CHAPTER IX.
See yonder woman, whom our swains revere, And dread in secret, while they take her counsel When sweetheart shall be kind, or when cross dame shall die; Where lurks the thief who stole the silver tankard, And how the pestilent murrain may be cured.-- This sage adviser's mad, stark mad, my friend; Yet, in her madness, hath the art and cunning To wring fools' secrets from their inmost bosoms, And pay enquirers with the coin they gave her.
_Old Play._
It seemed as if Norna had indeed full right to claim the gratitude ofthe Udaller for the improved condition of his daughter's health. Sheonce more threw open the window, and Minna, drying her eyes andadvancing with affectionate confidence, threw herself on her father'sneck, and asked his forgiveness for the trouble she had of lateoccasioned to him. It is unnecessary to add, that this was at oncegranted, with a full, though rough burst of parental tenderness, and asmany close embraces as if his child had been just rescued from the jawsof death. When Magnus had dismissed Minna from his arms, to throwherself into those of her sister, and express to her, rather by kissesand tears than in words, the regret she entertained for her late waywardconduct, the Udaller thought proper, in the meantime, to pay his thanksto their hostess, whose skill had proved so efficacious. But scarce hadhe come out with, "Much respected kinswoman, I am but a plain oldNorseman,"--when she interrupted him, by pressing her finger on herlips.
"There are those around us," she said, "who must hear no mortal voice,witness no sacrifice to mortal feelings--there are times when theymutiny even against me, their sovereign mistress, because I am stillshrouded in the flesh of humanity. Fear, therefore, and be silent. I,whose deeds have raised me from the low-sheltered valley of life, wheredwell its social wants and common charities;--I, who have bereft theGiver of the Gift which he gave, and stand alone on a cliff ofimmeasurable height, detached from earth, save from the small portionthat supports my miserable tread--I alone am fit to cope with thosesullen mates. Fear not, therefore, but yet be not too bold, and let thisnight to you be one of fasting and of prayer."
If the Udaller had not, before the commencement of the operation, beendisposed to dispute the commands of the sibyl, it may be well believedhe was less so now, that it had terminated to all appearance sofortunately. So he sat down in silence, and seized upon a volume whichlay near him as a sort of desperate effort to divert ennui, for on noother occasion had Magnus been known to have recourse to a book for thatpurpose. It chanced to be a book much to his mind, being the well-knownwork of Olaus Magnus, upon the manners of the ancient Northern nations.The book is unluckily in the Latin language, and the Danske or Dutchwere, either of them, much more familiar to the Udaller. But then it wasthe fine edition published in 1555, which contains representations ofthe war-chariots, fishing exploits, warlike exercises, and domesticemployments of the Scandinavians, executed on copper-plates; and thusthe information which the work refused to the understanding, wasaddressed to the eye, which, as is well known both to old and young,answers the purpose of amusement as well, if not better.
Meanwhile the two sisters, pressed as close to each other as two flowerson the same stalk, sat with their arms reciprocally passed over eachother's shoulder, as if they feared some new and unforeseen cause ofcoldness was about to separate them, and interrupt the sister-likeharmony which had been but just restored. Norna sat opposite to them,sometimes revolving the large parchment volume with which they had foundher employed at their entrance, and sometimes gazing on the sisters witha fixed look, in which an interest of a kind unusually tender, seemedoccasionally to disturb the stern and rigorous solemnity of hercountenance. All was still and silent as death, and the subsidingemotions of Brenda had not yet permitted her to wonder whether theremaining hours of the evening were to be passed in the same manner,when the scene of tranquillity was suddenly interrupted by the entranceof the dwarf Pacolet, or, as the Udaller called him, Nicholas Strumpfer.
Norna darted an angry glance on the intruder, who seemed to deprecateher resentment by holding up his hands and uttering a babbling sound;then, instantly resorting to his usual mode of conversation, heexpressed himself by a variety of signs made rapidly upon his fingers,and as rapidly answered by his mistress, so that the young women, whohad never heard of such an art, and now saw it practised by two beingsso singular, almost conceived their mutual intelligence the work ofenchantment. When they had ceased their intercourse, Norna turned toMagnus Troil with much haughtiness, and said, "How, my kinsman? have youso far forgot yourself, as to bring earthly food into the house of theReimkennar, and make preparations in the dwelling of Power and ofDespair, for refection, and wassail, and revelry?--Speak not--answernot," she said; "the duration of the cure which was wrought even now,depends on your silence and obedience--bandy but a single look or wordwith me, and the latter condition of that maiden shall be worse than thefirst!"
