CHAP. XX. Is all the counsel that we two have shared Midsummer Night's Dream. THE attention of Minna was powerfully arrested by this tale of terror, which accorded with and explained many broken hints respecting Norna, which she had heard from her father, and other near relations, and she was for a time so lost in surprise, not unmingled with horror, that she did not even attempt to speak to her sister Brenda. When, at length, she called her by her name, she received no answer, and, on touching her hand, she found it cold as ice. Alarmed to the uttermost, she threw open the lattice and the window-shutters, and admitted at once the free air and the pale glimmer of the hyperborean summer night. She then became sensible that her sister was in a swoon. All thoughts concerning Norna, her frightful tale, and her mysterious connexion with the invisible world, at once vanished from Minna's thoughts, and she hastily ran to the apartment of the old housekeeper to summon her aid, without reflecting for a moment what sights she might encounter in the long dark passages which she had to traverse. The old woman hastened to Brenda's assistance, and instantly applied such remedies as her experience suggested; but the poor girl's nervous system had been so much agitated by the horrible tale she had just heard, that, when recovered from her swoon, her utmost endeavours to compose her mind could not prevent her falling into a hysterical fit of some duration. This also was subdued by the experience of old Euphane Fea, who was well versed in all the simple pharmacy used by the natives of Zetland, and who, after administering a composing draught, distilled from simples and wild flowers, at length saw her patient resigned to sleep. Minna stretched herself beside her sister, kissed her cheek, and courted slumber in her turn; but the more she invoked it, the further it seemed to fly from her eyelids; and if at times she was disposed to sink into repose, the voice of the involuntary parricide seemed again to sound in her ears, and startled her into consciousness. The early morning hour at which they were accustom. ed to arise found the state of the sisters different from what might have been expected. A sound sleep had restored the spirit of Brenda's lightsome eye, and the rose on her laughing cheek; the transient indisposition of the preceding night having left as little trouble on her look, as the fantastic terrors of Norna's tale had been able to impress on her imagination. The looks of Minna, on the contrary, were melancholy, downcast, and apparently exhausted by watching and anxiety. They said at first little to each other, as if afraid of touching a subject so fraught with emotion as the scene of the preceding night. It was not until they had performed together their devotions, as usual, that Brenda, while lacing her sister's boddice, for they rendered the services of the toilet to each other reciprocally, became sensible of the paleness of her sister's looks; and having ascertained, by a glance at the mirror, that her own did not wear the same dejection, she kissed Minna's cheek, and said affectionately, "Claud Halcro was right, my dear sister, when his poetical folly gave us these names of Night and Day." "And wherefore should you say so now?" said Minna. "Because we each are bravest in the season that we take our name from: I was frightened well nigh to death, by hearing those things last night, which you endured with courageous firmness; and now, when it is broad light, I can think of them with composure, while you look as pale as a spirit who is surprised by sun-rise." "You are lucky, Brenda," said her sister, gravely, "who can so soon forget such a tale of wonder and of horror." "The horror," said Brenda, "is never to be forgotten, unless one could hope that the unfortunate woman's excited imagination, which shows itself so active in conjuring up apparitions, may have fixed on her an imaginary crime." "You believe nothing, then," said Minna, " of her interview at the Dwarfie Stone, that wondrous place, of which so many tales are told, and which for so many centuries, has been reverenced as the work of a demon, and as his abode, ?" "I believe," said Brenda," that our unhappy relative is no impostor,-and therefore I believe that she was at the Dwarfie Stone during a thunder-storm, that she sought shelter in it, and that, during a swoon, or during sleep, perhaps, some dream visited her, concerned with the popular traditions with which she was so conversant; but I cannot easily believe more "And yet the event," said Minna," corresponded to the dark intimations of the vision." Pardon me," said Brenda, "I rather think the dream would never have been put into shape, or perhaps remembered at all, but for the event. She told us herself she had nearly forgot the vision, till after her father's dreadful death,—and who shall warrant how much of what she then supposed herself to remember was not the creation of her own fancy, disordered as it naturally was by the horrid accident? Had she really seen and conversed with a necromantic dwarf, she was like to remember the conversation long enough—at least I am sure I should.” Brenda," replied Minna, 66 you have heard the good minister of the Cross Kirk say, that human wisdom was worse than folly, when it was applied to mysteries beyond its comprehension; and that if we believed no more than we could understand, we