been more strongly or more powerfully forced upon him than by the hasty churlishness with which Mertoun rejected from a son that assistance, which most elderly men are willing to receive from youths with whom they are but slightly connected, as a tribute which it is alike graceful to yield and pleasing to receive. Mertoun, however, did not seem to perceive the effect which his unkindness had produced upon his son’s feelings. He paused upon a sort of level terrace which they had now attained, and addressed his son with an indifferent tone, which seemed in come degree affected.
“Since you have so few inducements, Mordaunt, to remain in these wild islands, I suppose you sometimes wish to look a little more abroad into the world?”
“By my word, sir,” replied Mordaunt, “ I cannot say I ever have a thought on such a subject.”
“And why not, young man?” demanded his father; “it were but natural, I think, at your age. At your age, the fair and varied breadth of Britain could not gratify me, much less the compass of a sea-girdled peat-moss.”
“I have never thought of leaving Zetland, sir,” replied the son. “ I am happy here, and have friends. You yourself, sir, would miss me, unless indeed”
“Why, thou wouldst not persuade me,” said his father, somewhat hastily, “that you stay here, or desire to stay here, for the love of me?”
“Why should I not, sir? “ answered Mordaunt mildly; “ it is my duty, and I hope I have hitherto performed it.”
“Oh, ay,” repeated Mertoun, in the same tone — ” your duty — your duty.. So it is the duty of the dog to follow the groom that feeds him.”
“And does he not do so, sir? “ said Mordaunt.
“Ay,” said his father, turning his head aside; “but he fawns only on those who caress him.”
“I hope, sir,” replied Mordaunt, “ I have not been found deficient?”
“Say no more on’t — say no more on’t,” said Mertoun abruptly, “we have both done enough by each other — we must soon part — Let that be our comfort — if our separation should require comfort.”
“I shall be ready to obey your wishes,” said Mordaunt, not altogether displeased at what promised him an opportunity of looking farther abroad into the world. “ I presume it will be your pleasure that I commence my travels with a season at the whale-fishing.”
“Whale-fishing!” replied Mertoun; “that were a mode indeed of seeing the world! but thou speakest but as thou hast learned. Enough of this for the present. Tell me where you had shelter from the storm yesterday?”
“At Stourburgh, the house of the new factor from Scotland.”
“A pedantic, fantastic, visionary schemer,” said Mertoun — ” and whom saw you there?”
“His sister, sir,” replied Mordaunt, “ and old Norna of the Fitful Head.”
“What! the mistress of the potent spell,” answered Mertoun, with a sneer — ” she who can change the wind by pulling her curch on one side, as King Erick used to do by turning his cap? The dame journeys far from home — how fares she? Does she get rich by selling favourable winds to those who are port-bound? “ 1
“I really do not know, sir,” said Mordaunt, whom certain recollections prevented from freely entering into his father’s humour.
“You think the matter too serious to be jested with, or perhaps esteem her merchandise too light to be cared after,” continued Mertoun, in the same sarcastic tone, which was the nearest approach he ever made to cheerfulness; “but consider it more deeply. Everything in the universe is bought and sold, and why not wind, if the merchant can find purchasers? The earth is rented from its surface down to its most central mines; — the fire, and the means of feeding it, are currently bought and sold; — the wretches that sweep the boisterous ocean with their nets, pay ransom for the privilege of being drowned in it. What title has the air to be exempted I from the universal course of traffic? All above the earth, under the earth, and around the earth, has its price, its sellers, and its purchasers. In many countries the priests will sell you a portion of heaven — in all countries men are willing to buy, in exchange for health, wealth, and peace of conscience, a full allowance of hell. Why should not Norna pursue her traffic?”
1 Note III. Sale of Winds.
“Nay, I know no reason against it,” replied Mordaunt; “only I wish she would part with the commodity in smaller quantities. Yesterday she was a wholesale dealer — whoever treated with her had too good a pennyworth.”
“It is even so,” said his father, pausing on the verge of the wild promontory which they had attained, where the huge precipice sinks abruptly down on the wide and tempestuous ocean, “ and the effects are still visible.”
The face of that lofty cape is composed of the soft and crumbling stone called sand-flag, which gradually becomes decomposed, and yields to the action of the atmosphere, and is split into large masses, that hang loose upon the verge of the precipice, and, detached from it by the violence of the tempests, often descend with great fury into the vexed abyss which lashes the foot of the rock. Numbers of these huge fragments lie strewed beneath the rocks from which they have fallen, and amongst these the tide foams and rages with a fury peculiar to those latitudes.
At the period when Mertoun and his son looked from the verge of the precipice, the wide sea still heaved and swelled with the agitation of yesterday’s storm, which had been far too violent in its effects on the ocean to subside speedily. The tide therefore poured on the headland with a fury deafening to the ear, and dizzying to the eye, threatening instant destruction to whatever might be at the time involved in its current. The sight of Nature, in her magnificence, or in her beauty, or in her terrors, has at all times an overpowering interest, which even habit cannot greatly weaken; and both father and son sat themselves down on the cliff to look out upon that unbounded war of waters, which rolled in their wrath to the foot of the precipice.
At once Mordaunt, whose eyes were sharper, and probably his attention more alert, than that of his father, started up, and exclaimed, “ God in Heaven! there is a vessel in the Roost!”
Mertoun looked to the northwestward, and an object was visible amid the rolling tide. “ She shows no sail,” he observed; and immediately added, after looking at the object through his spyglass, “She is dismasted, and lies a sheer hulk upon the water.”
“And is drifting on the Sumburgh Head,” exclaimed Mordaunt, struck with horror, “without the slightest means of weathering the cape!”
“She makes no effort,” answered his father; “ she is probably deserted by her crew.”
“And in such a day as yesterday,” replied Mordaunt, “when no open boat could live were she manned with the best men ever handled an oar — all must have perished.”
“It is most probable,” said his father, with stern composure; “ and one day, sooner or later, all must have perished. What signifies whether the fowler, whom nothing escapes, caught them up at one swoop from yonder shattered deck, or whether he clutched them individually, as chance gave them to his grasp? What signifies it? — the deck, the battlefield, are scarce more fatal to us than our table and our bed; and we are saved from the one, merely to drag out a heartless and wearisome existence, till we perish at the other. Would the hour were come — that hour which reason would teach us to wish for, were it not that nature has implanted the fear of it so strongly within us! You wonder at such a reflection, because life is yet new to you. Ere you have attained my age, it will be the familiar companion of your thoughts.”
“Surely, sir,” replied Mordaunt, “ such distaste to life is not the necessary consequence of advanced age?”
“To all who have sense to estimate that which it is really worth,” said Mertoun. “Those who, like Magnus Troil, possess so much of the animal impulses about them, as to derive pleasure from sensual gratification, may perhaps, like the animals, feel pleasure in mere existence.”
Mordaunt