This threat was an effectual charm upon the tongue of the Udaller,though he longed to indulge it in vindication of his conduct.
"Follow me, all of you," said Norna, striding to the door of theapartment, "and see that no one looks backwards--we leave not thisapartment empty, though we, the children of mortality, be removed fromit."
She went out, and the Udaller signed to his daughters to follow, and toobey her injunctions. The sibyl moved swifter than her guests down therude descent, (such it might rather be termed, than a proper staircase,)which led to the lower apartment. Magnus and his daughters, when theyentered the chamber, found their own attendants aghast at the presenceand proceedings of Norna of the Fitful-head.
They had been previously employed in arranging the provisions which theyhad brought along with them, so as to present a comfortable cold meal,as soon as the appetite of the Udaller, which was as regular as thereturn of tide, should induce him to desire some refreshment; and nowthey stood staring in fear and surprise, while Norna, seizing upon onearticle after another, and well supported by the zealous activity ofPacolet, flung their whole preparations out of the rude aperture whichserved for a window, and over the cliff, from which the ancient Burgharose, into the ocean, which raged and foamed beneath. _Vifda_, (driedbeef,) hams, and pickled pork, flew after each other into empty space,smoked geese were restored to the air, and cured fish to the sea, theirnative elements indeed, but which they were no longer capable oftraversing; and the devastation proceeded so rapidly, that the Udallercould scarce secure from the wreck his silver drinking cup; while thelarge leathern flask of brandy, which was destined to supply hisfavourite beverage, was sent to follow the rest of the supper, by thehands of Pacolet, who regarded, at the same time, the disappointedUdaller with a malicious grin, as if, notwithstanding his own naturaltaste for the liquor, he enjoyed the disappointment and surprise ofMagnus Troil still more than he would have relished sharing hisenjoyment.
The destruction of the brandy flask exhausted the patience of Magnus,who roared out, in a tone of no small displeasure, "Why, kinswoman, thisis wasteful madness--where, and on what, would you have us sup?"
"Where you will," answered Norna, "and on what you will--but not in mydwelling, and not on the food with which you have profaned it. Vex myspirit no more, but begone every one of you! You have been here too longfor my good, perhaps for your own."
"How, kinswoman," said Magnus, "would you make outcasts of us at thistime of night, when even a Scotchman would not turn a stranger from thedoor?--Bethink you, dame, it is shame on our lineage for ever, if thissquall of yours should force us to slip cables, and go to sea soscantily provided."
"Be silent, and depart," said Norna; "let it suffice you have got thatfor which you came. I have no harbourage for mortal guests, no provisionto relieve human wants. There is beneath the cliff, a beach of thefinest sand, a stream of water as pure as the well of Kildinguie, andthe rocks bear dulse as wholesome as that of Guiodin; and well you wot,that the well of Kildinguie and the dulse of Guiodin will cure allmaladies save Black Death."[22]
"And
well I wot," said the Udaller, "that I would eat corruptedsea-weeds like a starling, or salted seal's flesh like the men ofBurraforth, or wilks, buckies, and lampits, like the poor sneaks ofStroma, rather than break wheat bread and drink red wine in a housewhere it is begrudged me.--And yet," he said, checking himself, "I amwrong, very wrong, my cousin, to speak thus to you, and I should ratherthank you for what you have done, than upbraid you for following yourown ways. But I see you are impatient--we will be all under waypresently.--And you, ye knaves," addressing his servants, "that were insuch hurry with your service before it was lacked, get out of doors withyou presently, and manage to catch the ponies; for I see we must makefor another harbour to-night, if we would not sleep with an emptystomach, and on a hard bed."
The domestics of Magnus, already sufficiently alarmed at the violence ofNorna's conduct, scarce waited the imperious command of their master toevacuate her dwelling with all dispatch; and the Udaller, with adaughter on each arm, was in the act of following them, when Norna saidemphatically, "Stop!" They obeyed, and again turned towards her. Sheheld out her hand to Magnus, which the placable Udaller instantly foldedin his own ample palm.
"Magnus," she said, "we part by necessity, but, I trust, not in anger?"
