CHAPTER X.
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, inadvanced age, occasions sullen and pensive inactivity, stimulates youthto eager and active exertion as if, like the hurt deer, theyendeavoured to drown the pain of the shaft by the rapidity of motion.When Mordaunt caught up his gun, and rushed out of the house ofJarlshof, he walked on with great activity over waste and wild, withoutany determined purpose, except that of escaping, if possible, from thesmart of his own irritation. His pride was effectually mortified by thereport of the jagger, which coincided exactly with some doubts he hadbeen led to entertain, by the long and unkind silence of his friends atBurgh-Westra.
If the fortunes of Caesar had doomed him, as the poet suggests, to havebeen
"But the best wrestler on the green,"
it is nevertheless to be presumed, that a foil from a rival, in thatrustic exercise, would have mortified him as much as a defeat from acompetitor, when he was struggling for the empery of the world. And evenso Mordaunt Mertoun, degraded in his own eyes from the height which hehad occupied as the chief amongst the youth of the island, felt vexedand irritated, as well as humbled. The two beautiful sisters, also,whose smiles all were so desirous of acquiring, with whom he had livedon terms of such familiar affection, that, with the same ease andinnocence, there was unconsciously mixed a shade of deeper thoughundefined tenderness than characterises fraternal love,--they alsoseemed to have forgotten him. He could not be ignorant, that, in theuniversal opinion of all Dunrossness, nay, of the whole Mainland, hemight have had every chance of being the favoured lover of either; andnow at once, and without any failure on his part, he was become solittle to them, that he had lost even the consequence of an ordinaryacquaintance. The old Udaller, too, whose hearty and sincere charactershould have made him more constant in his friendships, seemed to havebeen as fickle as his daughters, and poor Mordaunt had at once lost thesmiles of the fair, and the favour of the powerful. These wereuncomfortable reflections, and he doubled his pace, that he mightoutstrip them if possible.
Without exactly reflecting upon the route which he pursued, Mordauntwalked briskly on through a country where neither hedge, wall, norenclosure of any kind, interrupts the steps of the wanderer, until hereached a very solitary spot, where, embosomed among steep heathy hills,which sunk suddenly down on the verge of the water, lay one of thosesmall fresh-water lakes which are common in the Zetland isles, whoseoutlets form the sources of the small brooks and rivulets by which thecountry is watered, and serve to drive the little mills whichmanufacture their grain.
It was a mild summer day; the beams of the sun, as is not uncommon inZetland, were moderated and shaded by a silvery haze, which filled theatmosphere, and destroying the strong contrast of light and shade, gaveeven to noon the sober livery of the evening twilight. The little lake,not three-quarters of a mile in circuit, lay in profound quiet; itssurface undimpled, save when one of the numerous water-fowl, whichglided on its surface, dived for an instant under it. The depth of thewater gave the whole that cerulean tint of bluish green, whichoccasioned its being called the Green Loch; and at present, it formed soperfect a mirror to the bleak hills by which it was surrounded, andwhich lay reflected on its bosom, that it was difficult to distinguishthe water from the land; nay, in the shadowy uncertainty occasioned bythe thin haze, a stranger could scarce have been sensible that a sheetof water lay before him. A scene of more complete solitude, having allits peculiarities heightened by the extreme serenity of the weather, thequiet grey composed tone of the atmosphere, and the perfect silence ofthe elements, could hardly be imagined. The very aquatic birds, whofrequented the spot in great numbers, forbore their usual flight andscreams, and floated in profound tranquillity upon the silent water.
Without taking any determined aim--without having any determinedpurpose--without almost thinking what he was about, Mordaunt presentedhis fowlingpiece, and fired across the lake. The large swan shot dimpledits surface like a partial shower of hail--the hills took up the noiseof the report, and repeated it again, and again, and again, to all theirechoes; the water-fowl took to wing in eddying and confused wheel,answering the echoes with a thousand varying screams, from the deep noteof the swabie, or swartback, to the querulous cry of the tirracke andkittiewake.
Mordaunt looked for a moment on the clamorous crowd with a feeling ofresentment, which he felt disposed at the moment to apply to all nature,and all her objects, animate or inanimate, however little concerned withthe cause of his internal mortification.
"Ay, ay," he said, "wheel, dive, scream, and clamour as you will, andall 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 reloaded his gun, "that strange sights andstrange sounds, ay, and strange acquaintances to boot, have sometimes alittle shade of danger connected with them.--But why should I wreak myown vexation on these harmless sea-gulls?" he subjoined, after amoment's pause; "they have nothing to do with the friends that haveforgotten me.--I loved them all so well,--and to be so soon given up forthe first stranger whom chance threw on the coast!"
