 exhilaration of shooting the man at the wheel and boarding a Spanish brigantine (8I.I-2). This picture of a bold, charismatic, but immoral hero is developed in the whaling scene. Scott adds that Cleveland ‘jumped out of the boat’, swam to Mordaunt’s assistance, and ‘was keeping’ him afloat till further aid arrived (I6I.29-3I). But Cleve land’s bold language is qualified by an added gambling expression: ‘Cowards only count danger ↑ for any point of the game ↓ ’ (I62.39). The character of Cleveland is not changed but deepened by his love for Minna Troil. He displays the same determination, courage, and disregard for others in love as in war. Scott adds an important exchange with Norna, who accuses Cleveland of shedding Mordaunt’s blood and tries to separate him from Minna. He ignores the accusation and defies the attempt: “Not so said Cleveland as if about to take Minna’s hand “to separ ate me from Minna while I have life must be the work of herself alone” (350.7-9) Perhaps fearing that Cleveland, in the role of passionate and daring lover, would become too sympathetic a figure for most readers, Scott added the following admonition: But how far so ever the guilty may satisfy his own mind and stupify the feelings of remorse by such a conditional and imperfect repent ance we may well question whether it is not in the sight of heaven rather a presumptuous aggravation than an expiation of his sins. (358.43-594) Through these and many other slight additions, the artist develops his portrait ofa charismatic anti-hero, Scott’s ‘Byronic hero’. It is normally Scott’s additions which are significant; he amplifies, expands, heightens, and tightens, only deleting single words or phrases of more pedestrian matter. But in The Pirate one lengthy passage in the manuscript is, unusually, deleted, marking a violent change in the direc tion of the story—had it been retained, it would have necessitated a complete change in the story. The plot of The Pirate hinges on the illicit relationship between Norna and Basil Mertoun, from which was born the illegitimate son, Clement Cleveland. But in the original version of the crucial scene in which Norna reveals the secrets of the past to Minna and Brenda, she said: Your father and I loved & Erland heard of our attachment—he came to Pomona in anger and carried me to our solitary dwelling in Hoy forbiddingme to see or speak to my kinsman Magnus. Your father followd and sought in vain to deprecate his displeasure. He renewd his commands on me to see him no more and he forbade him to approach our dwelling. But when was youth maiden wise or youth obedient—I agreed to meet your father in secret—I left (f. 99) The manuscript thus reveals that the illicit relationship was originally

404

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

going to be between Norna and Magnus, which would have changed everything. Not least, the final parting between Minna and Cleveland, the emotional climax of the novel, would have been dictated not by moral choice but by cultural taboo against incest.29

Proofs. The author’s proofs of The Pirate survive in the Henry E. Huntington Library in San Marino, California.30 They are bound in two volumes, in polished calf gilt, with red and black labels. They lack pages I-I6 of Volume I. They consist of I] a print version of the novel, which records what was achieved by the copyist, the compositors, and the proof-correctors (collectively called the intermediaries by eewn editors) in turning the manuscript into a book, 2] James Ballantyne’s numerous contributions, 3] Scott’s corrections, revisions, and addi tions, and 4] frequent interchanges between Ballantyne and Scott. The first extant print version of the novel achieves what was ex pected: it translates the holograph text into type, it normalises spelling, it corrects small errors, it removes many verbal repetitions, and, above all, it inserts a system of punctuation expected of printed books. Given all that there was to do, this version of the novel is remarkable. But given the circumstances in which the novel was being translated into type, and the speed of the operation, inevitably there were many mistakes. Ballan tyne corrects much; Scott corrects more; but a great many were missed because although there is evidence for both Scott and Ballantyne refer ring to the manuscript, there was certainly no systematic reading of the proofs against the manuscript. It is largely those mistakes of this initial period in the production process which were not perceived by Ballan tyne and Scott as they read proofs that give rise to emendations. These mistakes and the resulting emendations are described and analysed in Part 4 of this Essay. The interchanges between Ballantyne and Scott make manifest an extraordinary literary relationship. Ballantyne acts as Scott’s printer, proof-reader, editor, critic, and cheerleader. He praises with gusto. To Triptolemus Yellowley’s difficulties with the Orkney poney, he re sponds, ‘This is real side-shaking! Very near, if not quite, Lauri Mail setter and the red mear’ (Proofs, I.259).3I Beside the song of Trolld the dwarf, he places a huge ‘X’ and writes, ‘Very admirable, I think’ (Proofs, 2.I42). When the narrator compares the sporting of the Gods with Man to the fisherman torturing the dog-fish, ‘when he pierces his eyes with thorns, and turns him once more into his native element, to traverse the waves in blindness and agony’, Ballantyne writes, ‘Very fine’ (Proofs, 2.I48). But Ballantyne’s objections far outnumber his commendations, a predictable consequence of his function. When the narrator prefaces another specimen of ‘magic song’ with the reservation, ‘We have per haps preserved too many examples of these incantations’, Ballantyne

COMPOSITION

405

exclaims, ‘No, no, no, no’ (Proofs, 2.287). When Brenda offers a know ing explanation of Norna’s mental state, Ballantyne objects. On the morning after Norna’s midnight tale of horror, Brenda tells Minna: I look on Norna as a woman of very extraordinary abilities, which are very often reconciled with a strong cast of insanity. I consider her as quite capable of using a good deal of cunning, to impress on others the belief in her supernatural power, which she has adopted in her own deranged imagination; and I consider her as better skilled in the signs of the weather than any woman in Zetland, (f. I0I; I89.20-23) Ballantyne writes of the second sentence (‘I consider her as quite . . . imagination’): I vote for taking out this, I. because it is a good deal too deep for Brenda: and 2. because the very same illustration of the same phenomenon has been repeatedly before given in these works. With especial force in the case of Meg Merrilies (Proofs, 2.I57). Scott took it out. He then voiced the explanation himself in the Intro duction to The Pirate, written in I83I for the Magnum Opus, where he also complained about those critics who failed to distinguish between the mental states of Norna and Meg.32 Ballantyne expressed doubts about the depiction of Cleveland. When the narrator claims, ‘The proud heart of Cleveland, which, even in its perversion, had in its feelings something of original nobleness’ (304.22-23), Ballantyne complains: This view of Cleveland appears to me to want harmony altogether with the picture drawn and implied at the first mention ofhim; and still more with the detestable act of his stabbing Mordaunt Mer toun.—By the bye, no adequate reason has yet been given for the coldness of the B. westra folks to M. Mertoun? Tittle-tattle seems inadequate.— At first, Scott responds, ‘Dont allow the first objection’, but then crosses that out and writes, ‘The first objection is all my eye The second is in my eye’ (Proofs, 3.II9). A little later, Ballantyne asks: Could not Cleveland have done this without coming ashore at all? Or, being ashore, could he not have done it without the permission of these Magistrates? Surely he did not want their burgherly leave to go where it liked him? Or, ifhe felt that he did, he would hardly have so quietly avowed it? This is caviare to me, and may to others, I think. [54 words excised] To conclude the compromise seems uncharacteristic on the part of Cleveland, and, considering his power, unnecessary. Scott appeals to both verisimilitude and historical truth: The thing seems plain—he could not sail without provisions and these he could not have without an agreement with the people ashore or without fighting for them which he was unwilling to do. The thing is exactly what happend. (Proofs, 3.I68-69)

406

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

But Ballantyne is a conscientious reader, and Scott accepts his sug gestions more often than not. Cleveland said originally, ‘The man that has spent years in company with incarnate devils, can scarce dread the presence of an incarnate fiend’ (356.25-26). When Ballantyne pointed out that ‘this is hardly a contrast; devils being fiends, and fiends devils’, Scott changed ‘an incarnate’ to ‘a disembodied’ (Proofs, 3.255). When the narrator distinguished between ‘two sorts ofmen whom situations of guilt, terror, and commotion bring forward as prominent agents’—the sort who are naturally moulded for deeds of horror and the class to which Cleveland belongs—Ballantyne rightly objected, ‘But this second class has not been described; at least in no other way than by saying that Cleveland belonged to it’. Scott added that this second class included beings ‘who are involved in evil rather by the concurrence of external circumstances than by natural inclination’ (Proofs, 3.268; 36I.I5-I6). Ballantyne exhibits an extreme literalism at times, requiring the expli cit statement of trivial details. When Minna says to Cleveland, ‘You have worn what you are wont to call your iron mask so long’, Ballantyne objects, ‘I do not see that he had called it his iron mask’. Scott explains, ‘But he may to Minna have calld it so’ (Proofs, 2.208). Likewise, when Norna says to Minna, ‘ “sit thou in that chair”, pointing to the place she had just left’, Ballantyne objects, ‘It is not before said she had left her chair’ (Proofs, 3.9). Surprisingly, Scott adds this phrase four para graphs before: ‘arising from her seat and coming forwards’ (26I.28-29). Likewise, when Captain Weatherport asks Bunce, ‘You call yourself Frederick Altamont?’, Ballantyne queries, ‘When had he called himself so, in Weatherport’s hearing?’ (Proofs, 3.332). Again respecting Ballantyne as a common reader, Scott adds nearly four pages earlier in the proofs, ‘Altamont as he chose to be calld’ (385.I2). But Ballantyne’s literalism can also work in the opposite direction, urging the deletion of material. When Norna warns the old sexton, ‘Be faithful, ... and beware you shew not to any living mortal, the secret path to the Sanctuary’ (354.I8-I9), Ballantyne asks, ‘Was this the first time she had used it, that this caution was necessary?’ (Proofs, 3.250). The warning, however, is meant for readers of adventure fiction rather than for the sexton, and so Scott ignores the query. Most commonly, Ballantyne simply calls Scott’s attention to incor rect, questionable, or missing material, a repetition of words within close proximity, or even a repetition of sounds. He may use X’s over the words at issue, or signal ‘Incorrect’, ‘Wrong’, ‘Illegible’, ‘Incomplete’, ‘Imperfect’, or ‘Sir’. The great majority of these nearly 200 markers deserve attention; in almost all cases Scott makes the necessary revi sions and additions. Ballantyne also serves as a literary remembrancer, warning Scott when he is repeating himself, or another author. For example, when Basil Mertoun is denominated the ‘Solitary’, Ballantyne complains,

COMPOSITION

407 ‘This appellation is so identified with the Black Dwarf, that I dislike it greatly here’ (Proofs, I.I8).33 Scott amends it to the ‘Stranger’ (II.29). When the Lord Chamberlain of Orkney and Zetland arrives at his mansion-house ‘with his coach and six and his running footmen, all as the good-boy books have it, very grand’, Ballantyne reminds Scott that ‘This occurs in the description of Sir Robert Hazlewood’s equipage ipsissimus verbi’ (Proofs, I.86).34 Scott revises the last phrase to ‘in the full splendour of the seventeenth century’ (37.33-34). When Marjory Bimbister questions whether Cleveland is a gentleman, Ballantyne writes, ‘I disapprove of this; because it is the very same warning, put into the mouth of a third party, which the author gave in his own person respecting Mick Lambourne. And the resemblance need not be un necessarily heightened. Cleveland soon speaks for himself’ (Proofs, I.I93).35 In this instance, Scott ignored the complaint. Ballantyne also warned Scott when he was following another author too closely. He points out, for example, that Mertoun’s solitary wandering along the stormy beach (Proofs, I.32) ‘is like Falkland’,36 but then adds, ‘no matter—no matter’. Scott makes no change. Ballantyne questions Scott about wording, consistency of plot and character, and historical accuracy. He writes, ‘I incline to think that “mother,” applied to an old woman, is not a Scottish epithet now, or was. Tom Purdie would never term an old randie, “mother”’ (72.25). Scott replies, ‘You must remember we are not in Scotland but Zetland’ (Proofs, I.I77). Taking better heed, Ballantyne complains that ‘dowie bit’ (236.I7) is ‘South-country rather’ (Proofs, 2.275). He objects to ‘fash’ (345.40): ‘Halcro never has talked Scotch before’ (Proofs 3.227). Scott is unresponsive in both instances. But when Ballantyne questions ‘conster?’ (338.I3), Scott replies, ‘yes piratice et vulgariter for construe' (Proofs, 3.207). The deeper joke lies in Scott’s allusion to Feste’s similar use of‘conster’ in Twelfth Night.37 The narrator described the practice of appropriating all property that the sea sent the Zetlanders as ‘more common than legal’ (74.8). Shortly afterwards, Swertha mutters, ‘it’s seldom sic rich Godsends come on our coast—no since the Jenny and James came ashore in King Charlie’s time’ (75.9-I0). Ballantyne asks, ‘How so, if this plundering was “more Com mon than legal?” ’. Scott answers, ‘Surely plundering may be common and rich wrecks scarce’ (Proofs, I.I83). When the narrator refers to ‘the cook himself’ (I08.24), Ballantyne queries, ‘her?'. Scott replies, ‘No Fe male cooks in Scotish families ofrank are but oflate introduction’ (Proofs, I.27I). When Cleveland refers to the ‘Fortune’s Favourite’ (377.I8), Ballantyne writes, ‘I incline to think, but have not the sheets by me, that this pirate-ship has once or twice been called the Revenge. But sheets are printed in wh she is called by both names’. Scott reminds him that ‘The revenge was wreckd’ (Proofs, 3.308). Ballantyne questions the original phrasing, ‘if the frigate were off the coast’, pointing out that ‘This seems

408

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

equivocal—off the coast often meaning on the coast’ (Proofs, 3.327). Scott amends the phrase to ‘if the frigate left the coast’ (384.28). Ballan tyne asks dozens of such questions, and Scott usually responds to them. With regard to obvious textual errors, Ballantyne asks rhetorical questions, which he immediately answers himself. For example, in the printed proof, Magnus says before the whale-hunting, ‘All shall share a hand, and never a one else’ (Proofs, 2.78). Ballantyne puts an ‘X’ after ‘share’, and then adds ‘that lend?’ (I58.I7). Likewise, Provost Torfe says, ‘The Church of Saint Magnus has stood many a day, and I think will outlive both you and me, much less yonder pack of unhanged dogs’ (346.I7-I9). Ballantyne crosses out ‘less’ and substitutes ‘more?’ (Proofs, 3.228). Scott accepts Ballantyne’s solutions, occasion ally refining them. For example, in the printed proof, the narrator ex plained that Minna ‘had built the fabric of her happiness on a rock’ (Proofs, 3.343). Ballantyne put an ‘X’ above ‘rock’ and substituted ‘the sand?’. Scott revised the clause: ‘she had built the fabric of her happi ness on a quicksand instead of a rock’ (390.30-3I). The two men had a symbiotic, synergetic relationship. In only two instances during these interchanges does Ballantyne attempt to improve writing that is already adequate. On the first page of a new batch of proofs (Proofs, 3.273), he alerts Scott ‘To examine p. 279’. On that page, the printed proof reproduced Scott’s manuscript version: ‘Clap a stopper on your jaw, Dick, will you,’. Ballantyne revises the sentence to ‘Stopper your jaw, Dick, will you?’ (365.28), and Scott accepts the more concise version. Scott originally wrote, ‘Up goes the Jolly Hodge, the old black flag, with the death’s head and hour glass’ (377.23-24). Ballantyne crossed out ‘Hodge’ and substituted ‘Roger’. But Scott rejected this change, writing ‘Stet’, and explaining, ‘Roger & Hodge being as John & Jock’ (Proofs, 3.309). Ballantyne displays a sexual innocence in the proofs. For example, he responds to Scott’s obvious reference to the Yellowleys’ ménage à trois, ‘Somehow, I dont follow this about Deilbelickit’ (Proofs, I.74). But innocence turns to prudishness. Scott wanted the following: What a dashing attitude the jade had with her, as she seized the pistol—d—n me, that touch would have brought the house down. What a Roxalana the bitch would have made, (for in his oratory, Bunce, like Sancho’s gossip, Thomas Cecil, was apt to use the most energetic word which came to hand, without accurately consider ing its propriety).38 (Proofs, 3.2I8; 342.29-34) Ballantyne placed an ‘X’ next to ‘bitch’ and objected, ‘Needless offence, I think; and the SOLE instance in about 40 volumes’. Scott capitulated, changing ‘jade’ to ‘wench’, and ‘bitch’ to ‘jade’, even though the change made nonsense of the parenthesis. The interchange between Ballantyne and Scott is not always a one way street. Occasionally, Scott initiates the dialogue, requesting help

COMPOSITION

409 from his subordinate. For example, Scott first planned to take the motto for Volume I, Chapter 3, from Byron. He wrote, ‘She walks in beauty, like the night, Etc.’ and asked Ballantyne, ‘Please complete the quota tion from Lord Byrons Hebrew Melodies I have not the book’ (Proofs, I.42). After deciding to change the motto, Scott switched the Byronic quotation to the middle of the chapter (23.20-25) and again asked Ballantyne, ‘Please to complete the stanza from Byrons Hebrew Mel odies’ (Proofs, I.49), which Ballantyne accordingly did. Finally, the interchanges between Ballantyne and Scott offer tantalis ing hints about the mechanics of proof development. It is clear, for example, that Ballantyne sent Scott two sets of proof sheets at once. At the head of one batch of proofs, Ballantyne writes, ‘Please read this. What is unluckily torn off will be found in the accompanying duplicate’ (Proofs, 2.I7). Sure enough, four sheets of this surviving batch are torn at the bottom. But are the two sets always ‘duplicates’? At the head of another batch, Ballantyne urges, ‘Please to read this. Sometimes, of late, the other has been read’ (Proofs, 3.II3). Is Ballantyne referring to two different stages of proofs? Again, the interchange makes evident that Ballantyne often checked proof against manuscript. In the margin of a new batch of proofs, he regrets that ‘The MS is unfortunately locked up by the copiator’ (Proofs, 2.209). The evidence even suggests that Scott himself may have sometimes checked proof against manuscript. The printed proof reads, ‘he had got one of the dourest and most untractable farms on the Mearns, to try withal’ (36.6-7). Ballantyne places a caret sign after ‘try’ and an ‘X’ above it, and writes ‘Illegible’ to the right. But he cannot supply the missing word because, as he explains at the bottom of the page, ‘Author has the copy’. If he is referring to the manuscript, it would not have helped, since it too lacked the word. Scott supplied it in proof: ‘conclusions’ (Proofs, I.8I). Other hands peep through in the proofs. The Greek quotation (I68.36) is supplied by an unknown authority. In the gathering I in Volume 3, the traditional beginning, ‘Please read this’, is not in Ballan tyne’s hand. And throughout that gathering, the new hand underlines words to which he wants to call attention, whereas Ballantyne put X’s above such words. Ballantyne played solo also. He was clearly authorised to make ele mentary corrections on his own. It is impossible to distinguish exactly how many of the nearly 5000 changes in the proof sheets are his alone, but at an absolute minimum they total 339:

Punctuation Words Typos Letters Names Number

II6 I08 5I 43 20 I

4I0

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

The changes in ‘letters’ are not meaningful: ‘fidler’ becomes ‘fiddler’, ‘threshhold’ becomes ‘threshold’, ‘appaling’ becomes ‘appalling’, ‘Kirkwalfers’ becomes ‘Kirkwallers’, ‘ribbald’ becomes ‘ribald’. The changes in ‘names’ are an attempt to regularise the names of characters. The most important changes are verbal, as can be seen in the following representative sample: tracks [to] tacks (29.4) aigne aigre (32.20) fam jam (33.29) terms times (I23.8) hare horse (I29.22) loss lore (I68.35) larking lashing (I68.4I) randevize rare device (200.40) sonnets sounds (220.26) in them a theme (220.4I) [blank] the (24I.I7) wish with(25I.I3) grain grin (27I.2) [blank] that of (320.42) But all of these changes, and many others, represent a return to the reading of the manuscript, which Ballantyne was undoubtedly consult ing. Ballantyne makes 23 verbal changes that either repudiate or ignore the manuscript reading: Addition ofnecessary word 9 Deletion ofunnecessary word I Avoidance of verbal repetition 4 Avoidance of sound repetition I Original changes 8 The eight original changes all seem to be improvements upon the manuscript and printed proof readings. For example, in the printed proof, Bunce said, ‘I hope a gentleman of the roving trade has as good a right to have an alias as a stroller, and I never stepped on board but what I was Altamont at the least’ (289.I2-I4). Ballantyne changes ‘on board’ [a seaman] to ‘on the boards’ [an actor] (Proofs, 3.79). Originally, in manuscript and proof, Minna stood by the prostrate table of stone, and saw Cleveland advance towards her, with a timid pace, and a downcast look, as different from his usual character and bearing, as Minna’s high look and lofty demeanour, and calm contemplative posture, resembled that of the love-lorn and broken hearted maiden, whose weight had almost borne down the support of her sister as she left the House of Stennis. (372.28-34) Ballantyne changes ‘resembled’ to ‘was distant from’ (Proofs, 3.297). These are the efforts of a conscientious editor.

COMPOSITION

4II

To the contemporary query, who is the author, the textual editor of The Pirate answers, Walter Scott. Scott is both creative artist and chief editor. In the proof sheets alone, he makes approximately 4200 addi tions and revisions, the overwhelming majority of which are verbal. He adds six mottoes and three notes. The search for the most precise, vivid, and appropriate words, which was so evident in the manuscript, con tinues in the proofs. The inherent possibilities of passages are more fully realized. For example, to Mordaunt’s enthusiastic description of rockclimbing, Scott now adds a fitting close: ‘This is indeed being almost independent of the earth you tread on’ (Proofs, I.II2; 47.26). Origin ally, ‘Triptolemus stared at this enthusiastic description’; now, it be comes a description ‘of an amusement which had so few charms for him’ (Proofs, I.II2; 47.27-28). Poetic analogies are added. For example, the approaching storm now becomes ‘like a madman in the gloomy state of dejection which precedes his fit of violence’ (Proofs, I.6I; 28.8-9). The ends of chapters are given a finer sense of artistic closure (5I.20-2I; 230.24-26). Scott further characterises his minor, humorous figures. Bryce Snaelsfoot’s religious hypocrisy is developed. Now, during his initial appearance, he declares himself‘just grateful for the blessing of Providence on my sma’ trade’ (Proofs, I.I39; 58.3-4), and, a bit later, ‘he mutterd a benediction’ (Proofs, I.I40; 58.2I). Triptolemus Yellowley becomes even more of a punching-bag. Scott, for example, makes multiple additions to the section in which Tripto lemus barely escapes victimisation upon the pirate ship (326-29). Jack Bunce, or Bounce, grows on Scott throughout the proofs and is featured more prominently, even being granted a continuing history in the reign of George I (Proofs, 3.345; 39I.34-38). Most of Scott’s additions in proof are localised and limited, but three contain more than 50 words. Two of these are given to Bunce (29I.37-4I; 39I.34-38), and one (the longest, 92 words) to Triptolemus (Proofs, I.266; I06.20-28). Scott, the editor, is using the proof sheets to advance the creative pro cess, refining his already sterling page. From Proofs To First Edition. Many changes are introduced into the text between the author’s completed proof sheets and the first edi tion. There is a continuing effort to regularise the punctuation and spelling and to correct typographical errors. There are 355 verbal changes, ofwhich the following are the largest categories: Elimination ofrepetition ofwords 68 Addition of needed word(s) 7I Elimination of unnecessary word(s) 33 Change from standard English to dialect 46 Change in number 25 Most of these changes are mechanical, requiring little more than editor ial diligence. Of the 46 changes to dialect, which are inconsistent and

4I2

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

scattered throughout the text, 25 involve a change from ‘you’ to ‘ye’. There are at least I7 notable improvements. For example, the com pleted proofs read: 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 assigned to her, which signifies one of those fatal sisters who wear the will ofhuman fate, had been conferred in honour of her supernatural powers. (Proofs, I.I2I) This was altered to ‘one of those fatal sisters who weave the web of human fate’ (5I.6-7), which was the manuscript reading. In another example the manuscript reads: ‘ “Hold your peace” said Bunce’, to which Scott adds in proof: ‘drowning the admirer of Dryden’s voice in louder and more vehement asseveration’ (Proofs, 3.208). The first edition reads: “Hold your peace”, said Bunce, drowning the voice ofthe admirer of Dryden in louder and more vehement asseveration... (338.32-33) In both manuscript and proof, Cleveland and Provost Torfe have the following exchange: “I am come to talk with you about getting supplies for my ship yonder in the road-stead—we cannot sail without them.” “Your sloop, sir?” (Proofs, 3.I62—63) In a rare instance of supplying a repetition of words in close proximity, instead of the frequent elimination of repetitions, the first edition reads: ‘ “Your ship, sir?” ’ (32I.7). In both manuscript and proof, Bunce begins his oration, ‘my most puissant, grave, and reverend Seignior Earl’; the first edition uses Othello’s ‘potent’ (290.I2-I3). Similarly, in both manuscript and proof, Sancho’s gossip is ‘Thomas Cecil’; the first edition corrects to ‘Cecial’ (342.32). Still, these examples, and many others, evince little more than meticulous editing. Is there any evidence that Scott himself took an active role in the preparation of the first edition, after he had completed his work on the author’s proofs? If anything, the evidence suggests that Scott took little or no further role in the preparation of the first edition. In the manuscript, he had written: ‘Go down below my girls . . . and send up the rare old rum and the punch-bowl’ (334.I2-I3). The printed proof has ‘the rare old man’ (Proofs, 3.I97), a weak misreading because the referent, Eric Scambester, is not sent up, and never even appears in the scene. Correcting proofs, Scott changes back to ‘rum’. The first edition has ‘man’. In several other instances, the original manuscript version, which was then validated in the proofs, is inexplicably different in the first edition. For example, the description of Magnus, ‘When he approached Tripto lemus Yellowley, he drew himself up, so as to take full advantage of his

COMPOSITION

4I3 size and form, and to mix, as it were, some share of the stately import ance of the opulent Udaller with the welcome afforded by the frank and hospitable landlord’ (I09.39-42), lacks the phrase ‘to take full advant age of his size and form, and’. Norna’s reference to Cleveland’s ‘kist’ becomes a ‘chest’ (74.I0). The narrator’s reflection on the relation of the sexes, Perhaps, if our fair readers will take the trouble to consult their own bosoms, they will be disposed to allow, that the distinguished good taste exhibited by any individual, who, when his attentions would be agreeable to a whole circle ofrivals, selects her as their indi vidual object, entitles him, on the footing ofreciprocity, ifon no other, to a large share ofher favourable, and even partial esteem, becomes confused, if not ambiguous, when the first ‘her’ is changed to ‘one’, and the second to ‘that one’s’ (I26.4,6). Finally, in both manu script and proof, Scott creates a loving picture ofMinna and Brenda: Yet such was their natural openness and gentleness of disposition, that each imputed to herselfthe fault that there was aught like estrangement existing between them, and when, having finished their devotions, and betaken themselves to their common couch, they folded each other in their arms, and exchanged a sisterly kiss, and a sisterly good night, they seemed mutually to ask pardon, and to exchange forgiveness, although neither said a word ofoffence, either offered or received; and both were soon plunged in that light and yet profound repose, which is only enjoyed when love sinks down on the eyes of youth and innocence. (Proofs, 2.I22; I75.28-37) The first edition retreats to the conventional: ‘sleep sinks down on the eyes of youth and innocence’.

The Printing. Archibald Constable and Co. intended to publish in the first half of December, writing on 24 November to R. Milliken, a bookseller in Dublin, ‘the Pirate will be Pubd here on or about the I4th Decemr—not sooner—but I do not think it will be later’39 and, on 28 November, informing R. Leslie, in London, that the first London copies ‘will be in about I4 days hence’.40 But a change in plans delayed publica tion and scrambled the textual history of The Pirate. As we noted in John Ballantyne’s letter of 2I August I820, setting forth the terms of con tract, the original intention had been to publish I2,000 copies. In a letter of 5 July I82I, however, Cadell enumerated several items that he was sending to Constable, including ‘Copy of agreement for Pirate now enclosed (marked N02)—the second & third the same, with a condition in the second for Mr A Cowan to supply the paper ... No agreement with H R Co [Hurst, Robinson] for these books’ and ‘Printing of Pirate I0,000. L [Longman] & Dickinson Invoice of Paper enclosed’.4I Now, in late November, the decision was again made to print I2,000 copies.

4I4

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

On 28 November Constable wrote to James Moyes, the London printer: What follows will call for your instant attention—and it is a simple matter to a printer. By this days mail Coach we have sent to you Vol I & 2 of the New Novel the Pirate under the following Circumstances—it is notyet published—but our orders are so much greater than the number we have already printed, that we are compelled to work a new impres sion before we can issue the first, in order to effect this and in time we have resolved that you instantly print 2000 Copies of these two Vols, we shall manage the third here—now good Sir the 2000 of these two Volumes must be done and ready by the 20 or 2I Decemr.—there is no help for you they must be done—and ifyou cannot do them yourself you will fall to get some one else to assist you for done they must be and bythat date... the supply of the London Market depends on this job of yours ... now worthy sir this book mustbeseen by no living man outof your office—I am pledged to the author on thispoint and on this point you will execute no orders butfrom this the author would not permit such a measure without this condition and now do pray put to press without one days delay and write in course that you have done so,... not a sheet to be seen, by King Priest or Prophet, make the work as near Ballantyne as you can.42 During the same week, Constable and Co. wrote four letters—two to Longman and Dickinson, and two to Cowan—requesting immediate supplies of paper for themselves and Moyes for the printing of The Pirate.43 In the event, Moyes printed the additional 2000 copies of Volume I himself and subcontracted Volume 2 to William Lewis.44 Meanwhile, James Ballantyne was printing the additional 2000 copies of Volume 3 in Edinburgh. But the type for gatherings A-N in Volume 3 had appar ently been already taken down and redistributed, so he reset gatherings A-N for these additional 2000 copies, thus introducing textual variants. Presumably gatherings O−Z had not yet been printed, and so it was easy to fulfil the increased order. On 30 November, Constable and Co. wrote again to Moyes: On the other side you have a list of sheets that have run short here in the first volume of the Pirate—we have to request of you to lay on these additional sheets in the progress of your Printing the said first volume—we have to crave your especial attention to this—& do keep in mind that not a book is to be delivered without an order from this—& the waste, which of course will comprise the above sheets will fall to be shipped to our address the moment your job is done—& do keep in mind that in this & every other book... ship to us the waste with the remainder after delivering to our order what may be wanted in London.45 Even this early it is easy to see that the textual history of The Pirate would

COMPOSITION

4I5

become confused with mixed and supplemental copies. On 4 December Constable and Co. wrote to Moyes again: We have your favor of the I st Inst, & are obliged by your prompt attention to our wishes—by all means Put Ballantynes name to the book as Printer no other will do—the same as to the other vol:—we sent to you on the Inst, a corrected title—there is further permis sion as to Ballantynes name—that was arranged with him last week —Messrs Hurst & Coys instructions were all right as to the volume —altho we cannot alter our plans here—& the 20 or 2I st might have done but it was all for the best—with regard to instructions we meant as to the delivery of the books & waste—& on this our orders must be imperative46 The reference above to ‘the 20 or 2Ist’ indicates that publication was to be further delayed, at least in London. On I0 December Constable and Co. wrote to Moyes: ‘We doubt not you have got through with the Pirate ere now—you will please deliver all the perfect books to Messrs Hurst & Co & send us the waste with a note of your account—& a note of the paper used’.47 These instructions were reiterated in a letter of I4 December, whose postscript stated: ‘Ballantynes I find have blundered about the titles of Vol I & II they have printed & sent up to London for the whole 3 Vols—yours therefore & Lewis’s will fall to go into the waste’.48 But Moyes, probably misinterpreting Constable’s original letter asking for ‘a new impression’ as a request for a new edition, published his own title pages and called the edition for which he was responsible the ‘second edition’.49 Consequently, in a letter of 29 December to James Ballantyne, Constable now speaks of‘the account of Pirate Ist & 2nd Editions’.50 Because of these manoeuvrings, publication had to be pushed back. On 24 November Constable and Co. told Milliken that The Pirate would be published ‘on or about the I4th Decemr’ but, on 29 November, they advised him ‘it will be delayed at least for a week or ten days’.5I On I7 December they wrote to Milliken, ‘we have the pleasure of handing you Invoice of the Pirate, which will not be published here for some days to come’.52 They wrote a similar note to John Cumming, also ofDublin, on the same day.53 On 6 December the Edinburgh Evening Courant announced that The Pirate would be published on the 24th, and the Morning Chronicle that it would be issued on the 24th in London, indicating that simultaneous publication was intended. Later, however, the Courant said The Pirate was published in Edinburgh on 22 December, although the copy at Glasgow University has the inscription ‘Mrs Welsh with Mr Bradfute’s best comp’s 22 Georges Squa Dec 2Ist. I82I’. Meanwhile, the Chron icle claimed The Pirate was issued in London on Christmas Day. But the latter claim seems improbable, and the letters of J. O. Robinson, of Hurst, Robinson in London, indicate the 24th. In a letter of 6 December

4I6

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

to Constable, who was then in London, Robinson reveals that Hurst, Robinson had ordered 8533 copies of The Pirate, and had orders for 6400 from retailers in the southern part of Britain (south of a line from York to Liverpool). Constable himself had 2000 copies for satisfying demand in north Britain and Ireland. Robinson complains: I am indeed very much hurt that they have driven the publication of the Pirate to the 24th I have written them every Day on this subject and the Bks might have been shipped before this but the Author and one ofhis Booksellers fancied they must print 2000 more before they dare publish and I am sure they had no need to delay on this acct as I0,000 was sufficient for the first demand and I need not tell you that Christmas Week is the worst in the Year for publication.54

On 8 December he wrote again to Constable: ‘I believe we have no chance to receive the Pirate before the 24th we subsd. the Book yester day but without a Copy of the Work and added 350 to our list so that the total amt of our Sales to this Day is about 6750’.55 On I4 December Robinson continued, ‘The Pirate was shipped on Wednesday [the I2th] and the wind has been favorable ever since. I therefore trust it will be up on Monday if so I shall not wait for the 24th but on Tuesday next I shall launch the Pirate’.56 In a final letter, dated only ‘Monday morning II o’clock’, Robinson tells Constable: the Pirate arrived Yesterday and this Morning at one 0 'clock all our People were at their respective Posts—and nearly I00 Men Women & Children were all in readiness to commence Boarding 2000 Copies ofVol 3rd Vol I & 2 being previously done up and at 9 o clock this morning all the Trade had their Books and every Country Order is already dispatched to the different Coach Offices and this house as clear ofthe Book as though it had never appeared.57

This may sound like Monday, I7 December. But later in the letter, Robinson refers to its being ‘so near the end of the half Year’, and says that ‘tomorrow I shall spend a happy Day with my Family’, wishing Constable ‘many happy returns of the Season’. So the more likely date of publication in London is Christmas Eve. The Pirate appeared in three volumes, post octavo, and cost £IIIs.6d. (£I.371/2), the same price as Kenilworth before it. The title-page is dated I822. But this is only the beginning of the textual difficulties of The Pirate.58 There are significant variants within the first Edinburgh edition. In the manuscript (f. 20) Scott wrote ‘added the Senior’ (36.I). It is some times difficult to distinguish between Scott’s capital and lower-case ‘S’, but here the word is clearly ‘Senior’. Nevertheless, in the printed proof sent to Scott, the word had become the absurd misreading ‘Seneca’ (Proofs, I.8I), where it remained uncorrected. In the same proofs,

COMPOSITION

4I7 Scott added the following sentence at the end of the first paragraph of Volume I, Chapter I2: ‘Nor were the sights connected with them less animating' (Proofs, I.269; I07.40-4I). The first American edition, published in 2 volumes in Philadelphia by M. Carey & Sons in I822, has ‘Seneca' and ‘rights’. First Edinburgh editions combine ‘Seneca' and ‘rites’, ‘Seneca' and ‘sights’, ‘senior' and ‘rites’, and ‘senior' and ‘sights'.59 So what happened? Scott’s original ‘sights’ added in proof must have been misread as ‘rights’ (it is some times difficult to distinguish between Scott’s initial ‘s’ and ‘r’), and this hypothesis is supported by the first American edition, to set up which Carey would have been sent post-author proofs that had not been sub ject to a final reading and correction; ‘rights’ must have been changed in the course of a final proof-reading in Edinburgh to the more plausible ‘rites’, and finally in the course of printing the first, Edinburgh, edition corrected to ‘sights’. Scott’s original ‘Senior’ was misread as ‘Seneca’; it was not picked up in the course of proof-reading, but was noticed at some point in the course of printing the first edition, and was corrected to ‘senior’. Other, lesser variations also appear in first-edition copies, but these two substantive examples are sufficient to establish printing procedures. Sheets were printed, dried, and then laid in bins. Many of the I0,000 (or I2,000 in the case of O−Z in Volume 3) sheets in a pile would have small differences caused by the movement of type in the course of printing. With The Pirate, major errors were discovered and changed or corrected as sheets came off the presses. These changes would not be made at the same point in the printing process (the sheets were being printed in sequence, not simultaneously). For instance, ‘rights’ was probably spotted just prior to printing; the more plausible ‘rites’ might have been spotted after the next 5000 copies of the sheet had been printed, and ‘Seneca’ after 6000. Copies were made up from the sheets in the bins as required, and so one could get, in theory, any combination of sheets; in practice, every combination has been discovered except ‘senior’ and ‘rights’. When the books were made up, cancels would be inserted, and so one could get still more variation in the text of the different sets constituting the first edition. As we shall see, the fun is just beginning because later editions were based on different sets. The Advertisement. There are three settings of the Advertisement.60 One of these has no press-figures, so it was probably set in London, since the London settings are without press-figures. The two Edin burgh settings can be readily distinguished as one has the press-figure 3 at the foot of page ii, and the other the press-figure 2 on page iv. There are a few differences in commas between the Edinburgh settings, and these show that the punctuation of the version with press-figure 2 on page iv was carefully revised.

4I8

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

Cancels. Leaves ID8, 2BI, and 2F7 are found as cancels (a process in which a leafin some way defective is physically cut out and replaced with a new leaf which is glued into position) in some copies. Todd and Bowden report that though ID8 is ‘normally integral (with figure II on page 64) in several copies there is a belated cancel without figure and in a duplicate setting, with or without a comma after “day”, line 8’ (29.II).6I In fact, this cancel is found in all London-set editions we have examined;62 it is found in a few Edinburgh-set editions but in the great majority of Edinburgh-set editions the leaf is integral, as Todd and Bowden report. There must have been some error that survived proofreading (or perhaps had been introduced in a proof correction), but which was spotted in Edinburgh early in the printing. Copies already printed were then put right by means of a cancel and the type must have been changed so that the majority of copies have the correct reading on an integral leaf. The error was probably in the copy sent to Moyes in London, but he must have been apprised of it very late, after the sheet was completely printed, and so all London copies had to have a cancel. Leaf 2BI is a cancel in all of the Edinburgh copies examined, but the leaf is integral in all London copies. Scott added ‘respecting his tumble; and’ in the proofs (I34.I5); the alteration starts on one sheet and con tinues on the next (EdI, 2.I6.24-I7.I), and it is probable therefore that the change had been made in sheet A, without it being continued in sheet B, and that the first leaf of B had to be cancelled in every instance. The American Carey edition omits the phrase and so he may have received a copy without the cancel, while Lewis must have had a volume with the cancel in place for the phrase appears in his version of the text. The cancel is in two states. In three copies seen (including the base-text for this edition) the sentence on lines 20-23 of the recto begins, ‘If their is ought imperfect’;63 the second state of the cancel reads correctly, ‘If there is aught imperfect’ (I34.30). Leaf 2F7 is a cancel in one of the copies owned by the eewn, admittedly one called ‘third edition’ on the title page, but which consists of first-edition sheets. The cancel correctly places a comma between ‘bare-headed’ and ‘bare-legged’ (I64.2I), introduces a hyphen in ‘Burgh-Westra’ (I64.I4) and a capital at Jagger (I64.I7). 3. LATER EDITIONS The Second Edition: Volumes I and 2. Misinterpreting Con stable’s original request for ‘a new impression’, Moyes prepared new preliminaries for all three volumes, labelling the title pages ‘SECOND EDITION’. Ironically, Moyes was correct. The London setting of the first two volumes is the second edition of these two volumes, while the third volume of these sets is consistently first edition, having the first Edinburgh setting of gatherings A-N, and the only setting of

LATER EDITIONS

4I9

gatherings O−Z. There exist sets of The Pirate which consist of various combinations of sheets from each of the various settings (a direct result of Moyes being asked to produce extra copies of certain sheets to make up for shortfalls in Edinburgh, and of having been required to send ‘the waste’ to Edinburgh). But despite this, the fundamental situation is clear: first editions come from Edinburgh (although some of the Edin burgh first editions have the second setting of gatherings A−N in Vol ume 3), and second editions from London (though all the London second editions that have been examined have a first-edition Volume 3).64 Moyes and Lewis approached their tasks quite differently. Most noticeably, while Moyes follows the text before him he does not follow its layout: in Volume I, for example, ‘effectually’ is the last word on page 22 of the London edition, but the sixteenth word on page 23 of the Edinburgh edition, while ‘As he’ introduces a paragraph on page 25I, line eight, of the Edinburgh edition, but it is on line three of the London edition. Volume 2, on the other hand, follows the line and page arrange ments of the Edinburgh edition very closely indeed. The text of the second edition differs from that of the late sheets of the first edition in the following number of ways: words 9, punctuation 226, spelling 53, capitalisation I4, typographical 6, and paragraphing 2. In most cases these new readings in the London edition are straightfor ward deviations, but in a few cases there are readings which are found in the author’s proofs and in some copies in Edinburgh settings. For instance, of the six verbal deviations in Volume I of the London edition, two are simple errors,65 two are corrections,66 and two are revelatory. As we have seen, in Chapter 4 in the manuscript old Jasper Yellowley is referred to as ‘the Senior’; in the printed proofs he becomes ‘the Seneca’; he is ‘the Seneca’ in the London edition, while in most sets in the Edinburgh edition he is ‘the senior’. In Chapter I2 in the manu script, the opening paragraph ends with ‘jollity and kind welcome’; in proof Scott added ‘Nor were the sights connected with them less animating’; this appears in the London edition as ‘Nor were the rites connected with them less animating’; most copies of the Edinburgh edition have the correct reading. As we have previously suggested, Scott’s ‘sights’ must have been misread as ‘rights’, changed to the more plausible ‘rites’, and finally in the course ofprinting corrected to ‘sights’. Thus it seems most likely that Moyes was basing Volume I on relatively early sheets of the first Edinburgh edition, which included the incorrect readings, ‘Seneca’ and ‘rites’. Similarly, in a few instances, the author’s proofs and Volume 2 share a reading that is not found in most copies of the Edinburgh edition: at 2.I05.5, they both read ‘ought’, whereas Edinburgh has ‘aught’; and at 2.I66.9, they read ‘practice’, whereas Edinburgh has ‘practise’. Lewis too was working from sheets drawn relatively early in the printing process.

420

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

As indicated earlier, the second edition was published most probably on 24 December I82I.

The Second Setting: Volume 3, gatherings A−N. In the relevant 208 pages, there are I08 differences between the first Edinburgh setting of gatherings − in Volume 3 and the second: words I7, punctuation 53, spelling 25, capitalisation 6, typographical 6, word order I. Not one change is corrective; seven are clearly erroneous. For example, Norna’s reference to ‘Stern compeller of the clouds’ (265.I-2) is mistakenly changed to ‘stern compiler of the clouds’. The epithet hearkens back to several earlier references in the text: for example, in the ‘Song of the Reim-kennar’, Norna herself refers to the ‘proud compeller of clouds’ (55.2). In addition, there is a humorous exchange between Cleveland and Triptolemus (Volume 2, Chapter 6) over Zeus, the Cloud-com peller. When Cleveland called Triptolemus ‘clod-compeller’, the agri culturist (unlike the editor of the second Edinburgh setting) recognised the allusion: ‘Clod-compeller pro cloud-compeller’ (I68.35). At this point, Scott even had a classicist supply the authentic Greek epithet in the author’s proofs. The second setting misses the motif. The Shake spearean motto to Volume 3, Chapter 4, correctly reads ‘persistency’ (286.I2-I3) in the first Edinburgh setting, but the second changes to ‘consistency’. In the first setting, the motto to Volume 3, Chapter 8, correctly reads, ‘I left my poor plough to go ploughing the deep’ (323.34), but the second changes to ‘I left the plough to go ploughing the deep’, an error in both wording and rhythm that Scott would not have committed. There was no authorial involvement in the second setting of these gatherings. The Third Edition. After all the troubles, costs, and complications of the extra 2000 copies, it was discovered that they were not needed. On 25 January I822 Constable wrote to Robinson, ‘if they have a thousand Pirate left at Edinr which I suspect they have the Book has been over printed as I thought it would be’.67 On 2 February he wrote to his son, David, ‘The Pirate has been over-printed, as I suspected it had,—3000 copies is rather too many copies to have on hand. This is information of course to yourself only’.68 Consequently, on 3I January, Robinson sug gested the following solution:

is it not well now to push the Pirate the Trade are waiting for our Spring Sale they dont like Bks at Subsn and I dont see how we could pretend to subscribe the Book unless as a new editn say the third—Do you think we should do wrong to print new Titles— Third editn and give the Work a good drive into the hands of the Trade—we have about 800 Copies and I suspect they have nearly 2000 at Edinburgh—we could subscribe a third edition but under

LATER EDITIONS

42I

no other pretence could we offer the Book to the Trade at Sale price as I2,000 copies have been printed I can see no harm in calling the last 3000 the third editn.69 On 2 February he writes to Constable, ‘have given Moyes directions to print the Titles and written to Edinb to that effect and on Tuesday we will advertise the 3rd edition of the Pirate and on Wednesday subscribe it to the Trade’.70 This reissue was published on 27 February I822 in Edinburgh, according to the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, and on 4 March in London, according to the Morning Chronicle. These volumes consist of Edin burgh settings for all sheets, but they are mixed and inconsistent, sheets from both settings of gatherings A−N of Volume 3 appearing in the same set.7I Novels and Romances of the Author of Waverley. The Pirate was included in three different editions—octavo, duodecimo, and eighteenmo—of Novels and Romances ofthe Author of Waverley (The Pirate, The Fortunes ofNigel, Peveril ofthe Peak, and Quentin Durward). The collected edition is first mentioned in a letter from Constable and Co. to Scott on I6 April I823 in which Constable makes an offer to purchase the copyrights of the four novels: We hereby make offer of Five thousand-Two hundred and fifty Pounds, for the entire copyright of the Pirate, The Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak and Quentin Durward, granting five acceptances on notes for the same as in a former purchase at I2,I8, 24,30, & 36 months date Our Mr Constable intends the pleasure of waiting on you at Abbotsford on Friday (the I8th) when anything you may desire regarding the present offer can be talked over, or arranged as may be agreeable to you----- at present he may mention that we have a channel in view through which cash could be immediately obtained for the amount of our acceptances... We would with your approbation entitle this new series of the works either—‘Historical Novels’—or Romances & Tales’.72

On I9 April Scott readily accepted the offer and held himself‘bound to sign a formal conveyance of the said Copyrights whenever you shall require me to do so’.73 On I9 May I823 James Ballantyne was told by Constable to ‘go on with the Novels & Romances both sizes [octavo and duodecimo] with all speed’.74 By I0 September agreements were being signed.75 The next day Constable wrote to Cadell that, in the agreements, he had taken the latter’s ‘Council and included the miniature size of this series [the eighteenmo] which makes these editions a steady dropping goose’.76 The earlier uncertainty over the title of this collected edition was

422

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

resolved by 27 October when Constable wrote to Cadell: ‘the title of which I expect is to be Novels & Romances—as Robinsons letter terms it’.77 Although the other three novels in the set are historical, The Pirate is much more of a romance, so Novels and Romances was sensibly chosen over ‘Historical Novels’ as the title of the entire collection. The editions appeared as follows: 8 vo (7 volumes) 4 December 1823 (Edinburgh); 3 January 1824 (London) 12mo (9 volumes) 3 January 1824 (Edinburgh); 22 January 1824 (London) 18mo (7 volumes) 2 May 1825 (Edinburgh); 8 January 1825 London) The Pirate appeared in Volumes 1 and 2 of all three versions, although it shared Volume 2 of the octavo and eighteenmo with the first part of The Fortunes ofNigel. The octavo, duodecimo, and eighteenmo share 175 substantive vari­ ants from the base-text. Almost all these variants involve single words, and none involves more than a short phrase. Of the 175, 30 are intro­ duced in order to avoid a repetition of words in close proximity; for example, ‘the gay and ungovernable gaiety of youth’ becomes ‘the gay and ungovernable spirits of youth’ (24.33-34), a change that Scott would have endorsed. On the other hand, the small Shetland ‘poney’ (106.31) becomes a ‘steed’, a change that introduces the wrong conno­ tations. In addition, another 40 of these variants involve a change from standard English to dialect, with the majority of these involving a change from ‘master’ to ‘maister’. Of the remaining 105 substantive variants, 21 are needed corrections. ‘Bertha’ is changed to ‘Brenda’ twice (84.25; 85.19). ‘Norna of Fitfulhead has been cruizing up and down, upon sea and land, and air, for what I know, in boats and ponies’ is corrected to ‘on ponies’ (352.5). Because Scott’s catch phrase in a verso insert did not coincide with the reading in the main text of the manuscript, the intermediaries produced a sentence that makes no sense: ‘I will pass Stourburgh on the journey ... if this boding weather bring on tempest; but if it only break in rain, as is most probable, I am not likely to be melted in the wetting’ (27.8-11); all three editions of Novels and Romances attempt to effect an improve­ ment by beginning the paragraph, Ί must not’. But the substantive variants introduce nearly as many errors as cor­ rections. The base-text reads, ‘the small beer of the college, commonly there termed “through go nimble” ’, a misreading of the manuscript, ‘the small beer of the college commons, then termed “through go nimble”’ (33.17-18). Novels and Romances compounds the error by changing ‘through go nimble’ (that is, ‘pass through quickly’, an apt description of the college commons) to the meaningless ‘thorough-gonimble’. Ultimately, however, the majority of these 175 substantive

423

LATER EDITIONS

variants appear to be neither corrective nor erroneous, but semantically neutral. Two things can be concluded from this evidence. First, not a single one of these 175 revisions provides any evidence that Scott himself contributed to the changes in the text of Novels and Romances. At their best, the variants demonstrate sharp-eyed and conscientious editing, but they are neither creative nor imaginative. Second, it is impossible that these identical variants could have been conceived independently of each other, and one must assume that all derive from a single, markedup set of a previous edition of the novel. Collation reveals that the octavo and the duodecimo were set dir­ ectly from the putative marked-up set of the novel, but that the eighteenmo was set from the octavo. For instance, the octavo and eighteenmo share 45 substantives exclusively, and several of these improve the text. The first edition and the duodecimo quote incor­ rectly from Burns’s ‘Tam 0’ Shanter’, but the octavo and eighteenmo correct to ‘mosses and waters’ (60.13-14). Even more revealing, however, are the problematic readings and the errors that the octavo and eighteenmo mutually introduce. When in the first edition Minna says, ‘you know, my dearest Brenda, and Cleveland shall also know, that the love I bore to that unhappy man’ (371.34-35), the referent of that unhappy man’ is Cleveland. In the octavo and the eighteenmo, however, ‘Cleveland’ is replaced by ‘Mordaunt’. Likewise, in the first edition Halcro sings: Fatal chuser of the slaughter, O’er you hovers Odin’s daughter; Hear the choice she spreads before ye,— Victory, and wealth, and glory; Or old Valhalla’s roaring hail, Her ever-circling mead and ale. (138.24-29) Only the octavo and eighteenmo mistakenly alter ‘choice’ to ‘voice’. In addition, study of the changes in punctuation from the base-text rein­ forces the evidence of a specially close relationship between the octavo and eighteenmo. For example, they both change the paragraphing of the base-text six times in exactly the same way; the duodecimo does not share in any of these changes. Collation further reveals that the marked-up set from which the octavo and the duodecimo derive was a first, Edinburgh edition of the novel. Consider the following representative sample drawn from Vol­ umes 1 and 2 of the Edinburgh and London editions:

Edinburgh Edition

London Edition

Novels and Romances

Saint men sall merchandize

St man shall merchandise

Saint men sall merchandize

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

424

it’s frae aneugh pay the half sights past Amphitryon too equals-aquals beach cruize himsell eye Liliput rhyme flowerets

it is from eneugh pay half rites passed Amphytrion to equals—equals beech cruse himself eyes Lilliput rhime flowrets

it’s frae aneugh pay the half sights past Amphitryon too equals-aquals beach cruize himsell eye Liliput rhyme flowerets

These examples (and many others) indicate that Novels and Romances is based on the Edinburgh edition, not the London edition. But consider next all of the examples that point in the opposite direc­ tion:

Edinburgh Edition

London Edition

Novels and Romances

enquire eliptical Spencer Bertha threshhold rhimes aught mis-shaped hagard practise Voluspa fishermens’ honor

inquire elliptical Spenser Brenda threshold rhymes ought mishapen haggard practice voluspa fishermen’s honour

inquire elliptical Spenser Brenda threshold rhymes ought mishapen haggard practice voluspa fishermen’s honour

This complete listing is not only relatively short, but all the changes can be explained away as necessary corrections or editorial preferences. Finally, all three versions of Novels and Romances have ‘Seneca’ and ‘sights’. As we have seen, some copies of the Edinburgh edition had ‘Seneca’ and ‘sights’, but Moyes’s London edition had ‘Seneca’ and ‘rites’. In short, the collation evidence establishes that Novels and Romances was based on the Edinburgh edition. But what about Volume 3? Is the text of Novels and Romances based upon the first Edinburgh setting or the second Edinburgh setting? Of the 108 differences between the first and second settings, the octavo reproduces 69 from the first, 36 from the second, and creates three new readings of its own but whenever there is a decisive difference in word-

LATER EDITIONS

425

ing between the first and second settings, the octavo ends up with the reading from the first:

First Setting

Second Setting

compeller compiler consistency persistency a the citizen citizens my poor the reach touch ‘Compelled, ‘persistency’, and ‘my poor’ are the correct readings, and they are all reproduced in the octavo. Even when there is a trivial or meaningless difference between the first and second settings, the octavo reproduces the reading of the first:

First Setting

Second Setting

hornfull hornful Barlowe Barlow Islands islands those these these those magistrate Magistrate Nothing is at stake in these examples. The octavo is mechanically fol­ lowing the first setting, and every one of the 36 individual readings from the second setting that is reproduced in the octavo can be explained away as an example of general editorial policy or alert editing. For instance, the octavo shares (4 times) with the second setting the spelling ‘rhyme’, in contrast to the spelling of the first setting, ‘rhime’. It also shares with the second setting such spellings as ‘desert’ instead of ‘desart’, ‘controller’ instead of ‘controuler’, and ‘shown’ instead of ‘shewn’. These examples provide no convincing evidence that the octavo was derived from the second setting because many of the same spellings can be found elsewhere in the octavo, and the choice of one rather than another seems to be a matter of printing-house style. Like­ wise, the octavo shares with the second setting several corrections (or modernised spellings) of the first setting, but they result from alert editing rather than direct influence. The evidence indicates that Novels and Romances is based on the first setting of Volume 3 of the Edinburgh edition. Thus the stemma, or family tree, can finally be diagrammed. It ex­ hibits the lines of textual descent, but it does not analyse the make-up of volumes and sets of The Pirate. Thus, the first Edinburgh edition, with the first setting of gather­ ings A-N in Volume 3, which is the base-text for this edition, formed the root of the developing tree.

426

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

Notes, While the above stemma describes the lines of textual descent, sets and the volumes in sets may be variously made up. 1] Most first-edition sets have the first setting of Vol. 3, A–N, but some have the second. 2] All ‘second edition’ sets have a first-edition Vol. 3 with the first setting of A-N. 3] Some first-edition title-pages are followed by secondedition sheets although only one (from the Bodleian Library’s Dunston collection) has been seen by the current editors: see Todd and Bowden, 551-52 (No. 156Ab), and

McMullin, 5.4] Sets of the ‘third’ edition consist of sheets from the first edition with some sheets from the second setting of Vol. 3 A-N in some cases. 5] Some sets of Novels and

Romances consist of randomly mixed sheets from the first and second editions.

The Octavo Novels and Romances. As noted above the octavo has 175 substantive variants which it shares with other versions of Novels and Romances but it has only three substantive readings unique to itself. One is an obvious error: ‘put an end at once to Halcro’s poetry’ becomes ‘put at end at once to Halcro’s poetry’. The other two are errors in judge­ ment. In one, Magnus, who as a magistrate and chief proprietor normally speaks in standard English, is made to say ‘ye’ instead of you’. In the other, Bunce’s statement, ‘I knew him at first glance to be a tailor, who has, therefore, no more pretensions to be honest than not to be mangy’, is misinterpreted (or misprinted) by the elimination of‘not’. The octavo has nearly 1150 variants in punctuation from the first edition. Most prominent are the 402 added commas, the 193 cases where commas are cut, the 184 changes from a lower case to a capital letter (against only 3 changes in the opposite direction), 56 added hyphens, 55 changes of a comma to a semicolon, and the 59 exclamation marks in place of other marks of punctuation. There is a consistent attempt to indicate interrupted speech by ___ ” instead of the ” of the first edition. The general effect of the added commas, capitals, hyphens, semicolons, and exclamation marks is to make punctuation more conspicuous. In some dramatic scenes, aural immediacy is sacri­ ficed to a nominal grammatical correctness. The octavo has nearly 300 changes in spelling from the first edition.

LATER EDITIONS

427

Among the most frequent are the changes from ‘sate’ to ‘sat’, from ‘expence’ to ‘expense’, and from ‘connection’ to ‘connexion’. Another 42 variants involve the change of seven separate combinations (‘any body’, ‘any thing’, ‘every thing’, ‘free woman’, ‘may be’, ‘was na’, and ‘where abouts’) into single words. The result is an increased standard­ isation of spelling. In this text, 48 emendations are derived from readings in the octavo.

The Duodecimo Novels and Romances. In addition to the 175 changes it shares with other versions of Novels and Romances the duo­ decimo has 98 words unique to itself. Of these, nine are introduced in order to avoid a repetition of words in close proximity, and 24 change standard English into dialect. Of the remaining 65 words, several dis­ play genuine critical engagement with the text. For example, all other texts have the following exchange between Triptolemus and his sister: “This is a land of quiet and honesty. O fortunati nimium!” “And what good is Saint Rinian to do ye, Tolemus?” said his sister, mistaking the quotation for a Catholic invocation. (41.42-42.1) Only the duodecimo replaces Saint Rinian with Saint Ninian, which immediately strikes one as preferable. ‘Ninian’ echoes ‘nimium', and prepares for the later prominence of the Church of Saint Ninian. Only the duodecimo changes ‘Swertha, the banished matron who had been expelled from the Castle’ (15.3-4) t0 ‘Swertha, the unlucky matron ...’. Likewise, only the duodecimo changes ‘rock, over which the vivid ocean foams and boils’ to ‘rock, over which the vexed ocean foams and boils’ (18.33-34), and indeed ‘vexed’ had been the manuscript word, which was misread. But the duodecimo also introduces howlers of its own. Other texts read: I knew, where the sacrifices were made of yore to Thor and to Odin, on what stones the blood of the victims flowed—where stood the dark-browed priest—where the crested chiefs, who consulted the will of the idol—where the more distant crowd of inferior worshippers, who looked on in awe or terror. (180.6–11) The mood is destroyed when the crested chiefs consult the will of the ‘idle’. Likewise, the duodecimo undermines poor Norna again when she conducts her solemn experiment: Norna once more threw the lead into the crucible, where, hissing and spattering as the wet metal touched the sides of the red-hot vessel, it was soon again reduced into a state of fusion. (265.3-5) The duodecimo adds a ‘con’ prefix to the final word, perhaps revealing its own state. The punctuation process begun in the octavo is intensified in the duodecimo, which has nearly 1900 variants from the first edition.

428

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

The Eighteenmo Novels and Romances. As well as the 175 variants previously discussed the eighteenmo has 72 words unique to itself. Of these, one is introduced in order to avoid a repetition of words in close proximity, and six change standard English into dialect. Of the remain­ ing 65 words, several make needed corrections. ‘Mertoun’ is corrected to ‘Mordaunt’, ‘godly’ becomes ‘goodly’, a return to the manuscript reading that was probably achieved through sharp-eyed editing alone, and ‘it is time we were under weigh’ (a familiar error in Scott, probably caused by analogy with ‘weigh anchor’) is corrected to ‘it is time we were under way’. There are none of the imaginative variants of the duo­ decimo but, instead, examples of intelligent and conscientious editing. As usual, however, new howlers are introduced. There is the famous medieval poem, Pier’s Ploughman ’s Vision, and now ‘death and sin came into the world’ not by ‘woman’, poor Eve alone, but by ‘women’ collect­ ively. The punctuation process is increasingly intensified: the eight­ eenmo has over 2200 variants from the first edition. The Interleaved Set. The Interleaved Set of the Waverley Novels contains Scott’s textual revisions, introductions, and notes for the Mag­ num Opus. Scott used a specially prepared copy of the octavo edition of Novels and Romances to work on The Pirate in 1830.78 As we have seen, the octavo had the incorrect ‘Seneca’ and the correct ‘sights’; Scott did not correct ‘Seneca’ in the Interleaved Set. As early as 24 March, he wrote that the novel was ‘nearly quite notified’.79 But by August, The Pirate was found to be too short for the space allotted to it in the Magnum. Scott even contemplated the writing of an additional chapter but finally decided to fill the gap with extensive annotations.80 Textually, the Interleaved Set is of special interest because the addi­ tions and corrections are entirely authorial. Scott introduced exactly 200 variants—78 additions, 14 cuts, and 108 alterations. These variants are mostly substantive. Only five involve punctuation, and only two are of the ‘he said’ variety. In contrast, of the 232 variants in the Interleaved Set of Saint Ronan’s Well, 53 involve punctuation, and 36 are of the ‘he said’ variety. Apparently, Scott handled the interleaved version of dif­ ferent novels quite differently. The distribution of variants is uneven throughout the novel. There are both clusters of changes and long stretches of emptiness. In general, the ‘business’ or ‘transition’ chapters have few or no variants; Chapters 9 and 10 of Volume 1, for example, are nearly blank. On the other hand, the romantic meeting between Cleveland and Minna on the sea-beach has far more variants than any other scene—10 additions, 2 cuts, and 8 alterations (XIX.429-50; 207.30-218.30).81 And in general, Scott pays more attention to his major dramatic episodes. As one might expect, Scott’s variants improve the text. In the octavo in the scene between Cleveland and Minna, for instance, she praises him

LATER EDITIONS

429

in the following words for having saved Mordaunt: ‘It is not every one, indeed, who could have done so... but it is every one who has courage and generosity’ (XIX.429; 208.21-22). Scott sharpens the wording: ‘It is not every one, indeed, who could have saved him . . . but every one who has courage and generosity would have attempted it’. In the octavo Cleveland retorts, 'I cannot be friend to this young man;—there is a natural dislike—an instinctive aversion—a something like a principle of repugnance in our mutual nature’ (XIX.431; 209.16–19). Scott drops the ‘a’ before ‘something’ and changes ‘repugnance’ to ‘repulsion’. Try­ ing to moderate Minna’s political idealism, Cleveland says, ‘Denmark has been cut down into a second-rate kingdom... ↑ Norway is a starv­ ing wilderness ↓, and, in these islands, the love of independence has been suppressed by a long term of subjection’ (XIX.435; 211.6–9). The clause on Norway was added in the Interleaved Set. In all earlier texts, Minna emphasised her allegiance to the old gods: ‘not before Thor or Odin, when they approached in the fulness of their terrors, did the heroes of my dauntless race yield one foot in retreat’ (214.18–20). But now Scott has her add, ‘Nor do I own them as Deities—a better faith prevents so foul an error. But in our conception they are powerful spirits for good or evil And when you boast not to fear them . . .’ (XIX.442). This addition not only clarifies Minna’s belief system but also prepares for the Christian conclusion ofthe novel. Scott seems fond of adding comic material, especially at the end of a scene that is driving toward a comic climax and needs a ‘topper’. Thus, when Mertoun had worked up his passions into an ungovernable rage against Sweyn, the fisherman, he finally ‘threw the money at the fisherman’s head, while with the other he pelted him out of the apart­ ment with his own fish, ↑ which he finally flung out of doors after him ↓’ (XIX.28; 14.8–10). When the old whigamore carline prophes­ ied a glorious career for the yet unborn Triptolemus Yellowley, she ended, ‘it’s nae pleugh of the flesh that the bonnie lad-bairn—for a lad it sail be—sail e’er striddle between the stilts 0’—it’s the pleugh of the spirit—and I trust mysell to see him wag the head 0’ him in a pu’pit; or, at the warst, on a hill-side’. Reconsidering in the Interleaved Set, Scott changes ‘at the warst’ to ‘whats better’ (XIX.64; 31.16–19). When the said Triptolemus escapes from the pirates, Scott keeps building the comedy, mixing his similes, and interchanging familiar material with quotations from Virgil and Milton:

the agriculturist trundled offlike a foot-ball that has just received a strong impulse from the foot of one of the players, and, with celerity which surprised himselfas well as all beholders, fled through the town of Kirkwall. Nay, such was the impetus of his retreat, that, as if the grasp of the pirate was still open to pounce upon him, he never stopped till he had traversed the whole town, and attained the open country on the other side. They who had seen him that day—

430

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

his hat and wig lost in the sudden effort he had made to bolt forward, his cravat awry, and his waistcoat unbuttoned,—and who had an opportunity of comparing his round spherical form and short legs with the portentous speed at which he scoured through the street, might well say, that if Fury ministers arms, Fear confers wings, ↑ His very mode of running seemd to be that peculiar to his fleecy care for like a ram in the midst of his race he ever and anon encouraged himselfby a great bouncing attempt at a leap though there were no obstacles in his way ↓ (XX. 159–60; 329. 1–13) But Scott can add horror as well as humour. The mystic lamp by the light of which Norna tells her midnight tale of terror to Minna and Brenda is ‘framed out of the gibbet-irons of the cruel Lord of Wodensvoe, who murdered his brother; and has for its nourishment— ↑ but be that nameless—enough that its food ↓ never came either from the fish or from the fruit!’ (XIX.368; 179.10–12). The horror of the nameless: it must be his blood! Finally, Scott takes special care to rework his poetry throughout the Interleaved Set. For example, he adds a verse to the ‘Song of the Reim-kennar’, and revises the opening of the sailors’ song from ‘Thus said the Rover/ To his gallant crew’ to ‘Robin the Rover/ Said to his crew’ (XX. 109; 305.11–12). But the two longest additions, 121 words and 96 words, are of dubi­ ous literary value. The first, a paragraph on good old Zetland toasts (XIX.262; 127.42), comes directly out of Hibbert’s Description of the Shetland Islands, which is referred to in an additional footnote. The second, two paragraphs on the bicker of Saint Magnus and Luggie the warlock (XX.51–52; 277.8), requires two new notes. One cannot help suspecting that the text is not only being padded but is also providing pegs for additional notes. As Jane Millgate has shown, Scott and Cadell were worried that The Pirate would not be long enough to fill the Mag­ num format.82 After contemplating an additional chapter of text, Scott finally decided to rely on the extensive notes. He added 53, ranging from one-word definitions to pages-long descriptions, but many of them are mere filler.

The Magnum. The Pirate appeared as Volumes 24 and 25 of the Mag­ num Opus in May and June 1831, priced at 5s. (25p) each. Of the 200 variants that Scott himself introduced into the text of the Interleaved Set, 194 appear in the Magnum. Three remain in their octavo form, two changes are changed yet again in the Magnum, and one change is made partially. In addition, the Magnum contains another 1800 variants from the octavo. Who made these changes cannot be determined with certainty. Although no proof sheets of the Magnum version of The Pirate survive, Cadell’s diaries reveal that he was making revisions (i.e. copying out Scott’s changes and making further changes of his own) to the text, as well as to the notes and introduction, from 8

LATER EDITIONS

43I

June to 30 August 1830.83 No doubt the compositors and proof-readers were responsible for a further process of standardisation. James Ballantyne almost certainly was.84 Some two-thirds of these post-author changes involve punctuation, and of these 1200 approximately half in­ volve commas, equally divided between additions and cuts. There is a surprisingly large number of hyphen cuts, usually from a hyphenated word to a single word (‘cartload’, ‘roadstead’, ‘changehouse’). There is a consistent attempt to punctuate the end of interrupted dialogue in the form "____. Of the nearly 600 variants in words from the octavo, more than half involve spelling. There is a consistent attempt to change in-words (in­ quiry, inclosed, insure) to en-words. The other most frequent changes are shew to show; burthen / burden; chaunt / chant; faulter / falter; poney / pony; kenn’d / kend; amongst / among; recognize / recognise; Scotch / Scottish; folks / folk; mask / masque; syren / siren. In sum­ mary, there is not only an attempt to regularise but also, to a lesser extent, to modernise. The remaining verbal changes exhibit few consistent patterns. Ad­ jectives like ‘scarce’ are changed into their adverbial form, words like ‘whatsoever’ lose their ‘so’, and there is the continuing effort to avoid the repetition of words in close proximity. But most of the verbal changes involve isolated cases of single words, and many are errors. The Mag­ num retains the incorrect ‘Seneca’ of the Interleaved Set, which can be traced back through the octavo to a copy of the first Edinburgh edition and, ultimately, to the printed proofs. The text of the Magnum exhibits no evidence of Scott’s participation, after the changes he made in the Interleaved Set. The Introduction to The Pirate, the manuscript of which is in the Interleaved Set, was corrected for the Magnum and includes an addi­ tional paragraph, almost certainly written by Scott, at the end. Of the 53 new notes in the Interleaved Set, 52 appear in the Magnum which adds two new notes of its own. Perhaps a brief example will best illustrate the development of the text from the first edition to the Magnum. In Chapter 7 of Volume 1 the first edition reads as follows:

The face of that lofty cape is composed of the soft and crumbling stone called sand-flag, which gradually yields to the action of the atmosphere, and becomes split into large masses, that hang loose upon the verge of the precipice, and, detached from it by the fury of the tempests, often descend with great fury to the vexed abyss which lashes the foot of the rock. Numbers of these huge fragments lie strewed beneath the rocks from which they have descended, and amongst these the tide foams and rages with a fury peculiar to these latitudes. At the period when Mertoun and his son looked from the verge

432

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

of the precipice, the wide sea still heaved and swelled with the agitation of the yesterday’s storm, which had been far too violent to subside speedily. (66.3–15)

The octavo made two changes: the ‘to’ of ‘to the vexed abyss’ became ‘into’, and the ‘the’ of‘the yesterday’s storm’ was cut. The Interleaved Set introduced two additions. The opening sentence now begins: 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 ofthe atmosphere The last sentence now reads:

At the period when Mertoun and his son looked from the verge of the precipice, the wide sea still heaved and swelled with the agita­ tion of yesterday’s storm, which had been far too violent ↑ for its effects on the ocean ↓ to subside speedily. The Magnum then made three additional changes. Because Scott had added ‘becomes decomposed and’, the following ‘becomes’ is changed to ‘is’. The first ‘fury’ is changed to ‘violence’ because there is a sub­ sequent ‘fury’. And ‘descended’ is changed to ‘fallen’ because ‘descend’ appears in the preceding sentence. Such a sequence of textual readings is characteristic: the substantive changes are those of the Interleaved Set, and originate with Scott himself. It is fitting that this study ofthe textual history of The Pirate, ‘the most scrambled production among all of Scott’s novels’,85 should end with a puzzle. Todd and Bowden have pointed out three variants in Volume 25 of the Magnum, and have concluded that ‘the 1831 issue exists in a duplicate setting throughout’.86 Reprints of early volumes and the sec­ ond complete issue of the Magnum (begun in 1831) derive from the same setting of type as the first issue. Some plates may have been damaged and mended in the course of printing so that variant states exist of individual sheets, but it is hard to imagine how the plates for an entire volume could be lost or mislaid or damaged beyond repair. Extra sets of plates were made later in the development of the Magnum, but no evidence has been discovered for two sets being made at the outset. On the contrary, the writings of Cadell, which are quite detailed about business matters, indicate that the production of The Pirate was un­ exceptional. On 1 April 1831 he records that the stereotyping costs per volume of The Pirate were £45 2s. 10d.,87 in line with the costs of companion volumes. Likewise, the portion of Cadell’s diaries88 that describes the preparation of The Pirate for the Magnum contains only the usual kind of information. The explanation may lie in the fact that the 1831 title page continued to be used to front the reprints which undoubtedly continued through the 30s and 40s, but it is difficult, without engaging in a complete investigation of the posthumous issues and editions of Scott’s novels, to know what happened, and why.

