CHAPTER VI.
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 of Auld Robin Gray_.[14](_d_)
The condition of Minna much resembled that of the village heroine inLady Ann Lindsay's beautiful ballad. Her natural firmness of mindprevented her from sinking under the pressure of the horrible secret,which haunted her while awake, and was yet more tormenting during herbroken and hurried slumbers. There is no grief so dreadful as that whichwe dare not communicate, and in which we can neither ask nor desiresympathy; and when to this is added the burden of a guilty mystery to aninnocent bosom, there is little wonder that Minna's health should havesunk under the burden.
To the friends around, her habits and manners, nay, her temper, seemedaltered to such an extraordinary degree, that it is no wonder that someshould have ascribed the change to witchcraft, and some to incipientmadness. She became unable to bear the solitude in which she formerlydelighted to spend her time; yet when she hurried into society, it waswithout either joining in, or attending to, what passed. Generally sheappeared wrapped in sad, and even sullen abstraction, until herattention was suddenly roused by some casual mention of the name ofCleveland, or of Mordaunt Mertoun, at which she started, with the horrorof one who sees the lighted match applied to a charged mine, and expectsto be instantly involved in the effects of the explosion. And when sheobserved that the discovery was not yet made, it was so far from being aconsolation, that she almost wished the worst were known, rather thanendure the continued agonies of suspense.
Her conduct towards her sister was so variable, yet uniformly so painfulto the kind-hearted Brenda, that it seemed to all around, one of thestrongest features of her malady. Sometimes Minna was impelled to seekher sister's company, as if by the consciousness that they were commonsufferers by a misfortune of which she herself alone could grasp theextent; and then suddenly the feeling of the injury which Brenda hadreceived through the supposed agency of Cleveland, made her unable tobear her presence, and still less to endure the consolation which hersister, mistaking the nature of her malady, vainly endeavoured toadminister. Frequently, also, did it happen, that, while Brenda wasimploring her sister to take comfort, she incautiously touched upon somesubject which thrilled to the very centre of her soul; so that, unableto conceal her agony, Minna would rush hastily from the apartment. Allthese different moods, though they too much resembled, to one who knewnot their real source, the caprices of unkind estrangement, Brendaendured 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 therecollection that her fatal secret concerned the destruction of Brenda'shappiness as well as her own, were still, softened as they were bysisterly affection, the most endurable moments of this most miserableperiod of her life.
The effects of the alternations of moping melancholy, fearful agitation,and bursts of nervous feeling, were soon visible on the poor youngwoman's face and person. She became pale and emaciated; her eye lost thesteady quiet look of happiness and innocence, and was alternately dimand wild, as she was acted upon by a general feeling of her owndistressful condition, or by some quicker and more poignant sense ofagony. Her very features seemed to change, and become sharp and eager,and her voice, which, in its ordinary tones, was low and placid, nowsometimes sunk in indistinct mutterings, and sometimes was raised beyondthe natural key, in hasty and abrupt exclamations. When in company withothers, she was sullenly silent, and, when she ventured into solitude,was observed (for it was now thought very proper to watch her on suchoccasions) to speak much to herself.
The pharmacy of the islands was in vain resorted to by Minna's anxiousfather. Sages of both sexes, who knew the virtues of every herb whichdrinks the dew, and augmented those virtues by words of might, usedwhile they prepared and applied the medicines, were attended with nobenefit; and Magnus, in the utmost anxiety, was at last induced to haverecourse 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 firstapplication was in vain. Norna was then at her usual place of residence,upon the sea-coast, near the headland from which she usually took herdesignation but, although Eric Scambester himself brought the message,she refused positively to see him, or to return any answer.
Magnus was angry at the slight put upon his messenger and message, buthis anxiety on Minna's account, as well as the respect which he had forNorna's real misfortunes and imputed wisdom and power, prevented himfrom indulging, on the present occasion, his usual irritability ofdisposition. On the contrary, he determined to make an application tohis kinswoman in his own person. He kept his purpose, however, tohimself, and only desired his daughters to be in readiness to attend himupon a visit to a relation whom he had not seen for some time, anddirected them, at the same time, to carry some provisions along withthem, as the journey was distant, and they might perhaps find theirfriend unprovided.
