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INTRODUCTION TO THE PIRATE.

"Quoth he, there was a ship."

THIS brief preface may begin like the tale of the Ancient Mariner, since it was on ship-board that the author acquired the very moderate degree of local knowledge and information, both of people and scenery, which he has endeavoured to embody in the romance of the Pirate.

In the summer and autumn of 1814, the author was invited to join a party of Commissioners for the Northern Light-House Service, who proposed making a voyage round the coast of Scotland, and through its various groups of islands, chiefly for the purpose of seeing the condition of the many lighthouses under their direction,-edifices so important, whether regarding them as benevolent or political institutions. Among the commissioners who manage this important public concern, the sheriff of each county of Scotland which borders on the sea, holds ex-officio a place at the Board. These gentlemen act in every respect gratuitously, but have the use of an armed yacht, well found and fitted up, when they choose to visit the lighthouses. An excellent engineer, Mr. Robert Stevenson, is attached to the Board, to afford the benefit of his professional advice. The author accompanied this expedition as a guest; for Selkirkshire, though it calls him Sheriff, has not, like the kingdom of Bohemia in Corporal Trim's story, a seaport in its circuit, nor its magistrate, of course, any place at the Board of Commissioners,-a circumstance of little consequence where all were old and intimate friends, bred to the same profession, and disposed to accommodate each other in every possible The nature of the important business which was the principal purpose of the voyage, was connected with the amusement of visiting the leading objects of a traveller's curiosity; for the wild cape, or formidable shelve, which requires to be marked out by a lighthouse, is generally at no great distance from the most magnificent scenery of rocks, caves, and billows. Our time, too, was at our own disposal, and, as most of us were freshwater sailors, we could at any time make a fair wind out of a foul one, and run before the gale in quest of some object of curiosity which lay under our lee.

manner.

With these purposes of public utility and some personal Amusement in view, we left the port of Leith on the 26th July, 1814, ran along the east coast of Scotland, viewing its different curiosities, stood over to Zetland and Orkney, where we were some time detained by the wonders of a country which displayed so much that was new to us; and having seen what was curious in the Ultima Thule of the ancients, where the sun hardly thought it worth while to go to bed, since his rising was at this season so early, we doubled the extreme northern termination of Scotland, and took a rapid survey of the Hebrides, where we found many kind friends. There, that our little expedition might not want the dignity of danger, we were favoured with a distant glimpse of what was said to be an American cruiser, and had opportunity to consider what a pretty figure we should have made had the voyage ended in our being carried captive to the United States. After visiting the romantic shores of Morven, and the vicinity of Oban, we made a run to the coast of Irelaúd, and visited the Giant's Causeway, that we might compare it with Staffa, which we had surveyed in our At length, about the middle of September, we ended our voyage in the Clyde, at the port of Greenock.

course.

And thus terminated our pleasant tour, to which our equip ment gave unusual facilities, as the ship's company could form a strong boat's crew, independent of those who might be left on board the vessel, which permitted us the freedom to land wherever our curiosity carried us. Let me add, while reviewing for a moment a sunny portion of my life, that among the six or seven friends who performed this voyage together, some of them doubtless of different tastes and pursuits, and remaining for several weeks on board a small vessel, there never occurred the slightest dispute or disagreement, each seeming anxious to submit his own particular wishes to those of his friends. By this mutual accommodation all the purposes of our little expedition were obtained, while for a time we might havo adopted the lines of Allan Cunningham's fine sea-song,

The world of waters was our home,
And merry men were we!"

But sorrow mixes her memorials with the purest remembrances of pleasure. On returning from the voyage which had proved so satisfactory, I found that fate had deprived her country most unexpectedly of a lady, qualified to adorn the high rank which she held, and who had long admitted me to a share of her friendship. The subsequent loss of one of those comrades who made up the party, and he the most intimate friend 4 I

but for these embitterments, would be otherwise so pleasing. I had in the world, casts also its shade on recollections which, I may here briefly observe, that my business in this voyage, so far as I could be said to have any, was to endeavour to dis cover some localities which might be useful in the "Lord of the Isles," a poem with which I was then threatening the pub. lic, and was afterwards printed without attaining remarkable success. But as at the same time the anonymous novel of augured the possibility of a second effort in this department of "Waverley" was making its way to popularity, I already literature, and I saw much in the wild islands of the Orkneys and Zetland, which I judged might be made in the highest degree interesting, should these isles ever become the scene of a narrative of fictitious events. I learned the history of Gow the pirate from an old sibyl, (the subject of a note, p. 98 of this able winds, which she sold to mariners at Stromness. Nothing novel,) whose principal subsistence was by a trade in favour could be more interesting than the kindness and hospitality of the gentlemen of Zetland, which was to me the more affecting, as several of them had been friends and correspondents of my father.