433

THE PRESENT TEXT

Though of considerable bibliographical interest, this mystery does not affect the present text, which is attempting to present ‘an ideal first edition’. Ironically, however, the contretemps over ‘brave’ and ‘bold’, two variant settings at 18.24 in Volume 25 of the Magnum, justifies the methodology of the eewn. Scott originally wrote in manuscript, ‘his brown visage becoming suddenly ruddy’ (203.25), intending to contrast ‘brown’ and ‘ruddy’. But ‘brown’ was misread as ‘brave’ and appeared so in all editions, until ‘bold’ suddenly appeared in the Magnum. The correct reading is recovered only by a return to the manuscript. 4. THE PRESENT TEXT

The text of this edition of The Pirate has been established by following the general editorial principles of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels. The inadequate punctuation of the manuscript rules it out as a base-text. Scott expected his holograph mannerisms to be translated into a coherent system of punctuation appropriate to the printed texts of the period. In addition, Scott used his proof-correcting opportunities to continue the creative process, and so the manuscript is not even the final pre-publication form of the text. The manuscript remains a potential work of art; the first edition is an actual work of art. Of the nearly 50,000 changes between manuscript and first edition, the overwhelming majority involve the supplying of punctuation. Approximately 2800 verbal changes are made. But the complexity of the publishing process—the secrecy, the difficulty of Scott’s handwriting, the use of a transcriber and other intermediaries—resulted in the intro­ duction of many errors into the first edition, which the present text attempts to correct. Consequently, this edition makes approximately 1400 emendations to the base-text. (This figure does not include the changes introduced in order to correct and standardise the spelling of proper names. Compound changes in punctuation are counted as only one emendation.) With the usual caveat about problems of overlapping and definition, the following list may give some idea of the kinds of emendation to be found in this edition:

Change of a single word Change of a short phrase Change of a long phrase or clause Addition of word(s) Elimination of word(s) Punctuation, including capitalisation Spelling Change from standard English to dialect Change from dialect to standard English Transposition of words Paragraphing

487 33 18 124 134 408 177 61 6 21 6

Overwhelmingly these emendations—1214 in all—are derived from the

434

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

manuscript and come about, as described below, because the manu­ script was misread or misunderstood. Some 19 emendations come from the printed proofs (readings which were subsequently altered without authority) and 63 from Scott’s proof corrections which were ignored when incorporating other proof corrections into the printed text. All these emendations are authorised in the sense that they arise from what the author wrote. However, in spite of all the processes through which Scott’s text was put, there are still unambiguous mistakes and to correct these a reading from Scott’s own changes in the Interleaved Set, or from the earliest printed correction, is adopted. Of these, 1 is from cancel leaf 2F7,7 are from the second setting of gatherings A-N in Volume 3,48 from the octavo Novels and Romances, 8 from the duodecimo, 1 from the Interleaved Set, and 3 from the Magnum. Eighteen are editorial.

The Base-Text. In the light of the investigation of the different ver­ sions of the text of The Pirate reported above, the base-text for this edition should be a set composed of the original Edinburgh settings of the three volumes. This edition has temporal and textual priority over the London edition. It is authoritative because it is derived from Scott’s manuscript and it was corrected and revised by Scott in proof. The base-text is a specific copy of the first edition of The Pirate owned by the eewn . It consists of the first Edinburgh setting of the Advertise­ ment, the Edinburgh setting of Volumes 1 and 2, the first Edinburgh setting of A-N in Volume 3, and the common setting of O-Z. It has 2B1 as a cancel. The electronic text set up from the base-text was proof­ read four times, twice against the volumes originating the electronic text, and twice against other sets. Every difference in each of these proof-readings was checked against the base-text. Ambiguous end-ofline hyphens in the base-text were resolved by reference to (in descend­ ing order of priority): predominant first edition usage; octavo Novels and Romances; Magnum; manuscript. Thus the electronic text became the ideal form of the base-text, containing all the missing characters from the base-text (which are either found in another copy or are registered by a space), and solving all end-of-line hyphen problems.

Emendations from the Manuscript. Because of Scott’s concern with his text, it is imperative that a textual editor scrutinise the manu­ script. Don’t we owe the Wizard of the North something for the pleasure he has bestowed upon us and for the honour he has done to our literat­ ure? The first and subsequent editions are riddled with substantive errors, but careful editing can recapture Scott’s original, better words. Let us begin with a simple example. In the last pages of the novel, where Scott is drawing the ‘moral’, we are told: ‘Like Norna, but under a more regulated judgment, she learned to exchange the visions of wild enthusi­ asm which had exerted and misled her imagination, for a truer and a

THE PRESENT TEXT

435

purer connection with the world beyond us’ (390.41–91. 1). So read the first and all later editions. But a close examination of the manuscript reveals that the correct word is not ‘exerted’, but ‘excited’. The incorrect ‘exerted’ is just plausible enough to allow Scott, reading without refer­ ence to his manuscript, to accept it in proof, but ‘excited’ accords better with ‘misled’ and reinforces Scott’s familiar theme of the dangers of the untrammelled imagination. A curious series of changes begins on f. 188. The first and all sub­ sequent editions read: ‘“Go down below, my girls,” he added, “and send up the rare old man and the punch-bowl” ’ (334.12-13). Now, out of context, ‘rare old man’ may sound strange but, in the preceding lines, reference was made to the punch-making abilities of Eric Scambester so that, in context, the expression is at least plausible. But ‘man’ is incor­ rect. Initial ‘m’ in Scott normally begins with a stroke on the lower line, not with a stroke so high up. And seeing a final ‘n’ here is more an act of desperation than of observation. No, the correct word is much more appropriate in the context of the ‘punch-bowl’. It is ‘rum’. Sub­ sequently, in proof, Scott crossed out ‘man’ and restored ‘rum’; never­ theless, the first edition replaced it again with ‘man’. The criterion here is the sign on the manuscript leaf, what Scott put down. But since Scott’s original words are almost always (we are tempted to say always) superior to the misreadings of his manuscript, support or confirmation may be obtained from the way the word works in context. Consider the following example. The first edition has although something in her [Minna’s] manners claimed deference (notwithstanding her early youth) as well as affection, even her gay, lovely, and amiable sister [Brenda] was not more generally beloved than the more retired and pensive Minna. (23.6-9)

But the word in the manuscript is ‘lively’, not ‘lovely’ (f. 15). Although it is often difficult to distinguish among Scott’s vowels, the sharp upward stroke here, without any rounding, strongly suggests ‘i’. The meaning in context confirms this reading. Shortly before, the narrator referred to ‘the dispositions of these lovely sisters’ (22.5); immediately after the above quotation, he refers to ‘the two lovely sisters’ (23.10). In both cases, the rounded ‘0’ is clear. Scott emphasises the loveliness of both sisters throughout but, in the quotation in question, he is contrasting the ‘lively’ Brenda with ‘the more retired and pensive Minna’. In a similar instance,

The Udaller heard this reply with high resentment. “By the bones of the Martyr,” he said, his brave visage becoming suddenly ruddy, “this is an abuse ofcourtesy!” (203.24-26)

But ‘brave’ is too short for the number of strokes in the manuscript (f. 113). The word is clearly ‘brown’, which Scott is contrasting with ‘ruddy’. The Magnum changed ‘brave’ to ‘bold’ but failed to recapture

436

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

the authorial and appropriate ‘brown’. Likewise, twenty lines of poetry are introduced as follows: ‘they chaunted an ancient Norse ditty, appro­ priate to the occasion, of which Claud Halcro had executed the follow­ ing literal translation’ (206.9–11). But the third letter of 'literal’ has the top hook of Scott’s ‘b’ (f. 115), and anyone familiar with Scott’s poetic translations knows that the correct word is ‘liberal’. Bryce Snaelsfoot’s booth at the Fair is described as having ‘a good deal more of ornament and exterior decoration than the rest. There was in front a small sign of canvas’ (298.37–38). But careful reading discovers that the sign is ‘smart’ (f. 167), not ‘small’. The context confirms this reading, espe­ cially when we learn that the sign bore not only ‘an emblematic device, resembling our first parents in their vegetable garments’ but also twelve lines of poetry. The lines, which are a fine example of hucksterism, are not ‘godly’ (299.14), but ‘goodly’ (f. 168). The first edition describes the reactions of Magnus and Halcro when they first spot the pirate ship: “A tight thing that, by my ancestor’s bones,” said the old Udaller; “but I cannot make out of what country, as she shews no colours. Spanish built, I should think her.” “Ay, ay,” said Claud Halcro, “she has all the look of it. She runs before the wind that we must battle with, which is the wonted way ofthe world.” (331.25–30) But the manuscript reads, ‘she has all the luck of it’. ‘Look’ looks back to ‘Spanish built’. ‘Luck’ looks forward to ‘the wonted way of the world’, that is, the stronger have ‘all the luck of it’. Poor Minna’s reactions during her illness have always been misrep­ resented in the printed texts. Her slumbers were ‘broken and harried’ (245.11), not ‘broken and hurried’ (what is a ‘hurried slumber’ any­ way?). And she sat ‘passively’ (not ‘pensively’) resigned during the ministrations of Norna (262.21). On a more humorous note, Magnus tries to comfort the captured Pirate: 'The honest Udaller would have said something in the way of comfort to Cleveland himself, but he could not find words to express it, and only shook his head’ (378.25–28). Cold comfort indeed! No, the manuscript reveals that Magnus made his more characteristic gesture of shaking Cleveland's ‘hand’ (f. 213). Earl­ ier, we saw the care that Scott took with the entrance of Norna into the novel; the following is from the closing picture, as it appears in the first edition: she seemed to have considered herself as an outcast from divine grace; besides, that, enveloped in the vain occult sciences which she pretended to practise, her study, like that of Chaucer’s physi­ cian, had been “but little in the Bible.” (389.7–10)

One of the current editors, seeing a distinct rounding, read ‘but little on the Bible’ (f. 220); this looks like another dispute over ‘i’ and ‘o’, but this disagreement is easily resolved, since a quick check shows that

THE PRESENT TEXT

437

Chaucer did indeed write ‘on’. Scott knew his Chaucer, as well as his English. The interchangeability of ‘i’ and ‘o’ is highlighted by a recurrent difficulty. The first edition has the following passages: go a-shore upon a small spot of sand (68.13) the small projecting spot of stones, sand, and gravel, that extended a little way into the sea (69.8–9) A small spot of milk-white sand (207.30) on that spot of barren sand (216.8–9) We read ‘spit’ in the manuscript in all four instances. In the last three, the ‘i’ is clearly dotted (ff. 42,116,121). In the first (f. 41), the vowel is a simple upstroke, without any hint of rounding, and once the ensuing pattern is recognised, it seems clear that Scott wrote ‘spit’ throughout. The second instance is practically a definition of the word. But if there is so much difficulty in distinguishing between Scott’s ‘i’ and his ‘o’, one can imagine the problems there are in distinguishing among his ‘a’, ‘o’, and ‘u’, or between his ‘e’ and ‘i’. However, sometimes the issue is not misreading Scott’s barely formed letters but misunderstanding what was written. For instance, after the pirates board the brig, Magnus tries to mollify them (by send­ ing for ‘the rare old man’!). The first edition has: “Go down below, my girls,” he added, “and send up the rare old man and the punch-bowl.” “The punch-bowl!” said Fletcher; “I say the bucket, d—n me! —Talk of bowls in the cabin of a paltry merchantman, but not to gentlemen strollers—rovers, I would say.”. (334.12-16)

The manuscript reads not ‘cabin’ but ‘caboose’ (f. 188), which the OED defines as ‘the cook-room or kitchen of merchantmen on deck’. A lord of language, Scott is contrasting the ‘caboose of a paltry merchantman’ with the accommodations of gentlemen. The first edition turns it wrong side out. Then again near the end of the novel, Magnus received Mordaunt once more into full favour, listened with much surprise to the claim which Norna laid to the young man’s duty, and with no less interest to her intention of surrendering to him the considerable property which she had inherited from her father. Nay, it is even probable that, though he gave no immediate answer to her hints concerning an union betwixt his eldest daughter and her heir, he might think such an alliance recommended, as well by the young man’s personal merits, as by the chance it gave ofretain­ ing the very large estate which had been divided betwixt his own father and that ofNorna. (369. 1-10)

The manuscript reads, ‘the claim it gave of reuniting the very large estate which had been divided’ (f. 207). The intermediaries may have changed ‘claim’ because it appears in the preceding sentence. They had standing orders to avoid repetition of words in close proximity, but

438

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

surely not at the expense of accuracy, and ‘claim’ (a word implying the possibility of establishing a legal title) is far better in the context than ‘chance’. ‘Retaining’, on the other hand, is a misreading and makes no sense: one cannot retain what one does not have. ‘Reuniting’ focuses Magnus’s motivation from early in the novel. Returning to the words of the manuscript in this way highlights Scott’s command of a rich vocabulary. The intermediaries were often unfamiliar with Scott’s words, and so substituted the conventional for the precise. In the printed editions, for example, Baby Yellowley con­ sidered whether ‘her brother had bruised his ankle-bone in his tumble’, but the manuscript reads ‘huckle-bone’, that is, the hip or haunch-bone (107.7-8). In print, the insulted Bunce tells Cleveland ‘hold your own course—I have done with caring for you for ever’, but in manuscript, ‘caring’ appeared as ‘carrrring’. The word is, in fact, ‘canning’ (363.42), a nautical term meaning ‘giving sailing directions to the steersman’. Like Shakespeare, Scott seems to delight in professional vocabularies. The Pirate in the Edinburgh Edition ofthe Waverley Novels has nearly 500 of these single-word corrections. Bryce Snaelsfoot refers ironically to ‘Master’, not ‘Mister’, Mordaunt (72.26). The haaf-fish slumbered in dark ‘security obscurity’ (93.5). Mordaunt replied to Norna, Ί heard your song you sing’ (94.27). Baby Yellowley gave full course to melancholy ‘suspirations aspirations’ and lamentations (106.35-36). Triptolemus had boasted to his ‘fellow-traveller’, Mordaunt only, not to his ‘fellow-travellers’ (128.38). Cleveland thought there were never ‘bolder better’ sailors than the old Norse champions (139.25). Brenda quotes a seaman, Ί will haul taught [for taut] tight and belay’ (189.13). Cleveland admits that inexorable ferocity was ‘creeping coming’ on his disposition in earnest (216.40). Minna warns against pursuing plunder by means of ‘blood-cruelty blood and cruelty’ (218.3). Swertha speaks of Norna’s doing her own ‘peculiar particular’ turns (236.22). Bunce warns Bryce that he will ‘positively presently’ beat him (301.38). Norna questions whether her realm is peopled only with ‘phantoms phantasies’ (311.1). Bunce boasts that ‘we are not men thus to be trifled with’ (337.42). Norna charges that the Devil ‘impels employs’ Cleveland (356.10). To the substitution of one word for another, the largest category by far of substantive changes, two sub-categories should be added. First, examination of the manuscript restores 50 words of standard English to their dialectal form. It was probably too easy for the quick eye to see ‘mither’ as ‘mother’, ‘mysell’ as ‘myself’, ‘gentilmans’ as ‘gentleman’. Second, three words in classical quotations—two in Latin, one in Greek —have been corrected editorially. Scott wished to get these words right, even employing a classicist to write the Greek phrase in the manuscript. The misreading of a manuscript word sometimes necessitates addi­ tional changes. In manuscript, for example, Bryce Snaelsfoot spoke of a

THE PRESENT TEXT

439

‘wab [his northern pronunciation of ‘web’] of wadmaal’ (f. 28). But misread, ‘wab’ appeared in the printed proof as ‘wale’. Scott corrected this obvious error to ‘bale’ and, in the process, modified ‘wadmaal’ with ‘coarse’. This latter change seems unnecessary since Scott had earlier defined ‘wadmaal’ as ‘coarse’ stuff (50.4–5). Scott’s intervention would not have occurred if the manuscript had been read correctly, so this edition restores the original ‘wab of wadmaal’ (88.14), the kind of folk poetry in which Scott delighted. In manuscript, Claud Halcro reported that his tailor ‘never dun’d a wit but for the sake of getting a repartee’ (f. 65). The intermediary, however, either misread or did not know the verb, so he changed ‘dunned’ to ‘denied’, which necessitated additional change. The first edition reads, he ‘never denied a wit credit save in jest, or for the sake of getting a repartee’; this edition returns to Scott’s economical prose (117.31). Similarly, in manuscript, Cleveland refers to some ‘trumpery that the roost hove ashore’ (f. 89). But again, the intermediary either misread ‘hove’ as ‘have’ or did not know the verb, so the first edition reads, ‘trumpery that the roost may have washed ashore’. This edition restores Scott’s concise expression (166.37). The manuscript has the simple and concise clause, ‘Mertoun had been struck mute by the insol­ ent volubility of his insurgent housekeeper’ (f. 127). Indeed, ‘struck mute’ comes from Paradise Lost (9.1064). But ‘mute’ was misread as ‘much’. This necessitated a transposition with ‘struck’ and the addition of a phrase in order to communicate Scott’s original meaning, but this time in a wordier clause: ‘Mertoun had been much struck, and even silenced, by the insolent volubility of his insurgent housekeeper’. A return to the manuscript restores Scott’s precise concision (232.37–38). After talking about the sound of music and the absence of food in their midnight hut, Triptolemus Yellowley says to Brenda Troil: ‘ “Ye heard a fiddle, Mistress Brenda,” said the Factor; “and maybe ye may think there can be nae dearth, Miss, where there is skirling.” ’ The manuscript reveals that the name should be ‘Brindie’ (f. 158). Both ‘i’s are clearly dotted. Just as Halcro calls Minna ‘Minnie’, Yellowley has an affectionate nickname for Brenda as well. The manuscript also reveals that the correct expression is ‘dearth of mess’, which is perfect in con­ text. But because ‘mess’ was misread as ‘miss’, the ‘of’ had to be excised and the ‘m’ capitalised. The manuscript readings are restored (282.9-10). Another discussion of dining introduces another error. Scott origin­ ally wrote in manuscript, ‘his father’s ale for which the small beer of the college commons furnishd a poor substitute’ (f. 15). He then added (after ‘commons’) in manuscript, ‘then termd “through go nimble” ’ (f. 14v). In print, this became and remained, ‘his father’s ale for which the small beer of the college, commonly there termed “through go nimble”,

440

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

furnished a poor substitute’ (33.16–18). Study of the manuscript helps to recover larger blocks of meaning too. For example, in the first edition of The Pirate, Minna speaks to her lover, the pirate Clement Cleveland:

“You have known,” she said, “perhaps too soon, and too well, how little you had to fear,—ifyou indeed feared,—that Mertoun, or any other, had interest with Minna Troil.” But Scott had written the following in the manuscript:

“You have known she said perhaps too soon and too well how little truth there is in the report—how little you had to fear—if you indeed feard—that Mertoun or any other had interest with Minna Troil(f. 116; 208.40-43) It is easy to see that the transcriber became the victim of the common fault of ‘eye-jumping’. In this case, the eye jumped from the first ‘how little’ on the line to the second, thus missing eight words. The lost passage may not be indispensable, but it does provide the strongest assurance in the novel that Minna disbelieves the evil report circulated about Mordaunt Mertoun. Besides ‘eye-jumping’, the proliferation ofadditions—above the line, at the foot of one recto, in the left margin, and on the verso—causes the loss of original manuscript material. Because Scott’s caret signs are sometimes difficult to see, it is hardly surprising that not all of his additions were registered. Also, these particular additions are presum­ ably overlooked because most of them are short and inessential, and their omission does not register in the printed text. For example, Scott sometimes adds a proper name to replace a pronoun—‘Mr Mertouns’ (added on f. 7v, but with no caret sign) for ‘his’ (13.3)—or to stand in apposition to an existing designation—‘Magnus Troil’, added on f. 4v to ‘the proprietor of the territory’ on f. 5 (7.12). When indefinite and definite articles are missed, their absence can destroy the rhythm or balance that Scott is seeking in his prose: ‘a pedlar, called [a] jagger in these islands’ (48.12–13), or ‘the soil on which they rested, covered with [the] inscriptions, and sculptured with the emblems of mortality’ (242.28-30). Words like ‘probably’ (171.18) are missed. Likewise, Norna speaks in her highly charged, rhythmical style, ‘Few would covet to rule over gibbering ghosts and ↑ hold sway over nothing more substantial than ↓ howling winds and raging currents’ (f. 173v). The printed text lacked the addition (310.41-43). The current edition is the first to record Minna’s ‘long dark eyelashes’ (20.41): in the manuscript, Minna has ‘raven locks ↑ long dark eyelashes ↓ and finely pencild brows’, but the ‘long dark eyelashes’ on the verso got lost. In the printed editions, Mertoun confesses to Norna, 'I found refuge in Hispaniola, wherein a fair young Spaniard undertook the task of comforter. I mar­ ried her—she became.mother of the youth called Mordaunt Mertoun’.

THE PRESENT TEXT

441

But ‘wherein’ is grammatically incorrect. Scott wrote ‘where’ followed by a caret sign, which pointed to the missed phrase on the verso, ‘after a lapse of two or three years’ (382.15-16). The addition confirms that Scott, here establishing the relationship in age between Cleveland and Mordaunt, was indeed concerned with the time scheme ofhis novel. Scott’s scholarship should not be neglected. When he adds six verses from The Library to serve as the motto of Volume 2, Chapter 9, Scott correctly enters an ellipsis between lines two and three (194.26), but the printed texts present the poetry as a solid block. In the first edition, Magnus Troil says, Ί hate all Spaniards, since they came here and reft the Fair Isle men of their vivers in 1558’, which is a correct rendition of the original version in the manuscript. Later, however, in different ink, ‘1588’, the year of the Spanish Armada, was substituted in the manu­ script (f. 112), but the revised and correct date never made it into print until now (201.20). The return to the manuscript time and time again improves what was flat or imprecise in the printed versions, but although the text of The Pirate was read and examined in many forms—manuscript, proofs, Ed­ inburgh and London editions, three versions of Novels and Romances, Interleaved Set, Magnum Opus—during Scott’s lifetime, and several edited versions have been printed since his death, large-scale textual errors have persisted. Consider the following example, here quoted from the first edition, but which was defective in the manuscript and in all subsequent printed editions: 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 ofwreck, 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. (Ed1, 1.168.12-19) There is no manuscript evidence to explain why the word-order has been jumbled, although there is some disturbance in that the manu­ script actually reads ‘few pieces of wreck sailors chests’ (f. 39), but it is clear that a simple transposition (involving the movement of ‘which had, after the first shock, been seen to float upon the waves’ to follow ‘all’) cures the problem (69.14-18). Later the guests arrive at BurghWestra: Pausing frequently to greet each other, Mordaunt and his compan­ ions might see each party strolling on successively to the house... (108.8-10)

The octavo Novels and Romances effects the necessary transposition. It is clear what the editors must do in such situations, but editorial decisions are not always simple and straightforward—there are the tough cases. Take, for instance, the exchange between Triptolemus and Baby Yellowley previously discussed:

442

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

“Ofortunati nimium!” “And what good is Saint Ringan to do ye, Tollmus?” (41.42-43) The manuscript reads ‘Ringan’; the first edition has a peculiar hybrid form ‘Rinian’; the duodecimo has ‘Ninian’, a superior reading in com­ bination with ‘nimium'. The two names, Ringan and Ninian, are inter­ changeable throughout the text, and ‘Ninian’ is used more frequently. Did Scott intend to use it here? In both manuscript and proof, Scott concludes an affectionate de­ scription of Minna and Brenda, ‘love sinks down on the eyes of youth and innocence’ (175.36-37). But the first edition changes ‘love’ to the conventional ‘sleep’. This is clearly not a misreading, but a deliberate choice. Whose? In manuscript, Brenda says, Ί see a very very slight scratch’; in proof and all subsequent texts, there is only one ‘very’ (229.19). But did Scott want the double intensive? In manuscript, Mertoun asks ‘whether Mordaunt was retumd from Burgh Westra?’; in proof and all subsequent texts, he asks, ‘Whether Mordaunt was not returned from Burgh-Westra?’ (231.39-40). It may not matter much semantically, but textually which is correct? In all versions of the text, Minna ‘pressed Norna’s withered hand with all the warmth of affection, first to her breast and then to her bosom’ (Ed1, 3.22.21-23). Is Scott making some extremely subtle distinction here, or is this a distinction without a difference? Should an editor correct to ‘first to her breast and then to her lips’ (267.19)? In all versions of the text, at 330.5, Bunce refers to Goffe as ‘the drunken old boatswain’. It is the only time he is so referred to; elsewhere, he is always the ‘captain’. Is this a simple error that should be corrected? In manuscript, Scott wrote ‘jade’ and ‘bitch’. In proof, Ballantyne expressed shock at the use of such language (see the entire discussion in the section on the proofs), and Scott capitulated to his objection, although the subsequent changes made little sense in context. Should Scott’s manuscript readings be restored (342.29-34)? In these and similar dilemmas, individual judgement (sometimes little more than an educated guess) must consider meaning, context, and normal practise; stymied, it falls back upon editorial policy. No matter how desirable the combination of ‘nimium' and ‘Ninian’ would be, there is no textual authority for such a change. Scott wrote ‘love’ in manuscript and validated it in proof; the reading is restored. Scott wrote ‘very very’ and ‘returned’ in manuscript; the proofs printed ‘very’ and ‘not returned’. But Scott did not check proofs against manuscript, and there is no reason to suppose that he would have endorsed such minor changes. The manuscript readings are restored. The reading ‘breast and . . . bosom’ is emended editorially to ‘breast and . . . lips’ because neither the OED nor the SND supports a distinction between ‘breast’ and ‘bosom’. The reading ‘boatswain’ is a simple error in manuscript and base-text, requiring editorial correction to ‘captain’. Finally, Scott’s

THE PRESENT TEXT

443

manuscript readings, ‘jade’ and ‘bitch’, are restored. We do not accept such self-censorship when the results confuse the text or the story.89

Punctuation. If a return to the manuscript is necessary to correct hundreds of errors from the printed editions, why not simply use the manuscript itself as the base-text? First, Scott used his proof-correcting opportunities to continue the creative process, and so the manuscript is not the final pre-publication form of the author’s text. Second, Scott expected the printers to turn his potential work of art into an actual work of art by correcting minor errors, eliminating unnecessary repetitions of words in close proximity, normalising spelling, and—most pervasive and important—supplying punctuation. Scott punctuated sparsely and inconsistently, relying heavily on the all-purpose dash. The reader of this section need only examine the several quotations from the manu­ script to see how inadequate the punctuation would be for the require­ ments ofconventional publication. By today’s economical standards, the punctuation of The Pirate does seem extraordinarily heavy and dense, with commas separating subject and verb, and verb and direct object, but by contemporary standards it was deemed appropriate and is re­ tained in this edition. But precisely because Scott used specific marks—the period, the semi-colon, the full colon, the exclamation point, the question mark— sparingly, this edition emends the first edition and returns to manuscript punctuation when Scott is specific and his original punctuation is justifi­ able. It ensues that Scott’s corrections of the printed punctuation of the proofs, unless obviously defective, should be followed, and so they are adopted in this edition. Inevitably, however, while supplying the needed punctuation, the printers sometimes misread Scott’s manuscript, or misheard his speech rhythms, causing them to introduce incorrect or unnecessary punctu­ ation that distorted Scott’s meaning. For example, the first edition punctuates as follows: “... Come, come, Minna,” he added, opening a side-door of the dwelling, “these moonlight walks are fitter for old poets than for young maidens—And so lightly clad as you are? Maiden, you should take care how you give yourself to the breezes of a Zetland night, for they bring more sleet than odours upon their wings.— But, maiden, go in; for,...”

Based upon the manuscript, a more correct version would be: “... Come, come, Minna,... these moonlight walks are fitter for old poets than for young maidens, and so lightly clad as you are, maiden, you should take care how you give yourself to the breezes of a Zetland night, for they bring more sleet than odours upon their wings—Go to your bed, maiden, go—for,...” (225.33-38) Claud Halcro is not asking questions, but giving friendly advice, and all

444

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

three instances of ‘maiden’ begin with a lower-case ‘m’. The reader should also compare the rhythms of the two passages. At the end of the passage, the manuscript was badly misread, for the printed proof reads, ‘wings.—Go to, you maiden, go; for,. . .’. Scott’s proof correction of this obvious error was generated by the initial misreading, so we return to the manuscript. In the manuscript, Cleveland speaks without punctuation: But come here Bryce has cast off the lashings come all hands and let us see if he has aught in his cargo that is worth looking upon. (f-93)

An editor either misread the auxiliary verb or wished to avoid a repeti­ tion of ‘has . . . has’ in the sentence. Thus, the first edition reads as follows: But come here, Bryce,—hast cast off the lashing?—Come all hands, and let us see if he has aught in his cargo that is worth looking upon.

Correct punctuation, based upon the words of the manuscript, would lead to a different text: But come here—Bryce has cast off the lashings—come all hands, and.. .(168.40-41)

Volume Divisions. In manuscript, Scott wrote ‘End of Vol. I’ after Chapter 12. At the head of the next chapter, he wrote ‘Vol. II.’, followed below by ‘Chapter I.’. To make the three volumes of the novel of more nearly equal length the first chapter of Volume 2 was transfered to Volume 1. It is impossible to tell who made this editorial decision. This edition returns to Scott’s original intention in manuscript. Names. Proper names are standardised. The names of fictional charac­ ters are determined by the dominant manuscript usage or, where not pertinent, by the original spelling. The names of actual persons and places—Lady Anne Lindsay, Sir Francis Chantrey, Russell Street— are corrected. Even Edmund Spenser’s name—‘Spencer’ in all versions until the octavo, a spelling that had some justification during the Renais­ sance—is corrected to the dominant form of ‘Spenser’. Scott’s usual way of spelling the name ‘Sampson’ is retained because it was a standard spelling in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. As late as the first edition, Scott twice calls Brenda ‘Bertha’, which is of course corrected. In contrast, the manuscript ‘Brindie’ was incor­ rectly changed to ‘Brenda’ in the first edition, but it should be retained as an affectionate nickname, just as Claud Halcro calls Minna ‘Minnie’. From manuscript through first edition, ‘Mordaunt’ incorrectly stood for ‘Mertoun’ (231.6), and ‘Mertoun’ for ‘Mordaunt’ (232.5); the correct names first appeared in the octavo. Similarly, an impossible reference to

THE PRESENT TEXT

445

‘Harfra’ is corrected to ‘Burgh Westra’ (96.38). Emendations from the Proofs. There are two classes of emendation derived from Scott’s corrected proofs, the first being cases where Scott’s ‘instructions’ as formulated in his autograph corrections were overlooked or ignored, and the second where perfectly sound readings in the printed proofs were unaccountably changed after Scott had read and corrected his proofs. It was inevitable that Ballantyne, when copying Scott’s corrections on to a clean set of proofs which were to be used by the compositors in the printing office, would miss some of what Scott had written. For in­ stance, the manuscript and the printed proofs read ‘notwithstanding her early’, but Scott deleted the ‘her’, thus reducing the number of times the word appears in the sentence to three (23.7); the deletion was over­ looked. At 24.26 he changed ‘when’ to ‘while’; the change was over­ looked. He created a new sentence at 28.9, but the first edition follows the printed proofs and retains ‘violence; then’. Such omissions are minor, but autograph proof corrections have a particular authority and should be followed unless in manifest error. However sometimes ignor­ ing a Scott correction opened him to ridicule: throughout the first editions of his novels there are mistakes in quoting ancient and foreign languages but usually the mistakes are not Scott’s. For example, in the manuscript of The Pirate Scott had written ‘Quid faciunt lætas segetes’, but he corrected his error in the proofs and the quotation should have appeared as ‘Quid faciat laetas segetes’ (34.38): the mistake was re­ tained in the first edition. At other times, Ballantyne clearly misunder­ stood Scott’s intentions. The manuscript leaf from which the following passage was derived is missing, but the printed proof reads: “What! my kinswoman be angry? Shalt have a flask to carouse when she is from home, old acquaintance;...”

Scott wrote in two additions on the proof sheet; these were reversed, and ‘will’ was read as ‘well’, so that the first edition reads: “What! my kinswoman,” said the Udaller, comprehending the signal, “be angry? Well, shalt have a flask...” A correct reading of Scott’s additions leads to what is published in the eewn:

“What! my kinswoman will be angry?” said the Udaller, compre­ hending the signal. “Shalt have a flask...” (257.21-22)

The process of polishing the text through the provision of better punctuation, or in the elimination of repetitions, continued after Scott himself had concluded his correcting and revising in proof. Most of this activity was justified as it is covered by the hypothetical standing orders, but at times the changes alter the meaning or the tone, and even gener­ ate new mistakes. For instance, a sentence without punctuation in the

446

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

manuscript became in the proofs: ‘ “I have thought better of it—my friend Captain Cleveland shall have the toys he sets such store by...” ’ (172.26–27). But the first edition reads: ‘ “I have thought better of it, my friend. Captain Cleveland shall have the toys he sets such store by... ” ’. Critical arguments can easily be formulated in support of both readings, but the new reading involves a new meaning which, strictly speaking, was not authorised. At 333.3, Scott’s manuscript ‘By god’ becomes, in the printed proofs, ‘By God’, but in the first edition the form is ‘By G—’: the change is without authority, and the printed form of what Scott had written is adopted as the reading in this edition. Baby Yellowley, talking of Norna, says to her brother: “I trust the Prince of the power of the air has not yet such like power over those that are made in God’s image, that a good house should fall about our heads, because a randy quean (here she darted a fierce glance at the Pythoness) should boast us with her glamour, as if we were sae mony dogs to crouch at her bidding.” (53.10-15). In the first edition a clearly erroneous question mark appears in place of the final full stop. Factual Errors. It is the policy of the eewn to correct factual errors in external matters so long as they are not an essential element of the fiction. Thus, when the narrator refers to the executions performed by the ‘Bearded Man’, Matthieu Jouve Jourdan, in the marble court at Versailles on ‘the memorable 5th October 1789’, this edition corrects to 6th October, a dating that Scott got right in his Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (1827). But it is sometimes difficult to decide whether the errors of fictional characters are dramatically appropriate. Old Haagen says he was pressed to serve under Montrose when he came to Zetland ‘about 1651’. Montrose died in 1650. This may be Haagen’s error, and not Scott’s. Then again, why would this simple-minded old man say ‘about 1651’ rather than ‘about 1650’, the obvious round number? Originally in the manuscript, Magnus said the Spaniards came to the Fair Isle in 1558, a date retained in all later editions. But the correct date is 1588, which, curiously, was later inserted into the manuscript over the erased ‘1558’. There is no reason for Magnus to make such an error, so ‘1588’ is used in this edition; and since a decision must be made, Haagen is also corrected to ‘ 1650’. It is also the policy of the eewn to correct internal errors. The climax of The Pirate has previously been dated contradictorily. According to the Proclamation, the ‘free Mercat and Fair’ was ‘holden at the good Burgh of Kirkwall on the third of August, being Saint Ollaw’s day’ and con­ tinued from three days to a week, and upwards (290.34-37). Norna had told Mertoun to walk in the outer aisle of the Cathedral of Saint Magnus ‘on the fifth day of the Fair’ (243.26), or August 7th. On the climactic day, the day of the capture of Cleveland, the narrator reminds

THE PRESENT TEXT

447

the reader of Norna’s command that Mertoun meet her ‘on the fifth day of the Fair of Saint Olla’ (380.14-15). But a few pages later, we learn that Captain Weatherport followed the instructions of Norna to bring ‘his frigate into Stromness Bay on the morning of the 24th August’ (384.31-32). These two events—the meeting between Norna and Mertoun, and the arrival of the Halcyon—occur simultaneously, but 17 days apart. To correct this impossibility, the date of the arrival of the Halcyon is adjusted to 7 August, because that date is established first and is later confirmed. A more difficult judgment involves the Wits’ Coffee-house, to which Claud Halcro frequently refers as the scene of his meeting with John Dryden. Twice he refers to ‘Will’s’. This is corrected in order to avoid narrative confusion, but in fact this was not a mistake as both names were used of the one place (see note to 113.37). Misquotations. The eewn does not normally repair misquotations, unless Scott has asked someone to copy the quotation for him. But the ludicrous punctuation of the following quotation makes Scott’s (and Wordsworth’s) meaning so laughable that correction is required. Quot­ ing from Wordsworth’s ‘Ruth’ for the motto of Chapter eight, Scott wrote in manuscript, He was a lovely youth I guess The panther in the wilderness Was not so fair as he

This was punctuated as follows: “He was a lovely youth, I guess; The panther in the wilderness Was not so fair as he. This edition corrects to: He was a lovely youth! I guess The panther in the wilderness Was not so fair as he. (75.20-22)

On the other hand, a quotation from Much Ado about Nothing is attributed to Claudio, when it is Don Pedro who speaks the speech, and although this appears in a passage of narrative it is close enough to a character’s free-thought for it to make an emendation unacceptable.

Spelling. Unlike proper names, orthography is not standardised. In the first editions, there were only sporadic attempts to standardise spelling. In The Pirate, for example, ‘murder’ and ‘lantern’ were also spelled ‘murther’ and lanthorn’. ‘Amongst’ was usually changed to ‘among’, but ‘amongst’ also survives in the first edition. No semantic distinction is being made. In Scott’s day, words were legitimately spelled in different ways, and that diversity is respected in this text. But each case must be

448

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

judged on its own merits. Scott always writes ‘burthen’ (16 times) in the manuscript, so on the two occasions when the base text produces ‘bur­ den’, this edition emends back to ‘burthen’.

Conclusion. What is the ultimate effect of the hundreds of changes brought about by an examination of the manuscript and the proofs of The Pirate, and the subsequent emending of the text? There are no major changes in story, character, or dialogue.90 But the hundreds of differences are cumulatively telling. A return to the manuscript recap­ tures Scott’s original inspirations. The return to the original produces fresher, more correct, and less formal Scott novels than were known in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The general aim of the series is fully supported by what has been found in the course of editing this novel. But the persistence of errors over this long period makes the editors of The Pirate wish to reply to the contemporary query, ‘Who reads Scott today?’, with the question, ‘Has anybody ever really read Scott before?’.

NOTES All manuscripts referred to are in the National Library of Scotland unless otherwise stated.

1

2

3 4 5

6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Scott’s ‘Diary’ of the trip is conveniently reprinted in J. G. Lockhart, Memoirs ofthe Life ofSir Walter Scott, Bart., 7 vols ( 1837–38), 3.136–277. This quotation is from the entry for 17 August, Lockhart, 3.203–04. A snow is a small sailing vessel, resembling a brig; for Malcolm Laing see explanatory note to 3.25. See also Cadell’s statement of28 June 1821 that Constable and Co. had ‘Contracts with him forfive Works' (ms 323, f. 204r) and his reference of 8 April 1822, after the publication of The Pirate, to ‘thefour presently con­ tacted for with the author’ (ms 323, f. 222r-v). ms 23230, f. 64r-v. See Walter Scott, Kenilworth (1821), ed. J. H. Alexander, eewn 11,

397· The Letters ofSir Walter Scott, ed. H. J. C. Grierson and others, 12 vols (London, 1932–37), 7.12n. ms 319, f. 284r Constable to Cadell, 28 Jan. 1821. See Thomas Hutchinson, History ofthe Colony ofMassachusetts Bay (Lon­ don, 1760), 213-19. See explanatory note to 3.8-9 for Gow’s names. Walter Scott, Peverilofthe Peak ( 1822), 2.44–55. Lockhart, 5.50. Letters, 6.427n1. See Historical Note, 492. Lockhart, 5.134. George Barry, The History ofthe Orkney Islands (1805);A Collection of Several Treatises in Folio, Concerning Scotland, As it was ofOld, and also in

NOTES

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24

25 26 27

28

29

30

31

32 33 34

35

449

later Times, ed. Sir Robert Sibbald (Edinburgh, 1739); Thomas Tusser, A Hundreth Good Pointes ofHusbandrie (1557: see CLA, 177). Letters, 6.449. Letters, η.3. Letters,7.12. Lockhart, 5.123–26. Lockhart, 5.126. Lockhart, 3.166. Letters,7.16. Lockhart, 5.142–43. Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (New York, 1970), 773. Although he provides no documentary evidence, Johnson’s claim seems reasonable. William B. Todd and Ann Bowden, Sir Walter Scott: A Bibliographical History 1796–1832 (New Castle, DE, 1998), 548. Letters, 6.480n. See Gillian Dyson, ‘The Manuscripts and Proof Sheets of Scott’s Waverley Novels’, Edinburgh Bibliographical Society Transactions, 4.1 (1960), 32. John Alexander Ballantyne, the son of Scott’s friend and printer, gave them to Mark Napier in 1839. After the latter’s death in 1879, they were sold by his son to William Paterson, the Edinburgh publisher, and were later acquired by William Rutherford of Galashiels, who bequeathed them to his home town, to which the Scottish Borders Council is the successor author­ ity. The watermark is a Crowned Shield Post Horn: see Alfred Henry Shorter, Studies on the History ofPapermaking in Britain (Aidershot, and Brookfield, Vermont, 1993), 336; the countermark is VALLEYFIELD, the paper mill run by Cowan and Sons, at Penicuik, 20 km S of Edinburgh. Scott again played with, and again rejected, the possibility ofincest be­ tween hero and heroine in Redgauntkt ( 1824). Remarkably, without having read the manuscript, Judith Wilt recognises ‘apparent near-incest’ in The Pirate':see her Secret Leaves: The Novels ofWalter Scott (Chicago, 1985), 120. Huntington manuscript RB110387. The proofs were owned by the Ballantynes, sold to ‘Mr. Taylor’ in 1848, were acquired by Cadell (see Dyson, 32-33), and in 1868 were sold by his daughters to Boone, the London bookseller, for £27. After their purchase by Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl Orford, they were later sold by Sotheby, in the Orford sale of 10–11 June 1895, to Quaritch for £86. F. T. Sabin then sold them in August 1900 to Frederic Robert Halsey, whose library was bought in 1915 by Henry Hunt­ ington. For the adventure ofDavie Mailsetter and the poney see Walter Scott, The Antiquary (1816), ed. David Hewitt, eewn 3,114–16. Magnum, 24.x. Walter Scott, The Black Dwarf1816 ed. ), ( P. D. Garside, eewn 4a, 32. Sir Robert Hazlewood is a character in Scott’s Guy Mannering ( 1815), ed. P. D. Garside, eewn 2 2,355.14–15. Lambourne is a character in Kenilworth ( 1821 ), ed. J. H. Alexander, eewn 11,3.

450

ESSAY ON THE TEXT

Falkland is the eccentric and solitary murderer in William Godwin, Caleb Williams (1794), about which Scott wrote, ‘we have met with few novels which excited a more powerful interest’: review of William Godwin, Fleet­ wood, in The Prose Works ofSir Walter Scott, Bart., 28 vols ( 1834–36), 18.119. 37 Twelfth Night, 3.1.54. 38 Roxana is the violent, first wife of Alexander the Great in Nathaniel Lee (1653 ?—92), The Rival Queens ( 1677); Thomas Cecial appears in Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Adventures ofDon Quixote, trans. J. Μ. Cohen (Baltimore, 1950), 538–62 (Part 2, Chs 12-15). 39 MS 791, f. 228r. 40 MS 791, f. 230V. 41 MS 323, f. 2o8v. 42 MS 791, ff. 229V–30. 43 MS 791,f. 229v;ms791,f. 230v; MS 791, f. 231r; and ms 791,f.232v. 44 See the groundbreaking study by B. J. McMullin, ‘The Publication of Scott’s The Pirate, 1822’, The Bibliotheck, 16(1989), 1–29. Full of valuable information, McMullin’s study remains the starting point for any study of this subject. Because of its small sample, however, it needs to be supple­ mented by the comprehensive work of W. B. Todd and Ann Bowden (see note 24 above), especially 549–53, and the even fuller investigation of copies of The Pirate conducted in the preparation of this edition. 45 MS 791, f. 231V–32r. 46 MS 791, f. 232V. 47 MS 791, f. 234V. 48 MS 791, f. 236r.

36

49 See McMullin, 9–11. 50 MS 791, f. 242r. 51 MS 791, f. 231r. 52 MS 791, f. 237v. 53 MS 791, f. 238r. 54 MS 326, ff. 88V–89v. 55 MS 326, f. 92r. 56 MS 326, f. 94r–v. 57 MS 326, f. 126r–v. 58 In attempting to unravel the complexity of the text of The Pirate, the editors have examined 59 sets of the first, second and so-called ‘third’ editions of The Pirate, plus 2 sets ofNovels and Romances made up from first and second-edition sheets. Of these 61 sets, 39 are first editions with the first setting of A–N in Volume 3; 6 are first editions with the second setting of A–N; 10 are second editions (but with first-edition versions ofVolume 3 in each case); 3 are nominally ‘third’ editions; 3 have a mixture of sheets ( 1 is nominally a first edition and 2 are entitled Novels and Romances). 59 For example, for ‘Seneca’ and ‘rites’ see NLS RB.s.326; for ‘Seneca’ and ‘sights’ see NLS NG. 1175.6.2; for ‘senior’ and ‘rites’ see NLS Pat.373–75; for ‘senior’ and ‘sights’ see NLS RB.s. 1008. 60 Todd and Bowden, 550. 61 Todd and Bowden, 550. 62 Only 25 volumes were examined for this feature: the cancel is present in 5

NOTES

451

London-set volumes (without the comma) and in 4 Edinburgh-set vol­ umes (with the comma). There is no cancel in 16 Edinburgh-set volumes. However, this information is indicative rather than certain as tight binding makes this kind of investigation difficult. 63 See e.g. NLS RB.s.242. 64 The EEWN has examined 10 copies of the second edition: see e.g. NLS RB.S.780, Gilson 83-85, and NG. 1173.3.6. All 10 are in the same form: L —L—EI /E. All are labelled ‘second edition ’ on the title page. 6 5 On 1 .98 of the London edition, ‘man’ incorrectly replaces ‘men’, and on 1.147 of the London edition, ‘later’ incorrectly replaces ‘late’. 66 On 1.209, ‘Brenda’ replaces ‘Bertha’, and on 1.265, ‘pay half’ replaces ‘pay the half’. 67 MS 326, f. 117V. 68 MS 23234, f. 130V. 69 MS326,ff. 121v–22r. 70 MS 326, f. 128v. 71 For bibliographical details, see Todd and Bowden, 553. To the three copies that they list, the eewn can add one in its own possession and a copy in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. 72 ms 677, f. 78r. 73 Letters,7. 378–79. 74 MS 323, f. 400V. 75 MS 323, f. 466V. 76 MS 323, f. 47OV. 77 ms 320, f. 164r. 78 MSS 23019–20. See also Jane Millgate, Scott 's Last Edition: A Study in Publishing History (Edinburgh, 1987); and Scott's Interleaved Waverley Novels: An Introduction and Commentary, ed. Iain Gordon Brown (Aber­ deen, 1987). 79 Letters, 11.311. 80 See Scott’s letters of 10 and 26 August, ms 745, ff. 193r, 197r–v. 81 Upper-case Roman numerals refer to volumes of the Interleaved Set; Arabic numerals refer to this edition. 82 Millgate, 24–2 5,73–74. 83 MS 21020, ff. 25r–37r. 84 ms 21060, f.178v. 85 Todd and Bowden, 553. 86 Todd and Bowden, 899. 87 Morgan MA 3555, p. 29. 88 ms 21020, ff. 25r-37r. 89 For a discussion of this question of self-censorship in Scott, see Walter Scott, Saint Ronan 's Well(1823), ed. Mark Weinstein, eewn 16,403–04. 90 A notable exception to this general rule in Scott is Saint Ronan 's Well, where a return to the manuscript provides a much different and more effective story. See eewn 16,363–64,390,403-04,437-38.

EMENDATION LIST

The base-text for this edition of The Pirate is a specific copy of the first edition (1821), owned by the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels. All emendations to this base-text, whether verbal, orthographic, or punctuational, are listed below, with the exception of certain general categories of emendation described in the next paragraph, and of those errors which result from accidents of printing such as a letter dropping out, provided always that the evidence for the ‘correct’ reading has been found in at least one other copy of the first edition. The following names have been standardised throughout on the authority of Scott’s preferred usage as deduced from the manuscript: Barlow, Marjory Bimbister, Deilbelicket, Glowrowrum, Laurence Linklutter, Ranzelar, Ranzelman, Niel Ronaldson, Eric Scambester, Sea-kings, Bryce Snaelsfoot, Provost Torfe, Baby Yellowley. The fol­ lowing place-names have been similarly treated: Burgh Westra, Cauldshouthers, Fair Isle, Fitful-head, Foulah, Jarlshof, Mainland (meaning the main island of Orkney or Zetland), mainland (meaning the main­ land of Scotland, or an unspecified mainland), Port Royal, Roost (of Sumburgh), Russell Street, Saint Ninian’s, Saint Ringan’s, Stourburgh, Sumburgh-head, Ward-hill, Hill of Whiteford. Inverted commas are sometimes found in the first edition for dis­ played verse quotations, sometimes not; the present text has standard­ ised the inconsistent practices of the base-text by eliminating such inverted commas, except when they occur at the beginnings or ends of speeches. Chapter numbering has been normalised. The typographic presentation of mottoes, volume and chapter headings, letters, inset quotations, and the opening words of volumes and chapters has been standardised. Ambiguous end-of-line hyphens in the base-text have been interpreted in accordance with the following authorities (in descending order of priority): predominant first edition usage; octavo Novels and Romances; Magnum; MS. Each entry in the list below is keyed to the text by page and line number; the reference is followed by the new, eewn reading, then in brackets the reason for the emendation and, after the slash, the base­ text reading that has been replaced. Occasionally, some explanation of the editorial thinking behind an emendation is required, and this is provided in a briefnote. The great majority of emendations are derived from the manuscript. Most involve merely the replacement of one reading by another, and these are listed with the simple explanation ‘(ms)’. The spelling and punctuation of some emendations from the manuscript have been nor­ malised in accordance with the prevailing conventions of the base-text. And although as far as possible emendations have been fitted into the 452

EMENDATION LIST

453

existing base-text punctuation, at times it has been necessary to provide emendation with a base-text style of punctuation. Where the manuscript reading adopted by the eewn has required editorial intervention to normalise spelling or punctuation, the exact manuscript reading is given in the form ‘(ms actual reading)’. Where the new reading has required editorial interpretation of the manuscript, e. g. in the provision of punc­ tuation, the explanation is given in the form ‘(ms derived: actual read­ ing)’. In transcriptions from Scott’s manuscript, deletions are enclosed thus and insertions ↑ thus ↓ . Nearly one hundred emendations are based upon the proofs. A dis­ tinction is made between those emendations based upon the print ver­ sion of the proofs (labelled ‘printed proofs’) and those based upon Scott’s holograph changes to the print version (labelled ‘proof correc­ tion’). In spite of the care taken by the intermediaries, some local confusions in the manuscript persisted into the first edition. When straightening these, the editor has studied the manuscript context so as to determine Scott’s original intention, and where the original intention is discernible it is, of course, restored. But from time to time such confusions cannot be rectified in this way. In these circumstances, Scott’s own corrections in the Interleaved Set have more authority than the proposals of other editions, but if the autograph portions of the Interleaved Set have noth­ ing to offer, the reading from the earliest edition to offer a satisfactory solution is adopted as the neatest means of rectifying a fault. Readings from the later editions and the Interleaved Set are indicated by ‘(8vo)’, ‘(12mo)’, ‘(ISet)’, or ‘(Magnum)’. Emendations that have not been anticipated in a contemporaneous edition are indicated by ‘(Editorial)’. 3.12 3.15 3.16 3.16 3.27 4.6 4.9

4.17 4.22 4.27 5.11 5.19 5.21

5.25 5.26 5.28 6.5 6.9 6.12

or (ms)/nor affections, and (2nd setting) / affections and troth-plight, of (2nd setting) / troth-plight of lady possessed (2nd setting) / lady, possessed suffered, by (2nd setting) / suffered by arrived (ms) / arriving ceremony according to the superstition of the country she could not have (ms) / ceremony, she could not, according to the superstition of the country, have individual by (2nd setting) / individual, by vexations, prosecutions (ms vexations prosecutions) / vexatious pro­ secutions date (ms) / dates the (ms)/that Firth (ms firth)/Frith word given (ms derived: name given) / phrase assigned It was correct to remove the repetition, but the wrong word was used in the process. which advance (ms) / which, advancing forwards (ms) / forward be (ms) / become buildings. But (ms) / buildings; but barn (ms) / house the most perfect (ms) / utter

454 6.17 6.22 6.28 6.37 7.12

7.35 7.37 7.42 8.5 8.6 8.10 8.18 8.38 8.39 9.4 9.5 9.11 9.22 9.23 9.30 9.37 9.42

10.3

10.6 10.7 10.10 10.28 10.29 10.29 10.29 11.5 11.6 11.8 11.9 11.15 11.15 11.28 11.29 11.31 12.3 12.11 12.24 13.3 13.11 14.15 14.25 14.26 15.4 15.4 15.8 15.10

EMENDATION LIST ruinous: the rafters (ms) / ruinous; and the rafters the then inhabitants (ms The ↑ then ↓ inhabitants) / the inhabitants Scotland. But (ms) / Scotland; but these (ms) / those of Magnus Troil, the proprietor (ms of ↑ Magnus Troil ↓ the propri­ etor) / of the proprietor waters (ms) / water severer (ms serverer) / more severe islands (ms) / island gentilmans (ms) / gentlemans kreitz-dollar (ms) / Kreitz-dollar perforce (ms derived: per force) /perforce these (ms) / such whom (ms) / which and for comfort (ms) / and comfort applied—his (ms) / applied; his persuasions (ms) / persuasion impossible for him to prove (ms) / impossible to prove in a terse, antithetical (ms in terse antithetical) / in an antithetical heard (ms) / had hours together in (ms) / hours in round—it will (ms) / round. His departure will “There was scarce even the most necessary articles of furniture in the house (ms) / “There were scarce,” he said, “even the most necessary articles of furniture in the old house named circumstances (ms derived: named an circumstances) / named a circumstance retreat—A (ms) / retreat; a for—so (ms) / for; so her. And (ms) / her; and more—for (ms) / more; for possessors, our (ms possessions our) / possessors,—our Petersens (ms) / Patersons Thiorborns (ms) / Yhiorbiorns plan (ms) / place come (ms) / came this (ms)/This then (ms) / Then Here is (ms)/Here’s You (ms)/you skua-gulls (ms Skua-gulls) / sea-gulls Stranger (proof correction) / stranger Norseman (ms) / Norman plantie-cruive (ms) / plantie cruive inhabitants (ms) / inhabitant other (ms) / another Mr Mertoun’s (ms (his) ↑ Mr. Mertouns ↓ ) / his situated (ms) / secluded farther (ms) / further rock-cod-fish (ms) / rock cod-fish a-piece. He (ms) / a-piece; he Castle, and whom (ms) / Castle, whom whom, as (printed proofs) / whom as of young Mordaunt (ms) / of Mordaunt Dwarfs (ms) / dwarfs

EMENDATION LIST

455

15.16 Oay(MS)/ Ay, ay 15.17 Berserkar (ms) / Berserkars 15.22 That is (ms) / That’s 15.31 rough (ms) / single 16.11 moment (ms) / time 16.12 stem (ms) / strong 16.13 Remember (ms) / remember 16.21 that(MS)/this 17.11 moments, (printed proofs) / moments; 17.17 those bold and desperate (ms) / those desperate 17.18 samphire-gatherer (ms Samphire-gatherer) / samphire gatherer 17.20 or young (ms) / or the young 17.21 address, presence (ms address presence) / address, and presence 17.42 beetled (ms) / bristled 17.43 Jarl (ms)/Earl 18.3 dreaded (ms) / noted 18.5 winterlight (ms) / twilight 18.16 boatman (ms) / boatmen 18.33 vexed (ms vexd) / vivid 18.35 oft (ms)/ often 18.40 tales which were chaunted (ms) / tales chaunted 19.5 during the summer (ms) / during summer 19.5 is (ms)/was 19.8 islands (ms) / island 19.17 jest(MS)/foot 19.19 herds (ms) / hordes 20.3 Iol (ms) / Ioul 20.8 Bessie (proofcorrection)/Bessy 20. 10 bower (proof correction) / house 20.18 Their (ms) / The 20.29 driven out from (ms) / driven from 20.31 these (ms) / those 20.41 raven locks, long dark eyelashes and (ms raven locks ↑ long dark eyelashes ↓ and ) / raven locks and 21.6 languid. It (ms) / languid; it 21.10 cheek (ms) / cheeks 21.16 farther (ms) / further 21.19 gravity. And most, when (ms gravity. And most when) / gravity, and most men, when Ballantyne in proof marked this passage as defective, thus prompting Scott to add ‘men’; but the remark is not gender specific and it is clear that Ballantyne did not understand its import. 21.25 that most hackneyed (m s that most hackneyd) / that hackneyed 22.11 forwards (ms) / forward 22.19 kind. [new paragraph] And (ms) / kind; [new line] and 22.29 was (ISet) / were 22.33 terror, the (ms terror the) / terror—the 23.7 notwithstanding early (proof correction) / notwithstanding her early 23.8 lively (ms)/lovely 23.28 moor (ms) / walk without doors 23.33 affection (ms) / affections 24.7 these (ms) / those 24.8 rocks, moorland (ms rocks moorland) / rocky moorland 24.26 while (proofcorrection)/when 24.28 sang (ms) / sung

456 24.34 25.2 25.10 25.12 25.13 25.17 25.29 26.4 26.7 26.7 26.8

26.14 26.20 26.23 26.42 27.9

27.18

27.19 27.35 28.9 28.25 28.34 29.11 29.22

29.23

29.26 30. 1 30.3 30.6 30.16 30.33 30.37 31.14 31.16 31.17 31.22 31.23 31.28

EMENDATION LIST spirits (8vo) / gaiety time, approaching (ms time approaching) / his approaching which wise remarks (ms) / which remarks any to (ms) / any one to affairs. And (ms) / affairs; and Yon (proof correction) / yon himself. (ms) / himself: father (ms) / father’s miss (ms) / stop for to-day. There (ms to-day—There) / to-day? There else, are (printed proofs besides, are) / else are The word was changed to ‘else’ to avoid a repetition of besides’, but the comma was lost in the process. Papa (ms) / Paba wastes (ms) / Wastes wastes (ms) / Wastes becomes (ms) / be innovation; “if this boding weather break only in rain (ms derived: in­ novation if this boding weather breaks ↓ but ifit breaks in rain) / in­ novation, “if this boding weather bring on tempest; but if it only break in rain Scott’s catch phrase in the verso insert does not coincide precisely with the reading in the main text, as it should, and the intermediaries, instead of adjusting one to fit the other, allowed both to remain. In proof Scott tried, unsuccessfully, to rectify the resulting muddle. The one proof correction which is unrelated to the muddle, the change of‘breaks’ to ‘break only’, has been adopted. Hoy (ms) / Fair-isle Scott’s Ms ‘Hoy or’ was misread as ‘Hayn’; in proof Scott changed the nonsense reading to ‘Fair-isle’. Papa (Editorial) / Paba dinner, (ms) / dinner; violence. Then (proof correction) / violence; then Amid (ms) / Amidst Ewensen’s (ms Ewensens) / Ewenson’s climate. But (ms) / climate; but Harfra, the (ms Harfra the) / Harfra, for the names were indifferently given to the The phrase ‘for the names were indifferently given to’ was added by Ballantyne in proof. the then Chamberlain (ms derived) / the Chamberlain ‘Then’ was omitted because badly formed and easily misread. this (ms) / that canny (ms) / cannv add, he (8vo)/add, that he partially (ms) / probably was (8vo) / were Dougal (ms) / Dougald ken’d (proof correction) / kend till(MS)/t0 it’s (8vo)/its it’s (8vo)/its Mess James Guthrie (ms Mess [space] Guthrie) / MessJames Guthrie sicker (ms) / siccar cinnamon-waters (ms) / cinnamon-water

EMENDATION LIST

457

socks (ms) / sacks quieted (ms) / silenced prove a true Yorkshireman, and (ms prove a true Yorkshire and) / prove true Yorkshire, and 33.17 college commons, then (m s college commons ↑ then ↓ ) / college, commonly there 33.29 jam neminem antepones Catoni (Editorial) / jam ne minem antepenes Catoni 33.37 crops might (ms) / cropsmight 34.10 course. (ms) / course: 34.37 sweet (ms) / secret 34.38 faciat (proof correction) / faciunt 35.11 thought (ms) / thoughts 35.19 hole.” (ms)/hole?” 36.1 senior (ms) / Seneca The ms was misread and ‘Seneca’ appears in the printed proofs, but was not corrected; it therefore also appeared in the Moyes setting of the first volume. However, many copies of Ed1 correctly read ‘senior’, and, as no cancels affect this leaf, the change must have been made in the course of printing sheet F. 36.17 those (ms) / these 36.36 Sheriff. But (ms Sheriff—But) / Sheriff; but Scott overwrote a lower case b to produce B. 37.8 entrée (8vo) / entree 37.20 cakes (ms) / cake 37.24 endeavoured (ms endeavourd) / accomplished 38.10 years’ (ms) / years 38.23 deducing (ms) / deducting 38.23 this (ms)/his 38.25 withered veins (ms witherd veins) / heart 39.2 former (Editorial) / latter 40.11 men, travelling (ms men travelling) / men, and travelling 40.13 should (ms) / could 40.24 Good (ms)/good 40.26 seed!!— (proof correction) / seed!— 41.3 that. (ms) / that? 41.11 on (ms)/in 41.32 rapping (ms) / tapping 41.32 yate (ms) / yett 41.36 in (ms)/at 41.43 Ringan (ms) / Rinian 41.43 Tollmus(Ms)/Tolemus 42.4 illfa’rd (ms) / illfa’red 42.5 caa’d (ms) / ca’ed 42.8 terrible (ms) / horrible 42.11 folk (ms) / folks 42.31 folks’ (ms) / folk’s 42.39 loun (ms) / loon 43.4 madwoman (ms) / mad woman 43.8 Will? (ms)/Will! 44.26 Tollmus (ms) / Tolemus 44.28 you begin to promise (ms) / you promise 44.30 ken whae (ms) / ken weel wha 44.33 maybe (ms) / may be 44.38 Baby.” (ms)/Baby?” 44.39 mal apropos (ms) / mal-a-propos 32.14 32.31 32.32

458 45.10 45.43 45.30 45.35 45.39 46.16 46.25 46.32 46.43 47.13 47.26 48.13 48.16 49.9 49.13 49.18 49.20 50.5 50.10 50.28 50.34 50.39

EMENDATION LIST

help. And (ms) / help; and secure (ms) / sure anes (ms) / ance jagger (MS Jagger) / yagger Dronesdauter (ms Drones dauter) / Dronsdaughter owerlays (ms) / overlays than (ms) / then mony (ms) / many this (ms) / there like (ms) / likely This (proof correction) / this called ajagger (ms called ↑ a ↓ jagger) / calledjagger farther (ms) / further tall (ms) /last in Norse (ms) / of Norse goose destined (ms) / goose that was destined feather. This (ms) / feather—this wadmaal (ms Wadmaal) / Wadmaral plated (ms) / plaited Privy Council (ms privy Council) / privy-council impostures (ms) / impostors those possessed of, or affecting (ms those possessed of or affecting) / those affecting 51.12 would only have (ms) / would have 52.8 and an unmoved (ms) / and unmoved 52.16 his shoulders (ms) / his back 52.16 a(MS)/her 53.5 be soon (ms)/soon be 53.15 bidding.” (printed proofs) / bidding?” 53.22 I(ms)/I’ll 53.22 beetle (ms) / bittle 53.23 one look (ms) / a look 54.12 fail (ms)/fall 54.22 elliptical (ms) / eliptical 54.23 turns (ms) / terms 54.32 million (ms milion) / nation 54.43 vail’d (ms vaild) / veil’d 55.47 arts (ms)/art 56.24 har’st (printed proofs) / ha’rst 56.25 maybe (ms) / may be 56.27 merk (ms) / merks 56.29 thought (ms) / thoughts 56.36 her (ms)/the 56.39 influence (ms) / influences 57.8 either? (printed proofs) / either, 57.9 whittie-whattieing (ms whittie-whattie) / whittie whattieing 57.11 bonnie (ms) / bonie 57.18 it—it (ms) /it! It 57.33 passed (ms passd) / past 57.35 road—the (ms) / road. The 58.11 wrack (ms) / wreck 58.32 been long (ms) / long been 58.37 gaen(MS)/gane 58.41 canna (ms) / cannot 59. 1 bid her aroint before (8vo) / bid aroint her before

EMENDATION LIST

459

You (ms) /You Andrews (ms) / Andrew You studied (ms) / you studied you call (ms) / ye call mickle (ms) / muckle mair (ms) / more ravening (proof correction) / raving our (ms)/the in country (ms) / in a country were (12mo) / was remember with a sigh that (ms) / remember that ower (8vo) / owre here—how (ms) / here. How supper. Ours (ms) / supper—ours address him (ms) / addresshim afflicted (ms aflicted) / affected judge—I—I never (ms) / judge—I never handsomest—they (ms) / handsomest. They strain (ms) / train meat (ms) / meal and attractive (ms) / and so attractive and he started (ms)/and started painfully (ms) / powerfully age—at (ms) / age. At sea-circled (ms)/sea-girdled The ‘circled’ of the manuscript was misread as ‘arched’. Scott caught the error in proof but, working without the manuscript, corrected to ‘girdled’. This edition returns to the original manuscript reading. 64.33 wouldest (ms) / wouldst 64.38 duty—so (ms) / duty. So 65.1 let(MS)/Let 65.8 speakst (ms) / speakest 65.9 present: tell (ms) / present. Tell 65.10 yesterday. (ms yesterday—) / yesterday? 65.19 home. How (ms) / home—how 65.19 does (ms)/Does 65.22 fully (ms) / freely 65.30 yonder (ms) / the 65.38 Mordaunt (8vo) / Mertoun 65.40 traded (ms) / treated 66.10 among (ms) / amongst 66.26 visible at intervals amid (ms) / visible amid 67.2 Reason... Nature (ms) / reason... nature 67.28 forwards (ms) / forward 68.2 there (ms) / then 68.9 which it swept (proof correction) / which swept 68.13 spit (ms) / spot 68.19 crannies (ms) / crevices 68.20 less (ms)/else 68.35 Steps (proof correction) / steps 69.1 gave before (ms) / gave way before 69.8 spit (ms) / spot 69.9 sand, stones, (ms sand stones) / stones, sand, 69.14 all which had, after the first shock, been seen to float upon the waves, was swallowed up in the ocean, excepting (ms derived: all was swallowd

59.4 59.4 59.4 59.5 59.13 59.19 60.4 60.10 60.11 60.14 60.24 60.37 61.13 61.20 61.32 61.36 62.9 62.10 62.34 63.2 63.11 63.21 64.13 64.27 64.28

46o

EMENDATION LIST

up in the ocean which had after the first shock ↑ been ↓ seen to float upon the waves excepting) / all was swallowed up in the ocean, which had, after the first shock, been seen to float upon the waves, excepting 69.19 had first (ms) / had at first 70.6 sufferer, (ms) / sufferer— 70.7 linen (ms linnen) / linens 70.13 unless it (ms) / unlessit 70.33 man—wot (ms) / man? Wot 70.34 on life (ms) / to life 70.37 will (ms) / shall 70.40 order (ms) / orders 71.5 those (ms) / these 71.15 recruiting (ms) / mounting 71.15 merchants (ms Merchants) / ware-houses 71.24 well-known (ms) / well known 71.43 land, (proof correction) / land; 72.4 Spenser (8vo) / Spencer 72.19 requires. It (ms) / requires; it 72.20 win (ms) / earn 72.22 seenteen-hundred (proof correction) / seenteen hundred 72.24 seenteen-hundred (proof correction) / seenteen hundred 72.26 Master (ms Mar) / Mr 72.30 mysell (ms) / myself 72.36 You (ms)/Ye 73.5 swalled (ms swalld) / swald 73.31 their (ms) / them 73.41 burthen (ms) / burden 74.1 Enough—it (proof correction) / Enough. It 74.3 cliff (ms) / cliffs 74.5 without expression (ms) / without an expression 74.10 kist (ms) / chest 74.18 banning (ms) / cursing 74.22 housekeeper (ms) / houskeeper 74.41 what passed (ms what passd) / what had passed 75.2 felt that this (ms) / felt this 75.3 homeward. Swertha (ms) / homeward, [new paragraph] Swertha 75.9 It’s (8vo) / Its 75.12 pushed (ms) / posted 75.15 give the (ms) / give to the 75.20 He was a lovely youth! I guess (ms derived: He was a lovely youth I guess) / “He was a lovely youth, I guess; The punctuation supplied by the intermediaries misinterprets both Wordsworth and Scott. 75.36 charge. She (ms) / charge; she 76.19 that (ms) / this 76.33 tow—and (ms) / tow. And 76.34 The (ms) / the 76.39 whin (ms) / wheen 76.41 ony (ms) / any 77.5 lang syne (ms) / langsyne 77.6 Tryguarsen (ms) / Tryguarson 77.33 interrupting; (ms) / interrupting him; 78.14 order (ms) / orders 78.15 elsewhere (ms else where) / also when 78.19 you (ms)/You

EMENDATION LIST 78.29 78.38 79.24 79.28 80.7 80.11 80.18 80.24 80.27 81.29 82.7 82.27 82.27 82.39 82.39 82.44

83.13 83.15 83.31 83.33 84.8 84.17 84.25 84.40

85.4 85.14 85.19 85.33 85.40 85.42 86.4 86.9 86.11 86.14 86.15 86.15 86.34 86.34 86.36 86.42 86.43 87.7 87.15 87.16 87.18 87.23 87.24 87.28 87.39 88.12 88.12 88.14

lang (ms) / long sun-burned (ms sunburnd) / sun-burnt infernally—the (ms) / infernally. The come (ms) / came piece. She (ms piece—She; proofcorrection piece; ↑ She / piece; she sake.” (ms sake—”) / sake.’ lost; for,” ( 12mo) / lost;” for, called), (ms derived: calld—) ) / called.) I was (ms) /1 [new line] I was see about a quarter (ms) / see a quarter a most workmanlike (ms) / a workmanlike thing (ms) / things list.” (ms) / list. sea? (ms) / sea! their (ms) / these the hall or mansion-house (ms the hall or mansion house) / the man­ sion-house ere (ms) / when that (ms)/the ornaments, he was (ms) / ornaments, yet he was accepted,” (ms) / accepted it,” the old Zetlanders (ms) / the Zetlanders with an assumption (ms) / with assumption Brenda (8vo) / Bertha a month (ms) / months Scott corrected ‘a month’ to ‘months’ in proof, but forgot that he was committed to a tighter chronology: see Historical Note, 485. disposed himself (ms) / disposed of himself stranger (ms) / person Brenda (8vo) / Bertha change (ms) / changes Yellowley (8vo) / Yellowleys aneugh (ms) / eneugh Brassay (ms) / Brassa impressed (ms impressd) / impress Burgh Westra?— (ms Burgh Westra—) / Burgh-Westra?”— strange (ms) / stranger day— (ms) / day,— than (ms) / then Dance? (ms) / Dance! Saint (ms)/St aneugh (ms) / eneugh I am (ms) / I’m saam (ms) / same came (ms)/cam a(MS)/A words (ms) / Words will (proof correction) / will ye (ms)/you wad (ms) / would yoursell (ms) / yourself lay (ms)/lie hands (ms) / hand say, I will (ms) / say, will wab of wadmaal (ms) / bale of coarse wadmaal

461

462

EMENDATION LIST

The manuscript was misread, so that ‘wab’ appeared in the printed proofs as ‘wale’. Scott corrected this error to ‘bale’ and, in the process, qualified ‘wadmaal’ with ‘coarse’. This latter change is unnecessary since Scott had earlier defined ‘wadmaal’ as ‘coarse’ stuff. Scott’s inter­ vention would not have occurred if the manuscript had been read cor­ rectly, so this edition restores the original ‘ wab of wadmaal’, the kind of folk poetry in which Scott delighted. 88.17 purse, flung (ms) / purse, he flung 88.20 frae (ms) / from 88.31 in (ms)/into 88.40 creel? (ms) / creel! 88.41 bargain cost (ms) / bargain that cost 89.14 gude (ms) / good 89.26 it’s (ms its; printed proofs it’s) / it is 91.5 black (ms) / bleak 91.13 waterfowl (ms) / aquatic birds The change to ‘acquatic birds’ was made after the author had read the proofs. 91.21 waterfowl (ms) / water-fowl 91.43 round (ms) / around 92.24 Banquet (ms) / banquet 92.32 said she (ms) / she said 92.38 Yes (ms)/Yet 93.4 sea-cavern (ms) / cavern 93.5 security (ms) / obscurity 93.6 knowst (ms) / knowest 93.12 it! (ms) /it? 93.20 Thou (ms)/thou 93.36 Edmondston (Editorial) / Edmondstone The terminal ‘e’ is in both the ms and Edr, but the correct spelling (according to the title-page of the book) is without an ‘e’, and is used by Scott at 205.33. 94.14 in(8vo)/into 94.17 Her (proof correction) / her 94.17 wave wets (ms) / waves wet 94.25 convinced that (ms) / convinced than he was, that 94.27 your song (ms) / you sing 94.29 speakst (ms) / speakest 94.33 power (ms) / sway 94.43 of(Ms)/at 95.30 not, shun (ms) / not—shun 95.30 weakness—remain (ms) / weakness! Remain 95.37 agitation, [new paragraph] It (ms agitation. NP It) / agitation. It 95.40 manner. “It (ms) / manner, [new paragraph] “It 96.4 creeped (ms creepd) / crept 96.11 mean—you (ms) /mean. You 96.32 this (ms) / that 96.38 Burgh Westra (8vo Burgh-Westra) / Harfra 97.19 rack-weed (ms rack weed) / wreck-weed 97.21 usual (8vo) / usually 98.10 We’re (ms) / we’re 98.24 Peterson (ms) / Paterson 98.33 ony(Ms)/any 99.12 was (ms) / were 100.29 traversed (ms) / travelled

EMENDATION LIST

463

100.34 which (ms) / that 101.5 joseph (12mo) / Joseph The word has an initial capital in the Ms both here and at 103.26; the intermediaries kept the capital here but removed it (correctly) at 103.26. 101.29 days (ms)/day 101.30 nathless (ms) / natheless 101.34 bear (ms)/love 102.15 wark(MS)/work 102.20 threshold (ms) / thresh-hold In Ed r the word was hyphenated over a line-end. 103.28 gambades (ms) / gambols 105.7 Inot(MS)/notI 105.11 Islands (ms) / islands 105.27 bee-skap (ms) / bee-skep 105.34 I have (ms)/have I 105.39 bigg(MS)/big 105.41 pay half (ms) / pay the half 105.42 grunded (proofcorrection grounded) / grund 105.43 —(bide (ms —(—bide) / —Bide 106.1 imp!)”—this (ms imp—)” this) / imp!” This 106.5 —(bide (ms—(—bide) / —Bide 106.5 beast)— (ms beast—)—) / beast— 106.8 —bide (ms)/—Bide 106.8 say—Wherefore—Wherefore—the (ms) / say—wherefore—where­ fore—The 106.27 Triptolmus (proofcorrection) / Triptolemus 106.28 employing himself (proof correction) / employed 106.35 suspirations (ms) / aspirations 106.39 castaway (ms)/cast-a-way 107.8 huckle-bone (ms) / ankle-bone 107.9 doctors’ (12mo) / doctor’s 107.38 made the very deaf to hear who never heard before (ms) / given hearing to the deaf 107.40 sights (proof addition) / rites The proof addition was misread as ‘rights’, but as it made no sense it was changed to the more plausible ‘rites’, which is found in the base­ text, and in the Lewis setting of Volume 1. Many copies of Edr (i.e. the first, Edinburgh, setting of the novel) correctly read ‘sights’, and, as no cancels affect this leaf, the change must have been made in the course of printing sheet R. 108.7 situated (ms) / living 108.8 Mordaunt and his companions might see each party pausing frequently to greet each other, and strolling on successively to the house (8vo) / Pausing frequently to greet each other, Mordaunt and his companions might see each party strolling on successively to the house 108.26 subdued by (ms subdued by with) / subdued with 109.1 in (ms)/on 109.3 those (8vo) / that 109.23 low-browed (ms low browd) / low, broad 109.40 to take full advantage of his size and form, and to mix (ms to take full advantage of his size and form and to mix) / to mix 110.19 in (ms)/on 11o. 23 neither (proof correction) / not 111.14 nature; at (proof correction) / nature; and at

464 112.11 112.13 112.39 112.41 113.41 114.2 114.15 114.25 114.26 114.27 114.28 115.21 116.29 117.29 117.31 118.3

118.15 118.33 119.25 119.27 119.28 119.29 120.19 120.34 122.13 122.17 122.19 123.25 123.36 124.6 126.4 126.6 127.25

127.29 128.37 128.41 128.42 129.11 129.20 129.41 130.18 130.19 130.25 130.33 131.13 131.17 131.21 131.27 131.28 132.9 132.23

EMENDATION LIST Magnus himself (ms) / Magnushimself rising and (proof correction) / rising, and salutations (ms) / salutation his (ms)/the Covent Garden (ms) / Covent-Garden have day’s (ms) / have the day’s bonnie (ms) / bonny Night (ms) / night Morning (ms) / morning in (ms)/In us (ms)/you saw woman (ms)/saw a woman —have (ms)/—I have best-known (ms) / best known dunned a wit but (ms dun’d a wit but) / denied a wit credit save in jest, or t0 hoot at a time out of his own pocket (ms) / to boot out ofhis own pocket, at a time take (ms)/make younot(MS) / notyou [no title] (ms) / Mary. Hillswick (ms) / Hillswicke calm (ms)/calms storm (ms)/storms women-folks (8vo) / woman folks END OF volume first (ms EndofVol. I.) / [notext] guests: (proofcorrection) / guests, are (proof correction) / were economies (ms (Economies) / enormities that(MS)/the ofless(MS)/oftheless feeling (ms ↑ feeling ↓ ) / feelings her(MS)/one her (ms) / that one’s Good Ship, the (msand 12mo) / good ship the The initial capitals are in the ms; the comma was added in the 12mo collected edition. Shellicoat-spring (ms) / Shellicoat spring fellow-traveller (ms fellow traveller) / fellow-travellers chapter (ms) / Chapter [notext](ms)/end of volume first amongst (ms) / among unfeeling (ms) / unfailing was never (ms) / never was trees!—I (ms trees—I) / trees! I upon—We (ms) / upon. We bum—now (ms) / burn. Now one (ms) / way well (ms)/Well digressions (ms) / digression there and then (ms) / then and there but(MS)/But the Scotsman (ms) / that Scotchman any man (ms) / any other man Magnus. (ms) / MagnusTroil.