Unaccustomed to ask explanations of his pleasure, and hoping thatexercise and the amusement of such an excursion might be of service toher sister, Brenda, upon whom all household and family charges nowdevolved, caused the necessary preparations to be made for theexpedition and, on the next morning, they were engaged in tracing thelong and tedious course of beach and of moorland, which, only varied byoccasional patches of oats and barley, where a little ground had beenselected for cultivation, divided Burgh-Westra from the north-westernextremity of the Mainland, (as the principal island is called,) whichterminates in the cape called Fitful-head, as the south-western pointends in the cape of Sumburgh.
On they went, through wild and over wold, the Udaller bestriding astrong, square-made, well-barrelled palfrey, of Norwegian breed,somewhat taller, and yet as stout, as the ordinary ponies of thecountry; while Minna and Brenda, famed, amongst other accomplishments,for their horsemanship, rode two of those hardy animals, which, bred andreared with more pains than is usually bestowed, showed, both by theneatness of their form and their activity, that the race, so much and socarelessly neglected, is capable of being improved into beauty withoutlosing any thing of its spirit or vigour. They were attended by twoservants on horseback, and two on foot, secure that the lastcircumstance would be no delay to their journey, because a great part ofthe way was so rugged, or so marshy, that the horses could only move ata foot pace; and that, whenever they met with any considerable tract ofhard and even ground, they had only to borrow from the nearest herd ofponies the use of a couple for the accommodation of these pedestrians.
The journey was a melancholy one, and little conversation passed, exceptwhen the Udaller, pressed by impatience and vexation, urged his pony toa quick pace, and again, recollecting Minna's weak state of health,slackened to a walk, and reiterated enquiries how she felt herself, andwhether the fatigue was not too much for her. At noon the party halted,and partook of some refreshment, for which they had made ampleprovision, beside a pleasant spring, the pureness of whose waters,however, did not suit the Udaller's palate, until qualified by aliberal addition of right Nantz. After he had a second, yea and a thirdtime, filled a large silver travelling-cup, embossed with a German Cupidsmoking a pipe, and a German Bacchus emptying his flask down the throatof a bear, he began to become more talkative than vexation had permittedhim to be during the early part of their journey, and thus addressed hisdaughters:--
"Well, children, we are within a league or two of Norna's dwelling, andwe shall 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 areto make this visit?--Heaven forbid!"
"And wherefore should Heaven forbid?" said the Udaller, knitting hisbrows; "wherefore, I would gl
adly know, should Heaven forbid me to visitmy kinswoman, whose skill may be of use to your sister, if any woman inZetland, or man either, can be of service to her?--You are a fool,Brenda,--your sister has more sense.--Cheer up, Minna!--thou wert everwont to like her songs and stories, and used to hang about her neck,when little Brenda cried and ran from her like a Spanish merchantmanfrom a Dutch caper."[15]
"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 toamuse her father by sustaining the conversation "I have heard so muchof her dwelling, that I am rather alarmed at the thought of going thereuninvited."
"Thou art a fool," said Magnus, "to think that a visit from herkinsfolks can ever come amiss to a kind, hearty, Hialtland heart, likemy cousin Norna's.--And, now I think on't, I will be sworn that is thereason why she would not receive Eric Scambester!--It is many a long daysince I have seen her chimney smoke, and I have never carried youthither--She hath indeed some right to call me unkind. But I will tellher the truth--and that is, that though such be the fashion, I do notthink 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 tohouse in the winter season, until we gather like a snowball, and eat upall 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 canpossibly need--fish, and bacon, and salted mutton, and dried geese--morethan 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 amerry voyage--so we shall only want the kindness of Norna's roof, and alittle bedding for you; for, as to myself, my sea-cloak, and honest dryboards of Norway deal, suit me better than your eider-down cushions andmattresses. So that Norna will have the pleasure of seeing us withouthaving 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?" repliedMagnus Troil; "dost thou think my kinswoman is a heathen, who will notrejoice to see her own flesh and blood?--I would I were as sure of agood year's fishing!--No, no! I only fear we may find her from home atpresent, for she is often a wanderer, and all with thinking over much onwhat can never be helped."