I was induced to go a generation or two farther back, to find wegian Udaller, the Scottish gentry having in general occupied materials from which I might trace the features of the old Nor the place of that primitive race, and their language and pecuference now to be observed betwixt the gentry of these islands, liarities of manner having entirely disappeared. The only dif perty is more equally divided among our more northern coun and those of Scotland in general, is, that the wealth and protrymen, and that there exists among the resident proprietors no render the others discontented with their own lot. From the men of very great wealth, whose display of its luxuries might living, which is its natural consequence, I found the officers of same cause of general equality of fortunes, and the cheapness of Charlotte, in Lerwick, discomposed at the idea of being recalled a veteran regiment who had maintained the garrison at Fort from a country where their pay, however inadequate to the expenses of a capital, was fully adequate to their wants, and it their approaching departure from the melancholy isles of tho was singular to hear natives of merry England herself regretting Ultima Thule.

publication, which took place several years later than the Such are the trivial particulars attending the origin of that agreeable journey from which it took its rise.

The state of manners which I have introduced in the romance, was necessarily in a great degree imaginary, though founded in some measure on slight hints, which, showing what was, seemed to give reasonable indication of what must once teresting islands. have been, the tone of the society in these sequestered but in

In one respect I was judged somewhat hastily, perhaps, when copy of Meg Merrilies. That I had fallen short of what I the character of Norna was pronounced by the critics a mere object could not have been so widely mistaken; nor can I yet wished and desired to express is unquestionable, otherwise my think that any person who will take the trouble of reading the Pirate with some attention, can fail to trace in Norna,-the victim of remorse and insanity, and the dupe of her own imposture, her mind, too, flooded with all the wild literature and extravagant superstitions of the north,-something distinct from the Dumfries-shire gipsy, whose pretensions to supernatural powers are not beyond those of a Norwood prophetess. The foundations of such a character may be perhaps traced, though it be too true that the necessary superstructure cannot have been raised upon them, otherwise these remarks would have been unnecessary. There is also great improbability in the statement of Norna's possessing power and opportunity to im press on others that belief in her supernatural gifts which distracted her own mind. Yet, amid a very credulous and ignorant population, it is astonishing what success may be attained by an impostor, who is, at the same time, an enthusiast. It is such as to remind us of the couplet which assures us that

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ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PIRATE.

THE purpose of the following Narrative is to give a detailed and accurate account of certain remarkable incidents which took place in the Orkney Islands, concerning which the more imperfect traditions and mutilated records of the country only tell us the following erroneous particulars :-

which sentence Gow endured with a great deal of boldness.”— The next morning, (27th May, 1725,) when he had seen the ter rible preparations for pressing him to death, his courage gave way, and he told the Marshal of Court, that he would not have given so much trouble had he been assured of not being hanged in chains. He was then tried, condemned, and executed, with others of his crew.

body; and then, touching the hand of the corpse, she formally resumed the troth-plight which she had bestowed. Without going through this ceremony, she could not, according to the superstition of the country, have escaped a visit from the ghost of her departed lover, in the event of her bestowing upon any living suitor the faith which she had plighted to the dead. This part of the legend may serve as a curious commentary on the fine Scottish ballad, which begins,