EMENDATION LIST 132.27 132.29 132.30 132.31 132.32 132.33 132.42 132.42 133.4 133.4 133.5 133.6 133.15

133.21 133.23 133.24 133.27 133.36 133.40 133.43 134.14 134.30 134.30

134.30 134.34

134.40 134.42 134.43 135.1 135.2 135·13 135.14 135.25

135.28 135.35 135.36 136.9 136.10 136.14

137.3

465

Mr (ms)/Master let the one (ms) / let one company—our (ms) / company; our land, our (ms land our) / land—our it—here’s (ms) / it. Here’s Mr (ms Mr.)/Master Papastour (ms) / Papastons ”___ (ms)/____” well (MS) / Well this (ms)/his what on earth hast (proof correction)/ what hast there (ms) / here the Wits’ (Magnum) / Will’s Scott wrote ‘Will’s Coffee-house’ in ms, but he meant the Wits’ Coffee­ house as all previous references have been to the Wits’ Coffee-house, not to Will’s. Both names were used ofone establishment: see note to 113.37. you there (ms)/you got there come to (ms ↑ come to ↓ ) / come and his (ms)/her brought a (ms) / brought you a hand (ms)/hands among all the (ms) / among the Dumbletete (ms) / Dumbletate deprecating (ms) / deprecatory open—if(ms) / open. If there (ms)/their LeafB1 was cancelled for an undetermined reason, but the first cancel (which is in the base-text) produced two errors (see this and the next emendation); a second cancel (which is to be found in most copies) corrected both. aught (ms)/ought so, Eric Scambester, fill (ms derived) / so fill There is a large space in the ms which indicates that Scott had forgotten Eric’s name but wished to include it. Tolemus (ms tolemus) / Triptolemus bonnebells (ms) / bonnie belles least (ms)/lest bulk (ms) / hulk man-of-war (8vo) / man of war were unknown (proof correction) / were then unknown Zetland. But (ms) / Zetland; but the merchandize (derived from proofcorrection)/ the heaps ofmer­ chandize Scott added ‘articles which were heaped around’ in the proof, but failed to delete ‘the heaps of’ before ‘merchandize and miscellaneous ware’. some, the tribute (8vo) / some the tribute they occupied (ms)/they had occupied Saint (ms)/St exertion (ms)/exertions amongst (ms) / among an office which (ms) / or office ofleader of the revels, which The Ms ‘an’ was misread as ‘or’ which necessitated the addition of a phrase in proof. senseless (ms) / useless

466 137.21 137.22 138.36 138.39 139.8 139.14 139.25 140.7

140.9 149.29

140.33 140.36

140.38 140.39 141.22 141.27 141.31

142.3 142.5 142.13 142.23 143.28 145.1 145.4 146.17

146.19 146.26

147.2 148.6 148.20 148.37 148.39 149.13 150.21 151.3 151.7 151.8 151.17 151.33 153.15 153.19

EMENDATION LIST sagas (ms) / sages till (ms)/until good (ms)/manage Barley? (ms) / Barley! Zetland (Editorial) / Orcadian Berserkar (ms) / Berserkars bolder (ms)/better spoken (ms derived: spoke) / spoke Although the ms seems to read ‘spoke’, the word is ‘spoken’ at both 30.21 and 31.18, and thus ‘spoken’ was probably intended here. Spoken (ms) / Spoke sixteen hundred and fifty (Editorial) / sixteen hundred and fifty-one Montrose was executed in 1650. when (ms)/ When till just (proof derived) / till when, just The ms reads ‘when just when our beards’; in proof Scott substituted ‘till’ without deleting the first ‘when’. shot (ms)/shots officers were crying (8vo) / officers crying me”___ (ms) / me___ ” think that (ms) / think, that thought a hero (derived from proof correction) / thought of The ms reads ‘to be a heroe’. In proof Scott deleted ‘a hero’ and substituted ‘thought’; the intermediaries subsequently added ‘of'. But the sense makes it more likely that Scott meant to insert a caret, rather than delete ‘a hero’. gesture. But (ms) / gesture; but the swords (ms) / their swords men formed (ms) / men had formed even a (ms) / even of a these (ms) / those dances (ms) / dance some (ms)/a periwigs, the (8vo) / periwigs, that the The transposition of phrases in proof necessitates the elimination of the second ‘that’. not (ms) / no the others (derived from proof correction) / her sister maskers The ms reads ‘more care than the rest of the band’. In proof Scott deleted ‘rest of the’ (‘band’ is on the next line) and substituted ‘others’. The intention is clear, although imperfectly executed. a spot (ms) / the spot more attentive (ms) / most attentive you—you (ms) / you! You say”___ (ms)/say___” Martyr (8vo)/martyr Cleveland”____ (ms) / Cleveland___ ” intimate (ms) / acquainted deeply—You (ms) / deeply;—you half-extinguished (proof correction) / half extinguished half-fluttered (ms half-flutterd) / fluttered fancy assimilated (ms) / fancy had assimilated worse (ms)/worst and ofpoetry (ms) /and poetry folks (ms)/folk

EMENDATION LIST 154.22 154.24 154.27 154.37 155.1 155.1 155.25 155.31 155.31 155.33 155.37 155.41 155.42 156.13 156.14 157.42 157.42 157.42 157.43 158.4 158.12 158.23 158.25 158.28 158.37 159.19 159.42 161.14 161.15 161.15 161.24 161.26 161.34 162.25 163.7 163.16 163.20 163.21 163.30 164.6 164.17 164.21 165.39 166.1 166.17 166.37 166.37 167.24 167.27 168.16 168.19 168.35 168.40 168.41 170.9

467

headaches (ms) / headachs could to (ms) / could do to various (ms) / possible vivants (ms) / vivans Mum (ms)/mum Schwartz-beer (ms) / Schwartz beer in hand (ms) / in his hand Duke’s (ms Dukes)/ duke’s sally (ms)/rally far (ms) / infinitely sort (Ms) / sorts under command (ms) / under the command hastened (ms hastend) / hurried crusie (ms) / cruise forwards (ms) / forward Admiral (ms) / admiral wha(MS)/who Lord (ms) / lord Chamberlain (ms) / chamberlain wit (ms) / wont daunted. (ms) / daunted,— and habit (ms) / and the habit backing (ms) / backers expostulation (ms) / explanation spirit (ms) / spirits whale (ms) / monster kind (ms)/kinds dolphin (ms) / dolphins water reminded (ms and printed proofs) / water, reminding deficiencies, and he (ms and printed proofs) / deficiencies, he no (ms)/not out like (ms) / out of like causes (ms)/cause stepping back (ms) / retreating evens (ms) / even dead—two (ms) / dead.—Two other mischief (ms) / other a mischief well— (proofcorrection) / well.— those (ms)/these swear donner (proof correction) / swear, donner than (8vo) / then bare-headed, bare-legged (cancel leaf F7) / bare-headed bare-legged Ideots (ms) / Idiots his (ms)/her so(MS)/sae roost (ms)/Roost hove (ms) / may have washed wald(Ms)/wad neck (ms)/necks amongst (ms)/among for safer (ms) / for a safer Pro Cloud-compeller (ms) / procloud-compeller Bryce has (ms) / Bryce,—hast lashings—come (ms lashings come) / lashing?—Come aigre (ms) / angry

468

EMENDATION LIST

171.66 at the Wits’(Magnum) / at Will’s See entry for 133.15. 171.17 his (ms)/this 171.18 afraid probably to (ms afraid ↑ probably ↓ to) / afraid to 172.11 message? (ms) / message! 172.26 it—my friend Captain Cleveland (printed proofs) / it, my friend. Cap­ tain Cleveland 172.30 but” (ms)/but ” 172.36 them on any terms—and (ms derived: have them on any and) / them— and Scott concluded a line with ‘any’; it seems as though he simply omitted the following word as he returned to the left margin. 172.37 condition (ms)/conditions 173.4 matter (ms)/matters 173-7 Udaller wald, in the end, (ms Udaller wald in the end; printed proofs Udaller wald, in the end,) /Udaller, in the end, would 173.25 answer, (ms) / answer; 173.42 thrawart?(Ms)/thrawart! 174.6 and so they (ms)/and they 174.10 bid (ms)/bade 174.26 deprived (ms) / bereaved 174.37 Cleveland’s (ms Clevelands) / Cleveland 174.39 speaks (Editorial) / listens to 175.3 than her (ms) / than in her 175.3 own. And (ms)/own; and 175 9 appearance (ms) / appearances 175.22 lain (ms)/been 175.36 love (ms)/sleep 175.43 helier(ms) / halier 176.1 means (ms) / meant 176.5 helier (ms Helier) / halier 176.16 surprising (ms surprizing; printed proofs surprising) / surpassing 176.32 some Runic (ms) / some wild Runic 176.36 other’s (8vo) / others 176.40 surprise and fear were (8vo) / surprise and fear was 177.3 sang (MS) / sung 177.35 whatsoever (ms) / whatever 177.42 have felt (ms) / have not felt 178.33 thou, my silly (ms) / thou, silly 178.34 don (ms)/Don 179.20 fear was (ms) / fears were 179.28 udal(Ms)/Udal 179.39 on (ms)/in 180.12 on (ms)/in 180.23 sagas (ms)/Sagas 180.23 was said (proof correction) / is said 180.26 be still (ms)/still be 181.10 burnt (ms)/burned 181.21 leisure, (ms) / leisure; 182.8 puff—But (ms) / puff, but 182.17 until (proof correction) / that 182.33 verses (ms)/words 183.9 undertaking?—I (ms) / undertaking? I 183.17 mis-shaped (msmishaped) / mis-shapen 183.18 affrightened (ms affrightend) / affrighted

EMENDATION LIST 183.24 185.21 185.24 185.39 186.3 186.5 186.25 186.26 188.22 188.40 189.4 189.13 189.28 189.28 189.29

189.42 189.43 190. 1 190.10 191.11 191.6 191.33 192.30 193.32 194.1 194.10 194.16 194.19 194.26 195.27 196.5 196.42 197.44 197.46 198.1 198.5 198.36 199.8 199.19 200.1 200.18 200.32 200.40 201.4 201.17 201.20 201.21 202.27 202.35 202.37 202.40 203.4

pagan (ms)/Pagan doest (ms) / dost thus(MS)/this Winds.” She (ms Winds, ↑ ” She) / Winds.” [new paragraph] She pass by my (ms) / pass my slumber (ms) / slumbers enough (ms) / Enough and to command (ms) / and command conversant—But (ms) / conversant; but are (ms)/were d1686 (MS) / those taut (ms taught) / tight Brenda—this woman, half (ms Brenda—this woman half) / Brenda, this woman—half halfmad-woman (Editorial) / half-mad woman [ms as Ed1] rest (ms) / veriest Scott’s mistake in hyphenation in the previous emendation brought about the change to ‘veriest’. country that (ms country ? that) / country, and that under—it (ms) / under them. It Look (ms) / look ours (ms)/our’s Mind! (ms)/Mind, a feckless matter (ms) / no reproach wrecked (ms wreckd) / ruined when (ms)/whom if (ms)/if ever I lover—surely (ms) / lover. Surely upward (ms) / upwards betwixt (ms)/between breakfasting (ms) / breakfast ***** (ms derived: –––––) / [blank] rythmical (ms) / rhymical forwards (ms)/forward Halcro expressed (proof correction) / Halcro thus expressed take interest (ms) / take an interest whales (ms)/whale abune (ms) / above broomed (ms broom'd) / broomed hear (ms)/have folk (ms) / folks prolocutor (ms) / procurator Claud Halcro.(8vo)/[blank] thing—Ask (ms) /thing—ask Claud Halcro.(8vo)/[blank] devize (ms)/device looked (proof correction) / look’d Bummelaer(ms) / Rummelaer 1588 (ms)/1558 it—And (ms)/it; and girl—to (ms) /girl. To approve”____ (ms) / approve___ ” I have you (ms) /I have got you I am (ms) / though I am not Magnus Troil.(8vo)/[blank]

469

470 203.12 203.25 203.37 203.39 203.44

203.45 204.15 204.17 204.21 204.40

205.26 205.30 205.33 205.38 206.11 206.13 206.35

206.36 206.38 207.8 207.14 207.22 207.26 207.30 208.9 208.21 208.40

209.22 209.43

210.15 210.27 210.39 210.41

211.26 211.37 212.6 212.43 213.20 213.27 213.28 213.28 213.39

EMENDATION LIST

Norna . (8vo) / [blank] brown (ms) / brave that(ms) / which whatsoever (ms) / whatever could, in any manner, have escaped (ms could have in any manner have escaped) / could have, in any manner, escaped Scott emended his phrasing as he wrote but did not delete the first ‘have’ as he should have done. observed (ms)/discovered carline (ms) / carlin leed (ms)/lied fishery (ms) / fishing The season (proof correction) / The fishing season The printed proof reads ‘It’; Scott changed this reading to ‘The sea­ son’. fishery (ms) / fishing stock (ms) / sea-stores Scott’s proof change from ‘stock’ to ‘sea-stores’ created a repetition. A (ms)/a a(Ms)/the liberal (ms) / literal for (ms)/to farrer(MS)/farther ‘Farrer’ was used in English until the 17th century, and in Scots to the 20th in all dialects. ear still could (ms) / ear could fishermen’s (ms fishermens) / fishermens’ the very first (ms) / the first clear-obscure (ms) / clear obscure Helier (ms) / Helyer mermaid (ms mer-maid) / Mermaid spit (ms) / spot was so earnestly (ms) / was earnestly would (ms)/could well, how little truth there is in the report—how little you (ms well how little truth there is in the report—how little you) / well, how little you till (ms)/tilGoffe (Editorial) / Allured Scott does not establish ‘Goffe’ as the name of the pirate captain until Volume 3. dominion (ms) / dominions against (ms) / agaist pleases (ms) / please ardour, but (ms ardour but) / ardour,—but The insertion of the double punctuation devalues Scott’s own earlier dash. Cleveland, my (printed proofs) / Cleveland. My I will (ms)/will I See, a (ms)/See you, a not(MS)/ not throw (ms) / threw quarter—a (ms) / quarter. A for this (Magnum) / of this [ms as Ed 1 ] this—And (ms)/ this;—and world by (ms) / world, by

EMENDATION LIST

471

213.40 teach (ms)/learn The substitution of‘learn’ may have been the work ofBallantyne who made all the other changes on this page of the proofs. 214.18 fear (ms)/fear 214.19 appeared (ms appeard) / approached 215.26 spoke?—” (proofcorrection) / spoke?”— 215.33 sombrero (ms Sombrero) / sombrera 215.38 whenere (ms Whenere) / whenever 216.8 spit (ms) / spot 216.20 accomplishment (ms) / accomplishments 216.25 attain power (ms) / attain authority 216.34 Justice (ms)/justice 216.37 but on the wretches who betrayed my father I took (ms) / but after the wretches who had betrayed my father; and on them I took It seems that Scott misread his own sentence in proof: he changed what he had written to ‘after the wretches who had betrayed’, as though this were a phrase dependent on the preceding verb ‘sought’ rather than the opening phrase of a new structure. An intermediary had to add ‘and on them’ to make sense of the correction. 216.40 creeping (ms) / coming 217.8 and at length (Editorial) / and that at length Scott ought to have deleted this ‘that’ when he added ‘so that’ in proof at 2.228.3(217.11). 217.15 discourse, (ms) / discourse:— 217.18 you; (proofcorrection) / you. 217.27 Pirate (ms)/pirate 217.29 Minna. “All (ms Minna “All) / Minna—“all 218.2 sordid (ms) / wicked 218.3 blood-cruelty (ms) / blood and cruelty 218.16 Goffe (Editorial) / Rackam Scott does not establish ‘Goffe’ as the name of the pirate captain until Volume 3. 218.16 rest had (ms) / rest, had 218.24 Fortune (ms) / fortune 219.19 alongst(ms) / along 219.21 thus (ms) / this 220.5 failed when (ms faild when) / failed him when 220.20 to sleep (ms) / asleep 220.29 no one (MS) / none 221.22 to sleep (ms) / asleep 221.29 she had seemed (ms) / she seemed 222.8 brandished (ms brandishd) / deadly 222.22 thus (ms)/this 222.38 sprang (ms) / sprung 223.21 burthen (ms)/burden 223.24 farther (ms) / further 224.25 Martyr (ms) / martyr 225.16 [new paragraph] I (ms) / [new line] I 225.28 But(MS)/but 225.29 they (ms) / They 225.35 and (ms)/And 225.35 are, maiden, you (ms are maiden you) / are? Maiden, you 225.37 on (ms)/upon 225.37 wings—Go to your bed, maiden, go—for, (ms wings Go to your bed maiden go—for) / wings.—But, maiden, go in; for,

472

226.10 226.16 227.11 227.11 227.11 227.40 228.9 228.33 229.4 229.17 229.19 229.41 230.1 230.2 230.2 230.2 230.7 230.8 230.8 230.10 230.15 230.25 231.6 231.32 231.39 232.5 232.13 232.33 232.37 233.5 233.6 233.27 234.29 234.34 234.37 235.9 236.17 236.18 236.18 236.18

236.21 236.22 236.35 237.35 237.9 237.9 238.7 238.34

EMENDATION LIST The ms was misread for the printed proof reads: ‘wings.—Go to, you maiden, go; for,’. The proof correction was generated by the misread­ ing. scarce (ms) / scarcely boat,” (msboat”) / boat?” And (ms)/and yours (ms) / your’s chilly. You (ms) / chilly.You Chantrey (ms) / Chantry sprang (ms) / sprung for (ms)/of planta-cruive (ms planta cruive) / plant-a-cruive The term is so hyphenated at 12.3 and 229.4. show—are (ms) / show—Are a very, very (ms a very very) / a very by the side of the (ms) / by the head (ms) / heads the (ms) / their bannet (ms) / bonnet it’s (8vo) / its of a wildness (ms) / of wildness downa (ms) / dinna contradicted, dame; and (ms contradicted dame and) / contradicted; and his (ms)/the so soon (ms)/as soon Man (proof correction) / man Mertoun (8vo) / Mordaunt her (ms)/this was returned (ms) / was not returned Mordaunt (8vo) / Mertoun self-love (ms derived: self lodge) / self-will hoff(MS)/howff struck mute (ms) / much struck, and even silenced, brawest (ms) / bravest corned (ms) / come Oho(MS)/Oho percentage (proof correction) / per centage aboat(Ms)/aboat speaks (ms)/speak as (ms)/than it’s (8vo)/its wald walk (ms) / wad walk rede(MS)/rule wald wait (Editorial) / wad wait The MS reading is ‘would wait’; as there is a return to Scott’s MS form at ‘wald walk’ the correct normalisation here is also ‘wald’. Gude (ms) / gude peculiar (ms) / particular Embersen (ms) / Emberson Camsory(Ms)/Camsey can. And (ms) / can; and Clawsen’s (ms Clawsens) / Clawson’s their (ms)/the completed (ms) / accomplished

EMENDATION LIST 239.20 240.11 240.13 242.11 242.29 243.16 243.39 244.14 245.8 245.11 246.19 247.28 247.28 247.31 247.41 248.26 248.31 248.35 249.28 249.39 250.3 250.11 250.23 250.38 251.14 251.17

251.29 252.4 252.25 252.41 253.4 253.12 253.13 253.20 253.26 254.4 254.6 254.24 254.40 255.9 255.36 255.37 256.10 256.17 256.19 257.21

259.9 260.29 260.37 261.8

473

site (ms) / scite wall (ms) / walls blown (ms) / blowing attested (ms) / obtested with the inscriptions (ms with ↑ the ↓ inscriptions) / with inscriptions Not unless (ms) / Not, unless around (ms) / round farther (ms) / other Anne (ms) / Ann harried (ms) / hurried sank (ms) / sunk foot’s (ms)/foot wherever (ms) / whenever their (ms) / these filled and emptied (ms filld and emptied) / filled she (ms)/She wherever (ms) / where-ever besides (ms) / beides journeys (ms) / joumies amongst (ms)/among drank it devoutly (proof correction) / drank devoutly family, the servants (ms) / family, servants home—But (ms) / home; but never learn (ms) / never, by any means, learn dwelled (ms dwelld) / dwelt not have known any thing (ms not have know any thing) / have known nothing counsels (ms) / councils yaul (proof correction) / yawl further (ms) / farther daughter (ms) / daughters Noroway (ms) / Norway woes.(ms)/woes! Mickle (Editorial)/Meikle and in the (ms)/and the dwellings in Orkney and Zetland where (ms) / dwellings, for of(Ms)/by rungs (ms) / rings said (ms)/muttered to (ms)/into of acute and unutterable (ms) / of unutterable alongst (ms) / along direction (ms) / directions pay us (ms) / pay the blabber-lips (ms) / blubber lips uttering however a (ms) / uttering a ’’What! my kinswoman will be angry?” said the Udaller, comprehend­ ing the signal. “Shalt (proof correction: “What! my kinswoman will,” said the Udaller, comprehending the signal, “be angry? Shalt) / “What! my kinswoman,” said the Udaller, comprehending the signal, “be angry? Well, shalt Mickle (msMickle)/Meikle here (ms)/Here further (ms) / farther come (ms) / came

474 261.25 261.28 261.30 261.34 262.41 262.2 262.10 262.18 262.21 262.27 262.38 262.43 264.9 264.13 264.31 265.1 265.4 265.5 265.11 265.19 265.45 266.40 267.12 267.16 267.19

267.28 267.37 269.15 270.23 271.12 271.15 5 272.3 273.18 273.33 273.34 273.37 275.37 275.26 275.33

276.31 276.35 278.7 278.36 278.40 279.17 279.31 279.42 280.2 280.8 280.21

EMENDATION LIST good drawn swords (ms) / good swords drawn forwards (proof correction) / forward daughter (ms) / daughters and of the (ms) / and the is”___ (ms) / is___” Geirvada (ms) / Giervada alongst (ms) / along on her sister’s account (ms) / on the score ofher sister passively (ms) / pensively mix (ms)/mixture confident (ms)/ confiding amongst (ms)/among sang (ms) / sung to(Ms)/for there (ms) / then Compeller (ms) / compeller sputtering (ms) / spattering to (ms)/into hollow-moaning (ms) / hollow moaning On (proof correction) / O’er Nixie’s (8vo) / Nixies my spell (ms) / the spell Martyr’s (ms Martyrs; second setting Martyr’s) / Martyrs’ prophesy (ms) / prophecy lips (Editorial) / bosom Neither the OED nor the SND supports a distinction between breast and bosom. sorrow (ms) / danger incidents, has (proof correction) / incidents, it is known has sat him down (ms) / sat down injunction (ms) / injunctions you—you (ms) / you! You Scotsman (ms) / Scotchman desert (ms) / desart from the entrance of the Burg (ms) / from the burg what (ms)/What these (ms)/those lee (ms)/lea choruses (ms) / chorusses little, yet (ms) / little, but yet Laurence Scholey alone (ms derived: Laurence [space] alone) / Laurence alone The lacuna in the manuscript indicates that Scott wished to include the last name. come (ms) / came come (ms)/came leddies’ (ms leddies) / ladies’ frae(MS)/from whichever (ms) / which ever hearth-stane (ms) / stane doubt my (ms) / doubt, my ugsome, ill-shaped (printed proofs) / ugsome ill-shaped suld (ms)/should mony (ms) / many hersell (ms) / herself

EMENDATION LIST 280.24 280.29 280.33 280.42 281.17 282.9 282.10 282.12 282.13 282.15 282.27 283.4 283.4 284.5 284.5 284.9 284.24 284.24 285.1 285.40 286.2 286.4 286.12 288.22 288.23 288.25 289.13 289.16 289.17 289.30 289.36 290.38 292.13 292.15 292.24 292.40 293.26 293.38 294.4 294.15 295.10 295.40 295.40

296.2 296.10 296.11 296.25 297.17 297.24 297.38 298.25 298.38 299.9

stap(MS)/stop narrative (ms) / narration and I shall (ms) / and shall fabellous (ms) / fabulous ponies”___ (ms) / ponies ____” Brindie (ms) / Brenda dearth of mess (ms) / dearth, Miss, wald(Ms)/wad of(MS)/to Lalland (ms lalland) / Lawland bathered (ms batherd) / bothered wi’ (MS wi) / with either:—and (proof correction) / either!—and craig(MS)/crag so (ms)/as the spectacles (ms) / his spectacles, warldly (ms) / worldly keeped (ms keepd) / keepit daughters (ms) / daughter with help (ms) / with the help and (ms) / but arranged agreeably (ms) / arranged and executed agreeably book, as (proof correction) / book as one (ms)/any set eyes (ms) / set their eyes save (ms)/screen on boards (ms) / on the boards word”___ (ms) / word ___” Jack (ms) / Jack in(Ms)/i’ will up (ms) / will go up Olave, or Ollaw (ms) / Olave, Ollaw mind—the (ms) / mind. The the (ms)/The will, at Port Royal and elsewhere, wink (ms will at Port Royal and elsewhere wink) / dwell at Port Royal and elsewhere—wink wherever (ms) / where-ever prithee (ms) / Pr’ythee shew”___ (ms) / shew___ ” our own time (ms) / our time give her (ms) / give him her wench. Why (ms) / wench!—why knowst (ms) / knowest it. [new paragraph] “And (ms it”—“And) / it—And so ” [new paragraph] “And heir (ms)/sure it(MS)/It Bahama Islands where (ms) / Bahama Isles, and where moment” (ms) / moment ” calling. For (ms) / calling; for doubt (ms)/doubts to-day.” (ms) / to-day, at any rate?” so you (ms)/you so smart (ms)/ small welt (ms) / waft

475

476 299.14 299.15 299.26 300.2 301.18 301.32 301.35 301.38 302.15 302.22 302.42 303.10 303.13 303.17 303.27 303.28 303.34

304.14 304.17 304.36

304.39 305.36 306.10 306.30 306.31 306.31 306.33 306.34 307.4 307.13 307.23 307.24 307.38 309.14 309.24 310.7 310.7 310.13 310.22 310.38 310.41

311.1 311.1 311.13 312.23 312.36 313.3 313.4

EMENDATION LIST goodly (ms)/godly islands (ms) / island wares? (ms) / wares! “making a phrase,” (ms) / ‘making a phrase,’ thee, (ms) / thee? frae (ms) / from evanished (ms evanishd) / vanished positively (ms) / presently he (ms)/him without hope (ms) / without the hope spruce-beer (ms) / spruce beer and”__ (ms)/and___ ” Iam(Ms)/I’m place”___ (ms) / place ___” doubtless Swertha (ms) / doubtless, Swertha couldna (ms could na) / wouldna Fortune’s Favourite (ms derived: [space]) / pirate A space was left in the ms, always a sign that Scott could not remember a name. rover (ms)/Rover came in (ms)/came up Fortune’s Favourite (ms derived: [space]) / Rover Scott again left a space in the ms, but the generic ‘rover’ (see 304.14) mistakenly became the specific name of the pirate ship, which is else­ where the ‘Fortune’s Favourite’. suns (ms)/sun touching any (ms) / touching on any and ofimpatience (ms) / and impatience Duties? (ms) / Duties! Duties? (ms Duties—) / Duties! Your (ms)/your sea-fowl—for (ms) / sea-fowl. For return. (ms) / return? latter (ms) / later not”___ (ms) / not ___” who (ms)/that more (ms) / most at finding (ms) / to see inducements (ms) / inducement Minna. (ms) / Minna? dare (ms) / dares dare (ms) / dares further (ms) / farther myself—you (ms)/myself.—You rise (ms)/arise and hold sway over nothing more substantial than howling (ms and ↑ hold sway over nothing more substantial than ↓ howling) / and howl­ ing phantoms (ms)/phantasies continue the mightiest (ms) / continue to be the mightiest be—I(MS)/be.I permitted (ms) / should permit robbers’(ms) / robber’s a level (ms) / the level equals (ms) / equal

EMENDATION LIST

477

313.16 captains (ms)/Captains 313.32 insinuation (ms) / insinuations 314.13 amongst (ms) / among 314.14 won’t (8vo) / wont 314.18 won’t (8vo)/wont 314.22 you(MS)/ you 314.23 __ __ (ms)/ __ 314.32 gentlemen (2nd setting) / gentleman [ms as 1 st setting] 314.35 ––!”(ms)/ ––!’ The two errors above were corrected in the 2nd setting of leaves A–N; the first was a ms mistake carried forward into print and the second a mistake in the first setting. 315.11 undertaking (ms) / undertakings 315.32 met from (ms) / met with from 315.10 pistols (ms) / pistol 316.38 fellow (ms) / man 317.2 post meridiem (ms) / post meridiem 317.2 a.m.,(Msand8vo) /a.m. Although a Latin abbreviation, ‘a.m.’ is assimilated to English, and the m s reading is correct. The comma, necessary to parallel the punctu­ ation around ‘post meridiem’, was added in the 8vo. 317.9 field, fray, and senate (ms field fray and senate) / field, the fray, and the senate 317.17 make (ms) / make make 317.27 Then (ms)/Why then 317.28 prithee (ms) / pr’ythee 317.39 amongst (ms) 7 among 317.41 right (ms) /rights 318.14 privates (ms) / pirates 318.15 man sufficiently (ms) / man being sufficiently Scott added ‘being’ in proof, but seems to have misunderstood the structure of the original sentence. 318.21 amongst (ms) / among 318.25 belts (ms)/belt 318.32 judge (ms) / judged 318.37 murthered (ms murtherd) / murdered 318.39 on (ms)/upon 319.3 meantime (8vo) / mean time 319.15 knew that, though (ms knew though) / knew, that, though 319.21 ran (ms)/run 319.41 early this (ms) / earlythis 320.28 forwards (ms) / forward 320.34 forwards (proof correction) / forward 321.21 money! (printed proofs) / money? 321.32 hame(MS)/home 321.41 Dutch (8vo) / dutch 322. 1 pretty with (ms) / pretty girl with 322.36 Let (ms) / Now, sir, let 322.39 than you can (ms) / than [space] can 323.4 expected in (ms) / expected here in 323.16 Stromness. (ms) / Stromness? 323.24 dribbling out time (ms) / dribbling out our time 323.30 as a hostage (ms) / as hostage 324.27 mickle (ms) / muckle 324.32 had nae (ms) / had na

478 325.2 325.6 325.7 325.10 325.14 325.17 325.40 325.41 325.43 326.7

326.21 326.24 326.30 326.33 327.1

327.16 327.21 327.23 327.36 328.1 328.2 328.5 328.7 328.10 328.14 328.25 328.32 328.40 329.9 329.9 329.15 329.22 329.25 329.26 330.5 330.26 330.31 331.10 331.28 332.1 332.2 332.19 332.28 332.29 332.36 332.36 333.41 333.3

EMENDATION LIST root-and-branch (ms) / root and branch For (ms)/for and have heard (ms) / and I have heard times! (printed proofs) / times? Worry”___ (ms) / Worry___ ” saam (ms) / same you, Mr Mayor,” (ms you Mr Mayor”) / you,” Mr Mayor, expect”___ (ms) / expect___ ” that worthy (ms) / that our worthy giving (ms derived) / to give The ms reads ‘eviting them one’. The missing word is obviously ‘giv­ ing’, butBallantyne inserted the unidiomatic ‘to give’ in proof. mair (ms) / more under-tone (ms) / under tone under way (ms) / under weigh onywhere(ms)/anywhere transaction, the (Editorial) / transaction that was going forward, the The ms reads ‘transaction thus forced upon him’; the latter part of the phrase is repeated in the same sentence. The normal treatment of repetition is to find a substitute for the first use, but in this instance Ballantyne’s response was mechanical. cart-rapes (ms) / cart-ropes was in vain (ms) / was vain farther (ms) / further directed towards (ms) / directed particularly towards Scott’s proofaddition of‘particularly’ creates a bad repetition. murther (ms) / murder ofman (ms) / man murthered (ms murtherd) / murdered jesting (ms) / joking murthering (ms) / murdering alone, (printed proofs) / alone? an improver has (ms) / can improvers have stooping (ms) / inclining slew (ms)/slue forwards (ms) / forward gravat (ms) / cravat for the purpose (ms) / for purpose of insulting (ms) / of an insulting betwixt (ms) / between comforting (ms)/ complimenting captain (Editorial) / boatswain under way (ms) / under weigh all. (printed proofs) / all safe nor pleasant (ms) / pleasant nor safe luck (ms)/look ahead (ms) / a-head her (ms)/his go(Ms)/Go of—but (ms)/of. But yet”___ (ms) / yet___ ” around (ms) / round pirate fashion (ms) / pirate-fashion vessel—there (ms) / vessel. There God (printed proofs) / G—

EMENDATION LIST 334.13 334.15 334.25 334.28 335.22 335.26 336.15 337.36 337.42 339.10 339.34 340.1 340.4 340.35 340.42 341.18 341.31 341.37 342.3 342.3 342.21 342.24 342.29 342.31

342.31 343.39 344.3 5 345.24 346.1 346.26 349.6 349.10 350.3 350.33 350.40 351.8

352.2 352.5 352.8 352.9 352.12 352.30 353.2 353.4 353.11 353.13

479

rum (ms) / man caboose (ms) / cabin scape (ms)/‘scape al fresco (proof correction) / alfresco fathom (ms) / fathoms among(Ms)/of short (ms) / strict see” (ms) / see ” men (ms) / thus what (ms)/ that would (ms)/could slew (ms) / slue Heart (proof correction) / heart and had mixed (ms) / and mixed Alas (ms)/alas be some (ms) / be of some trade—go (ms) / trade.—Go Master (ms)/Mr Cleveland? (ms)/Cleveland! know Cleveland?” (ms) / know that Cleveland whom you have twice named?” on (ms)/at about; (ms) / about it; jade (ms) / wench bitch (ms) / jade Scott’s manuscript readings, ‘jade’ and ‘bitch’, are restored in the two emendations above. In the proofs, Ballantyne expressed shock at the use of such language, and Scott capitulated to his objection. For a discussion of this question of self-censorship, see Saint Ronan's Well, ed. Mark Weinstein, EEWN 16,403-04. made!” (8vo) / made! Stromness. And (ms) / Stromness; and have severe (ms) / have very severe on board (ms) / aboard lee-side (8vo) / lea-side be made in (ms)/be in now (proof correction) / now those (ms) / these ifsun(Ms)/ifthesun can(Ms)/ can is (ms)/Is western (Editorial) / eastern There is no east door in a medieval church and there is none in St Magnus Cathedral. To judge from his texts, Scott did not have a reli­ able sense of the points of the compass. Kirk (ms) / kirk and on ponies (8vo) / and ponies tell (ms)/tells Kirk (ms) / kirk Kirk (ms)/kirk to (ms) / that we may do with (ms) / do so with farther (ms) / further rovers’ (ms) / rover’s mayst (proofcorrection) / mayest

480 353.16 353.29 355.6 355.14 355.19 355.21 356.10

356.21 356.21 356.33 357.8 358.1 358.5 358.10 359.25 360.17 360.36 361.12

361.31 362.17 362.21 362.23 363.12 363.22 363.28 363.36 363.42 363.42 364.12 365.7 365.25 365.25 365.27 365.31 365.33 365.36 366.3 366.6 366.12 366.30 366.40 367.11 367.21 367.27 367.34 368.1 369.8 369.8 370.3 370.3

EMENDATION LIST he had made (ms) / she made opportunity (12mo) / occasion so desolate (ms) / so utterly desolate taken; for (printed proofs) / taken. For gratitude” (ms)/gratitude ” hand (ms)/hands who impels you is powerful (ms) / who employs you as his implement is powerful The Ed 1 reading comes from Scott’s proof-correction of a misreading of the ms ‘impels’ as ‘implores’. bestow on him (ms) / bestow him him a fair (ms) / him fair the great current (ms) / the current sun-set. (ms) / sun set! and around (ms) / and round misshapen (ms) / mishapen hasted (ms) / hastened ferns (ms)/fern won’t(12mo) / wont heaven: (ms) / heaven; 6th (Editorial) / 5th The historical date was 6 October 1789. and his (ms)/and of his World Well Lost (ms world well lost) / World well Lost prithee (ms) / pr’ythee the (ms)/their Halcro? (ms) / Halcro! Captain— (ms) / Captain!— you?(ms)/you! offences”___ (ms) / offences ___” canning(Ms)/caring for you— (ms for you for you—) / for you for ever— or for prediction (ms) / or prediction see”____ (ms) / see ____” stop(Ms)/stap any one of (ms) / any of howsomdever”___ (ms) / howsomdever ___” hold his (ms) / hold on his ashore. We (ms) / ashore—we The child (ms)/The pet-child The addition of‘pet’ was post-proof. howsomdever” (ms) / howsomdever ” or (ms)/nor “Nay, faith,” (proof correction “Nay, faith”) / “Faith, nay,” a-diving (8vo) / a diving within the (proof correction) / within reach of the begone (ms) / be gone handgranadoes (ms) / hand-grenades murthered (ms murtherd) / murdered aboard (ms a-board) / board Red (ms)/red claim (ms) / chance reuniting (ms) / retaining Brenda hastily, (ms) / Brenda, matter. Minna’s (ms) / matter—Minna’s

EMENDATION LIST 370.25 5 370.3 370.40 371.31 372.1 372.25 372.43 375·17 375.24

375.38 376.4 376.4 376.4 376.25

376.27 377.26 377.31 377.33 377.39 377.41 377.42 378.12

378.16

378.28 379.19 379.24 380.8 380.9 380.11 380.30 380.31 380.36 381.10 381.42 382.4 382.6 382.15

481

must(MS) / must suspicion (ms) / suspicions He (ms)/he this (ms)/the glimmed (ms) / glimmered And (ms)/and nothing else which passed around (ms nothing else which passd around) / nothing around planted (ms) / placed circumstances they were which had called them out of the house of Stennis and placed them (ms circumstances they were which had calld them out of the house of Stennis and placed them) / circumstances were those which placed them captain (proof correction) / Captain prithee (ms) / pr’ythee begone (ms) / be gone bosom-friend (ms) / bosom friend and you know I always thought you spoke (ms derived: and you know I always you spoke) / and I always knew you spoke Scott omitted a word in the ms; the printed proofs have a jumbled version which reads ‘and you always know I spoke’; Scott corrected the print to produce ‘and I always know you spoke’; the base-text replaced ‘know’ with ‘knew’. In fact, supplying the one missing word corrects the fault. worst this (ms) / worst for me this lads—the (ms) / lads! The man-of-war’s men (m s Man of wars men) / man-of-war on (ms)/in aboard (ms) / a-board man-of-war’s men (ms man ofwars men) / man-of-war’s-man boltsprit (ms) / bowsprit those of the pirate crew who were there prisoners (ms) / of them the pirate seamen who were their prisoners The Ms was misread, necessitating proof-corrections which generated a new reading. Troil wished sincerely that the roof under which he lived could have been allowed (Editorial) / Troil could have wished sincerely that the roof under which he lived had been allowed In getting rid of a repetition the wrong ‘could have’ was removed. hand (ms)/head sang(Ms)/sung him firing (ms) / him from firing his (ms)/the that (ms) / which of Fitful-head (ms) / of the Fitful-head with earnest (ms) / with the earnest Ballantyne added the ‘the’ in proof but it is not necessary. our most unhappy (ms) / our unhappy it—but (ms)/it; but against—(ms)/againsthim— alongst (ms) / along Thou (ms) / Thou And (ms) / and where, after a lapse of two or three years, (ms where ↑ after a lapse of two or three years ↓ ) / wherein

482

EMENDATION LIST

382.22 bore me had (ms) / bore had 382.34 and while (ms) / and after a lapse of two or three years, while See the emendation at 321.12 for the correct placement of the verso insert. 383.1 my (ms) / me from 383.20 But give (ms) / But, give 383.21 the (ms) / this 383.21 in the east (8vo) / in east 383.29 chaplet” (ms derived: chaplet”—) / chaplet.” 384.32 7th August (ms and Editorial) / 24th ofAugust There is no ‘of’ in the ms. The change of date corrects an error internal to the fiction, for twice before the narrative established that the meeting between Noma and Mertoun takes place on 7 August. The Halcyon arrives on the same day. 385.1 gave (ms)/give 385.22 peacefully (ms) / peaceably 386.22 ci-devant (ms) / cidevant 386.38 phrase”___ (ms) / phrase ___” 387.9 pavement of the Church in (ms) / pavement in 387.14 set sail (ms)/sailed 387.16 We (ms)/we 387.16 be (ms)/Be 387.39 Gonzaga (ms) / Gonzago 388.11 reviving (ms) / returning 388.26 three of (ms) / three more of 389.8 besides that, (ms besides that) / besides, that, 389.10 on (ms)/in 389.21 Mordaunt though, perhaps arising (ms Mordaunt though perhaps aris­ ing) / Mordaunt, though, perhaps, arising 390.15 old mansion of (ms) / mansion of old 390.20 Noma(Ms)/Norna’s 390.25 sang(MS)/sung 390.32 was so (ms) / was happy 390.43 excited (ms) / exerted 390.43 and a purer (ms) / and purer 391.31 which placed (ms) / which had placed

END-OF-LINE HYPHENS

All end-of-line hyphens in the present text are soft unless included in the list below. The hyphens listed are hard and should be retained when quoting. 6.8 6.41 7.37 14.25 14.36 19.10 28.35 30.35 33.6 35.18 35.30 35.36 38.5 42.2 48.39 50.4 56.21 58.22 61.10 65.14 72.2 80.15 81.28 82.39 83.16 86.14 88.31 91.1 92.41 93.4 107.6 107.11 113.10 113.38 117.41 125.40 128.37 131.14 131.24 134.41 135.12 138.46 139.39 144.14

old-fashioned Sumburgh-head good-breeding rock-cod-fish army-contractors wine-cup crags-man light-handed ne’er-do-weel three-cornered cart-horse arm-chair Hall-house ill-looking yarn-windles dark-coloured Reim-kennar two-thirds Fitful-head Fitful-head half-disposed arm-chest modern-looking cockle-shells re-appeared Sumburgh-head doe-leather water-fowl brave-hearted haaf-fish small-beer salt-water half-serious snuff-box custard-gorged over-estimated fellow-traveller well-known full-trimmed land-legs Drawing-rooms broad-breasted black-raven light-blue

147.10 149.32 151.4 152.6 153.3 153.12 153.35 164.15 164.24 170.22 171.6 171.38 180.25 185.11 186.21 189.28 195.4 215.11 215.21 221.40 225.33 227.40 231.38 234.38 236.14 236.40 238.9 247.14 252.3 253.3 254.32 261.24 263.16 271.26 273.20 274.8 282.1 283.2 285.32 292.5 294.8 294.11 294.13 297.19 483

fairy-formed puppet-show Vossdale-head to-morrow day-lantern half-witted harvest-home whale-fishing side-table cloak-pins right-hand to-morrow mis-shapen weather-wasted pre-eminently mad-woman fortune-teller south-east sea-fowl sea-ditty side-door statuary-marble ground-baits sclate-stanes Cross-kirk masking-fat saint-worship south-western Orkney-man’s Frawa-Stack sure-footed spae-women Reim-kennar sea-weed way-side mis-shapen water-spaniel barn-yard salt-water mast-head sea-port down-looking such-a-one pocket-compass

484 305.41 314.9 316.30 316.38 321.17 321.31 321.41 325.2 336.6 336.13 336.30 344.6

END-OF-LINE HYPHENS Fitful-head a-quarrelling sun-dried quarter-deck free-trader servant-wench Dutch-built root-and-branch screech-owl self-applause day-light sea-bow

359 38 361.35 363.1 363.24 365.14 370.42 371.14 374.35 376.4 377.41 383.23 383.33

quarter-deck north-west spy-glass morning-tide to-morrow day-break main-guard fire-arms bosom-friend man-of-war’s pocket-book Reim-kennar

HISTORICAL NOTE

Chronology. No historical figures appear in The Pirate, and no histor­ ical events are dramatised. A real-life incident provided the germ of Scott’s story, but he changed and manipulated it for his own fictional purposes. Still, The Pirate can be considered an historical novel because it dramatises those ‘comers of time’ where an old era is coming to an end, and a new is beginning.1 Although the real-life incident occurred in 1724–25, Scott ‘was induced to go a generation or two farther back, to find materials from which I might trace the features of the old Norwe­ gian Udaller, the Scottish gentry having in general occupied the place of that primitive race, and their language and peculiarities of manner hav­ ing entirely disappeared’ .2 But the action of the novel may be dated more precisely. The events of The Pirate take place within a period of about three months. The open­ ing section (Volume 1, Chapters 4-9) is set in May; the central section, the four-day celebration of Saint John the Baptist’s festival at the Udaller’s (Volume 1, Chapter 12 to Volume 2, chapter 11), occurs in late June; and the climactic events on the waters and in Kirkwall (Volume 3, Chapters 4–15) happen in early August. Much happens in the opening section—Mordaunt takes leave of the family at Burgh Westra, takes refuge from the storm at Stourburgh where he encounters Bryce Snaelsfoot and Norna of the Fitful-head, has a surprising interview with his father, rescues Cleveland from death by drowning, speaks to his father again, and then has an interview with Cleveland; but all of this takes place within a period of little more than twenty-four hours. It occurs in May. The first words of the story proper are: ‘The spring was far advanced’ (25.26). When Mordaunt finally arrives home, the narrator reveals that ‘the length of the day was already considerable’, but it was dark by eleven o’clock at night (60.17-19). Later, after the arrival of Cleveland at Burgh Westra and the supplant­ ing ofMordaunt, Swertha recalls that Magnus Troil thought Mordaunt ‘the flower of the island but on Whitsunday last’ (98.38), thus placing the start of the story on 15 May, or perhaps a little earlier. Even more happens during the festivities at Burgh Westra—the feasting, drinking, and dancing, the whale-fishing, Cleveland’s saving Mordaunt from death by drowning, the impromptu bazaar of Bryce Snaelsfoot, Noma’s midnight tale of terror, the debate between Minna and Brenda, the fortune-telling, the departure of the boats for the deepsea fishing, the intimate discussion between Cleveland and Minna, the serenade beneath the window, the deadly struggle between Cleveland and Mordaunt, Minna’s incipient depression; all of this occurs within a period of little more than seventy-two hours, most probably between 21 and 24 June. The first night of the festival transpires ‘during the sum­ mer solstice’ (146.39-40); St John’s Day is celebrated on 24 June.3 485

486

HISTORICAL NOTE

The climax occurs in August. The narrator quotes directly from the Proclamation, ‘a free Mercat and Fair, holden at the good Burgh of Kirkwall on the third ofAugust, being Saint Ollaw’s day’ and continuing from three days to a week, and upwards (290.34-37). Norna had told Mertoun that he was to walk in the outer aisle of the Cathedral of Saint Magnus ‘on the fifth day of the Fair’ (243.26), or 7 August. On the climactic day, the day of the capture of Cleveland, the narrator reminds the reader of Norna’s command that Mertoun meet her ‘on the fifth day of the Fair of Saint Olla’ (380.14-15). In addition, the Fair is related to the Lammas festival that was traditionally celebrated in early August, and young couples associating with each other during the Fair were ‘termed Lambmas brother and sister’ (299.44). Scott seems to be in firm control of his time scheme. Yet a few pages later, we learn that Captain Weatherport followed the instructions of Norna to bring ‘his frigate into Stromness Bay on the morning of the 24th August’ (348.31-32). These two events—the meeting between Noma and Mertoun, and the arrival of the Halcyon—occur simultaneously, but 17 days apart. To correct this internal error of the fiction, the ‘24th August’ is adjusted editorially in this edition to the ‘7th August’, the date that is established first and later confirmed, and the date that coincides with the Lammas festival. But can we place these events of May-August within a particular year? We cannot, if we intend to account for all of the mutually incon­ sistent and anachronistic details. The reference to George Barnwell (344.20), for example, would require a date of 1731, or later, which is clearly impossible. But ifwe limit ourselves to consistency ofimaginative conception, it seems Scott had a specific year in mind. In the third paragraph of the novel, the narrator establishes that The Pirate takes place ‘in the end of the seventeenth century’ (6.5-6). Two paragraphs later, he reveals that the Scottish lairds, ‘at this early period, were even still considered as strangers and intruders’ (7.7-8). In his later introduction to The Pirate in the Magnum, Scott, as we have seen, explained that he had moved the historical incident of 1724-25 ‘a generation or two farther back, to find materials from which I might trace the features of the old Norwegian Udaller, the Scottish gentry having in general occupied the place of that primitive race, and their language and peculiarities of manner having entirely disappeared’.4 And whenever he thinks specifically about the date of The Pirate, Scott re­ mains consistent: for example Mordaunt ‘would have been an actual prodigy, if, living in Zetland in the end of the seventeenth century, he had possessed the philosophy which did not exist in Scotland generally, until at least two generations later’ (92.8–10). More specifically, it is the time of‘the Protestant succession, and the Revolution established’ (168.9). The Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 has been established but is far from secure. Time and again, these remote Zetlanders refer to the instability and plasticity of the times. Halcro asks, ‘There is not another Revolution, is there?... King James has not come back, as blithe King Charlie did, has he?’ (164.38–39). Minna asks why the Orcadians had missed every chance which ‘late

HISTORICAL NOTE

487

incidents had given to emancipate these islands from the Scottish yoke’ (167.40–41). Later, she elaborates, ‘The enemy—such I will call them —are now divided amongst themselves, and every vessel from their coast brings intelligence of fresh commotions—the Highlands against the Lowlands—the Williamites against the Jacobites—the Whigs against the Tories, and, to sum the whole, the kingdom of England against that of Scotland’ (210.27–32). Minna’s is the overcharged pic­ ture of a romantic partisan, but the only June that is historically plausible here is June of 1689. The Scots Parliament rejected James on 11 April 1689; Viscount Dundee arrived before Inverness on 1 May 1689 but died at Killiecrankie on 27 July 1689; Scott, like King William, believed the civil war was effectively over after the death of Dundee.5 By 21 August, further Jacobite advance was halted at Dunkeld, after which the rising collapsed. The ‘apprehension of an immediate war’ (388.24) further implies 1689, being the year in which the War of the Grand Alliance began. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Scott imagined the action of The Pirate to have taken place in 1689. In his artistic imagination, macrocosm and microcosm, Britain and Shetland, were going through the same inevitable historical process, the old order yield­ ing place to new. In the light of these arguments, the following represents a plausible time line for the major events of The Pirate:

Basil Mertoun flees Orkney with Norna’s baby, the future Clement Cleveland 1679 Basil and Clement become pirates 1683 Basil comes to Zetland with his 14-year-old son, Mordaunt 1689 10 May. Mordaunt leaves Burgh Westra 11 May. Mordaunt rescues Cleveland 21 June. Beginning of the Festival of Saint John the Baptist 22 June. Whale-fishing 23 June. Struggle between Cleveland and Mordaunt 24June. Conclusion of the Festival of Saint John 2 July. Mordaunt reported missing to Basil Mertoun 3 August. Beginning of the Fair of Saint Olla 7 August. Capture of Cleveland 1691 Marriage ofMordaunt and Brenda 1693 Death of Norna c.1715 Jack Bunce, alias Captain Bounce, reported to be an habitué of the Rose Coffee-House in London 1724-25 Historical incidents suggesting The Pirate 1664

Sources. For a ‘Scotch’ novel, The Pirate presents an uncustomary problem in source study. Scott normally drew on an immense historical knowledge accumulated over a lifetime. Places quite naturally evoked past events and stories, and Scott himself recognised that, unlike his followers and imitators, he did not have to ‘read up’ for his novels; like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, he did it ‘more natural’. But Ultima Thule while not terra incognita was not known intimately, for he had visited on

488

HISTORICAL NOTE

only one occasion, during the six-week cruise he took with the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners in the summer of 1814. 1] The Diary. The most important source of material for The Pirate was Scott’s own diary, compiled during that trip.7 During the fortnight he spent on Shetland, the Fair Isle, and Orkney, Scott exhibited his remarkable sense of curiosity and powers of observation. At the height of his abilities, and having just finished Waverley, he wished to experi­ ence and learn as much as he could. The diary is an exhilarating docu­ ment to read in itself but, more important, its wide-ranging and close observations were to provide the raw materials that would be trans­ muted into the art of The Pirate. There can be no doubt that, seven years later, Scott reread the diary closely before beginning work on The Pirate. Phrases and sentences are reproduced. Both diary and novel, for example, use ‘storm and shade’, a quotation from Thomas Campbell’s ‘Lord Ullin’s Daughter’ (Lock­ hart, 3.152; The Pirate, 39.36). In the diary, the Scottish ploughman complains that the Zetlanders work as if a spade or hoe ‘burned their fingers’ (Lockhart, 3.152); in the novel, the Scottish factor complains that Tronda Dronsdaughter works ‘as if the things burned her fingers’ (46.1). When two Greenland whalers were brought before a Justice of the Peace on a charge of sheep-stealing, The first denied he had taken the sheep, but said he had seen it taken away by a fellow with a red nose and a black wig—(this was the Justice’s description)—‘Don’t you think he was like his hon­ our, Tom?’ he added, appealing to his comrade. ‘By G—, Jack,’ answered Tom, T believe it was the very man!’ (Lockhart, 3.166)

When accused of a comparable crime in the novel, Derrick replies: “he was an elderly gentleman,—Dutch-built, round in the stern, with a white wig and a red nose—very like your majesty, I think;” then turning to a comrade, he added, “Jack, don’t you think the fellow... was very like his worship?” “By God, Tom Derrick,” answered the party appealed to, “I believe it is the very man!” (321.41-22.4)

Scott uses most of the material in his diary: the physical locations, from Sumburgh-head and Fitful-head to Kirkwall; the man-made structures, from the dwellings of the Picts, the Stones of Stennis and the Dwarfie Stone to the Earl’s Palace and the Cathedral of Saint Magnus; the superstitions, the customs, and the sports. But in the novel, he makes this material dramatic and thematic. Like Mordaunt, Scott ascended Sumburgh-head and studied the ‘wild sea-view’. He contemplated with ‘horror’ the situation of a vessel caught among such headlands and reefs of rocks. He knew it would be a fine situation in which to compose an ode to the Genius of Sumburgh­ head or ‘to have written and spoken madness of any kind in prose or poetry’. Instead, he sat down gently on the steep slope and, like Mor­ daunt, slid down a few hundred feet to the beach (Lockhart, 3.169-71). In the novel, this becomes the grand scene of the rescue of Cleveland. Likewise, he describes the ‘peculiar superstition’ of curing a

HISTORICAL NOTE

489

stolen heart by hanging about the neck of the victim a triangular stone in the shape of a heart. He even notes that, when no part of the molten lead suits the seer’s fancy, the ‘operation is recommenced, until he obtains a fragment of such a configuration as suits his mystical purpose’ (Lock­ hart, 3.155–56). Scott uses these details in the scene between Norna and Minna and, like the mystical conjurer herself, transmutes them into dramatic art. Scott saw the agricultural economy of Shetland with the eyes of Triptolemus Yellowley. He described and regretted the primitive, inef­ ficient mills that dotted the countryside: ‘There are about 500 such mills in Shetland, each incapable of grinding more than a sack at a time’ (Lockhart, 3.145). He stated that ‘nowhere is improvement in agricul­ ture more necessary’ (Lockhart, 3.153). He described and regretted the one-handled plough that required four bullocks, four ponies, and four humans, working together, to rip up a ‘sort of slit in the earth’. As Scott speculated, ‘an antiquary might be of opinion that this was the very model of the original plough invented by Triptolemus’ (Lockhart, 3.153). To read Scott’s diary is to watch the character of Triptolemus Yellowley being created. In 1814, Scott testified to the introduction into Orkney of ‘an excellent breed of horses from Lanarkshire’ (Lockhart, 3.197-98); in 1689, Triptolemus threatened to replace the native ponies with ‘cussers from Lanarkshire’ (106.23). And, finally, like his fictional creation, Scott tumbled offhis Shetland pony (Lockhart, 3.163). But Scott, of course, maintains a broader perspective than that of his narrow-minded projector. Against the real need to improve the agricul­ tural methods of this barely subsistence economy, Scott weighs the force of tradition and the human cost of rapid change. As he says in the diary, ‘The proprietors are already upon the alert, studying the means of gradual improvement, and no humane person would wish them to drive it on too rapidly, to the distress and perhaps destruction of the numerous tenants who have been bred under a different system’ (Lockhart, 3.154–55). In The Pirate Scott divides his own capacious vision of the problem into the one-sided views of Triptolemus and Magnus Troil, sparking their altercations, while at the same time developing his great theme: ‘the contest between the two great moving principles of social humanity; religious adherence to the past and the ancient, the desire and the admiration of permanence, on the one hand; and the passion for increase of knowledge, for truth, as the offspring of reason—in short, the mighty instincts of progression andfree agency, on the other’.8 On his final day on Orkney, Scott met a ‘Pythoness’, who subsisted by selling winds, and who outlined the history of Gow the Pirate, particu­ larly how he made love to Miss Gordon,9 ‘who pledged her faith to him by shaking hands, an engagement which, in her idea, could not be dissolved without her going to London to seek back again her “faith and troth,” by shaking hands with him again after execution’ (Lockhart, 3.204). Herein lies the germ of the plot of The Pirate, and of the char­ acters, Norna, Cleveland, and Minna. But what strange fruit grows from such a seed. Scott sanitises the story, romanticises it, and then moralises it.

490

HISTORICAL NOTE

2] Pirate literature. Scott was especially interested in the character of Gow, or Goffe, and asked many questions about his exploits. He conversed with Robert Stevenson, the chief engineer to the Board of Northern Lights, who supplied details he had learned from a friend whose ancestor had captured Gow;10 with Malcolm Laing, ‘the acute and ingenious historian of Scotland during the 17th century’ (3.25-26), who is mentioned in the ‘Advertisement’ to The Pirate, and whose grandfather had helped to capture Gow (Lockhart, 3.204). He also read extensively. In the ‘Reliquiæ Trotcosienses’11 Scott picks out as of particular interest Captain Charles Johnson’s History ofthe Lives and Actions ofthe most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers, (&c. To whichis added, A Genuine Account ofthe Voyages and Plunders ofthe most notedPirates.12 Besides a few suggestive narrative details, the History contains almost the entire cast of pirates: Gow, Bunce (more of a rogue than a pirate), Fletcher, Hawkins, Rackam, and Harry Glasby, who (as in The Pirate) saves his own neck by giving evidence against others. He perhaps also read Johnson’s A General History ofthe Robberies and Mur­ ders Ofthe most notorious Pyrates,13 and the anonymous History and Lives ofthe most notorious Pirates and their Crews; from Captain Avery, (&c. to Captain John Gow.14 Finally, Scott received an account of Gow from Alexander Peterkin, the Sheriff-Substitute of Orkney and Zetland, an account that is largely based on copies of letters exchanged between Gow and James Fea of Clestran.15 These likely supplied details for Scott’s historical narrative in the ‘Advertisement’. In addition, Peterkin’s account contains several tantalising hints that Scott may have reworked in The Pirate. For example, in one of his letters Gow states, ‘I’m resolved to set fire to all, and all of us perish together’. Later, Peterkin’s account continues, ‘After they were all taken prisoners, Cles­ tran [James Fea] immediately went onboard, and took possession of the ship; and for fear of a train to the ponther-room, because of their threatening to burn her, ordered a very narrow search immediately to be made to extinguish the same, because of their threatning to burn her’. 16 But all of these hints supplied little more than supportive details. As Robert Stevenson wrote when considering the relationship of Peterkin’s account to the novel, ‘But what was my astonishment on reading the work to find not one word of the manuscript account of Gow above alluded to unless it were a few proper names as Sumburgh head & Fitful head etc. all was the creation & composition of the Unknown Author’.17 A tempting source for Scott’s narrative of Cleveland would seem to be An Account of the Conduct and Proceedings of the Late John Gow1* by Daniel Defoe. Scott’s essay on Defoe’s life and works,19 his scattered remarks, and his library at Abbotsford testify to an extensive knowledge of his predecessor’s existing corpus. But, in spite of the fact that this account contains several details of Gow’s adventures which may be reworked in the story of Cleveland these are also found elsewhere and no concrete evidence can be found that Scott knew the Account. ..ofthe Late John Gow. The explanation seems to be that the obscure pamphlet was not attributed to Defoe until 1869, an attribution that is being questioned today.20 Although it is impossible to prove a negative here, it

HISTORICAL NOTE

491

seems probable that Scott was unacquainted with the pamphlet. 3] Character prototypes. The real Gow, or Goffe, was a mutineer, murderer, kidnapper of women, and altogether nasty piece of work.21 If he resembles anyone in The Pirate, it is Captain Goffe, whom Scott designs to present the strongest possible contrast to Captain Cleveland. Cleveland himself is a noble character trapped in evil circumstances. Norna’s summary carries conviction: You are of that temperament which the dark Influences desire as the tools of their agency; bold, haughty, and undaunted, unres­ trained by principle, and having only in its room a wild sense of indomitable pride, which such men call honour. Such you are, and as such your course through life has been—onward and unres­ trained, bloody and tempestuous. (356.11-16)

Additionally, Cleveland is capable of a grand passion, which must re­ main forever unfulfilled. In snort, Cleveland is a specimen of the most striking literary character of the age, the Byronic hero.22 He is Scott’s version—tamer, restrained by principle at last, acquiescent in the moralised conclusion—but still a character who owes far more to liter­ ary than to real-life sources. The same may be said of most of the major characters in The Pirate, Bessy Millie, the wretched old hag, ‘upwards of ninety’, with ‘nose and chin that almost met’ (Lockhart, 3.203), inhabitant of a miserable hovel, does not resemble the commanding Reim-kennar, Norna of the Fitfulhead. Scott was justifiably upset with the critics who saw in Noma little more than a repeat of Meg Merrilies,23 but this recurrent criticism may indicate that Norna is something of a literary type. In the motto to Volume 1, Chapter 10 (89), Scott aligns her with the mad astronomer of Rasselas, another example of the dangers of the prevalence of imagina­ tion. Norna learns her lesson and turns Christian at last. Her counter­ part, Minna Troil, must also learn the dangers of the prevalence of imagination. As prototype, the usual suspects are brought forth: Miss Gordon, or Mrs Scott of Scalloway, or Miss Roy of Nenthorn, or Miss Scott of Deloraine, or Miss Morritt of Rokeby.24 But Minna is con­ ceived in literary terms already familiar to readers of Scott and other novelists of the time. Scott’s genius lies in the remarkable number of convincing changes he can ring on the familiar type. And if there is the dark, romantic Minna, there must be the light, realistic Brenda. Young Maggie Tulliver was closer to the essence of Scott than the hunters after real-life prototypes when she complained: I’m determined to read no more books where the blond-haired women carry away all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice against them. If you could give me some story, now, where the dark woman triumphs, it would restore the balance. I want to avenge Rebecca and Flora MacIvor and Minna and all the rest of the dark unhappy ones.25 Mordaunt Mertoun is so clearly a literary device that the hunt for real-life prototypes has been suspended in his case. His melodramatic

492

HISTORICAL NOTE

father, Basil, has usually been traced to the school of Byron or Rad­ cliffe,26 but James Ballantyne was more precise when he pointed to the figure of Falkland from Godwin’s Caleb Williams (1794).27 Triptolemus, as we have seen, was virtually created in the diary of Scott. And Magnus Troil was another Scott original. Like the state of manners that Scott introduced into The Pirate, Magnus was largely imaginary, ‘though founded in some measure on slight hints, which, showing what was, seemed to give reasonable indication of what must once have been’.28 While working on The Pirate, Scott was rereading the novels of Smol­ lett and writing an account of his life and works, which was published in August 1821, as part of Ballantyne’s Novelists’ Library. In it, Scott observed, the term ofour author’s service in the navy was chiefly remarkable from his having acquired, in that brief space, such intimate know­ ledge ofour nautical world, as enabled him to describe sailors with such truth and spirit ofdelineation, that from that time whoever has undertaken the same task has seemed to copy more from Smollett than from nature.29 A strong tang of the Smollett of The Adventures ofPeregrine Pickle fla­ vours the sea chapters in the third volume of The Pirate—the broad humour, the rough language, the characters bordering upon carica­ ture. Echoes are frequently caught. Consider, for example, Lieutenant Hatchway’s statement to the commodore: ‘You did not steer; but howsomever, you canned all the way’.30 In all editions of The Pirate, Bunce tells Cleveland, ‘I have done with caring for you for ever’. But the word in the manuscript is clearly ‘canning’ (363.42). Apparently the interme­ diaries did not recognise the obscure nautical term, which Scott got from Smollett. In a letter of 20 January 1826, he told Lockhart, ‘though I shall not desire to steer yet I am the only person that can conn as Lieut Hatchway says to any good purpose’.31 In addition, Hatchway’s charac­ teristic ‘howsomever’ becomes Fletcher’s catch-word in The Pirate, ‘howsomdever’. 4] General sources. Scott used whatever sources were available to him. On 27 September 1821 he asked his friend William Erskine, who had been Sheriff of Orkney and Zetland at the time of the lighthouse tour, to come to Abbotsford saying: Ί want to talk to you about the locale of Zetland, for I am making my bricks with a very limited allowance of straw’.32 He used information from Thomas Tusser, A Hundreth Good Pointes ofHusbandrie, originally published in 1557,33 and from Lucas Jacobson Debes, Foroae et Foroa Reserata 34 Scott’s stores of literary knowledge are too numerous to be specified here but are registered in the explanatory notes. They include the Bible, the classical tradition, especially Virgil, the Northern sagas especially the Eyrbyggja and Eirikssaga,35 the established works of northern history, Olaus Magnus, Com­ pendious History of the Goths, Swedes and, Vandals, and other Northern Nations,36 and Thomas Bartholin, Antiquitatum Danicarum de Causis contemptae a Danis adhuc Gentilibus Mortis,37 as well as the British literary tradition from medieval ballads to Byron. Who but Scott, in a novel about the Shetland Islands, would quote extensively from the poetry of

HISTORICAL NOTE

493

John Dryden and the heroic dramas of the Restoration? 5] Intellectual context. In the arguments of Triptolemus and Magnus Troil, we have already argued, Scott weighs the force of tradition and the human cost of rapid change. The development of the theme within the novel is dramatic, and often comic, but this was the way in which Scott was adding his contribution to an on-going debate on the poor state of agriculture in Orkney and Shetland which is reflected in many books about the islands. As early as 1633 Robert Monteith comments on the poor state of the mills and ploughs and, while not generally critical of the state of agriculture, notes that Shetland is short of‘Corns, of which they have not so much of as serveth to maintain them, but must be supplied from the Orknay Isles, and the Continent of Scot­ land'.38 James Wallace, writing in 1693, similarly hints at the poor state of agriculture stating that ‘Their Com Land is every where parked, and without these inclosures their Sheep and Swine, and some of their other Beastial go at Random without a herdsman to keep them’.39 By the end of the eighteenth century George Eunson, a native of Orkney, wrote with some passion about the poor state of the tenantry suggesting that they were forced to pay ‘immense sums’ in rents which the nobility took in kind even when it left the people with nothing to eat, exporting the corn to Norway and the east for contraband liquor.40 Eunson’s complaints are elaborated upon in The Statistical Account ofScotland; while Patrick Barclay, writing about the parish of Aithsting and Sanst­ ing, may state that ‘very little can be said for the method of cultivation: It is, at best, slovenly, and often preposterous’,41 other contributors offer deeper analyses of the reasons for this state of affairs. For example, John Menzies comments in his account of‘Bressay, Burra and Quarff’: The people here manage their hay crop in a very absurd manner. They never cut it but when wet; they allow it to lie 2 or 3 weeks, even in the finest weather, and will not touch it, however dry, till it gets some showers, and is bleached by the rains. By this time the substance is gone. So obstinate are their prejudices on this head, that it is impossible to convince them of their error.42 While the obstinacy of the people may have been one cause for the state of agriculture, Menzies also identifies other problems. He suggests, for example, that the fishing system, whereby tenants were obliged to fish for their lairds, was a great impediment to progress and recognises that for real improvement to take place the people must be given longer leases (these were usually only for a year), larger farms, and the liberty to dispose of their produce to the best advantage, analyses reiterated elsewhere in Account. 43 It was in the early years of the nineteenth century, however, that the debate on the state of agriculture in Orkney and Shetland reached its height. In some respects the state of agriculture in the islands appears to have declined, partly due to the number of men absent at fishing or at the Greenland whaling, and, in Orkney in particular, because of a reli­ ance on kelp manufacture as a source of income. In November 1804 to July 1805 Patrick Neill published a series of articles in the Scots Maga­ zine in which he commented on the poor state ofthe tenantry:

494

HISTORICAL NOTE

The greater part of the Shetland tenants appeared to me to be sunk into a state of the most abject poverty and misery. I found them even without bread; without any kind of food, in short, but fish and cabbage... their little agricultural concerns entirely neglected, owing to the men being obliged to be absent during summer at the ling and tusk fishery.44

Like his predecessors Neill comments particularly on the poor state of ploughing,45 on the fact that the fields were infested with weeds,46 and on a lack of winter fodder for the cattle.47 He suggests planting trees,48 and concludes that the poor state of the tenants is owing to their rela­ tionship with the landowners and on the taxes exacted from them. Neill’s comments, however, provoked the censure of some of the landowners, censure ‘vented in unmeaning scurrility, through the medium both ofnewspapers and of Grub-street pamphlets’.49 Examples of this censure by an unnamed critic writing as ‘Thule’ and Neill’s responses to them are found in a volume owned by Scott. Published alongside are several articles supporting Neill’s position including one by Alexander Seton in which he comments on the nature of the plough, the need for drainage, the state of winter fodder and the lack of trees and roads as possible subjects for reform in Shetland, mirroring some of Triptolemus’s own suggestions.50 George Barry’s book on Orkney was also published in 1805 and he too recognises the relationship between tenant and landowner as an impediment to reform.51 Like earlier commentators he laments the state of the Orkney plough stating that ‘it is only fitted to scratch the surface two or three inches deep, and scatter the clods around it, without touch­ ing the best part of the earth’, and also adds a condemnation of the harrow, and the sickle.52 In 1809 Arthur Edmonds ton added his voice to the debate. While Edmondston to some extent defends the landowners he recognises the problems of agriculture in the islands and again sug­ gests small farms, the lack of drainage, an absence of carts for moving goods, short leases and the lack of trees as impediments to agricultural improvement. ‘Agriculture’, he states, ‘appears never to have been an object of general attention in Zetland’.53 The arguments between Magnus and Triptolemus which take place in the novel are a reflection of a real debate which was taking place on the subject of the islands’ agricultural economy in the early nineteenth century. But this debate between progression and adherence to the past was only a microcosm of a larger dialectic which was at play within Scotland as the novel was being written. The Highland Clearances, by which the Highlands were cleared of tenants in order to make way for more lucrative sheep-farming, were at their height in 1814-15, when Patrick Sellar was employed by the Countess of Sutherland to clear the Sutherland tenantry.54 They continued into the 1820s, the final wave in Sutherland taking place in 1819-21 when troops had to be called in to keep the peace.55 The Clearances therefore, that ultimate Scottish sym­ bol of the conflict between the owners and the users of land, were very much an issue in the year of the novel’s composition. Not surprisingly this provoked intellectual debate, an example of which is found in the

HISTORICAL NOTE

495

work of Scott’s friend Colonel David Stewart of Garth who had begun gathering material for a book on the Highlands in 1815. In 1822 he published Sketches of the Character, Manners, and Present State of the Highlanders ofScotland in which he condemns Sellar and the Sutherland Clearances and defends the traditional Highland way of life. Agricul­ tural reform, he argues, had been introduced too quickly ‘without allow­ ing time for the better feelings of those who have been drawn into it, perhaps unwarily, to operate’. He continues: ‘It is certain that there is no recent instance in which so much unmerited suffering has produced so little compassion, or reprobation for the authors’.56 The debate on agri­ cultural reform which takes place in the novel is, then, relevant not only to Orkney and Shetland in 1689 but also to the islands in the early nineteenth century, and pertinent to the wider debate on Scotland’s rural economic future which reached its height as the novel was being written. NOTES All manuscripts referred to are in the National Library of Scotland unless otherwise indicated. For standard abbreviations see 498-500.