Minna sighed deeply as her father spoke, and the Udaller went on:--
"Dost thou sigh at that, my girl?--why, 'tis the fault of half theworld--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 theUdaller, gazing on her pale countenance; "if so, speak the word, and wewill return back again as if we had the wind on our quarter, and wererunning fifteen knots by the line."
"Do, for Heaven's sake, sister, let us return!" said Brenda,imploringly; "you know--you remember--you must be well aware that Nornacan do nought to help you."
"It is but too true," said Minna, in a subdued voice; "but I knownot--she may answer a question--a question that only the miserable dareask of the miserable."
"Nay, my kinswoman is no miser," answered the Udaller, who only heardthe beginning of the word; "a good income she has, both in Orkney andhere, and many a fair lispund of butter is paid to her. But the poorhave the best share of it, and shame fall the Zetlander who begrudgesthem; the rest she spends, I wot not how, in her journeys through theislands. But you will laugh to see her house, and Nick Strumpfer, whomshe calls Pacolet--many folks think Nick is the devil; but he is fleshand blood, like any of us--his father lived in Graemsay--I shall be gladto see Nick again."
While the Udaller thus ran on, Brenda, who, in recompense for a lessportion of imagination than her sister, was gifted with sound commonsense, was debating with herself the probable effect of this visit onher sister's health. She came finally to the resolution of speaking withher father aside, upon the first occasion which their journey shouldafford. To him she determined to communicate the whole particulars oftheir nocturnal interview with Norna,--to which, among other agitatingcauses, she attributed the depression of Minna's spirits,--and then makehimself the judge whether he ought to persist in his visit to a personso singular, and expose his daughter to all the shock which her nervesmight possibly receive from the interview.
Just as she had arrived at this conclusion, her father, dashing thecrumbs from his laced waistcoat with one hand, and receiving with theother a fourth cup of brandy and water, drank devoutly to the success oftheir voyage, and ordered all to be in readiness to set forward. Whilstthey were saddling their ponies, Brenda, with some difficulty, contrivedto make her father understand she wished to speak with him inprivate--no small surprise to the honest Udaller, who, though secret asthe grave in the very few things where he considered secrecy as ofimportance, was so far from practising mystery in general, that his mostimportant affairs were often discussed by him openly in presence of hiswhole family, servants included.
But far greater was his astonishment, when, remaining purposely with hisdaughter Brenda, a little in the wake, as he termed it, of the otherriders, he heard the whole account of Norna's visit to Burgh-Westra, andof the communication with which she had then astounded his daughters.For a long time he could utter nothing but interjections, and ended witha thousand curses on his kinswoman's folly in telling his daughters sucha history of horror.
"I have often heard," said the Udaller, "that she was quite mad, withall her wisdom, and all her knowledge of the seasons; and, by the bonesof my namesake, the Martyr, I begin now to believe it most assuredly! Iknow no more how to steer than if I had lost my compass. Had I knownthis before we set out, I think I had remained at home; but now that wehave come so far, and that Norna 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 beprovoked;--perhaps she has done my family this ill for the words I hadwith her about that lad Mordaunt Mertoun, and if so, she can undo itagain;--and so she shall, or I will know the cause wherefore. But I willtry fair words first."
Finding it thus settled that they were to go forward, Brenda endeavourednext to learn from her father whether Norna's tale was founded inreality. He shook his head, groaned bitterly, and, in a few words,acknowledged that the whole, so far as concerned her intrigue with astranger, and her father's death, of which she became the accidental andmost innocent cause, was a matter of sad and indisputable truth. "Forher infant," he said, "he could never, by any means, learn what becameof 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 Itold you of it!--I see that, young and old, a man has no better chanceof keeping a secret from you women, than an eel to keep himself in hishold when he is sniggled with a loop of horse-hair--sooner or later thefisher teazes him out of his hole, when he has once the noose round hisneck."
"But the infant, my father," said Brenda, still insisting on theparticulars 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 of thesubject.
"By Vaughan?" said Brenda, "the lover of poor Norna, doubtless!--whatsort of man was he, father?"
"Why, much like other men, I fancy," answered the Udaller; "I never sawhim in my life.--He kept company with the Scottish families at Kirkwall;and I with the good old Norse folk--Ah! if Norna had dwelt alwaysamongst her own kin, and not kept company with her Scottishacquaintance, she would have known nothing of Vaughan, and things mighthave been otherwise--But then I should have known nothing of yourblessed mother, Brenda--and that," he said, his large blue eyes shiningwith a tear, "would have saved me a short joy and a long sorrow."
