by Walter Scott
CHAPTER IV.
But this sad evil which doth her infest, Doth course of natural cause far exceed, And housed is within her hollow breast, That either seems some cursed witch's deed, Or evill spright that in her doth such torment breed.
_Fairy Queen, Book III., Canto III._
The term had now elapsed, by several days, when Mordaunt Mertoun, as hehad promised at his departure, should have returned to his father'sabode at Jarlshof, but there were no tidings of his arrival. Such delaymight, at another time, have excited little curiosity, and no anxiety;for old Swertha, who took upon her the office of thinking andconjecturing for the little household, would have concluded that he hadremained behind the other guests upon some party of sport or pleasure.But she knew that Mordaunt had not been lately in favour with MagnusTroil; she knew that he proposed his stay at Burgh-Westra should be ashort one, upon account of his father's health, to whom, notwithstandingthe little encouragement which his filial piety received, he paiduniform attention. Swertha knew all this, and she became anxious. Shewatched the looks of her master, the elder Mertoun; but, wrapt in darkand stern uniformity of composure, his countenance, like the surface ofa midnight lake, enabled no one to penetrate into what was beneath. Hisstudies, his solitary meals, his lonely walks, succeeded each other inunvaried rotation, and seemed undisturbed by the least thought aboutMordaunt's absence.
At length such reports reached Swertha's ear, from various quarters,that she became totally unable to conceal her anxiety, and resolved, atthe risk of provoking her master into fury, or perhaps that of losingher place in his household, to force upon his notice the doubts whichafflicted her own mind. Mordaunt's good-humour and goodly person mustindeed have made no small impression on the withered and selfish heartof the poor old woman, to induce her to take a course so desperate, andfrom which her friend the Ranzelman endeavoured in vain to deter her.Still, however, conscious that a miscarriage in the matter, would, likethe loss of Trinculo's bottle in the horse-pool, be attended not onlywith dishonour, but with infinite loss, she determined to proceed on herhigh emprize with as much caution as was consistent with the attempt.
We have already mentioned, that it seemed a part of the very nature ofthis reserved and unsocial being, at least since his retreat into theutter solitude of Jarlshof, to endure no one to start a subject ofconversation, or to put any question to him, that did not arise out ofurgent and pressing emergency. Swertha was sensible, therefore, that, inorder to open the discourse favourably which she proposed to hold withher master, she must contrive that it should originate with himself.
To accomplish this purpose, while busied in preparing the table for Mr.Mertoun's simple and solitary dinner-meal, she formally adorned thetable with two covers instead of one, and made all her otherpreparations as if he was to have a guest or companion at dinner.
The artifice succeeded; for Mertoun, on coming from his study, no soonersaw the table thus arranged, than he asked Swertha, who, waiting theeffect of her stratagem as a fisher watches his ground-baits, wasfiddling up and down the room, "Whether Mordaunt was returned fromBurgh-Westra?"
This question was the cue for Swertha, and she answered in a voice ofsorrowful anxiety, half real, half affected, "Na, na!--nae sic divot haddunted at their door. It wad be blithe news indeed, to ken that youngMaister Mordaunt, puir dear bairn, were safe at hame."
"And if he be not at home, why should you lay a cover for him, youdoting fool?" replied Mertoun, in a tone well calculated to stop the oldwoman's proceedings. But she replied, boldly, "that, indeed, somebodyshould take thought about Maister Mordaunt; a' that she could do was tohave seat and plate ready for him when he came. But she thought the dearbairn had been ower lang awa; and, if she maun speak out, she had herain fears when and whether he might ever come hame."
"_Your_ fears!" said Mertoun, his eyes flashing as they usually did whenhis hour of ungovernable passion approached; "do you speak of your idlefears to me, who know that all of your sex, that is not fickleness, andfolly, and self-conceit, and self-will, is a bundle of idiotical fears,vapours, and tremors? What are your fears to me, you foolish old hag?"