1 2

3

4 5

6 7

8

9

10

11 12

13

Edgar Johnson, ‘Scott and the Comers of Time’, in Scott Bicentenary Essays, ed. Alan Bell (Edinburgh, 1973), 18-37. Walter Scott, The Pirate, in The Waverley Novels, 48 vols (Edinburgh, 1829-33), 24. viii. These dates assume the Gregorian calendar which was not adopted in Great Britain until 1752. Magnum, 24. viii. The Tale ofOld Mortality, eewn 4b, 300,433; The Prose Works ofSir Walter Scott, Bart., 28 vols (Edinburgh, 1834–36), 20.56–57,24.379–83. TheJournal ofSir Walter Scott, ed. W. E. K. Anderson (Oxford, 1972), 214. Published in J. G. Lockhart, Memoirs ofthe Life ofSir Walter Scott, Bart., 7 vols (Edinburgh, 1837–38), 3.134–277. The relevant section is at 141-207. Hereafter cited in the text as ‘Lockhart’. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, letter to Thomas Allsop, 8 April 1820; re­ printed in Walter Scott: The Critical Heritage, ed. John O. Hayden (London and New York, 1970), 180. W. S. Crockett maintains that ‘not Katherine Gordon, but Katherine Rorieson, was the lady’s name’. See The Scott Originals (London and Edin­ burgh, 1912), 308. ms 3831, f. 44r, identifies the friend who supplied details as ‘Dr Neill whose relative Mr James] Fea of [Clestran] actually captured Gow’. Scott’s as yet largely unpublished account of the interesting items in his library and museum. Charles Johnson, A General and True History ofthe Lives andActions ofthe most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers, &c. To which is added, A Genuine Account ofthe Voyages and Plunders ofthe most Noted Pirates (London, 1742): CLA, 154. Charles Johnson, A General History ofthe Robberies and Murders Ofthe most

496 14

15

16 17 18

19

20 21 22

23

24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

34

35

36

37

HISTORICAL NOTE notorious Pyrates (London, 1724): CLA, 127. History and Lives ofthe most notorious Pirates and their Crews;from Captain Avery, &c. to CaptainJohn Gow and his Lieutenant, who were hanged at Execution Dock, June 1725, &c. (London, 1732): CLA, 132. The account drawn up for Scott by Peterkin has not been found, but Peterkin later went on to publish Notes on Orkney and Zetland: Illustrative of The History, Antiquities, Scenery, and Customs ofThose Islands (Edinburgh, 1822): CLA, 18, in which the letters are reprinted. Peterkin, 215,222. ms 3831, f. 44r-45r. Daniel Defoe, An Account ofthe Conduct and Proceedings ofthe LateJohn Gow, alias Smith, Captain ofthe Late Pirates, Executedfor Murther and Piracy (London, 1725). In Prose Works, 4.228–96. This work was attributed by Scott to John Ballantyne, but was certainly revised by Scott: see Journal, 300,302. P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens, The Canonisation ofDaniel Defoe (New Haven and London, 1988), 67–74,100–04. See Crockett, 304–08. For Scott’s descriptions of the Byronic hero, see his biographical notice of Byron and his review of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 3, in Prose Works, 4.343–99, and 17.337–66, respectively. This criticism was first expressed by James Ballantyne in the proof sheets. It was expressed by Sydney Smith and other contemporary critics and is still heard today. For Scott’s reply, see Magnum, 24.x-xi. James Corson, A Bibliography ofSir Walter Scott (Edinburgh and London, 1943), no. 2858; Crockett, 303n. George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Bk 5, Ch. 4. E.g. see The Pirate, ed. Andrew Lang (Boston, 1893), xviii. Proofs, 1 .32; Huntington ms RB110387. Magnum, 24.ix. In Prose Works, 3.123. Tobias Smollett, The Adventures ofPeregrine Pickle (1751), Ch. 2. The Letters ofSir Walter Scott, ed. H. J. C. Grierson and others, 12 vols (London, 1932–37), 9.372. Letters,7.12. Thomas Tusser, A Hundreth Good Pointes ofHusbandries (1557). Scott republished a 1599 edition ofthis tract in Vol. 3 ofA Collection ofScarce and Valuable Tracts [TheSomers Tracts], 13 vols (London, 1809–15):CLA, 177.. Lucas Jacobson Debes, Foroae et Foroa Reserata, trans. John Sterpin (Lon­ don, 1676): CLA, 86. See Edith Batho, ‘Scott as a Mediaevalist’, in Sir Walter Scott To-Day: Some Retrospective Essays and Studies, ed. H. J. C. Grierson (London, 1932), 133–57. Scott himself published an ‘Abstract of the Eyrbiggia-Saga’, in Illustrations ofNorthern Antiquities (Edinburgh, 1814); it is available in Prose Works, 5.355–413. Olaus Magnus, Compendious History ofthe Goths, Swedes, and Vandals, and other Northern Nations (London, 1658): CLA, 64. Thomas Bartholin, Antiquitatum Danicarum de Causis contemptae a Danis adhucGentilibus Mortis (Copenhagen, 1689): CLA, 99.

HISTORICAL NOTE 38

39

40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51

52 53

54

55 56

497

Robert Monteith, ‘The Description of the Isles of Shetland’, in A Collection ofSeveral Treatises in Folio, Concerning Scotland, As it was ofOld, and also in later Times, ed. Robert Sibbald (Edinburgh, 1739), 2. James Wallace, A Description ofthe Isles ofOrkney (Edinburgh, 1693), 35: seeCLA,15. George Eunson, The Ancient and Present State ofOrkney (Newcastle-uponTyne, 1788), 79,80: CLA, 15. Sir John Sinclair, The StatisticalAccount ofScotland, ed. Donald J. Withrington and Ian R. Grant, Vol. 19, Orkney and Shetland (Wakefield, 1978), 377: see CLA, 84. First published 1791–99. The StatisticalAccount, 394. The StatisticalAccount, 399. These articles are re-published in Patrick Neill, A Tour Through Some ofthe Islands ofOrkney andShetland (Edinburgh, 1806): CLA, 15. Seep. vi. Neill, 13. Neill, 14. Neill, 15–16. Neill, 54–57. Neill, vi. Appendix 5, ‘Letter from Sir Alexander Seton ofPreston, containing Observations on the State ofthe Shetland Islands, and on the means of their improvement’, in Neill, 173–81. Rev. George Barry, The History ofthe Orkney Islands (Edinburgh, 1805), 337-38. Barry, 348,348,351. Arthur Edmondston, A View ofthe Ancient and Present State ofthe Zetland Islands, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1809), 1.168: CLA, 19). In addition to the works on Orkney and Shetland listed above, Scott may also have had early access to material printed in Samuel Hibbert, A Description ofthe Shetland Islands (Edinburgh, 1822): CLA, 5, although there is no record of any contact between the two. For a full and excellent account ofPatrick Sellar and the Sutherland clearances see Eric Richards, Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances: Homicide, Eviction and the Price ofProgress (Edinburgh, 1999). See Richards, 243–44. Colonel David Stewart, Sketches ofthe Character, Manners, and Present State ofthe Highlanders ofScotland, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1822), 1.149: CLA, 19. Interestingly, this is shelved at Abbotsford in close proximity to Arthur Edmondston’s book on Shetland. See Richards, 257-65 for a discussion of Stewart of Garth’s relationship to Sellar and the Sutherland clearances.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

In these notes a comprehensive attempt is made to identify Scott’s sources, and all quotations, references, historical events, and historical personages, to illu­ minate contemporary usages, to explain proverbs, and to translate difficult or obscure language. (Phrases are explained in the notes while single words are treated in the glossary.) The notes are designed to offer information rather than critical comment or exposition. When a quotation or allusion has not been recognised this is stated: any new information from readers will be welcomed. When quotations reproduce their sources accurately, the reference is given without comment; verbal differences in the source are indicated by a prefatory ‘see’, while a general rather than a verbal indebtedness is indicated by ‘com­ pare’. References are to standard editions or to editions that Scott himself used. Proverbs are identified by reference to the volumes listed below. Books in the Abbotsford Library are identified by reference to the appropriate page of the Catalogue of the Library at Abbotsford. Biblical references are to the Authorised Version. Plays by Shakespeare are cited without authorial ascription, and refer­ ences are to William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, edited by Peter Alexander (London and Glasgow, 1951, frequently reprinted). References to the poetry of Coleridge use the line-numbering of the first published version of each of his poems. The following works are distinguished by shortened forms of reference: Apperson G. L. Apperson, English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases: A Historical Dictionary (London, 1929). Barry Rev. George Barry, The History ofthe Orkney Islands (Edinburgh, 1805). Child Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5 vols (Boston and New York, 1882-98). CLA J. G. Cochrane, Catalogue ofthe Library at Abbotsford (Edinburgh, 1838). Defoe Daniel Defoe, An Account ofthe Conduct and Proceedings ofthe LateJohn Gow, alias Smith, etc. (Edinburgh, 1978); first published 1725. Edmondston Arthur Edmondston, A View ofthe Ancient and Present State ofthe Zetland Islands; including their Civil, Political, and Natural History, etc, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1809): CLA, 19. Fea Allan Fea, The Real Captain Cleveland (London, 1912). Fraser Lovat Fraser, Pirates (Kent, 1915); first published as The History and Lives ofall the most Notorious Pirates and their Crews (Dublin, 1727): see CLA, 132. Hibbert Samuel Hibbert, A Description ofthe Shetland Islands, comprising an account oftheir Geology, Scenery, Antiquities, and Superstitions (Edinburgh, 1822): CLA, 5. Johnson Captain Charles Johnson, A General and True History ofthe Lives and Actions ofthe most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers, &c. To which is added, A Genuine Account ofthe Voyages and Plunders ofthe most Noted Pirates (Birmingham, 1742): see CLA, 154. Kelly James Kelly, A Complete Collection ofScotish Proverbs Explained and made Intelligible to the English Reader (London, 1721): CLA, 169.

498

EXPLANATORY NOTES

499

Kinsley The Poems and Songs ofRobert Bums, ed. James Kinsley, 3 vols (Oxford, 1968). Letters The Letters ofSir Walter Scott, ed. H. J. C. Grierson and others, 12 vols (London, 1932-37). Lockhart J. G. Lockhart, Memoirs ofthe Life ofSir Walter Scott, Bart., 7 vols (Edinburgh, 1837-38). Magnum Walter Scott, Waverley Novels, 48 vols (Edinburgh, 1829-33). Vols 24 and 25 (1831) contain The Pirate. Monteith Robert Monteith, Laird of Eglisha & Gairsa, ‘A Description of the Isles of Orknay ’ (1633), and ‘The Description of the Isles of Shetland’ (1633?), both first published in 1711, in Sibbald [see below]. Minstrelsy Walter Scott, Minstrelsy ofthe Scottish Border, ed. T. F. Henderson, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1902). Neill Patrick Neill, A Tour Through Some ofthe Islands ofOrkney and Shetland (Edinburgh, 1806): CLA, 15. ODEP The Oxford Dictionary ofEnglish Proverbs, 3rd edn, rev. F. P. Wilson (Oxford, 1970). OED The Oxford English Dictionary, 12 vols (Oxford, 1933). Olaus Magnus Olaus Magnus, Description ofthe Northern Peoples, trans. Peter Fisher and Humphrey Higgens, ed. Peter Foote, 3 vols (London, 1996–98): see CLA, 64. Orkneyinga Saga Orkneyinga Saga: The History ofthe Earls ofOrkney, trans. Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards (London, 1978). Peterkin Alexander Peterkin, Notes on Orkney and Zetland: Illustrative ofThe History, Antiquities, Scenery, and Customs of Those Islands (Edinburgh, 1822): CLA, 18. Prose Works The Prose Works ofSir Walter Scott, Bart., 28 vols (Edinburgh, 1834–36). Ramsay Allan Ramsay, A Collection ofScots Proverbs ( 1737), in The Works of Allan Ramsay, 6 vols, Vol. 5, ed. Alexander Μ. Kinghorn and Alexander Law (Edinburghand London: Scottish Text Society, 1972), 59–133: see CLA, 169. Ray J[ohn] Ray, A Compleat Collection ofEnglish Proverbs, 3rd edn (London, 1737): CLA, 169. The Rehearsal George Villiers, Duke ofBuckingham, and others, The Rehearsal (see CLA, 218), in British Dramatistsfrom Dryden to Sheridan, ed. George H. Nettleton and Arthur E. Case (Cambridge, Mass., 1939). Sibbald A Collection ofSeveral Treatises in Folio, Concerning Scotland, As it was ofOld, and also in later Times, ed. Sir Robert Sibbald (Edinburgh, 1739)· Smith Hance D. Smith, Shetland Life and Trade: 1550–1914 (Edinburgh, 1984). StatisticalAccount Sir John Sinclair, The Statistical Account ofScotland, ed. Donald J. Withrington and Ian R. Grant, Vol. 19, Orkney and Shetland (Wakefield, 1978): see CLA, 84 (originally published 1791-99). Tilley Morris Palmer Tilley, A Dictionary ofthe Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1950). Venice Preserved Thomas Otway, Venice Preserved, ed. Malcolm Kelsall (Lin­ coln, Neb., 1969); first published 1682. Virgil, Aeneid The Aeneid ofVirgil, ed. R. D. Williams, 2 vols (London, 1972–73); written 26–19 BC. Virgil, Bucolics Virgil, Bucolics and Georgies, ed. T. E. Page (London, 1965); written 42–37, and 37–30 B C. Virgil, Georgies Virgil, Georgies, ed. R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1990); written 37–30 BC.

500

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Wallace James Wallace, A Description ofthe Isles ofOrkney (Edinburgh, 1693): see CLA, 15. Watson George Watson, John Gow: The Orkney Pirate (Wick, 1978). Withrington Shetland and the Outside World 1469–1969, ed. Donald J. With– rington (Oxford, 1983).

All manuscripts referred to in the notes are in the National Library of Scotland unless otherwise stated. The following edition of The Pirate has proved helpful: The Dryburgh Edition, 25 vols (London, 1892–94), Vol. 13.

title-page by The Author of“Waverley, Kenilworth,” &c Scott’s novels were published anonymously and after the first, Waverley (1814), author­ ship was attributed to ‘The Author of “Waverley” ’. Kenilworth (1821) was his 13 th novel, and The Pirate his 14th, published on 21 December 1821. title-page motto see The Tempest, 1.2.399–400. 3.4 Orkney Islands a group of 29 inhabited islands, 39 smaller islands used for grazing purposes, and a large number of waste rocky islets, all located off northeast Scotland. 3.7 the Revenge historically Gow was second mate and gunner on a ship called the Caroline, which sailed from Santa Cruz on 3 Nov 1724. On the first evening mutiny struck, and Gow was chosen as captain. The ship was renamed the Revenge', see Watson, 1 ; see also Defoe, 13. 3.8–9 John Gow, or Goffe, or Smith Daniel Defoe describes Gow as ‘John Gow, alias Smith’ in his title, and in his letters while in Orkney Gow signs himself‘JNO.GOW SMITH’: e.g. see Peterkin, 217. The alias is not surprising since the name Gow is derived from the Gaelic word for smith ‘gobha’. While the ‘bh’ in this word is now vocalised it would have been natural for Scott and his contemporaries to have thought it was pronounced ‘f ’ leading to the alternative ‘Goffe’. 3.10 various acts ofinsolence and villainy in his ‘Diary’ of his voyage to the Shetland Islands, etc., in the summer of 1814, Scott describes how he learned about Gow the pirate: see Lockhart, 3.203–04. At Scott’s urging, Alexander Peterkin, Sheriff-Substitute of Orkney and Zetland, drew up an account of Gow, the details of which may be found in Peterkin. Robert Steven­ son, the ‘Surveyor-Viceroy’ for the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners, sup­ plied additional details on Gow: see Reminiscences of 1814 ofSir Walter Scott Bart. by Robert Stevenson, Civil Engineer Edinburgh March 1850 (ms 3831–32). The acts of insolence included sheep stealing, scuffles with the locals, and plundering the houses of Henry Grahame and Honeyman of Graemsay. They are also alleged to have kidnapped 2, or in some accounts, 3 women: see Peterkin, 214; Defoe, 35; Fea, 56–59,72. 3.14–15 Stromness town and parish in the southwest of the Mainland, the largest of the Orkney Islands. According to some accounts Gow was born in Stromness, although it is more likely that he was actually born in Caithness. He was certainly brought up in Stromness; see Fea, 22–23. 3.16 received the troth-plight received a promise of marriage. Watson writes: ‘perhaps the most persistent tale is of his time at Stromness before his villainy was discovered. Here he courted and won the heart ofa local lass called Helen Gordon. The pair exchanged vows at the Odin Stone at Stenness, where from time immemorial local couples had performed handfast marriages simply by clasping hands through the hole which pierced this prehistoric monolith. This pagan ceremony was simple but the vows were binding and could only be dissolved by duly observed ritual’ (Watson, 16). 3.17 James Fea, younger of Clestron his family owned the House of Clestrain or Clestron in Sanday. He had been at school with Gow and at this

EXPLANATORY NOTES

501

time was living at Carrick in Eday. The correspondence which took place between Gow and Fea and the details of Gow’s subsequent capture can be found in Peterkin, 212–24. 3.20—21 harbour of Calfsound, on the Island ofEda the island of Eday lies N of Mainland Orkney. Calf Sound lies between Eday and the small island called the Calf of Eday. 3.24–25 James Laing merchant in Carrick instrumental in the negoti­ ations with Gow and his associates. For details of Laing’s part in the proceed­ ings see Peterkin, 212–24. 3.25 Malcolm Laing ( 1762–1818), born in Orkney, author of The History ofScotland, from the Union ofthe Crowns on the Accession ofJames VI. to the Throne ofEngland, to the Union ofthe Kingdoms in the Reign ofQueen Anne, 2 vols (London, 1800); 2nd edn, 4 vols (London, 1804): CLA, 5. Scott’s ‘Diary’ records his visit to Malcolm Laing in Shetland in 1814 (Lockhart, 3.184). In The Antiquary, Scott calls him ‘the acute Orcadian’ (eewn, 3,4.30–31 ). 3.27–28 suffered, by the sentence ofthe High Court ofAdmiralty the trial took place on 26 and 27 May 1725 and the presiding judges are listed as Sir Henry Penrice, Mr Justice Tracy and Mr Justice Reynolds; see Johnson, 359· 3.29–32 conducted himselfwith great audacity... plead Gow refused to plead either guilty or not guilty; when verbal persuasion failed the judge ordered Gow to be tortured. See Watson, 15. 3.32–38 words are these... boldness see London Daily Post, 27 May 1725· 4.1 pressing... to death punishment ofpeineforte et dure, ‘severe and hard punishment’, in which the body of a felon who refused to plead was in former times crushed under heavy weights until he either entered a plea or died. 4.2 Marshal of Court officer of the Admiralty Court, charged with the infliction of punishment. 4.3 being hanged in chains i.e. suffering an ignominious punishment. After execution notorious criminals could have their bodies hung in chains as a warning to others. 4.5—9 It is said... she had bestowed ‘Gow left Stromness never to return, and tradition tells how his young lady travelled to London to touch his tarred hand as he hung in chains and so release herself from the vows taken at the Odin Stone. An alternative ending to this story has a friend in London cut off Gow’s hand and send it to the young lady in Orkney for the same reason’ (Watson, 16). 4.10 superstition ofthe country describing the Standing Stones of Stenness Patrick Neill comments: ‘At a little distance stands a solitary stone of great size, having, about two or three feet from the ground, a round perforation in it. This round hole, it has been supposed, was intended for tying the sacrifices offered at this rude, but magnificent temple, in times of Druidism. The common people still attach a good deal of veneration to it; if a lover and his mistress join hands through it, this (we are told) is considered as the sign of a vow of the most sacred kind: it is called promise ofOdin* (Neill, 18). Scott offers a note on this subject in the Magnum, 25.50. 4.15 There came a ghost... door ‘Sweet William’s Ghost’, line 1, in The Tea–Table Miscellany; or, A Collection ofChoice Songs, Scots and English, ed. Allan Ramsay, 10th edn, 4 vols (London, 1740), 4.324–25 (see CLA, 17), Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc., ed. David Herd, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1776), 1.76 (CLA, 171); Child, 77. 4.16–24 Mr Fea... ruined his fortune and his family Fea was initially rewarded generously, the government giving him £ 1000 plus £300 for the salvage of the Revenge. The London merchants gave him a further £400.

502

EXPLANATORY NOTES

However, the pirates accused him of purloining cargo from their ship, while his Orkney enemies pointed out that he had captured Gow while he was under a flag of truce. As a result he became involved in many lawsuits in defence of his good name from which his fortune never recovered. He joined the Jacobite faction in 1745 and was forced into hiding while his house on Shapinsay was burned by Cumberland’s men; see Watson, 15. 4.20—21 Newgate solicitors lawyers looking for business. Newgate is the name of the celebrated London prison, finally demolished in 1902. 4.26 George the First reigned 1714–28. 4.27 the date Scott has changed the date of the events from 1724–25 to 1689: see Historical Note, 486–87. 5 motto see ‘The Harp’, lines 1–4, in The Poetical Works ofHector MacNeill, new ed., 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1806), 1.7: CLA, 193. See also James C. Corson, Notes and Index to Sir Herbert Grierson's Edition ofThe Letters ofSir Walter Scott (Oxford, 1979), 329, note to 328 (b–c). 5.11 Mainland the principal island of Shetland, it comprises more than half the area and contains fully 2/3 of the inhabitants. It extends from N to S for 87 km and has an extreme breadth of 35 km. 5.11 Zetland Shetland, a group of 28 inhabited islands, about 70 smaller islands used for grazing, and a very large number of waste rocky islets. Shetland is the most northerly part of the British Isles. 5.13 Thule Latin name of an island (probably Iceland) described by the Greek navigator Pytheas (d. 306 B c ), but applied by the cartographer Ptolemy (d. c. ad 148) to the Mainland of Shetland. 5.14 Sumburgh–head a bold promontory in the extreme south of the Mainland of Shetland. 5.19 Pentland Firth a strait, about 22 km long and 11 km wide, between northeast Scotland and the Orkney Islands. It is the most dangerous passage in the British seas because of the extreme rapidity of the tidal currents and the accompanying eddies. 5.21– 22 roost... currents ofthis description Wallace defines the word ‘roust’ as meaning ‘a very tempetuous Tide’ (93). Neill states: Our boat was tossed and shaken in a most disagreeable manner: such a piece of rough sea is, in Orkney, denominated a rosf (Neill, 22). 5.32 the name ofJarlshof Norse dwelling of an old Norse or Danish chieftain. ‘Jarl’ is derived from an old Norse word for ‘Earl’. ‘Jarlshof’, the site of settlements from prehistoric times onward, was first named by Scott; see G. A. Points, A Concise Guide to Histone Shetland (Lerwick, 1984), 8–9. 6.5 the ruins in his ‘Diary’ Scott described ‘the old house of Sumburgh’ as ‘in appearance a most dreary mansion’; see Lockhart, 3.170. 6.25–26 such vegetables as the climate could bring forth Wallace states of Orkney: ‘This Countrey abounds with variety both of Field and Gar­ den Plants, Especially Cabbage, Turnipe, Parsnipe, Carrot, Crummock, Arti– chok, grow to a greater bigness here then I have seen them else where’ (Wallace, 12). Neill also recommends these vegetables as suited to the climate of Orkney and Shetland; see Neill, 15. 6.27–28 these islands... Scotland for details of Shetland’s temperate climate see Alan Small, ‘Geographical Location: Environment and History’, in Withrington, 20–31. Small points out that in no month does Shetland have a mean temperature below freezing (23). 6.36–39 who held... were hard enough the hardships faced by Shetland tenants is a common topic in all books on the islands. While Edmondston concludes that the injustices of the landowners have been greatly over–emphas­ ised he suggests that some injustice is ‘the natural result of a system where all the power is on one side, and all the dependence on the other’; see Edmondston

EXPLANATORY NOTES

503

1.294–337 (321). Hibbert, however, offers the more common opinion that the increasing move from an Udal (in which ownership is established by uninter­ rupted succession and is not subject to any feudal services or payments: see note to 11.1) to a feudal system (in which ownership ultimately pertains to the crown, and in which lands are held in return for stated services and payments) after 1469 (when Orkney and Shetland were pledged by Christian I ofDenmark for payment of the dowry of his daughter on her marriage to James III, King of Scots), among other things, ‘entailed such a burden on lands, as to perpetuate the greatest of hardships upon all classes of tenantry’ (Hibbert, 318). George Eunson, a native ofOrkney writing in 1788, states: ‘The nobility, in order to keep up their pomp, and encourage their indolence and luxury, have augmented the rents on their poor tenants, to immense sums, which the ablest of them cannot afford to pay many years’; see George Eunson, The Ancient and Present State ofOrkney (Newcastle, 1788), 79: CLA, 15. 7.4 ofan old and noble Norwegian family the name Magnus denotes a descent from the ancient Norwegian families and earls of Orkney. While the name Troil does not appear in Black’s Surnames ofScotland, the name ‘Trail’ is listed and Black suggests that the Orkney and Shetland Traills are descended from a family from Blebo in Fife who are first mentioned in Orkney in 1523. See George F. Black, The Surnames ofScotland: Their Origin, Meaning, and History (New York, 1946), 778. Members of the Traill family are mentioned but not the name ‘Troil’ in Francis J. Grant, The County Families ofthe Zetland Islands (Lerwick, 1893), 290–92. 7.6–7 lairds, or proprietors, are generally of Scottish extraction Scots began to acquire land in Shetland from 1379 onwards (when the Scottish Sinclairs became Earls of Orkney in succession to a Norse dynasty) but the main wave of immigration occurred in the 16th century. By 1700 Shetland was in the hands ofa few Scottish lairds and most Shetlanders were no longer landowners but tenants cultivating land for which they paid rent. See James R. Nicolson, Traditional Life in Shetland (London, 1978), 20. 7.16 warm and cordial hospitality Monteith notes: ‘The Gentry are Civil and much given to Hospitality, especially towards Strangers, they are well furnished with all necessaries for the Conveniencie and pleasure ofLife; and are well bred’ (Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 4). Edmondston states: ‘The ancient, or as some call it, the savage virtue of hospitality, is carried to a much greater length in the country than in the town; for a traveller may look upon every house as his own, and, with a very few exceptions, he will not be disappointed if he do so’ (Edmondston, 2.39–40). 7.41 Lerwick, then rising into some importance the chieftown of Shetland. It is 35 km NE of Sumburgh–head. In the 17th century contact with Dutch fishermen led to increased trade and growth. 8.4 stockings oflambs’wool woollen stockings were one of the major exports of Shetland until near the end of the 18 th century; see Smith, 2. 8.6 kreitz–dollar the ‘cross’ dollar, called also the ‘crown’ dollar, coined by Austria for her Netherlands possessions. Its value in Shetland around the end of the 17th century was between 45. and 4s. 10d. (20p and 24p); see Smith, 18–19, 338· 8.21 stem ofa ship from the stern forepart from the hindpart of a vessel. 8.34–3 5 fair–haired and blue–eyed daughters ofThule colouring which indicates their Viking descent. The name of one ofthe kings of Norway, Harold Harfager, denotes ‘fair haired’. 9.3 Geneva or Nantz gin or brandy. Both were common imports into Shetland from trade with the Hanseatic ports. 9.34 Dunrossness parish in the south of Shetland. Dunrossness includes a large tract ofMainland and a number of islands.

504

EXPLANATORY NOTES

10.2 sillocks young coal–fish (saithe), at a certain stage of its first year. Neill describes sillocks as ‘a favourite supper dish of the Orcadians’ and men­ tions that they ‘swarm about the shores ofOrkney in myriads’ (39). 10.17 Not a herring’s scale not found as a recognised saying. 10.19 clack–geese barnacle geese, probably called clack–geese from the cry they make. 10.19–20 every chamberlain... flock ofhis own name by 1700 the work ofrunning the lands of the Earldom of Orkney and Shetland was generally delegated to factors known as chamberlains. 10.23 voe bay, creek, or inlet. The coast–line of the Mainland is broken up by deep voes, some of which run so far inland as almost to divide the land into several islands. 10.28–30 our ancient possessors... Thiorboms the names Fea and Paterson appear in the StatisticalAccount as landholders in Shetland (489–90) while Fea is also listed in Barry as one of the oldest names in Orkney (224). The name Thorbiom appears in both the Orkneyinga Saga and the Eyrbiggia–Saga (in Prose Works, 5.355–413: see also CLA, 64). No reference to the name ‘Schlag­ brenner’ has been found. 10.30 Giffords... Mouats the names arrived in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, many of them introduced by clergymen. John Gifford, originally ofa Mid-Lothian family, was reader (lay-preacher) at Northmaine in 1567, and Gilbert Mowat, ofAberdeenshire derivation, was minister there in 1615. They christened people with their own surnames. The names Mowat and Gifford also appear in a list of landholders in the parish of Tingwall; see StatisticalAccount, 489· 10.32–33 Turf-Einar... the mystery ofburning peat for fuel a 10th–century illegitimate son of Earl Rognvald of Norway, and the founder of the dynasty of the earls ofOrkney. ‘Like a wise and humane governor, he carefully attended to the state of those whom he was appointed to rule; and finding them reduced to great hardships for want of fuel, he taught them the use of turf, for which he is highly extolled by the Scalds of the north; and was, from this benevolent action, ever afterwards honoured with the name of Torffeid or Torfeinar’ (Barry, 112). This story is told in the Orkneyinga Saga, 32 (Ch. 7). 10.39–40 saturnine humour gloomy temperament. 10.43 merk... ure the merk varied from less than one to two acres, accord­ ing to the productivity of the land. A ure was land giving the rent of one–eighth part ofa merk. 11.1 Udallers freehold proprietors, whose ownership was established by uninterrupted succession and was not subject to the feudal services or payments characteristic of land–ownership in Scotland. ‘The udal or allodial tenure... is the most ancient mode of holding lands in Zetland, and appears to have been the principal one, while the islands remained under the sovereignty of the kings of Norway and Denmark.... [Under it] a man was obliged to divide his property, heritable as well as moveable, among all his children equally’ (Edmondston, 1.128–29). For the details of udal law as it was applied in Shetland see Knut Robberstad, ‘Udal Law’, in Withrington, 49–68. Shetland remained subject to Norwegian rather than Scottish law until 1611, although anomalies concerning the ownership of property persist. 11.15 to do so to drink your glass of liquor. 11.24 fifteen knots an hour about 29 km an hour. 11.27–28 scarfs, sheer–waters cormorants, and sea-birds of the petrel family that skim close to the water. 11.32 Minna and Brenda the name Brenda appears in a list of common Shetland names. The name Minna is not listed; see an anonymously annotated copy of The Pirate in the National Library of Scotland (ms 5023, f. 24v).

EXPLANATORY NOTES

505

11.34 Caithness in the extreme northeast of Scotland. 12.3 plantie–cruive kitchen–garden enclosure: see Magnum, 24.13, where Scott adds a note describing a plantie–cruive as a ‘patch of ground for vegetables’, divided from the unenclosed moorland around by a dry–stane dyke. 12.3–4 the scathold the common, the portion of hill and moorland for grazing assigned to each township. Edmondston states: ‘The uncultivated ground, outside of the enclosure, is called the Scatthold, and is used for general pasture, and to furnish turf for firing’ (Edmondston, 1.148). 12.4– 5 sixpenny merk ofland, that the tenants may fish for you a system by which tenants were obliged to fish for their laird which arose in the 18th century after the decline of the Dutch and German fisheries: see James R. Nicolson, Traditional Life in Shetland (London, 1978), 22. This system of fishing is also discussed in Alistair Goodlad, ‘Five Centuries of Shetland Fish­ eries’, in Withrington, 107–18. 12.5 eight lispunds ofbutter weight that varied in Shetland from 96 to 240 lbs (44–109 kg). Rent was frequently paid in butter. 12.5 eight shillings sterling 40p. 12 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 12.20–24 In these days... a thousand apologies ‘All the evils perpet­ rated by colonialists in other parts of the world were experienced in Shetland as the new class of landlords established their supremacy over the original inhabit­ ants’ (James R. Nicolson, Traditional Life in Shetland (London, 1978), 20). Nicolson adds that the rents exacted by the new lairds often made life particu­ larly difficult (21). 12.32–33 philosophical instruments... supplied from London sci­ entific instruments used in natural philosophy (i.e. physics). In the late 17th century (as can be seen from exhibits in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich) London established a reputation for creating and reproducing instruments for use in practical astronomy: navigation, timekeeping, determin­ ing the position of stars, etc. 13.7 Sweyn Erickson the name Svein appears on several occasions in the Orkneyinga Saga and was that of several of the kings ofNorway and Denmark. 13.8 haaf fishing haaf or deep–sea fishing taking place up to 40 miles out to sea. A description ofhaaf fishing is given in Edmondston, 1.232–39. 13.23 rock–cod Shetland fishermen fished for ling and cod rather than herring. 13.37–38 scat, and wattle, and hawkhen, and hagalef different kinds of duties exacted in Zetland. Scat was a land tax; wattle was originally a require­ ment to entertain the Foud (chief judge) on his annual journey through the islands, later commuted to a monetary payment; hawkhen was a feudal tax ofa hen levied on each household in Orkney and Shetland for the upkeep of the king’s hawks; and hagalef or ‘hogalif’, was the sum a tenant had to pay to cut peat on another common if there was none on his own scatthold. 13.39 wrung your withers rubbed sore the area between your shoulder blades: see Hamlet, 3.2.237. 14.3 Arctic gulls i.e. skuas. 14.15 Pate Stuart Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney; succeeded 1593, d. 1615. See Lockhart, 3.159–60 and note. The familiar name is contemporary. In 1609 after numerous complaints he was incarcerated by KingJames VI in Edinburgh Castle. At his trial in 1610, he was said to have ‘compellit the maist pairt of the gentilmenis tennentis of the saidis countreyis ofOrknay and Zeitland to work to him all maner of work and laubour be sea and land, in rolling and sailling his schipis and boittis, working in the stane-querrel, wynning and beir– ing furth thairof stanes and red furth thairof, laidning his boittis and schellopes with stane and lyme, and loiseing the same, biging his park dykes, and all uther

5o6

explanatory notes

soirtis of serveill and paynefull laubour without ather meit, drink, or hyre’ (Robert Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland 1488–1624,3 vols (Edinburgh, 1833), 3.84). He was executed in 1615. 14.16 head and hang behead and hang: Measurefor Measure, 2.1.226. 14.21 Ranzelar a kind of parish constable, one of his chief duties being to ‘rancel’ or search for stolen goods. Edmondston states: ‘Subordinate and assist­ ant to the baillies were a species of constables called Rancelmen, which still continues. They have power to command the inhabitants to keep the peace, to call for assistance, and, in cases of suspicion of theft, they enter any house, at any hour of the day or night, and search for the stolen goods, which is called Ranceling' (Edmondston, 1.132). 14.21 voice most potential voice most powerful: see Othello, 1.2.13. 14.26–28 penny... shilling presumably a penny Scots, which was worth one–twelfth ofan English penny (0.03p). There were twelve pennies in a shilling; thus the Ranzelar is advocating that they raise their price to Mertoun by no more than 25% over the going rate rather than 100%. 14.33 Saint Ronald Rognvald Kali Kolsson, Orkney jarl, warrior, poet, and administrator, and nephew of Saint Magnus. Ronald founded the Cathed­ ral of St Magnus at Kirkwall in 1137 and died in 1158. 14.34 tariff the italics in the text register that this sense ofthe term (an advertised list of prices) was comparatively new. 14.36–38 nabobs... great scale the nouveau riche. A nabob was one who had returned from India with a large fortune. The others had enriched them­ selves in the course of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815). 15.2 conscript fathers a collective title by which the Roman senators were addressed. 15.10 Trows or Drows monsters, demons of the mountains and of the sea; but in this romance, fairies. Scott discusses them in his ‘Diary’ (Lockhart, 3.155), and in a footnote at 93.37–45. There is a description of Shetland trows in Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary ofFairies (London, 1976), 413–15. 15.11 Scalds Icelandic poets of the 9th to the 13th centuries. Scaldic poetry originated in Norway and was developed in Iceland. It was descriptive and subjective and the poets were named, in contrast to Eddic poetry which was terse, simple and anonymous. Scaldic verse was strictly syllabic and the lan­ guage was ornamented with metaphors and constructed terms. The scalds described engravings on shields, praised kings, wrote epitaphs and genealogies, and, less formally, dream poems, magic curses, lampoons and flytings. 15.11 superstitious eld see The Merry Wives ofWindsor, 4.4.35. 15.17 Berserkar see Scott’s ‘Abstract of the Eyrbiggia–Saga’, where he describes Berserkar (the word is a plural) as ‘Men, who, by moral or physical excitation of some kind or other, were wont to work themselves into a state of frenzy, during which they achieved deeds passing human strength, and rushed, without sense of danger, or feeling of pain, upon every species of peril that could be opposed to them’ (Prose Works, 5.373). See also Scott’s note on Berserkar in Magnum, 24.19. 15.18 Saint Olave Olaf Haraldssen (d. 1030), King of Norway, most zealous for the introduction of Christianity into that country and its dependen­ cies in the 11th century. 15.21 unstable as water Genesis 49.4. 16.20 ordinary branches ofknowledge in Scotland these would include Latin, grammar (Latin grammar used for both Latin and English), arithmetic and mathematics, French, geography and history. 16.33–35 the winter solstice... feasting and merriment Edmond­ ston comments: ‘The winter, as far as their means permit, is spent in mirth and festivity. They are both social and hospitable, and never fail to invite the stranger

EXPLANATORY NOTES

507

to share with them the passing morsel’ (Edmondston, 2.58). 16.35 this unhappy man James Ballantyne pointed out in the proofs (Huntington Library ms RB110387,1.32) that this description is based on that of Falkland, the villain of The Adventures ofCaleb Williams (1794), by William Godwin (1756–1836). 17.18 dreadful trade ofthe samphire–gatherer compare King Lear, 4.6.15. 17.19–20 those midnight excursions... sea–fowl Wallace gives an account of excursions for sea fowls where he writes: Others have this way in taking these Fowles, a man that is accustomed to the exercise, has a Rop well bound about his middle, with which he is let slide down the steep Rock, till he be overagainst the place where the young fowls are, ofwhom he apprehends as many as he is able to carry, and then is Hoised up with his prey’ (Wallace, 36–37). A similar account is given in the StatisticalAccount, 207. 17.21 daring adventures see Scott’s note on fatal accidents in Magnum, 24.23, where he describes the death ofa boy of 14 from a fall from the cliffs shortly before his visit in 1814. 17.31–38 still preserved amongst them... wild poems ‘Many of them, are descended from the Norwegians, and speak a Norse Tongue, corrupted, (they call Norn) amongst themselves’ (Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 4). Scott offers an example of the preservation ofa poem in the Norse language in the island of North Ronaldsay in his note on ‘Norse Fragments’, Magnum, 24.29–30. The Norse language persisted in legal docu­ ments in Shetland as late as 1607. 17.42 stones that beetled over the projecting cape compare Hamlet, 1.4.71. 18.1– 2 wild cavern this description would match the landscape ofmany places in Shetland. 18.13 the kraken Hibbert comments that the ‘kraken or horven, which appears like a floating island, sending forth tentacula as high as the masts ofa ship’ is a monster sometimes recognised in the seas around Shetland (Hibbert, 565)· 18.16—17 horns... welking and waving see King Lear, 4.6.71. 18.18 sudden suction Scott records this story in his ‘Diary’ (Lockhart, 3.161–62). 18.21–24 sea–snake... plunder or for victims Hibbert identifies the ‘great sea–snake with his formidable mane’ as one of the monsters seen in the seas around Shetland (Hibbert, 565). 18.25 marine monsters see Scott’s note on ‘Monsters of the Northern Seas’ (Magnum, 24.30–31), where accounts of sightings of these creatures are given. These monsters are also described in some detail by Olaus Magnus 3.1081–98. 18.31 deep and dangerous 1 Henry IV, 1.3.190. 19.3 shortness ofthe day–light Shetland’s shortest day is only 5 hours long. 19.2– 11 season ofwinter... the wine–cup see note to 16.33–35. 19.18–21 one ofthe numerous ponies... that ofanother ‘The native Zetland horse is very small, seldom exceeding ten hands high, but well propor­ tioned, strong, and capable of enduring great degrees of fatigue... They run wild in the hills until they are three years old, when they are caught for the purpose of carrying loads. They are seldom or never taken into a stable, even during the worst weather in winter... Although never regularly broken in, they soon become docile and tractable, and exhibit proofs of great sagacity’ (Edmondston, 2.206). 19.22 warlike sword–dance Hibbert states: ‘Papa Stour is the only island

5o8

EXPLANATORY NOTES

in the country where the ancient Norwegian amusement of the sword–dance has been preserved, and where it still continues, in Thule, to beguile the tediousness of a long winter’s evening’ (Hibbert, 554). Scott offers a detailed description of the sword dance as it has been preserved in the island of Papa Stour in a Magnum note (Magnum, 24.266–71 ), and it is also described in some detail in Olaus Magnus, 2.748. 19.24 gue the old Norse two–stringed instrument, superseded by the fiddle in the 18th century. See note to 143.31. 19.24–25 melancholy and pathetic tunes peculiar to the country Olaus Magnus writes that among the northern peoples ‘There were many who were so well versed in playing the lute, fiddle, lyre, harp, and all stringed instruments, that by their turns of melody they could move people’s moods to whatever emotions they wished. They knew how to make human beings feel joy, sorrow, sympathy, or hatred, and envelop their minds with the delight or dread they experienced through their ears. Indeed, they demonstrated such power in their strings that when bystanders heard this expressive playing they were un­ able to maintain any self–control’ (Olaus Magnus, 2.753). 19.28 guizards masqueraders or mummers. Edmondston writes: ‘Their faces are masked, and their bodies covered with dresses made of straw, orna­ mented with profusion of ribbands. Each of them has a particular character to support, but none speak, so that the performance is a kind of pantomimical masquerade’ (Edmondston, 2.64). 19.28 laird, or rich udaller freehold proprietor (see note to 11.1 ). 19.30 skudler person who directs the movements of the guizards and always the best dressed of the party; see Edmondston, 2.64. 20.1 Hamburgh carpenter Shetland had early and frequent contact with Hamburg through trade with the Hanseatic ports. 20.3 Iol Yuletide, Christmas. Edmondston comments: ‘The words Beltane or Belting and Yule, are still retained in Zetland, the former answering to Whit­ suntide, and the latter to Christmas’ (Edmondston, 1.135). 20.3 Goths the ancient people described by Magnus Olaus in his Description ofthe Northern Peoples. Originally Scandinavian, they migrated SE across Eur­ ope to the Black Sea in the first two centuries of the Christian era. 20.4 metal yet more attractive see Hamlet, 3.2.106. 20.5–6 matter... conclusion ofa chapter Henry Fielding makes a similar comment before the introduction ofhis heroine, Sophia Western, in Tom Jones (1749), Book 3, Chapter 10. 20 motto see The Tea– Table Miscellany; or, A Collection ofChoice Songs, Scots and English, ed. Allan Ramsay, 4 vols, 10th edn (London, 1740), 1.53–54, lines 1–8: see CLA, 171. The second stanza is not part of the original ballad, which was altered by Ramsay (1686–1758). See also Child, 201. A tune may be found in The Scots MusicalMuseum, ed. James Johnson, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1787–1803), Vol. 2, no. 128. 20.29 Sutherland the ‘southern land’, i.e. the land to the south of the Orkney islands, a county in the extreme north of Scotland. 20.30 feuds ofthe seventeenth century throughout the 17 th century Scotland was troubled by civil wars (1642–51 ), and by the persecution of the Covenanters (1662–88) as a result of their opposition to crown intervention in church affairs. 20.33–34 Saint Clair the family of St Clair or Sinclair had a long associ­ ation with Orkney and Shetland. Earl Henry Sinclair was appointed Earl of Orkney in 1379 and the earldom was held by the Sinclairs until 1471 when the rights reverted to the Scottish crown. While the legal relationship of the Sin­ clairs to Shetland is more ambiguous the family certainly acquired land in Shetland prior to 1469, and were increasingly powerful there from 1391 on­

EXPLANATORY NOTES

509

wards. See Barbara E. Crawford, ‘The Pledging of the Islands in 1469: the Historical Background’, in Withrington, 37–41. The association of the St Clair family with Orkney is described by Scott in The Lay ofthe Last Minstrel, Canto 6, stanzas 21–22, in The Poetical Works ofSir Walter Scott, Bart., [ed. J. G. Lock­ hart], 12 vols (Edinburgh 1833–34), 6.202–05. 21.3 O call it fair, not pale Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Christabel’ (writ­ ten 1798–1801; published 1816), Part 1, line 277. 21.26 most hackneyed simile ofan angel a familiar literary trope: e.g. see Dryden’s Marmoutier, who resembles Minna, in The Duke ofGuise ( 1679), 1.2.87: ‘She dazles, walks meer Angel upon Earth’. 22.14 endured... enjoyed see Samuel Johnson (1709–84), The History ofRasselas, Prince ofAbbyssinia (1759), Ch. 11, in Rasselas and Other Tales, ed. Gwin J. Kolb (New Haven, 1990), The Yale Edition ofthe Works ofSamuel Johnson, 16.50. 22.19 By dead men to their kind see William Wordsworth,‘Expostula­ tion and Reply’ (1798), line 8. 22.22 the book ofnature one of the two books (the other being the Bible) in which God revealed Himself. 22.34 clang ofthe sea–fowl see John Milton, Paradise Lost ( 1667), 11.835. 22.37–38 the love ofnatural objects was to her a passion... agitating her mind see William Wordsworth, ‘Lines Written a Few Miles above Tin­ tem Abbey’ (1798), lines 76–77. 23.14 parcel–musician part–musician; an indifferent musician. See Ben Jonson, ThePoetaster(1601, published 1602), 3.4.160. 23.20–25 lines of Lord Byron Lord Byron, ‘She Walks in Beauty’ (1815), lines 1–6, from Hebrew Melodies (1815). 23.37 Burgh Westra not identified, although the island ofWest Burra, separated from the Shetland Mainland only by a narrow stream, is situated W of the Mainland, S of Scalloway. 24.10 halfthe domains under Udal law, Magnus’s daughters would in­ herit an equal share ofthe property on his death. 24.24–30 simple music ofthe north... complicated music Edmondston writes: ‘There are still a few native airs to be met with in some parts of the country, which may be considered as peculiar, and very much resemble the wild and plaintive strain of the Norwegian music’ (Edmondston, 2.59). He adds that although Scottish music is now the prevailing music of the country ‘the native musicians insensibly impart to it a character of their own, the smoothness and simplicity of which they seem to have derived from their Scan­ dinavian ancestors’ (Edmondston, 2.60). See also note to 19.24–25. 24.42 the hunter’s phrase, at fault a check caused by failure of scent (OED). 25 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 26.7–8 families ofMuness, Quendale, Therelivoe Monteith states that there are inscriptions to a ‘Hector Bruce ofMowaness', and a ‘Lawrence Sinclair ofQuendale', in the graveyard of the Cross Kirk ofDunrossness (Mon­ teith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 17). The family of Bruce ofMuness owned lands in the Parish of Unst, and Quendale Bay is in the southern extremity of Dunrossness. 26.14 the Isle ofPapa Papa Stour, an island situated W of the Shetland Mainland. In 1814, Scott recorded that the sword dance is ‘now almost lost, but still practised in the Island ofPapa’ (Lockhart, 3.162). See also note to 19.22. 26.16 the Main the Mainland, the largest of the Shetland Islands. 26.18 rise on tiptoe see Henry V, 4.3.42. 26.27 Fitful–head a large headland (283m) in Dunrossness parish,

510

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Shetland, flanking the northwest side of Quendale Voe, and 10 km NW of Sumburgh–head. 26.30 the scarf the cormorant. Scott writes that it ‘may be seen frequendy dashing in wild flight along the roosts and tides of Zetland, and yet more often drawn up in ranks on some ledge of rock’ (Magnum, 24.44). 26.32 they will ride out a gale against a king’s frigate i.e. they will weather a storm better than the best of ships [but even they are seeking shelter]. 26.33 cut and run make offpromptly, hurry off. 26.43 Stourburgh a Shetiand name relocated to Dunrossness. 27.1–2 new chamberlain’s new Scots tacksman large landowners in Shetland generally employed someone else to manage their estates and collect rents either through ‘tacks’ or, in the case of the Earldom, through factors known as chamberlains. In return for payment of a sum of money, commonly known as ‘tack duty’, the ‘tacksman’ was given the leasehold tenure ofan estate plus rights to collect the revenues: see Smith, 31,332,341. In a Magnum note Scott writes: ‘At the period supposed, the Earl ofMorton held the Islands of Orkney and Zedand, originally granted in 1643, confirmed in 1707, and ren­ dered absolute in 1742. This gave the family much property and influence, which they usually exercised by factors, named chamberlains’ (Magnum, 24.65). In 1707 James, Earl ofMorton, received a ratification of the Lordship and Earldom from Parliament which the family held until 1766 when it was sold to Sir Lawrence Dundas. 27.6 ferlies make fools fain proverbial wonders astonish fools: 0DEP, 253, where this example is the only citation. 27.18 Hoy the largest, after the Mainland, of the Orkney Islands, lying SW of the group and separated from Stromness by Hoy Sound. It has the three highest points in the Orkney Islands. 27.18 Foulah a Shedand island, 37 km W ofScalloway. Itmeasures 5.2 km by 3.6 and appears to consist of five conical hills, rising steeply from the water to a maximum height of 418m. The cliffs have many cormorants, kittywakes, gulls, and other sea-fowl. 27.27 second thoughts are best proverbial: see Apperson, 555; Tilley, 664; ODEP, 708. 27.29 on latch fastened with a latch only and so openable from the outside. 27.30–32 such matters as bolts... old Castle of Scalloway Scalloway is a village on the west coast of Shetland, 10 km SW of Lerwick, and anciendy the capital of Shetland. The castle was built in 1600 by Patrick Stewart (see note to 14.15). It is a structure of four stories, surmounted at each angle by a small round turret. The specific reference has not been identified, although there is evidence of the remains of a bar–hole on the entrance. Barry, however, states that Cromwell’s soldiers taught the Orcadians ‘the improvement of the country houses, and the art ofmaking locks and keys to secure them’ (Barry, 254), and Cromwell’s troops were garrisoned at Scalloway Castle from 1652–54. 27.34– 37 stirrup–cup... bonally each is a parting drink. 28.25 hideous combustion ofthe elements see John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), 1.46. 28.34– 35 old doited Ringan... road–stead and key not identified. 29.3–4 working to windward by short tacks a manoeuvre involving frequent changes of the direction of the sail in order to move forward in the wind. 29.8–9 sailor’s jacket... when on a journey ‘The women were attired in the ordinary garb of the country, which consisted of dark woollen stuffs; but the men were dressed like sailors on a holiday, wearing along with their trowsers neat blue short jackets’ (Hibbert, 245). 29.22 Harfra not identified.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

511

29.22 Triptolemus Yellowley see note to 32.5–6 for an explanation of this name. 29.23 then Chamberlain ofOrkney and Zetland see note to 27.1–2. 29.25 ultima Thule ofthe Romans the Romans used the expression ‘Ultima Thule’ to refer to the most distant island in the extreme north of Europe; e.g. see Virgil, Georgies, 1.30. For Thule see note to 5.13. 29.25–26 a spirit ofimprovement Scott wrote in his‘Diary’:‘nowhere is improvement in agriculture more necessary. An old–fashioned Zetland plough is a real curiosity... An antiquary might be of opinion that this was the very model of the original plough invented by Triptolemus’ (Lockhart, 3.153). Nearly all of the written sources owned by Scott comment on the poor state of agriculture: see Historical Note, 493–95. For Triptolemus see note to 32.5–6. 29.36–37 pelting ofthe storm see King Lear, 3.4.29. 29.43 Roseberry–Topping a prominent point on the northern edge of the Cleveland Hills, North Riding ofYorkshire. 29.43 been come over been tricked. 30.1 too far north too clever, too knowing (OED). 30.2 the Mearns an area of former Kincardineshire, S of Aberdeen. 30.7 the Grampians the range ofmountains in the middle of Scotland, S of Inverness and W of Aberdeen. The name is thought to be derived from ‘Graupius’. 30.8 the plaided gentry the Highlanders, so called because of their dress. 30.9 young Norval the hero ofDouglas (1756), the romantic tragedy by John Home (1722–1808): see CLA, 10,290. 30.12 Clinkscale clink is a cant term for money. 30.17 Baby affectionate diminutive ofBarbara. 30.17–18 two thousand merks £109 sterling. One merk was worth 13s. 4d. Scots, i.e. about 1s. 1d. sterling. 30.19 major and sui juris Latin of full legal age and capable of managing her own affairs. 30.28 the abomination... ofthe Jews see Leviticus 11.7–8. 30.31 understood trap knew her own interest. 30.33 Deilbelicket the name, deil–belicket, is that of an old Scotch dish, of which goose and gooseberries are component parts. The recipe can be found in The Ayrshire Legatees (1821) by John Galt ( 1779–1839): CLA, 333. 30.33 old Dougal Baresword, the Laird ofBandybrawl apparently fictitious. 30.36 beyond the Cairn N of the hills on the south side of the Dee in Aberdeenshire, i.e. in the Highlands. Highlanders were commonly considered to be thieves, and are thus ‘light–handed lads’. 30.37 ken’d folks well–known, respectable people. 30.38 moderate yearly composition farmers and estate owners living near the Highland line would often pay protection money (called blackmail) to neighbouring Highlanders to ensure that their farms would not be raided and their cattle driven off, a common eventuality for those living adjacent to the Highlands. 30.43 in the family way pregnant. 30.43–31.1 a remarkable dream for the closest example, see the dream of Maya, the Buddha’s future mother, that the best of elephants, white as snow, brighter than the moon and the sun, whose six tusks were hard as adamant, entered her womb. Raymond de Becker, The Understanding ofDreams or the Machinations ofthe Night (London, 1968), 31. 31.4 Angus–shire oxen the county of Angus in eastern Scotland N of the Tay estuary was famous for the quality of its cattle. From 1810 onwards Aber­ deen–Angus cattle were developed there as a breed of outstanding merit.

512

EXPLANATORY NOTES

31.12 hue and cry public clamour, as of protest. 31.14 whigamore carline Covenanting witch. For the Covenanters see notes to 20.30 and 31.19. 31.15 the calfofBethel see Exodus 32.1–24. 31.17 striddle between the stilts 0’ straddle between the handles of. 31.19 on a hill–side between 1662 and 1688, ministers who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the crown and had been ejected from their parishes conducted open–air worship in conventicles, which, as persecution continued, were held in increasingly remote locations. See Historical Note, The Tale ofOld Mortality, ed. Douglas Mack, eewn 4b, 432–33. 31.20 old lady Glenprosing the spelling suggests the lady’s loquacity, although Glen Prosen forms the valley of the Prosen Water running SE to join the river South Esk in Angus. 31.22 James Guthrie (d. 1661), minister of Stirling, and author of Causes ofthe Lord's Wrath against Scotland (1653), which was the ground of his trial and execution at Edinburgh: CLA, 62. 31.23 mair sicker safer, or surer. 31.23–24 a dainty curate... a bishop the old lady favours the Episcopal form ofchurch government. 31.26 gauntlet thus fairly flung down the sign ofa challenge. 31.30 the stranger man Edward Young, ‘Night the Sixth’, line 176, in Night Thoughts (1742–45), ed. Stephen Cornford (Cambridge, 1989), 153. 31.36 the formula in such cases used and provided i.e. the new mother is ‘as well as can be expected’. These are the words of Susannah in Laurence Sterne, Tristram ShandyVol. 4 (1761), Chs 12 and 14: CLA, 63. That Scott was referring to this section of the novel is shown by the reference below (32.10–11) to the new-born’s name.

32.1

A man–child was accordingly born

see Job 3.3.

32.5–6 Triptolemus in Greek mythology, chosen to teach the arts of agriculture, and the inventor of the plough. ‘Tri’ indicates ‘three’ or ‘triple’; the ‘ley’ of‘Yellowley’ means ‘grassland’. 32. 1ο–11 the celebrated case ofTristram Shandy see ‘My Father’s LAMENTATION’, in Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandyy Vol. 4 (1761), Ch. 19: CLA, 63. 32.18 a chip ofthe old block proverbial one that resembles his father: see Tilley, 99; Apperson, 97; ODEP, 121. 32.22 ploughman’s whistle see George Petrie, The Complete Irish Music (London, 1902), 267 (no. 1054). 32.26–27 a double straikofmalt allowed to the brewing double the normal proportion of malt for a brewing. 33.5 nothing for nothing proverbial: ODEP, 579. 33.9 delicacy oftaste although James Ballantyne claimed in the proofs (Huntington Library ms RB110387,1.74) that he could not follow this, the implication is that Deilbelicket may be the father. 33.12 persecuted remnant Covenanters: those who adhered to the National Covenant of 1638, and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, in spite of the persecution under Charles II after 1662. 33.12–13 black gown and prayer–book i.e. Episcopacy. Episcopal cler­ gymen wore vestments, and used the Prayer Book (1662) when conducting services. 33.13 as by law established at the Restoration in 1660 Charles II restored Episcopacy as the established form of church government in Scotland. This or similar phrases are to be found in the various oaths ofallegiance required of all in authority in the period. 33.14 Saint Andrews town in Fife on the east coast of Scotland.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

513

33.17 college commons university food. 33.18 through go nimble pass through quickly. 33.21 Bucolics Virgil’s Eclogues (published 37 bc ), imitations of the pas­ torals of the Greek poet Theocritus (c. 300–c 260 bc). 33.22 Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro, 70–19 bc . 33.22 Georgies didactic poem on the cultivation ofthe soil and the rearing of cattle and bees, written between 37 and 30 bc . 33.22 Æneid the epic poem of the Roman people, recounting the adven­ tures ofAeneas and his Trojans and his settlement in Italy, written 26–19 bc . 33.23 the celebrated line ‘quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum’ (‘the hoof with four–footed noise shakes the crumbling field’): Virgil, Aeneid, 8.596. See also note to 33.43. 33.26 Cato Marcus Porcius Cato (234–149 bc), famous for his opposition to the prevalent luxuriousness. 33.28—29 de Re Rustica Latin concerning Rustic Matters. The work (written c. 160 bc ), now better known as de Agri Cultura, is a practical manual for running a Roman farm. 33.29 the phrase of Cicero Latin, literally now you will prefer no–one to Cato: Cicero, Brutus (46 bc), 17.68. 33.30 Palladius Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius, a Roman writer on agriculture, of the 4th century ad . 33.30–31 TerentiusVarro MarcusTerentiusVarro (110–27bc), author ofRerum Rusticarum (37 BC), ‘Of Rural Matters’, of which only the third book remains. 33.31 Columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, author ofDe Re Rustica (ad 60–65), ‘About Rural Business’, a systematic treatise on agricul­ ture, in 12 books, covering the soil, viniculture, animal husbandry, beekeeping etc. 33.32 Tusser Thomas Tusser (1524?–8o), author ofA Hundreth Good Pointes ofHusbandrie’ (1557), a verse collection of instructions on farming, gardening, housekeeping, and conduct (see CLA, 177). When beginning work on The Pirate, Scott asked Robert Cadell to send him Tusser’s ‘Hundred points of good husbandry’ (Letters, 6.449). 33.32 Hartlib Samuel Hartlib (d. 1662), an indefatigable writer of books on agriculture, religion, and education, whose services to ‘husbandry’ won him a pension from Parliament (1646). Milton dedicated his essay 'Of Education’ (1644) to him. 33.33–34 the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain the eponymous hero ofthe best known of the ‘Repository Tracts’ of Hannah More (1745–1833), setting forth the homely wisdom and piety ofDavid Saunders. 33.43 Quadrupedumque putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum Latin, literally and the hoof of the horses shakes the crumbling field with a din. Scott has confused two similar versions ofa cavalry charge: ‘quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum’ (Virgil, Aeneid, 8.596), and ‘quadruped­ umque putrem cursu quatit ungula campum’ (Virgil, Aeneid, 11.875). 34.1–2 Saint Leonard’s one of the colleges of the University of Saint Andrews, founded in 1512. 34.10 the battle ofPharsalia the epic battle in Thessaly (48 bc ), where Caesar defeated Pompey. 34.12 the Emathian fields partofancient Thessaly, practically identical with the district ofPharsalia. 34.16 Piers Ploughman’s Vision visionary alliterative poem by William Langland (c. 1330–c. 1386), the now-accepted single author. It survives in three versions, written 1367–70,1377–79, and 1385–86. 34.21 the lot imposed upon fallen man see Genesis 3.17–19.

514

EXPLANATORY NOTES

34.38 Quid faciat lætas segetes Latin, literally what makes the growing corn happy: Virgil, Georgics, 1.1. 34.40 the root ofthe matter the essential part of something: Job 19.28. 34.41–42 the doctrines ofprelacy the system of church government by bishops. After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 Charles II and his government imposed bishops on what had been the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. 35.2–3 predisposition towards Presbytery a fondness for the more democratic form of church government whereby the church is governed by a series of church courts, namely kirk session, presbytery, synod, general assembly. 35.10–11 like a cow entering upon a clover park while cows like clover, too much produces gas which distends them. 35.13 A laughing philosopher Sydney Smith (1771–1845). See Ele­ mentary Sketches ofMoral Philosophy: Lectures at the Royal Institution (London, 1804–06), Lecture 9. 35.13 Democritus celebrated Greek philosopher (born c–.4608c), some­ times known as the ‘laughing philosopher’ in opposition to the melancholy Heraclitus. 35.27–31 vice–president... a cart–horse a general interest in agricul­ tural improvement developed in the 18th century and King George III, ‘Farmer George’, was very interested in farming. The Society of Improvers in the Know– edge of Agriculture in Scotland was founded in Edinburgh in 1723 and was the earliest agricultural society in Europe. One of its aims was to encourage local districts to set up branches and several agricultural societies developed through­ out Scotland. The Edinburgh Society was founded in 1755 and was the first body in Scotland to hold livestock competitions. The Highland Society was founded in 1784 and evolved to encourage agricultural innovation throughout Scotland. See J. A. Symon, Scottish Farming Past and Present (Edinburgh and London, 1959), 150–51. 35.38 To breeding, in all its branches not identified as the motto of any specific club. 35.42–43 common and several an open common and an enclosed field. 36.7 to try conclusions to try experiments, to engage in a trial of strength: Hamlet, 3.4.195. 36.13 the Peghts the Picts, the ancient inhabitants of Scotland. 36.14 plenty of stones to keep the ground warm compare Matthew Bramble’s discussion of this subject in his letter of 28 Aug. to Dr Lewis, in Tobias Smollett, The Expedition ofHumphry Clinker (1771), ed. Thomas R. Preston and O. Μ. Brack (Athens and London, 1990), 237: see CLA, 63. 36.20 poor Tusser see Scott’s note on Tusser’s poverty in Magnum, 24.62. 36.29–31 the carles and the cart–avers eat it all proverbial: Kelly, 48. The ‘carles and the cart–avers’ are the farm–servants and the cart–horses. 36.32 year–book ofmany a gentleman–farmer a book, sometimes pub­ lished, giving an account of agricultural activity in the previous year. Scott himself kept a diary detailing his activities in relation to the planting of his estates at Abbotsford. It is now kept in the Library at Abbotsford. 36.35 wind–bills accommodation–bills. These were a means by which someone could obtain a loan, the repayment of which was guaranteed by some other person. 37.4 the learned philosopher not identified. 37.10 up early, and down late The Merry Wives ofWindsor, 1.4.93. Now proverbial: compare ‘First up, last down’, ODEP, 263. 37.12–13 air was a banquet to her compare Ray, 73; ODEP, 474.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

515

37.17 a proposal to eat a child perhaps a reference to Jonathan Swift’s ‘ A Modest Proposal’ (1729). 37.19–20 a perpetual Lent the six weeks prior to Blaster during which the Roman Catholic church forbids the eating of meat. 37.21 the Eske either the River South Esk which enters the sea at Mon­ trose, or the River North Esk which flows from Glen Esk to the sea N of Montrose. 37.30–31 a god... out ofa machine i.e. deus ex machina. The phrase describes the practice of some Greek playwrights of ending the drama with a god who was lowered to the stage by a mechanical apparatus and who then solved all dramatic problems. In Scott’s day the phrase was used for any improbable device by which an author made shift to resolve his plot. 37.33 running footmen footmen who run before a carriage. The best description is in The Bride ofLammermoor, ed. J. H. Alexander, eewn 7a, 175.40–176.7. 37.39–40 the administration of... Zetland see note to 27.1–2. 38.2 improving the culture ofthe crown lands the lands of the former Earldom, in the gift of the crown from 1471 onwards. Although the poor state of agriculture in Orkney and Shetland was noted from the 18th century no serious attempts at improvement were made until the 19th century. 38.6–7 laid down the law made dogmatic statements. 38.27 Cauldshouthers the name, denoting cold shoulders, appears to be fictional. 38.37 cart–load oftimber, called the old Scotch plough the ‘old Scots plough’ varied considerably in style from area to area. However, it was generally cumbersome and above all its beam had to be strong to cope with stony earth. It was drawn by horses or oxen, sometimes as many as twelve of the latter having to be employed in areas of particularly rough terrain. See J. A. Symon, Scottish Farming Past andPresent (Edinburgh and London, 1959), 13–14. 38.39 Cortes Hernando Cortez (1485–1547) entered Mexico City in 39.6 Pomona the Mainland, the largest of the Orkney Islands, containing Kirkwall, the capital of the group. 39.7 Harfra not identified. 39.8 Stourburgh... a Pictish fort ‘Stourburgh’ may be interpreted here as ‘great fort’. See also note to 26.43. 39 motto see ‘Get up and Bar the Door’ (Child, 275), lines 5–12, in Ancient and Modem Scottish Songs, ed. David Herd, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1776), 2.159 (CLA, 171). With tune, it is found in The Scots Musical Museum, ed. James Johnson, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1787–1803), Vol. 3, no. 300. 39.32 the exclusion ofa stranger see Matthew 25.35. 39.36 storm and shade Thomas Campbell, ‘Lord Ullin’s Daughter’, line 45, in Gertrude ofWyoming; A Pennsylvanian Tale. And Other Poems (London, 1809), 133: CAL, 195. 39.41–42 exuberant hospitality ofthe Zetland islands see note to 7.16. 40.11 gaberlunzie men beggars or tinkers. 40.14 the clink ofher sneck the ringing sound of the opening latch of her door. 40.25 old school–copy ofVirgil Virgil’s work was a standard in Scottish schools. 40.25–26 the bear seed a variety of barley commonly grown in Orkney and Shetland. 40.26 the wise Mantuan Virgil (70–19 BC ). 40.26 ventis surgentibus Latin with rising winds: Virgil, Georgies, 1.356.

