Part 27 (2/2)

”And it is even for that I love him,” said Minna. ”I am a daughter of the old dames of Norway, who could send their lovers to battle with a smile, and slay them, with their own hands, if they returned with dishonour. My lover must scorn the mockeries by which our degraded race strive for distinction, or must practise them only in sport, and in earnest of n.o.bler dangers. No whale-striking, bird-nesting favourite for me; my lover must be a Sea-king, or what else modern times may give that draws near to that lofty character.”

”Alas, my sister!” said Brenda, ”it is now that I must in earnest begin to believe the force of spells and of charms. You remember the Spanish story which you took from me long since, because I said, in your admiration of the chivalry of the olden times of Scandinavia, you rivalled the extravagance of the hero.--Ah, Minna, your colour shows that your conscience checks you, and reminds you of the book I mean;--is it more wise, think you, to mistake a windmill for a giant, or the commander of a paltry corsair for a Kiempe, or a Vi-king?”

Minna did indeed colour with anger at this insinuation, of which, perhaps, she felt in some degree the truth.

”You have a right,” she said, ”to insult me, because you are possessed of my secret.”

Brenda's soft heart could not resist this charge of unkindness; she adjured her sister to pardon her, and the natural gentleness of Minna's feelings could not resist her entreaties.

”We are unhappy,” she said, as she dried her sister's tears, ”that we cannot see with the same eyes--let us not make each other more so by mutual insult and unkindness. You have my secret--it will not, perhaps, long be one, for my father shall have the confidence to which he is ent.i.tled, so soon as certain circ.u.mstances will permit me to offer it.

Meantime, I repeat, you have my secret, and I more than suspect that I have yours in exchange, though you refuse to own it.”

”How, Minna!” said Brenda; ”would you have me acknowledge for any one such feelings as you allude to, ere he has said the least word that could justify such a confession?”

”Surely not; but a hidden fire may be distinguished by heat as well as flame.”

”You understand these signs, Minna,” said Brenda, hanging down her head, and in vain endeavouring to suppress the temptation to repartee which her sister's remark offered; ”but I can only say, that, if ever I love at all, it shall not be until I have been asked to do so once or twice at least, which has not yet chanced to me. But do not let us renew our quarrel, and rather let us think why Norna should have told us that horrible tale, and to what she expects it should lead.”

”It must have been as a caution,” replied Minna--”a caution which our situation, and, I will not deny it, which mine in particular, might seem to her to call for;--but I am alike strong in my own innocence, and in the honour of Cleveland.”

Brenda would fain have replied, that she did not confide so absolutely in the latter security as in the first; but she was prudent, and, forbearing to awaken the former painful discussion, only replied, ”It is strange that Norna should have said nothing more of her lover. Surely he could not desert her in the extremity of misery to which he had reduced her?”

”There may be agonies of distress,” said Minna, after a pause, ”in which the mind is so much jarred, that it ceases to be responsive even to the feelings which have most engrossed it;--her sorrow for her lover may have been swallowed up in horror and despair.”

”Or he might have fled from the islands, in fear of our father's vengeance,” replied Brenda.

”If for fear, or faintness of heart,” said Minna, looking upwards, ”he was capable of flying from the ruin which he had occasioned, I trust he has long ere this sustained the punishment which Heaven reserves for the most base and dastardly of traitors and of cowards.--Come, sister, we are ere this expected at the breakfast board.”

And they went thither, arm in arm, with much more of confidence than had lately subsisted between them; the little quarrel which had taken place having served the purpose of a _bourasque_, or sudden squall, which dispels mists and vapours, and leaves fair weather behind it.

On their way to the breakfast apartment, they agreed that it was unnecessary, and might be imprudent, to communicate to their father the circ.u.mstance of the nocturnal visit, or to let him observe that they now knew more than formerly of the melancholy history of Norna.

AUTHOR'S NOTES.

Note I., p. 22.--NORSE FRAGMENTS.

Near the conclusion of Chapter II, it is noticed that the old Norwegian sagas were preserved and often repeated by the fishermen of Orkney and Zetland, while that language was not yet quite forgotten. Mr. Baikie of Tankerness, a most respectable inhabitant of Kirkwall, and an Orkney proprietor, a.s.sured me of the following curious fact.

A clergyman, who was not long deceased, remembered well when some remnants of the Norse were still spoken in the island called North Ronaldshaw. When Gray's Ode, ent.i.tled the ”Fatal Sisters,” was first published, or at least first reached that remote island, the reverend gentleman had the well-judged curiosity to read it to some of the old persons of the isle, as a poem which regarded the history of their own country. They listened with great attention to the preliminary stanzas:--

”Now the storm begins to lour, Haste the loom of h.e.l.l prepare, Iron sleet of arrowry shower Hurtles in the darken'd air.”

But when they had heard a verse or two more, they interrupted the reader, telling him they knew the song well in the Norse language, and had often sung it to him when he asked them for an old song. They called it the Magicians, or the Enchantresses. It would have been singular news to the elegant translator, when executing his version from the text of Bartholine, to have learned that the Norse original was still preserved by tradition in a remote corner of the British dominions. The circ.u.mstances will probably justify what is said in the text concerning the traditions of the inhabitants of those remote isles, at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Even yet, though the Norse language is entirely disused, except in so far as particular words and phrases are still retained, these fishers of the Ultima Thule are a generation much attached to these ancient legends. Of this the author learned a singular instance.

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