In the month of January, 1724-5, a vessel, called the Revenge, bearing twenty large guns, and six smaller, commanded by JOHN Gow, or GOFFE, or SMITH, came to the Orkney Islands, and was It is said, that the lady whose affections Gow had engaged, discovered to be a pirate, by various acts of insolence and went up to London to see him before his death, and that, arriv villany committed by the crew. These were for some time sub-ing too late, she had the courage to request a sight of his dead mitted to, the inhabitants of these remote islands not possessing arms nor means of resistance; and so bold was the Captain of these banditti, that he not only came ashore, and gave dancing parties in the village of Stromness, but before his real character was discovered, engaged the affections, and received the troth plight, of a young lady possessed of some property. A patriotic individual, JAMES FEA, younger of Clestron, formed the plan of securing the buccanier, which he effected by a mixture of courage and address, in consequence chiefly of Gow's vessel having gone on shore near the harbour of Calfsound, on the Island of Eda, not far distant from a house then inhabited by Mr. FEA.In the various stratagems by which Mr. FEA contrived finally, at the peril of his life, (they being well armed and desperate,) to make the whole pirates his prisoners, he was much aided by Mr. JAMES LAING, the grandfather of the late MALCOM LAING, Esq. the acute and ingenious historian of Scotland during the 17th century.

Gow, and others of his crew, suffered, by sentence of the High Court of Admiralty, the punishment their crimes had long deserved. He conducted himself with great audacity when before the Court; and, from an account of the matter by an eye-witness, seems to have been subjected to some unusual severities, in order to compel him to plead. The words are these: "JOHN Gow would not plead, for which he was brought to the bar, and the Judge ordered that his thumbs should be squeezed by two men, with a whip-cord, till it did break; and then it should be doubled, till it did again break, and then laid threefold, and that the executioners should pull with their whole strength;

"There came a ghost to Margaret's door," &c.

The common account of this incident farther bears, that Mr FEA, the spirited individual by whose exertions Gow's career of iniquity was cut short, was so far from receiving any reward from Government, that he could not obtain even countenance enough to protect him against a variety of sham suits, raised against him by Newgate solicitors, who acted in the name of Gow, and others of the pirate crew; and the various expenses, vexatious prosecutions, and other legal consequences, in which his gallant exploit involved him, utterly ruined his fortune and his family; making his memory a notable example to all who shall in future take pirates on their own authority.

It is to be supposed, for the honour of GEORGE the First's Government, that the last circumstance, as well as the dates and other particulars of the commonly received story, are inac curate, since they will be found totally irreconcilable with the following veracious narrative, compiled from materials to which he himself alone has had access, by

THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.

THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER I.

The storm had ceased its wintry roar,
Hoarse dash the billows of the sea;
But who on Thule's desert shore,

Cries, Have I burnt my harp for thee?

MACNIEL THAT long, narrow, and irregular island, usually called the mainland of Zetland, because it is by far the largest of that Archipelago, terminates, as is well known to the mariners who navigate the stormy seas which surround the Thule of the ancients, in a cliff of immense height, entitled Sumburgh-Head, which presents its bare scalp and naked sides to the weight of a tremendous surge, forming the extreme point of the isle to the south-east. This lofty promontory is constantly exposed to the current of a strong and furious tide, which, setting in betwixt the Orkney and Zetland Islands, and running with force only inferior to that of the Pentland Frith, takes its name from the headland we have mentioned, and is called the Roost of Sumburgh; roost being the phrase assigned in those isles to currents of this description.

On the land side, the promontory is covered with short grass, and slopes steeply down to a little isthmus, upon which the sea has encroached in creeks, which, advancing from either side of the island, gradually work their way forward, and seem as if in a short time they would form a junction, and altogether insulate Sumburgh- Head, when what is now a cape, will become a lonely mountain islet, severed from the mainland, of which it is at present the terminating extremity.

Man, however, had in former days considered this as a remote or unlikely event; for a Norwegian chief of other times, or, as other accounts said, and as the name of Jarlshof seemed to imply, an ancient Earl of the Orkneys had selected this neck of land as the place for establishing a mansion-house. It has been long entirely deserted, and the vestiges only can be discerned with difficulty; for the loose sand, borne on the tempestuous gales of those stormy regions, has overblown, and almost buried, the ruins of the buildings; but in the end of the seventeeth century, a part of the Earl's mansion was still entire and habitable. It was a rude building of rough stone, with nothing about it to gratify the eye, or to excite the imagination; a large old-fashioned narrow house, with a very steep roof, covered with flags composed of gray sandstone, would perhaps convey the best idea of the place to a modern reader. The windows were few, very small in size, and distributed up and down the building with utter contempt of regularity. Against the main structure had rested, in former times, certain smaller copartments of the mansion-house, containing offices, or subordinate apartments, necessary for the accommodation of the Earl's retainers and menials. But these had become ruinous; and the rafters had been taken down for fire-wood, or for other purposes; the walls had given way in many places; and, to complete the devastation, the sand had already drifted amongst the ruins, and filled up what had been once the chambers they contained, to the depth of two or three feet.