5i 6

explanatory notes

40.29 nemorum murmur Latin the murmur of the groves: see Virgil, Georgies, 1.359. 40.31–32 some nameless deed compare Macbeth, 4.1.49. 40.36 loose toy woman’s linen or woollen headdress hanging down over the shoulders. 41.6 barber’s block rounded block on which wigs are made and displayed; here, a wooden head. 41.10 meltith and fuel food and fuel. 41.16 unico contextu Latin, literally in a single connection, i.e. at the same time. 41.17 could never away with could never put up with, could never tolerate. 41.22 licked the lip action indicating keen relish ofa dainty morsel (OED). 41.39–40 no more robbers... than there are lambs at Youle i.e. there are no lambs at Christmas time. 41.41 no Highlandmen to harry us see note to 30.38. 41.42 O fortunad nimium Latin oh how excessively blessed they are: see Virgil, Georgies, 2.458. 42.4 Cloch–na–ben hill (579m), 15 kms SW ofBanchory, near Aberdeen. 42.5 as like whingers as ae bit airn as like dirks as one bit of iron. 42.11 we are but gane folk we have had it. 42.15 as ifyou were stepping on new–laid eggs proverbial very warily: see ODEP, 218. 42.23 Open the door... it’s a Christian deed see Matthew 25.35. 42.33–34 recovering his arms bringing back the weapon to its former position. 42.38 caterans or sorners Highland robbers or vagabonds. 42.39 breekless loon trouserless lad, i.e. a Highlander who wears the kilt rather than trousers. 42.40 Lochaber the region ofBen Nevis, in the Highlands of Scotland. 42.41–42 put up your pipes and gang your gait pack up your pipes and go your ways. 42.43 place ofresett for thiggers resort for common beggars. 43.7 volens nolens Latin, literally willing unwilling. 43.16 the gathering-peat the large piece of peat or turflaid on the embers to keep a fire alive over a long period. 43.34 Ceres the Roman goddess ofagriculture. 43.36 Bacchus the Greek god of the fertility of Nature, particularly a god of wine. 43.40 at bottom in reality. 44.7 shamey peats cakes consisting ofcows’ dung mixed with coal–dross, dried in the sun, and used for fuel. 44.21–23 And wherefore... as in Fife Fife is a county on the east coast of Scotland. The family of St Clair operated coal mines there near Dysart in the early 18th century and there were also mines near Dunfermline and to the N of Kirkcaldy: see Baron F. Duckham, A History ofthe Scottish Coal Industry: Vol. I 1700–1815 (Newton Abbot, 1970), 144–46. 44.28–29 bonniewallies good things. 44.31 Portugal pieces pieces of eight (reals), worth 4s. (20p), silver coins struck in Portugal. 44.34 Ophir i.e. Orphir a village and a parish in the south of Orkney. For Ophir see 1 Kings 9.28,10.11; 2 Chronicles 8.18,9.10. In his ‘Diary’ Scott wrote: ‘This Orphir of the north must not be confounded with the Ophir of the south. From the latter came gold, silver, and precious stones; the former seems

EXPLANATORY NOTES

517

to produce little except peats’ (Lockhart, 3.195). 44.35–37 Solomon... talents see 2 Chronicles 8.18. 44.39 mal apropos inappropriate. 44.42 what a change shall coin introduce rent was usually paid in kind, rather than cash, and the substitution ofcash rents were usually seen as a necessary step for economic progress. See note to 249.26. 45.2 copper near the cliffs ofKonigsburgh an ancient parish of Dun– rossness. T. S. Traill states: ‘Near Coningsburgh cliffs, a vein of copper pyrites was wrought a few years ago, which yielded Mr Jameson 18 per cent, of copper’ (Appendix 4, T. S Traill, ‘Observations, chiefly mineralogical, on the Shetland Islands, made in the course ofa Tour through those Islands in 1803’,in Neill, 171). 45.3 copper scum is found on the Loch of Swana the Loch of Swanna or Swannay is in the north of the Orkney Mainland. Wallace states: ‘The Loch ofSwanna in the Mainland, will have in some parts a thick scumm of Copper Colour upon it, which makes some think there is some Mine under it’ (Wallace, 20). 45.11 bland when the butter was removed, boiling water was poured into die buttermilk; the remaining solids separated to form a kind of soft cheese, while the remaining acid but pleasant–tasting liquid was known as bland. 45.28 suneorsyne sooner or later. 45.28 what for no why not? This expression was a ‘Laidlawism’, a pet phrase ofWilliam Laidlaw, Scott’s friend, neighbour, and amanuensis: see Lockhart, 5.285. 45.29 What is this ofit what’s all this? 45.30 What day is this wi’ you what special day do you think this is? 45.31 the Israelites had beside the flesh–pots ofEgypt see Exodus 16.3. 45.38 Tronda Dronsdaughter the first name may be derived from the place called Trondra in Tingwall in Shetland. The surname represents the patronymic system which persists in Iceland today whereby daughters’ sur­ names are derived from their father’s forenames and the word ‘dochter’ or ‘daughter’. Monteith states that in Shetland ‘The Natives are known from the Incommers by their want ofsurnames, having only Patronymic Names’ (Mon­ teith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 4). 45.40 twal pennies Scots i.e. one English penny (0.42p). In the 17th century, one penny Scots was worth one–twelfth of the English penny. The currency was abolished by the Act of Union of 1707, when sterling became the currency of the United Kingdom. 46.1 as ifthe things burned her fingers i.e. she works very slowly. In his ‘Diary’ Scott observes that a ploughman brought to Shetland from Scotland complained that the locals ‘work as if a spade or hoe burned their fingers’ (Lockhart, 3.152). 46.2 a groat ofEnglish siller four English pennies (1.67p). Triptolemus suggests that it would be worth his bringing a Scots servant from mainland Scotland and paying her four–times the rate he pays the Shetland girl. 46.8–11 when you want.. .nought to be done that day the ‘menarein general indolent, and adverse to any steady exertion’ (Edmondston, 2.56). See also notes to 237.10 and 278.18–25. 46.9 stepped ower the tangs Triptolemus reverses a standard superstition which held iron to be a prophylactic against witchcraft and evil. See ‘Iron deters evil’, in A Dictionary ofSuperstitions, ed. Iona Opie and Moira Tatem (Oxford, 1989). 46.9 uncanny body person who is thought to have supernatural arts or powers. 46.10 turned about the boat against the sun in an anticlockwise

5i8

explanatory notes

direction. In a note to his ‘Abstract of the Eyrbiggia–Saga’ (Prose Works, 5.397n.) Scott wrote: ‘This is an important circumstance. Whatever revolved with the sun was reckoned a fortunate movement. Thus, the Highlanders in making the deasil, a sort of benediction which they bestow in walking round the party to be propitiated, always observe the course of the sun. And witches, on the other hand, made their circles, widdershins, as the Scottish dialect expresses it, (widder–sins, Germ.) or in opposition to the course of the orb of light.’ 46.13 knapped Latin spoke Latin. 46.15 Barcelona napkin neckerchief. 46.22 King ofthe Drows see note to 15.10. See also ‘Trows’, in Katharine Briggs,A Dictionary ofFairies (London, 1976), 413–14, where the description of the Kunal-Trow or Trow-King seems to have thematic links with Mordaunt and his father. 46.27 Michaelmas 29 September; originally a church festival celebrated in honour of the archangel Michael, but probably here used to signify the time of harvest. 46.39 set him up ironic or contemptuous what a cheek; used of a person who gives himself airs. 47.2–3 Heus tibi, Dave! Latin hallo there, Davus. Davus was a common name for a slave in Rome. 47.4 Adsum Latin Here I am. 47.8–9 to plough upon the sea to cleave the surface of the water. Com­ pare ‘Far from the abode of men, I have plowed the wide ocean with my vessels’, in ‘The Complaint of Harold’, in Thomas Percy, Five Pieces ofRunic Poetry translatedfrom the Icelandic Language (London, 1763), 79. 47.9 reap upon the crag harvest seabirds and their eggs. 47.15–16 I had as lief... fastened to the gibbet I would like being hanged just as well. 47.32 flichtering and fleeing fluttering and flying. 47.32–33 terra firma Latin firm land. 47.42– 43 open doors and dogs come in proverbial: see ODEP, 599. 48.9 hallanshaker loon sturdy ragamuffin fellow. 48.17 wild as grey goss–hawk see ‘Fause Foodrage’ (Child, 89), line 121, in Minstrelsy, 3.288, and Scott’s discussion of the line at 3.279. 48.27 NornaoftheFitful–head derived from the word‘nornie’meaning ‘destiny’, and Fitful–head, in the extreme southwest of Mainland Shetland (see note to 26.27). In Norse culture it was believed that maidens called ‘Noms’ had the power of controlling events. For a description of their character see The Prose Edda ofSnorri Sturluson: Talesfrom Norse Mythology, trans. Jean I. Young (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), 44, and Hibbert, 572. 48.36 pair ofjougs instrument of punishment, consisting of a hinged iron collar fastened round an offender’s neck, and attached by a chain to a wall or post. 48.36 Scalloway then nominal capital of Shetland. 48.39–40 ravelled hasp on the yarn–windles tangled skein ofyarn on the yarn–winders. 48.43– 49.2 The blessing... close–handed churls no particular blessing relating to Saint Ronald has been identified. 49.17–18 miseris succurrere disco Latin I am learning how to help the unhappy: Virgil, Aeneid, 1.630. 49.27 won ofold by the flaxen–haired Kempions ofthe North a reference to the Vikings who had conquered Orkney and Shetland. 49.32 to spread the banquet for the raven to slay their enemies. The raven was the standard of the Vikings. 49.33–34 lifted them ofyore into queens and prophetesses there are

EXPLANATORY NOTES

SIO

many examples in Norse mythology of women being prophetesses: Thor’s wife was a prophetess called Sif, while Frigg (wife of Odin, the supreme god) also had the gift of foretelling events. See The Prose Edda ofSnorri Sturluson: Tales from Norse Mythology, trans. Jean I. Young (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), 26. 49.38 BonducaorBoadicea British warrior, queen of the Iceni in East Anglia, who led a revolt against the Romans in ad 61, sacking Colchester, Verulam (St Albans), and London. After her defeat she committed suicide. 49.39 Velleda, Aurinia prophetesses of the ancient Germans, mentioned in Tacitus (c. ad 56–c. 117), Germania (ad 98), Ch. 8: CLA, 226. 49.40 ancient Goths see note to 20.3. 50.6–12 cloak... crimson cloth no examples of an outfit identical to Norna’s have been found although one equally outlandish is worn by the proph­ etess Thorbiorga in Scott’s Magnum note (Magnum, 25.21–23). 50.14 Roman buskins high thick–soled boots worn by the actors in ancient Greek tragedy. It was Athenian rather than Roman actors who wore buskins. 50.18– 19 Runic characters characters of the earliest Teutonic alphabet, often having mysterious or magical powers attributed to them. 50.18– 21 staff... divining rod Olaus Magnus offers a commentary on an illustration of similar staffs. Like Norna’s the staffs in the illustration are ‘squared on all sides’ and bear runic markings. Magnus writes: ‘We see here an old and a young man each holding a staff marked with Gothic characters. From these engraved sticks we can perceive the implements with which, in very ancient times before books were in use, they found out with unfailing success the properties and influences of the moon, the sun, and the other heavenly bodies, a skill shared by nearly all present–day inhabitants of the North. The staff is adapted to the height of a man, with the number of weeks in a year on each side, and for each week seven Gothic letters, by which the golden numbers and, after the acceptance of Christianity, the dominical letters are marked off in the vernacular by characters’ (Olaus Magnus, 1.73). 50.26–30 exposed her to the investigations ofthose cruel inquisitors ... sorcery in 1563 a statute of the Scottish Parliament made execution the punishment of witchcraft. At various times in the 17 th century the Scottish Privy Council having received reports of witchcraft from sheriffs and other magis­ trates (often following the pricking of supposed witches by official ‘prickers’) appointed commissioners to try people for witchcraft. The last execution of a witch was at Dornoch in 1727, although well into the 18th century Scots legal writers took the subject of witchcraft seriously. See T. C. Smout, A History ofthe Scottish People 1560–1830 (London, 1969), 198–207; and F. Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough: A Four Volume Study ofthe National and Local Festivals of Scotland, 4 vols (Glasgow, 1957–68), 1.129. 50.28 Privy Council the Scottish Privy Council, the members of which, called Lords of Council, sat for judicial business during the vacation of Parlia­ ment. 50.3 5–36 fear ofwitchcraft... intense an estimated 4000 people were executed for witchcraft in Scotland between 1560 and 1707, largely during the four witchcraft ‘epidemics’ of the 1590s, the 1620s, the 1640s, and 1660s. 51.1–2 TrowsorDrows seenoteto 15.10. 51.6—7 those fatal sisters who weave the web ofhuman fate Greek mythology the three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. The Roman mytholo– gists give as native names Nona, Decuma, and Morta. 51.8–10 The name... fatal consequences a familiar belief in the magic of names among primitive peoples. 51 motto see The Tempest, 1.2.1–2. 51.35 the last day the Day ofJudgment when the end of the world occurs.

520

EXPLANATORY NOTES

51.36 guisarás and gyre–carlines mummers and witches. 52.6–7 the Norse language see note to 17.30–38. 52.11 the niggardly pinch–commons the stingy woman who stints the supply of food for herself and others. 53.4 house–leek, which now grows on their thatch herb with pink flowers and a thick stem which grows on walls and roofs. 53.7 scholarly and wisely The Merry Wives ofWindsor,1.3.2–3. 53.10–11 the Prince ofthe power ofthe air Satan. 53.20–21 aroint ye the command in Shakespeare for bidding supernatural beings begone: Macbeth, 1.3.6; King Lear, 3.4.122. 53.22 take the beetle to you beat you with the implement used for beating water out of clothes; see Magnum, 24.94. 53.28 ride on one ofthese clouds the motif of witches flying through the air either with or without broomsticks is common: see Motif–Index ofFolk– Literature, ed. Stith Thompson, 6 vols (Copenhagen, 1955–58), motifs G242. and G242. 1. For examples of Scottish witches riding through the air see F. Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough: A Four Volume Study ofthe National and Local Festivals of4Scotland vols (Glasgow, 1957–68) 1.136–37. 53.30 ride on the reek ofa fat tar–barrel barrels of tar were used in burning witches at the stake. Compare the ballad, ‘Christie’s Will’: Ί have tar– barell’d mony a witch’ (Minstrelsy, 4.72). 54.7– 8 far beyond the bounds of his philosophy see Hamlet, 1.5.166–67. 54.19–20 the Island ofUnst most northerly of the Shetland Islands, 60 km NE of Lerwick. 54.20 theSongoftheReim–kennar the Song ofone skilled in magic rhymes. ‘Reim–kennar’ is a neologism of Scott. 54.22–04 elliptical and metaphorical... Northern poetry Scaldic verse favoured a form of poetic periphrasis called ‘kenning’ whereby a meta­ phorical description is substituted for a simple term; see Andy Orchard, Dic­ tionary ofNorse Myth and Legend 1997), 100. Thomas Percy says that the Scalds had ‘at length formed to themselves in verse a kind ofnew language, in which every idea was expressed by a peculiar term, never admitted into their ordinary converse’. He adds that this was taken to such lengths that ‘the same thought is scarcely ever expressed twice in the same words’ (Thomas Percy, Five Pieces ofRunic Poetry Translatedfrom the Islandic Language (London, 1763), A5V, A6v). 54.26– 27 Stem eagle... thunderbolt in Norse mythology Odin (the supreme god) is traditionally associated with the eagle and was believed to take on its form to fly through the air. His son Thor is traditionally associated with thunder. SeeH. R. Ellis Davidson, Viking and Norse Mythology, revised edn (London, 1982), 46. 54.38 Drontheim Trondhjem, a seaport in Norway. It has a cathedral where Norwegian kings are crowned and was home to King Olaf. 55.5–7 There are verses... pause on the wing in stanzas 147–65 of ‘Hovamol’ or ‘The Ballad of the High One’ the speaker claims to know a variety of songs to work similar charms: see The Poetic Edda, trans. Henry Adams Bellows (Lewiston, N.Y., Queenstown, Ontario, Lampeter, 1991), 41–43. 55.24 Odin in northern mythology, the supreme god and creator. 56.25–26 hundred pund Scots £8 6s. 8d. sterling (£8.34). 56.27– 28 five merk ofready siller £3 6s. 8d. Scots (28p). A merk was worth 13s.4d. Scots. 56.28 as poor as Job see Job Chs 1–2. 56.38 like the dew ofheaven on the cliffs ofFoulah wasted, because the ground is hard and barren. For Foulah see note to 27.18.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

521

56.43 Hialtland the old Norse name for Shetland. The name is supposedly derived from the Scandinavian ‘Hjaltland’ or ‘high-land’, or from Hialti, a Viking. Monteith writes: ‘They have several Names beside the common Desig­ nation of Shetland., by some they are named Zetland, and by others Hetland, and Shethland; some Seamen give them the Name of Thylinsel·. the Norvegians call them Yealteland... in the old Language of the Natives, they are named Yealta– land' (Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 1). 57.11 bonniedie toy, trinket. 57.11–12 it willbeasclate–stanethemorn pieces ofslate or slate–like stone: a term frequently used in proverbs and similes alluding to money. According to popular superstition, money given by the devil as a reward for service, though having the appearance of good coin, would turn into slate the following day. 57.18 thrives not with the sordid or the mean–souled the notion that fairies or supernatural spirits do not like lack of generosity, rudeness or selfish­ ness is a common motif: see Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary ofFairies (London, 1976), 168. It was also believed that those who stole fairy treasures did so in danger of their lives. 57.20–21 the hidden talent see Matthew 25.14–30; Luke 19.12–27. 57.43 the careful skipper will sleep still enough see Job 3.13. 58.4–5 one man’s loss is another’s gain proverbial: see ODEP, 486. 58.10–11 where the slaughter is, the eagles will be gathered see Matthew 24.28; Luke 17.37. 58.24 the small fish called sillochs ‘This name is in Orkney given... to fry of different kinds’ (John Jamieson, An Etymological Dictionary ofthe Scottish Language, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1808): CLA, 266). 58.26–27 the chapman’s drouth see Scott’s note on the chapman’s drouth, where he describes it as ‘proverbial in Scotland, because these pedes­ trian traders were in the use of modestly asking only for a drink of water, when, in fact, they were desirous of food’ (Magnum, 24.103). 59.2 ower the cairn and awa i.e. over the Deeside hills into the Highlands, a phrase from Baby’s previous life in the Meams: see note to 30.36. 59.6 best college grace i.e. a grace in Latin. 59.9 test upon it leave it in my will. In a Magnum note Scott comments: ‘a mode of bestowing charity, to which many are partial as well as the good dame in the text’ (Magnum, 24.105). 59.13 say an oraamus to Saint Ronald see Scott’s note in Magnum, 24.105: ‘In very stormy weather a fisher would vow an oramus to Saint Ronald, and acquitted himself of the obligation by throwing a small piece ofmoney in at the window of a ruinous chapel’. Oramus is Latin for ‘we pray’; the double ‘a’ is indicative ofBaby’s pronunciation. 59.13–14 fling a sixpence ower your left shouther for good luck. Silver was thought to protect against evil (see ‘Silver protects’, in A Dictionary of Superstitions, ed. Iona Opie and Moira Tatem (Oxford, 1989) where this ex­ ample is cited), and something thrown over the left shoulder was thought to go into the eye of the devil. 60 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 60.9 lang Scots miles Robert Burns, ‘Tam 0’ Shanter’ (1791), Kinsley, no. 321, line 7 (all the allusions in this paragraph are to this poem). Scots miles (1.8 km) were proverbially long, equal to about 1.123 English miles. Mor– daunt’s journey is also reminiscent of one taken in Shetland by Patrick Neill which he describes in the following terms: ‘The hills here are excessively wet and swampy, and to travel but a few miles over them becomes very fatiguing. We had frequently to fetch circuits around stagnant pools or deceitful marshes’ (Neill, 85).

522

EXPLANATORY NOTES

60.13 slaps nor stiles see Robert Burns, ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ (1791), Kins­ ley, no. 321, line 8. 60.13– 14 waters and mosses see Robert Bums, ‘Tamo’ Shanter’ (1791), Kinsley, no. 321, line 8. 60.16 celebrated retreat from Ayr Tam 0’ Shanter is leaving the town of Ayr at the start ofBurns’s poem. 60.16– 17 witch nor warlock see Robert Burns, ‘Tam 0’ Shanter’ (1791), Kinsley, no. 321, line 115. However the phrase ‘neither witch nor warlock’ refers not only to the specific context but negates a whole section (lines 115–218) of the poem. 60.25 Johnnie Fea Barry lists Fea as one of the oldest surnames in Orkney (224), and the name is also given as that of a landholder in the Parish of Tingwall in the StatisticalAccount, 490. It is also the surname of the man historic­ ally responsible for Gow’s capture; see note to 3.17. 60.31 on the latch fastened with a latch only. 60.31–32 gathering peat the large piece of peat or turflaid on the embers to keep a fire alive over a long period. 60.36 just in his ordinary just as he ordinarily is. 61.3–4 three times were aye canny three is commonly held to be a magic or enchanted number; see Motif–Index ofFolk–Literature, ed. Stith Thompson, 6 vols (Copenhagen, 1955–58), motifD1273.1.1. 61.5 quite and clean entirely, absolutely. 61.13–14 three leagues and better more than nine miles. 61.22 no just that tight in the upper rigging not all there, a bit crazy. 63.10 fancy–free free from the power oflove: A Midsummer Night's Dream, 2.1.164. 65.17– 18 change the wind... as King Erick used to do by turning his cap the King of Sweden, called ‘ Windycap’, was so familiar with evil spirits that what way soever he turned his cap, the wind would presently blow that way. See Olaus Magnus, 1.169. 65.19–20 selling favourable winds in the Magnum Introduction to The Pirate Scott writes: ‘I learned the history of Gow the pirate from an old sibyl,... whose principal subsistence was by a trade in favourable winds, which she sold to mariners at Stromness’ (Magnum, 24. viii). See also Scott’s note on ‘Sale of Winds’, in Magnum, 24.136–37. 66.21 to look out upon that unbounded war ofwaters Scott had a similar experience, which he described in his ‘Diary’ (Lockhart, 3.169–70). 66.25 Roost see note to 5.21–22. 66.39 the fowler, whom nothing escapes Death. See Psalm 91.3. 66.39–40 at one swoop see Macbeth, 4.3.219. 68.35 Erick’s Steps not identified. Scott describes his own visit to Sum– burgh-head and his descent to the shore: ‘sitting gently down on the steep green slope which led to the beach, I e’en slid down a few hundred feet’ (Lockhart, 3170)· 70.34 on life to life, alive. 70.34–35 do you some capital injury see Scott’s note on‘Reluctance to Save a Drowning Man’, in Magnum, 24.137, where he says that it was ‘almost general in the beginning of the eighteenth century’ and offers an account of the murder of several stranded survivors of a wreck in one of the remote Shetland islands. 70.37–38 what God sends us even ministers supported the doctrine that wrecks were godsends. As late as 1744 Rev. John Mill of Dunrossness called the wreck of a Danish vessel a godsend since it provided timber for his church; see James R. Nicolson, Traditional Life in Shetland (London, 1978), 30. 71.16 Kirkwall the chief town of the Orkney Islands.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

523

71.39 inform Magnus Troil ofyour thievery see note to 79.10. 72.2 stir in the trade move briskly in the way of business. 72.4 darraign battaile maintain a single combat in vindication of a right. It is a favourite expression of Edmund Spenser: see The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596), 1.4.40.2; 1 .7.11.5; 3.1 .20.8–9; 4.426.7; 4.5.24.6; and 5.2.15.5. 72.11 Dinna swear see Matthew 5.34–37. 72.13 the lawful spoil ofthe Egyptians see Exodus 3.22,12.35–36. 72.22 seenteen–hundred linen linen in the weaving ofwhich 1700 threads go to the warp; hence, excellent linen. See Robert Burns, ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ (1791), Kinsley, no. 321, line 154. 72.25 strong as... dowlas strong, but coarse, linen cloth, supposed to derive its name from Doullens, in Department Somme, France. 73.5–6 blue as a partan’s back before boiling a partan is a crab. The lobster, rather than the crab, is blue before being cooked. 73.14 rheumatize in my back–spauld pain in the back ofmy shoulder. Several writers in the StatisticalAccount for Shetland claim that rheumatism is very prevalent in the islands and Edmondston elaborates stating that ‘there is scarcely an individual, who has attained the age of sixteen, who has not been affected by it’ (Edmondston, 2.99–100). 73.16 making the honest penny proverbial: see Tilley, 532. 74.7–8 practice was more common than legal Edmondston states that the rights of admiralty allowed the Earl of Morton gave him the rights to all wrecks when their owner could not be found, although ultimately this right was reserved by the crown; see Edmondston, 2.153. This reflects Scots law under which the shoreline belongs to the crown. This is complicated in Orkney and Shetland, however, by the fact that under the influence of udal law the shoreline is owned by the landowner as far as the ebb–tide line, with rights to at least some of what comes ashore such as sea–weed and shell–fish. See Knut Robberstad, ‘Udal Law’, in Withrington, 62. 74.16 break bulk destroy the completeness of something by taking out a portion (OED, breaks verb 43). 74.25—26 in the maimer thus. 74.39 white 0’the gills looking dejected or in ill health. 75.8 rokelay and owrelay short cloak and neck-cloth. 75.9–10 the Jenny and James no ship ofthis name is recorded as wrecked off Shetland in Richard and Bridget Larn, Shipwreck Index ofthe British Isles, 4 vols (London, 1995–98). However, Neill states that a boat called the Peggy and Jenny was wrecked on the southern coast of Mainland Shetland in 1794 or 95, loaded with timber, tallow, wine and other goods (see Neill, 131) and in 1776 a ship called the Jenny of Liverpool ran ashore at Eswick in Shetland. All of the crew reached shore but before they reached the tide–line were swept away by a huge wave; only the ship’s boys survived. Most of the cargo was salvaged and sent to England; see David Μ. Ferguson, Shipwrecks ofOrkney, Shetland and the Pentland Firth (Newton Abbot, 1988), 39. 75.10 in King Charlie’s time Charles II, reigned 1660–85. 75.17–18 mair wrecks ere winter see Scott’s note in Magnum, 24.137–38, where he tells an anecdote that echoes the Ranzelman’s words. 75 motto William Wordsworth, ‘Ruth’ (written 1799), lines 37–42. 76.25– 26 transgressing the law, and have been out upon the wrecking system see note to 74.7–8. 76.27 Fair fa’ your sonsy face see Robert Burns, ‘Toa Haggis’ (1786), Kinsley, no. 136, line 1. 76.32–33 her rock and her tow her distaff and her flax. 76.39–40 a whin duds a few clothes. 76.41–42 laws against... helping vessels Patrick Stewart (see note to

524

EXPLANATORY NOTES

14.15) is reputed to have ordained that ‘if any man tried to supply or give relief to ships, or any vessel distressed by tempest, the same shall be punished in his person and fined at the Earl’s pleasure’; see Ordnance Gazetteer OfScotland, ed. Francis H. Groome, 6 vols (London, 1894), 5·140 77.1–2 lose their right frae the time keel touches sand perhaps an interpretation of udal law under which the shoreline and the shell–fish and seaweed washed upon it belonged to the landowner. See also note to 74.7–8. 77.4–5 great Jarls... tombs and sepulchres in pre–Christian times it was common for the dead of the Northern nations to be buried with some of their personal property, and burial mounds of those ofhigh status have been found containing substantial quantities of grave goods and treasure. It was also a common practice to hide treasure in natural caves or caverns particularly during times of war. 77.5 auld lang syne long since, long ago. 77.6 OlafTryguarsen King ofNorway 995–1000. He did not have a grave as he threw himself into the waves during a sea–fight in the year 1000, and was not seen again. 77.14 Themair by token especially as. 78.13–16 For at this time... indisputable property see note to 74.7–8. 78.17 Bimbister a real name: see Wallace, 30. ‘Bist’ or ‘bister’ is derived from ‘boldstadr’ meaning ‘ a dwelling place’; ‘bister’ therefore appears in many Orkney and Shetland place names, and by extension personal names. 78.21 his four quarters the four parts, each containing a limb, of his body; in short, hands and feet. 78.25 walking the plank walking blindfold along a plank laid over the side of a ship until one falls into the sea (as pirates made their captives do).

78.26 busy as the devil in a gale ofwind ODEP, 181.

proverbial: see Ramsay, no;

79.10 Fowd, or provincial judge ofthe district ‘The Government was by a Foude, which office answered to our Sheriff’ (Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 9). ‘The presiding judge was called the Fowd; he had extensive powers delegated to him by the kings of Norway and Denmark, and was a kind of governor of the country’ (Edmondston, 1.130–31 ). Under the Norwegian crown, the duties of the Fowd included presiding at the tings, or councils, and collecting taxes. Under Scottish control, he carried out the functions of a sheriff. The office disappeared with the imposition of Scots Law in 1611; see Smith, 333. 79.25 sink or swim proverbial: see Apperson, 574; Tilley, 608; ODEP, 737· 79.30 Good Hope ofBristol not identified. Bristol had long been estab­ lished as one ofBritain’s prime ports. 79.30–31 a letter ofmarque originally, a licence granted by a sovereign to a subject, authorising him to make reprisals on the subjects of a hostile state. Later this became practically a licence to fit out an armed vessel and employ it in the capture of enemy shipping, the holder of the letter of marque being called a privateer, and entitled by international law to commit acts that would otherwise have been condemned as piracy against the hostile nation. 79.31 the Spanish main the mainland ofAmerica adjacent to the Carib­ bean, especially that portion of the coast stretching from the Isthmus of Panama to the mouth of the Orinoco, the area from which freebooters attacked Spanish ships. 79.34 on the Toll–sell the place where merchants usually assemble; on the exchange. 79.35 the College–green a maritime area ofBristol, situated close to the

EXPLANATORY NOTES

525

cathedral and near to the ‘Narrow quay’, the location of several ship insurance brokers, ship smiths and ships’ colour makers listed in ‘Trades and Professions’, in Hunt & Co. ’s City ofBristol, Newport & Welch Towns Directory (London, 1848), 86. 80.4 to boot into the bargain. 80.20 stock and block entirely. 80.23 Spanish pistoles gold coins of Spain, worth about 9op each. 80.23 Portagues Portuguese gold coins worth about £4 each. 80.24–25 ballast enough to trim the vessel nautical ballast was used to sink a ship sufficiently deeply to prevent her from capsizing. A ship in trim was one ready to sail. 81.4 El Santo Francisco the Saint Francis. 81.5 Porto Bello town on the north side of the Isthmus ofPanama. 81.5 negroes i.e. the ship was involved in the slave trade. 81.8 weigh till the tide makes lift anchor and sail till the tide is full; hence, we must wait until you are ready. 81.15 weigh anchor heave up a ship’s anchor before sailing. 81.17 Davy Jones the spirit of the sea. Here Cleveland means ‘Davy Jones’s Locker’, the grave ofall who perish at sea. 81.18 better found built on a firmer base. 81.43 bulk has been broken see note to 74.16. 82.15 from Sumburgh-head to the Scaw ofUnst i.e. from the extreme south to the north of Shetland. 82.21 Sir Arthegal, who pronounces... list see Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene(1590,1596), 5.4.19.1–7. As the quotation suggests, Sir Arthegal is the personification ofJustice. Mordaunt omits line 4: ‘Whether by rage of waves, that never rest,’. 82.31 trim their sails accommodate themselves. 82.33 waiffs and strays law property which is found ownerless and which, if unclaimed within a fixed period, falls to the lord of the manor; e.g. articles washed up on the sea-shore. 83 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 83.3 Autolycus the rogue and pedlar in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. 83.29 mounted and dismounted took to pieces and put together again. 83.41–84.1 Frenchmen and Spaniards to be come at between 1688 and 1697 England and the Netherlands were at war with France, with the aim of restoring European boundaries (and particularly France) to what they had been in 1660. Spain too was attempting to defend her territories against France, although not as an ally of England and Holland. 84.7-8 Greenland fishing... perilous adventures Greenland fishing began to be appealing to young men in Shetland by the late 18th century. Whaling ships from Hull, Dundee and Peterhead regularly called at Lerwick where hundreds of young men joined them for whaling expeditions to Green­ land and the Davis Straits; see John J. Graham, ‘Social Changes during the Quinquennium’, in Withrington, 229. 84.9 Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540–96), circumnavigator of the globe and admiral, knighted in 1581. Under a commission from Elizabeth, he plundered and destroyed Spanish settlements and helped to defeat the Armada in 1588. 84.9-10 Captain Morgan Sir Henry Morgan (c. 1635–88), Welsh buc­ caneer, sacked Puerto Bello (1668), and captured Panama (1671). Sent (1672) as a prisoner to England for piracy, he was knighted (1673) and made lieutenant governor ofJamaica. A full account of Captain Morgan’s career can be found in Johnson, 1-19. 85.7–8 Lerwick... Holland Dutch fishing vessels usually arrived in Lerwick about the end of May or beginning ofJune and stayed there until

526

EXPLANATORY NOTES

August or September; see Smith, 15. There were Dutch fishermen in Lerwick when Scott visited in 1814; see Lockhart 3.182. 85.38 bismars and the lispunds apparatus for weighing various kinds of produce, and a unit of weight (about 28 lbs; 13 kg) used in Orkney and Shetland and in the Baltic trade. There was a long struggle to secure the standardisation of weights and measures as a means of advancing trade. An act ofJames VI created a uniform standard for Scotland; the Act of Union in 1707 created a uniform standard for Great Britain; but it was only in 1824 that common standards were achieved for the whole of the United Kingdom. 85.39 the still-yard a steelyard, a balance consisting ofa lever with unequal arms, which moves on a fulcrum; the article to be weighed is suspended from the shorter arm, and a counterpoise is caused to slide upon the longer arm until equilibrium is produced, its place on this arm (which is notched) showing the weight. 85.40 Brassa-craig probably the high sandstone cliffs to the south of the island ofBressay. See note to 86.4. 86.4 Brassay Bressay is an island 10 km long which lies slightly E of Lerwick, providing a natural breakwater for Lerwick’s harbour. 86.4 high-quartered probably indicates that the vessel has a high super­ structure, but why this is thought to be indicative of its being Norwegian has not been established. Monteith comments that the Shetlanders bought ‘Ships, Barks, and Boats of all sorts’ from Norway (Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 9). 86.8 Kite Tender i.e. the tender (a vessel accompanying a man-of-war, used for ferrying provisions etc.) of the ship called the Kite. 86.9 impressed men men forced to serve in the navy. English vessels regularly seized seamen from Scottish ports and vessels to serve in the English navy. 86.12–13 out-taken... something ower muckle daffing and laughing except for too much larking and laughing. 86.19–20 I am no free... flinging fancies the strictest Presbyterians did not approve of dancing. Compare David Deans in The Heart ofMid-Lothian (1818), ed. David Hewitt and Alison Lumsden, eewn 6,88–90. 86.29 John’s Even the Festival of SaintJohn the Baptist, one of the prin­ cipal festivals of the year in all Scandinavian countries, celebrated on June 24. It was the agreed date for the start of the herring season. Monteith comments: ‘great Fleets of the Hollanders come there, and by the order of the States General begin to take Herring, upon St. Johns day’ (Monteith, ‘The Descrip­ tion Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 8). 86.29–30 Saunt John’s, as the blinded creatures ca’ him the reformed, Presbyterian church in Scotland did not recognise saints, and abolished all saints’ days. 86.31–32 Flanders region taking in western Belgium and some parts of northern France, famous for its linens, etc. 86.40 hurry no man’s cattle proverbial have patience: see ODEP, 394. 86.40-41 the devil will hae his due proverbial: see Apperson, 143; Tilley, 153; ODEP, 304. 87.7 Antwerp city in northwest Belgium, famous for its clothes etc. 87.8 four dollars see note to 8.6. At the end of the 17th century four dollars would have been worth between 8op and £ 1.00. 87.9 a twenty shillingJacobus gold coin issued byJames I of England, worth£ 1 4s. in 1612. 87.27 between this and Unst between the far south and the far north of the Shetland Islands. 87.32–34 he thought, like Claudio,... he lacks money see Much Ado

EXPLANATORY NOTES

527

about Nothing, 3.2.17–18. It is Don Pedro, not Claudio, who speaks the speech. 87.39 Martinmas... Candlemas 11 November and 2 February, two of the four term days on which rent, interest etc. were paid in Scotland. 88.2 Captain Plunket not identified; probably fictional. 88.3 armed brig Mary not identified; probably fictional. 88.13 Haud a care be careful. 88.21 the white linen raiment see Matthew 28.3. 88.23 the talents see Matthew 25.14–30; Luke 19.12–27. 88.38–39 The callant’s in a creel the lad’s distracted. 88.41–42 very, very Fifish applied originally as a term of opprobrium to people from that county. It came to mean ‘somewhat deranged’, or eccentric. 89.6 Mair by token moreover. 89.22 walking by the word following the word of God. 89.22–23 Go unto those that buy and sell see Matthew 25.9. 89 motto see Samuel Johnson (1709–84), The History ofRasselas, Prince of Abbyssinia (1759), Ch. 41, in Rasselas and Other Tales, ed. Gwin J. Kolb (New Haven, 1990), The Yale Edition ofthe Works ofSamuelJohnson, 16.144–45. 90.5 Caesar Julius Caesar (c, 102–44 BC). 90.7 But the best wrestler on the green ‘To Zelinda’, line 22, in The Poems ofEdmund Waller, ed. G. Thorn Drury (New York and London, 1893), 104. 90.9 his rival Gnaeus Pompeius (106–48 BC), Pompey ‘the Great’, whom Caesar defeated at Pharsalus in 48 BC. 90.36–37 little mills which manufacture their grain in a Magnum note Scott writes: ‘There is certainly something very extraordinary to a stranger in Zetland corn-mills. They are of the smallest possible size; the wheel which drives them is horizontal, and the cogs are turned diagonally to the water. The beam itself stands upright, and is inserted in a stone quern of the old-fashioned construction, which it turns round, and thus performs its duty... These mills are thatched over in a little hovel, which has much the air of a pig-sty. There may be five hundred such mills on one island, not capable any one of them of grinding above a sackful of corn at a time’ (Magnum, 24.198). Descriptions of Shetland water mills are also given in Neill, 78, and Edmondston, 1.181. 91.4 Green Loch not identified, but the colour green has long been associ­ ated with magic and enchantment; see Motif-Index ofFolk-Literature, ed. Stith Thompson, 6 vols (Copenhagen, 1955–58), motifD1293.2. 91.23 swabie or swartback Barry describes the swartback as the great black and white gull, and the largest gull in the Orkney seas; see Barry, 304. 91.24 tirracke and kittiewake Barry describes die kittiewake as the most common gull in Orkney; see Barry, 303. 92.8–10 would have been an actual prodigy... two generations later compare the views of Reuben Butler in The Heart ofMid-Lothian (1818), ed. David Hewitt and Alison Lumsden, eewn 6,98. 92.22 the Valkyriur twelve Divinities, servants ofOdin (the supreme god) in the Gothic mythology. Their name signifies ‘Choosers of the Slain’. They were mounted on swift horses and carried drawn swords in their hands; in the throng of battle, they selected such as were destined to be slaughtered, and conducted them to Valhalla, the great hall of immortality. There is a list of the Valkyries in Thomas Bartholinus, Antiquitatum Danicarum de causis contemptae a Danis adhuc gentilibus mortis libri tres (Copenhagen, 1689), 554 (Bk 2, Ch. 12): CLA, 99. 92.43 the Drows see note to 15.10, and Scott’s footnote at 93.37–45. 93.2 Maiden-skerrie ‘In the Isle ofPapa... there is an high Rock, called Frowa Stack, that is, the Maiden Rock, divided from the Land by a narrow Firth, upon the Top of which the Tradition is, that a certain Norwey

528

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Gentlewoman... having vowed perpetual Virginity, to prevent her self from the tempting Solicitations of Suiters, built a strong Tower, to which their was no ascent, but by the help of Ropes, how it came to pass is unknown, she became with Child, and thereupon the Tower was demolished, the Rubbish and Vest­ iges ofit are yet to be seen’ (Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 6). Scott adds a note in the Magnum on this subject: see Magnum, 25.113. 93.2 Northmaven a parish of Shetland, comprehending the northernmost part ofMainland, with a number of neighbouring islets. It is connected at its southern comer with the rest of Mainland by an isthmus only 90m wide, and even this is nearly all submerged by spring tides. 93.3 swartback see note to 91.23. 93.4 Brinnastir possibly Brindister, on the west of the Mainland of Shet­ land in the parish of Sandsting. 93.17 the nameless race it was considered taboo to mention the fairies by name: see ‘ “Fairy” taboo word’, in A Dictionary ofSuperstitions, ed. Iona Opie and Moira Tatem (Oxford, 1989). 93.36 Dr Edmondston’s Zetland Arthur Edmondston, AViewoftheAn­ cient and Present State ofthe Zetland Islands; including their Civil, Political, and Natural History; Antiquities; andAn Account ofTheirAgriculture, Fisheries, Com­ merce, and the State ofSociety and Manners, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1809): CLA, 19. Scott met Edmondston when he visited Shetland; see Lockhart, 3.149. 93.43 Lucas Jacobson Debes Dean ofThorshaven, in the Faeroe Islands. In the 17th century, he wrote a description of those islands and their inhabit­ ants: Foroae et Feroa Reserata (London, 1676): CLA, 86. 94.29 staffofblack oak see note to 50.18–21. 94.34-35 from Bergen to Palestine all the way from a seaport in south­ west Norway to the Holy Land in the Middle East. 95.3-4 the Physician ofour souls Jesus Christ. 95.25 the Enemy ofmankind Satan. 96.15 To love them once, is to love them for ever compare Robert Bums, ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ (written 1791), Kinsley, no. 337, lines 11–12. 96.22 has taken a serpent into his bosom see Antony and Cleopatra, 5.2.300–08. 97.2-3 as the fowler nooses the guillemot with his rod and line no information on this has been found. 97.6-7 the greedy chaffer-whale... a fisher can cast at him ‘When this whale follows a boat and alarms the crew, the fishermen have a practice of throwing a coin ofany kind towards it, and they allege that the whale disappears in search of the coin, and ceases to molest them’ (Edmondston, 2.300). 97.13 wise in their own conceit see Proverbs 26.5,16. 97.21-22 the Baptist’s festival 24 June, the feast of St John the Baptist. 98 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 98.24 Will Peterson not identified. 98.24 the Noss in his ‘Diary’ Scott described the Noss, ‘a detached and precipitous rock, or island’, in considerable detail; see Lockhart, 3.150. It is separated by a narrow sound from Bressay and has cliffs rising to 183m. 98.31 length ofdays a phrase used 7 times in the Old Testament, e.g. at Job 12.12; Proverbs 3.16. 98.38 Whitsunday last 15 May, one of the four term days on which rent, interest etc. were paid in Scotland, and apparently the time when the action of this novel began. 99.4– 5 good there cannot come see Hamlet, 1.2.158. 99.29 cliffs ofFoulah see note to 27.18. 99-35–36 curse the day... heaven see Job 3.3–8.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

529

99.36–37 death and sin came into the world by woman see Genesis Ch. 3. 100.3–6 Silly moth... to the flame traditional comparison: see OED, moth, IC. 101.1 pair oflarge jack-boots two large boots coming above the knee, worn by fishermen and others. 101.7–8 the vesture ofthe patriarch whose name it bore see Genesis 37.3,23, and 31–33. 101.8 A steeple-crowned hat a hat with a crown rising to a point in the middle. High-crowned hats were worn in the 17th century, particularly by those ofa Puritan disposition, although it was usual for these to be trimmed only by a ribbon and buckle; in the second halfof the 17 th century the crown became lower. See Doreen Yarwood, The Encyclopaedia ofWorld Costume (London, 1978), 224. 101.15–16 cared not... her determination see 1 Henry IV, 2.4.141–42. 101.25–26 ganging our gate going our way. 101.37–38 Sancho on the scum ofCamacho’s kettle Miguel de Cer­ vantes Saavedra, The Adventures ofDon Quixote, Part 2(1615), Ch. 20. The ‘scum’ consisted of three hens and a couple of geese. 102.2–3 cured their beefin the same way they did in the north of Scotland a recipe for ‘beef-ham’ including beef, salt, saltpetre, raw sugar, cloves, Jamaica and blackpepper may be found in F. Marian McNeill, The Scots Kitchen: Its Traditions and Lore with Old-Time Recipes, 2nd edn (Glasgow, 1963), 151. The recipe involves letting the beef marinade for up to three weeks after which it is drained and hung. It may then be smoked or hung up to dry, or taken out of the pickle and boiled or baked. 102.18 the very nick oftime proverbial: see Tilley, 498; ODEP, 565. 102.28–40 such numbers ofshaggy... ponies are sufficiently saga­ cious see note to 19.18–21. 103.17–18 the heraldic representation ofa lion looking out ofa bush an unusual depiction of a lion in heraldry. However, the representation ofa lion headguardant, or sejant may give this impression as it is depicted looking straight ahead, through its mane. 103.37 notwithstanding his Yorkshire descent Yorkshiremen were reputedly good horsemen. 104.23 virtue... its own reward proverbial: see Apperson, 663; Tilley, 699–700; ODEP, 861. 104.26 he would make a road the lack ofroads is one of the complaints made by many visitors to Shetland; e.g. Edmondston writes that ‘Beyond five miles to the westward of Lerwick, there is nothing in the whole country that has the appearance ofa made road’ (Edmondston, 1.311). 104.28—30 He would substitute better houses... manufactured their fish fish were hung in huts open to the wind in order that they might be naturally dried. 104.31 good ale instead ofbland Monteith states that only the parish of Cross-Kirk in Dunrossness was fortunate enough to have ale to drink. Else­ where only bland was available; see Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 21. 104.31– 32 plant forests where tree never grew planting trees is among the suggestions made for improving Orkney by Patrick Neill. He suggests silverfir, larch, birch, hazel and mountain-ash as amongst varieties that would thrive; see Neill, 56–57. He later suggests that this experiment would be equally suited to Shetland; see Neill, 93. 104.32–33 find mines oftreasure... respectable denomination Triptolemus’s schemes are in keeping with those mentioned in Scott’s sources

530

EXPLANATORY NOTES

and in the debates current when Scott was writing the novel. Drainage, the poor state of the ploughs, the need for roads, and the benefit of planting trees are all mentioned by Alexander Seton in ‘ Letterfrom SirAlexander Seton ofPreston, containing Observations on the State ofthe Shetland Islands, and on the Means oftheir Improvement': Appendix 5, in Neill, 173–81. 104.32–33 a Danish skilling worth one farthing (o. 1p). 104.40–41 knowledge, which is better than wealth see Proverbs 3.13–15. 105.6 Heus tu, inepte! Latin hello there, you fool! 105.7–11 point oftrust... ofOrkney and Zetland Yellowley was appointed by the chamberlain as his substitute in all matters. 105.14–15 difficult to bridle an old horse for the first time com­ pare ‘it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks’ (ODEP, 805). 105.23–26 the impudence to call a com-mill... paltry mill-stone see Scott’s note on ‘Zetland Corn-Mills’, in Magnum, 24.198, and note to 90.36–37. In his ‘Diary’ Scott comments that there are ‘about 500 such mills in Shetland, each incapable of grinding more than a sack at a time’ (Lockhart, 3.145). 105.35 bell-the-cat to undertake a perilous part, to oppose openly and resolutely, to set at defiance (an allusion to the fable of the mice proposing to put a bell round the cat’s neck to apprise them of her approach). Proverbial: see Kelly, 180; ODEP, 44. 105.35–36 Edie Happer, the miller at Grindleburn a ‘happer ’ or ‘hop­ per’ is the cone or funnel through which grain passes into a mill. ‘Grindle’ denotes both a grindstone and a narrow ditch or drain. 105.36 in-town and out-town referring to corn grown on cultivated land near the homestead and to corn grown on land occasionally cultivated. 105.37 multures... the lave o’t feudal and other dues on corn ground at the laird’s mill. The multure was the regular exaction for grinding the meal; the lock, signifying a small quantity, and the gowpen, a handful, were additional perquisites demanded by the miller, and submitted to or resisted by the ‘suck­ ener’, as circumstances permitted. These and other petty dues were called in general the ‘sequels’. Knaveship was the quantity of corn or meal payable to a miller’s servant as one of the sequels levied on each lot of corn ground at a thirlagemill. 105.37 lock and gowpen Scots Law, a small quantity and handful. See Scott’s note on lock and gowpen in The Heart ofMid-Lothian (1818), ed. David Hewitt and Alison Lumsden, eewn 6,124. 106.10–16 the sheltie... flinging out its heels at every five yards Scott had a similar misadventure when his own horse fell in Shetland: ‘My pony stumbles coming down hill; saddle sways round, having but one girth and that too long, and lays me on my back’ (Lockhart, 3.163). 106.23–24 cussers... Ayrshire stallions and brood mares from areas famous for horse flesh. In his ‘Diary’ Scott noted ‘an excellent breed of horses from Lanarkshire’ in Orkney (Lockhart, 3.197–98). 106.38 come Martinmas this coming 11 November. 107.8–9 cumfrey and butter was better to bring him round again it was believed that rubbing cumfrey (a water plant, used as a ‘cooler of the blood’) and butter on a sore bone would be medicinal. 107.15 Goshen a land of plenty: see Genesis 46.34–47.6. 107.26 kitchen to a barley scone a relish to a barley scone, as cheese, dried fish, or the like. 107 motto Julius Caesar, 4.2.18–22. 39 107.38made the very deafto hear see Isaiah 35.5. 108.1 Troops of friends Macbeth, 5.3.25.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

531

108.24 the cook himself when Ballantyne questioned the sex of the cook, Scott replied in the proofs (Huntington Library ms RB110387,1.272), ‘Fe­ male cooks in Scotish families of rank are but of late introduction’. 108.38 Abyssinian Bruce James Bruce (1730–94) travelled in Abyssinia (capital, Gondar) from 1769–72. His narrative, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (he discovered that of the Blue Nile), was published in 1790, and Scott owned the second edition (Edinburgh, 1804): CLA, 233. For the specific reference in the text, see the edition of C. F. Beckingham (Edinburgh, 1964), 181–82(Vol. 6,Bk 7,Ch. 3). 108.43 one-stilted plough simple homemade wooden device and so light that a man could easily carry it. There was only one stilt or handle to guide the plough, and the ploughman walked beside it on the ‘white’ or unploughed land. It was extremely inefficient, and easily broken against a stone or by a stiff furrow. Descriptions of the plough are given by Barry, 348; Edmondston, 1.170–71; Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 5; and by Scott himself in Lockhart, 3.153. 108.43-109.3 ofthe twiscar... those ofthe mainland of Scotland Edmondston describes the ‘twiscar’ or ‘tuysker’ with which peats were cut as resembling ‘a narrow spade, having a sharp plate of iron, called the feather, about seven inches long, projecting from the bottom on its left hand side, and it determines the form and size of the peat’ (Edmondston, 1.177). 109.6 high emprize Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400), The Canterbury Tales, ‘The Monk’s Tale’, VII (B2), 3857: see CLA, 41,154,155,172,239. 109.11 Jacta est alea Latin the die is cast, the decision is taken; reputedly said by Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon (Suetonius, Julius Caesar, 32). Now, proverbial: see ODEP, 186. 109.14 watch the soft time ofspeech compare Proverbs 15.1. 110.4 neighbourly salute friendly kiss, by way of salutation. 110.38 Flotsome and Jetsome law such part of the wreckage of a ship or its cargo as is found floating on the surface of the sea and that which is driven ashore are severally called. 111.23–24 stuck fast as burs proverbial: see Apperson, 601–02; ODEP, 126. 112.3–4 accompanying... old age see Macbeth, 5.3.24. 113.12 Claud Halcro the name ‘Halcrow’ appears in a list of landowners in the parish of Tingwall in the StatisticalAccount, 489, and ‘Halcro’, in Wallace, 31. 113.24 the great English poet John Dryden (1631–1700). 113.28 cheval de battaille French, literally his war-horse; i.e. his stock anecdote. 113.29 his hobby-horse Halcro’s favourite topic, to which he is devoted out of all proportion to its real importance. The term is especially associated with Uncle Toby in Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1759–67); also proverbial (ODEP, 375). 113.37 the Wits’ Coffee-house this is not Wit’s Coffee-house in Saint James’s Street, London, but Will’s Coffee-house, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, to which wits used to resort: ‘The company that frequented the house, not long after the Revolution, seem to have formed three distinct societies; The Grave Club, The Witty Club,and The Rabble. .. .But the second of these parties predominated here so much, that the house was frequently called the Wits’ Coffee-house’ (The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, ed. Edmond Malone, 3 vols (London, 1800), 1.489–90). Coffee­ houses served coffee and other refreshments, but were principally known in the 17th and 18th centuries as meeting places for the exchange of political and literary news etc.

532

EXPLANATORY NOTES

113.38–39 pinch out ofhis own very snuff-box in a note to The Works ofJohn Dryden, Scott observes that a ‘pinch out of Dryden’s snuff-box’ was ‘equal to taking a degree in that academy of wit’ (The Works ofJohn Dryden, ed. Walter Scott, 18 vols (London, 1808), 1.371). Scott appears to be following Edmond Malone: ‘we are told by Ward, that the young beaus and wits, who seldom approached the principal table, thought it a great honour to have a pinch out of Dryden’s snuff-box’ (The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works ofJohn Dryden, ed. Edmond Malone, 3 vols (London, 1800), 1.489). Malone in turn follows Edward Ward: ‘At another Table were Seated a parcel ofYoung, Raw, Second-Rate Beau 's and Wits, who were Conceited, if they had but once the Honour to dip a Finger and Thumb into Mr. D–—’s Snush-box, it was enough to inspire ’em with a true Genius ofPoetry, and make ’em write Verse, as saft as a Taylor takes his Stitches’ ([Edward Ward], The London Spy, Part X (Aug. 1699), 6: see CLA, 126). 113.41 Russell Street, Covent Garden in London, the old Convent Gar­ den of Westminster. At the dissolution of the monasteries, it passed to the Russell family, who laid out the buildings, with the market as the centre. It is frequently mentioned in 17th-century literature, generally as a centre of dis­ sipation. Charles Johnson tells of the thief Stephen Bunce coming home by ‘ Russel-Street, Covent-Garden' (Johnson, 248). 114.15–16 old tunes are sweetest, and old friends surest proverbial: see Apperson, 465; ODEP, 589. 115.4 Now, Day and Night, but this is wondrous strange see Hamlet, 1.5.164. 115.8–9 Among all living creatures... the greater sway see Edmund Spenser, ‘Two Cantos ofMutability’ (1609), in The Faerie Queene (1590,1596), 7.47.3–4. 115.11 two juvenile graces in Greek mythology, the three graces were goddesses of beauty and grace, who distributed joy and gentleness. 115.22 the anchor was a-peak said of an anchor, when before drawing it up the vessel is brought immediately above it. 115.39–40 Sir Lucius O’Trigger... mighty provoking see Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816), The Rivals (1775), 4.3. 116.16 write verses upon a mill-pond Lord Byron was to satirise his exwife under the name ‘Miss Millpond’, in DonJuan (1819–24), 15.41. 116.21–22 Adieu... Bet Stimbister ‘Bist’ or ‘bister’ is derived from ‘boldstadr’ meaning ‘ a dwelling place’. ‘Bister’ therefore appears in many Orkney and Shetland place names, and by extension personal names. 116.23 Hacon Goldemund prominent figures were given names indicative of their achievements: Goldemund means ‘golden mouth’. Other such names in the Orkneyinga Saga include Hakon Sigurdarson the Broad-Shoudered and Thorfinn Turf-Einarsson the Skull-Splitter. 116.24 Harold Harfager first king ofall Norway, he conquered the Shet­ land Islands in 875. Harald Harfagri’s (Harfagri means ‘fair hair’) visit to Orkney is recorded in the Orkneyinga Saga, 34 (Ch. 8). 116.27 Hialtland see note to 56.43. 116.29 a man ofmold a mortal man, a man of parts or distinction. 116.34 glorious John ‘glorious’ appears to be Scott’s own epithet, but the idea may be derived from one of the elegies written on Dryden’s death and reproduced by Scott in an appendix to his edition: ‘The glorious throne for him prepared;/ Of glorious acts the glorious, just reward’ (Alexander Oldys, ‘An Ode by Way of Elegy, on the Universally Lamented Death of the Incomparable Mr Dryden’ (1700), in The Works ofJohn Dryden, ed. Walter Scott, 18 vols (London, 1808), 18.237). 117.4 in tow under his control.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

533

117.13–14 the Muses the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who presided over the various kinds of poetry, arts, and sciences. 117.16 Laurence Linklutter the name Linklater is a common one and is found in a list of landowners in the Parish of Tingwall in the StatisticalAccount, 489. 117.17 Cultmalindie Cultmalindie is in Perthshire, but Lawrence Bruce of Cultmalindie (a half brother ofLord Robert Stuart) came to Shetland in 1571 and the family ofBruce of Cultmalindie continued to live in the island; see Francis J. Grant, The County Families ofthe Zetland Islands (Lerwick, 1893), 18. Monteith states: ‘Upon the east part of Unst, there is a little Castle called Mowness, built by Lawrence Bruce sometime of Cultimalindie ’(Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 37). 117.19 Parnassus mountain in Greece, a few km N ofDelphi, sacred to the Muses. 117.28 Timothy Thimblethwaite Tom Thimble is the name of the tailor in The Rehearsal. 117.33–34 Crowne, and Tate, and Prior, and Tom Brown all were contemporary writers. John Crowne (1640?–1703?) was a dramatist of the late 17th century. Nahum Tate (1652–1715) was poet laureate (1692–1715), dramatist, and adaptor of Shakespeare. Matthew Prior (1664–1721) was a poet admired by Scott. Tom Brown (1663–1704) was a satirist, most famous as the author of‘I do not love thee, Dr Fell’. 117.42 Tim’s goose the tailor’s smoothing-iron. 117.43 topaythekain to make a payment in kind. 118.1 Tom Bibber a tailor in Dryden’s The Wild Gallant (1663). 118.5 on the score in debt. 119.7 Nancies ofthe hills or dales probably an allusion to‘Nancy of the Vale’, a poem by William Shenstone (1714–63). 119.13 Shadwell Thomas Shadwell (1642?–92), dramatist and poet, he was at open feud with Dryden from 1682, and succeeded him as poet laureate at the Revolution. 119.16—19 Methinks I see... basses roar see John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe (1682,1684), lines 43–46. 119.16 Arion legendary Greek musician, who, driven into the sea by covet­ ous sailors, was carried safely to land by dolphins. 119.26–120.11 Farewell... heaven the poem is supposedly based on ‘Humphrey Colquhoun’s Farewell’ by Claudero (the pseudonym ofJames Wilson, an 18th-century Edinburgh character who kept a school). If so, ‘Claud­ ero’ may have suggested the name ‘Claud’ to Scott. See Letters, 9.180 and note. 119.27 Hillswick in the northwest of the Shetland Mainland. It was de­ veloped in the 18th century as a haaf-fishing station. 120.17 Apollo Greek god ofmusic and poetry, and an archer. 120.29 Rochester John Wilmot (1647–80), 2nd Earl of Rochester, poet, satirist, and notorious libertine. 120.29 Etheridge Sir George Etherege (c. 1634–91), Restoration dram­ atist, and courtier of‘the gay monarch’, Charles II. 120.29 bear the burthen sustain or keep going the burden or bass ofa song. 121 motto Scott has brought together three widely separated couplets, changed the wording ofeach, and created a new unity. See Alexander Pope (assisted by William Broome and Elijah Fenton), The Odyssey ofHomer (1725–26), ed. Maynard Mack (London, 1967), 8.65–66,8.513–14, and 8.529–30. 121.27 the Amphitryon with whom one dines see Molière (Jean

534

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Baptiste Poquelin, 1622–73), Amphitryon (1668), 3.5.1703–04. In Greek mythology Zeus assumes the form of Amphitryon to seduce Alcmene; their child is Heracles. 122.20 OutisinthecaveofPolyphemus Ulysses when captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus, said he was ‘Outis’ (Nobody): Homer, The Odyssey, 9.110–561. 123.14–15 musing melancholy see John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), 11.485. 123.15 pathless glens see Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 4 (1818), 178.1. 123.28 more professional too specialised, too closely connected to his calling. 124.9 a priori Latin based on hypothesis rather than on experience. 124.22 gentle joined to the rude see James Thomson, ‘For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove’, in The Hive, a Collection ofthe most celebrated Songs (London, 1732), line 12. 125.12 beau ideal French ideal beauty. 125.20–21 a man... sport compare Othello, 1.3.128–70. 126.13 Necessity, which teaches all the liberal arts proverbially, necessity is the mother ofinvention; it is poverty that is the mother of all the arts: see ODEP, 558. 126.20 Groatsettars possibly from‘groat’, a four-penny coin issued in both England and Scotland in the Middle Ages, and ‘setter’, one who leases some­ thing to another. 126.23 Glowrowrum the name, glower-owre-’em, means ‘stare over them’. 127.23 a Dantzic skipper a sea-captain from the port of Gdansk in modem Poland. The list ofplaces or products which follows emphasises the internationlism of Shetland: China, France (for Nantz, i.e. brandy), Jamaica, Portugal. 127.24 Eric Scambester ‘bist’ or ‘bister’ is derived from ‘boldstadr’ mean­ ing ‘a dwelling place’. ‘Bister’ therefore appears in many Orkney and Shetland place names, and in personal names. 127.25 Canton city and port in southeast China. 127.27 Ganymede a Trojan youth, whom Zeus made cup-bearer to the Greek gods. 127.29 Shellicoat-spring not identified, but as a shellycoat is a water­ sprite perhaps the implication is that water is to be magically transformed in the punch. 127.33 Honourable East India Company’s vessels ships of‘The Gov­ ernor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies’, an English company founded in 1600 for the exploitation of trade with India, southeast Asia and China, particularly in the spice trade. 127.36–37 without very scrupulously reckoning for the King’s duties tax levied by the crown on goods imported; in other words the goods were smuggled. 127.39 Captain Coolie the name denotes the ship’s Oriental origin. 128.2 rummer glasses large drinking glasses. 128.8 West Indiamen ships of the Dutch West India Company founded in 1621 mainly to carry on economic warfare against Spain and Portugal by striking at their colonies in the West Indies and South America and on the west coast of Africa. 128.14 Rollo the Walker Hrolf the Ganger; according to tradition, the ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy and the Norman kings of England. 128.22 Valhalla in Scandinavian mythology, a hall in Asgard, the home of

EXPLANATORY NOTES

535

the gods, destined for the reception of dead heroes, and provided with horns of mead and ale. 128.23 Odin see note to 55.24. 128.27 own special hobby-horse see note to 113.29. 128.30–31 in all its longitude and latitude literally, in all its length and breadth; hence, in complete detail. 129 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 129.22 grandpas French, literally great step, a stylish manner of walking. 129.26–27 Russell Street see note to 113.40–41. 129.31 Wits’ Coffee-house see note to 113.37. 129.34 Muses Greek mythology nine sister-goddesses, the offspring of Zeus and Mnemosyne, regarded as the inspirers of learning and the arts, espe­ cially of poetry and music. 129.38–39 like squibs and crackers on a rejoicing night bonfires and fireworks were common on any occasion of public festivity. 130.9 bills ofmortality periodically published official returns of the deaths in a certain district. In London such lists were published weekly by the London Company of Parish Clerks. 130.11 hair stand on end a sign of anger and frustration. 130.17 an Ossianic phrase in the style of the rhythmic prose ofJames Macpherson’s rendering of the poems of the legendary Gaelic bard, Ossian. See also note below and to 183.19. 130.17 like a wave upon a rock James Macpherson, ‘Fragments ofAncient Poetry’, no. 14, in The Poems ofOssian, ed. Howard Gaskill (Edinburgh, 1996), 28. 130.22 draining ofthe lake ofBraebaster Alexander Seton suggests the advantages of drainage to Shetland. See ‘ Letterfrom SirAlexander Seton of Preston, containing Observations on the State ofthe Shetland Islands, andon the Means oftheir Improvement': Appendix 5, in Neill, 175–76. The lake is apparently imaginary. 130.25 Linklater glen apparently imaginary, but Linklatter is listed as the name of a landowner in the parish ofTingwall in the StatisticalAccount, 489. 130.25 Scalmester burn apparently imaginary. 131.9 Wits’ Coffee-house see note to 113.37. 131.21 Dennis John Dennis (1657–1734), dramatist and critic. 131.26–27 he had a slashing hand at a sleeve either, he was spirited and dashing in his ability to make a sleeve, or, more probably, he was expert in cutting slits in a sleeve to reveal an under-garment or a lining ofa contrasting colour. 131.37–38 ifreason fall short, you shall have rhyme to boot when coupled with ‘reason’, ‘rhyme’ is used to express lack of good sense or reason­ ableness. 132.13 what ails you at it what objection have you to it. 132.19–20 Neil ofLupness apparently imaginary. 132.25–26 two women must follow... couple ofshovels ‘Instead of a plough, a coarse kind of awkward spade is employed. As the men dig the fields with this spade; the women and children, we are told, drag the harrows!’ (Neill, 74). 132.27 drink about drink freely, don’t wait to drink. 132.28 never fash your thumb proverbial never give yourself trouble, don’t worry: see Allan Ramsay, The Gentle Shepherd(Edinburgh, 1725), 1.1.140,in The Works ofAllan Ramsay, 6 vols, Vol. 3, ed. Burns Martin and John W. Oliver (Edinburgh and London: Scottish Text Society, 1953), 217 (see CLA, 13); ODEP, 246. 132.41–42 Stephen Kleancogg, the fiddler, at Papastour Papa Stour is

536

EXPLANATORY NOTES

an island off the west coast of Shetland. The fiddler has not been identified. 133.9–10 own established chair... balcony in summer ‘Of Dryden’s general habits of life we can form a distinct idea, from the evidence assembled by Mr Malone. His mornings were spent in study; he dined with his family, probably about two o’clock. After dinner he went usually to Will’s Coffeehouse, the famous rendezvous of the wits of the time, where he had his established chair by the chimney in winter, and near the balcony in summer, whence he pronounced, ex cathedra, his opinion upon new publications, and, in general, upon all matters of dubious criticism’ (The Works ofJohn Dryden, ed. Walter Scott, 18 vols (London, 1808), 1.453–54). For Malone as the source of this information see The Critical andMiscellaneous Prose Works ofJohn Dryden, ed. Edmond Malone, 3 vols (London, 1800), 1.483–85. For Will’s Coffee-house see note to 113.37. 133.16 Sir Charles Sedley (1639?-1701), famous for his wit, urbanity, and profligacy, author offive dramas and some songs. He figures as Lisideius in Dryden’s ‘Essay ofDramatick Poesie’ (1668). 133.19 Blackmore Sir Richard Blackmore (d. 1729), physician to Queen Anne, and author oflengthy heroic and epic poems. 133.20 Shadwell Thomas Shadwell (1642?–92), dramatist and poet, at open feud with Dryden from 1682. 133.20–21 not fit to tie the latchets ofJohn’s shoes see Mark 1.7; Luke 3.16. The ‘latchets’ are the thongs used to fasten shoes. 133.23 Lady Elizabeth Lady Elizabeth Howard, the Earl ofBerkshire’s eldest daughter, whom Dryden married in 1663. 133.26 had wit at will was equal to the occasion, knew quite well what to do. Proverbial: see Tilley, 736; Apperson, 699; ODEP, 903. 133.35–36 this goose ofyours will prove a swan proverbial: see Tilley, 271; Apperson, 265; ODEP, 298. 134.20 Saint Magnus the Martyr Magnus Erlendsson, Earl ofOrkney, assassinated by his cousin Haakon on 16 April 1115. The Orkneyinga Saga calls him ‘successful in war’ (83), and also a ‘holy servant of God’ (96). He was venerated as a martyr because of the mode of his death, and because of the miracles associated with his shrine. See Orkneyinga Saga, 83–99 (Chs 45–57). 134.29 our doors open to the stranger see Matthew 25.35. 135.12–14 drawing-rooms... the nobility well into the 18th century the accommodation even ofa well off family in Edinburgh would comprise six rooms including the kitchen, with beds in the public rooms concealed during the day by curtains: while in the largest houses there might be a drawing-room for receiving visitors most often bedrooms would be used for the purpose. See Henry Grey Graham, The Social Life ofScotland in the Eighteenth Century, 4th edn (London, 1937), 86–87,91. 135.28 Neptune the Roman god of the sea. 135.36 the parish ofSaint James’s fashionable part of London in which the royal palaces of Whitehall and St James’s were situated. 135.39 tritons see note to 144.9. 135.41 contending with the elements see King Lear, 3.1.4. 137 motto Romeo andJuliet, 1.4.35–38. 137.7–8 The youth... mistress see entry dated Spring 1766, in James Boswell, Life ofJohnson, ed. G. B. Hill, rev. L. F. Powell, 6 vols (Oxford 1934–50), 2.14: ‘The lad does not care for the child’s rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man’s whore’. 137.23–25 Gray’s poems... the “Fatal Sisters,” in his later years Thomas Gray (1716–71) devoted attention to Scandinavian, Gaelic, and Welsh Poetry, and in 1761 wrote ‘The Fatal Sisters’, a translation from the Old Norse poem Darraðar Ljóð; see The Complete Poems ofThomas Gray, ed. H. W. Starr and J. R.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

537

Hendrickson (Oxford, 1966), 29–31. For another version of the story in the text see Scott’s ‘Diary’ (Lockhart, 3.190). 137.26–28 the Magicians... a Norse ditty a translation of a Latin version of one of the Old Norse poems in the Poetic Edda, a compilation dating from about 1270. 137.27 North Ronaldsha North Ronaldsay, the most northerly of the North Isles ofOrkney. 137.35 Harold Harfager first king ofall Norway, he conquered the Shet­ land Islands in 875. See note to 116.24. 138.25 Odin’s daughter one of the twelve war-maidens supposed to hover over battlefields and to conduct the fallen warriors to Valhalla. 138.43 a ritt with the teeth ofa redding-kame a scratch with the teeth of a wide-toothed comb for the hair. 138.45 a Sampson a man of great physical strength, derived from the name of the Biblical hero. See Judges, Chs 13–16. 139.1 like a causeyed siever like a lined drain, or, like the gutter at the edge of a paved street. 139.19 Spoken like an angel compare I Corinthians 13.1. 139.25 the Levant the countries of the East. 139.29–31 public prayers... Normans the Vikings terrorised Europe with raids from the 8th to the 11 th centuries. At the outset of their expansion they were heathens and appeared to launch a pagan threat to Christian society. By the end of their main period ofactivity they had themselves become Chris­ tians and upheld devotion and discipline in the church. 139.31 Normans ‘Normans’ is just ‘Northmen’ in an abbreviated form, as in Old English. That area of France called Normandy was settled by the Vikings, or Normans. 139.39 the water-dragons ofthe world the ancient Norsemen called their vessels ‘The Dragon’, ‘The Long Serpent’, etc. Compare for example Bjarni Kolbeinson’s ‘Lay of the Jomsvikings’, a modem translation of which may be found in Ernest W. Marwick, An Anthology ofOrkney Verse (Kirkwall, 1949), 37–41: ‘They loosed the sea-dragons, to Denmark they sailed’ (37). 139.39–40 the black-raven standard the raven, sacred to Odin, was represented on the flags of the Vikings. It was said that two ravens, Hugin and Munin (Thought and Memory) sat on his shoulders and were sent out each morning to gather the news of the world. On account of this he was called ‘the god of ravens’; see Andy Orchard, Dictionary ofNorse Myth and Legend (Lon­ don, 1997), 92–93. 139.43 reaping where we never sowed see Matthew 25.26. 140.11–12 we are all subjects ofone realm the islands of Orkney and Shetland were pledged to Scotland by Christian I of Norway and Denmark in 1468 and 1469 respectively as part of the dowrie of Princess Margaret for her marriage to James III of Scotland. They could, in theory, have been redeemed at any time by Norway, but the Scots ignored all attempts to pay redemption money; the last attempt to do so was in 1667. By 1689 the islands were fully integrated with Scotland, having come under the Scottish legal system in 1611; see Alan Small, ‘Geographical Location: Environment and History’, in Withrington, 29, and Barbara E. Crawford, ‘The Pledging of the Islands in 1469: the Historical Background’, in Withrington, 41–43. 140.13 bring up finish up. 140.13 Execution-dock at Wapping near London where criminal sailors were executed. 140.18 the day ofjudgment the day of God’s final judgment, when the world ends. 140.18–19 sea sends... land lends not identified as a proverb.

538

EXPLANATORY NOTES

140.28–29 Montrose James Graham (1612–50), first Marquis and fifth Earl of Montrose. He was a strong supporter of the National Covenant (1638), but changed sides and in 1644–45 fought a brilliant but savage military cam­ paign for King Charles I, during which he sacked Aberdeen. Montrose came to Orkney in March 1650 and impressed 2000 men to fight for Charles II; see Peterkin, 52. See also Scott’s note on Montrose’s descent on Orkney and Zetland in Magnum, 24.259, and his discussion in Prose Works, 24.73. 140.30 will ye nill ye willing or not. Proverbial: see Apperson, 688; Tilley, 726. 140.30–31 wilds of Strathnavern Strathnaver, an area of Sutherland S of Bettyhill. Montrose met his final defeat at Strathoykel in Sutherland at the Battle of Carbisdale (1650) at a steep rounded hill, still called the Rock of Lament. 140.38 dropping shot dropping shot, irregular fire, the assailants shooting when they could. 140.41 John Urry, or Hurry Sir John Urry (d. 1650) joined the parlia­ mentary forces at the beginning of the Civil War in 1642, deserted to the royalists in 1643, rejoined the parliamentarians in 1644, left again in 1645, and served with Montrose from 1646. See Scott’s notes in Magnum, 24.260, where he points out that the Zetlander’s memory ‘deceived him grossly’, and in Tales of a Grandfather. ‘Sir John Urry, or, as the English called him, Hurry, [was] a brave and good partisan, but a mere soldier of fortune, who had changed sides more than once during the civil war’ (Prose Works, 24.3–4). 141.36 the sword-dance see note to 19.22 and Scott’s note in Magnum, 24.266–71. 142.1 still practised in these remote islands see note to 19.22. 142.11–12 the Sabine maidens... their Roman lovers the Romans, invited to a spectacle by their neighbours, the Sabines, carried off the Sabine women by force. See Livy (59 bc–ad 17), History ofRome (1.9). 142.14 Amazons in Athenian legend a race of female warriors, defeated by Theseus, who carried off their queen. When they tried to rescue her, he de­ feated them again. 142.15 the Pyrrhic dance the war-dance of the ancient Greeks, in which the motions of warfare were gone through in armour, to a musical accompani­ ment. 143.17-18 pass current be received as genuine. 143.26 caviare to the common ear see Hamlet, 2.2.430-31. 143.31 the Gue and the Langspiel a two-stringed violin played upon in the manner of a violincello, and a kind of harp. See note to 19.24, and Edmond­ ston, 2.59-60: ‘Before violins were introduced, the musicians performed on an instrument called a gue, which appears to have had some similarity to a violin, but had only two strings of horse hair’. See also Francis Collinson, The Traditional and National Music ofScotland (London, 1966), 252-54. 144 motto Romeo andJuliet, 1.4.106-09. 144.9 Tritons in Greek mythology mermen, sons of the sea-god Poseidon, represented as fish-shaped from the middle down. 144.9 Mermaids imaginary species, more or less human in character, supposed to inhabit the sea, and to have the head and trunk of a woman, the lower limbs being replaced by the tail of a fish. Robert Monteith states that ‘sometimes Tritons and Mermaids are seen about these isles’ (Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 39).They are also discussed along with other sea creatures by Olaus Magnus, 3.1081-82, and by Scott in a Magnum note at 24.31. 144.11 Shoupeltins ‘The appearances assumed by the malevolent Nep­ tune of the Shetlanders, named the Shoopiltee, bear a complete or near resemb­

EXPLANATORY NOTES

539

lance to that of a horse’ (Hibbert, 565–66). 144.22 Nereids sea-nymphs, daughters of Nereus, the ‘old man of the sea’. 144.22 Water-nymphs nymphs inhabiting or presiding over water; naiads. 144.31 Amphitrite a Nereid, the granddaughter of Ocean, and the wife of Poseidon, the ruler of the Sea. 144.34-35 seeming Mermaids see Antony and Cleopatra, 2.2.213. 144.36–39 those attendant on Cleopatra... “adomings.” Antony and Cleopatra, 2.2.212. There is extended discussion of the meaning of‘bends’ (the received reading) in 18th-century editions of Shakespeare. 144.41 Variorum Shakespeare an edition citing textual variants from a variety ofeditions. Scott probably refers to Samuel Johnson’s edition of Shake­ speare, first published 1765, as revised and augmented by Isaac Reed, and ‘with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators’, of which he owned the 5th edn, 21 vols (London, 1803): CLA, 210. 145.10 bore burthen see note to 120.30. 146.39–40 twilight... summer solstice in late June, darkness is un­ known. The sun sets only to rise again. 148.11–12 they would have been married see Essay on the Text, 403–04. 148.20 gentle-hearted Samuel Taylor Coleridge,‘This Lime–Tree Bower My Prison’ (written 1797; published 1800), lines 28,68,75. 148.29 Saint Magnus the Martyr see note to 134.20. 149.29 Sinclair ofQuendale Malcolm Sinclair of Quendale, when asked by the brother of the shipwrecked Alonso Perez de Guzman (1550-1613), seventh Duke of Medina Sidonia and commander of the Spanish Armada, whether he had ever seen such a great man as the Duke, made the reply in the text; see Hibbert, 92-93, and Lockhart, 3.176–77. 149.30 Farcieonhisface a malediction: may his face swell up! 149.30–31 hang on the Borough-moor the Gallow Hill iis about 2 km NE of Quendale which is on the south coast of Shetland. 149.38–40 other tones oftalking... no dress see Othello, 1.3.128–70. 150.4 Kirkwall chief town of the Orkney Islands. 150.5 Lerwick, when the Dutch ships were there Dutch fisheries in Shetland began in 1500 and greatly expanded in the 1580s. The Dutch mer­ chants arrived at the end of May and remained until the close of the summer ling fishing in August or September; see Smith, 15. There were Dutch fishermen in Lerwick when Scott visited; see note to 85.7-8. 150.18 Swaraster on the east of the island ofYell in Shetland. In Scotland landed people were often called by the name of their estates; ‘young Swaraster’ indicates the eldest son of the owner of Swaraster. 150.31–32 like the eider-duck in spring the eider-duck winters round the southern coasts ofBritain and the Baltic, and nests on more northern coasts in Scotland, Norway and Iceland. 150.34 golden-eye species ofwild duck, but in this context a young woman from Shetland. Barry, writing in Orkney, notes that the golden eye ‘is seen here only in winter’ (Barry, 300). 151.2 lend an ear seeJulius Caesar, 3.2.73. 151.4-5 Ulla Storlson... never to return this story has not been identi­ fied. 153.5 to labour and to misery compare Psalm 90.10. 153.5–7 moon... to madness compare John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), 11.486. 153.9–10 melancholy mad see [Sir Philip Francis], The Letters ofJunius, 7, To Sir William Draper, 3 March 1769.