As he stood resting upon his gun, and abandoning his mind to the courseof these unpleasant reflections, his meditations were unexpectedlyinterrupted by some one touching his shoulder. He looked around, and sawNorna of the Fitful-head, wrapped in her dark and ample mantle. She hadseen him from the brow of the hill, and had descended to the lake,through a small ravine which concealed her, until she came withnoiseless step so close to him that he turned round at her touch.
Mordaunt Mertoun was by nature neither timorous nor credulous, and acourse of reading more extensive than usual had, in some degree,fortified his mind against the attacks of superstition but he wouldhave been an actual prodigy, if, living in Zetland in the end of theseventeenth century, he had possessed the philosophy which did not existin Scotland generally, until at least two generations later. He doubtedin his own mind the extent, nay, the very existence, of Norna'ssupernatural attributes, which was a high flight of incredulity in thecountry where they were universally received; but still his incredulitywent no farther than doubts. She was unquestionably an extraordinarywoman, gifted with an energy above others, acting upon motives peculiarto herself, and apparently independent of mere earthly considerations.Impressed with these ideas, which he had imbibed from his youth, it wasnot without something like alarm, that he beheld this mysterious femalestanding on a sudden so close beside him, and looking upon him with suchsad and severe eyes, as those with which the Fatal Virgins, who,according to northern mythology, were called the _Valkyriur_, or"Choosers of the Slain," were supposed to regard the young championswhom they selected to share the banquet of Odin.
It was, indeed, reckoned unlucky, to say the least, to meet with Nornasuddenly alone, and in a place remote from witnesses; and she wassupposed, 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 familiarized with heroccasional appearance in society, that would not have trembled to meether on the solitary banks of the Green Loch.
"I bring you no evil, Mordaunt Mertoun," she said, reading perhapssomething 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 himself to throw aside anapprehension which he felt to be unmanly. "Why should I, mother? Youhave been ever my friend."
"Yet, Mordaunt, thou art not of our region but to none of Zetlandblood, no, not even to those who sit around the hearth-stone of MagnusTroil, the noble descendants of the ancient Jarls of Orkney, am I more awell
-wisher, than I am to thee, thou kind and brave-hearted boy. When Ihung around thy neck that gifted chain, which all in our isles know waswrought by no earthly artist, but by the Drows,[36] in the secretrecesses of their caverns, thou wert then but fifteen years old; yet thyfoot had been on the Maiden-skerrie of Northmaven, known before but tothe webbed sole of the swartback, and thy skiff had been in the deepestcavern of Brinnastir, where the _haaf-fish_[37] had before slumbered indark obscurity. Therefore I gave thee that noble gift; and well thouknowest, that since that day, every eye in these isles has looked onthee as a son, or as a brother, endowed beyond other youths, and thefavoured of those whose hour of power is when the night meets with theday."
"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 tokeep it for myself.--What matters it? I shall learn to set as little byothers as they do by me. My father says that I shall soon leave theseislands, and therefore, Mother Norna, I will return to you your fairygift, that it may bring more lasting luck to some other than it has doneto me."
"Despise not the gift of the nameless race," said Norna, frowning; thensuddenly changing her tone of displeasure to that of mournful solemnity,she added,--"Despise them not, but, O Mordaunt, court them not! Sit downon that grey stone--thou art the son of my adoption, and I will doff, asfar as I may, those attributes that sever me from the common mass ofhumanity, and speak with you as a parent with a child."
There was a tremulous tone of grief which mingled with the loftiness ofher language and carriage, and was calculated to excite sympathy, aswell as to attract attention. Mordaunt sat down on the rock which shepointed out, a fragment which, with many others that lay scatteredaround, had been torn by some winter storm from the precipice at thefoot of which it lay, upon the very verge of the water. Norna took herown seat on a stone at about three feet distance, adjusted her mantle sothat little more than her forehead, her eyes, and a single lock of hergrey hair, were seen from beneath the shade of her dark wadmaal cloak,and then proceeded in a tone in which the imaginary consequence andimportance so often assumed by lunacy, seemed to contend against thedeep workings of some extraordinary and deeply-rooted mental affliction.
