would have you to remember, that your voyage may bring up at Execution dock.--I like not the Scots-no offence, Mr. Yellowley-that is, I would like them well enough if they would stay quiet in their own land, and leave us at peace with our own people, and manners, and fashions; and if they would but abide there till I went to harry them like a mad old Berserkar, I would leave them in peace till the day of judgment. With what the sea sends us, and the land lends us, as the proverb says, and a set of honest neighbourly folks to help us to consume it, so help me, Saint Magnus, as I thinkwe are even but too happy?" "I know what war is," said an old man,

66

"and I would as soon sail through Sumburgh-roost in a cockle-shell, or in a worse loom, as I would venture there again."

"And, pray, what wars knew your valour ?" said Halcro, who, though forbearing to contradict his landlord from a sense of respect, was not a whit inclined to abandon his argument.

"to serve

"I was pressed," answered the old Triton, under Montrose, when he came here about the sixteen hundred and fifty-one, and carried a sort of us off, will ye nill ye, to get our throats cut in the wilds of Strathnavern -I shall never forget it--we had been hard put to it for victuals--what would I have given for a luncheon of Burgh Westra beef--ay, or a mess of sour sillocks ?--When our Highlandmen brought in a dainty drove of kyloes, much ceremony there was not, for we shot and felled, and flayed and roasted, and broiled, as it came to every man's hand; till when, just when our beards were at the greasiest, we heard--God preserve us-a tramp of horse, then twa or three drapping shots,-then came a full salvo,-and then, when the officers crying on us to stand, and maist of us were looking which way we might run away, down they broke, horse and foot, with old John Urry, or Hurry, or whatever they called him-he hurried us that day, and worried us to boot- and we began to fall as thick as the stots that we were felling five minutes before."

"And Montrose," said the soft voice of the graceful Minna; "what came of Montrose, or how looked he ?" "Like a lion with the hunters before him," answered the old gentleman; "but I looked not twice his way, for

my own lay right over the hill.”

"And so you left him?" said Minna, in a tone of the deepest contempt.

"It was no fault of mine, Mistress Minna," answered the old man, somewhat out of countenance; "but I was there with no choice of my own; and, besides, what good could I have done ?-all the rest were running like sheep, and why should I have staid ?"

"You might have died with him," said Minna.

"And lived with him to all eternity, in immortal verse !" added Claud Halcro.

"I thank you, Mistress Minna," replied the plain-dealing Zetlander; " and I thank you, my old friend Claud ;but I would rather drink both your healths, in this good bicker of ale, like a living man as I am, than that you should be making songs in mine honour, for having died forty or fifty years agone. But what signified it,-run or fight, 'twas all one ;-they took Montrose, poor fellow, for all his doughty deeds, and they took me that did no doughty deeds at all, and they hanged him, poor man, and as for

me

"I trust in Heaven they flogged and pickled you," said Cleveland, worn out of patience with the dull narrative of the peaceful Zetlander's poltroonery, of which he seemed se wondrous little ashamed.

"Flog horses, and pickle beef," said Magnus. "Why, you have not the vanity to think, that, with all your quarter-deck airs, you will make poor old neighbour. Haagen ashamed that he was not killed some scores of years since? You have looked on death yourself, my doughty young friend, but it was with the eyes of a young man who wishes to be thought of; but we are a peaceful people,-peaceful, that is, as long as any one should be peaceful, and that is till some one has the impudence to wrong us, or our neighbours, and then, perhaps, they may not find our northern blood much cooler in our veins than was that of the old Scandinavians that gave us our names and lineage.-Get ye along, get ye along to the sword-dance, that the strangers that are amongst us may see that our hands and our weapons are not altogether strangers."

A dozen cutlasses, selected hastily from an old arm-chest, and whose rusted hue bespoke how seldom they left the sheath, armed the same number of young Zetlanders, with whom mingled six maidens, led by Minna Troil; and the minstrelsy instantly commenced a tune appropriate to the ancient Norwegian war-dance, the evolutions of which are perhaps still practised in these remote islands.