540

EXPLANATORY NOTES

153.11—12 possessing all their wits... about them proverbial: see Tilley, 738. 153.18–19 The moon... ripens corn Plutarch (c. ad 50-c.AD 120) states that the moon’s light enhances fertility and is kindly to the shoots of new plants: de hide et Ostride, 367. See also F. Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough: A Four Volume Study ofthe National and Local Festivals ofScotland, 4 vols (Glasgow, 1957–68), 1.57–59. 153.20 sparge nuces, pueri Latin scatter the nuts, boys. As part of the Roman wedding ceremony, while the newly married couple were being escorted to the bridegroom’s home, nuts were scattered among the crowd either by the bridegroom himself or by slaves on his behalf. The actual phrase Scott uses does not occur in any surviving text, but would appear to be a conflation of the two best-known references in Latin literature to this activity: da nucespueris (‘give nuts to the boys’, Catullus 61.124) and sparge, marite, nuces (‘scatter nuts, bridegroom’, Virgil, Eclogues, 8.31). 153.21–22 the factor speaks Greek Magnus is either in error or means that the factor speaks unintelligibly. 153.25,256; Too much water drowned the miller proverbial: see Ray, 136; Kelly ODEP, 870. 153.36 ballad the ms reading‘song’was replaced by‘ballad’to avoid a repetition of words in close proximity, but Triptolemus is clearly singing not a ballad but a song. 153.37 Hey Dobbin, away with the waggon not identified. 154.1 the sleepy god Morpheus. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the god of dreams, but now in popular literary allusion the god of sleep. 154.1–2 The guests went off... resting-place when describing a wed­ ding Edmondston writes: ‘As the accommodation of the Zetland cottar houses is by no means great, the mode of lodging the company during the night is suffici­ ently simple, and I believe peculiar. A quantity of straw and some blankets are spread over the floor of the bam, and all lie down and repose together, like the children of the same family’ (Edmondston, 2.65). 154 motto see Edmund Waller (1606–87), ‘The Battle of the Summer Islands’, Canto 2, lines 40–47, in The Poems ofEdmund Waller, ed. G. Thom Drury (London and New York, 1893), 70. The following episode about the whale-hunting owes a debt to Waller’s poem. 154.16–17 public breakfast during race-week in a country town i.e. those who take breakfast in the public rooms of inns and hotels are few and look the worse for wear after long hours and excessive drinking the night before during a week when horse racing takes place. 154.26 hung beef, made after the fashion ofZetland ‘Cooked or raw goose meat wh ich has been salted and dried by the wind is eaten by the northern races after mid-summer, as are the carcases, treated in the same way, ofall other animals’ (Olaus Magnus, 3.958). 154.31–34 little known in Scotland... sauce for salt beef the writer of the entry for Sandwick and Stromness in Orkney in the StatisticalAccount claims that in 1700 tea was virtually unknown, although he notes that by 1792 860 lbs (390 kg) of tea were imported; see StatisticalAccount, 271. By 1791 Sandsting and Aithsting in Shetland boasted thirty to forty ‘gin and tea’ shops; see Smith, 60. Neill, visiting in the early years of the 19th century, found: ‘The families of the Shetland cottars or little farmers, however poor, are very partial to tea’ (Neill, 91). Tea seems to have been less well known elsewhere in Scotland. An account of tea-making in Sutherland states that a pound of tea was put into the pot with burn water and seasoned, like any other stew, with salt and pepper; see Marjorie Plant, The Domestic Life ofScotland in the Eighteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1952), 115.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

541

154.37 bonsvivants French persons who enjoy good food and drink and live luxuriously. 154.38 hair ofthe dog that bit you proverbial formerly reputed a specific for the bite of a mad dog, hence applied to more drink as a means to take off the effects of drunkenness: Ray, 194; ODEP, 343. 154.38–40 Irish Usquebaugh... Hamburgh Irish whiskey—good brandy —genuine gin—whisky from Caithness—and a liqueur (mixed and coloured with gold-leaf ground down fine) from Hamburg. 154.41 the Leeward Islands a British dependency in the Caribbean, com­ prising the islands of Anguilla, Antigua, St Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, and the British Virgin Islands. 154.42–55.1 the German Mum, and Schwartz-beer German strong ale brewed from wheat and bitter herbs, and black beer. 155.29 Ettrick-forest a former royal hunting-ground in Selkirkshire in the Scottish Borders. 155.30 the Lennox a former county of Scotland, embracing Dumbarton and parts of Stirling, Perth, and Lanark. 155.31 the Duke’s deer... Inch-Mirran an island near the south end of Loch Lomond, kept as a deer park by the Duke of Montrose. 156.12 share and share equals-aquals share equally. 156.13 crusie small iron lamp with a rush wick formed of two boat-shaped bowls placed one above the other and attached to a bar suspended from a nail in the wall, the fish-oil dripping from the smaller bowl into the larger. 156.15 faint heart never wan fair lady proverbial: Ray, 104; Kelly, 139; Ramsay, 77; Apperson, 198; ODEP, 238. 157.2 frogs ofbullion gold fastenings for a coat, consisting of ornamental buttonsand loops. 157.4–5 such as are used by the Esquimaux... Greenland whalefishers the traditional dress of Innuit peoples includes a loose fitting shirt of reindeer hide or sealskin with a hood. 157.8 flinching the huge animal slicing the blubber from the bones. See note to 13.33. 157.12–13 dangers and difficulties an account ofa battle for a stranded whale is in the Norse Grettla: see The Story ofGrettirthe Strong, trans. Eik� ED;kr Magn� FA;sson and William Morris (London, 1989: first published 1869), 22-24. 157.28–31 A wain... the sea-beach ‘By the laws of Scotland, as well as of other countries, there is a certain size of whales which belong to the king, and which are therefore called royal fish. Such whales appear to be of the largest dimensions, for it is stated, that “all great whales belong to the king, and also such smaller whales, as may not be drawn from the water to the nearest part of the land on a wain with six oxen.” It appears to be a legitimate deduction from this principle, that in every instance where a whale is claimed by the admiral in behalf of the king, it is indispensably necessary that the former, to establish the validity of his claim, demonstrate by the test enjoined by law, that the whale really is of the class known by the appellation of a royalfish; and if the admiral refuse to have recourse to this test, and forcibly carry off the whale, he is guilty of an act of oppression to an individual, and of a breach ofthe law ofthe country’ (Edmondston, 2.155–56; his quotation is from John Erskine of Carnock,An Institute ofthe Law ofScotland (1773), Bk 2, title 1). Edmondston also states: ‘Frequent disputes appear to have taken place with respect to the division of whales in Zetland, between the admiral, the landholders, and the tenants’ (2.156). The cause ofthis dispute may have lain in the laws on the ownership of the shoreline peculiar to Orkney and Shetland; see note to 74.7-8. 157.41–42 the right and property ofthe Admiral compare the similar claim in Scott’s ‘Abstract of the Eyrbiggia-Saga’, in Prose Works, 5.403.

542

EXPLANATORY NOTES

158.4 our ancient and loveable Norse custom and wit equal partition was one of the foundations of udal law. 158.12 Suum cuique tribuito Latin give every one his due. See Cicero, De Officiis (44 B c), Bk 1, section 5 (quoted in Letters, 9.136); and Ulpian (d. 228), Digest, 1.1.10. The opening sentence ofJustinian’s Institutes (529-33) is directly derived from Ulpian: ‘justice is the constant and perpetual wish to give everyone his due’, and this became a maxim in those legal systems such as Scots law that were derived from the Roman. 158.15 law ofpartition... Saint Olave udal law, which is said to have been founded by Saint Olave, is underpinned by the principle that property should be shared equally. 158.33 lightest day in December Shetland may be said to have dayless Decembers. 160.22 look for a winter’s oil for the two lamps at Harfra ‘in place of the daylight they set fire to the fat of sea beasts and, attaching their own wick to it, use this in their houses’ (Olaus Magnus, 1.207). 160.43 Operam et oleum perdidi Latin I have lost my labour and my oil. 161.1–2 the fish... Jonah Jonah 1.17-2.10. 161.14 Arion... dolphin legendary Greek musician who, driven into the sea by covetous sailors, was carried safely to land by dolphins. 161.25 Bredness Voe apparently imaginary. 161.26–27 fished out like a toast with a long spoon slices of bread toasted at the fire were often put in wine and other beverages (OED, toast, substantive 1). 162.8–9 auld acquaintance were not easily forgot see ‘Auld Lang Syne’, in The Tea-Table Miscellany; or, A Collection ofChoice Songs, Scotsand English, ed. Allan Ramsay, 4 vols (London, 1740), 1.49-50; Ancient andModem Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc., ed. David Herd, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1776), 1.177-78; and Robert Burns, in Kinsley, no. 240. 163.1 miching malicho skulking villainy: Hamlet, 3.2.132. 163.5 take the wind out ofeach other’s sails literally, to sail windward of a ship so as to rob its sails of the wind; figuratively, to frustrate or forestall another person. 163.7 making our odds evens adjusting or doing away with our differ­ ences. Cleveland is talking about a duel. 163.21 faith in freits truth in superstitions (or charms). 163.29–30 The yellow gall... thoughts see John Dryden, ‘The Cock and The Fox’ (1700), lines 148–49. 163.31 Saint John, or Saint James brothers, the Boanerges or Sons of Thunder, two of the disciples ofjesus: see Mark 3.17. 163.38 roose the ford praise the ford. The complete proverb is, it is not good praising a ford till a man be over: see Tilley, 554; ODEP, 644. 164.5 Captain Donderdrechtofthe Eintracht ofRotterdam the names suggest a mixture of Scots and German for ‘Thick-headed (or thunder­ ous) justice of the Harmony ofRotterdam’. 164.6 donner and blizstein German thunder and lightning. 164.7 fit to fish flounders aflounder a small, easily-caught flat-fish which lives in shallow water, and so the description would insult a sea-faring people. 164 motto 2 Henry IV, 5.3.93–95. 164.33 Heaven is above all proverbial: see Tilley, 303; ODEP, 365. 164.37 Cromwell’s time when Oliver Cromwell subdued and ruled the British Isles as ‘Lord Protector’, 1650–58. 164.38 Revolution the ‘Glorious’ Revolution of 1688–89, when King James VII and II vacated the throne.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

543

164.39 come back, as blithe King Charlie did Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 after the collapse of the Commonwealth. 165.2 Indiamen East Indiamen, a type of ship built specifically for the trade with the east. 165.12 Spanish Main see note to 79.31. 165.14 bonnie wallies good things, gewgaws. 165.18 schooner-rigged having two or more masts ofequal height, and with no square sails. 165.29–30 a fool may ask... answer see Proverbs 26.5. 165.31 fair traders smugglers. 165.36–37 naesma’ drink not insignificant. 165.42 Ne’er a bit ofthat are they they do not do anything of that sort. 165.42–43 Captain will scarce let them stir ashore one ofa list of the articles drawn up in Gow’s own hand and found aboard The Revenge states: ‘no Man shall go on Shore till the Ship is off the Ground, and in readiness to put to Sea’ (Defoe, 54). However, by all accounts they were frequently ashore and Defoe suggests ‘they kept a civil Correspondence with the People of the Town’ (Defoe, 32). 165.43 without the boatswain go in the boat unless the boatswain goes in the boat. 166.4 Hawkins Charles Johnson describes a robber and highwayman called John Hawkins Johnson, 385). 166.5 thetaneorthetither the one or the other. 166.14 Davie Jones seenote to 81.17. 167.16–17 the captain... dances Fea suggests that festivities were held in Gow’s honour once he was known to be local; see Fea, 52. 167.23 Langhope the bay ofLong-Hope, under the fort, had four en­ trances and provided safe anchorage in most winds. See Lockhart, 3.191-92. 167.23–24 the guns ofthe battery at Kirkwall when Gow and his associates arrived in Kirkwall the guns were in fact in a poor state and had to be brought out from the cathedral where they were kept. See also note to 322.14. 167.25 summer-fair was over the fair was to begin on the 3 August and last between three days and a week. See Historical Note, 486. 167.26–27 The Orkney gentry... round their own neck Orkney had been closely associated with Scotland for much longer than Shetland. Shetland remained part of the Earldom of Orkney until 1195, when it came under the direct control ofNorway for tax and tribute. From 1231 onwards, however, Orkney was effectively under the control of Scottish Earls. While Shetland retained its Norse identity, Orkney was much more fully integrated into Scottish life and many more Scots immigrated to Orkney than Shetland; see Alan Small, ‘Geographical Location: Environment and History’, in Withrington, 28–29. 167.29–30 king’s dues and customs besides i.e. Scottish customs and excise duties. Shetland had technically come under Scots Law from 1611, but for some time the Norwegian taxation system also prevailed. Scott discusses the confusing system of land ownership and taxation in his ‘Diary’ (Lockhart, 3.145–46). 167.40 late incidents the civil war in Scotland and Ireland caused by the Revolution of 1688–89. See note to 164.38, and Historical Note, 486–87. 168.2 Denmark, our parent country Norway, which was the real parent country of Orkney and Shetland, was subject to Denmark from 1397 to 1814. Shetland was pledged to Scotland in 1469, and Orkney in 1468, by Christian I of Denmark and Norway as part of the marriage dowry of Princess Margaret. However, it was made clear that the islands should be returned on redemption of the mortgage, and it was also stipulated that the laws and privileges of the inhabitants should remain inviolable. See Statistical Account, 300.

544

EXPLANATORY NOTES

168.4 our invaders the Scots. Scottish immigration to Shetland began in earnest in the latter half of the 16th century; see Smith, 8. 168.9 the Protestant succession, and the Revolution established the deposition of the Catholic James VII and II, and the rule of the Protestant William and Mary, who accepted the English crown in 1688 and the Scottish in 1689. 168.10–11 As the old cock crows the young cock learns proverbial: see Apperson, 719; ODEP, 588–89. 168.22–23 as unwelcome... to a cow’s ironic: wet clover is bad for cows, producing gas that blows them up. 168.25 a pleugh-sock a markal both are names for ploughshares, but the latter is a rude, wooden version. 168.32 you are not ofmy element see Twelfth Night, 3.4.118–19. 168.35–36 Clod-compeller... grsecum est Latin and Greek clod-compeller in place of Cloud-compeller, Zeus the Cloud-compeller—it is Greek. The epithet, ‘cloud-compeller’ (or cloud-gatherer), is frequently applied to Zeus in Homer. The Greek epithet in the text should end in ‘reta’, not in ‘tera’, but it is the drunken Triptolemus who is speaking. 170.7 Dundee major seaport and commercial city on the Firth ofTay in eastern Scotland. Much of Shetland’s early trade with Scotland was via the ports of Dundee and Kirkcaldy. 170.11 buy golden opinions see Macbeth, 1.7.32–33. 171.4 that same box see a story concerning the theft of a silver tobacco box by the thief Stephen Bunce in Johnson, 247. 171.5–6 pinch at the Wits’ Coffee-house see note to 113.38–39. 171.8 Urkaster stock-fish many more fish were caught than could be traded with the Hamburgh traders. These fish were salted, and ‘became an object ofbarter at the booths of the traders, under the name ofStock-fish' (Hibbert, 418). Urkaster is apparently imaginary. 171.40-41 laws... were absolute as those ofthe Medes the laws of the Medes, the earliest Iranian inhabitants ofPersia, were considered immutable. See Esther 1.19; Daniel 6.8. Now, proverbial: see Tilley, 371; ODEP, 446. 172.15–16 fighting fools, as glorious John calls them not found in Dryden. Halcro sometimes attributes words to Dryden that rightly belong to others: see Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy (written 1610–11; published 1619), ed.T. W. Craik (Manchester, 1988), 137 (3.2.323). 172.29–30 as glorious John says, conditions are but not found in Dryden; again, Halcro puts words into Dryden’s mouth. 172.34 Sebastian and Dorax characters in Dryden’s Don Sebastian (1689), who dispute and then become reconciled. 173.3 a calm answer turneth away wrath proverbial: see Proverbs 15.1; ODEP, 750. 173.6 atween the de’il and the deep sea proverbial between two diffi­ culties equally dangerous: see Ramsay, 72; ODEP, 179. 173.15–16 ellwand ofdue length a measuring stick ofan ell’s length. The ell varied in length but was generally 112.5 cm in England and 94.5 cm in Scotland. 173.18 twenty-four merks to the lispund ‘The least quantity is called a Merk (which will be Eighteen Ounce) Twentyfour Merk makes a leispound or Setten, six Settens make a Meil (Equivalent to a Boll) and Eighteen Meils make a Chalder’ (Wallace, 34). The Concise Scots Dictionary gives the metric equival­ ent ofa ‘chalder’ as 3387 litres, but these quantities were variable. 173.19–20 a Law-right-man at a lawting an officer whose chiefduty was the regulation of weights and measures, at the supreme court in ancient

EXPLANATORY NOTES

545

Shetland. Scott explains elsewhere that, in ‘Law-ting’, Ting, or Thing, answers to our word ‘business’; see Lockhart, 3.160. 173.29 a small and low voice see 1 Kings 19.12. 173.39–40 to the boot ofa’ that in addition to all that. 174.5 flinching a whale slicing the blubber from the bones. 174 motto see Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mar­ iner’ (1798), lines 619–23. 175.42 Swartaster not identified. 176.12–13 Nereid... comb and glass in hand according traditionally mermaids or nereids ‘carry a comb and a mirror and are often seen combing their long and beautiful hair’ (Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary ofFairies (Lon­ don, 1976), 287). 176.33–34 victim (too often human)... fatal altar ofOdin or of Thor in northern mythology, the supreme god and creator, and his son, the god of thunder. Olaus Magnus states that Odin was only to be appeased by human blood and the sacrifice of prisoners; see Olaus Magnus, 1.152. 177.13 One hour is mine see Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Christabel’ (written 1798-1801; published 1816), Part 1, lines 205,293. 178.26 Euphane Fea the name Fea appears in the StatisticalAccount as a landholder (490) and it is also listed as one of the oldest names in Orkney by Barry (224). 178.30–31 the Man ofHoy in his ‘Diary’ Scott explains that the northwest face of the island ofHoy forms a ledge of high perpendicular cliffs; from the peculiarities of its form, one completely detached stack has acquired the name of the Old Man ofHoy (Lockhart, 3.206). 178.31 Peak ofHengcliff alternative name for Noss-Head on the east of the island ofBressay given, Neill suggests, by Sir Joseph Banks when on his voyage to Iceland; see Neill, 83. The peak is above 180m high. 179.1 The demon probably the ‘stern eagle of the far north-west’ (54.26), i.e. Odin. 179.9–10 Mine is no day-light tale—by that lamp it must be told com­ pare Scott’s account of the best conditions for telling a tale of terror in ‘My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror’, in Magnum, 41.306-07. 179.9–11 that lamp... nourishment not identified. 179.26 Erlend Erlend is the name of several of the Orkney noblemen in the Orkneyinga Saga. 179.28–30 udal possession oftheir father Rolfe Troil... divided betwixt the brothers under udal law the father’s possessions were divided between all children, sons getting two parts and daughters one part ofthe estate, although the main farm would have gone to the eldest brother. 179.39 Orphir see note to 44.34. 179.39 Gramesey an island in Hoy Sound, in Orkney, about 800m south of Stromness. It is all low and level. 179.40 IsleofHoy the largest, except the Mainland, of the Orkney Islands, lying SW of the group and separated from Stromness by Hoy Sound. It has the three highest points in the Orkney Islands. 180.1 Foulah... Feroe for Foulah see note to 27.18. The Faroe Islands are situated 290 km NW of Shetland. 180.12 fairy circle Olaus Magnus says that it was believed that while dancing elves and fairies sometimes ‘press so deep into the earth in their leaping that the area they constantly use is worn away in a ring by the extraordinary heat and grows no new grass on its parched sod’ (Olaus Magnus, 1.165). 180.14–15 the Dwarfie Stone see Scott’s note in Magnum, 24.350–51, where he gives the stone’s dimensions and suggests that it may have been ‘a temple of some kind’. The stone is 8.5m in length, 4.5m in breadth and 2m in

546

EXPLANATORY NOTES

height. On its west side there is a rock-cut entrance giving access to a short passage with further openings to a cell on either side. At the east end of the south cell there is a low ridge of rock which has been described as a pillow. See Anna Ritchie and Graham Ritchie. The Ancient Monuments ofOrkney (Edinburgh, 1978). 37–38. 180.17 in a broken and rude valley the stone is on the east side of the valley which runs across the north end of Hoy between Quoys and Rackwick; see Anna Ritchie and Graham Ritchie, The Ancient Monuments ofOrkney (Edin­ burgh, 1978), 37. 180.27–81.4 I feared not... treasures in Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (London, 1830), 99, Scott writes: ‘In the northern ideas of witches, there was no irreligion concerned with their lore; on the contrary, the possession of magical knowledge was an especial attribute ofOdin himself; and to intrude themselves upon a deity, and compel him to instruct them in what they desired to know, was accounted not an act of impiety, but of gallantry and high courage, among those sons of the sword and the spear’. 180.18 Ward-hill the largest of the hills of Hoy, rising from the plain to 477m. 180.23 Trolld, a dwarf famous in the northern sagas not identified, but elsewhere Scott discusses the ‘Biergen-Trold’ ofFaroe and suggests that ‘trows’ may be another pronunciation of‘trollds’ (Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (London, 1830), 123). A list of the dwarfs appears in ‘Voluspo’ or the ‘Wise-Woman’s Prophecy’, stanzas 11-16 but Trolld does not appear: see The Poetic Edda, trans. Henry Adams Bellows (Lewiston, N.Y., Queens­ town, Ontario, Lampeter, 1991), 4-5. The Dryburgh Edition simply identifies Trold with Trow, a monster, demon of the mountains and of the sea; in this romance, a fairy. 180.25–27 at sun-rise... the Dwarfie Stone while the dwarves and trolls ofNorse myth were said to find sunlight fatal, the Shetland trows merely found it dangerous; nevertheless, Trolld’s appearance at these times is unusual. See Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary ofFairies (London, 1976), 413. 180.30 our primitive mother Eve. 180.33 the geographer Bleau Willem Blaeu. Blaeu’s first atlas, the Atlantis Appendix (1630), contained a map of the British Isles and in 1635 he added Scotia Regnum, a map of Scotland. 180.36–46 footnote James Wallace, A Description ofthe Isles ofOrkney (Edinburgh, 1693): see CLA, 15. 180.45 It is thought to have been the residence ofsome melancholy hermit ‘In the sixteenth century opinion held it to have been carved by a giant, the larger cell being designed to accommodate his pregnant wife; but she must have been a giantess of the most modest sort, for the cell is no more than 5 feet long by 3 feet broad with a height of less than 3 feet. In the more enlightened view of the nineteenth century it was a heathen altar that had been converted into a hermitage by some wandering and solitary recluse. It has now been identified as a rock-tomb of the Neolithic or early Bronze Age, and unique in Britain; where no other tomb of this sort is known’ (Eric Linklater, Orkney and Shetland: An Historical, Geographical, Social and Scenic Survey (London, 1965), 94–95). 181.1 Voluspæ term used for prophetesses and sybils in the Poetic Edda (see note to 137.26–28). 181.33–35 Theremay beno danger... there ismuch fear not identi­ fied. 181.43–44 Description ofOrkney, p.52 see note to 180.36-46. 182.2 betwixt and Scots for ‘between here and’. 182.20 Trolld the powerful see note to 180.23.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

547

182.20 Haims the wise possibly the giant Hymir, who in ‘Hymiskvitha’ or ‘The Lay of Hymir’ is called ‘Hymir the Wise’. See The Poetic Edda, trans Henry Adams Bellows (Lewiston, N.Y., Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter, 1991), 104, stanza 5. 182.32 thistle’s beard thistle-down. 183.2–9 Had it been really... such an undertaking see note to 180.45. 183.17–18 square and mis-shaped bulk compare a description of Hymir in ‘Hymiskvitha’ or ‘The Lay of Hymir’, in The Poetic Edda, trans. Henry Adams Bellows (Lewiston, N.Y., Queenstown, Ontario, Lampeter, 1991), 102-11, stanza 10: ‘Late to his home the misshapen Hymir,/ The giant harsh, from his hunting came’ (p. 104). 183.19 race ofLochlin the Norsemen are so called in ‘Ossian’, the name commonly given to ‘Oisin’, the legendary Gaelic bard of the 3rd century. James MacPherson (1736–96) published Fingal(1761) and Temora (1763), epics purporting to be translations from the Gaelic ofOssian: CLA14,19. 183.22 Olave planted the cross in the 11th century. 183.40 air although Scott himself defines the term as ‘an open sea-beach’, both the OED and the Scottish National Dictionary define it as ‘a gravelly beach’. 183.42–45 Stack... admits the sea several of these terms are glossed by Wallace, and by Edmondston at 1.139–40. 184.9–10 Champions... invisible world a reference to the stories told in the sagas of the contentions of Norse champions with supernatural beings. The invisible world is a term for the domain of the supernatural. 185.20 him who hovers near us i.e. Trolld, the demon of the Dwarfie Stone. 186.14–17 sport as the tortures ofthe dog-fish afford the fisherman ... in blindness and agony according to Scott, this cruelty is practised by some fishermen ‘out of a vindictive hatred to these ravenous fishes’; see Mag­ num, 24.348. In his ‘Diary’ he is more specific: ‘they make a point of tormenting the poor fish for eating off their baits from the hook, stealing the haddocks from their lines, and other enormities’ (Lockhart, 3.173). 186 motto see A Midsummer Night's Dream, 3.2.198–201. 187.18–19 simple pharmacy used by the natives ofZetland ‘In Shet­ land there are several native popular medicines. Scurvy grass, for instance, is used in cutaneous complaints, butter-milk in dropsy, die shells of whelks cal­ cined and pounded for dyspepsia, and a variety of steatite named in the country kleber, for excoriations’ (Hibbert, 541). 188.16–17 reverenced as the work ofa dæmon, and as his abode see note to 180.45. 188.36 Cross Kirk there are several churches of this name in Shedand but the most likely is the South Kirk of Dunrossness at the end ofQuendale Bay, known as the ‘Cross Kirk’; see Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shedand’, in Sibbald, 17. 189.6–8 fairy... starling’s neck Scottish fairies traditionally wore green kirtles or mantles. Lowland Scottish fairies were divided into the categories of good and bad, and the good fairies helped humans with their work in the home. See F. Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough: A Four Volume Study ofthe National and Local Festivals ofScotland, 4 vols (Glasgow, 1957–68), 1.107–08. 189.13 haul taut and belay nautical to ‘haul taut’ is to pull tight; to ‘belay’ is to coil a running rope, particularly a small one, round a cleat. 189.25 King Erick see note 1065.17–18. 190.4–5 gold chains ofall the bailies ofEdinburgh in 1718 the Edinburgh Council suggested that magistrates wear black velvet gowns as a mark of distinction while holding office. These proved unpopular and in 1754 the practice was superseded by the wearing of gold chains and medals, the

548

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Provost’s medal being larger than the rest. See Aince a Bailie Aye a Bailie An Account ofthe 800 Year Long History ofthe Edinburgh Bailies (Edinburgh, 1974), [5]. 190.19 Bredness Voe see note to 161.25. 191.6 The tongues of fools are a feckless matter see Proverbs 15.2. 192.7 Swaraster see note to 150.18. 192.39–41 send their lovers to battle... with dishonour compare ‘Guthrunarhvot’ or ‘Guthrun’s Inciting’, in The Poetic Edda, trans. Henry Adams Bellows (Lewiston, N.Y., Queenstown, Ontario, Lampeter, 1991), 406–10. 193.5 Spanish story Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote (Part 1, 1605; Part 2,1615). 193.9 a wind-mill for a giant see Don Quixote, Part 1 (1605),Bk 1,Ch. 8. 193.10 Kiempe, or a Vi-king Kiempes were the champions of the north. The word ‘vik’ means a creek or an inlet and it is possible that the ‘Vikings’ derived their name from this (OED). 194 motto see George Crabbe, ‘The Library’ (1781), lines 490–91, 496–99 (in the 1808 edn, lines 571–72,577–80), in George Crabbe: The Complete Poetical Works, ed. Norma Dalrymple-Champneys and Arthur Pollard, 3 vols(Oxford, 1988), 1.131,151. 194.32 The moral bard George Crabbe (1754–1832), poet and clergyman. Scott called him ‘our English Juvenal’ in Waverley, ed. Claire Lamont (Oxford, 1981), 330, and the ‘British Juvenal’ in The Heart ofMid-Lothian ed. David Hewitt and Alison Lumsden, eewn 6,316.9. 195.1–2 the auguries ofHallow-e’en 31 October, the evening before All Saints’ Day, ‘a night when Witches, Devils, and other mischief-making beings, are all abroad’. There were many popular rituals for warding off these beings and for making auguries: compare Robert Bums, ‘Halloween’ (1786), Kinsley, no. 73. 195.16 the Descent of Odin Thomas Gray, ‘The Descent of Odin’ (writ­ ten 1761), in The Complete Poems ofThomas Gray, ed. H. W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson (Oxford, 1966), 32-34. 195.16–19 force ofRunic... events offuturity compare the Saga of Eirik the Red, where it is recounted that when the sorceress Thorbjorg was invited to foretell the future ‘a high-seat was made ready for her, and a cushion laid down, in which there must be hen’s feathers’. See Eirik the Red and other Icelandic Sagas, trans. Gwyn Jones (London, 1961), 134. 195.23 Laplander’s hut Olaus Magnus comments that ‘Towards the White Sea in the farthest North’ there are men who for houses ‘have wagons and tents, with either the tanned hides of animals or the bark of trees for a covering’ (Olaus Magnus, 1.198). For an illustration ofa traditional Lapland conical tent covered with reindeer skin see Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edn, 7.158. 195.42 the subject ofinquiry see Scott’s note in Magnum, 25.21–23, where Scott refers to the story of Thorbjorg and suggests that the content of her prophesies was as unwelcome as that of Noma’s. 196.23–24 more ofearnest than of game see Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, Part 1 (1605), Bk 1, Ch. 25. 196.29 With horror... ran see John Dryden, ‘Theodore and Honoria’ (1700), line 312. 196.36—37 unhalsed, as ifshe were some ofthe old mountain-giantesses the stories surrounding giants are numerous but Stith Thompson lists the common motif that giants live in mountains or caves (F531.6.2.1) and also cites an Icelandic story where giants are driven away by men (F531.6.12.7). See MotifIndex ofFolk-Literature, ed. Stith Thompson, 6 vols (Copenhagen, 1955-58). 197.2 Sir Robert Sibbald Scottish physician and antiquary (1641–1722),

EXPLANATORY NOTES

549

co-founder of the Royal College ofPhysicians in 1681, and instrumental in the establishment of the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. He was author of many books on Scottish antiquities in English and Latin including Scotia illustrata (1685), An Essay Concerning the Thule ofthe Ancients (1693), and Commentarius in Agricolae Expeditions (1711), and is given as the editor ofA Collection of Several Treatises in Folio, Concerning Scotland, As it was ofOld, and also in later Times (Edinburgh, 1739), which contains Monteith’s essays on Orkney and Shetland. 197.3 early to apply both to commerce and navigation ‘Throughout the eighteenth century, the outlook of the landowner with regard to trade and economic change was at once that of the pioneer and continuing developer, well-educated and informed on contemporary affairs in general, and trade concerns in particular. As the only possessor ofadequate capital resources for the undertaking of trading ventures, his attitude was ofparamount importance in the development of Shetland trade’ (Smith, 84). 197.29 fash his beard bother himself. 197.38 the garland is fluttering aloft Scott describes having seen such garlands on his trip to Orkney; see Lockhart, 3.197. 197.40 jaw-bones are hanging to yard and mast Olaus Magnus com­ ments that ‘There is a large store of blubber, or oil, throughout the monster’s body, but it is most abundant in the head, surrounding the core of the brain’ (Olaus Magnus, 3.1103). 198.2–3 spaed out thatferly foretold that wonder. 198.3 North Ronaldsha the northernmost of the Orkney Islands. 198.4 Olave ofLerwick Magnus’s boat is named after Saint Olave. 198.13 clashes and clavers scandal and gossip. 198.18–19 upon velvet in a position ofadvantage. 199.39 The Jmber-goose ember or immer goose, found in the seas round Orkney in all seasons. The name is also given to the great northern diver, but the sense implies the local species. 200.36 Saint Magnus see note to 134.20. 200.40 rare devize Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Kubla Khan’ (written 1797; published 1816), line 35. 201.11 Spanish Main see note to 79.31. 201.12 Guarda Costas Spanish coastguard vessels, Spanish war-vessels. Charles Johnson states that these ships ‘have Orders to make Prizes of all Ships they can light of within five Leagues ofLand’ (Johnson, 144). After their mutiny some of Gow’s men proposed joining the Guarda Costas; see Defoe, 27. 201.15 voice potential Othello, 1.2.13. 201.15–16 never peace with Spaniards beyond the Line Pope Alexan­ der VI issued a series ofbulls demarcating the world for exploration and settlement between Spain and Portugal. These culminated in the Treaty of Tordesillas between the two kingdoms, 7 June 1494. The world was divided by a line from pole to pole, running 370 leagues west ofthe Azores and the Cape Verde Islands. In 1529 a similar dividing line down the Pacific was agreed by the Treaty ofZaragosa, but other states refused to recognise this arrangement. 201.19–20 Spaniards... 1588 remnants of the defeated Spanish Armada were flung on to the Northern coasts in 1588. In a note at Magnum, 25.15, Scott comments that the strangers ‘pillaged the islanders of their winter stores’ after having been wrecked on Fair Isle (midway between Orkney and Shetland). 201.22 in the Low Countries Spain long struggled to retain and then to recover control of the Netherlands. 201.25 Indian possessions i.e. Spanish colonies in the West Indies, Cent­ ral and South America.

550

EXPLANATORY NOTES

201.27 we fight them with our colours nailed to the mast i.e. we fight to the death. 201.28 the old British jack the small flag that is flown from the jack-staff at the bow of a vessel, and by which the nationality of a ship is indicated, as in ‘British jack’. 201.29 the wooden walls the big ships. 202.16 Rona’s crest the highest hill (450m) in Shetland, in the north of the Mainland. 202.25 A comfortable doctrine Twelfth Night, 1.5.208. 203.25 the Martyr Saint Magnus, an earl ofOrkney, assassinated by his cousin Haakon on the island of Egilshay on 16 April 1115. See note to 134.20. 203.29 galdragon corrupted from the Norse ‘galdra’, to bewitch, and ‘kvinde’, or ‘kvinna’, a woman; a witch, sorceress. In the Eyrbiggia-Saga, Thorgrima is called ‘Galldra-Kinna’ (wicked sorceress); see Prose Works, 5.392. 204 motto Lord Byron, ‘The Corsair’ (1814), Canto 1, lines 223–26. 204.37–39 The ling... subsistence Shetlanders continued to fish for ling and cod rather than herring. Tenants usually fished for the profit of their landlords. See note to 205.24–30. 205.4 erect upon the shore small huts ‘The assemblage in one place of so many individuals, forms a busy and an interesting scene. The crew ofeach boat has a small hut or lodge, in which they reside when on shore, the walls of which alone remain during winter’ (Edmondston, 1.236). 205.23 Norway skiffs Shetlanders bought‘Ships, Barks, and Boats of all sorts’ from Norway (Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 9). These were usually open, double-ended boats called ‘fourerns’, boats with four oars, or ‘sixerns’, boats with six oars. 205.24–30 Magnus was not... addition to their stock ‘They bring no other provisions with them than meal; fish they procure for themselves; and the different factors, on the spot, supply them with spirits’ (Edmondston, 1.236–37). The fishermen were in fact fishing for the profit of the landlords. For a full discussion of this arrangement see James R. Nicolson, Traditional Life in Shetland (London, 1978), 22. 205.33–45 footnote Arthur Edmondston, A View ofthe Ancient and Present State ofthe Zetland Islands; including their Civil, Political, and Natural History; Antiquities; andAn Account ofTheirAgriculture, Fisheries, Commerce, and the State ofSociety and Manners, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1809), 1.238–39: CLA, 19. 206.5 strong emulation to get first to the fishing ground ‘When the day is favourable, the boats set off for the fishing ground, which is called the haaf, from 10 o’clock a.m. to 2 o’clock of the afternoon. Ifall have been supplied with bait, they set off at the same instant, and make great and often unnecessary exertions to try who shall first gain the fishing ground, with no other means of support than a small quantity of bread hastily baked, a few gallons of water, and a slender stock of spirits’ (Edmondston, 1.237). 206.27 there’s wealth for bold Magnus a system by which tenants were obliged to fish for their laird or landlord arose in the 18th century; see James R. Nicolson, Traditional Life in Shetland (London, 1978), 22. 207.1 fairorfoul see Macbeth, 1.1.10 and 1.3.38. 207.2 Kirk of Saint Ninian’s 12th-century church, comprising a chan­ cel and an apse in St Ninian’s Isle, Dunrossness, Shetland. Adjacent to the site of the church there is a Bronze Age graveyard enclosed by a wall dating from the early Christian period. The church is now entirely demolished. 207.14 clear-obscure translation of Italian ‘chiaroscuro’ or French ‘clairobscur’; a doubtful light, softly dark and darkly pure. 208.4–5 Devil’s Nostrils an imaginary name. In a manuscript volume intended by Scott’s friend James Skene of Rubislaw to form the second volume

EXPLANATORY NOTES

551

ofA Series ofSketches ofthe Existing Localities alluded to in the Waverley Novels (Edinburgh University Library, Corson 1755) drawing number 11 is said to represent this scene and is of the Stacks of Gilderimple; however, the stacks are in Sandsting, 66 km from Dunrossness. 208.5–6 the clang ofthe sea-fowl see Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), 11.835. 209.23 iron mask metaphor for emotional suppression derived from ‘l’homme au masque de fer’, a French political prisoner famous in history and legend. He was probably Eustache Dauger, arrested in 1669, and confined until his death in 1703, who was forced to wear a mask, in reality of black velvet, when travelling from prison to prison. 209.43 Goffe and Hawkins the historical John Gow sometimes went by the name of Goffe; see note to 3.9. For Hawkins see note to 166.4. The character of Goffe may have been suggested by Gow’s associate Williams, whom Defoe describes as ‘a merciless, cruel, and inexorable Wretch’ (Defoe, 12). 210.13–15 Spaniards... usurped dominion Spain dominated the New World from the 15 th century on but by the 17th century she had been financially drained by a series of costly wars. In 1585 Drake swept the West Indies, taking them for England, while the Dutch were expanding in both N and S America. 210.21 reason to fear the English laws in 1689 there was no regular Scottish navy and Scotland was dependant on the English navy to clear the Scottish coast of privateers. When pirates were captured they were tried under the jurisdiction of the country to which the captors belonged, so that Cleveland has reason to fear the English laws as well as the Scottish. 210.27–32 The enemy... Scotland this description of conflicts suggests that the action of The Pirate takes place in the summer of 1689. Scott considered the civil war to be effectively over with the death of Viscount Dundee, which occurred at Killiecrankie, 27 July 1689; see Prose Works, 24.382–85. 210.30–32 Highlands... Scotland the Revolution and the establishment of the Protestant succession led to factionalism. The Williamites, Whigs and Lowland Scotland supported the new administration while the Jacobites, Tories and Scottish Highlands lent towards the restoration ofJames VII and II. 210.36 the raven standard the raven flag ofthe Vikings (the raven was sacred to Odin); see note to 139.39–40. 210.36 Castle of Scalloway see note to 27.32. 210.39 Magnus the Seventh in fact the Angus line died with Magnus V, sixth Earl ofOrkney. 211.6 Denmark the parent country ofOrkney from 1397 to 1468 and Shetland from 1397 to 1469. 211.6–7 Denmark has been cut down into a second-rate kingdom Denmark’s decline in European politics dates from the defeat of Christian IV in 1626 when he attempted to secure interest in Germany. Further defeats fol­ lowed in 1658–60 when it lost territories to Sweden. 211.8–9 love ofindependence has been suppressed by a long term of subjection Shetland was mortgaged to Scotland in 1469, and subject to Scottish Law from 1611 onwards. 212.16 Tortuga an island in the West Indies, off the Venezuelan coast. 213.14 the promise ofOdin see note to 4.10 and Scott’s note on the ‘Promise of Odin’, in Magnum, 25.50: ‘two persons, generally lovers, desirous to take the promise of Odin, which they considered as peculiarly binding, joined hands through a circular hole in a sacrificial stone, which lies in the Orcadian Stonehenge, called the Circle of Stennis’. 213.21–22 laws ofBritain denounce as criminal piracy was a crime in the laws of both England and Scotland.

552

EXPLANATORY NOTES

214.5 circle of Stennis a series of standing stones set round the upper edge of a flat topped mound surrounded by a circular bank and ditch, situated in the western Mainland ofOrkney. Although there may have originally been as many as twelve, only four stones remain, the tallest of which is over 5m high. It is 32m in diameter, with an outside ditch 15m in width. The Ring ofBrodgar, a larger circle originally consisting of up to sixty stones is nearby on the northwest peninsula ofHarray Loch (the upper part of the Loch of Stenness). It is nearly 104m in diameter and is also encompassed by an outside ditch, 327m feet in diameter, 10m wide, and 2m deep. The material ofall is old red sandstone and the stones date from the third millennium BC. Scott at times seems to refer to both circles when he writes of the ‘Stones of Stennis’. 214.5–6 Father ofthe Slain too, the Severe, the Terrible the Icelandic writings style Odin ‘The severe and terrible deity; the father of slaughter; the god that causeth desolation and fire’; see Barry, 93. Odin was also frequently called ‘Valfodur’, the father of the slain; see William Herbert, Selected Icelandic Poetry, translatedfrom the originals; with notes (London, 1806), 89: see CLA, 98. 214.25 demons ofthe Equinoctial Line Scott discusses the snake-god of Mexico and other demons of South America in Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft Rondon, 1830), 80. 214.29–36 A short while before... baubling shallops compare the details of the historical Gow’s experiences. Defoe describes how Gow and his companions were at first largely unsuccessful, taking only ships loaded with herring and salmon. They then chased a French vessel and lost her in the mist; see Defoe, 13–17. A more detailed account of the ships taken by Gow is found in Fraser, 150–55. For ‘baubling shallops’ compare Twelfth Night, 5.1.48. 215.3 marooned a similar story is told of Captain Hawkins and several others who were put ashore near Honduras with only ‘powder and ball, and a musquet, and then left... to shift as well as they could’; see Fraser, 33–34. 215.6–7 demons worshipped by the old inhabitants see note to 214.25. 215.7 Caciques native Indian chiefs in and around the Caribbean. 215.9–10 various spectres in which sailors ofall nations have impli­ cit faith Scott alludes to these beliefs in Magnum, 25.43. 215.11 Coffin-key one ofmany low islands, sand-banks, or reefs in the West Indies. See Magnum, 25.43. 215.11 two leagues and a half about 12km. 215.13 wealth ofMexico Mexico has a vast wealth ofmineral sources and silver has always dominated her economy. Her fabulous wealth was the main motivation for Spain’s conquest in 1521. 215.21–23 sea-fowl... turtle eggs these details reflect the experiences of Robinson Crusoe. In his journal he records shooting ‘two fowls like ducks, which were very good food’ and making his supper ‘of three of the turtle’s eggs, which I roasted in the ashes, and eat, as we call it, in the shell’ (Daniel Defoe, The Life andAdventures ofRobinson Crusoe (1719), ed. Angus Ross (Hannondsworth, 1965), 88,106). 217.34 independent warriors ofthe Western Ocean pirates who plun­ dered around South America. 217.37–38 Sons ofthe North... oppressions ofdegenerate Rome although originally pagan the Vikings became Christian after their settlement in France in the 10th century and were instrumental in establishing organisation and discipline on the church wherever they conquered. 218.13 the evil which must necessarily attend it compare Macbeth, 1.5.17. 218.17 the Race ofPortland a dangerous current S of Portland Bill in Dorset.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

553

218.17–18 the Pentland Firth a channel, 22 km long and about 11 km wide, between northeast Scotland and the Orkney Islands. It is the most danger­ ous passage in the British seas because of the extreme rapidity of the tidal currents and the accompanying eddies. 218.24–26 Fortune... her wheel the wheel that Fortune is fabled to turn, an emblem of mutability. 218 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 219.15 time and tide tarried for no one proverbial: see Apperson, 634; Tilley, 670; ODEP, 822. 223.30–31 a scrap ofan old Norse ditty although this is Scott’s own work he does have some traditional models in mind: e.g. compare the dealing of the funeral dole here with ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annie’ (Minstrelsy, 3.313–19, stanzas 17–18; Child, 62A); ‘Willie and Annet’ (Ancient and Modem Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc., ed. David Herd, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1776), 1.162–65 (CLA, 171); Child, 64C, stanza 19); and ‘Fair Margaret and Sweet William’ (Herd, 1.85–87; Child, 74A, stanza 16). 223.40–43 But deal not vengeance... in God’s own time see Romans 12.19. 224.6–8 A line ofVirgil... future events Scott later noted: ‘The celebrated Sortes Virgiliana were resorted to by Charles I. and his courtiers, as a mode of prying into futurity’ (Magnum, 25.60). The Sortes Virgilianae involved attempting to foretell the future by opening a volume ofVirgil at hazard and reading the first passage lit on. James Welwood records an instance of Charles I’s having recourse to the Sortes Virgilianae and lighting on Dido’s curse on Aeneas: see Memoirs ofthe Most Material Transactions in Englandfor the Last Hundred Years (London, 1700), 100–01: CLA, 6. The same story is told in ‘The Diary ofDr Edward Lake’, ed. George Percy Elliott, p. 25 (29 Jan. 1677–78), in The Camden Miscellany, Vol. 1 (1846). 224.26 Saint Ronan several saints of that name are mentioned in the Irish martyrologies and may be connected with the homonym venerated in Scotland under the name Mo-Ronoc. See New Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 vols (Washing­ ton, D.C., 1967), 12.662. 224.27 Saint Martin of the various Saint Martins, the most likely here is Saint Martin of Tours, for whom Saint Ninian (see below) built a church of stone, the ‘Candida casa’, in Whithorn in southwest Scotland. 224.27 Saint Mary probably Jesus’s mother, the Virgin Mary. 224.32 swart mine see John Milton, Comus (1634), line 436. 224.35 middle earth the abode ofhumans which is above the underworld, but below heaven, thus in the middle earth. 224.41 let the earth hide thee Macbeth, 3.4.93. 224.42 Michael shall blow the blast the trumpet-blast preceding the Last Judgment. See 1 Corinthians 15.52. 224.45 Hallowmass the feast ofAll Hallows or All Saints, 1 November. 225.8 corpse-lights lights which were held to presage death, and which were seen in church-yards or on the route to be taken by a corpse on the way to the grave. 225.9–15 old rhyme... stiffand stark not identified. 226.20–21 rare Will D’Avenant see Benjonson’s epitaph on his tomb in Westminster Abbey: ‘O rare Ben Jonson’. Sir William D’Avenant (1606-68), dramatist and poet, succeeded Jonson as unofficial poet laureate (1638), and with Dryden adapted several of Shakespeare’s plays for the Restoration stage. 226.21 To bed—to bed—to bed Macbeth, 5.1.64. D’Avenant’s operatic adaptation ofMacbeth was produced in 1673. 226.35 the small still voice see 1 Kings 19.12. 227.16 God is above all proverbial: Tilley, 303; ODEP, 365.

554

EXPLANATORY NOTES

227.17–18 turn... our evil into good compare Tilly, 192; ODEP, 233 (to render evil for good). 227.40 Chantrey Sir Francis Chantrey (1781-1841), English sculptor, who was finishing his marble bust of Scott during the composition of The Pirate. 228.3 the baseless visions ofthe night see The Tempest, 4.1.151. 228.19 washed away that guilty witness see Macbeth, 2.2.47. 229.4 planta-cruive see note to 12.3. 229.16-17 most cruel wounds... outward show proverbial: see ODEP, 923. 229.31 an evil eye a malicious look which, in popular belief, had the power of doing material harm. 230.2 a bee in their bannet proverbial a ‘screw loose’: see Apperson, 33; ODEP,39. 230.8 daft folk downa bide to be contradicted proverbial: see Andrew Cheviot, Proverbs, Proverbial Expressions, and Popular Rhymes ofScotland (Lon­ don, 1896), 84. The phrase downa bide means ‘will not put up with’. 230.12 Sinclairs see note to 20.33–34. 230.13 wise generation compare Luke 16.8. 230.24–25 the Emperor ofEthiopia Seged. See Samuel Johnson (1709–84), The Rambler, no. 204 (Sat. 29 Feb. 1752), and no. 205 (Tue. 3 March 1752); ed. W. J. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss (New Haven and London, 1969), in The Yale Edition ofthe Works ofSamuelJohnson, 5.296-305: see CLA, 334. 230 motto Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1590,1596), 3.3.18.5–9. 231.20–22 the loss ofTrinculo’s bottle in the horse-pool... infinite loss see The Tempest, 4.1.207–09. 231.22 high emprize Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400), The Canterbury Tales, ‘The Monk’s Tale’, VII (B2), 3857: CLA, 41,154,155,172,239. 231.42–43 nae sic divot had dunted no such sod had knocked. 232.16 an admirable quality in womankind see King Lear, 5.3.273. 232.30 sea-calfofher heart a common name for the seal; here, an expression of affection. 232.37 struck mute see John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), 9.1064. 232.42 wonderfully supported an implication of supernatural aid. 233.36 Barbadoes-waters a cordial flavoured with orange and lemon­ peel. 233.42 more than the third ofan English pint more than 0.2 litres. 234.7 the middle world see note to 224.35. 234.14–15 the spur... to trot proverbial: need makes the old wife trot; see Apperson, 439; Tilley, 493; ODEP, 558–59. 234.30 profits likely to accrue see Henry V, 2.1.109. 234.36 leagues for miles three miles for one. 234.38 dollars for shillings see note to 8.6. Given that the value of the dollar in Shetland around the end of the 17 th century was between 4s. and 4s. 10d. (20–28p), Swertha is suggesting a fourfold increase; see Smith, 338. 235.32 Saint Ringan’s better known as Saint Ninian, Saint Ringan was a Scottish missionary of the 4th–5th centuries; his shrine at Whithorn in Galloway in southwest Scotland, was among the most popular places of pilgrimage in Scotland. See note to 237.38. 236.2 nae deafnuts not inconsiderable. A deaf nut is one with no kernel. 236.14–15 Cross-kirk see note to 188.36. 236.17 a dowie bit a dull and lonely place. In the proofs, Ballantyne pointed out to Scott that Swertha is suddenly speaking Scots. 236.22 ain peculiar turns own peculiar business.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

555

236.32 Fools are aye fleet and fain proverbial fools are always quick and eager: see ODEP, 277. 236.34 win bye get by, escape. 236.35–37.1 Helen Embersen... ain biggin Wallace tells a similar story concerning the wife of a John Smith who lived in Stronsay in Orkney; see Wallace, 39–40. 236.40–37.1 the masking-fat... biggin the mashing vat or tub, within the walls of his own dwelling. In the original version of the story John Smith was discovered dead after having fallen ‘with his head in the Vessel, wherein they used to make Urine’ (Wallace, 40). 237.9–10 Clawsen’s boat, nor Peter Grot’s not identified. 237.10 a rabbit ran across them see Jacob Grimm (Teutonic Mythology, trans. James Steven Stallybrass, 4 vols (London, 1880–88), 3.1119–28) on superstitions about various people or animals considered unlucky to meet when setting out. He cites (3.1120) John of Salisbury amongst others on the inauspi­ ciousness ofmeeting a hare. Edmondston writes ‘The peasantry ofZetland are very superstitious... On no subject are they more superstitious than in what relates to fishing... .When they go to the fishing, they carefully avoid meeting any person, unless it be one who has long enjoyed the reputation ofbeing lucky’ (Edmondston, 2.73). Writing in the twentieth century Peter F. Anson says: ‘To have found a hare, rabbit, or salmon on board a boat would have absolutely prevented a fisherman from going to sea that day’ (Fishing Boats and Fisher Folk on the East Coast ofScotland (London, 1930), 38). 237.18–19 sprung in the bowsprit nautical literally the spar projecting over the stern of a ship is fractured by strain; figuratively the expression denotes madness. 237 motto seejohn Webster (1580?—1625?), The Duchess ofMalfi (1613), in The Complete Works ofJohn Webster, ed. F. L. Lucas, 4 vols (London, 1927), 2.116; 5.3.10–20. 237.38 Saint Ninian’s Saint Ninian, or popularly Saint Ringan, was a missionary of the 4th–5th centuries. A peninsula, ‘Saint Ringan’s Isle’, on the west side of Dunrossness, contains the ruins ofan old chapel, dedicated to Saint Ninian. Many churches in Shetland have similar superstitions attached to them, e.g. the Cross-kirk in Northmavine, of which Hibbert writes: ‘[it] had been one of the most noted edifices in Shetland, for the superstitious reverence that was long paid to its vacant walls. The devotee cast among the ruins of the church, as a religious offering, a small image of silver, representing any particu­ lar part of his body, that might be afflicted with illness:—a recovery was then fully anticipated’ (Hibbert, 531). Edmondston offers similar information: ‘There are the ruins of an old church in the parish ofWeesdale, called Our Lady's Church, which is supposed to possess a still greater influence in this respect than any living being. Many are the boats which are said to have arrived safe at land, in consequence of a promise to this effect, where death, without such an intervention, appeared inevitable. Several coins have been found, at different times, concealed in the walls of this Loretto ofZetland’ (Edmondston, 2.75). 238.33 thrice around the ruins a circle woven three times round something was thought to contain within it magical or evil forces; compare Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Kubla Khan’ (written 1797; published 1816), line 51. See also note to 61.3–4. 238.34 in the course ofthe sun i.e. clockwise; to move anticlockwise was thought to invoke supernatural beings, with evil or unfortunate results. Edmondston says that it was not deemed to be safe to turn the boat in any direction but with the sun after it had been floated; see Edmondston, 2.73. 239.3–7 seemed bent on uncovering... eyes ofthe living Monteith

556

EXPLANATORY NOTES

tells a similar story of the Cross Kirk of Dunrossness: ‘This Church is sur­ rounded with Banks of Sand, two or three paces distant from the Water, con­ sequently no good Burial place, for, if it blow but an ordinary gale, many of the Coffins are discovered, and sometime naked Corpses; for all have not Coffins’ (Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shedand’, in Sibbald, 17). 239.26 like soldiers in their battle array compare Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Christabel’ (written 1797, published 1816), Part 1, line 123. 239.36–37 the Vision ofMirza Joseph Addison (1672-1719), The Spectator, no. 159 (Sat. 1 Sept. 1711); ed. Donald F. Bond, 5 vols (Oxford, 1965), 2.121–26: see CLA, 334. 240.5–6 pretended that the church was occasionally observed to be full oflights Wallace makes a similar observation about one of the churches in Orkney: ‘the Kirk ofEvie called St. Nicholas, is seen full of light, as if torches or candles were burning in it all night’ (Wallace, 27). 240.24–26 Ribolt Troil... fifteenth century Ribolt is ‘the son ofan Earl gude’ in the narrative ‘Ribolt and Guldborg’, in RobertJamieson, Walter Scott and Henry Weber, Illustrations ofNorthern Antiquities (Edinburgh, 1814), 324: CLA, 100. 241.46–47 Druidess... mystical rites Druids are reputed to have offered sacrifices for those who were sick or in grave danger in batde. These usually took place in clearings in the forest. 243.27 Cathedral of Saint Magnus the Cathedral was begun in 1137 by Rognvald, was finished in its original form in less than twenty years, and was dedicated to Rognvald’s uncle, Saint Magnus the Martyr. It stands near the south end of the principal street of Kirkwall. 243.41–42 We fly from our fate in vain proverbial: see ODEP, 271. 244.34–35 the island ofMousa one of the chiefislands of Dunrossness, about 16 km NE of Sumburgh-head. 245 motto see Scott’s note on this motto in Magnum, 25.98, where he states that its use here contributed to its writer’s acknowledging authorship. See also The Private Letter-Books ofSir Walter Scott, ed. Wilfred Partington (London, 1930), 198–212. 245.8 Lady Anne Lindsay’s beautiful ballad Lady Anne Lindsay Bar­ nard (1750–1825) wrote the popular ballad, ‘Auld Robin Gray’, in 1771. Scott edited, and suppressed, a quarto volume for the Bannatyne Club, Lays ofthe Lindsays; being Poems by the Ladies ofthe House ofBalcarras (Edinburgh, 1824: CLA, 271) which includes ‘Auld Robin Gray’ with its ‘Continuation’ and ‘Sec­ ond Continuation’. The authorised edition of the poem for the Bannatyne Club is: Lady Ann Lindsay Barnard, Auld Robin Gray, a Ballad, [ed. Sir Walter Scott] (Edinburgh, 1825): CLA,277. 246.11 moping melancholy John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), 11.485. 246.24 pharmacy ofthe islands see note to 187.18–19. 246.25–26 every herb which drinks the dew see John Milton, ‘Il Penseroso’ (1632), line 172. 247.10 long and tedious course ofbeach and ofmoorland Scott de­ scribes a similarly tedious journey over moors ‘mossy and sterile in the highest degree’ (Lockhart, 3.144). 247.23–24 race... spirit or vigour Edmondston comments: ‘The real Zetland ponies, too, deserve more attention than is ever paid to them’ (Edmondston, 1.226). 247.42 a German Cupid a German representation of the god of Love. 247.42 a German Bacchus a German representation of the god of wine. 249.3 the Martyr see note to 134.20. 249.17 fifteen knots by the line about eighteen miles an hour, according to the divisions marked on the log-line.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

557

249.26 many a fair lispund ofbutter is paid to her ‘The land rent, although generally made up from a variety of sources, has been always under­ stood, on letting the lease, to be paid in coarse cloth and butter, or butter and money’ (Edmondston, 1.152). 249.29–30 Nick Strumpfer ‘Nick’ is a name for the devil. ‘Strumpfer’ suggests ‘strump’, a broken bit of straw, and ‘fere’, a puny, dwarfish person. 249.30 Pacolet Pacolet is a dwarf in the service of the Lady Clerimond in the medieval French romance, ‘Valentine and Orson’, which appeared in Eng­ lish about 1550. Pacolet is also Mr Bickerstaff’s ‘familiar’ in Richard Steele, The Tatler, no. 15 (Sat. 14 May 1709); ed. Donald F. Bond, 3 vols (Oxford, 1987), 1.124-25: see CLA, 334. 250.13 in the wake nautical immediately behind, and in the actual track made by, a vessel. 250.21 the Martyr see note to 134 20. 250.41 tongue had been blistered see Romeo andJuliet, 3.2.90. 252.3–4 Orkney-man’syaul at the dog-fishing the dog-fish is one of the principal fish caught in Orkney; see Neill, 61. 252.6 a crown ofthorns see Matthew 27.29; Mark 15.17. 252.10 Pope’s bull papal edict or mandate. 252.17 the child had come before its time into this bustling world compare Richard III, 1.1.20–21, and 152. 253.3–5 Frawa-Stack... lovers see note to 93.2. 253.6–7 it is hard to keep flax from the lowe proverbial: see Apperson, 213; Tilley, 221; ODEP, 260. 253 motto see William Julius Mickle (1735–88), ‘The Sorceress; or, Wolfwold and Ulla: An Heroic Ballad’, lines 45–48, in The Poetical Works of WilliamJulius Mickle, ed. Thomas Park (London, 1808), 53. 253.19 Burghs and Picts-houses Scott gives an extended description of the broch at Mousa in Ivanhoe, Magnum at 17.335-39, as a means of describing the Castle of Coningsburgh. He provides a shorter historical note on Mousa in Magnum, 25.124. See also Lockhart, 3.147-49,166. Brochs first appeared around 100 bc; see Richard D. Oram, Scottish Prehistory (Edinburgh, 1997), 82–86. 253.19–20 Duns... Hebrides small iron age forts found particularly in Argyll and the Hebrides. They are similar to brochs in construction and date mostly from the first few centuries ad. 253.22–25 a human habitation... the stair for Scott’s original, real-life description of such a structure, see Letters, 3.453. 254.5–9 circular galleries... inhabitants the walls of brochs are thick but hollow allowing for galleries within them. 256.3 brigg ofdread in Norse mythology a bridge between heaven and earth called Bifrost, which is the rainbow, the red ofwhich is said to be fire. See The Prose Edda ofSnorri Sturluson: Talesfrom Norse Mythology, trans. Jean I. Young (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), 44. But in his introduction to the medieval ballad ‘A Lyke-Wake Dirge’ in the Minstrelsy Scott talks ofa ‘Bridge of Dread’ as an aspect of Moslem belief, and describes it as ‘a bar ofred-hot iron, stretched across a bottomless gulph’ (Minstrelsy, 3.164). See also Chronicles of the Canongate, ed. Claire Lamont, EE wn 20, note to 176.40. 256.17 huge wall-eyes two large eyes that differ in hue or have divergent squints. 256.23–24 the better sort the higher class. 256.29–30 Saint Nicholas... Dutch dogger St Nicholas ofMyra. St Nicholas is patron saint of several classes of people including sailors and chil­ dren. His cult is particularly venerated in Germany and The Netherlands where presents are given on his feast.

558

EXPLANATORY NOTES

256.36 Cerberus watch-dog who guarded the entrance of the infernal regions. 256.39 to fly about... on his wooden hobby-horse... Orson in the medieval French romance, ‘Valentine and Orson’, which appeared in English about 1550, Pacolet the dwarf possessed a winged horse: CLA, 104. 257.15–16 width ofthe Pentland Frith the Pentland Firth is 11 km wide. 257.27–28 By the bones of Saint Magnus the bones of Saint Magnus are reputed to be buried in his cathedral in Kirkwall. On being translated they are said to have resisted burning, instead forming themselves into the shape of a cross; see the Orkneyinga Saga, 95 (Ch. 57). One of the hymns traditionally sung during St Magnus festivals contains the lines ‘His bones endured the fire, then took the mould of Christ’s own Cross’; see Ernest W. Marwick, An Anthology of Orkney Verse (Kirkwall, 1949), 33. 259 motto see William Julius Mickle, ‘The Sorceress; or, Wolfwold and Ulla: An Heroic Ballad’, lines 169–72, in The Poetical Works ofWilliamJulius Mickle, ed. Thomas Park (London, 1808), 58. 259.14 as busy... as the devil in a gale ofwind proverbial: see Ramsay, 110; ODEP, 181. 259.19 characters ofthe Runic alphabet characters of the earliest Teut­ onic alphabet, often having mysterious or magical powers attributed to them. 259.29–30 Celts... troubled the repose ofso many antiquaries stone implements with chisel-shaped heads found among prehistoric remains. They appear to have served as axes, chisels and perhaps weapons of war. In his ‘Diary’ (Lockhart, 3.164) Scott referred to the celts as ‘stone axes (or adzes, or whatever they are)’. 260.2–3 tame seal... domesticate Edmondston states that young seals are easily domesticated, and display a great deal of sagacity. He continues ‘One in particular became so tame, that it lay along the fire among the dogs’ (Edmondston, 2.293). 260.9–10 coarse unleavened bread used by the poor peasants ofNor­ way when visiting Sanday in Orkney Scott wrote ‘Our servants went aboard, and got one of their loaves, and gave a dreadful account of its composition. I got and cut a crust of it; it was rye-bread, with a slight mixture of pine-fir bark or sawings of deal’ (Lockhart, 3.179–80). 260.33–34 Peter MacRaw’s... Caberfae Caberfae, or Capperfae, or Caberfeidh, means ‘deer’s antlers’, a stag’s head being the crest of the Sea­ forths, head of the Clan Mackenzie ofRoss-shire. The MacRaws were fol­ lowers of the Mackenzies. See Scott’s note on the MacRaws, the seal, and Caberfae in Magnum, 25.127. For the tune of‘Caberfae’, see Robert Bremner, A Collection ofScots Reels or Country Dances (London, 1769), 102. 260.39 Ye dull and hard-hearted generation see Psalm 78.8. 260.39–40 as deafas the adder to die voice ofthe charmer see Psalm 58.4–5. 260.42 it hath come upon you see Job 3.25. 261.19 strike sail lower sail, surrender. 261.23–27 when kempies... himself no specific reference has been found. See notes to 49.27 and 55.24. Gall-dragons and spae-women are witches and sorceresses. 261.42–43 I know all... thou thyselfknowest see Scott’s ‘Abstract of the Eyrbiggia-Saga’, in Prose Works, 5.366–72. 262.2 Geirvada Geirrida, a sorceress mentioned in the Eyrbiggia-Saga. See also Edith Batho, ‘Scott as a Mediaevalist’, in Sir Walter Scott To-Day, ed. H. J. C. Grierson (London, 1932), 133–47. 262.43–63.1 chafing dish... sheet-lead Scott describes a similar

EXPLANATORY NOTES

559

process in his ‘Diary’; see Lockhart 3.155–56. A ‘chafing dish’ is a vessel to hold burning charcoal. 263.20–21 fancifully embroidered... singular devices no original for Norna’s dress has been found. 264.11 Mother Hertha Nerthus, the earth-goddess of the ancient German races. See Tacitus (c. ad 56–c. 117), Germania, Ch. 40. 266.17 Heims... Trolld see notes to 182.20 and 180.23. 266.44–45 a woman ofmany sorrows see Isaiah 53.3. 267.12 In the Martyr’s Aisle... Orkney-land in die early 19th century a cavity was found in the west end of the north arcade of St Magnus Cathedral. In it there were some bones and a skull along with traces of an oaken coffin. These were believed to be the remains of St Magnus. 267.44–45 remedy is peculiar to the isles ofThule in a Magnum note (25.140) Scott writes: ‘The spells described in this chapter are not altogether imaginary. By this mode of pouring lead into water, and selecting the part which chances to assume a resemblance to the human heart, which must be worn by the patient around her or his neck, the sage persons of Zetland pretend to cure the fatal disorder called the loss ofa heart.’ 268.1 a narrative connected with Scottish antiquities at the begin­ ning ofhis career as novelist, Scott indicated he wished to portray ‘ancient Scottish manners and customs’ in an unexaggerated manner (Waverley, ed. Claire Lamont (Oxford, 1981), 340). 268.3–4 a belief so common as to be received into the superstitions ofall nations see F348.7 in Motif-Index ofFolk-Literature, ed. Stith Thomp­ son, 6 vols (Copenhagen, 1955–58). 268 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 269.10 be not too bold Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1590,1596), 3.11.54.8. 269.18–19 the well-known work of Olaus Magnus Olaus Magnus (1490–1558), Swedish ecclesiastic and historian, archbishop of Upsala, and author of Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus [Description ofthe Northern Peoples] (1555), which contains information on the early Norsemen. 269.22 the fine edition in the Interleaved Set, Scott identified ‘the fine edition’ as the one ‘publish’d at Rome 1555’ (ms 23020,35). 270.37 Vifda mutton dried in a skeo, or roughly built stone hut, with plenty of spaces to let the wind through. 271.17 slip cables nautical allow cables to run out, when quitting an an­ chorage in haste. 271.22–25 a stream ofwater... Black Death ‘Toward the east coast [of Stronsay], among the rocks, are three mineral springs almost close together, differing in strength, though of the same nature; and such confidence do the people place in these springs, (which, together, go under the name of the Well of Kildinguie), and at the same time in that sea-weed named Dulse, produced in Guiydin, (perhaps the bay of Odin), as to have given rise to a proverb, “That the well of Kildinguie and the dulse of Guiydin will cure all maladies but Black Death.” ’ (Barry, 50). 271.27 Burraforth a hamlet and bay in the north of Unst, Shetland. 271.28 Stroma an island in the Pentland Firth, between Scotland and Orkney. 272.10 Swona island in the Pentland Firth, between Scotland and Orkney. 273.10 eyes run over see Troilus and Cressida, 1.2.137. 273.27 bones ofSaint Magnus... namesake see note to 257.27–28. 274.9–10 as surely as Saint Magnus lies at Kirkwall see note to 257.27–28. 274.34 Bergen Magnus named his horse, which is of Norwegian breed,

560

EXPLANATORY NOTES

after the seaport and second-largest city of Norway. 275.11 Laurie familiar form of‘Lawrence’ or ‘Laurence’, and a name pro­ verbially given to a fox. 275.13 Laurence Scholey Barry lists Scollay as one of the most common names in Orkney (224). It may denote deceit from the Old Norse ‘skolli’ meaning fox; see Gregor Lamb, Orkney Surnames (Edinburgh, 1981), 55. A William Scollay was also involved in the capture of the pirate Gow; see Peterkin, 215. 275.15 Saint Ronan see note to 224.26. 275.19 smithy seen by night dwarfs and trows are famous for their skills as smiths. Robert Jamieson decribes the belief that ‘dwarfs are cunning artificers in all kinds of metals’, in Robert Jamieson, Walter Scott and Henry Weber, Illustrations ofNorthern Antiquities (Edinburgh, 1814), 292: CLA, 100. 276 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 276.4 curtal friar a ‘short frocked’ friar, a Franciscan, so called because of their short cloaks. 276.21 ‘Fair and Lucky’ see William Christie, A Collection ofStrathspeys (Edinburgh, 1820). 276.33–34 welcome to these yellow sands see The Tempest, 1.2.375–76. 276.34–35 and there shake hands... says not Dryden but Shakespeare. The rhyme is Halcro’s, and Shakespeare writes, ‘take hands’, not ‘shake hands’. 277.7 Jokul Robert Stevenson in Reminiscences of 1814 ofSir Walter Scott Bart, by Robert Stevenson, Civil Engineer Edinburgh March 1850 (ms 3832,24) points out that in North Ronaldsay the old people invariably say ‘Ya Gull’ for ‘Yes Sir’. 277.33–34 Martinmas... Whitsunday Martinmas (11 November) and Whitsunday (15 May), two of the ‘terms’ for the payment of rent or interest. 277.35 bide die bang bear the brunt. 277.35–36 dung ower a’thegither beaten completely. 277.37 ev il communication corrupteth good manners see 1 Corin­ thians 15.33. Now, proverbial: see Apperson, 193; ODEP, 232. 278.1 the cairn on Clochnaben the pyramid of rough stones on a hill (579m), 15 km SW ofBanchory near Aberdeen. 278.13 as you are strong be pitiful proverbial as you are stout be merci­ ful: see Kelly, 39. 278.18–25 You call your labourers... funking and flinging Wallace says: ‘they have this general Custome, the day that is dedicat to the Memory of the Saint who is Patrone of the chief Kirk (where Sermon is made) is keept holy by the common People of the whole Parish, so that they will not work on that Day’ (Wallace, 34). Barry comments ‘The festivals in the Romish kalendar are observed with the most studious care, not indeed as times ofreligious worship, but as days exempted from labour, and devoted to feasting and conviviality. On some of these days they must be allowed to be entirely idle; on others they will engage a little in some kinds of work’ (Barry, 343). In his ‘Diary’ Scott observes that a ploughman brought to Shetland from Scotland complained that the locals ‘work as if a spade or hoe burned their fingers’ (Lockhart, 3.152). 278.29–34 I till... kail-plants may be an allusion to the ownership of property under udal law. In that system, property had to be offered to family members before it could be sold to an outside party, and even if it were sold, it could be reclaimed by a family member at any time if the appropriate sum was presented. Some commentators blamed this system for a reluctance to promote agricultural reform in Shetland. See Knut Robberstad, ‘Udal Law’, in Withrington, 60. 279.13 a horn full ofold coins see Scott’s note in Magnum, 25.174, where he decribes the discovery of a similar haul under a hearth-stone during

EXPLANATORY NOTES

561

the publication of the novel. Barry describes the discovery of a similar hornful of coins near Orphir, on the Orkney Mainland. Scott may have drawn on this story, since in the original, the horn is also concealed from the landlord in order that it may not be removed as treasure-trove. Some of the coins are said to have come from the reign of Canute the Great; see Barry, 225. 279.20 atanorratime occasionally, every now and then. 279.29 treasure-trove literally, treasure found, i. e., anything of the nature of treasure which anyone finds. From an early period, treasure which had been hidden was claimed by the Crown, in this case by the Chamberlain on his behalf. However, Magnus’s words have a double irony, since under udal law found treasure was deemed to be the property of the landowner, not the crown. The most recent example of this discrepancy between udal and Scots law was in the case of St Ninian’s treasure. See Knut Robberstad ‘Udal Law’, in Withrington, 62–63. 279.33 Angus-shire the county of Angus in eastern Scotland N of the Tay estuary. 279.36–37 the labourer... is worthy ofhis hire Luke 10.7. 279.40 apicibus juris Latin amongst the knotty points of law. 280.4–5 whilk it is maist... goblin may be an allusion to the common formulas for exorcism which were always given in Latin. 280.5 in nomine Latin by name. 280.10 wawls on me with his grey een rolls his grey eyes at me. 280.17–19 Lindsays... braes ofIslay the Lindsays and the Ogilvies were great families in Angus. Donald MacDonnoch, or MacDhonnchaidh, has the generic Christian name used by Lowlanders of Highlanders. The surname is that of Clan Robertson which belonged to Atholl and Rannoch in northern Perthshire. The braes of Islay, indicate Glen Isla which is in west Angus. Thus this is a reference to raids on Angus by neighbouring Highlanders; compare note to 30.36. 280.20–21 Drone the sell ofher Drone her very self; i.e. the very figure of a lazy, useless person. Compare the ‘lazy yawning drone’ in Canterbury’s image of the state as a beehive in Henry V, 1.2.205. 280.42—43 deceptio visus Latin a visual deception. 281.15 they who break a head are the best to find a plaister proverbial they who cause an injury are the best placed to put it right: see Apperson, 65; ODEP, 82. 281.29–32 A daring pilot... my wit see John Dryden, ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681), lines 159–62. 281.43 whomleabowie turn over a pail. 282.3–4 a good wind blew you here a version ofthe proverb‘it is an ill wind that blows nobody good’: see Apperson, 326; ODEP, 401. 282.4–5 Norway rusk... turpentine see note to 260.9–10. 282.13 pinch thairm pluck strings. 282.17 sorrow would never right the boat a version of the proverb ‘sorrow will pay no debt’: see ODEP, 754. 282.40–42 fairy treasures... their possessors it was commonly be­ lieved that fairy gifts did not favour the mean spirited. See note to 57.18. 283.6 Good Neighbours fairies. 283.6–7 face ofthe auld Norse kings on the coins see note to 279.13. 283.18 in a very dry manner very unsympathetically. 283.37–38 the word Shogh not a recognised word in Gaelic. 284.7 Ganymede see note to 127.27. 284.12–13 the Carse ofGowrie a very fertile district of low-lying coun­ try, on the north side of the Firth of Tay, stretching for some 25 km between Perth and Dundee.

