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— scarce even an ure of land, would be in the possession of the Norse inhabitants, the true Udallers1 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 place is a wild one — Come from where you will, I warrant you will say, like other travellers, you came 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’s 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?”
1 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.
The stranger intimated that 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, 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 scarts, sheerwaters, and seagulls, from daybreak till sunset.”
“I will compound, my friend,” replied the stranger, “so that I do not hear the clattering of women’s tongues.”
“Ah,” said the Norman, “ 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 skylark which I onre 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 of Jarlshof?”
“Gladly, since you make it your option to live in a spot so desolate.”
“And as for the rent?” continued Mertoun.
“The rent?” replied Magnus; “hum — why, you must have the bit of plantie cruize,1 which they once called a garden, and a right in the scathbld, and a sixpenny merk of land, that the tenants may fish for you; — eight lispunds2 of butter, and eight shillings sterling yearly, is not too much?”
Mr. Mertoun agreed to terms so moderate, and from thence-forward 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 inhabitant.
1 Patch of ground for vegetables. The liberal custom of the country permits any person, who has occasion for such a convenience, to select out of the unenclosed moorland a small patch, which he surrounds with a drystone wall, and cultivates as a kailyard, till he exhausts the soil with cropping, and then he deserts it, and encloses another. This liberty is so far from inferring an invasion of the right of proprietor and tenant, that the last degree of contempt is inferred of an avaricious man, when a Zetlander says he would not hold a plantie cruive of him.
2A lispund is about thirty pounds English, and the value is averaged by Dr. Edmonston at ten shillings sterling.
Chapter II
‘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.
Ancient Drama.
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 burdens and exactions, for which, under one pretext or another, 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 expenses, 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 those 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 tyrannising over them, they laid their heads together to make the most of him by various 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 his 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 governante, who acted as housekeeper to Mr. Mertoun, and Sweyn Erickson, as good a Zetlander as ever rowed a boat to the haaf fishing;1 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, secluded 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 per cent, 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 flinch a whale, know that I am well acquainted 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