by Walter Scott
CHAPTER III.
"O, Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, They were twa bonnie lasses; They biggit a house on yon burn-brae, And theekit it ower wi' rashes.
Fair Bessy Bell I looed yestreen, And thought I ne'er could alter; But Mary Gray's twa pawky een Have garr'd my fancy falter."(_d_)
_Scots Song._
We have already mentioned Minna and Brenda, the daughters of MagnusTroil. Their mother had been dead for many years, and they were now twobeautiful girls, the eldest only eighteen, which might be a year or twoyounger than Mordaunt Mertoun, the second about seventeen.--They werethe joy of their father's heart, and the light of his old eyes; andalthough indulged to a degree which might have endangered his comfortand their own, they repaid his affection with a love, into which evenblind indulgence had not introduced slight regard, or feminine caprice.The difference of their tempers and of their complexions was singularlystriking, although combined, as is usual, with a certain degree offamily resemblance.
The mother of these maidens had been a Scottish lady from the Highlandsof Sutherland, the orphan of a noble chief, who, driven from his owncountry during the feuds of the seventeenth century, had found shelterin those peaceful islands, which, amidst poverty and seclusion, werethus far happy, that they remained unvexed by discord, and unstained bycivil broil. The father (his name was Saint Clair) pined for his nativeglen, his feudal tower, his clansmen, and his fallen authority, and diednot long after his arrival in Zetland. The beauty of his orphandaughter, despite her Scottish lineage, melted the stout heart of MagnusTroil. He sued and was listened to, and she became his bride; but dyingin the fifth year of their union, left him to mourn his brief period ofdomestic happiness.
From her mother, Minna inherited the stately form and dark eyes, theraven locks and finely-pencilled brows, which showed she was, on oneside at least, a stranger to the blood of Thule. Her cheek,--
"O call it fair, not pale!"
was so slightly and delicately tinged with the rose, that many thoughtthe lily had an undue proportion in her complexion. But in thatpredominance of the paler flower, there was nothing sickly or languid;it was the true natural colour of health, and corresponded in a peculiardegree with features, which seemed calculated to express a contemplativeand high-minded character. When Minna Troil heard a tale of woe or ofinjustice, it was then her blood rushed to her cheeks, and showedplainly how warm it beat, notwithstanding the generally serious,composed, and retiring disposition, which her countenance and demeanourseemed to exhibit. If strangers sometimes conceived that these finefeatures were clouded by melancholy, for which her age and situationcould scarce have given occasion, they were soon satisfied, uponfurther acquaintance, that the placid, mild quietude of her disposition,and the mental energy of a character which was but little interested inordinary and trivial occurrences, was the real cause of her gravity; andmost men, when they knew that her melancholy had no ground in realsorrow, and was only the aspiration of a soul bent on more importantobjects than those by which she was surrounded, might have wished herwhatever could add to her happiness, but could scarce have desired that,graceful as she was in her natural and unaffected seriousness, sheshould change that deportment for one more gay. In short,notwithstanding our wish to have avoided that hackneyed simile of anangel, we cannot avoid saying there was something in the serious beautyof her aspect, in the measured, yet graceful ease of her motions, in themusic of her voice, and the serene purity of her eye, that seemed as ifMinna Troil belonged naturally to some higher and better sphere, and wasonly the chance visitant of a world that was not worthy of her.
The scarcely less beautiful, equally lovely, and equally innocentBrenda, was of a complexion as differing from her sister, as theydiffered in character, taste, and expression. Her profuse locks were ofthat paly brown which receives from the passing sunbeam a tinge of gold,but darkens again when the ray has passed from it. Her eye, her mouth,the beautiful row of teeth, which in her innocent vivacity werefrequently disclosed; the fresh, yet not too bright glow of a healthycomplexion, tinging a skin like the drifted snow, spoke her genuineScandinavian descent. A fairy form, less tall than that of Minna, butstill more finely moulded into symmetry--a careless, and almostchildish lightness of step--an eye that seemed to look on every objectwith pleasure, from a natural and serene cheerfulness of disposition,attracted even more general admiration than the charms of her sister,though perhaps that which Minna did excite might be of a more intense aswell as more reverential character.
The dispositions of these lovely sisters were not less different thantheir complexions. In the kindly affections, neither could be said toexcel the other, so much were they attached to their father and to eachother. But the cheerfulness of Brenda mixed itself with the every-daybusiness of life, and seemed inexhaustible in its profusion. The lessbuoyant spirit of her sister appeared to bring to society a contentedwish to be interested and pleased with what was going forward, but wasrather placidly carried along with the stream of mirth and pleasure,than disposed to aid its progress by any efforts of her own. She enduredmirth, rather than enjoyed it; and the pleasures in which she mostdelighted, were those of a graver and more solitary cast. The knowledgewhich is derived from books was beyond her reach. Zetland afforded fewopportunities, in those days, of studying the lessons, bequeathed
"By dead men to their kind;"
and Magnus Troil, such as we have described him, was not a person withinwhose mansion the means of such knowledge were to be acquired. But thebook of nature was before Minna, that noblest of volumes, where we areever called to wonder and to admire, even when we cannot understand.The plants of those wild regions, the shells on the shores, and thelong list of feathered clans which haunt their cliffs and eyries, wereas well known to Minna Troil as to the most experienced fowlers. Herpowers of observation were wonderful, and little interrupted by othertones of feeling. The information which she acquired by habits ofpatient attention, was indelibly riveted in a naturally powerful memory.She had also a high feeling for the solitary and melancholy grandeur ofthe scenes in which she was placed. The ocean, in all its varied formsof sublimity and terror--the tremendous cliffs that resound to theceaseless roar of the billows, and the clang of the sea-fowl, had forMinna a charm in almost every state in which the changing seasonsexhibited them. With the enthusiastic feelings proper to the romanticrace from which her mother descended, the love of natural objects was toher a passion capable not only of occupying, but at times of agitating,her mind. Scenes upon which her sister looked with a sense of transientawe or emotion, which vanished on her return from witnessing them,continued long to fill Minna's imagination, not only in solitude, and inthe silence of the night, but in the hours of society. So that sometimeswhen she sat like a beautiful statue, a present member of the domesticcircle, her thoughts were far absent, wandering on the wild sea-shore,and among the yet wilder mountains of her native isles. And yet, whenrecalled to conversation, and mingling in it with interest, there werefew to whom her friends were more indebted for enhancing its enjoyments;and although something in her manners claimed deference (notwithstandingher early youth) as well as affection, even her gay, lovely, andamiable sister was not more generally beloved than the more retired andpensive Minna.