"I was not always," she said, "that which I now am. I was not always thewise, the powerful, the commanding, before whom the young stand abashed,and the old uncover their grey heads. There was a time when myappearance did not silence mirth, when I sympathized with human passion,and had my own share in human joy or sorrow. It was a time ofhelplessness--it was a time of folly--it was a time of idle andunfruitful laughter--it was a time of causeless and senselesstears;--and yet, with its follies, and its sorrows, and its weaknesses,what would Norna of Fitful-head give to be again the unmarked and happymaiden that she was in her early days! Hear me, Mordaunt, and bear withme; for you hear me utter complaints which have never sounded in mortalears, and which in mortal ears shall never sound again. I will be what Iought," she continued, starting up and extending her lean and witheredarm, "the queen and protectress of these wild and neglected isles,--Iwill 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 whirlwindrespects, when it rends the house-rigging from the roof-tree. Bear mewitness, Mordaunt Mertoun,--you heard my words at Harfra--you saw thetempest sink before them--Speak, bear me witness!"
To have contradicted her in this strain of high-toned enthusiasm, wouldhave been cruel and unavailing, even had Mordaunt been more decidedlyconvinced than he was, that an insane woman, not one of supernaturalpower, stood before him.
"I heard you sing," he replied, "and I saw the tempest abate."
"Abate?" exclaimed Norna, striking the ground impatiently with her staffof black oak; "thou speakest it but half--it sunk at once--sunk inshorter space than the child that is hushed to silence by thenurse.--Enough, you know my power--but you know not--mortal man knowsnot, and never shall know, the price which I paid to attain it. No,Mordaunt, never for the widest sway that the ancient Norsemen boasted,when their banners waved victorious from Bergen to Palestine--never, forall that the round world contains, do thou barter thy peace of mind forsuch greatness as Norna's." She resumed her seat upon the rock, drew themantle over her face, rested her head upon her hands, and by theconvulsive motion which agitated her bosom, appeared to be weepingbitterly.
"Good Norna," said Mordaunt, and paused, scarce knowing what to say thatmight console the unhappy woman--"Good Norna," he again resumed, "ifthere be aught in your mind that troubles it, were you not best to go tothe worthy minister at Dunrossness? Men say you have not for many yearsbeen in a Christian congregation--that cannot be well, or right. You areyourself well known as a healer of bodily disease; but when the mind issick, we should draw to the Physician of our souls."
Norna had raised her person slowly from the stooping posture in whichshe sat; but at length she started up on her feet, threw back hermantle, extended her arm, and while her lip foamed, and her eyesparkled, exclaimed in a tone resembling a scream,--"Me did youspeak--me did you bid seek out a priest!--would you kill the good manwith horror?--Me in a Christian congregation!--Would you have the roofto fall on the sackless assembly, and mingle their blood with theirworship? I--I seek to the good Physician!--Would you have the fiendclaim his prey openly before God and man?"
The extreme agitation of the unhappy speaker naturally led Mordaunt tothe conclusion, which was generally adopted and accredited in thatsuperstitious country and period. "Wretched woman," he said, "if indeedthou hast leagued thyself with the Powers of Evil, why should you notseek 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," hesaid, offering back the chain. "Good can never come of it, if indeedevil hath not come already."
"Be still and hear me, thou foolish boy," said Norna, calmly, as if shehad been restored to reason by the alarm and horror which she perceivedin Mordaunt's countenance;--"hear me, I say. I am not of those who haveleagued themselves with the Enemy of Mankind, or derive skill or powerfrom his ministry. And although the unearthly powers _were_ propitiatedby a sacrifice which human tongue can never utter, yet, God knows, myguilt in that offering was no more than that of the blind man who fallsfrom the precipice which he could neither see nor shun. O, leave menot--shun me not--in this hour of weakness! Remain with me till thetemptation be passed, or I will plunge myself into that lake, and ridmyself at once of my power and my wretchedness!"
Mordaunt, who had always looked up to this singular woman with a sort ofaffection, occasioned no doubt by the early kindness and distinctionwhich she had shown to him, was readily induced to reassume his seat,and listen to what she had further to say, in hopes that she wouldgradually overcome the violence of her agitation. It was not long ereshe seemed to have gained the victory her companion expected, for sheaddressed him in her usual steady and authoritative manner.
"It was not of myself, Mordaunt, that I purposed to speak, when I beheldyou from the summit of yonder grey rock, and came down the path to meetwith you. My fortunes are fixed beyond change, be it for weal or forwoe. For myself I have ceased to feel much; but for those whom sheloves, Norna of the Fitful-head has still those feelings which link herto her kind. Mark me. There is an eagle, the noblest that builds inthese airy precipices, and into that eagle's nest there has crept anadder--wilt thou lend thy aid to crush the reptile, and to save thenoble brood of the lord of the north sky?"