Amid this desolation, the inhabitants of Jarlshof had contrived, by constant labour and attention, to keep in order a few roods of land, which had been enclosed as a garden, and which, sheltered by the walls of the house itself, from the relentless sea-blast, produced such vegetables as the climate could bring forth, or rather as the sea-gale would permit to grow; for these islands experience even less of the rigour of

cold than is encountered on the mainland of Scorland; but, unsheltered by a wall of some sort or other, it is scarce possible to raise even the most ordinary culinary vegetables; and as for shrubs or trees, they are entirely out of the question, such is the force of the sweeping sea-blast.

At a short distance from the mansion, and near to the sea-beach, just where the creek forms a sort of imperfect harbour, in which lay three or four fishingboats, there were a few most wretched cottages for the inhabitants and tenants of the township of Jarlshof, who held the whole district of the landlord upon such terms as were in those days usually granted to persons of this description, and which of course, were hard enough. The landlord himself resided upon an estate which he possessed in a more eligible situation, in a different part of the island, and seldom visited his possessions at Sumburgh-Head. He was an honest, plain Zetland gentleman, somewhat passionate, the necessary result of being surrounded by dependents; and somewhat over-convivial in his habits, the consequence perhaps, of having too much time at his disposal; but frank-tempered and generous to his people, and kind and hospitable to strangers. He was descended also of an old and noble Norwegian family; a circumstance which rendered him dearer to the lower orders, most of whom are of the same race; while the lairds, or proprietors, are generally of Scottish extraction, who, at that early period, were still considered as strangers and intruders. Magnus Troil, who deduced his descent from the very Earl who was supposed to have founded Jarlshof, was peculiarly of this opinion.

The present inhabitants of Jarlshof had experienced, on several occasions, the kindness and good will of the proprietor of the territory. When Mr. Mertoun-such was the name of the present inhabitant of the old mansion-first arrived in Zetland, some years before the story commences, he had been received at the house of Mr. Troil with that warm and cordial hospitality for which the islands are distinguished. No one asked him whence he came, where he was going, what was his purpose in visiting so remote a corner of the empire, or what was likely to be the term of his stay. He arrived a perfect stranger, yet was instantly overpowered by a succes. sion of invitations; and in each house which he visited, he found a home as long as he chose to accept it, and lived as one of the family, unnoticed and unnoticing, until he thought proper to remove to some other dwelling. This apparent indifference to the rank, character, and qualities of their guest, did not arise from apathy on the part of his kind hosts, for the islanders had their full share of natural curiosity; but their delicacy deemed it would be an infringement upon the laws of hospitality, to ask questions which their guest might have found it difficult or unpleasing to answer; and instead of endeavouring as is usual in other countries, to wring out of Mr. Mertoun such communications as he might find it agreeable to withhold, the considerate Zetlanders contented themselves with eagerly gathering up such scraps of information as could be collected in the course of conversation.

But the rock in an Arabian desert is not more reluctant to afford water, than Mr. Basil Mertoun was niggard in imparting his confidence, even incidentally; and certainly the politeness of the gentry of Thule was never put to a more severe test than when they felt that good-breeding enjoined them to abstain from inquiring into the situation of so mysterious a personage.

we have already hinted, he chose to exert them, and his misanthropy or aversion to the business and intercourse of ordinary life, was often expressed in an antithetical manner, which passed for wit, when better was not to be had. Above all, Mr. Mertoun's secret seemed impenetrable, and his presence had all the interest of a riddle, which men love to read over and over because they cannot find out the meaning of it.