"Surely not, cousin," said the warm-hearted Udaller, wellnigh stammeringin his hasty disclamation of all unkindness,--"most assuredly not. Inever bear ill-will to any one, much less to one of my own blood, andwho has piloted me with her advice through many a rough tide, as I wouldpilot a boat betwixt Swona and Stroma, through all the waws, wells, andswelchies of the Pentland Frith."
"Enough," said Norna, "and now farewell, with such a blessing as I darebestow--not a word more!--Maidens," she added, "draw near, and let mekiss your brows."
The sibyl was obeyed by Minna with awe, and by Brenda with fear; the oneovermastered by the warmth of her imagination, the other by the naturaltimidity of her constitution. Norna then dismissed them, and in twominutes afterwards they found themselves beyond the bridge, and standingupon the rocky platform in front of the ancient Pictish Burgh, which itwas the pleasure of this sequestered female to inhabit. The night, forit was now fallen, was unusually serene. A bright twilight, whichglimmered far over the surface of the sea, supplied the brief absence ofthe summer's sun; and the waves seemed to sleep under its influence, sofaint and slumberous was the sound with which one after another rolledon and burst against the foot of the cliff on which they stood. In frontof them stood the rugged fortress, seeming, in the uniform greyness ofthe atmosphere, as aged, as shapeless, and as massive, as the rock onwhich it was founded. There was neither sight nor sound that indicatedhuman habitation, save that from one rude shot-hole glimmered the flameof the feeble lamp by which the sibyl was probably pursuing her mysticaland nocturnal studies, shooting upon the twilight, in which it was soonlost and confounded, a single line of tiny light; bearing the sameproportion to that of the atmosphere, as the aged woman and her serf,the sole inhabitants of that desert, did to the solitude with which theywere surrounded.
For several minutes, the party, thus suddenly and unexpectedly expelledfrom the shelter where they had reckoned upon spending the night, stoodin silence, each wrapt in their own separate reflections. Minna, herthoughts fixed on the mystical consolation which she had received, invain endeavoured to extract from the words of Norna a more distinct andintelligible meaning; and the Udaller had not yet recovered his surpriseat the extrusion to which he had been thus whimsically subjected, undercircumstances that prohibited him from resenting as an insult,treatment, which, in all other respects, was so shocking to the genialhospitality of his nature, that he still felt like one disposed to beangry, if he but knew how to set about it. Brenda was the first whobrought matters to a point, by asking whither they were to go, and howthey were to spend the night? The question, which was asked in a tone,that, amidst its simplicity, had something dolorous in it, entirelychanged the train of her father's ideas; and the unexpected perplexityof their situation now striking him in a comic point of view, he laughedtill his very eyes ran over, while every rock around him rang, and thesleeping sea-fowl were startled from their repose, by the loud, heartyexplosions of his obstreperous hilarity.
The Udaller's daughters, eagerly representing to their father the riskof displeasing Norna by this unlimited indulgence of his mirth, unitedtheir efforts to drag him to a farther distance from her dwelling.Magnus, yielding to their strength, which, feeble as it was, his own fitof laughter rendered him incapable of resisting, suffered himself to bepulled to a considerable distance from the Burgh, and then escaping fromtheir hands, and sitting down, or rather suffering himself to drop, upona large stone which lay conveniently by the wayside, he again laughed solong and lustily, that his vexed and anxious daughters became afraidthat there was something more than natural in these repeatedconvulsions.
At length his mirth exhausted both itself and the Udaller's strength. Hegroaned heavily, wiped his eyes, and said, not without feeling somedesire to renew his obstreperous cachinnation, "Now, by the bones ofSaint Magnus, my ancestor and namesake, one would imagine that beingturned out of doors, at this time of night, was nothing short of anabsolutely exquisite jest; for I have shaken my sides at it till theyache. There we sat, made snug for the night, and I made as sure of agood supper and a can as ever I had been of either,--and here we are alltaken aback! and then poor Brenda's doleful voice, and melancholyquestion, of 'What is to be done, and where are we to sleep?' In goodfaith, unless one of those knaves, who must needs torment the poor womanby their trencher-work before it was wanted, can make amends by tellingus of some snug port under our lee, we have no other course for it butto steer through the twilight on the bearing of Burgh-Westra, and roughit out as well as we can by the way. I am sorry but for you, girls; formany a cruize have I been upon when we were on shorter allowance than weare like to have now.--I would I had but secured a morsel for you, and adrop for myself; and then there had been but little to complain of."