562

EXPLANATORY NOTES

284.20 thrive... as a cow on wet clover ironic, as wet clover is bad for cows, producing gas that swells them up. 284.21 such man, such mistress proverbial: see ODEP, 536. 284.24 infang and outfang thief a thief, whether taken within or outside of the feudal domain. 284.40 my day and night have been made sorrowful to me compare Job 7.3,6. 286 motto see 2 Henry IV,2.2.42–44, and 38–40. 286.19 Earl’s Palace erected by Earl Patrick in the early years of the 17th century, a short distance south of St Magnus Cathedral. The extensive remains show considerable taste and French influence. 286.22 Bishop’s Palace located between the Earl’s Palace and the Cathedral in Kirkwall, the first building was erected about 1300. Little remains except for a tower built around 1540. 286.26 these ruinous buildings Scott described the Bishop’s Palace, the Earl of Orkney’s Castle, and Saint Magnus’s Cathedral in his ‘Diary’ (Lockhart, 3.184—88). 286.32 all formed out ofthe builder’s brain see ‘Christabel’ (written 1798–1801; published 1816), Part 1, line 174. 287.1 shafted stone ornamented with or resting upon shafts. 287.28–29 pulling his hat deeper over his brows see Macbeth, 4.3.208. 287.32 apetitmaitre French adandy. 287.40–41 or Clement’s ghost alluding to the belief that a ghost had to be spoken to before it could speak. Compare Hamlet, 1.1.42 and 45. 287.42–43 afineoldhurly-house a large old house in a state of bad disrepair. 288.1 revisit the pale glimpses ofthe moon see Hamlet, 1.4.53. 288.14 Dick Fletcher Charles Johnson describes a highwayman and rob­ ber called Fletcher; see Johnson, 307–08. 288.16 Hawkins see note to 166.4. 288.34–35 poor devils ofnegroes on board the Spanish brig was in­ volved in the slave trade. 288.37–38 Clem ofthe Cleugh a noted outlaw, of Englewood Forest, near Carlisle, and as famous an archer as Robin Hood. See the ballad, ‘Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley’ (Child, 116), in Reliques ofAncient English Poetry, ed. Thomas Percy, 3 vols (London, 1765), 1.129–60: see CLA, 172. 288.43 on the account for their own interest, and at their own risk. 289.1–2 death rock me asleep 2 Henry IV, 2.4.187. 289.6 a stroller by land a wandering actor. 289.7 Bunce Charles Johnson describes a footpad, rogue and robber called Stephen Bunce; see Johnson, 247–49 and note to 113.40–41. The character of Bunce in the novel may also have been suggested by Johnson’s account of a pirate named Bunce who was hung after Harry Glasby gave evidence. This ‘Bunce was a young Man, not above 26 Years old, but made the most pathetical Speech ofany at the Gallows’. He claimed that ‘the Briskness he had shewn... was not so much a Fault in Principle, as the Liveliness and Vivacity of his Nature’ (Johnson, 209). 289.11 Altamont the name of the hero of Sir William D’ Avenant’s Just Italian (1630). 289.3 sucked bitch an abusive term meaning‘son ofa bitch’; it dates at least from the time of Shakespeare (QED). 289.13–14 on boards on the stage. 289.21–22 Last Speech... John Bunce these words reflect a common formula for titles of chapbooks on the subject of dying confessions: e.g. compare

EXPLANATORY NOTES

563

the chapbook giving the details of Meg Murdockson’s death in The Heart of Midr-Lothian (1818), ed. David Hewitt and Alison Lumsden, eewn 6, 431–33. 289.23 Execution-dock the dock (at Wapping) where criminal sailors were executed. 289.24 crime ofPiracy upon the High Seas piracy was considered an offence against the law of nations; arrest for piracy committed on the ships of any nation whatsoever, and wherever, was sanctioned by the laws ofboth Eng­ land and Scotland. A pirate was one who plundered other ships for his own profit, without license from a sovereign state; a privateeer was a pirate with a license. 289.26 Bet Haldane’s on the quay not identified. 289.27–28 arightpipeofTrinidado a kind oftobacco from Trinidad. 289.30 in the vein in a fit or suitable mood for something: Richard III, 4.2.123. 289.36–37 Hill ofWhiteford highest point of Kirkwall parish (226m), W of Kirkwall. The Lammas Fair is held at its foot. 289.41–42 who last inhabited this old cock-loft the last Episcopal inhabitant of the Earl’s Palace was said to be Bishop Mackenzie (1677–88), but the references are to its builder Patrick Stewart who was executed in 1615. 290.2 tight neck-collar—a hempen fever euphemisms for death by hanging. 290.9–10 Plundered... and so forth see note to 14.15. 290.11 gentleman rover euphemism for ‘pirate’. 290.12–13 my most potent, grave, and reverend Signior see Othello., 1.3.76. 290.23–24 under correction... running noose men hung at sea were hung up on the yard-arm. 290.33–36 in the words... Saint Ollaw’s day according to Wallace ‘This Town had been erected into a Royal Burrow in the time of the Danes, and Anno 1486 King James the third gave them a Charter, confirming their old Erection and Priviledges, specifying their antiquity, and giving them power to hold burrow Courts, to incarcerate and arrest, to make laws and Ordinances, and to elect their own Magistrars yearly for the right Government of the Town, and to have a weekly mercat on Tuesday and Friday, and three Fairs in the Year, one about Palm Sunday, the other at Lambas, and the third at Martinmass, each to continue three days’. The charter is dated at Edinburgh, the last day of March 1486. In 1536 it was ratified by James V; in 1661 it was ratified by Charles II at Whitehall; the whole was confirmed by an Act of Parliament in Edinburgh in 1670 (Wallace, 42–43). 290.38 Olaus, Olave, or Ollaw Saint Olave, or Olaf (995–1030), King of Norway (reigned 1016–29), active in the diffusion of Christianity in his king­ dom. Venerated as patron saint of Norway, his feast day is celebrated on 29 July. 291.2–3 grouse, more plentiful in Orkney seeMagnum, 25.183: ‘It is very curious that the grouse, plenty in Orkney as the text declares, should be totally unknown in the neighbouring archipelago of Zetland’. Neill comments that the red grouse is particularly abundant in the islands of Rousay and Hoy (Neill, 59). 291.11–13 ancient Cathedral... powerful hand see note to 243.27. Scott describes visiting the cathedral in his ‘Diary’ (see Lockhart, 3.186–88). 291.16 Inganess a bay on the east side of the Mainland, projecting SW between its parishes of Kirkwall and Saint Andrews. It is flanked on the north­ west by Inganess Head. 291.16 Quanterness Quanterness skerry lies off the west point of the Bay of Kirkwall. The district of Quanterness lies about 4.5 km NW of Kirkwall.

564

EXPLANATORY NOTES

291.18 Shapinsha island 1.6 km N of the nearest part of the Mainland. 291.29 the English jack the small flag flown from the jack-staff at the bow of a vessel, indicating nationality. 291.34 Honduras country in Central America. After their mutiny some of Gow’s men proposed going to Honduras; see Defoe, 28. 291.36 blasted heaths see stage direction at the head ofMacbeth, 1.3, and 1.3.77. 291.37–38 drunk as a lord proverbial: ODEP, 206. 291.38 shoots, and cuts among the crew i.e. shoots and waves his sword around in the midst of the crew. 291.39 quarrelled with the people here so damnably see note to 3.10. 292.3 tubs ofbutter that is worse than tallow ‘that which is sold to the Merchant, being their Ferm-Butter, they are not at the pains to dight it, and cleanse it’ (Wallace, 16). The quality ofbutter was so poor that in 1733 the landowners decreed that butter used for rent payment must be clean salted with British salt and free from hairs; see Smith, 58–59. 292.9 Jolly Roger the pirates’flag: normally a white skull on a black field, but as the footnote implies there were other devices, e.g. ‘a skeleton in the middle holding a dart in one hand, striking a bleeding heart; and in the other an hour-glass’ (Fraser, 31). 292.16 co licencio Seignior Spanish by your leave, Sir. 292.19–20 you shall not prevail on me to go farther in the devil’s road with you Defoe suggests that the cruel behaviour of Gow’s lieutenant Wil­ liams almost ‘gave them some check in the heat of their wicked Progress, and had they had a fair Opportunity to have gone on Shore at the Time, without falling into the Hands ofJustice, ’ tis believ’d the greatest Part of them would have abandon’d the Ship, and perhaps the very Trade of a Pirate too’ (Defoe, 24–25). 292.24 Port Royal a town inJamaica, at the entrance of Kingston Harbour. 292.27 Judge Marshal one in overall command of a colony. 293.5 the benefit ofthe proclamation the offer ofa pardon to all who would surrender by a given date—for piracies committed before 30 April 1699 to the east of the Cape of Good Hope, and 30 June 1699 to the west; it induced many to come in (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 th edn, ‘Pirate and Piracy’, 21.641). 293.13–15 Harry Glasby... Jolly Fortune Glasby claimed that he had become a pirate under duress and was acquitted after giving evidence against his fellow pirates, one of whom is named as Fletcher. A full account of the proceed­ ings is given by Johnson, 199–209. 293.21–22 the prime buck ofthe herd i.e. the man of primary import­ ance among the pirates. 293.39 Robin Hood legendary outlaw, who lived in the woods, robbing the rich, suffering no woman to be molested, and helping the poor. He is an import­ ant character in Scott’s Ivanhoe. 294.1 Drake see note to 84.9. 294.1 Queen Bess’s time Queen Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 and died in 1603. 294.4 Hal Morgan see note to 84.9–10. He was knighted in 1673. 294.5 days ofmerry King Charles Charles II reigned 1660–85. 294.10 pass the seals receive the proper emblems of authentication. 294.23–24 Prince Volscius in love, ha! ha! ha! The Rehearsal, 3.5.66–67. Volscius is a character torn between love and honour. The quotation, which must have been well known, was used by William Congreve in The Double Dealer (1693), ed. J. C. Ross (London, 1981), 4.2.243: see CLA, 221. 294.41 whom the vulgar call see Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1.2.48. 29 5.43 acted up to articles a list of the articles drawn up in Gow’s own

EXPLANATORY NOTES

565

hand and found aboard The Revenge is printed in Defoe, 54. 296.1–2 dog’s trick a low trick or treacherous act (OED). 296.11 Grand Caimains three coral islands in the Caribbean, frequently visited by pirates; e.g. see Fraser, 40. 296.11 Bahama Islands an archipelago ofover 700 islands in the Atlantic between Florida and the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). 297.7 Obi woman a Negro sorceress, particularly in the West Indies. 297.16 King ofthe Air the devil, or perhaps here the supposed ruler of the elements who controls the winds. 297.21 the Fair Isle a small island between Shedand and Orkney, 38 km SW of Sumburgh-head. 297.37 Waes my heart that we should sunder a well-known and popular tune used for several 18th-century songs: see The Tea-Table Miscellany; or, A Collection ofChoice Songs, Scots and English, ed. Allan Ramsay, 10th edn, 4 vols (London, 1740), 1.5,1.77–78,2.175,2.206. For two sets of words, see Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc., ed. David Herd, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1776), 1.295–97 (CLA, 171); and for the tune, see The Scots Musical Museum, ed. James Johnson, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1787–1803), Vol. 2, no. 131. 298 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 298.26–27 mumping magician grimacing, or toothless, witch. 298.34 Punch and his rib Joan the names ofthe principal character, a grotesque hump-backed figure, and his wife in the popular puppet show. It was introduced into the British Isles from the Continent towards the end of the 17th century. The story has taken many forms, and has many variations. The usual modem name of‘Judy’ for the ‘rib’ (i.e. wife, because in Genesis 2.22 woman was made from Adam’s rib) first appears in 1825. 299.1 our first parents in their vegetable garments i.e. Adam and Eve in figleaves: see Genesis 3.7. 299.10 Lambmas 1 August, or the period around 1 August. 299.10–11 Lambaslads... sisters see note to 299 footnote. 299.35 little foot page a stock ballad phrase. Compare ‘Child Waters’ (Child, 63 A), stanzas 26,27,31. 299.42–46 footnote it has been suggested that this custom was related to the system of handfasting (betrothal or trial marriage) since elsewhere in Scot­ land the Lammas Fair was a traditional time for such arrangements to be made. The tradition seems to have been kept up at least until 1900; see F. Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough: A Four Volume Study ofthe National and Local Fest­ ivals ofScotland, 4 vols (Glasgow, 1957–68), 2.95–96. 300.2 making a phrase expressing one’s feelings in an exclamatory way, gushing, making much ado about a person or thing. 300.20 sudden in execution see Richard III, 1.3.346. 300.32 a cozening face Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy (written 1610–11; published 1619), ed. T. W. Craik (Manchester, 1988), 100(2.2.42). 300.38 be foul of deal roughly with. 301.20 Pate Peterson’s cripple knee no officer of this name has been identified. See note to 304.25–27. 301.31 clean and clear tint proverbial: see Andrew Cheviot, Proverbs, Proverbial Expressions, and Popular Rhymes ofScotland (London, 1896), 76. 301.35 worn out passed away from, become estranged from. 302.2 not so loud, but far deeper see Macbeth, 5.3.27. 302.17 on the lang trot meaning uncertain, but the context implies that everyone has lost their wits, and is wandering about as the crazed used to do.

566

EXPLANATORY NOTES

302.35 we mingled our sorrows and our tears with a bottle compare Psalm 56.8. 303.9–10 they were rotting with moth and mould compare Matthew 6.19; Luke 12.33. 303.33–36 party of officers... were in question see Fea, 54, who says that the magistrates of Kirkwall became gradually more and more suspicious concerning the true character of Gow and his associates. 304.5 roaring... bull-calf see 1 Henry IV, 2.4.251–52. 304.5–6 loitering aid Scott seems to be quoting himself. See his earlier use at 300.21 of this same expression. 304.13–19 growing feud... prisoner historically Gow was taken prisoner following a series of strategies by Mr Fea; see Peterkin 212–24. 304.25–27 Council-house... seated in council Kirkwall was ‘gov­ erned by a Provost, four Bailiffs, and a common Council, as in other Burrows’ (Wallace, 43), i.e. ‘a provost, four bailies, dean of guild, a treasurer, and council of fifteen burgesses’ (George Eunson, The Ancient and Present State ofOrkney (Newcastle, 1788), 90: CLA, 15). 304.31–32 Council-house... little town from the 18th century the town hall of Kirkwall was situated in the vicinity of the Cathedral. ‘The structure was a very poor one with a piazza, and previous to 1876 the lower portion served as the county jail, and also provided accommodation for town council chambers and for county offices and court room, while in the upper portion there was a large room for council meetings’ (Ordnance Gazetteer ofScotland, ed. Francis H. Groome, 6 vols (London, 1894), 4.439). 305.13 the black flag the pirates’flag, usually unfurled only when close to a ship about to be plundered; see note to 292.9. 305.18 Fire down below in response to a criticism ofBallantyne’s, Scott wrote: ‘I notice your remarks on the pirates song—they often had two decked vessels & perhaps correctness ofrhime is not very essential to a sailors song. In fact I have adopted it from a foolish rhyme of the boatscrew of the Light-house Yacht’ (ms 854, f. 256). 305 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 305.27 Prospero doff'd his magic robe see The Tempest, 5.1.50–57. 305.39–40 a remote island the Isle ofHoy, SW of the Mainland, from which it is separated by Hoy Sound. 307.37 blood ofmy blood, and bone ofmy bone see Genesis 2.23. 308.1 founder ofour race the 13th-century Icelander Snorri Sturluson makes Odin and his brothers the creators of the first human beings; see Andy Orchard, Dictionary ofNorse Myth and Legend (London, 1997), 123. However, while necklaces abound in Norse mythology none appears to be specifically connected to Odin. The most famous is ‘the mighty Brisings’ necklace’ or Brisingamen which was made by the dwarfs and belonged by some accounts to Freyja, and by others to Frigg; for its story see ‘Thrymskvitha’ or ‘The Lay of Thrym’, in The Poetic Edda, trans. Henry Adams Bellows (Lewiston, N.Y., Queenstown, Ontario, Lampeter, 1991), 129–36. In ‘Voluspo’ or the ‘WiseWoman’s Prophecy’ the speaker says: ‘Necklaces had I and rings from Heerfather,/ Wise was my speech and my magic wisdom’ (The Poetic Edda, 6; stanza 30). 308.32–33 our hands were clasped within the circle ofOdin see notes to 3.16,410, and 213.14; see also Scott’s Magnum note, Magnum, 25.50. 308.33 the circle ofOdin the Stone of Odin was situated slightly N of the Stones of Stenness. The stone was about 2.4m in height and the hole or ‘circle’ was about 1.5m above ground level. It was broken and removed in December 1814 shortly after Scott’s visit; see Anna Ritchie and Graham Ritchie, The

EXPLANATORY NOTES

b

Ancient Monuments ofOrkney (Edinburgh, 1978), 47. 309.22 poor ofspirit see Matthew 5.3. 310.37 like an insurrection seeJulius Caesar, 2.1.69. 310.41 gibbering ghosts compare Hamlet, 1.1.115–16. 311.1–2 the mightiest as well as the most miserable ofbeings see Magnum, 25.225, where Scott discusses at some length the nature of Norna’s ‘insanity’. 312.1 birds ofprey ‘So favourable a retreat does the island ofHoy afford for birds of prey, that instances of their ravages, which seldom occur in other parts of the country, are not unusual there’ (Magnum, 25.226). 312.13 Grsemsay an island in Hoy Sound 800m S of Stromness. 312.14 Stromness see note to 3.14–15. 312.18 Loch of Stennis a large lake about 22.5 km in circumference, and divided into an upper (known as Harray Loch) and a lower sheet of water by two long promontories. 312 motto not identified; probably by Scott. 313.11 a sixty-four cut down a sixty-four gun ship (ships were rated by the number of guns they carried), but cut down (stripped of part ofher upper works, such as the poop, quarter-deck, or fore-castle) to give her added speed. 313.27 shotting his discourse loading his discourse with a charge. 313.39–40 your cheese-toaster and your gib your sword (see KingJohn, 4.3.99, and Henry V, 2.1.8) and your personal appearance, countenance, or look. 314.1 six-gun battery see notes to 167.24–25 and 322.14. 314.12 Derrick no pirate called Derrick has been identified. 314.18 that cock won’t fight proverbial that will not do: see ODEP, 131. 314.21 dafFd the world aside and bid it pass 1 Henry IV,4.1.96–97. 314.25 Jack-a-dandy scarecrow conceited little fop. 314.26 base comparisons 1 Henry IV, 2.4.243. 314.3–34 by their articles... messmates this is not mentioned in the list of Gow’s articles given by Defoe. However, Defoe states that the list is imperfect as if‘it were only begun to be made’ (Defoe, 54). 314.41–42 general council... according to our articles Fraser men­ tions the great cabin several times in his account ofJohn Gow, and says that Gow called a council shortly after assuming command ofhis ship; see Fraser, 148-49. 315.21 this earthly hell see the following reference to ‘pandaemonium’. 315.24 a pandsemonium a centre or headquarters of vice or wickedness. See John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), 1.755–57. 315.26–27 in a narrow channel... the tide-way historically Gow’s downfall arose after his ship entered a narrow channel of water between the island of Eday and the Calf of Eday. He assigned the navigation to a recent recruit, Robert Porringer of Westray, and the ship nearly ran aground; see Fea, 83-84, and Defoe, 36. 316.1 in proper trim in proper condition or order. 316.8 Horse of Copinsha ‘To the East of the Mainland lyes Copinsha, a little Isle but very conspicuous to Sea-men... To the North east of this Isle is a Holm called the Horse of Copinsha '(Wallace, 9–10). 316.9–12 fired offhis pistols... pleasantry in the Magnum Scott writes: ‘This was really an exploit of the celebrated Avery the pirate who sud­ denly, and without provocation, fired his pistols under the table where he sat drinking, with his messmates, wounded one man severely, and thought the matter a good jest’ (Magnum, 25.233). Avery, a leading pirate at the end of the 17th century, was an inspiration for (and a character within) Daniel Defoe’s The Life, Adventures, and Piracies ofCaptain Singleton (1720). 316.25 missed stays failed to go about with the ship.

568

EXPLANATORY NOTES

316.27–28 We cannot sail... Kirkwall folks in the false account Gow and his men gave of themselves on arriving in Orkney they stated that they were in need of water and provisions, but traded with several other ships while at anchor in Stromness; see Defoe, 30–31. 316.29 Halcyon frigate Fea and his associates likewise had to detain Gow while waiting for ‘the friggats yt. are sent for to catch you’ (Peterkin, 214).The ship which took them off from Kirkwall was called The Greyhound; see Fea, 124. 316.29 Peterhead a port on the east coast of Scotland N of Aberdeen. 316.37 dowse the glim literally, put out the candle; hence, lose its sight. 316.40 ’tother lantern is lit the other eye can see. 317.2 post meridiem Latin after noon. 317.2 a. m. abbreviation for the Latin ante meridiem, ‘before noon’. 317.9 drunk as Davy’s sow proverbial conveying the idea of the deepest state of intoxication: Ray, 69; ODEP, 206. 317.22 by the blue vault ofheaven see 2 HenryIV, 2.3.19. 317.22–23 pro bono publico Latin for the public good. 318.12–21 all very handsomely appointed... gallants ofthe day one of Gow’s associates, Williams, who had been sent to England before they arrived in Orkney, is said to have been taken prisoner wearing the scarlet cloth jacket and breeches belonging to one oftheir early victims; see Fea, 46. Gow and his associates may not have been so finely attired, as one of the people they enticed aboard while in Stromness was a tailor called Magnus Randall whom they asked to mend their clothes; see Fea, 64. 319.10 white flag flag of truce; a flag of a white colour displayed in token of peaceful intention, desire for parley. Gow hoisted a white flag after the capture of his boatswain by Mr Fea and when Gow himself landed on the Calf of Eday to negotiate with him, one of his men was sent ahead carrying a white flag; see Fea, 108, Defoe, 41 and 43, and Peterkin, 219. 319.14 English colours displayed presumably to differentiate friend from foe for the English frigate. See also note to 210.21. 319.15–16 no artillery-men in Kirkwall Neill comments on the de­ fenceless state ofOrkney: ‘No regular soldiers are quartered in Orkney: the militia does not extend to these islands, which are judiciously excused, as a more valuable nursery for the navy: though many hearts are willing, no volunteer corps have been embodied in Orkney. Internally, therefore, Orkney is quite defenceless’ (Neill, 66–67). 319.40 turned Highlandmen become savage. Highlanders were believed to be particularly fearsome, as Baby’s accounts of them suggest. 320.17 narrow streets Wallace comments on the narrow streets of Kirk­ wall (41); Neill says that in ‘most places it is narrow and dirty’ (3); Scott describes it as a ‘poor and dirty place’ (Lockhart, 3.184). 321.17–18 a free-trader one allowed to trade without restriction; but also, a smuggler, a smuggling vessel. 321.24–26 collier did... naething to say to us in the old play of Grim, the Collier ofCroydon (performed 1600, published 1662), ofdoubtful author­ ship. But Scott’s debt may be to Henry Fielding, for Partridge uses the same expression in TomJones(1749), Bk 12, Ch. 5. 321.41–42 Dutch-built, round in the stern an opprobrious allusion to the broad heavy figures attributed to the Netherlander. See Historical Note, 488, for a precedent for this story. 322.7 Madagascar the fourth largest island in the world, lying in the Indian Ocean. 322.14 guns are honeycombed i.e. are full of little holes. The people of Kirkwall faced a similar predicament when visited by Gow: the town’s guns were kept in the church and had to be carried down to the fort at the shore,

EXPLANATORY NOTES

569

where new carriages had to be made for several of them; see Fea, 59. Writing in the 19th century, Neill comments ‘several carronades [have] actually been transmitted to Kirkwall: but, strange to tell, these carronades have never been mounted, but lie tossed about and exposed on the beach, some of them even within sea-mark’ (Neill, 66). He also states that ‘a 6 or 8 pounder’ dating from Cromwell’s time lies to the north of the shore of Kirkwall, ‘but rusted and honeycombed to a miserable degree’ (Neill, 6). 322.23–25 Greenland whalers... capers when Scott visited Lerwick he stated that the presence of the Greenland whalers added ‘much to the liveliness of the scene’ and that the streets were ‘full of drunken riotous sailors’ (Lockhart, 3142). 322.24–25 Dutchmen... in the streets ofKirkwall Dutch sailing vessels arrived every summer to fish the rich herring grounds of Shetland. 322.25 like porpoises before a gale ofwind some species of porpoise are active and gregarious and often swim ahead of ships. 323.3 here lies the rub see Hamlet, 3.1.65. 323.5 the White Lapelle alluding to the white turned-up lappets worn by officers of the Royal Navy. In the absence ofa regular Scottish navy in the 17th century Scotland was dependent on the English navy to clear the coast of privateers so it was not unusual for an English vessel to be patrolling Scottish waters in 1689; see James Grant, The Old Scots Navyfrom 1689 to 1710 (Lon­ don, 1914), 123. 323.11 packing and peeling having underhand or clandestine relations with. 323.11–12 The burgh will be laid under a round fine it was an offence for a magistrate to neglect to do his public duty. The minutes of the Privy Council of Scotland (in effect the Scottish government) in the 1690s show that magistrates ofburghs who did not enforce the law were liable to fines and imprisonment. 323.16 at Stromness on the west of the Mainland, whereas Kirkwall is on the east. See note to 3.14–15. 323.25–26 continue on shore as a hostage historically Gow offered to come ashore as a hostage if Mr Fea would lend them a boat, and requested that James Laing go aboard The Revenge to vouch for his safety. Fea refused, saying that he would allow no hostages, although in the event, William Scollay did board The Revenge briefly in this capacity. See Defoe, 42–45, Fea, 105,113, and Peterkin, 217–20. 323 motto the refrain from ‘The Carfindo’, lines 10, 24,38, and 52, by Charles Dibdin (1745–1814), dramatist and song-writer, best remembered for his nautical songs, in Songs ofthe Late Charles Dibdin, ed. T. Dibdin (London, 1854), 161–63. 324.14 fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus yonder see 1 Corinthians 1532. 324.16–17 bees were thriving Yellowley was not alone in his attempts to introduce bees into Orkney. Among his other suggestions for agricultural im­ provement Patrick Neill writes: ‘The honey-bee has scarce ever been carried into Orkney, or properly attended to. I have no doubt, however, but it might succeed’ (Neill, 58). 324.26 quite and clean entirely, absolutely. 324.27 Lucky Christie’s chickens not identified. 324.29–38 Had there been ony body... smeaked an almost identical story is told in an appendix to Barry’s book on Orkney: ‘Bees are so rare there, that a young man, in the end of April, stopt the skep (which a lady had taken thither from Angus) with a piece of a peat. About 8 days thereafter, the Laird going to look after them, found them all dead. His family being conveened, he

570

EXPLANATORY NOTES

inquired who had done it. The actor did confidently answer, that upon such a day he did it, because they were all flying away’ (‘A Short Relation of the most Considerable Things in Orknay, by Mr Mathew Mackaile, Apothecary at Aber­ deen’, Appendix 8, in Barry, 453). The story is also to be found in Walter McFarlane’s mss (which Scott had certainly read), in the Advocates’ collection in the National Library of Scotland. 324.32 four quarters hands and feet. 324.38 generandi gloria mellis Latin the glory of producing honey: Virgil, Georgies, 4.205. 324.42 Solomon ofthe Orcadian Ophir see 1 Kings 9.28,10.10–11; 2 Chronicles 8.18,9.10; see also note to 44.34. Solomon was noted for his wisdom. 325.1–2 watered the young... hot water no source has been found. 325.13 Glen ofEdderachyllis in the west of Sutherland in the north of Scotland. 325.16 Sir John Urry see note to 140.41. 325.20 a fight there was see ‘Sheriff-Muir’, line 6, in Ancient and Modem Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc., ed. David Herd, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1776), 1.104–08 (CLA, 171): ‘There’s some say that we wan,/ Some say that they wan,/ Some say that nane wan at a’ man;/ But one thing I’m sure,/ That at Sheriff-muir,/ A battle there was, which I sa’, man’. See also Scotish Songs, ed. Joseph Ritson, 2 vols (London, 1794), 2.56–67: CLA, 174. 325.24 Scalpa-flow a large expanse of sea sheltered by the Mainland of Orkney on the east and north, Hoy on the west, and South Ronaldsay on the south. 325.29 Spoken like a sensible and quiet magistrate see Much Ado about Nothing, 3.3.36–37. 325.36–39 the eldest Baillie’s wife... particular business during Fea’s negotiations with Gow his wife was ill, a fact which had kept him from going to Kirkwall to aid in the crisis: see Fea, 85; Peterkin, 213; and Defoe, 36. 326.15 old Pate Sinclair not identified. 326.16 eat, drink, and be merry see Ecclesiastes 8.15; Luke 12.19; Tobit (in the Apocrypha) 7.9. 326.25–26 out and out completely. 327.2 Curtius according to ancient Roman legend, Curtius sacrificed him­ self for his country’s good by leaping into a chasm that opened in the city. 327.7–9 victim ofancient days... commonweal sacrifice in ancient Greece and Rome was usually tributary, i.e. a gift to a god for his or her use. Blood offerings were usually of cattle or sheep; they were garlanded, purified by the sprinkling of holy water, and slaughtered at the altar for the common good. 328.1–2 murther. ..lawsbaithofGodandofman see Exodus 20.13; Deuteronomy 5.17. 328.9 cowping ofcobles overturning ofboats. 328.9 an away-ganging crop a crop sown by a tenant before quitting and to be reaped by the incoming tenant. 328.21 flogging and pickling nautical punishment involving thrashing with the cat-o’-nine-tails and rubbing salt and sometimes vinegar into the open wounds (OED). 328.30 the de’il clink doun with it literally the devil sits down with it; i.e. it all goes to the devil. 328.43 Spanish dollars the peso or piece ofeight formerly used in Spain and the Spanish American colonies. 329.12 Fury ministers arms see Virgil, Aeneid, 1.150: furor arma mini­ strat. Compare also John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), 6.635.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

571

330.12 in the bilboes i.e. shackled by the ankles to a long iron bar: Hamlet, 5.2.6. 330.20 Provost Torfe Barry lists Torf as one of the oldest surnames in Orkney (224). 330 motto see The Merry Wives ofWindsor, 2.2.123–24. 331.1 Fair Isle see note to 297.21. 331.4 Start of Sanda a point on the northeast coast of the Island of Sanday, 48 km NE of Kirkwall. 331.6 Roost see note to 5.21–22. Scott’s ship struggled against the Roost or Rost of the Start as it made its way to Orkney: see Lockhart, 3.180. 331.8 island of Stronsa midway between the Start ofSanda and Kirkwall. 331.9 Papa Sound a strait between Stronsay and Papa Stronsay making a semi-circular curve of 3 km. It projects into Stronsay, a bay that forms an excellent harbour well sheltered by Papa Stronsay. 331.16 cape called the Lambhead a headland at the southeast of the island of Stronsay. 331.18 Shapinsha one of the North Isles ofOrkney, 2 km N of the Main­ land. 331.25 by my ancestor’s bones see note to 257.27–28. 331.31–34 With roomy deck... waves see John Dryden, ‘Annus Mira­ bilis’ (1667), 609–12, a poem about the English-Dutch war of 1665–66. 332.3 caught up a speaking-trumpet Fea used a speaking trumpet to communicate with Gow; see Defoe, 43 and Peterkin, 218. 332.26 Dunkirkers privateers belonging to Dunkirk, a town on the north­ west coast of France. 332.3 5–38 Here are halfa dozen ofwarrants... presently for the reallife incident upon which Scott based this exchange, see his note, ‘Persecution of the Puritans’, in Peveril ofthe Peak where he describes the experiences of Puritans following the Restoration (Magnum, 28.189–91). See also Original Memoirs, Written during the Great Civil War; being the Life ofSir Henry Slingsby, and Memoirs ofCapt. Hodgson, [ed. Walter Scott] (Edinburgh, 1806), 171: CLA, 231. 333.3 old Squaretoes a precise, formal, old-fashioned person; one having strict or narrow ideas of conduct. 333.24 my bright Lindamiras Richard Steele (1672–1729), The Spec­ tator, no. 41 (Tue. 17 April 1711); ed. Donald F. Bond, 5 vols (Oxford, 1965), 1.176: see CLA, 334. According to Steele, Lindamira’s complexion was so delicate that only she ‘ought to be allowed the Covering it with Paint, as a Punishment for chusing to be the worst Piece of Art extant, instead of the Masterpiece of Nature’. 333.26 at sea in an egg-shell... under my lea-bow in a particularly vul­ nerable state. 333.27 leaguer-lass female camp-follower. 333.33 no pressing no compulsory enlistment. 334.28 alfresco Italian in the fresh air; outdoors. 334.32 as many humours as a monkey no explanation has been found. 334.39–40 scuttle your sconce break your head. 335.17 boon topers jolly drunkards. 335.20–22 bottomless as the hole... hundred fathom ‘In the Isle of Fula upon the top of the Hill called Lorifield, there is a Hole which hath been tried with two Barrel of Lines, and yet it is said that they could find no Botom to it’ (Monteith, ‘The Description Of the Isles of Shetland’, in Sibbald, 7). 335.26–28 mickle bicker... ever was brewed ‘Buchannan tells a story, which is still believed here, and talked of as a Truth, that in Scapa... there was keept a large Cupp, which when any new Bishop Landed there, they filled with

572

EXPLANATORY NOTES

strong Ale, and offered it to him to drink, and if he happened to drink it off Cheerfully, they promised to themselves a Noble Bishop; and many good years in his time’ (Wallace, 29). Scott elaborates on this story in the Magnum by adding an earlier reference to it and a note at 25.157. 335.35–38 It was a ship... every one see ‘Captain Glen’s Unhappy Voyage to New Barbary’, lines 1–4, in The Oxford Book ofSea Songs, ed. Roy Palmer (Oxford, 1986), 129–32. 335.40 lantern jaws long thin jaws giving a hollow appearance to the cheeks. 336.2–5 Captain Glen... Barbary see ‘Captain Glen’s Unhappy Voyage to New Barbary’, lines 5–8, in The Oxford Book ofSea Songs, ed. Roy Palmer (Oxford, 1986), 129–32. 336.5 High Barbary Berber country, i.e. the coastal region of North Africa. 336.6—7 screech-owl music cry of the barn-owl, thought to be very dis­ sonant and ofbad omen. 336.26 High Dutch skipper a skipper from Germany. 336.26–27 tramples on the cross.. .Japan see Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1726), Part 3, Ch. 11. 336.30 gin is a groat a bottle i.e. very cheap; a groat was a coin worth four English pennies (1.67P). Gin was common in Shetland due to its trade with Holland. Barry states that in Orkney wine, gin and brandy were ‘retailed at such a low price, and in such quantities, as was equally subversive of industry and of morals’ (Barry, 346). 336.37 floatsome... jetsome see note to 110.38. 336.42 Timotheus (446–357 bc) of Miletus in Greece, a celebrated musician and poet. He figures prominently (though anachronistically) as the master musician of Alexander the Great (356–323 Bc) in Dryden’s ‘Alexan­ der’s Feast; or, The Power of Musique: An Ode, in Honour of St Cecilia’s Day’(1697). 336.42–43 to turn his strain and check his pride compare ‘Alexan­ der’s Feast’, line 72. 337.7–8 made innovation caused a change. See Othello, 2.3.36–37. 337.8 to play Cassio see Othello, 2.3. 338.13 conster compare Twelfth Night, 3.1.54. When James Ballan­ tyne questioned ‘conster?’, Scott replied, ‘yes piratice et vulgariter for construe'. 338.25 pit, box, and gallery The Rehearsal, 1.1.82. 338.26 Bayes the name of the playwright in The Rehearsal. ‘Bayes’, a refer­ ence to the appointment ofDryden as Poet Laureate in August, 1670, reveals that it is Dryden who is being ridiculed. 338.29 Buckingham George Villiers (1628–87), 2nd Duke ofBucking­ ham. 338.30–31 In the first rank... so various John Dryden, ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681), 544–45. 338.34–35 the gunner’s daughter jocular name among seamen for the gun to which sailors were ‘married’, i.e. lashed, to receive punishment. 338.35 Prince Prettyman a character in The Rehearsal. 338.37 Sometimes a fisher’s son, sometimes a prince The Rehearsal, 3.4.64. 338.41–43 I have known... on board an account ofpirates cutting off the ears ofa prisoner is found in ‘Captain Edward Lowe, and His Crew’, in Fraser, 45,49. 338.42 Davy Jones’ locker the deep, esp. as the grave of those who perish at sea.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

573

338.43 spirit ofanother sort see A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 3.2.388. 339.29 Hogs Norton the reference is properly to the village ofHook Nor­ ton, in Oxfordshire, whose inhabitants were said to be extremely boorish. In a note to The Ancient British Drama, ed. Robert Dodsley, rev. Walter Scott, 3 vols (London, 1810), 2.413 (CLA, 43), Scott writes: ‘Hog’s-Norton, &c.—It appears by Ray’s Proverbs, edit. 1742, p. 258, that to say, You were bom at Hog’s Norton, conveyed an insinuation of boorish rustical behaviour. The true name of the town is Hock Norton, and it is situated in the county ofOxford. Nash, in The Apologie ofPierce Pennilesse 4to, 1593, sign. K4, says, ‘If thou bestowst any courtesie on mee, and I do not requite it, then call mee cut, and I was brought up at Hogge Norton, where Piggesplay on the organs. ’ 339.36 Don Sebastian a tragicomedy (1691) by Dryden. 339.41 shaken the scene see Robert Greene (156o?–92), Groats-worth of Witte, bought with a Million ofRepentance (1592), attacking Shakespeare as ‘in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey’. 339.41 Booth BartonBooth(1681–1733),actorandjointmanagerof Drury Lane Theatre. 339.41 Betterton Thomas Betterton (1635?–1710), actor much esteemed by his contemporaries. 339.43–40.1 till I find no board at all to support me till I am hung. 340.2 I would have you solus Henry V, 2.1.43. 340.4 Heart ofNorway pine a variation on the phrase‘heart of oak’which denotes a man of courage and valour. The phrase is often applied to seafarers (OED). 340.8 Scipio at Numantia after the surrender of Numantia (134 bc) Scipio Africanus Minor found among the Spanish captives a beautiful maiden, whom he generously restored to her betrothed. 340.8 Alexander in the tent ofDarius a reference to Alexander’s generous treatment of the wife and mother of the Persian king, Darius, when, after Darius’s defeat, they were brought prisoners before the conqueror (333 bc). 340.11–14 Thus from the grave... way Nathaniel Lee (1653?–92), The RivalQueens; or, The Death ofAlexander the Great (1677), 4.2.287–90. 340.29–30 pit, box, and gallery The Rehearsal, 1.1.82. 340.32 Orpheus and Eurydice the legendary pre-Homeric poet and his wife, whom he almost rescued from the infernal regions through the beauty of his music. 341.9 the devil to pay proverbial: see Apperson, 148; and Tilley, 153. 341.9 the devil to pay, and no pitch hot ODEP, 184, explains that the quotation alludes to the difficulty of‘paying’ or caulking the seam near a ship’s keel, which is called the ‘devil’. 342.6 out ofthe bilboes literally, out of shackles; out of confinement. 342.21 Port Royal a town ofJamaica, at the entrance ofKingston Harbour. Britain captured Jamaica from Spain in 1655. 342.21–22 the Isle ofProvidence one of the Bahamas, and a notorious rendezvous for buccaneers. 342.22 Petits Guaves a small harbour on the West Indian island ofHaiti. 342.27 bona robas good wenches. See 2 Henry IV, 3.2.200. 342.31 Roxalana Roxana was the first wife ofAlexander in Nathaniel Lee (1653?–92), The Rival Queens; or, The Death ofAlexander the Great (1677). 342.32 Sancho’s gossip, Thomas Cecial Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, DonQuixote, Part2(1615), Chs 12–15. 342.36–38 Away... my rage Nathaniel Lee (1653?–92), The Rival Queens; or, The Death ofAlexander the Great (1677), 3.4 5–47. 342.39 Statira the present wife of Alexander in The Rival Queens.

574

EXPLANATORY NOTES

342.41–43 He speaks the kindest words... deluded by him The Rival Queens, 1.2.50–52. 343.2–3 Lysimachus Prince of the blood in The Rival Queens. 343.3 Clitus Master of Alexander’s horse in The RivalQueens. 343 motto anonymous. This song was first published at least as early as 1625. See William Chappell, Old English Popular Music, ed. H. Ellis Woolridge (New York, 1961), 189–90; The Tear-Table Miscellany; or, A Collection ofChoice Songs, Scots and English, ed. Allan Ramsay, 10th edn, 4 vols (London, 1740), 2.163–64. 343.41 Bridge ofBroisgar the two long narrow promontories that jut out from opposite sides meet in the middle of the Loch of Stenness so as to be connected by a thread-like line of road—half mound, half bridge—known as the Bridge ofBrogar or Brodgar. See note to 312.18. 344.20 Barnwell George Lillo (1693–1739), George Barnwell(1731), a tragedy in which a young man robs his employer and murders his uncle. 344.22 Venice Preserved (1682) by Thomas Otway (1652–85), a tragedy in which Jaffier stabs his friend Pierre and then himself on the scaffold. 344.35–36 the Scots have severe laws against theft-boot theft-boot, or theftbute, involved a compact with a thief whereby someone who had the thief in his power let him go in return for payment or a share in stolen goods. Under an act of 1515 this crime was treated as being art and part of the theft, for which the ultimate penalty was death. 344.40–41 John was a Jacobite John Dryden became a Catholic after 1682 and refused to take the oaths to William and Mary and pledge loyalty to the Protestant succession. He was deprived of the poet laureateship for this refusal. 344.42–45.2 Mouths without hands... at hand see John Dryden, ‘Cymon and Iphigenia’ (1700), lines 401–04. 345.18 Duncansbay-head off the northeast tip of Scotland. 345.19—22 shall be answerable to law... detention under a statute of 1436 it was a crime for a magistrate to make a compact with a criminal so that he escaped justice. 345.23 the heart and soul their whole being. 345.33 the father, ofhis country compare Genesis 17.5. 345.397–40 let-a-be for let-a-be not meddling in exchange for not meddling. 345.40 warrant ofliberation a warrant allowing for Cleveland’s legal release. 346.34 packing and peeling having clandestine dealings. 346.40 sparks ofhonour RichardII, 5.6.29. 347.26–27 strong room within... King’s castle erected in the 14th century, on the west side of the principal street, opposite the Cathedral. When Scott visited in 1814 it was ruinous: ‘It appears to have been very strong, being situated near the harbour, and having, as appears from the fragments, very massive walls’ (Lockhart, 3.188). 347.39–40 eastern end alone is fitted up for public worship Neill comments that ‘Only the eastern half of the Cathedral is at present occupied as the parish-church’ (Neill, 4) and Scott found the same to be true when he visited in 1814 (Lockhart, 3.186). 347.40–48.1 This solemn old edifice... decency Scott makes similar remarks regarding the cathedral in his ‘Diary’; see Lockhart, 3.186–87. 348.2 Westminster Westminster Abbey in London. 348.2–3 Saint Paul’s St Paul’s Cathedral in London, the masterpiece of Sir Christopher Wren (1631–1723). 348.8–12 lofty and vaulted roof... truncated plan the arched roof of the cathedral is supported by 14 pillars on each side, each about 4.6 m in

EXPLANATORY NOTES

575

circumference. The height of the roof is about 21m, and that of the steeple, 40m. Neill states that an addition made to the cathedral in the 16th century by Bishop Reid has destroyed its proportions: ‘it is now much too long for its breadth’ (Neill, 4). Four additional pillars 7.3m in circumference support the steeple. The spire was struck by lightning in 1671 and afterwards the tower was covered in with a wooden roof. 348.13–14 Gothic window the window on the east end of the cathedral has four pointed arches separated by three shafts. There is a wheel above of twelve compartments. The height of the window is nearly 11m and its width 3.7m. 348.14–16 pavement... sacred precincts a description of some of the tombstones in St Magnus Cathedral is given in The Royal Commission on the Ancient Monuments ofScotland: Twelfth Report with an Inventory ofthe Ancient Monuments ofOrkney and Shetland, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1946), 2.126–38. 349.22 Loch ofStennis see note to 312.18. 349.24–25 Bridge ofBroisgar see note to 343.41. 352.5–6 on broomsticks see note to 53.28. 352.12 slashing blade dashing gallant. 352.15 gospel... witchcraft see Exodus 22.18. 352.23 I see where the shoe pinches you proverbially, only the wearer can tell where the shoe pinches: see Apperson, 565; ODEP, 725. 352.29 House of Stennis a grey old-fashioned building ofunimposing appearance situated near Maeshow on the west Mainland of Orkney. 352.42–43 After much debate... magistrate see John Dryden, ‘Cymon and Iphigenia’ (1700), lines 462–63. 353.10 Road of Stromness sheltered water in which ships may anchor and ride safely. 353 motto see Macbeth, 3.3.17–18. 353.31–34 a door... narrow winding passage Scott describes having seen carved screens of oak in his ‘Diary’: see Lockhart, 3.187. 354.6–7 a garland... whale vessels see note to 197.37. 354.9 usual emblems ofmortality these include skulls, crossbones, candlesticks, and sand-glasses. 354.22–23 on the Greenland voyage i.e. fishing off Greenland. 354.27 Pacolet see note to 249.30. 354.33 upon the latch fastened with a latch only. 355.15 Valhalla see note to 128.22. 355.21 words are the common pay compare Troilusand Cressida, 3.2.53–55. 355.28—29 Caithness and the Hebrides are not far distant Caithness in northeast Scotland, and the Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland, are approximately 40 km and 240 km from Stromness, respectively. 356.11–15 You are ofthat temperament... honour this description of Cleveland resembles Scott’s description of the Byronic hero; see Prose Works, 4.343–99, and 17.337–66. 357.15 shoal water shallow water often decreasing suddenly in the approach to land. 357.16 a Spanish xebeck a small three-masted vessel; at that time, a ship of war. 357.20–21 it is but snapping... will we die in a letter to Mr Fea, Gow threatened to blow up his ship, writing: ‘if it be my misfortune to be ship­ wrecked, the Government seizes all; and I’ll take care they shall be nothing the better––only the guns; for I’m resolved to set fire to all, and all of us perish together’ (Peterkin, 215). He repeats this threat in a later letter, adding ‘If the ships of war arrives heir before I can make my escape, am resolved to make qt.

576

EXPLANATORY NOTES

defence I can, and afterward sett fire to the hold, which will soon seize the upperpart, together with us; and as we have lived soe wee die, qch will be the loss of some thousand pounds, and non the betur’ (Peterkin, 218). After the pirates were captured Fea went on board, and the ship was searched carefully. There was no evidence of Gow carrying out this threat however; see Peterkin, 222. 357.38 wells ofTuftiloe Robert Stevenson records: ‘When the native Pilots were on board they had a good deal of Sir Walter’s company, who de­ lighted in their expressions and in the names given to the localities many of which he considered highly poetic—as the “Wells ofTuftilo”, one of the chief swirls of the Pentland Frith which the pilots call “Wells of the tide” and which in calm weather make the largest ships, regardless of their helm, swing round and round’ (Reminiscences of1814 ofSir Walter Scott Bart, by Robert Stevenson, Civil Engineer Edinburgh March 1850, Ms 3831,39). 358.12–13 such passages... these islands Orkney’s prehistoric past has given rise to a number of underground structures some of which are fairly extensive. 358.22 Burgh-head possibly Brough Head at the extreme west of the Orkney Mainland. 358.27–28 imminent dangers and to hair-breadth escapes see Oth­ ello, 1.3.136. 359.10 Bridge ofBroisgar see note to 343.41. 359.12 that remarkable semi-circle the Standing Stones of Stenness; see note to 214.5. 359.14 monument at Stonehenge prehistoric stone circle on Salisbury Plain. 359.18 came to revisit, by this pale light compare Hamlet, 1.4.52–53. 359.22–23 this singular monument ofantiquity see Scott’s note on the standing stones of Stenness in Magnum, 25.315—16, and note to 214.5. 359.34–35 splicing the main-brace nautical slang serving out ‘grog’; hence, drinking freely. 360.14 Snapcholerick literally, quick hot-tempered. In Love Makes a Man; or, the Fop's Fortune (1700), by Colley Cibber (1671–1757), Don Lewis is called ‘Don Cholerick Snapshorto de Testy’, 5.3. See The Plays ofColley Cibber, ed. Rodney L. Hayley, 2 vols (New York, 1980), 1.215. 360.15 stap my vitals stop my vitals; i.e. strike me dead. The phrase is described as ‘a silly curse among the Beaux’ in OED. 360.15–16 over the left shoulder proverbial indicatingthatwhatissaidis meant ironically for the reverse: see Apperson, 478; ODEP, 603. 360.20 Gaffer Seal’s-cap another insulting form of address.‘Gaffer’ implies both oldness and rusticity, ‘Seal’s-cap’ rusticity. 360.27 Scalpa-flow see note to 325.24. 360 motto Matthew Prior (1664–1721), ‘Henry and Emma’, lines 467–70, in The Literary Works ofMatthew Prior, ed. H. Bunker Wright and Monroe K. Spears, 2 vols (Oxford, 1959), 1.291. 361.11 the Bearded Man Matthieu Jouve Jourdan, who beheaded two of the royal guards in the Marble Court at Versailles, on 6 October 1789. 361.33–34 to steer right upon the rocks to rush into difficulties. 361.35 desolate Hebrides Outer and Inner Hebrides, two groups of islands off the west coast of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides consist of a chain of islands 200 km long, while the Inner Hebrides include the islands of Skye and Mull. 362.3 rides rusty acts morosely. 362.10–11 Fit to disturb... wildest see Venice Preserved, 2.3.121–22. 362.16–17 All for Love, and the World Well Lost John Dryden, Allfor Love; or, the World Well Lost (1678), his tragedy about Antony and Cleopatra.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

577

362.19–20 news enough... stirring news to boot see 2 Henry IV, 5.3.94–95. 362.21 prithee deliver them see 2 Henry IV, 5.3.96. 362.29 Imoinda the heroine of the novel, Oroonoko; or, the History ofthe Royal Slave (1678), by Aphra Behn (1640–89). 362.35 He did so purpose compare Macbeth, 1.5.57. 362.35–36 King Duncan the King of Scotland murdered in Macbeth. It was, of course, Macbeth who changed his course after meeting the witches, but the Udaller is properly compared to Duncan rather than Macbeth. 362.37–38 has her finger in every man’s pye proverbial meddles in every man’s business: see Ray, 190; Apperson, 212–13; Tilley, 212; ODEP, 258. 362.42 shell out the boards pay up the wages. 363.16–17 baulk a fine situation pass over a dramatic scene. 363.38 confess and be hanged proverbial: see Ramsay, 74; Apperson, 110–11; Tilley, 115; ODEP, 139. 364.16 a valet de chambre French a man’s personal man-servant. 364.19 Not a whit—not a whit Hamlet, 5.2.211. 364.34–35 Master Lieutenant Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718), LadyJane Grey(1715), 5.1. 364.36 anchor be a-trip an anchor just raised perpendicularly off the bottom when it is being weighed. 365.1–2 Cupid has laid our Captain on board the god of love has knocked our Captain down. 365.13–14 Prince Volscius is in love... on the stage see The Rehearsal,3.5.66. 365.17 more kicks than halfpence monkey’s allowance. See ‘Monkey’, in Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary ofthe Vulgar Tongue, 3rd edn (London, 1796): CLA, 156. Now proverbial: see ODEP, 541. 365.25 stop my vitals see note to 360.15. 366.24 Sharpe Bartholomew Sharpe, the buccaneer captain who was active on the Spanish Main about 1680. 366.24 read prayers to his ship’s company no such incident has been identified. 366.27 Black Beard Edward Teach, or Drummond, the buccaneer captain who terrorised the Spanish Main between 1710 and 1718. 366.29–30 walk the plank... set a-diving a common punishment among pirates. 366.33 sucked the monkey tippled, drunk from the bottle, drunk spirits from die cask (OED, monkey, substantive 11a and c). 366.34 the best ofhim is buff’d his natural strength is much gone (John Jamieson, An Etymological Dictionary ofthe Scottish Language, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1808), to buff). 366.40 within the trade-winds wind that constantly blows towards the equator from the 13th parallels N and S. In the northern hemisphere its main direction is from the NW. 367.17 like foolish moths fluttering about a candle see note to 100.3–6. 367.28–29 malapert blood Twelfth Night, 4.1.43. 367.35–36 bad paymasters—he that pays too soon proverbial: see ODEP, 614. 368.1 Red Burgundy grape-shot. 368.10 Farewell, fair Armida the first words of‘A Song’ (1672), ascribed to Dryden. 368.11–12 ’Mid pikes... hopeless desire see lines 9–10 ofDryden’s

578

EXPLANATORY NOTES

‘A Song’ (see note above). For the first words, ‘’Mid pikes and mid bullets’, see the parody of this song in The Rehearsal, 3.1.116. 368.16 a billet-doux French a love letter. 368.17 Wits’ Coffee-house see note to 113.37. 368.17–18 the Kit-Cat Club a literary society, with Whig sympathies, that existed in London between 1700 and 1720. 368.40 bestow the handkerchief the Sultan dropped the handkerchief to show which maiden he chose for his bed-partner. 4 368.401 common fame... was a common liar proverbial: see Apperson, 109; ODEP, 137. 369 motto ‘The Not–Browne Mayd’, lines 145-48, in Reliques ofAncient English Poetry, ed. Thomas Percy, 3 vols (London, 1765), 2.226–42: see CLA, 172. 369.37 Standing Stones of Stennis see note to 214.5. 371.15 turn out with their arms to turn out ready for action. 371.43 huge circle and semi-circle ofthe Standing Stones see note to 214–5. 372.20–22 lies one flat... purpose ofan altar in his ‘Diary’ Scott wrote: ‘About the centre of the semicircle is a broad flat stone, probably once the altar on which human victims were sacrificed’ (Lockhart, 3.199). The altar is in fact a modern construction built of stones which had fallen over. 372.23–25 Here... our ancestors... heathen deities these monu­ ments are Neolithic in origin. 372.34–35 Ifthe belief... Druids this view was being challenged by the time the novel was written, e.g. by Scott’s friend Robert Jamieson who com­ ments: ‘Having examined many of those antient Circles of Stones which are commonly called Druidical, and finding them in places where it seemed very improbable, making all due allowance for the altered face of the country, that there ever could have grown groves of oak, such as the Druids are said to have chosen for celebrating their mysteries; I have been inclined to suspect that they were Celtic Mote Hills, and dedicated tojuridical rather than sacrificial purposes’ (Robert Jamieson, Walter Scott and Henry Weber, Illustrations ofNorthern Antiquities (Edinburgh, 1814), 468): CLA, 100. 372.36 Haxa a generic name for a witch or sorceress. 372.39 Freya in Scandinavian mythology, one oftheVanir, and the most beautiful of the goddesses, the northern Venus, the goddess of love and of the night. She was, however, the wife ofOdhir. 372.39 Thundering Deity Thor, the god of thunder. But his wife was Sif, famous for the beauty of her hair. 373.23 one good or glorious action see Thomas OsbertMordaunt (1730-1809), ‘A Poem said to be written by Major Mordaunt during the last German War’, in The Bee, 12 Oct. 1791, 179; compare also The Tale ofOld Mortality, ed. Douglas Mack, eewn , 4b, 266.13. 374.21 old hollow way or trench the Ring ofBrodgar is surrounded by a ditch 9m wide and 2m deep. The ditch surrounding the Stones of Stenness is now completely obscured but is thought to have been visible as late as 1848. The purpose of these ditches is not entirely clear. 374.42 Two or three more ofthe pirates... were taken Gow’s own pirates were taken in small groups after he himself was captured; sec Defoe, 46-47 and Fea, 116. 375.16-20 well-secured upper apartment... vault belonging to the mansion Gow and his associates were taken to the house of Sound in the island of Shapinsay to be kept prisoner; see Fea, 117. While the other pirates were secured in a large barn at Carrick Gow was kept unfettered in a large apartment on the first floor of the house; see Fea, 125.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

579

375.28 so tight a lad so capable a lad. 376.2–3 What... an oath 3 Henry VI, 2.6.77–78. 376.8 Jaffier one of the principal conspirators in Venice Preserved. 376.9–11 Then, by the hell... deal with me see Venice Preserved, 4.2.227–29. 376.33 hop the perch drop dead. 37 376.36A bull–dog... ofthe true British breed bull-dogs are attributed with qualities of fierceness and boldness and have long been associ­ ated with the British nation (OED). 377. 13 slip cable allow the anchor-cable to run out, when quitting an anchorage in haste. 377.14 shoal-water see note to 357.15. 377.23 Jolly Hodge in proof, Ballantyne crossed out‘Hodge’and substi­ tuted ‘Roger’ but Scott rejected this change, explaining that ‘Roger and Hodge being as John and Jock’ (Huntington Library ms RB110387,3.309). 377.23–24 death’s head and hour glass see note to 292.9. 377.39 miss stays fail in the attempt to go about. 378.3 Exeunt omnes Latin exit all. 378.10 Captain Weatherport not identified. 378.11 – 12 to demand those ofthe pirate crew who were there prisoners the Earl ofMorton’s deputy Mr Liddell was similarly displeased with Fea for holding the prisoners in the house of Sound rather than handing them over to the Kirkwall magistrates; see Fea, 129-30. 378.22 sent offto London for trial at the High Court ofAdmiralty in the 17th century there was no regular Scottish navy and Scotland was often dependent on the English navy to clear the coast of privateers; e.g. in 1693 English ships are recorded as engaging with French privateers in Orkney waters. When pirates were captured they were tried under the jurisdiction of the country to which their captors belonged. As the Halcyon is an English vessel, Cleveland and his crew would be taken to the High Court ofAdmiralty in London for trial. See James Grant, The Old Scots Navyfrom 1689 to 1710 (London, 1914), 2 and 123. 378.38 Pierre one of the principal conspirators in Venice Preserved. 378.39–41 Captain... die with decency Venice Preserved, 5.3.89–91. 379 motto see Robert Southey,‘Carmen Triumphale, for the Commence­ ment of the Year 1814’, line 12, and ‘Ode to His Majesty, Frederick William the Fourth, King ofPrussia’, line 57, in The Poetical Works ofRobert Southey, 10 vols (London 1837-38), 3.181, and 3.247. 379.1720 some were more... in their frolics Defoe comments that when Gow’s men were taken prisoner some began to ‘reassume a kind of Courage, and to look upon one another, as if to lay hold of some Weapon to resist... But it was too late’ (Defoe, 52). 379.38 the Procurator Fiscal in Scotland, the public prosecutor in a sheriffdom. He initiates the prosecution of crimes and takes written statements of evidence. 381.11 – 1 2 planets... blood an allusion to the belief that the movements of the planets and their various alignments influence the outcome of events. 381.21 vengeance is mine Romans 12.19. 381.41 blood ofour blood, bone ofour bone see Genesis 2.23. 382.1 5 Hispaniola the island of Haiti and the Dominican Republic in the West Indies. 382.26 Tortuga an island in the West Indies, off the Venezuelan coast. 382.28 Port Royal a town ofJamaica, at the entrance of Kingston Harbour. 382.3 5 one ofthe Bermudas a group of islands in the Western Atlantic. 382.42 To change a name is common with such adventurers this is

580

EXPLANATORY NOTES

illustrated by Gow’s variation of his name ‘Smith’ (see note to 3.9). In one of the letters documented by Peterkin he inadvertently signs himself‘James’ suggest­ ing that this may also have been an alias; see Peterkin, 217. 383.22 power to harm a hair ofhis head compare Matthew 10.30; Luke 12.7. 384 motto seejohn Gay (1685-1732), The Beggar’s Opera (1728), 3.16.14–15, in British Dramatistsfrom Dryden to Sheridan, ed. George H. Nettleton and Arthur E. Case (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), 568. 384.14 George Torfe see note to 330.20. 384.25 Duncansbay Head and Cape Wrath the extreme northeast and northwest points of the Scottish mainland. 384.38 bay ofThurso about 29 km W of Duncansbay Head. 384.39 Pentland Firth see note to 5.19. 385.1 8 windward station i.e. on the side from which the wind comes; the phrase is used figuratively of piracy, for pirates would attack a victim from the windward side so as to get a navigational advantage. 385.25 two proclamations ofmercy the decision taken on the advice of Burchett, the Secretary of the Admiralty, to offer a pardon to all who would surrender by a given date—for all piracies committed before 30 April 1699 to the east of the Cape of Good Hope, and 30 June 1699 to the west (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edn, ‘Pirate and Piracy’, 21.641). 385.40 Quempoa not identified. 386.21 good Master Lieutenant Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718), LadyJane Grey (1715), 5.1. 386.22 Roscius Quintus Roscius Gallus (d. 62 bc ), the most famous comic actor of ancient Rome. 387.1 prisoners to London see note to 378.22. 387.39 Louisa Gonzaga not identified. 388.23–25 about once more... immediate war with that country the War of the Grand Alliance broke out in 1689 as France under Louis XIV continued to strengthen its position in Europe as Spain declined. Spain ruled the Spanish Netherlands (roughly modem Belgium), which was simultaneously squeezed by France from the south and the Netherlands from the north under William of Orange, ruler of the Netherlands, and of England, and Scotland. In 1689 Ireland was not yet in his control. 389.9–10 Chaucer’s physician... ‘but little on the Bible’ ‘The General Prologue’, The Canterbury Tales, I (A), 438: CLA, 41, 154, 155, 172, 239. 389.12–13 The winds are in the hollow ofHis hand see Isaiah 40.12. 389.38–39 encroachments ofthe Scottish gentry upon the country see note to 7.6–7. 390.2 the trifling distinctions ofMeum and Tuum Latin the trifling distinctions ofmine and yours: see Henry Fielding, The Life andDeath of Jonathan Wild the Great (1743), Bk 3, Ch. 14. 390.26 daffed the world aside, and bid it pass 1 Henry IV, 4.1.96–97. 390.30–31 built the fabric ofher happiness on a quicksand instead ofa rock see Matthew 7.24–27; Luke 6.47–49. 391.31– 32 a little lower than the angels Psalm 8.5. 391.34 We have been able to learn nothing with certainty ofBunce’s fate Charles Johnson states that the historical rogue Stephen Bunce was executed at Tyburn in 1707; see Johnson, 249. 391.34–3 5 Dr Dryasdust the fictitious antiquary, Rev. Dr Jonas Dryas­ dust ofYork, who appears first in The Antiquary (1816), ed. David Hewitt; eewn 3,282.2, is the addressee in the ‘dedicatory epistle’ to Ivanhoe (1820), and the ‘Introductory Epistle’ to The Fortunes ofNigel (1822), and is the nominal author of the ‘Prefatory Letter’ o t Pevertl ofthe Peak (1822).

EXPLANATORY NOTES 391.35–36 the beginning ofthe reign of George I in 1714. 391.36 the Rose Coffee-house in Russell Street, Covent Garden, a celebrated resort of wits and men of fashion.

58l

GLOSSARY

This selective glossary defines single words; phrases are treated in the Explanatory Notes. It covers Scottish words, archaic and technical terms, and occurrences of familiar words in senses that may be strange to the modern reader, but which are unlikely to be in commonly-used one-volume dictionaries. For each word (or clearly distinguishable sense) glossed, up to four occurrences are normally noted; when a word occurs four or more times in the novel, only the first instance is normally given, followed by ‘etc.’. Orthographical variants of single words are listed together, usually with the most common use first. Often the most economical and effective way of defining a word is to refer the reader to the appropriate explanatory note. a’ all 47.40 etc. a’every 58.5 abune above 198.1,234.33 account see note to 288.43 a–dreamed visited by a dream 31.2 adsum Latin here I am 47.4 ae one 42.5 etc. affoff 31.21,98.27 aigre sour, acrimonious 32.20,170.9 aik oak 44.8 ail see notes to 132.13,366.32 ain own 45.37 etc. air for 183.40 and 183.44 see note to 183.40 airn iron 42.5 aits oats 328.25 a-kin related 230.12; in character 290.11 a-lee on the lee or sheltered side of a ship, away from the wind 377.38 alias Latin otherwise called or named 289.22,329.36; alternative name 289.13,386.36 allodial holding land in absolute ownership as opposed to feudal ownership 11.40 almaist almost 87.18 a-lowablaze44.16 amang among 77.15,230.18,279.14 ambuscade ambush 374.12 an if 48.8,72.25 ane one 44.30 etc. anent concerning, about 98.32 anes once 45.30,325.19

aneugh enough 48.27,85.42,86.36, 895 anither another 42.6,278.36,282.26 antediluvian belonging to long past ages 359.17 a-peak nautical in a direct line below the vessel prior to being drawn up 115.22 aquavitae any form of strong spirits such as brandy or whisky, etc. 139.12,154.39 arabesque Arabian or Moorish in de­ sign 169.4 argufy signify, be of consequence 366.2 army-contractor one who contracts or undertakes to supply certain art­ icles, or perform work for, the army 1436–37 aroint avaunt, be gone 53.20 (see note), 59.1 articles agreed terms 295.43, 314.30,314.42,329.24–25 asseveration emphatic assertion 283.25,338.33.339.27 a’thegither altogether 277.36 athwart across 81.3 a-trip nautical just raised perpendic­ ularly from the ground when weighing 364.36 a-turtling catch or ‘fish’ for turtle 216.7 atween between 173.6 aught noun anything whatever; the 582

GLOSSARY least part 47.6 etc. aught verb own 73.25,303.7 auld old 48.27 etc. auld-world belonging to an older time 139.3 avast nautical/hold! stop! 333.12 avaunt be gone 342.37 avise inform, make aware 290.1 awa’, awaaway 59.2,139.5,232.7 away for 41.17 see note away-ganging see note to 328.9 aweelwell 166.5 awfu’ dreadful, shocking 59.19 awmous alms, good deed 238.29 awn delicate ‘beard’ that terminates the grain-sheath of barley, oats and other grasses 138.41 ay, aye yes 15.16 etc. aye always 46.7 etc. back-spauld back of the shoulder 73.14 baillie, bailie municipal officer, magistrate, next in rank to the Prov­ ost 190.4 etc. bailiffagent of a landowner who collects rents or officer of justice who executes writs and processes 1304 bairn child 31.16 etc. baith both 41.10 etc. baittle rich [applied to pasturage], fattening for cattle 328.27 bang blow 10.12,277.35 (see note) bannet bonnet 230.2 banning cursing 49.3 ban verb curse 74.18 banns proclamation or public notice given in church of an intended mar­ riage 308.21 Barbadoes-waters cordial flavoured with orange and lemon peel 233.36 bark noun small ship 44.13 etc. barley-bread bread made from bar­ ley meal 277.21 barley-cake cake or scone made from barley meal 56.34 barrow mound marking ancient burial place 180.4 bather bother, annoy 282.27 battaile see note to 72.4 battery a number of pieces of artillery placed in juxtaposition for com­ bined action 133.29 etc. battue driving of game from cover to a point where sportsmen wait to

583

shoot 155.29 baubling contemptible, paltry 214.36 bauld bold 49.3,87.18 beam horizontal timber of a ship stretching from side to side and supporting the deck; thus used to designate the side of a vessel 291.29 bear coarse variety of barley 40.25 etc. bear-braid sprouting bear or barley 53.17 bee-skap straw bee-hive 105.27 beetle noun implement with a heavy ‘head’ used for beating 53.22 beetle verb look with beetle brows; scowl; project, overhang 18.42 beetle-browed having shaggy or prominent eyebrows, usually scowling257.18,313.12 belay nautical coil a running rope round a cleat to make it fast 189.13, 337.37 bell-the-cat contend with one with­ out regard to the consequences 105.35 (see note) bend anything of a curved shape, used figuratively of the mermaid’s curved tail 144.38 bent noun coarse stiff grass of a reed­ like form 239.41 bereave deprive of 186.19 bem bairn, child 32.24 berserkar Norse warriors of great strength and ferocious courage who fought on the battlefield with fren­ zied fury 15.17 etc. beyont beyond 42.3 bicker drinking vessel, usually made of wood 141.17,335.26 bickerfu’ drinking-vessel-full 106.6 bide1 endure, stand 230.8,234.35, 277–35 bide2 stay, wait, remain 53.18 etc. big build 20.10,105.39 biggin building, cottage 237.1 bilboe iron bar with sliding shackles for prisoners’ ankles 328.15, 330.12,342.6 billet short document 387.15 billet-doux French love-letter 368.16 billie brother, a familiar mode of ad­ dress 45.32 bismar small steelyard, used for

584 GLOSSARY

GLOSSARY

weighing various kinds of produce 85.38 blabber-lips swollen, protruding lips 256.17 blade gallant, free and easy fellow 336.19,352.12 bland for 45.11 etc. see note to 45.11 blate modest, shy 44.6 bleeze noun blazing fire 44.18 bleeze verb brag, exaggerate 45.9 blizstein German lightning 164.6 block for 80.20 see note blood-cruelty murderous cruelty 218.3 blude blood 230.17 blunderbuss short gun with a large bore firing many balls or slugs 367.25 boards cash, money 328.16,362.42 boast threaten 53.16 boatswain ship’s officer who has charge of the sails, rigging, etc., and who summons the men to their duties with a whistle 115.26 etc. boding ominous, portending 27.9, 236.30 bodle coin of small value, worth two­ pence Scots (0.07P), c. 1600 237.7 body person 46.9 etc. bole unglazed aperture in the wall of a cottage for admitting air and light 236.36 boltsprit bowsprit, large spar run­ ning out from the stem ofa vessel 377.42 bonally parting drink 27.37 bonnebell fair maid, bonny lass 134.42 bonny, bonnie pretty, fair 20.9 etc. bonny-die trinket, toy, pretty thing 303 39 bonxie ornithological great skua 26.31 boobie dull, stupid fellow 117.30 boon convivial, jolly 335.17 borough-moor moor or rough graz­ ings belonging to a town bottle-nose nose resembling a bottle, a swollen nose 43.34 bourasque French sudden squall 194.17 bower sleeping room 26.10,174.31, 176.20 bowie pail, a wooden dish for holding milk 281.43

bow-oar oar nearest the bow 113.25 bowsprit nautical large spar running out from the stem of a vessel 237.19 box-bed bed enclosed on three sides and roofed with wood 354.3 brae upland, mountainous district 280.19 braid plain, unmitigated 49.1; un­ restrainedly, indiscreetly 165.32 brave fine 87.28 braw fine, splendid 88.31,235.41, 279.17 brawest finest, bravest 233.5 braws fine clothes 86.31 breast-fashion side by side 132.25 breekless without trousers, wearing a kilt 42.39 brig vessel with two masts squarerigged, and carrying on her main mast a lower fore-and aft-sail with a gaff and boom 88.3 brigantine small swift vessel equipped for both sailing and row­ ing and often used for piracy 81.4 brigg bridge 256.3 brisk cheery, sprightly 87.29, 335.37,336.3; sharp 296.29 brisket breast of a human being 173.37 broad-cloth fine, plain-woven, dressed, double-width cloth used chiefly for men’s garments 157.1 broadside, broad-side simultan­ eous discharge of the artillery on one side of a ship of war 116.9 etc.; the side 278.42 broidered embroidered 87.2 broom verb among whalers, to make a telegraphic signal in which motions with a broom express the number of whales caught 198.5 brose dish made by mixing boiling water or milk with oatmeal and add­ ing salt and butter 41.20 brought-to nautical cause to come to a standstill 321.36 buccaneer sea-rover, pirate 3.18 etc. buckie whelk 271.28 buff’d slang fit for nothing, useless 366.34 (see note) bulk cargo as a whole 74.16,81.43 bull edict or mandate 252.10 bullock bully 337.35 bullyback bully who backs up an­ other bully 365.8

GLOSSARY bum make a droning sound 282.14 bummock ale brewed for a merry­ making 335.28 bumper noun cup or glass filled to the brim 35.37,140.5 bumper verb to fill a cup or glass to the brim, to make toasts 219.3 burgh, burg1 broch, a structure of prehistoric times consisting of a round tower with an inner and outer wall of dry stone 253.19 etc. burgh2 town in Scotland possessing a charter 290.28 etc. burgher citizen of a burgh 319.39 etc. Burgundy see note to 368.1 bum-brae hill or slope at the bottom of which a stream runs 20.10 burthen the bass ofa song, the chorus or refrain ofa song 120.31,145.10 buskin high, thick-soled boot worn by the actors in ancient Athenian tragedy 50.14 (see note) buttress structure of wood or stone built against a wall or building to support it 239.3 bygane bygone, ago, past 324.16 ca’call 42.5 etc. cabalist practiser of magic 53.42 caboose nautical on-deck cookroom or kitchen ofmerchantmen 334.15 cachinnation loud or immoderate laughter 273.26 cacique native Indian chief in and around the Caribbean 215.7, 215.35 cairn mountain 30.36,59.2,180.5; pyramid of rough stones raised for a memorial or mark 253.22,278.1 calabash gourd or pumpkin 334.40 callant stripling, young man 41.7 etc. cam came 324.14 can nautical give sailing directions to the steersman 363.42 candle-snuffing theatrical taking charge of the lights when there were candles 360.19 canna cannot 58.41 etc. canny careful, cautious 30.1 etc.; comfortable 53.19; fortunate, of good omen 61.4,236.17,275.15 canst know 47.6 cant throw with a sudden jerk 106.12 canty lively, cheerful 101.19 capa Spanish cape or cloak 215.32 caper1 light-armed vessel of the

585

seventeenth century adapted for privateering 248.15 caper2 frolicksome dancing or leap­ ing 322.25 capriole leap, skip 104.2 cap-stem mechanism on board ship for raising the anchor, hoisting heavy sails, etc. 363.24 carabine kind of fire-arm shorter than a musket 374.35 carbuncle precious stone of a fiery colour 181.7,181.41,182.15-16 careen turn a ship on one side for cleaning or repairing 376.22, 384.30 career move swiftly, turn this way and that 42.8 carefu’ careful, cautious 41.9 carena don’t care 236.20 carle farm-servant 36.29 etc.; fellow, man 51.36 etc. carline old woman, witch, hag 31.14 etc. carouse drink deeply 257.22,349.21 carse stretch oflow flood land along the banks of some Scottish rivers 284.12 cart-aver cart horse 36.29,36.31, 328.29 cart-rape cart-rope 327.16 casque helmet, military head-piece 38.39 cat-and-nine-tails whip with nine knotted lashes used for punishment at sea 328.20 catch-word word caught up and re­ peated 339.30 cateran Highland robber 42.38 cauld cold 41.21,89.11 caulk stop up the seams of a ship by driving in oakum etc. and covering with melted pitch or resin 362.28 caup wooden bowl for containing food 33.6 causeyed paved with cobble stones 139.1 cear seal up in lead etc. in a coffin 264.17 cearments wrappings for the dead, grave clothes 239.6–7,241.13 celt stone object like an axe or chisel of an unknown purpose 259.29 (see note) certie faith, troth, general expression of surprise or emphasis 47.30 etc.