All that was actually known of him was easily summed up. Mr. Mertoun had come to Lerwick, then rising into some importance, but not yet acknowledged as the principal town of the island, in a Dutch vessel, accompanied only by his son, a handsome boy of about fourteen years old. His own age might exceed forty. The Dutch skipper introduced him to some of the very good friends with whom he used to barter gin and gingerbread for little Zetland bullocks, smoked geese, and stockings of lambswool; Notwithstanding these recommendations, Mertoun and although Meinheer could only say, that "Mein- differed in so many material points from his host, heer Mertoun had bay his passage like one gentle- that after he had been for some time a guest at his mans, and hab given a Kreitz-dollar beside to the principal residence, Magnus Troil was agreeably surcrew," this introduction served to establish the Dutch- prised when, one evening after they had sat two hours man's passenger in a respectable circle of acquaint- in absolute silence, drinking brandy and water,-that ances, which gradually enlarged, as it appeared that is, Magnus drinking the alcohol, and Mertoun the the stranger was a man of considerable acquirements. element,-the guest asked his host's permission to This discovery was made almost per force; for occupy, as his tenant, this deserted mansion of JarlMertoun was as unwilling to speak upon general sub- shof, at the extremity of the territory called Dunrossjects, as upon his own affairs. But he was sometimes ness, and situated just beneath Sumburgh-Head. led into discussions, which showed, as it were in "I shall be handsomely rid of him," quoth Magnus spite of himself, the scholar and the man of the world; to himself, "and his kill-joy visage will never again and, at other times, as if in requital of the hospitality stop the bottle in its round. His departure will ruin which he experienced, he seemed to compel himself, me in lemons, however, for his mere look was quite against his fixed nature, to enter into the society of sufficient to sour a whole ocean of punch." those around him, especially when it assumed the Yet the kind-hearted Zetlander generously and disgrave, melancholy, or satirical cast, which best suited interestedly remonstrated with Mr. Mertoun on the the temper of his own mind. Upon such occasions, solitude and inconveniences to which he was about the Zetlanders were universally of opinion that he to subject himself. "There were scarcely," he said, must have had an excellent education, neglected only "even the most necessary articles of furniture in the in one striking particular, namely, that Mr. Mertoun old house-there was no society within many miles scare knew the stem of a ship from the stern; and in-for provisions, the principal article of food would the management of a boat, a cow could not be more be sour sillocks, and his only company gulls and ignorant. It seemed astonishing such gross igno- gannets." rance of the most necessary art of life (in the Zetland Isles at least) should subsist along with his accomplishments in other respects; but so it was.

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'My good friend," replied Mertoun, “if you could have named a circumstance which would render the residence more eligible to me than any other, it is that there would be neither human luxury nor human society near the place of my retreat; a shelter from the weather for my own head, and for the boy's, is all I seek for. So name your rent, Mr. Troil, and let me be your tenant at Jarlshof."

my mother's time-God rest her!-and as for shelter, the old walls are thick enough, and will bear many a bang yet. But, Heaven love you, Mr. Mertoun, think what you are proposing. For one of us to live at Jarlshof, were a wild scheme enough; but you, who are from another country, whether English, Scotch, or Irish, no one can tell"

"Nor does it greatly matter," said Mertoun, some what abruptly.

Unless called forth in the manner we have mentioned, the habits of Basil Mertoun were retired and gloomy. From loud mirth he instantly fled; and even the moderated cheerfulness of a friendly party, had the invariable effect of throwing him into deeper dejection than even his usual demeanour indicated. Rent?" answered the Zetlander; "why, no great Women are always particularly desirous of investi-rent for an old house which no one has lived in since gating mystery, and of alleviating melancholy, especially when these circumstances are united in a handsome man about the prime of life. It is possible, therefore, that amongst the fair-haired and blue-eyed daughters of Thule this mysterious and pensive stranger might have found some one to take upon herself the task of consolation, had he shown any willingness to accept such kindly offices; but, far from doing so, he seemed even to shun the presence of the sex, to which in our distresses, whether of mind or body, we generally apply for pity and comfort. To these peculiarities Mr. Mertoun added another, which was particularly disagreeable to his host and principal patron, Magnus Troil. This magnate of Zetland, descended by the father's side, as we have already said, from an ancient Norwegian family, by the marriage of its representative with a Danish lady, held the devout opinion that a cup of Geneva or Nantz was specific against all cares and afflictions whatever. These were remedies to which Mr. Mertoun never applied; his drink was water, and water alone, and no persuasion or entreaties could induce him to taste any stronger beverage than was afforded by the pure spring. Now this Magnus Troil could not tolerate; it was a defiance to the ancient northern laws of conviviality, which, for his own part, he had so rigidly observed, that although he was wont to assert that he had never in his life gone to bed drunk, (that is, in his own sense of the word,) it would have been impossible to prove that he had ever resigned himself to slumber in a state of actual and absolute sobriety. It may be therefore asked, What did this stranger bring into society to compensate the displeasure given by his austere and abstemious habits? He had, in the first place, that manner and self-importance which mark a person of some consequence and although it was conjectured that he could not be rich, yet it was certainly known by his expenditure that neither was he absolutely poor. He had, besides, some powers of conversation, when, as