should resist the evidence of our senses, which presented us at every turn circumstances as certain as they were unintelligible." "You are too learned yourself, sister," answered Brenda, "to need the assistance of the good minister of Cross Kirk; but I think his doctrine only related to the mysteries of our religion, which it is our duty to receive without investigation or doubt-but in things occurring in common life, as God has bestowed reason upon us, we cannot act wrong in employing it. But you, my dear Minna, have a warmer fancy than mine, and are willing to receive all those wonderful stories for truth, because you love to think of sorcerers, and dwarfs, and water-spirits, and would, like much to have a little trow, or fairy, as the Scotch call them, with a green coat, and a pair of wings as brilliant at the hues of the starling's neck, specially to attend on you." "It would spare you at least the trouble of lacing my boddice," said Minna, "and of lacing it wrong too; for in the heat of your argument you have missed two pyeholes." "That error shall be presently mended," said Brenda; "and then, as one of our friends might say, I will haul tight and belay-but you draw your breath so deeply, that it will be a difficult matter." "I only sighed," said Minna, in some confusión, "to think how soon you can trifle with and ridicule the misfortunes of this extraordinary woman.” 66 "I do not ridicule them, God knows," replied Brenda, somewhat angrily; it is you, Minna, who turn all I say in truth and kindness, to something harsh or wicked. I look on Norna as a woman of very extraordinary abilities, which are very often reconciled with a strong cast of insanity; and I consider her as better skilled in the signs of the weather than any woman in Zetland. But that she has any power over the elements, I no more believe than I do in the nursery stories of King Erick, who could make the wind blow from the point he set his cap to." Minna, somewhat nettled with the obstinate incredulity of her sister, replied sharply, "And yet, Brenda, this woman-half-mad woman, and the veriest imposter, is the person by whom you choose to be advised in the matter next your own heart at this moment." I do not know what you mean," said Brenda, colouring deeply, and shifting to get away from her sister. But as she was now undergoing the ceremony of being laced in her turn, her sister had the means of holding her fast by the silken string with which she was fastening the boddice and, tapping her on the neck, which expressed, by its sudden writhe, and sudden change to a scarlet hue, as much pettish confusion as she had desired to provoke, she added, more mildly, "Is it not strange, Brenda, that, used as we have been by the stranger Mordaunt Mertoun, whose assurance has brought him uninvited to a house where his presence is so unacceptable, you should still look or think of him with favour? Surely, that you do so should be a proof to you, that there are such things as spells in the country, and that you yourself labour under them. It is not for nought that Mordaunt wears a chain of Elfin gold--look to it, Brenda, and be wise in time." I have nothing to do with Mordaunt Mertoun," answered Brenda, hastily, "nor do I know or care what he or any other young man wears about his neck. I could see all the gold chains of all the bailies of Edinburgh, that Lady Glowrowruni speaks so much of, without falling in fancy with one of the wearers." And, having thus complied with the female rule of pleading not guilty in general to such an indictment. she immediately resumed, in a different tone, "But, to say the truth, Minna, I think you, and all of you, have judged far too hastily about this young friend of ours, who has been so long our most intimate companion. Mind, Mordaunt Mertoun is no more to ine than he is to you-yourself best know how little difference he made betwixt us; and that, chain or no chain, be lived with us like a brother with two sisters; and yet you can turn him off at once, because a wandering seaman, of whom we know nothing, and a peddling jagger, whom we well know to be a thief, a cheat, and a liar, speak words and carry tales in his disfavour. I do not believe he ever said he could have his choice of either of us, and only waited to see which was to have Burgh-Westra and Bredness Voe--I do not believe he ever spoke such a word, or harboured such a thought, as that of making a choice between us." "Perhaps," said Minna, coldly, "you may have had reason to know that his choice was already determined.” "I will not endure this," said Brenda, giving way to her natural vivacity, and springing from between her sister's hands; then turning round and facing her, while her glowing cheek was rivalled in the deepness of its crinson, by as much of her neck and bosom as the upper part of the half laced boddice permitted to be visible" Even from you, Minna," she said, "I will not endure this! You know that all my life I have spoken the truth, and that I love the truth; and I tell you, that Mordaunt Mertoun never in his life made distinction betwixt you and me until Here some feeling of consciousness stopped her short, and her sister replied, with a smile, "Until when, Brenda ? methinks, your love of truth seems choked with the sentence you were bringing out." "Until you ceased to do him the justice he deserves," said Brenda firmly, since I must speak out. I have lit |