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and dimmer, like the lamp that is half extinguished for lack of oil, — when I remember the 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 sympathising with the poor girl; for, besides the tremulous expression of her voice, the light could almost show him the tear which trembled in her eye, as she drew the picture to which her fancy had assimilated her sister, — ” I do not wonder 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 hove, you shall find me as ready to venture my life, if necessary, as I have been to go out on the crag 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 worst 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 hath 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 after day, and week after week passes, and he goes not; and while he keeps my 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 except 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 tomorrow, however cold he and my sister may appear towards you. I too,” she said, stretching her hand towards him, “ must wear a face of cold friendship as towards an unwelcome visitor, but at heart we are still Brenda and Mordaunt. And now separate quickly, for 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 before been alone with Brenda, he had never experienced. 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 of mind, 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 recognise the authority of the one or the other power; and then it most frequently happens, that the party who for years supposed himself only 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 confidence of a beautiful and fascinating young woman, by whom he had, so short a time before, imagined himself despised and disliked; and, if anything could make a change, in itself so surprising and so pleasing, yet more intoxicating, it was the guileless and openhearted simplicity of Brenda, that cast an enchantment over everything which she did or said. The scene, too, might have had its effect, 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 among the whispering sounds of a summer night. Mordaunt, therefore,, who had 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 ecstasies had been awakened on the subject by a short turn in the open air, undertaken to qualify the vapours of the good liquor, which he had not spared during the festival.
“The sun, my boy,” he said, “is every wretched labourer’s day-lantern — 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 melancholy-mad. — My dear young friend, the folks of this painstaking 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? Oh, touching and concerning the moon — why, man, she is the very soul of love and 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 corn, 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 namesake, 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, seeing 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 of his voice, formed so delightful a contrast with the jollity of the words and tune, that honest Triptolemus afforded the same sort of amusement 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 the influence of the sleepy god. The guests went off as they best 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 XVII
They man their boats, and all the young men arm,
With whatsoever might the monsters harm;
Pikes, halberds, spits, and darts, that wound afar,
The tools of peace, and implements of war.
Now was the time for vigorous lads to show
What love or honour could incite them to; —