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— the lovely daughters of the generous old Jdaller, Magnus Troil, — Minna and Brenda, I mean? You;now them, and you love them?”
“I have known them, mother,” replied Mordaunt, “and I lave loved them — none knows it better than yourself.”
“To know them once,” said Norna emphatically, “is to now them always. To love them once, is to love them for:ver.”
“To have loved them once, is to wish them well for ever,” eplied the youth; “but it is nothing more. To be plain (ith you, Norna, the family at Burgh-Westra have of late totally neglected me. But show 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 seaweed, 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 that stranger better than me, I have no title to be offended nay, I might well be laughed at for bringing myself intc comparison.”
“It is well, and I trust they merit thy unselfish friendship.”
“But I cannot perceive,” said Mordaunt, “ in what you car 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 myself where I am not welcome, or to place my homebred merit in comparison with Captair 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 countenance; I am plainly dressed, anc 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 t( 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 pett; coin which a fisher can cast at him. Certain it is, that if yoi have been lessened in the opinion of Magnus Troil, tha sordid fellow hath had some share in it. But let him coun his vantage, for my eye is upon him.”
Chapter XI
“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 Cleveland 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 of crossing 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 Paterson off the Noss? — the Dutchman that he saved from sinking, I trow. To fling a drowning man a plank or a tow, may be the part of a Christian; but I say keep hands aff him, 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,” answered 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 any 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 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 unplea sant circumstances in which he was placed; yet he felt as if a sort of spell were 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, andhe continued determined, atall events, to make his personal appearance at the approaching festival, when he was impressed with the belief that 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 merrymaking,’“ replied the youth; “ all the country are assembled:’“
“And you are doubtless impatient to add another fool to the number — Go — but beware how you walk in the path which you are about to tread — a fall from the cliffs of Foula were not more fatal.’’1
“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