"Not a herring's scale," answered the Laird: "only that I like you the better for being no Scot, as trust you are not one. Hither they have come ke the clack-geese-every chamberlain has brought over a flock of his own name, and his own hatching for what I know, and here they roost for ever catch them returning to their own barren Highlands or Lowlands, when once they have tasted our Zetland beef, and seen our bonny roes and lochs. No, sir, (here Magnus proceeded with great animation, sipping from time to time the half-diluted spirit, which at the same time animated his resentment against the intruders, and enabled him to endure the mort fying reflection which it suggested,)-"No, sir, the ancient days and the genuine manners of these Isl ands are no more; for our ancient possessors, our Patersons, our Feas, our Schlagbrenners, our Thorbiorns, have given place to Giffords, Scotts, Mouats men whose names bespeak them or their ancestors strangers to the soil which we the Troils have inhabited long before the days of Turf-Einar, who first taught these Isles the mystery of burning peat for fuel, and who has been handed down to a grateful posterity by a name which records the discovery."

This was a subject upon which the potentate of Jarlshof was usually very diffuse, and Mertoun sa him enter upon it with pleasure, because he knew he should not be called upon to contribute any aid to the conversation, and might therefore indulge his own saturnine humour while the Norwegian Zetlande: declaimed on the change of times and inhabitants.

But just as Magnus had arrived at the melancholy conclusion, "how probable it was, that in another century scarce a merk-scarce even an ure of land, would be in the possession of the Norse inhabitants, the true Udallers of Zetland," he recollected the circumstances of his guest, and stopped suddenly short. "I do not say all this," he added, interrupting himself, as if I were unwilling that you should settle on my estate, Mr. Mertoun--But for Jarlshof-the place is a wild one-Come from where you will, I warrant you will say, like other travellers, you came from a better climate than ours, for so say you all. And yet you think of a retreat, which the very natives run away from. Will you not take your glass?"-(This was to be considered as interjectional,)-" then here's to you."

My good sir," answered Mertoun, "I am indifferent to climate: if there is but air enough to fill my lungs, I care not if it be the breath of Arabia or of Lapland."

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Air enough you may have," answered Magnus, no lack of that-somewhat damp, strangers allege it to be, but we know a corrective for that-Here's to you, Mr. Mertoun-You must learn to do so, and to smoke a pipe; and then, as you say, you will find the air of Zetland equal to that of Arabia. But have you seen Jarlshof?"

The stranger intimated that he had not.

Then," replied Magnus, "you have no idea of your undertaking. If you think it a comfortable roadstead like this, with the house situated on the side of an inland voe,+ that brings the herrings up to your door, you are mistaken, my heart. At Jarlshof you will see naught but the wild waves tumbling on the bare rocks, and the Roost of Sumburgh running at the rate of fifteen knots an-hour."

"I shall see nothing at least of the current of human passions," replied Mertoun.

"You will hear nothing but the clanging and screaming of scarts, sheer-waters, and seagulls, from daybreak till sunset,'

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"I will compound, my friend,” replied the stranger, 'so that I do not hear the chattering of women's tongues."

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Ah," said the Norman, "that is because you hear just now my little Minna and Brenda singing in the garden with your Mordaunt. Now, I would rather listen to their little voices, than the skylark which I once heard in Caithness, or the nightingale that I have read of. What will the girls do for want of their playmate Mordaunt ?"

toun;

"They will shift for themselves," answered Meryounger or elder they will find playmates or dupes. But the question is, Mr. Troil, will you let to me, as your tenant, this old mansion of Jarlshof?" Gladly, since you make it your option to live in a spot so desolate."

"And as for the rent?" continued Mertoun. "The rent?" replied Magnus; "hum-why, you must have the bit of plantie cruive, which they once called a garden, and a right in the scathold, and a sixpenny merk of land, that the tenants may fish for you;-eight lispundss of butter, and eight shillings sterling yearly, is not too much?"