"You must speak more plainly, Norna," said Mordaunt, "if you would haveme understand or answer you. I am no guesser of riddles."
"In plain language, then, you know well the family of Burgh-Westra--thelovely daughters of the generous old Udaller, Magnus Troil,--Minna andBrenda, I mean? You know them, and you love them?"
"I have known them, mother," replied Mordaunt, "and I have lovedthem--none knows it better than yourself."
"To know them once," said Norna, emphatically, "is to know them always.To love them onc
e, is to love them for ever."
"To have loved them once, is to wish them well for ever," replied theyouth; "but it is nothing more. To be plain with you, Norna, the familyat Burgh-Westra have of late totally neglected me. But show me the meansof serving them, I will convince you how much I have remembered oldkindness, how little I resent late coldness."
"It is well spoken, and I will put your purpose to the proof," repliedNorna. "Magnus Troil has taken a serpent into his bosom--his lovelydaughters 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 wefound flung ashore, like a waste heap of sea-weed, at the foot of theSumburgh-cape. I felt that within me, that would have prompted me to lethim lie till the tide floated him off, as it had floated him on shore. Irepent me I gave not way to it."
"But," said Mordaunt, "I cannot repent that I did my duty as a Christianman. And what right have I to wish otherwise? If Minna, Brenda, Magnus,and the rest, like that stranger better than me, I have no title to beoffended; nay, I might well be laughed at for bringing myself intocomparison."
"It is well, and I trust they merit thy unselfish friendship."
"But I cannot perceive," said Mordaunt, "in what you can propose that Ishould serve them. I have but just learned by Bryce the jagger, thatthis Captain Cleveland is all in all with the ladies at Burgh-Westra,and with the Udaller himself. I would like ill to intrude myself where Iam not welcome, or to place my home-bred merit in comparison withCaptain Cleveland's. He can tell them of battles, when I can only speakof birds' nests--can speak of shooting Frenchmen, when I can only tellof shooting seals--he wears gay clothes, and bears a brave countenance;I am plainly dressed, and plainly nurtured. Such gay gallants as he cannoose the hearts of those he lives with, as the fowler nooses theguillemot with his rod and line."
"You do wrong to yourself," replied Norna, "wrong to yourself, andgreater wrong to Minna and Brenda. And trust not the reports ofBryce--he is like the greedy chaffer-whale, that will change his courseand dive for the most petty coin which a fisher can cast at him. Certainit 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 hisvantage, for my eye is upon him."
"And why, mother," said Mordaunt, "do you not tell to Magnus what youhave told to me?"
"Because," replied Norna, "they who wax wise in their own conceit mustbe taught a bitter lesson by experience. It was but yesterday that Ispoke 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 closeties--by the descendant of the ancient Norse earls--this was from MagnusTroil to me; and it was said in behalf of one, whom the sea flung forthas wreck-weed! Since he despises the counsel of the aged, he shall betaught by that of the young; and well that he is not left to his ownfolly. Go, therefore, to Burgh-Westra, as usual, upon the Baptist'sfestival."
"I have had no invitation," said Mordaunt; "I am not wanted, not wishedfor, not thought of--perhaps I shall not be acknowledged if I gothither; and yet, mother, to confess the truth, thither I had thought togo."
"It was a good thought, and to be cherished," replied Norna; "we seekour friends when they are sick in health, why not when they are sick inmind, and surfeited with prosperity? Do not fail to go--it may be, weshall meet there. Meanwhile our roads lie different. Farewell, and speaknot of this meeting."
They parted, and Mordaunt remained standing by the lake, with his eyesfixed on Norna, until her tall dark form became invisible among thewindings of the valley down which she wandered, and Mordaunt returned tohis father's mansion, determined to follow counsel which coincided sowell with his own wishes.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] The Drows, or Trows, the legitimate successors of the northern_duergar_, and somewhat allied to the fairies, reside, like them, in theinterior 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 capriciousand malevolent. Among the common people of Zetland, their existencestill forms an article of universal belief. In the neighbouring isles ofFeroe, they are called Foddenskencand, or subterranean people; and LucasJacobson Debes,(_h_) well acquainted with their nature, assures us thatthey inhabit those places which are polluted with the effusion of blood,or the practice of any crying sin. They have a government, which seemsto be monarchical.
[37] The larger seal, or sea-calf, which seeks the most solitaryrecesses for its abode. See Dr. EDMONSTONE'S _Zetland_, vol. ii., p.294.