Both sisters hastened to assure the Udaller that they felt not the leastoccasion for food.
"Why, that is well," said Magnus: "and so being the case, I will notcomplain of my own appetite, though it is sharper than convenient. Andthe rascal, Nicholas Strumpfer,--what a leer the villain gave me as hestarted the good Nantz into the salt-water! He grinned, the knave, likea seal on a skerry.--Had it not been for vexing my poor kinswoman Norna,I would have sent his misbegotten body, and misshapen jolterhead, aftermy bonny flask, as sure as Saint Magnus lies at Kirkwall!"
By this time the servants returned with the ponies, which they had verysoon caught--these sensible animals finding nothing so captivating inthe pastures where they had been suffered to stray, as inclined them toresist the invitation again to subject themselves to saddle and bridle.The prospects of the party were also considerably improved by learningthat the contents of their sumpter-pony's burden had not been entirelyexhausted,--a small basket having fortunately escaped the rage of Nornaand Pacolet, by the rapidity with which one of the servants had caughtup and removed it. The same domestic, an alert and ready-witted fellow,had observed upon the beach, not above three miles distant from theBurgh, and about a quarter of a mile off their straight path, a deserted_Skio_, or fisherman's hut, and suggested that they should occupy it forthe rest of the night, in order that the ponies might be refreshed, andthe young ladies spend the night under cover from the raw evening air.
When we are delivered from great and serious dangers, our mood is, orought to be, grave, in proportion to the peril we have escaped, and thegratitude due to protecting Providence. But few things raise the spiritsmore naturally, or more harmlessly, than when means of extrication fromany of the lesser embarrassments of life are suddenly presented to us;and such was the case in the present instance. The Udaller, relievedfrom the apprehensions for his daughters suffering from fatigue, andhimself from too much appetite and too little food, carolled Norseditties, as he spurred Bergen through the twilight, with as much gleeand gallantry as if the nig
ht-ride had been entirely a matter of his ownfree choice. Brenda lent her voice to some of his choruses, which wereechoed in ruder notes by the servants, who, in that simple state ofsociety, were not considered as guilty of any breach of respect bymingling their voices with the song. Minna, indeed, was as yet unequalto such an effort; but she compelled herself to assume some share in thegeneral hilarity of the meeting; and, contrary to her conduct since thefatal morning which concluded the Festival of Saint John, she seemed totake her usual interest in what was going on around her, and answeredwith kindness and readiness the repeated enquiries concerning herhealth, with which the Udaller every now and then interrupted his carol.And thus they proceeded by night, a happier party by far than they hadbeen when they traced the same route on the preceding morning, makinglight of the difficulties of the way, and promising themselves shelterand a comfortable night's rest in the deserted hut which they were nowabout to approach, and which they expected to find in a state ofdarkness and solitude.
But it was the lot of the Udaller that day to be deceived more than oncein his calculations.
"And which way lies this cabin of yours, Laurie?" said the Udaller,addressing the intelligent domestic of whom we just spoke.
"Yonder it should be," said Laurence Scholey, "at the head of thevoe--but, by my faith, if it be the place, there are folk there beforeus--God and Saint Ronan send that they be canny company!"
In truth there was a light in the deserted hut, strong enough to glimmerthrough every chink of the shingles and wreck-wood of which it wasconstructed, and to give the whole cabin the appearance of a smithy seenby night. The universal superstition of the Zetlanders seized uponMagnus and his escort.
"They are trows," said one voice.
"They are witches," murmured another.
"They are mermaids," muttered a third; "only hear their wild singing!"
All stopped; and, in effect, some notes of music were audible, whichBrenda, with a voice that quivered a little, but yet had a turn of archridicule in its tone, pronounced to be the sound of a fiddle.
"Fiddle or fiend," said the Udaller, who, if he believed in such nightlyapparitions as had struck terror into his retinue, certainly feared themnot--"fiddle or fiend, may the devil fetch me if a witch cheats me outof supper to-night, for the second time!"
So saying, he dismounted, clenched his trusty truncheon in his hand, andadvanced towards the hut, followed by Laurence alone; the rest of hisretinue continuing stationary on the beach beside his daughters and theponies.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] So at least says an Orkney proverb.