Mr. Mertoun agreed to terms so moderate, and from thenceforward resided chiefly at the solitary mansion which we have described in the beginning of this chapter, conforming not only without complaint, but, as it seemed, with a sullen pleasure, to all the privations which so wild and desolate a situation necessarily imposed on its inhabitant.

The Udallers are the allodial possessors of Zetland, who hold their possessions under the old Norwegian law, instead of the feudal tenures introduced among them from Scotland. Salt-water lake.

1 Patch of ground for vegetables. The liberal custom of the country permits any person, who has occasion for such a convenience, to select out of the unenclosed moorland a small patch, which he surrounds with a drystone wall, and cultivates as a kail yard, till he exhausts the soil with cropping, and then he deserts it, and encloses another. This liberty is so far from inferring an invasion of the right of proprietor and tenant, that the last degree of contempt is inferred of an avaricious man, when a Zetlander says he would not hold a plantle cruive of him. SA lispund is about thirty pounds English, and the value is averaged by Dr. Edmonston at ten shillings sterling.

CHAPTER II.

"Tis not alone the scene-the man, Anselmo,
The man finds sympathies in these wild wastes,
And roughly tumbling seas, which fairer views
And smoother waves deny him.
Ancient Drama.

THE few inhabitants of the township of Jarlshof had at first heard with alarm, that a person of rank superior to their own was come to reside in the rainous tenement, which they still called the Castle. In those days (for the present times are greatly altered for the better) the presence of a superior, in such a situation, was almost certain to be attended with additional burdens and exactions, for which, under one pretext or another, feudal customs furnished a thousand apologies. By each of these, a part of the tenants' hard-won and precarious profits was diverted for the use of their powerful neighbour and superior, the tacksman, as he was called. But the sub-tenants speedily found that no oppression of this kind was to be apprehended at the hands of Basil Mertoun. His own means, whether large or small, were at least fully adequate to his expenses, which, so far as regarded his habits of life, were of the most frugal description. The luxuries of a few books, and some philosophical instruments, with which he was sup plied from London as occasion offered, seemed to indicate a degree of wealth unusual in those islands; but, on the other hand, the table and the accommodations at Jarlshof, did not exceed what was maintained by a Zetland proprietor of the most inferior description. The tenants of the hamlet troubled themselves very little about the quality of their superior, as soon as they found that their situation was rather to be mended than rendered worse by his presence; and, once relieved from the apprehension of his tyrannizing over them, they laid their heads together to make the most of him by various petty tricks of overcharge and extortion, which for a while the stranger submitted to with the most philosophical indifference. An incident, however, occurred, which put his character in a new light, and effectually checked all future efforts at extravagant imposition.

A dispute arose in the kitchen of the Castle betwixt an old governante, who acted as housekeeper to Mr. Mertoun, and Sweyn Erickson, as good a Zetlander as ever rowed a boat to the haaf fishing;* which dispute, as is usual in such cases, was maintained with such increasing heat and vociferation as to reach the ears of the master, (as he was called) who, secluded in a solitary turret, was deeply employed in examining the contents of a new package of books from London, which, after long expectation, had found its way to Hull, from thence by a whaling vessel to Lerwick, and so to Jarlshof. With more than the usual thrill of indignation which indolent people always feel when roused into action on some unpleasant occasion, Mertoun descended to the scene of contest, and so suddenly, peremptorily, and strictly, inquired into the cause of the dispute, that the parties, notwithstanding every evasion which they attempted, became unable to disguise from him, that their difference respected the several interests to which the honest governante, and no less honest fisherman, were respectively entitled, in an overcharge of about one hundred per cent on a bargain of rock-cod, purchased by the former from the latter, for the use of the family at Jarlshof.

When this was fairly ascertained and confessed, Mr. Mertoun stood looking upon the culprits with eyes in which the utmost scorn seemed to contend with awakening passion. "Hark you, ye old hag," said he at length to the housekeeper, "avoid my house this instant! and know that I dismiss you, not for being a liar, a thief, and an ungrateful quean,-for these are qualities as proper to you as your name of woman, but for daring, in my house, to scold above your breath.-And for you, you rascal, who suppose you may cheat a stranger as you would flinch a whale, know that I am well acquainted with the *1. e. The deep-sea fishing, in distinction to that which is practised along shore.

+ The operation of slicing the blubber from the bones of the whale, is called, technically, flinching.

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