It is an admirable quality in womankind, that, when a breach of the lawsof natural affection comes under their observation, the whole sex is inarms. Let a rumour arise in the street of a parent that has misused achild, or a child that has insulted a parent,--I say nothing of thecase of husband and wife, where the interest may be accounted for insympathy,--and all the women within hearing will take animated anddecided part with the sufferer. Swertha, notwithstanding her greed andavarice, had her share of the generous feeling which does so much honourto her sex, and was, on this occasion, so much carried on by itsimpulse, that she confronted her master, and upbraided him with hishard-hearted indifference, with a boldness at which she herself wasastonished.
"To be sure it wasna her that suld be fearing for her young maister,Maister Mordaunt, even although he was, as she might weel say, the verysea-calf of her heart; but ony other father, but his honour himsell, wadhave had speerings made after the poor lad, and him gane this eight-daysfrom Burgh-Westra, and naebody kend when or where he had gane. Therewasna a bairn in the howff but was maining for him; for he made alltheir bits of boats with his knife; there wadna be a dry eye in theparish, if aught worse than weal should befall him,--na, no ane, unlessit might be his honour's ain."
Mertoun had been much struck, and even silenced, by the insolentvolubility of his insurgent housekeeper; but, at the last sarcasm, heimposed on her silence in her turn with an audible voice, accompaniedwith one of the most terrific glances which his dark eye and sternfeatures could express. But Swertha, who, as she afterwards acquaintedthe Ranzelman, was wonderfully supported during the whole scene, wouldnot be controlled by the loud voice and ferocious look of her master,but proceeded in the same tone as before.
"His honour," she said, "had made an unco wark because a wheen bits ofkists and duds, that naebody had use for, had been gathered on the beachby the poor bodies of the township; and here was the bravest lad in thecountry lost, and cast away, as it were, before his een, and nae areasking what was come o' him."
"What should come of him but good, you old fool," answered Mr. Mertoun,"as far, at least, as there can be good in any of the follies he spendshis time in?"
This was spoken rather in a scornful than an angry tone, and Swertha,who had got into the spirit of the dialogue, was resolved not to let itdrop, now that the fire of her opponent seemed to slacken.
"O ay, to be sure I am an auld fule,--but if Maister Mordaunt shouldhave settled down in the Roost, as mair than ae boat had been lost inthat wearifu' squall the other morning--by good luck it was short as itwas sharp, or naething could have lived in it--or if he were drowned ina loch coming hame on foot, or if he were killed by miss of footing on acraig--the haill island kend how venturesome he was--who," said Swertha,"will be the auld fule then?" And she added a pathetic ejaculation, that"God would protect the poor motherless bairn! for if he had had amother, there would have been search made after him before now."
This last sarcasm affected Mertoun powerfully,--his jaw quivered, hisface grew pale, and he muttered to Swertha to go into his study, (whereshe was scarcely ever permitted to enter,) and fetch him a bottle whichstood there.
"O ho!" quoth Swertha to herself, as she hastened on the commission, "mymaster knows where to find a cup of comfort to qualify his water withupon fitting occasions."
There was indeed a case of such bottles as were usually employed to holdstrong waters, but the dust and cobwebs in which they were envelopedshowed that they had not been touched for many years. With somedifficulty Swertha extracted the cork of one of them, by the help of afork--for corkscrew was there none at Jarlshof--and having ascertainedby smell, and, in case of any mistake, by a moderate mouthful, that itcontained wholesome Barbadoes-waters, she carried it into the room,where her master still continued to struggle with his faintness. Shethen began to pour a small quant
ity into the nearest cup that she couldfind, wisely judging, that, upon a person so much unaccustomed to theuse of spirituous liquors, a little might produce a strong effect. Butthe patient signed to her impatiently to fill the cup, which might holdmore than the third of an English pint measure, up to the very brim, andswallowed it down without hesitation.
"Now the saunts above have a care on us!" said Swertha; "he will bedrunk as weel as mad, and wha is to guide him then, I wonder?"
But Mertoun's breath and colour returned, without the slightest symptomof intoxication on the contrary, Swertha afterwards reported, that,"although she had always had a firm opinion in favour of a dram, yet shenever saw one work such miracles--he spoke mair like a man of the middleworld, than she had ever heard him since she had entered his service."