Indeed, the two lovely sisters were not only the delight of theirfriends, but the pride of those islands, where the inhabitants of acertain rank were blended, by the remoteness of their situation and thegeneral hospitality of their habits, into one friendly community. Awandering poet and parcel-musician, who, after going through variousfortunes, had returned to end his days as he could in his nativeislands, had celebrated the daughters of Magnus in a poem, which heentitled Night and Day; and in his description of Minna, might almost bethought to have anticipated, though only in a rude outline, theexquisite lines of Lord Byron,--
"She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in he
r aspect, and her eyes: Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies."
Their father loved the maidens both so well, that it might be difficultto say which he loved best; saving that, perchance, he liked his graverdamsel better in the walk without doors, and his merry maiden better bythe fireside; that he more desired the society of Minna when he was sad,and that of Brenda when he was mirthful; and, what was nearly the samething, preferred Minna before noon, and Brenda after the glass hadcirculated in the evening.
But it was still more extraordinary, that the affections of MordauntMertoun seemed to hover with the same impartiality as those of theirfather betwixt the two lovely sisters. From his boyhood, as we havenoticed, he had been a frequent inmate of the residence of Magnus atBurgh-Westra, although it lay nearly twenty miles distant from Jarlshof.The impassable character of the country betwixt these places, extendingover hills covered with loose and quaking bog, and frequentlyintersected by the creeks or arms of the sea, which indent the island oneither side, as well as by fresh-water streams and lakes, rendered thejourney difficult, and even dangerous, in the dark season yet, as soonas the state of his father's mind warned him to absent himself,Mordaunt, at every risk, and under every difficulty, was pretty sure tobe found the next day at Burgh-Westra, having achieved his journey inless time than would have been employed perhaps by the most activenative.
He was of course set down as a wooer of one of the daughters of Magnus,by the public of Zetland; and when the old Udaller's great partiality tothe youth was considered, nobody doubted that he might aspire to thehand of either of those distinguished beauties, with as large a share ofislets, rocky moorland, and shore-fishings, as might be the fittingportion of a favoured child, and with the presumptive prospect ofpossessing half the domains of the ancient house of Troil, when theirpresent owner should be no more. This seemed all a reasonablespeculation, and, in theory at least, better constructed than many thatare current through the world as unquestionable facts. But, alas! allthat sharpness of observation which could be applied to the conduct ofthe parties, failed to determine the main point, to which of the youngpersons, namely, the attentions of Mordaunt were peculiarly devoted. Heseemed, in general, to treat them as an affectionate and attachedbrother might have treated two sisters, so equally dear to him that abreath would have turned the scale of affection. Or if at any time,which often happened, the one maiden appeared the more especial objectof his attention, it seemed only to be because circumstances called herpeculiar talents and disposition into more particular and immediateexercise.
Both the sisters were accomplished in the simple music of the north, andMordaunt, who was their assistant, and sometimes their preceptor, whenthey were practising this delightful art, might be now seen assistingMinna in the acquisition of those wild, solemn, and simple airs, towhich scalds and harpers sung of old the deeds of heroes, and presentlyfound equally active in teaching Brenda the more lively and complicatedmusic, which their father's affection caused to be brought from theEnglish or Scottish capital for the use of his daughters. And whileconversing with them, Mordaunt, who mingled a strain of deep and ardententhusiasm with the gay and ungovernable spirits of youth, was equallyready to enter into the wild and poetical visions of Minna, or into thelively and often humorous chat of her gayer sister. In short, so littledid he seem to attach himself to either damsel exclusively, that he wassometimes heard to say, that Minna never looked so lovely, as when herlighthearted sister had induced her, for the time, to forget herhabitual gravity; or Brenda so interesting, as when she sat listening, asubdued and affected partaker of the deep pathos of her sister Minna.
The public of the mainland were, therefore, to use the hunter's phrase,at fault in their farther conclusions, and could but determine, afterlong vacillating betwixt the maidens, that the young man was positivelyto marry one of them, but which of the two could only be determined whenhis approaching manhood, or the interference of stout old Magnus, thefather, should teach Master Mordaunt Mertoun to know his own mind. "Itwas a pretty thing, indeed," they usually concluded, "that he, no nativeborn, and possessed of no visible means of subsistence that is known toany one, should presume to hesitate, or affect to have the power ofselection and choice, betwixt the two most distinguished beauties ofZetland. If they were Magnus Troil, they would soon be at the bottom ofthe matter"--and so forth. All which remarks were only whispered, forthe hasty disposition of the Udaller had too much of the old Norse fireabout it to render it safe for any one to become an unauthorizedintermeddler with his family affairs; and thus stood the relation ofMordaunt Mertoun to the family of Mr. Troil of Burgh-Westra, when thefollowing incidents took place.