The first movement was graceful and majestic, the youths holding their swords erect, and without much gesture; but the tune, and the corresponding motions of the dancers, became gradually more and more rapid,-they clashed their swords together, in measured time, with a spirit which gave the exercise a dangerous appearance in the eye of the spectator, though the firmness, justice, and accuracy, with which the dancers kept time with the stroke of their weapons, did, in truth, ensure its safety. 'I'he most singular part of the exhibition was the courage exhibited by the female performers, who now, surrounded by the sword-men, seemed like the Sabine maidens in the hands of their Roman lovers; now moving under the arch of steel which the young men had formed, by crossing their weapons over the heads of their fair partners, resembled the band of Amazons when they first joined in the Pyrrhic dance with the followers of Theseus. But by far the most striking and appropriate figure was that of Minna Troil, whom Halcro had long since entitled the Queen of Swords, and who, indeed, moved amidst the swordsmen with an air which seemed to hold all the drawn blades as the proper accompaniment of her person, and the implements of her pleasure. And when the mazes of the dance became more intricate, when the close and continuous clash of the weapons made some of her companions shrink, and show signs of fear, her cheek, her lip, and her eye, seemed rather to announce, that, at the moment when the weapons flashed fastest, and rung sharpest around her, she was most completely self-possessed, and in her own element. Last of all, when the music had ceased, and she remained for an instant upon the floor by herself, as the rule of the dance required, the swordsmen and maidens, who departed from around her, seemed the guards and the train of some princess, who, dismissed by her signal, were leaving her for a time to solitudes. Her own look and attitude, wrapped, as she probably was, in some vision of the imagination, corresponded admirably with the ideal dignity which the spectators ascribed to her; but, almost immediately recollecting herself, she blushed, as if conscious she had been, though but for an instant, the object of undivided attention, and gave her hand gracefully to Cleveland, who, though he had not joined in the dance, assumed the duty of conducting her to her seat. P

VOL. I.

As they passed, Mordaunt Mertoun might observe that Cleveland whispered into Minna's ear, and that her brief reply was accompanied with even more discomposure of countenance than she had manifested when encountering the gaze of the whole assembly. Mordaunt's suspicions were strongly awakened by what he observed, for he knew Minna's character well, and with what equanimity and indifference she was in the custom of receiving the usual compliments and gallantries with which her beauty and her situation rendered her sufficiently familiar.

"Can it be possible she really loves this stranger ?" was the unpleasant thought that instantly shot across Mordaunt's mind; And if she does, what is my interest in the matter?" was the second; and which was quickly followed by the reflection, that, though he claimed no interest at any time but as a friend, and though that interest was now withdrawn, he was still, in consideration of their former intimacy, entitled both to be sorry and angry at her for throwing away her affeetions on one he judged unworthy of her. In this process of reasoning, it is probable that a little mortified vanity, or some indescribable shade of selfish regret, might be endeavouring to assume the disguise of disinterested generosity; but there is so much of base alloy in our very best (unassisted) thoughts, that it is melancholy work to criticise too closely the motives of our most worthy actions; at least we would recommend to every one to let those of his neighbours pass current, however narrowly he may examine the purity of his own.

rus.

The sword-dance was succeeded by various other specimens of the same exercise, and by songs, to which the singers lent their whole soul, while the audience were sure, as occasion offered, to unite in some favourite choIt is upon such occasions that music, though of a simple and even of a rude character, finds its natural empire over the general bosom, and produces that strong excitement which cannot be attained by the most learned compositions of the first masters, which are caviare to the common ear, although, doubtless, they afford a delight, exquisite in its kind, to those whose natural capacity and education have enabled them to comprehend and relish those difficult and complicated combinations of harmony.

It was about midnight when a knocking at the door of the mansion, with the sound of the Gue and the Langspiel, announced, by their tinkling chime, the arrival of fresh revellers, to whom, according to the hospitable custom of the country, the apartments were instantly thrown open.

THE new comers were, according to the frequent custom of such frolickers all over the world, disguised in a sort of masking habits, and designed to represent the Tritons and Mermaids, with whom ancient tradition and popular belief has peopled the northern seas. The former, called by Zetlanders of that time, Shoupeltins, were represented by young men grotesquely habited, with false hair and beards, made of flax, and chaplets composed of seaware interwoven with shells, and other marine productions, with which also were decorated their light-blue or greenish mantles of wadmaal, a coarse cloth of domestic manufacture. They had fish spears, and other emblems of their assumed quality, amongst which the classical taste of Claud Halcro, by whom the mask was arranged, had not forgotten the conch-shells, which were stoutly and hoarsely winded, from time to time, by one or two of the aquatic deities, to the great annoyance of all who stood near them.

The Nereids and Water-nymphs who attended on this occasion, displayed, as usual, a little more taste for dress and ornament than was to be seen amongst their male attendants. Fantastic garments of green silk, and other materials of superior cost and fashion, had been contrived, so as to imitate their idea of the inhabitants of the waters, and, at the same time, to show the shape and features of the fair wearers to the best advantage. The bracelets