"Swertha," he said, "you are right in this matter, and I was wrong.--Godown to the Ranzelman directly, tell him to come and speak with me,without an instant's delay, and bring me special word what boats andpeople he can command; I will employ them all in the search, and theyshall be plentifully rewarded."
Stimulated by the spur which maketh the old woman proverbially to trot,Swertha posted down to the hamlet, with all the speed of threescore,rejoicing that her sympathetic feelings were likely to achieve their ownreward, having given rise to a quest which promised to be so lucrative,and in the profits whereof she was determined to have her share,shouting out as she went, and long before she got within hearing, thenames of Niel Ronaldson, Sweyn Erickson, and the other friends andconfederates who were interested in her mission. To say the truth,notwithstanding that the good dame really felt a deep interest inMordaunt Mertoun, and was mentally troubled on account of his absence,perhaps few things would have disappointed her more than if he had atthis moment started up in her path safe and sound, and renderedunnecessary, by his appearance, the expense and the bustle of searchingafter him.
Soon did Swertha accomplish her business in the village, and adjust withthe senators of the township her own little share of per centage uponthe profits likely to accrue on her mission and speedily did she returnto Jarlshof, with Niel Ronaldson by her side, schooling him to the bestof her skill in all the peculiarities of her master.
"Aboon a' things," she said, "never make him wait for an answer; andspeak loud and distinct, as if you were hailing a boat,--for he downabide to say the same thing twice over; and if he asks about distance,ye may make leagues for miles, for he kens naething about the face ofthe earth that he lives upon and if he speak of siller, ye may askdollars for shillings, for he minds them nae mair than sclate-stanes."
Thus tutored, Niel Ronaldson was introduced into the presence ofMertoun, but was utterly confounded to find that he could not act uponthe system of deception which had been projected. When he attempted, bysome exaggeration of distance and peril, to enhance the hire of theboats, and of the men, (for the search was to be by sea and land,) hefound himself at once cut short by Mertoun, who showed not only the mostperfect knowledge of the country, but of distances, tides, currents, andall belonging to the navigation of those seas, although these weretopics with which he had hitherto appeared to be totally unacquainted.The Ranzelman, therefore, trembled when they came to speak of therecompense to be afforded for their exertions in the search; for it wasnot more unlikely that Mertoun should be well informed of what was justand proper upon this head than upon others; and Niel remembered thestorm of his fury, when, at an early period after he had settled atJarlshof, he drove Swertha and Sweyn Erickson from his presence. As,however, he stood hesitating betwixt the opposite fears of asking toomuch or too little, Mertoun stopped his mouth, and ended hisuncertainty, by promising him a recompense beyond what he dared haveventured to ask, with an additional gratuity, in case they returned withthe pleasing intelligence that his son was safe.
When this great point was settled, Niel Ronaldson, like a man ofconscience, began to consider earnestly the various places where searchshould be made after the young man; and having undertaken faithfullythat the enquiry should be prosecuted at all the houses of the gentry,both in this and the neighbouring islands, he added, that, "after all,if his honour would not be angry, there was ane not far off, that, ifany body dared speer her a question, and if she liked to answer it,could tell more about Maister Mordaunt than any body else could.--Yewill ken wha I mean, Swertha? Her that was down at the haven thismorning." Thus he concluded, addressing himself with a mysterious lookto the housekeeper, which she answered with a nod and a wink.
"How mean you?" said Mertoun; "speak out, short and open--whom do youspeak of?"
"It is Norna of the Fitful-head," said Swertha, "that the Ranzelman isthinking about; for she has gone up to Saint Ringan's Kirk this morningon business of her own."
"And what can this person know of my son?" said Mertoun; "she is, Ibelieve, a wandering madwoman, or impostor."
"If she wanders," said Swertha, "it is for nae lack of means at hame,and that is weel known--plenty of a' thing has she of her ain, forbythat the Fowd himsell would let her want naething."
"But what is that to my son?" said Mertoun, impatiently.