586

GLOSSARY

chaffer-whale round-lipped whale 97.6 chafing for heating or igniting 262.43,263.25,264.34 chamberlain factor or steward of a nobleman 10.19 etc. change-house inn, country tavern 38.32 chaplet wreath for the head, string of beads or necklace 144.13,170.27, 171.22,383.31 chapman itinerant dealer who travels about from place to place buying and selling 58.26 charge-note military notes sounded on an instrument to signal an attack 145.32 chase nautical the ship that is chased 163.5,292.5,366.8 chased ornamented with embossed work, engraved in relief287.32 chaser nautical a chase-gun, those guns removed to the chase-ports ahead or astern 79.21 cheese-toaster humorous sword 313.40 chield fellow 42.3 etc. choke-full, choak-full, choke full stuffed full, full to suffocation 127.27,165.4,368.14 church-beadle minor church official whose chief duty is to attend the minister but who may also officiate as grave-digger 354.12 churl rude, low-bred, miserly fellow 45.42,56.37,295.40; low-bred fel­ low 52.42 ci-devant French former 386.22 cinnamon-waters aromatic bever­ age prepared from cinnamon 31.28 clack-goose barnacle-goose 10.19 (see note) clag clog, obstruct with clay 324.36 claith cloth 76.34 clashes scandal, gossip 198.13 clavering adjective babbling, chatter­ ing, gossiping 41.29 clavering noun gossiping, chattering 31.23 clavers idle talk, gossip 59.5,198.13 clear-obscure see note to 207.14 cleugh ravine, cliff, narrow chasm with high rocky sides 288.38 clink verb sit or fall down suddenly 328.30

cloak-pin cloak-hook 170.22 clod-compellerfor 168.33, 168.34, 168.35 see note to 168.35–36 close-handed miserly 49.2 cloud-compeller see note to 168.35–36 clout mend, patch 314.30 club verb combine means for a com­ mon purpose 314.14,362.41 coal-heugh coal-seam 44.20,44.21, 44.22 cob Spanish dollars or pieces ofeight 295.41 coble small, flat-bottomed rowing boat 328.9 cockatrice derogatory prostitute, whore 294.35 cock-loft small, upper loft 289.42 cogfu’ full wooden bowl, usually one made of staves 41.23,41.27 collector collector of customs 347.33 comed come 73.23,233.6 comitia Roman assembly convened for the purpose ofelecting magis­ trates and passing laws 179.41 common open unenclosed land be­ longing to the members of a local community as a whole 35.42 commons daily fare, rations 33.17 (see note), 390.11 commonweal republic or democratic state 327.9 commoved disturbed, agitated 52.18 companion-ladder nautical ladder leading from the deck to a cabin, ladder by which officers descend from and ascend to the quarter­ deck 332.32 compassionate regard or treat with compassion or pity 203.10,378.25 compeer associate, companion 388.22 conclusions see note to 36.7 consort ship sailing in company with another 81.15 etc. conster construe, interpret 338.13 copartment variant of compartment used particularly in relation to architecture 6.14 cope-stone coping stone, the stone at the top of a wall or roof, usually curved to throw off the rain 54.46 corpse-light lights which were held to presage death and which were seen in church-yards or on the

GLOSSARY route to be taken by a corpse on the way to the grave 225.8 (see note), 225.11,225.19,225.31 corsair privateering vessel or pirate ship 193.10; privateer or pirate 204.36,382.32,383.15 corslet piece of defensive armour covering the body 38.39 couldna couldn’t 76.18,78.28, 303.28 coulter iron blade in front of the share in a plough 32.15,49.25 coup exchange, barter 88.6 cover place-setting for a meal at a table 231.34,232.2 covey family of grouse keeping together during the first season 291.4 cowp overturn 328.9 coxcomb ludicrous name for the head 118.18; foolish, conceited, showy person 130.19,338.15 coxswain helmsman of a boat, per­ son on board ship having charge of a boat and its crew unless a superior person is present 304.36,384.40 cozening cheating, deceitful 300.32 crabbed difficult, awkward 338.12 crack-brained crazy, mad 85.37 cracker firecracker 129.38 crag’s-man one skilled in, or accus­ tomed to, climbing crags 74.33 craig1 neck, throat 235.43 craig2 rock, cliff, crag 118.24 etc. creel 88.39 (see note), 88.40 crib confined space for sleeping 154.2,285.38 croft small piece of arable land, small agricultural holding worked by a peasant tenant 138.36 croun any coin bearing the repres­ entation of a crown 77.7 crowd nautical carry an unusual num­ ber of sails for the sake of speed 360.27 crowdie mixture of oatmeal and cold water eaten raw 41.18 crusie, cruise, cruize for 156.13, 160.40,182.8 see note to 156.13 cry-mercy as if in appeal for mercy 134.7 culverin small canon 258.1 cumfrey water-plant, used as a cooler of the blood 107.8 cummer gossip, old woman, used as a

587

familiar or contemptuous address toawoman 31.11,31.21,204.11, 284.25 curch woman’s kerchief for covering the head 65.17 curtal see note to 276.4 curvet verb execute a curvet, a leap of a horse in which the fore-legs are raised and advanced, and the hind legs raised with a spring before the fore-legs reach the ground 103.36, 106.11 cusser stallion 106.23 custodier French custodian 380.2 cut verb slash 291.38; make off, get quickly away 222.4,314.3,328.41; perform in a grotesque fashion 322.24; divide (as in cutting cards) 335.32 cutter one ever ready to resort to weapons 174.4 cutty-axe short axe 336.38 daffput aside 314.21,390.26 daffadandilly ironic fine, pretty, pampered 366.21–22 daffing larking, fooling, frolic 86.13,86.15,86.16 daft crazy, foolish 42.17 etc. daiker saunter, stroll 74.24 dainty worthy, excellent 31.24; del­ icate of taste 41.22; handsome, pleasant, agreeable 77.16,140.34, 279.15 dang damn 36.1 danske Danish 153.29,269.21 darraign challenge, maintain a wager in vindication of a claim 72.4 (see note) dead-thraw death-throws, agony of death 41.26 deaffor 236.2 see note deal noun plank or board of fir-wood 206.16 deal verb distribute, bestow, share out 223.32 etc. death’s-head skull 238.40 deboshed debauched 344.19 de’il, deil devil 31.20 etc. delving digging 302.15 demurrage payment made in com­ pensation for detention of a vessel 153.31,256.10 denizen inhabitant, occupant 290.18 desperado reckless man, ready for any deed of lawlessness or violence

588

GLOSSARY

304.38,320.37,335.12 die toy, ornament 57.11 (see note) dike low wall made of stones or turf 302.15 ding knock 48.7 dinna don’t 72.11 etc. dirk stab with a dagger 328.8 dishclout dishcloth 46.15 divot turf, sod 231.42 dogger two-masted fishing vessel 86.4,256.30,376.22 doited stupid, confused in mind through age or drink 28.34 dole share, portion, perhaps of mourning clothes 223.32 dollar English name for the German thaler, a silver coin ofvarying value current from the 16th century on­ wards, also the name for various coins of the Scandinavian countries 87.8 etc. dominus Latin lord superior 279.39 Don Spanish tide and by extension a Spaniard 81.2,292.6,292.13, 292.15 donner German thunder 164.6 door-cheek door-post 48.2 dotard imbecile, stupid person 377.15 doting weak-minded, foolish 232.3 doubloon Spanish gold coin worth about 33s. to 36s. English (£1.65 to £1.80) c. 1600 303.22 etc. douce quiet, respectable 199.4 doun down 53.19,73.25,74.32, 328.30 douna doesn’t 234.35 dour hard, barren, infertile 36.6; stubborn, sullen, gloomy, severe 58.37 dower money or property which the wife brings to the husband on mar­ riage 37.25 dowie dark, melancholy, dismal 236.17 dowlas strong, coarse linen cloth 72.25 downa don’t 230.8 (see note) dowse put out, extinguish 316.37 dram small drink of alcohol 234.6 drammock mixture of raw oatmeal and cold water 41.9,41.18 drapping dropping 140.38 (see note) dree endure, bear 224.38

drouth thirst 58.27 drow demon of the mountains, fairy, goblin 15.10 etc. duds clothes, used humorously, ‘rags’, ragged clothing 76.40, 166.20,233.3 duergar northern demon, forerunner of the Drow 93.37 dulse edible species of sea-weed 271.23,271.24 dun verb make repeated demands upon, especially for money due 117.31 dun noun ancient hill-fortress 17.42, 253.19 dune done 199.11 dung knocked, beaten 277.35 (see note); push suddenly and forcibly 282.31 dunkirker privateer, pirate 332.26 dunt knock, bang, thump 231.43 Dutch-built derogatory roly-poly, heavy 321.41–42 dye colour, tinge 295.16 eclat French glitter, lustre, ostenta­ tion, publicity 36.40 e’en1 even, simply, without further ado 32.11 etc. e’en2 evening 260.20 een, e’en eyes 20.14 etc. egad a mild oath 117.43,331.40, 338.25,340.26 eld antiquity, old men 15.11 element water 9.32 elevated slightly intoxicated 338.28 ellwand measuring rod 58.15, 173.15,.278.39 embay lie within a bay 73.37 emprize undertaking, enterprise, especially of an adventurous or chivalrous nature 109.6,231.22, 240.26 enchased set with gems; ornamented with engraved figures or patterns 357.29 eneugh enough 73.34,78.33,237.14 enow enough 45.10,219.43 equals-aquals equally 156.12 equipoise balance, equilibrium 387.10 evanish vanish, disappear 301.35 evite avoid, escape from 326.7 fa’ befall 53.22,76.27; fall 59.19 fabellous fabulous 280.42 face promising aspect 365.40

GLOSSARY factor steward or agent who manages land for its proprietor 39.9 etc. fain glad, content, happy 31.12 etc.; eager, willing 27.6,236.32 fallow fellow 324.28 farcie a disease 149.30 (see note) farrer farther 206.35 fash trouble, vex, bother 132.28, 197.29,345.40 fashery trouble, annoyance 105.38 fathom a measure of6ft (1.8m) 67.43,145.14,145.43,335.22 fay fate 266.19 fear’d afraid 237.4 feck part, amount, portion 279.14 feckless ineffective, weak, paltry 191.6 ferlie wonder, marvel 27.6 ferly piece of surprising news 198.3 ferret verb drive out of a place 289.32 fey fated, pre-destined to death 45.20 etc. fiddle-squeak tune of the fiddle 87.26 Fifish crazy, eccentric 88.42 fillet head-band, ribbon or string for binding the hair 263.22 finner any type of small whale having a dorsal fin 15.20 fir-clog log of fir-wood 48.8 firelock musket furnished with a gun-lock in which sparks were pro­ duced to ignite the priming 200.37 first-rate nautical war vessel of the first rate of size and equipment, especially one carrying 74 to 120 guns 331.37,366.23 fishing-station place set up for fishing 44.25 flang1 flung 87.9 flang2 danced 87.26 flaw sudden burst or squall of wind 285.31 flax material from which the wick of a candle or lamp is made 253.6 flee noun fly 324.31,324.35 flee verb fly 47.33,280.40 flesh-pot derogatory luxurious living 45.31 flichter flutter, tremble, fly awk­ wardly or unsteadily 47.33 flinch1 slice blubber from the bones ofawhale 13.33,1343,157-8, 174.5 . flinch2 give way, draw back, sneak

589

off 288.41 fling dance 134.36 flinger dancer 86.26 florin name of a number of different coins, probably here the name for gold coins current on the continent 295.25 flotsome, floatsome law wreckage of a ship or its cargo that is found floating on the surface of the sea 110.38 (see note), 336.37 flounder small flat-fish 164.7 flummery food made by coagulation of wheat-flour or oatmeal 155.2 Foddenskencand subterranean people, Drows or Trows 93.42 forbye besides, in addition to 46.40, 235.37,235.42,301.42 forecastle nautical short raised deck at the fore-end of a vessel, in mer­ chant vessels the forward part of the vessel under the deck where the sailors lived 293.18 foremast-man sailor below the rank of a petty officer 165.35 forgie forgive 277.36 forpit fourth part of a peck, for meal equivalent to 1¾ % lbs (0.8 kg) 105.29 fosse abyss, chasm 255.20 found nautical equipped 81.18, 205.28,210.2,355.27 fowd, fowde magistrate, district judge 79.10 (see note) etc. frae from 39.15 etc. franklin landowner of free but not noble birth, ranking next below the gentry 34.35 freend friend 87.25,87.37,87 41 freendly friendly 87.37 free-trader smuggling vessel 321.17–18 freight verb hire to carry goods or passengers 219.9,291.20 freit charm, superstition, omen 163.21 fresh sober 98.40,237.14 frigate nautical in the Royal Navy a vessel carrying from 28 to 60 guns on the main deck and a raised quar­ ter-deck and forecastle 26.32 etc. frippery tawdry finery, second-hand clothes 300.25 frog fastenings for a coat, consisting of ornamental buttons and loops

590

GLOSSARY

157.2 (see note) fule fool 56.27 etc. funk kick up the heels 278.24 fur deep furrow or rut cut by the plough to act as a drain for surface water 139.1 furlong unit of measurement for land of varying amount, derived from the length of the furrow in the common field 264.29 gaberlunzie tinker, professional beggar40.11,51.39 gae go 41.8,44.32,58.37,204.12 gaffnautical spar used in ships to ex­ tend the fore-and-aft sails which are not set on stays 86.5 gaffer term of address used particu­ larly in relation to an old man 360.20 gain-descrying capable of discover­ ing or discerning gain from a dis­ tance 88.34 gainsay contradict, oppose 278.33 galdragon, gall-dragon witch, sor­ ceress 203.29 (see note), 261.24 galliot nautical small galley or boat propelled by sails and oars and used for swift navigation 86.5 gallon English measure of capacity, 4.55 litres 205.29,289.29 gambade leap or bound ofa horse 103.38 gamesome full of game or play, merry, sportive 251.31 gamesomeness the quality of being gamesome 83.4 gane gone 42.11 etc. gang go 42.3 etc. gangrel wandering, vagrant 49.6 gannet solan goose, large white-bod­ ied sea-bird that dives for fish 10.2, 43.3 gar make, compel 20.15,86.18, 230.16; cause, order something to be done 77.6 garland artificial coronet decked with ribbons displayed from the rigging ofa whaling vessel during a voyage I97.38,197.43,354.6,354.25 gascromh cas crom, a crook-handed spade used by Highlanders, a kind of foot-plough 132.12 gat got 74.33 gate, gait way, road, manner 27.3 etc. gathering see note to 60.32

gathering-peat large piece ofpeat or turf laid on the embers to keep a fire alive over a long period 43.16 gaud trick, prank, jest 83.4 gawd flimsy ornament, plaything, toy 99.34 gay good, great 85.36 gear property, goods 49.5,76.29, 197.23,284.24 Geneva gin 9.3 genus class, kind 368.43 ghaist ghost, spirit 276.18,276.19 gib iron-hook 313.40 gibbet-iron irons in which the body of a criminal were hung from a post after execution 179.10,348.24 giegive57.10, 59.8 gills flesh under the jaws and ears 74.39,76.17 gin if 42.17 gio long narrow steep-sided cleft or inlet that admits the sea 183.40, 183.45 girdle iron plate with hooped handle, suspended or placed over the fire and used for cooking scones, oat­ cakes, etc. 45.30 glamour magic, enchantment 53.14 glebe land belonging to the parish minister in right of his office 34.34, 35.1 glim noun candle, light 316.37 glim verb shine, gleam 372.1 glower gaze fixedly and intently 59.3 gob-box mouth 300.41 God-a-mercy oath God have mercy 294.30 golden-eye species of wild sea-duck 150.34 Good noun God good verb manure 138.36 goodman, gude-man, good man husband, male head ofa household 39.17 etc. goose tailor’s smoothing iron 117.42 gotten got 282.30 gouvemante, govemante house­ keeper 13.6–7 etc. gowd gold 58.38 gowden golden 59.8 gowk fool, half–witted person 41.20, 57.9,237.19 gowpen Scots Law perquisite allowed to a miller’s servant 105.37 (see note), 105.40

GLOSSARY graip three-pronged fork used in farming 156.14,158.37,159.18 grampus popular name for various dolphin- or seal-like creatures, the porpoise 226.15,292.7 grandsire suitable for a grandfather or old man 137.4 grapnell instrument with iron claws thrown by a rope to seize an object, especially an enemy ship 334.11 gravat cravat 329.9 graving-tool tool used by an en­ graver 20.1 grenadoe grenade 292.15 grieved sad, troubled 300.4,301.7 gripe grip 118.14,229.24,327.38, 368.23 grist com that is to be ground 105.41 groat coin worth 4 sterling d. (0.34P), a very small sum 46.2,336.30 grog drink consisting of spirits (ori­ ginally rum) and water 289.26, 315.43,316.5 groined furnished with groins, the ribs of stone covering the edge formed by the intersection of two vaults 354.5 ground-bait bait thrown to the bot­ tom ofthe water in order to lure fish to the spot 231.38–39 grue shiver, creep (of the flesh), shudder 72.29 grand noun background 87.3 grand verb grind 105.42 gude good 60.36 etc. Gude God 236.21,277.36 gudes goods, purchases 89.6 gudewife, goodwife wife, mistress of the household 39.17,47.39, 281.43 gudgeon small fresh-water fish, credulous, gullible person 328.38 gue old Norse two-stringed instru­ ment, superseded by the fiddle in the 18th century 19.24,143.31(see note), 220.28 guide treat, handle 88.41 guizard, guisard masker, mummer 19.28,51.36 gyre-carline witch, hag, hob–goblin 51.36 haaf1 deep sea fishing, especially for cod, ling, etc. 13.8 etc. haaf2 deep sea as opposed to coastal waters 57.43 etc.

591

haaf-fish larger seal or sea-calf 93.4–5 hadna hadn’t 72.29 haehave 31.21 etc. haena have not 199.9 haft fix, settle 44.29 hagalefhogalif, the sum a tenant had to pay to cut peat on another com­ mon if there was none on his own scatthold 13.38 (see note) hagbut harquebus, early type of port­ able gun 258.1 hag-ridden oppressed in mind, afflicted by the nightmare 166.28 haill, hail whole, entire 105.28, 107.24,170.8,233.18 halbert combination of spear and batde-axe 154.7,155.38 hald hold 31.22 half-dressed (of leather) half-pre­ pared, half-finished 50.13 half-pike small pike, having a shaft about half the length of the fullsized one 160.27,319.22 hallanshaker vagabond, tramp, rag­ ged, unkempt fellow 48.9 hall-house manor-house 38.5–6, 74.35 hallow sanctify 224.29 halse neck, throat 46.14 hame home 74.34 etc. hand nautical take in, furl (a sail) 326.14 handgranado hand-grenade, explos­ ive missile thrown by hand 367.21 hand-quern simple apparatus for grinding corn involving one mill­ stone turned upon another by hand 106.4 handspike wooden bar used as a lever, chiefly on board a ship 332.21,333.11 hank stick fast, entangle, catch 277.49 happer in a grinding mill, an inverted cone shaped receiver through which grain passes into the mill 106.5 har’st harvest 56.24 hasna hasn’t 204.15 hasp hank or skein ofyarn 48.39; latch 222.41 haud, hauld hold, maintain 48.37 etc. havings behaviour, manners, also

GLOSSARY 592 dress, clothing 45.36 hawkhen a feudal tax of a hen levied on each household in Orkney and Shetland for the upkeep of the king’s hawks 13.38 (see note) hawse nautical space between the head of the vessel and the anchors 81.3 hawser nautical large rope or small cable 336.37 haxa generic name for a witch or sor­ ceress 372.36 head decapitate, behead 14.16 head-piece figure-head of a ship 256.30; piece ofarmour for the head 259.22 hearth-stane hearth-stone 59.21, 279.10,279.17 heel hinder end of the base of a plough 138.44 helgafel Scandinavian consecrated mountain 183.25 hellicat wild, giddy 321.30 helyer, helier cave on the sea-shore into which the tide flows 175.43 etc. hempen humorous referring to the hangman’s halter made of hemp 290.2 hersell, hersel herself 76.29,165.36, 204.16,280.21 hie hurry, hasten 276.5,304.35 high-quartered for 86.4 see note himsel, himsell himself 74.32 etc. hinny, hinnie honey, a term ofen­ dearment 46.21,77.13 hirple limp, hobble 73.37 hirpling limping, hobbling 301.21 hirsel move or slide down awkwardly 74.32 hobblefigurative awkward or per­ plexing situation from which ex­ trication is difficult 316.31 hobby-horse wooden horse, used figuratively for a favourite pursuit or pastime 113.29,128.27,137.8, 256.39 hoffi.e. Jarlshof 232.33, and see note to 5.32 holden held 290.34 holm islet in a bay 315.39,384.20 honeycombed having perforations, especially abounding in little cells, as cast metal when not sound 322.14 horse-furniture the trappings of

horses 103.33 horse-pool pool for watering and washing horses 231.21 house-gear household furnishings and equipment 45.22 house-leek succulent herb with pink flowers and thick stem and leaves, growing commonly on walls and roofs of houses 53.4 house-rigging ridge or roofof a house 94.20 house-room accommodation in a house 48.15 house-side side of the house 204.15 housewifery housework, house­ keeping 40.32, 76.22,197.23, 284.24 hout exclamation tut, nonsense 46.7 etc. hove throw, toss, raise up above the surface 166.37 howfhaunt, shelter, place of refuge 27.28 howsomdever nevertheless, yet 317.14-156 etc. huckle-bone hip- or haunch-bone 107.8 huffhector, bully, scold 340.26 hurly-house large old house in a bad state of disrepair 287.43 hyperborean extremely northern 187.5 ilk1 each, every 86.13,105.39, 161.24 ilk3 of that name 30.13 ilka each, every 105.32 illfa’rd ill-favoured, poor in quality 42.4 imber-goose for 199.39,200.2, 200.14 see note to 199.39 immolated offered in sacrifice, killed as a victim 183.5 impost tax or duty, especially a cus­ toms-duty levied on merchandise 210.22 impressed enlisted, compelled to serve 86.9 inanition exhaustion through want ofnourishment 390.21 Indiaman East Indiaman, ship built especially for trade with the east 165.2 infang jurisdiction over a thief apprehended within a manor or territorial limits to which it was

GLOSSARY 593 attached 284.24 infield land of the farm which lies near or around the homestead 36.23 in-town cultivated land near the homestead 105.36 lol Yuletide, Christmas 20.3 iron-bound ofa coast faced with hard rocks 80.39 iron-stone various hard iron-ores containing admixtures of silica, clay, etc. 45.1 isna isn’t 73.34 itsell itself 302.10 jack flag by which the nationality of a ship is indicated 116.9,201.28, 291.29 jack-a-dandy contemptuous little pert or conceited fellow, contemptuous name for a fop 314.25 jack-a-lent figure ofa man set up to be pelted, butt for everyone to throw at, puppet at which boys threw sticks in Lent, blockhead 342.23 jack-boot large, strong boot coming above the knee 101.1 Jacobite supporter of the Stewart monarchs after the revolution of 1688210.31 Jacobus gold coin issued in 1612 by James I of England worth 24s. (£1.20)87.9 jade term of reprobation applied to a woman, hussy, minx 117.14, 342.29 jagger pedlar 45.35 etc. janty easy and sprighdy in manner, jaunty 287.25 Jarl Earl, Norse or Danish chieftain 17.43 etc. jarto Norse my dear, sweetheart 255.5 etc. jaud derogatory jade, hussy, minx 52.3,59.15 jessfalconry short strap fastened around the legs of a hawk 55.8 jetsome goods thrown overboard from a ship in distress and after­ wards washed ashore 110.38 (see note), 336.37 jointure the holding of property to the joint use of husband and wife, a dowry 125.32 jokul Norse yes, sir 277.7,277.43

jolterhead vast large head, also heavy and dull 274.9 joseph long riding coat with a small cape and buttons down the front 101.5,103.26 jougs instrument of public punish­ ment consisting of a hinged iron collar attached by a chain to a wall or post and locked round the neck of the criminal 48.36 judgement-weather weather as if betokening a sign of divine dis­ pleasure 58.29-30 judgment-chamber room in which judgements or trials are held 325.6 junket make merry, feast 316.26 jury-leg wooden leg 316.16 kail-pot large pot for boiling broth 102.16 kail-yard small plot where kail, cab­ bage or similar vegetables are grown 278.31 kain reckoning, penalty 117.43 note) keel-hauled haul a person under the keel ofa ship by lowering him on one side and hauling him across to the other side 335.39 keen biting, sharp, piercing 39.15 kempie champion, one given to fighting 261.23 kempion champion, warrior 49.27 ken know 44.30 etc. ken’d well-known, respected 30.37, 73.32,87.25,87.37 key low island, sand-bank, or reef, common in the West Indies 28.35, 215.5,215.11 kiempe Norse champion, warrior 193.10 kirk church 30.37 etc. kist chest, trunk 58.1 etc. kitchen anything eaten with dry or plain food to give it relish or savour 107.26 kittle difficult, ticklish, 104.43, 279.40 kittywake, kittiewake small sea­ gull 47.23,91.24 knack toy, trinket, trifle 299.8 knap speak in an affected manner 46.13 knave miller’s servant employed in carrying the sacks of meal 105.36 knaveship quantity of com or meal

594

GLOSSARY

payable to a miller’s servant as a small due levied on ground corn at a thirlagemill 105.37,105.40 knee-timber bent pieces of timber used in ship-building 316.20 knight-errantry actions of knights who wandered in search ofadven­ tures and chivalry 72.8 knot nautical nautical mile measured by number ofknots passing while the sand-glass is running, a unit of speed equal to about 1.15 statute mph 11.24,249.17 kraken fabulous sea-monster of enormous size 18.13 kreitz-dollar see note to 8.6 kyloe small, black Highland cattle 140.34 lad young man, fellow 27.3 etc. lad-bairn male child 31.21 lair learning, education 46.13,59.4 laird landowner who leased land to others to farm 7.6 etc. lalland lowland 282.15 lampit limpet, mollusc 271.28 lanceolated resembling a spear-head in shape, narrow and tapering to each end 238.36 land-louper adventurer 229.34 land-shark one who makes a liveli­ hood by playing upon seamen when ashore 80.19 lang long45.9 etc. langspiel kind ofharp 143.31 lantern adjective long, thin, giving a hollow appearance to the cheek 335.40 larboard side ofa ship to the left ofa person looking from the stern towards the bows 328.40 lass girl 20.9 etc. lassie young girl 168.23 latchet thong used to fasten a shoe 133.20 latineezed turned into proper Latin 280.7 lave rest, remainder 77.15,105.37, 165.37,302.11 lave verb lash, wash against 184.1, 331.32 law-right-man officer whose chief duty was the regulation of weights and measures and the regulation of justice 173.19,179.34 lawting supreme court in ancient

Shetland and Orkney 173.20, 179.33,179.41 lay place close to 332.6 lay-to nauticallie stationary with bows in the wind 332.12 lea tract of open ground, either meadow, pasture or arable land 35.43,145.24,145.38,266.19 league unit of measurement usually equal to three miles 61.13 etc. leaguer-lass female camp-follower 333.27 leddy lady 199.3, 199.5,204.11, 278.7 leddyship ladyship 204.11 lee nautical side of a ship turned away from the wind, the sheltered side 27.28,251.32,273.37 leed slandered 204.17 leeward the side turned away from the wind 227.42 legerdemain trickery, deception 382.5 let-a-be let alone 345.39,345.40 letter see note to 79.30–31 leviathan aquatic animal ofenorm­ ous size 18.17,157.19,160.27 lickit licked 280.27 liefsoon, rather, willingly 47.16 liege loyal, those bound in a feudal relationship 290.9 light-handed deft, nimble, carrying little 30.35–36 likena don’t like 204.11 liker more like 282.5 limmer contemptuous term for a woman of low status 53.21 line nautical the equator 201.16, 214.25; log-line, the line wound around a reel and used to ascertain the rate ofa ship’s motion 249.17 ling long, slender, edible fish 204.37, 292.2 linstock staffabout three feet (0.9m) long, having a pointed foot to stick in the deck, and a forked head to hold a lighted match 341.25 lint soft material for dressing wounds, any fluffy material 75.40,146.16 lispund unit of weight (about 28 lbs; 13 kg) used in Orkney and Shet­ land and in the Baltic trade list verb like, wish 41.19,74.43,82.27 loan part of a farm, ground or road­

GLOSSARY way which leads to or adjoins the house 31.10 loblolly-boy ship’s surgeon’s boy or attendant 316.14 lock Scots Law a small quantity of meal or com paid to the miller’s servant 105.37 (see note) lollop lounge or loll idly and awk­ wardly 376.21 long-boat largest boat belonging to a sailing vessel 211.1 loo love 20.12 loom tub or similar vessel 140.23 loop hangman’s noose 290.5 loose freedom, laxity 19.8 loun, loon young rascal, scoundrel 42.39,48.9 lowe flame, fire 253.7,253.42 lubber lazy fellow, clumsy seaman 314.4,377.39 lucubration study, meditation, par­ ticularly ofa pedantic nature 33.33, 156.7,183.13,390.6 lug ear 61.16,102.16,282.15 lum chimney 107.27 lying-in in childbed 325.36 main1 Spanish main 79.21 etc.; high sea 119.31 main2 verb moan, cry 232.33 main-brace brace attached to the main-yard 359.35 (see note) main-guard the body of guards 371.14–15 main-sail principal sail ofa ship 332.2,332.6 main-top top of the main-mast, a platform just above the head of the lower main-mast 305.15 mair more 31.23 etc. maist most 46.3,140.39,279.14, 280.4 maister mister 277.30,281.43, 282.11 major verb walk with an important air, strut 278.40 major adjective Latin of full age, out of one’s minority 30.19 (see note) malicho villainy 163.1 (see note) malison curse, malediction 49.1 man-of-war vessel equipped for war, especially one of the recog­ nised navy ofany country 135.2 etc. man-of-war’s-man sailor serving on a man-of-war 117.6 manse the house allocated to the

595

minister of a parish in Scotland 34.41,35.1 mantilla Spanish large veil worn over a woman’s head, and covering the shoulders 170.15,170.20 marine soldier serving on board a ship 378.11,379.11 markal head ofa plough 168.25 marque for 79.31 see note to 79.30–31 marry why! to be sure! 98.9 masking-fat mashing–vat, vat for mixing malt with warm water to form wort for the purpose of brew­ ing 236.40–237.1 mattock pick used for loosening hard ground 354.9 maun must 44.8 etc. meed reward 236.9 meet fitting, suitable 129.13,226.4, 309.41 Meinheer Dutch mister 8.4,8.5 mellay struggle, contest 43.37 meltith food, a meal 41.10,106.7 mend improve, better 76.29 mense propriety, decorum 73.34, menseful proper, discreet, sensible 225.41 mercat market 290.34 merchantman vessel of the mercant­ ile marine 334.15 mercurial sprightly, ready-witted 281.6 meridiem Latin for 317.2 see note merk1 unit of land measurement varying between one and two acres according to the productivity of the land 10.43 (see note), 12.14; a variable measurement of weight of dry ingredients, butter or oil equi­ valent to 1/24 of a lispund or roughly 1.36 lb (0.6 kg) by 1779 173.18,241.6 merk2 a monetary value equivalent to % 2/3 of the pound Scots or 1s. 1½ d. sterling (5p) by the 18th century 30.18,56.27 mess1 serving of food, quantity of meat sufficient to make a dish 282.10 mess2 master, applied specifically to a clergyman holding the degree of Master ofArts from a university 31.22 meum Latin mine 390.2

596

GLOSSARY

miching skulking 163.1 (see note) milksop effeminate spiritless man, one wanting in courage 342.23 mill-eye opening in the runner of a mill through which the meal escapes 105.29 misca’ decry, malign 278.36 misericordia Latin mercy 292.16 moidore gold coin ofPortugal worth 27s. sterling (£1.35) 292.8,292.23 mold see note to 116.29 molendinarymill 105.24 monkey bottle, receptacle for liquor 366.33 (see note) mony many 41.22 etc. moss boggy place 60.14,252.31 mould-board that part of a plough which turns over the ground, the plough-breast 32.15 muckle, mickle much, great, big 59.13 etc; conceited, self-import­ ant 230.16 muleteer mule-driver 214.41,386.1 mullion vertical bar dividing the lights in a window, especially in Gothic architecture 238.36 multure due paid for grinding com 105.37 mum strong beer brewed from wheat and bitter herbs 155.1 mummery ridiculous ceremonial, play-acting 298.23,350.16–17 mummy pulpy substance or mass 71.38,300.24 mumping grimacing, assuming a sanctimonious aspect of counten­ ance 298.26 murrain plague, pestilence, a disease in cattle 268.21 mysell, mysel myself31.18 etc. na no 31.15 etc.; not 44.18 etc. nabob person of great wealth, espe­ cially one returned from India with a large fortune 14.36 nacket packed lunch consisting mainly of bread 101.43 nae no 31.16 etc.; nothing 44.8; not 232.33,324.32 naebody nobody 232.32,233.3 naething nothing 51.39 etc. naig nag, horse of any kind 45.35 nane none 44.7 etc. Nantz brandy 9.3 etc. napery linen used for household pur­ poses 89.19

napkin neckerchief 46.15,46.17 nathless nevertheless 101.30 neck-collar collar,figuratively a noose 290.2 needna needn’t 87.22,87.35 ne’er never 20.13 etc. ne’er-do-weel worthless, disreput­ able person 33.6–7 neger disparaging negro 317.1 neist next 47.41,61.2,281.41 nereid mythology daughter of Nereus, a sea-nymph 144.22,145.8, 147.12,176.12 new-fangled novel, innovative 49.24 nice fastidious, over-particular 30.25 nievefu’ handful, fistful 105.32 niggard miserly, sparing 7.35, 102.33,139.42 niggardly sparing, parsimonious, stingy 52.11,100.38 nixie female water-elf or waternymph 224.34,265.45 noodle stupid or silly person 285.22 Norman Northman 139.31,358.15 noup steep headland or promontory 183.39,183.43 nout cattle, particularly oxen, steers and heifers 45.37 o’ of 31.17 etc. Obi one who practises sorcery 297.7 (see note) objurgation sharp or severe rebuke, scolding 14.4 offing part of the visible sea distant from the shore 68.9 on see note to 70.34 on’t ofit 51.40 etc.; on it 89.13 etc. ony any 47.39 etc. oramus vow, prayer 59.13 (see note) orra occasional, spare 279.20 (see note) o’tofit44.18,44.19,105.37,156.13 ou exclamation oh 303.6 ounce unit of weight equivalent to the 16th part ofa pound (28g) 43.20, 370.13 outsells ourselves 59.20 outfang right of trying thieves taken outside of the feudal domain 284.24 out-taken except, apart 86.12 out-town duties for grinding payable to a mill by those outside the ‘toun’ or ‘sucken’ ofa mill 105.36 over-weening conceited, over con-

GLOSSARY fident in one’s own opinions 382.4 ower over 20.11 etc. owerlay, owrelay cravat, neck-tie, scarf46.16,75.8,89.11,229.38 owsen oxen 31.15 etc. packing fraudulent dealing or con­ triving 323.11,346.34 (see notes) packman man who travels about car­ rying goods in a pack for sale, ped­ lar 34.17,40.12 paction bargain, agreement 282.24 painter nautical rope attached to the bow ofa boat for making it fast to a ship 297.30 palaver conference, negotiation 322.27 palmetto small species of palm 218.27 paly ofa pale aspect 21.35 pandaemonium centre of vice or wickedness 315.24 (see note) parcel-musician part-musician, musician to some degree 23.14 (see note) parritch porridge 41.8,41.27 partan common edible crab 73.5 pate head 298.23 pawky shrewd, tricky 20.14 pea-cod pea-pod 282.32 peat-moss peat-bog 64.29,109.13 peeling pillaging, robbing 323.11, 346.33 (see notes) peery inquisitive, prying, suspicious 288.26 Peghts Picts, the ancient inhabitants ofScotland36.13 peltrie fur-skins, undressed animal skins 87.43 pennon the long, pointed streamer of a ship 291.30 peregrination travelling from place to place 60.14 perquisition search, investigation 44.25 philomath astrologer, prognostic­ ator 33.34-35 philosophical used in the study of natural philosophy, science 12.32 piafequestrian step with high, slow, showy action 104.2 pickle nautical rub salt or vinegar on the back after flogging as a punish­ ment 141.23,328.21,386.6-7 picts-house structures attributed to the ancient Picts 253.19

597

piece snack ofbread, sandwich 58.20 pinch-commons one who stints the supply of food 52.11 pining languishing, wasting away, suffering pain and distress 46.33 pinnace small, light vessel usually in attendance ofa larger vessel 128.4 (see note), 129.12,130.43,366.8 pint Scottish pint, equivalent to approximately 3 imperial pints (1.7 litres) 134.33,156.13 pint-bumper drink of a pint-meas­ ure 135.9 pistole gold coin worth c. 1600 be­ tween 16s. 6d. and 18s. (82½ and 9op) 80.23,81.6 pistolet small fire-arm 325.9 pitput 156.10,156.14 pixie supernatural being akin to a fairy 224.33 plaid long piece of woven cloth often of a chequered or tartan pattern worn in Scotland in place ofa cloak 30.8,170.12 plaister noun plaster 281.15 plaister verb plaster 253.39 planta-cruive, plantie-cruive kit­ chen-garden enclosure or small patch of ground for cultivating vegetables 12.3 (see note), 229.4, 278.31 pleugh plough 31.16 etc. pleugh-sock ploughshare 168.25 plough-graith harness and equip­ ment for the plough 36.25 plough-staffstaff ending in a small spade or shovel used by the plough­ man to clear the coulter and mould­ board from earth, roots, weeds etc. 31.29 plumefalconry pluck the feathers of its prey 327.41 pole-axe axe used as a weapon of war and by sailors for boarding, resist­ ing boarders, cutting ropes etc. 292.15,318.16 poop hindmost part of a ship, the stern 321.36 pop pistol 366.6 pop-gun child’s toy gun, small, inef­ fectual fire-arm 83.40 portague Portuguese gold coin worth c. 1600 between £3 5s. and £410s. (£3.25 and £4.50) 80.23, 82.12 portal doorway, gate 208.3,256.7

598

GLOSSARY

port-bound detained in port by con­ trary winds or foul weather 65.20 potent powerful 290.13 potential powerful, commanding 201.15 (see note) pottage oatmeal porridge 155.2 pouch noun pocket 44.31,75.14,328.28 pouch verb pocket, steal, make off with 59.8 preceesely precisely 87.21,89.4 preceptor one who instructs, a teacher 24.25 prelacy system of church government by prelates or bishops of lordly rank 34.42 press verb force to serve 140.28, 333.33. pressing punishment of death by pressing executed upon those who would not plead 4.1 (see note) prithee I pray you 293.26,317.28, 362.21,376.4 privateer armed vessel owned by pri­ vate persons and authorised to cap­ ture merchant shipping of a hostile nation 149.32; crew or officer of such a vessel 373.10 privateering following the occupa­ tion of a privateer 79.32,248.42 pro Latin for 168.35 professional specialised 123.28 prolocutor spokesman 199.19 proverb verb furnished or provided with a proverb 137.4 provost in Scotland the title of the head of a municipal corporation or burgh, chief magistrate 299.36 etc. puir poor 45.28 etc. punch-kettle vessel for mixing punch, beverage consisting of wine and spirits mixed with boiling water 163.24 pund pound Scots, equivalent to 1s. sterling (5p) 56.25; the English pound or pound sterling 236.1 pu’pit pulpit 31.18,76.31 purse-penny coin kept in the purse for luck 59.10 putrem Latin crumbling 33.25,33. 43 pye-hole eyelet 189.11 pythoness woman supposedly having the power of divination or soothsay­ ing, a witch 49.39 etc. quaigh small wooden cup or drinking

bowl with two horizontal projec­ tions from the rim as handles 56.33 quarter-deck part of the upper deck which extends between the stern and the after-mast, used as a prom­ enade by the superior officers 141.27 etc. quarter-master nautical petty officer who attends to steering the ship, the binnacle, stowing the hold etc. 291.34 etc. quean derogatory bold, malevolent, shameless woman, wench 13.30, 53.13 quite see notes to 61.5,324.26 quo’ say, speak 39.17 race strong current in the sea or a river 218.17 race-week see note to 154.17 rack-weed what is cast up by the sea, wrack (a kind of seaweed) 97.19 raddman councillor in the courts of the fowds in Orkney and Shetland 179.33. rake noun idle dissipated man of fash­ ion 287.25 rake verb sweep with shot 377.36 randy, randie coarse, aggressive, dissipated 53.12,59.6 rank strong, formidable, violent 199.4,337.19 ranzelar, ranzelman parish con­ stable, one of his duties being to ‘rancel’ or search for stolen goods 14.20 (see note) etc. rape1 plant grown as food for cattle 35.43 rape2 rope 281.37 rash rush, plant having straight naked stems or stalks 20.11 ratlin nautical thin rope 73.33 ravelled tangled, confused 48.39 ravening voracious, going about in search of food 60.4 reave take away (life), steal violently 184.4 reckoning bill, account, amount due 391.37 redding-kame wide-toothed comb for the hair 138.43 rede counsel, advice 236.18 redoubted feared, reverenced 54.13, 200.16 reefnautical shorten a topmast by lowering, or a bowsprit by sliding

GLOSSARY inboard, or (to reduce the extent) roll up and secure part of a sail 326.14 reek smoke 53.30,107.27 reeve attach a rope by passing it through a ring or block or by tying it round something 210.23,386.40 reft robbed 201.19 rental amount received in rent 125.31 resett refuge, shelter, particularly when given to thieves and criminals 42.43 rheumatize rheumatism 73.14 rib slang wife 298.34 rigging ridge or roof of a building used figuratively for the head 61.22 rigging-loft long room where rig­ ging is fitted to be in readiness for a ship 169.39,17136,219.4 ritt scratch, incision 138.43 riva cleft in a rock 68.34,74.40, 296.40 rock distaff, spindle 76.32 rock-cod, rock-cod-fish cod found on rocky sea-bottoms or ledges 13.23,14.25–26 rokelay short cloak 75.8 rood unit of land measurement of varying size 6.23 roof-tree main beam or ridge-pole of a roof 94.20,135.8 roose praise, commend 163.38 roost strong and boisterous tidal race caused by the meeting of conflicting currents 5.20 etc. round small round room (in a turret) 286.37 roundel1 roundeau, refrain 276.9 roundel2 round turret 280.40 rout fuss, clamour 132.40 rub obstacle, impediment 323.3 rumbo strong punch made mainly of rum 364.33 rummer large drinking-glass 27.37, 128.2 (see note) runic written in runes, characters of the earliest Teutonic alphabet used by the Scandinavians and AngloSaxons 50.18 (see note) etc. rush rush-light 137.3 rusty slang surly, morose 362.3 (see note) saamsame 86.43,325.17 sackless guiltless, innocent 95.11

599

sae so 41.21 etc. saft soft 88.31 saga narrative composition in prose written in Iceland and Norway in the middle ages 17.29 etc. sain bless 236.21,284.26 sair piteously, grievously 53.17, 204.17,237.16; sorry, piteous 73.14; sore, aching 237.3; harsh, harshly 277.32,325.13 sall shall 31.16 etc. saloon large apartment or hall, par­ ticularly one adapted for public assembly 110.27,135.13, salute kiss 110.4,110.6,219.27 samphire-gatherer one who gathers samphire, an edible succu­ lent plant growing among rocks and on salt-marches 17.18 (see note) sand-flag sand-flagstone, flat slab of any fine-grained rock that may be split into flagstone 66.4 sandie-lavrock ringed plover 101.21 sang song 77.6 saturnine cold, gloomy 10.39 saunt saint 59.4,86.29,234.1 saut salt 98.20,98.34 saw saying, maxim 163.33 sax six 42.2,88.3 scald ancient Scandinavian or Ice­ landic bard or poet 15.11 (see note) etc. ’scape, scape escape 200.5,334.25 scarfcormorant 11.27 (see note), 26.30,43.3 scart scratch 138.42 scat, scatt land tax exacted in Zetland 13.37 (see note), 167.28,210.22 scathold portion of hill or moorland assigned to each township as com­ mon land in Orkney and Shetland 12.4,116.33 scaulding scolding, quarrelsome 52.3 scaur precipitous bank, rock, cliff 113.8 scaw promontory 82.15,88.3 Schiedamm variety of gin called after the town in Holland where it is distilled 154.39 schooner-rigged having two or more masts of equal height, and with no square sails 165.18 (see note)

6oo

GLOSSARY

schwartz-beer German black-beer 155.1 sclate-stane thin piece of slate-like stone that splits easily 57.12, 234.38–39 sconcejocular the head 334.40 score customer’s account for goods bought on credit 118.5 (see note) scourie, scowrie young of any kind of gull 47.12,239.24,256.39 screech-owl discordant 336.6–7 scutcheon escutcheon, shield on which a coat of arms is depicted 240.21 scuttle cut a hole in the bottom of a vessel for the purpose of sinking her, smash 334.39 sea-bow bow with a nautical air 321.40,344.6–7 sea-calfcommon name for the seal, especially the common seal 93.35, 232.30 sea-dog common or harbour seal, a dog-fish, small shark 199.41 sea-king piratical Scandinavian chief who in the 9th and succeeding centuries ravaged the coasts of Eur­ ope 17.36 etc. sealchie common or grey seal 260.29,277.4 sealgh common or grey seal 42.31, 87.22,105.2 seal mark or sign of office, especially the symbol of the position of Lord Chancellor or of Secretary of State 294.10 sea-mew sea-gull of any type 101.11 sea-snake sea-monster of serpentine form and great length frequently reported to have been seen at sea 18.21,145.31 (see note) seenteen-hundred seventeen-hundred 72.22 (see note), 72.24 self-devoted devoted, dedicated to one’s self 110.5 sell self 105.30,280.20 serfslave, servant 272.34 serous consisting of or containing serum 56.34 setting becoming, befitting 88.9 several enclosed field (as opposed to an open common) 35.43 shafted ornamented with long, slen­ der columns 287.1 shallop boat propelled by sails or oars

for use in shallow waters 146.5, 214.36 shamey see note to 44.7 sheer-hulk hulk or body of an old disused ship, especially one fitted with shears, devices for raising and fixing masts 66.29 sheer-water, shear-water a bird of the genus puffinus 11.28 (see note), 26.30 sheet rope (or chain) attached to either end of a square sail and used to alter its direction 281.39,334.37, 336-1,377-36 sheeted sheet-lead used to bury the dead 241.7 shelfledge ofrock 178.29 shell-drake bird of the duck tribe, frequenting sandy coasts and re­ markable for its bright and varie­ gated colouring 26.29 sheltie Shetland pony 42.36 etc. shelves sandbanks or submerged rocks 265.19 sheriff-officer official who carries out the warrants of a sheriff, par­ ticularly with regard to debt etc. 1305 shilling coin worth 12^. (5p) ster­ ling, the Scots shilling was worth l/u of the shilling sterling by 1700 12.5,14.28,87.9,234.38 shingle pieces of wooden board 205.5,27517 shingle-roofing comprised of thin pieces of wood used as roof tiles 227.31 ship-board planks of a ship 110.42 shoal shallow, particularly of water shallow above a sand-bank or bar 159-35,357-15 shoal-water shallow water above a sand-bank or bar 377.14 shogh for 283.38 see note shore-fishings rights to fishing from the shore 24.8 shot verb load (usually a firearm) 313-27 shot noun piece of ground usually tilled in rotation 278.32 shot-hole small hole in a fortified wall through which to shoot 257.42, 272.30 shot-window small window, fre­ quently on a staircase, closed by

GLOSSARY hinged wooden shutters 42.13 shoulder verb place a weapon upon the shoulder 319.36 shouldna shouldn’t 39.21,173.40 shoupeltin triton 144.11 shouther shoulder 31.22,59.14 shroud set of ropes, leading from the head of a mast and serving to relieve the latter of lateral strain 336.1 sic such 41.28 etc. siccan such 42.6 etc. sicker sure, safe, steady 31.23 sicklike such like 45.11 siever street gutter, sewer 139.1 (see note) siller silver, money 42.10 etc. sillock, silloch a young coal-fish (saithe) at a certain stage of its first year 10.2 (see note) etc. simple noun plant or herb employed for medicinal purposes 187.20, 298.19 singlefalconry middle or outer claw on the foot of a falcon 201.7 sirrah term of address suggesting contempt, and authority on the part of the speaker 302.1 sixpence, sixpenny coin worth 6d. (2.5p) 12.4,59.14 sixty-four see note to 313.11 skate large, flat, cartilaginous fish much used for food 206.26 skelping hearty, vigorous, active 278.36 skeo, skio hut for drying fish 104.29, 205.6,274.22,285.35 skep1 straw bee-hive 324.17,324.28, 324.30,324.35 skep2 work, housework 39.19,40.42 skerry isolated rock or islet in the sea 118.24 etc. skiffsmall sea-going boat adapted for rowing and sailing, especially one attached to a ship and used for communication, transport, etc. 18.21 etc. skilling Danish coin worth a farthing (¼d.),i.e. of very little value 104.33 skirl scream, squeal, shriek 43.4, 280.22,282.10,282.12 skua-gull predatory gull that breeds in Shetland, the largest European species 11.28 skudler the leader of the band of maskers, dancers or guizards

601

19.30,86.37 slack-jaw tiresome or impertinent talk 330.10 sladeslid279.17 slap gap, breach in a wall or hedge 60.13 slasher fighter, bully 174.4 slashing for 131.26 see note; spir­ ited, dashing 3 52.12 slew nautical swing round 328.40, 340.1 slip nautical allow an anchor to run out when quitting an anchorage in haste 314.3 slocken moisten 41.17–18 sloop small ship–of–war carrying guns on the upper deck only 86.7 etc. sma’ small 58.4 etc.; for 165.36 see note small-beer beer ofa weak, poor or inferior quality 107.6–7 small-sword light sword tapering gradually from the hilt to the point and often used in fencing 287.15 smeak killed by smoke 324.38 sneak pitiful person 271.28 sneck latch of the door 40.14 sniggle catch by dropping bait into the (eel’s) lurking place 251.1 sock plough-share 32.14,138.43 solan-goose gannet, large white­ bodied sea-bird that dives for fish 324–31 sole-clout thick plate of cast metal attached to that part of the plough which runs on the ground 138.44 solus Latin alone 340.2 sombrero broad-brimmed hat of soft material, common in Spain and Spanish America 215.33 sonsy handsome, impressive 76.27 sooth truth 75.7 sorn exact free quarters and mainten­ ance by violence or threats, live at the expense of others, scrounge 49.6 sorner vagabond, one who quarters himself upon others, sponger 42.38,42.43,46.35,278.6 sough hum (a tune), murmur 139.5 spae foretell, prophesy 198.2,199.9 spae-woman fortune-teller, prophet 261.24–25 spake spoke 61.1,61.4

602

GLOSSARY

specie coin, money 387.35 speir, spier inquire, ask 235.24, 236.8 speiring inquiry, investigation 232.31 spending-siller spending money, money used and available for spending 59.11 spiracle air-hole or air-shaft 354.1 spit small, low point of land project­ ing into the water, long, narrow reef extending from the shore 68.13, 69.8,207.30,216.8 splice nautical join ropes to form one continuous length 359.34 (see note) spreacherie odds and ends, espe­ cially those which have been pur­ loined 73.23 spring tune upon a musical instru­ ment, especially a quick or lively dance tune 282.14 spring-tide tide occurring on the days shortly after the new and full moon when the high-water level reaches its maximum 192.26 spruce-beer beer from Prussia, fer­ mented beverage made with an ex­ tract from the leaves and branches of the spruce fir 302.42 spunk match, torch 60.32 spurn reject with contempt, scorn 357.2 square-rigged nautical having yards and sails placed across the masts in contrast to fore and aft 377.8 squib common fire-work, ending in a slight explosion 129.38 squire-errant squire or young man who travels about in search of ad­ ventures 298.26 stable-fork fork used in the stable 156.19 stack noun isolated, precipitous rock rising out of the sea 178.29,183.39, 183.42,255.19 staig young, unbroken horse 280.14 standing-rigging nautical fixed part ofa vessel’s rigging which serves as a support for the masts and is not hauled upon 130.21 stane stone 279.12 stap stop 280.24; for 360.15 see note stark rigid 225.15 start sudden invasion 270.18

station place where men are sta­ tioned and apparatus set up for some particular kind of work 205.3,205.9,305.43; roadstead, port, harbour 385.18 stave verse or stanza ofa poem, song etc. 285.42,286.2 stays see notes for 316.25,377.39 steeple-crowned see note to 101.8 steersman one who steers a boat or ship 84.2,334.37–8 stentorian very loud and far-reach­ ing 131.31,204.19 stercorated manured with dung 34.7 stem-post upright beam, rising from the after end of the keel ofa boat and supporting the rudder 364.38 stem-sheet nautical internal stem portion ofa boat 158.21 still-yard balance for weighing 85.39 (see note) stilt handle of the plough 31.17 etc. stirrup-cup parting glass 27.34, 230.14 stithy anvil 48.37 stiver small coin of little value from the Low Countries 249.1 stock1 see note to 80.20 stock2 side of a bed away from the wall 98.7 stock-fish dried cod and ling 139.41,163.26,171.8,292.2 stock-purse fund kept for the com­ mon purposes ofa group of persons 314.39 stocks framework on which a boat is supported while under construc­ tion 335.36 stomacher ornamental covering for the chest worn by women under the lacing of the bodice 169.19 stop see note to 365.25 stopper slang stop, put the stopper on 365.28 stot steer, young bullock 140.42 straik normal portion of malt for brewing 32.26 stray Law see note to 82.33 streak stretch, measure oneself with 87.3 stretcher wooden bar, rod 304.41 striddle straddle 31.17 strike see note to 261.19 stroller wandering actor 289.6, 89.13,298.31,334.16

GLOSSARY strophe stanza, verse 56.10 subacid moderately acid 56.34 sucken jurisdiction attaching to a mill under feudal tenure, the compuls­ ory relationship between a tenant and a particular mill for grinding corn 105.34 suddenly all of a sudden 280.6 suld should 44.20 etc. sumph stupid, simple fellow, block­ head 59.3 sumpter-pony baggage-pony, beast ofburden274.16 sunder part, separate 297.37 sune soon 89.19; see note for 45.28 suspiration sigh, deep breath 106.35 swab swabber, one of a ship’s crew whose business it was to clean the decks, a term of abuse or contempt 359.34 swabie great black-backed gull 91.23 swain young country gallant, lover 268.17 swalled swollen 73.5 swan-shot large size of shot used for shooting swans 80.8,80.22,91.19 swart dark, dusky 224.32 swartback great black-backed gull 91.23,93.3 swatter swim quickly and awkwardly, splash, flounder 282.2 swelchie whirlpool in the sea, specif­ ically the eddies and swirls in the Pentland Firth 272.11 sword-dance for 19.22,26.15, 141.36,143.19 see note to 19.22 syne since, ago 77.5 etc.; for 45.28 see note syren fabulous creature that had the power through her song of drawing men to their destruction 144.35 etc. tabernacle dwelling place 242.25 tablet small, smooth, inflexible or stiff sheet for writing upon, often car­ ried in the pocket and used for memoranda 386.29 tack1 nauticahopt used to attach the comer ofa lower sail to the side of a boat or ship 285.31,334.37,377.36 tack 2 nautical run a course obliquely against the wind 29.4,153.33; the direction achieved by doing this 377.37 tacksman middleman who leases

603

directly from the proprietor of the estate a large piece of land which he sublets as small farms 12.27 etc. tae the one 302.18 ta’en taken 41.9 etc. taffrail nautical aftermost portion of the stem-rail ofa ship 313.22, 340.3 taitlock, tuft 299.6 talent a monetary value of gold, silver etc. in Biblical times, used figurat­ ively as treasure, wealth 44.37 etc. tane the one 166.5 tangs tongs 46.9 tar-barrel barrel containing or which has contained tar frequently used to light bonfires and in die carrying out of capital punishment by burn­ ing 53.30 tattle chatter, gossip 191.29,355.43 tauldtold 321.24 tearing violent, reckless, full of ex­ citement and energy 362.9 teeming full, as ifready to give birth 311 tell’d told 88.2,198.7 Templar London barrister or other person occupying chambers in the inner or middle temple 133.40 tender1 a vessel accompanying a man-of-war, used for ferrying pro­ visions etc. 86.8 tender2figurative young woman 321.36 test make a will, execute a testament 59.9 thae those 86.20; these 236.6 thairm catgut, fiddle-strings 276.20, 282.13 theek cover the roof with thatch of straw, heather, rushes or the like 20.11 theft-boot hush money, taking of some payment or goods from a thief to secure him from legal prosecu­ tion 344.36 (see note to 34435–36) thegither together 49.5,53.19 thig beg 49.6 thigger common beggar 42.43,46.35 thirl obligation on a tenant to have his flour ground at a certain mill and to pay dues for its maintenance 105.34 thole undergo, endure, stand 41.19

GLOSSARY 604 thrawart cross-grained, perverse, contrary 173.40,173.42 three-score sixty 234.15–16 thunderbolt stone, chisel-like axe 259.25 thwart seat across a boat on which the rower sits 281.39 tight trim, neat, smart, lively 375.28 till to 31.14; at 87.5,87.6 till noun stiff, cold clay 138.47 tillage ploughed land being used for crops rather than pasturage 328.25 timersome fearful, timid 173.27 tint lost 301.31 tirracke arctic tern, common gull or kittiwake 91.24 ’tisitis 12.13 etc. tither other 166.5 tittie sister 57.8 tittle tattle empty chatter 257.33 toast for 161.26 see note tocher-good property given as dowry 45.21 toll-sell guildhall, place where mer­ chants assemble, tolbooth or ex­ change 79.34 ton unit for measuring the carrying capacity of a ship, originally the space occupied by a tun cask of wine 67.30 toom empty 61.20 toper hard drinker 135.5,335.17 topsail nautical sail set above the lower course, originally the upper­ most sail 54.42,116.9 torsk fish of the cod family resem­ bling the ling, usually dried 206.26 tother the other 166.5 tow1 fibres of wool or flax before spin­ ning 76.33 tow2 rope 98.26,168.15 town arable land and its associated cluster of houses and buildings 41.6,107.25 township community of farmers and tenants farming independently but with common grazing rights 6.36 etc. toy woman’s linen or woollen head­ dress hanging down over the shoul­ ders 40.36 traces draught ropes and chains of a horse’s harness 138.47 trade-wind wind that blows con­ stantly towards the equator from

about the 13th parallels north and south 366.40 train-oil oil obtained by boiling the blubber of whales 156.18 trap colloquial deceitful practice, trickery 30.31 treasure-trove treasure, or anything of the nature of treasure, found in the ground or other place the owner of which is unknown 279.29 trencher-work attendance with plates of food 273.35 trim ofa boat get ready to set sail 80.25,82.31,104.43,252.1 trindle cog- or lantern-wheel in the gearing machinery ofa mill 106.5 Trinidado tobacco from Trinidad 289.28; Trinidad 292.6 triton Greek mythology merman 135.39 etc. trock verb barter, bargain 88.7 troth in truth, upon my word 44.6 etc. troth-plight solemn promise or en­ gagement ofmarriage or betrothal 3.16 (see note), 4.8 trow noun demon of the mountains and the sea, fairy, troll 15.10 etc. trow verb trust, have confidence, be­ lieve 41.9 etc. truckle-bed low bed running on truckles or castors and pushed be­ neath a real bed when not in use 375.40 trunk-hose full bag-like breeches covering the hips and upper thighs 215.34 try for 36.7 see note tuum Latin yours 390.2 twa two 20.9 etc. twal twelve 45.40 twelvemonth year41.27,113.35, 122.24–5,170.8 twiscar tool for cutting peats 108.43 twist combine yams into a thread or cord by spinning, used figuratively ofa tale or story 117.6 two-penny weak ale or beer sold at two pence the Scots pint 32.24 udal system of free-hold tenure found in Scandinavia, Orkney and Shetland founded not upon feudal tenure but on the payment ofa tax called Skatt and upon ownership for thirty years or three generations 179.28

GLOSSARY udaller freehold proprietor some­ times also a peasant noble holding land under old Norwegian law rather than under feudal tenure 11.1 etc. ugsome frightful, horrible, repulsive 279.42 ulzieoil 156.12,158.32 umbrage displeasure, annoyance 168.18,339.23 umquhile late, deceased 30.13, 301.25 un dialect him 36.2 uncanny dangerous, not quite sane, not safe to meddle with being in league with supernatural forces 46.6,46.9 unce ounce, unit of measurement of weight equivalent to 28g 41.8 unco strange, unusual 47.39,233.2, 235.40 unguent ointment, salve 306.15 unhalsed unhailed, unsaluted 196.36 unstercorated not manured 34.7–8 unsunned not exposed or accessible to the sun 344.30 ure unit of land measurement giving the rent of ⅛ part of a merk 10.43 (see note) usquebaugh whisky 140.6,154.38 vail doff or lower as a sign of respect 5443 valkyriur fatal virgins, ‘chusers of the slain’ 92.22 (see note) vapour verb act in a pretentious or high-flown manner, swagger, to talk in fantastic, grandiloquent manner 337.20 vapours morbid condition supposed to be caused by exhalations de­ veloped in the body, depression of spirits 61.36 victual verb supply a ship with food to last for some time 330.21,359.33 vifda dried mutton or beef 270.37 (see note), 277.6 vi-king Scandinavian adventurer who practised piracy at sea and de­ predations on land in northern and western Europe from 8th to 11th centuries 193.10 vitals parts of the human body essen­ tial to life see notes to 360.15 and 365.25 vivers victuals, food 41.19,201.20

605

voe inlet of the sea, deep bay or long creek 10.23 (see note) etc. voluspa prophetess, sybil 181.1, 195.26,196.32 vulnerary useful in healing wounds, having curative properties 305.37 wa’wall 237.1 wab web, length of woven fabric 88.14 wad, wald would 31.21 etc. wadmaal coarse, homespun, woollen cloth 50.5 etc. wadna wouldn’t 88.8 etc. wae woeful, sad 297.37 wag mischievous young man, habitual joker 129.37 waiffLaw property found ownerless and which, ifunclaimed within a fixed period, falls to the lord of the manor 82.33 (see note) wain waggon, large, open cart 157.28,157.41 wakerife wakeful, watchful 37.12 wall-eyes eyes of different hues or of a divergent squint exposing an ex­ cessive portion of the white of the eye 256.17 wallies ornament, trinket, toy 44.29, 165.14 wan won 156.15 ward verb guard, defend 267.28 wark work 46.8 etc. warld world 47.41,76.35,77.3,87.40 warldly worldly 86.31,284.24 warse worse 165.36,204.16 warstworst31.19 wasna wasn’t 232.28 wassail revelling, riotous festivity 129.9,138.31,270.11 wasser German water 154.40 wat adjective wet 300.5 wat verb know 86.43 watch-cloak thick, heavy cloak worn by watchmen, soldiers and seamen when on duty in bad weather 369.25 water-dragon see note to 139.39 water-horse fabled water-spirit appearing in the form ofa horse 145.28 wattle tax exacted originally as a re­ quirement to entertain the fowd (chief judge) on his annual journey through the islands, later com­ muted to a monetary payment

606

GLOSSARY

13.37 (see note), 167.28,210.22 waur worse 31.24,48.13,73.34,88.8 waw wave, the direct onward course 0fthetide272.11 wawl look wildly, roll the eyes 280.10 weal well-being 95.43,232.35,263.8, 297.23 wear nautical bring a ship around bringing her stem to windward 115.26 wearyfu’ harsh, inclement, trying 233.15 weather nautical to sail to the wind­ ward of an object, cape, cliff etc. 66.31 weather-gaw imperfect rainbow thought to presage storm 27.13 wee small, little 117.19,166.6 weel well 44.29 etc. weeping dripping, rainy 30.6 weigh heave up (an anchor) from the ground before sailing 81.8,81.15, 364.39,365.38 weird noun destiny, fate 224.28, 266.4 welk fade, disappear 18.17 well whirlpool, circular eddy 272.11, 357.38,357.39,357.41 well-barrelled rotund, fat 247.17 well-found fully furnished or equipped 248.37 welt narrow strip of material put on the edge of a garment as a border, binding or hem 299.9 wha, whae who 44.30 etc. whaaling whaling 42.4 whan when 98.29 whare where 156.11 wheen, whin a number of, a few 76.39,105.39,166.20,233.2 whigamore Presbyterian or Coven­ anter 31.14 whiggery disparaging name for the beliefs of Scottish Presbyterians 31.20 whiles times 98.43,230.3 whilk noun whelk, an edible shell­ fish 271.28 whilkpronoun which 74.32 etc. whinger dirk, dagger, short stabbing sword 42.5 whip-cord thin, tough hempen cord 3.34 whirligig child’s spinning toy such as a miniature windmill 105.43;

fickle, giddy or flighty person 365.37 whisht exclamation be quiet! keep silent! 41.29,58.39 whittie-whattie mutter, talk frivol­ ously 57.9 whittle large knife, usually worn at the belt 168.23 whomle turn over, upturn 281.42, 281.43 wi’ with 20.11 etc. wick open bight or inlet of the sea, a small bay 183.40,183.44 wicket small door or gate placed in or beside a large one to allow access when the main gate or door is closed 345.42 wife woman 59.6 etc. wight living being, creature 200.8 wile verb induce, bring a person to or from a place by a trick or crafty means 74.34,76.31 wimple garment of linen or silk worn by women, so folded as to envelop the head, chin, sides of the face and neck 25.19 win earn 34.20,59.16; for 236.34 see note wind-bill accommodation bill 36.35 (see note) windel-straw natural grass with long thin stalks 26.37 windfa’ windfall 279.15 windward situated towards the dir­ ection from which the wind blows, facing the wind 385.18 winna won’t 73.33,86.41,237.6 withers highest part of the back, lying between the shoulder blades 13.39 withy branch of a willow used for tying and binding, particularly as a halter 98.23 wittol contented cuckold, fool, half­ witted person 337.30 wold elevated tract of open country or moorland 247.16 woo’ wool 299.6,299.9 worn for 301.35 see note wot know 43.11 etc. wowfderanged in one’s wits, crazy 88.40 wrack shipwreck, wreckage 58.11 wraith apparition of a living person often taken as a premonition of

GLOSSARY death 276.19 wrang wrong 199.12 wreck-wood wood washed up ashore from a wreck 41.7 etc. xebeck small three-masted vessel 357.16 yard nautical wooden spar, comparat­ ively long and slender, slung at its centre from, and forward of, a mast and serving to support and extend a square sail 130.21,197.39,377 42 yard unit of measurement equivalent to 3 feet (0.9m) 64.4 etc. yard-arm nautical either of the two ends ofa yard, the part of the ship from which sailors were hung or ducked as a punishment 210.24 etc.

607

yam-windles appliance for winding a skein ofyam into a ball 48.39–40 yarpha peat-bog 328.26 yate gate 41.32 yaul small fishing-boat 252.4 yawl ship’s boat resembling a pinnace but somewhat smaller 153.23, 153-30, 237.15 ye you 13.27 etc. yelloch verb yell, shriek 280.22 yestreen yesterday evening 20.12, 73.14 yon yonder 20.10 etc.; that 59.20 etc.; those 107.27,174.4 Youle Christmas 41.40 yoursell, yoursel yourself 58.7 etc.