LITMIR.BIZ

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insensible to anything except the risk that the old mansion was about to fall above their heads.

      Mistress Baby gave vent to her fears in loud exclamations of “The Lord guide us — this is surely the last day — what kind of a country of guisards and gyrecarlines is this! — and you, ye fool carle,” she added, turning on her brother (for all her passions had a touch of acidity in them), “to quit the bonny Mearns land to come here, where there is naething but sturdy beggars and gaberlunzies within ane’s house, and Heaven’s anger on the outside on’t!”

      “I tell you, sister Baby,” answered the insulted agriculturist,” that all shall be reformed and amended, — excepting,” he added, betwixt his teeth, “the scaulding humours of an ill-natured jaud, that can add bitterness to the very storm!”

      The old domestic and the pedlar meanwhile exhausted themselves in entreaties to Norna, of which, as they were couched in the Norse language, the master of the house understood nothing.

      She listened to them with a haughty and unmoved air, and replied at length aloud, and in English — ” I will not. What if this house be strewed in ruins before morning — where would be the world’s want in the crazed projector, and the niggardly pinch-commons, by which it is inhabited? They will needs come to reform Zetland customs, let them try how they like a Zetland storm. — You that would not perish, quit this house!”

      The pedlar seized on his little knapsack, and began hastily to brace it on his back; the old maidservant cast her cloak about her shoulders, and both seemed to be in the act of leaving the house as fast as they could.

      Triptolemus Yellowley, somewhat commoved by these appearances, asked Mordaunt, with a voice which faltered with apprehension, whether he thought there was any, that is, so very much danger?

      “I cannot tell,” answered the youth, “ I have scarce ever seen such a storm. Norna can tell us better than any one when it will abate; for no one in these islands can judge of the weather like her.”

      “And is that all thou thinkest Norna can do?” said the sibyl; “ thou shalt know her powers are not bounded within such a narrow space. Hear me, Mordaunt, youth of a foreign land, but of a friendly heart — Dost thou quit this doomed mansion with those who now prepare to leave it?”

      “I do not — I will not, Norna,” replied Mordaunt; “ I know not your motive for desiring me to remove, and I will not leave, upon these dark threats, the house in which I have been kindly received in such a tempest as this. If the owners are unaccustomed to our practice of unlimited hospitality, I am the more obliged to them that they have relaxed their usages, and opened their doors in my behalf.”

      “He is a brave lad,” said Mistress Baby, whose superstitious feelings had been daunted by the threats of the supposed sorceress, and who, amidst her eager, narrow, and repining disposition, had, like all who possess marked character, some sparks of higher feeling, which made her sympathise with generous sentiments, though she thought it too expensive to entertain them at her own cost — ” He is a brave lad,” she again repeated, “and worthy of ten geese, if I had them to boil for him, or roast either. I’ll warrant him a gentleman’s son, and no churl’s blood.”

      “Hear me, young Mordaunt,” said Norna, “and depart from this house. Fate has high views on you — you shall not remain in this hovel to be crushed amid its worthless ruins, with the relics of its more worthless inhabitants, whose life is as little to the world as the vegetation of the houseleek, which now grows on their thatch, and which shall soon be crushed amongst their mangled limbs.”

      “I — I — I will go forth,” said Yellowley, who, despite of his bearing himself scholarly and wisely, was beginning to be terrified for the issue of the adventure; for the house was old, and the walls rocked formidably to the blast.

      “To what purpose? “ said his sister. “ I trust the Prince of the power of the air has not yet suchlike power over those that are made in God’s image, that a good house should fall about our heads, because a randy quean” (here she darted a fierce glance at the Pythoness) “ should boast us with her glamour, as if we were sae mony dogs to crouch at her bidding!”

      “I was only wanting,” said Triptolemus, ashamed of his motion, “ to look at the bear-braird, which must be sair laid wi’ this tempest; but if this honest woman like to bide wi’ us, I think it were best to let us a’ sit doun canny thegither, till it’s working weather again.”

      “Honest woman! “ echoed Baby — ” Foul warlock thief! — Aroint ye, ye limmer!” she added, addressing Norna directly; “ out of an honest house, or, shame fa’ me, but I’ll take the bittle1 to you!”

      Norna cast on her a look of supreme contempt; then, stepping to the window, seemed engaged in deep contemplation of the heavens, while the old maidservant, Tronda, drawing close to her mistress, implored, for the sake of all that was dear to man or woman, “ Do not provoke Norna of Fitful Head! You have no sic woman on the mainland of Scotland — she can ride on one of these clouds as easily as man ever rode on a sheltie.”

      “I shall live to see her ride on the reek of a fat tar-barrel,” said Mistress Baby, “ and that will be a fit pacing palfrey for her.”

      Again Norna regarded the enraged Mrs. Baby Yellowley with a look of that unutterable scorn which her haughty features could so well express, and moving to the window which looked to the northwest, from which quarter the gale seemed at present to blow, she stood for some time with her arms crossed, looking out upon the leaden-coloured sky,

       1 The beetle with which the Scottish housewives used to perform the office of the modern mangle, by beating newly-washed linen on a smooth stone or the purpose, called the beetling-stone.

      obscured as it was by the thick drift, which, coming on in successive gusts of tempest, left ever and anon sad and dreary intervals of expectation betwixt the dying and the reviving blast.

      Norna regarded this war of the elements as one to whom their strife was familiar; yet the stern serenity of her features had in it a cast of awe, and at the same time of authority, as the cabalist may be supposed to look upon the spirit he has evoked, and which, though he knows how to subject him to his spell, bears still an aspect appalling to flesh and blood. The attendants stood by in different attitudes, expressive of their various feelings. Mordaunt, though not indifferent to the risk in which they stood, was more curious than alarmed. He had heard of Norna’s alleged power over the elements, I and now expected an opportunity of judging for himself of its reality. Triptolemus Yellowley was confounded at what seemed to be far beyond the bounds of his philosophy; and, if the truth must be spoken, the worthy agriculturist was greatly more frightened than inquisitive. His sister was not in the least curious on the subject, but it was difficult to say whether anger or fear predominated in her sharp eyes and thin compressed lips. The pedlar and old Tronda, confident that the house would never fall while the redoubted Norna was beneath its roof, held themselves ready for a start the instant she should take her departure.

      Having looked on the sky for some time in a fixed attitude, and with the most profound silence, Norna at once, yet with a slow and elevated gesture, extended her staff of black oak” towards that part of the heavens from which the blast came hardest, and in the midst of its fury chanted a Norwegian invocation, still preserved in the Island of Uist, under the name of the “ Song of the Reimkennar,” though some call it the “ Song of the Tempest.” The following is a free translation, it being impossible to render literally many of the elliptical and metaphorical terms of expression, peculiar to the ancient Northern poetry: —

      1

      “Stern eagle of the far northwest,

       Thou that bearest in thy grasp the thunderbolt,

       Thou whose rushing pinions stir ocean to madness,

       Thou the destroyer of herds, thou the scatterer of navies,

       Thou the breaker down of towers,

       Amidst the scream of thy rage,

       Amidst the rushing of thy onward wings,

      

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