"I dinna ken--she took unco pleasure in Maister Mordaunt from the timeshe first saw him, and mony a braw thing she gave him at ae time oranother, forby the gowd chain that hangs about his bonny craig--folk sayit is of fairy gold--I kenna what gold it is, but Bryce Snailsfoot says,that the value will mount to an hundred pounds English, and that is naedeaf nuts."
"Go, Ronaldson," said Mertoun, "or else send some one, to seek thiswoman out--if you think there be a chance of her knowing any thing of myson."
"She kens a' thing that happens in thae islands," said Niel Ronaldson,"muckle sooner than other folk, and that is Heaven's truth. But as togoing to the kirk, or the kirkyard, to speer after her, there is not aman in Zetland will do it, for meed or for money--and that's Heaven'struth as weel as the other."
"Cowardly, superstitious fools!" said Mertoun.--"But give me my cloak,Swertha.--This woman has been at Burgh-Westra--she is related to Troil'sfamily--she may know something of Mordaunt's absence, and its cause--Iwill seek her myself--She is at the Cross-kirk, you say?"
"No, not at the Cross-kirk, but at the auld Kirk of Saint Ringan's--it'sa dowie bit, and far frae being canny; and if your honour," addedSwertha, "wad walk by my rule, I wad wait until she came back, and notrouble her when she may be mair busied wi' the dead, for ony thing thatwe ken, than she is wi' the living. The like of her carena to have otherfolk's een on them when they are, gude sain us! doing their ainparticular turns."
Mertoun made no answer, but throwing his cloak loosely around him, (forthe day was misty, with passing showers,) and leaving the decayedmansion of Jarlshof, he walked at a pace much faster than was usual withhim, taking the direction of the ruinous church, which stood, as he wellknew, within three or four miles of his dwelling.
The Ranzelman and Swertha stood gazing after him in silence, until hewas fairly out of ear-shot, when, looking seriously on each other, andshaking their sagacious heads in the same boding degree of vibration,they uttered their remarks in the same breath.
"Fools are aye fleet and fain," said Swertha.
"Fey folk run fast," added the Ranzelman; "and the thing that we areborn to, we cannot win by.--I have known them that tried to stop folkthat were fey. You have heard of Helen Emberson of Camsey, how shestopped all the boles and windows about the house, that her gudemanmight not see daylight, and rise to the Haaf-fishing, because she fearedfoul weather; and how the boat he should have sailed in was lost in theRoost; and how she came back, rejoicing in her gudeman's safety--butne'er may care, for there she found him drowned in his own masking-fat,within the wa's of his ain biggin; and moreover"----
But here Swertha reminded the Ranzelman that he must go down to thehaven to get off the fishing-boats; "for both that my heart is sair forthe bonny lad, and that I am fear'd he cast up of his ain accord beforeyou are at sea; and, as I have often told ye, my master may lead, but hewinna drive; and if ye do not his biddi
ng, and get out to sea, the nevera bodle of boat-hire will ye see."
"Weel, weel, good dame," said the Ranzelman, "we will launch as fast aswe can; and by good luck, neither Clawson's boat, nor Peter Grot's, isout to the Haaf this morning, for a rabbit ran across the path as theywere going on board, and they came back like wise men, kenning they wadbe called to other wark this day. And a marvel it is to think, Swertha,how few real judicious men are left in this land. There is our greatUdaller is weel eneugh when he is fresh, but he makes ower mony voyagesin his ship and his yawl to be lang sae; and now, they say, hisdaughter, Mistress Minna, is sair out of sorts.--Then there is Nornakens muckle mair than other folk, but wise woman ye cannot call her. Ourtacksman here, Maister Mertoun, his wit is sprung in the bowsprit, Idoubt--his son is a daft gowk; and I ken few of consequencehereabouts--excepting always myself, and maybe you, Swertha--but whatmay, in some sense or other, be called fules."
"That may be, Niel Ronaldson," said the dame; "but if you do not hastenthe faster to the shore, you will lose tide; and, as I said to my mastersome short time syne, wha will be the fule then?"