"Norna could but ill
have supplied my mother's place to you, father, asa companion and a friend--that is, judging from all I have heard," saidBrenda, with some hesitation. But Magnus, softened by recollections ofhis beloved wife, answered her with more indulgence than she expected.
"I would have been content," he said, "to have wedded Norna at thattime. It would have been the soldering of an old quarrel--the healing ofan old sore. All our blood relations wished it, and, situated as I was,especially not having seen your blessed mother, I had little will tooppose their counsels. You must not judge of Norna or of me by such anappearance as we now present to you--She was young and beautiful, and Igamesome as a Highland buck, and little caring what haven I made for,having, as I thought, more than one under my lee. But Norna preferredthis man Vaughan, and, as I told you before, it was, perhaps, the bestkindness she could have done to me."
"Ah, poor kinswoman!" said Brenda. "But believe you, father, in the highpowers which she claims--in the mysterious vision of the dwarf--inthe"----
She was interrupted in these questions by Magnus, to whom they wereobviously displeasing.
"I believe, Brenda," he said, "according to the belief of myforefathers--I pretend not to be a wiser man than they were in theirtime,--and they all believed that, in cases of great worldly distress,Providence opened the eyes of the mind, and afforded the sufferers avision of futurity. It was but a trimming of the boat, withreverence,"--here he touched his hat reverentially; "and, after all theshifting of ballast, poor Norna is as heavily loaded in the bows as everwas an Orkneyman's yawl at the dog-fishing--she has more than afflictionenough on board to balance whatever gifts she may have had in the midstof her calamity. They are as painful to her, poor soul, as a crown ofthorns would be to her brows, though it were the badge of the empire ofDenmark. And do not you, Brenda, seek to be wiser than your fathers.Your sister Minna, before she was so ill, had as much reverence forwhatever 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 thanbefore, "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 soforth;--the child had come before its time into this bustling world, soit is likely it has been long dead.--But you know nothing of all thesematters, Brenda; so get along for a foolish girl, and ask no morequestions about what it does not become you to enquire into."
So saying, the Udaller gave his sturdy little palfrey the spur, andcantering forward over rough and smooth, while the pony's accuracy andfirmness of step put all difficulties of the path at secure defiance, heplaced himself soon by the side of the melancholy Minna, and permittedher sister to have no farther share in his conversation than as it wasaddressed to them jointly. She could but comfort herself with 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 beingeffectual, since, in all probability, they would be addressed to thesame faculty.
Their way had hitherto held chiefly over moss and moor, variedoccasionally by the necessity of making a circuit around the heads ofthose long lagoons, called voes, which run up into and indent thecountry in such a manner, that, though the Mainland of Zetland may bethirty miles or more in length, there is, perhaps, no part of it whichis more than three miles distant from the salt water. But they had nowapproached the north-western extremity of the isle, and travelled alongthe top of an immense ridge of rocks, which had for ages withstood therage of the Northern Ocean, and of all the winds by which it isbuffeted.
At length exclaimed Magnus to his daughters, "There is Norna'sdwelling!--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 have madesuch a nest for herself as that is?--By my namesake's bones, there isnot the like of it that living thing ever dwelt in, (having no wings andthe use of reason,) unless it chanced to be the Frawa-Stack off Papa,where the King's daughter of Norway was shut up to keep her from herlovers--and all to little purpose, if the tale be true;[16] for,maidens, I would have you to wot that it is hard to keep flax from thelowe."[17]
FOOTNOTES:
[14] It is worth while saying, that this motto, and the ascription ofthe beautiful ballad from which it is taken to the Right Honourable LadyAnn Lindsay, occasioned the ingenious authoress's acknowledgment of theballad, of which the Editor, by her permission, published a smallimpression, inscribed to the Bannatyne Club.
[15] A light-armed vessel of the seventeenth century, adapted forprivateering, and much used by the Dutch.
[16] The _Frawa-Stack_ or Maiden-Rock, an inaccessible cliff, divided bya narrow gulf from the Island of Papa, has on the summit some ruins,concerning which there is a legend similar to that of Danae.
[17] _Lowe_, flame.