his father, that even Baby resisted his wish to reassume his wet garments, and pressed him (at the risk of an expensive supper being added to the charges of the day) to tarry with them till the next morning. But what Norna had said excited the youth's wish to reach home, nor, however far the hospitality of Stourburgh was extended in his behalf, did the house present any particular temptations to induce him to remain there longer. He therefore accepted the loan of the factor's clothes, promising to return them and send for his own; and took a civil leave of his host and Mrs Baby, the latter of whom, however affected by the loss of her goose, could not but think the cost well bestowed (since it was to be expended at all) upon so handsome and cheerful a youth.

THERE were ten "lang Scots miles" betwixt Stourburgh and Jarlshof; and though the pedestrian did not number all the impediments which crossed Tam o' Shanter's path,-for, in a country where there are neither hedges nor stone enclosures, there can be neither "slaps nor stiles,"-yet the number and nature of the " mosses and waters which he had to cross in his peregrination were fully sufficient to balance the account, and to render his journey as toilsome and dangerous as Tam o' Shanter's celebrated retreat from Ayr. Neither witch nor warlock crossed Mordaunt's path, however. The length of the day was already considerable, and he arrived safe at Jarlshof by eleven o'clock at night. All was still and dark round the mansion; and it was not till he had whistled twice or thrice beneath Swertha's window that she replied to the signal.

At the first sound, Swertha fell into an agreeable dream of a young whale-fisher, who some forty years since used to make such a signal beneath the window of her hut; at the second, she waked to remember that Johnnie Fea had slept sound among the frozen waves of Greenland for this many a year, and that she was Mr Mertoun's governante at Jarlshof; at the third, she arose and opened the window.

"Whae is that," she demanded, "at sic an hour of the night!" "It is I," said the youth.

"And what for comena ye in? The door's on the latch, and there is a gathering peat on the kitchen-fire, and a spunk beside it-ye can light your ain candle."

"All well," replied Mordaunt; but I want to know how my father is."

"Just in his ordinary, gude gentleman-asking for you, Maister Mordaunt ; ye are ower far and ower late in your walks, young gentle

man."

"Then the dark hour has passed, Swertha?"

"In troth has it, Maister Mordaunt," answered the governante; "and your father is very reasonably good-natured for him, poor gentleman. I spoke to him twice yesterday without his speaking first; and the first time he answered me as civil as you could do, and the neist time he bade me no plague him; and then, thought I, three times were aye canny, so I spake to him again for luck's sake, and he called me a chattering old devil; but it was quite and clean in a civil sort of way."

Enough, enough, Swertha," answered Mordaunt; "and now get up, and find me something to eat, for I have dined but poorly."

"Then you have been at the new folk's at Stourburgh; for there is no another house in a' the Isles but they wad hae gi'en ye the best share of the best they had? Saw ye aught of Norna of the Fitfulhead? She went to Stourburgh this morning, and returned to the town at night."

"Returned!-then she is here? How could she travel three leagues and better in so short a time?"

But

"Wha kens how she travels ?" replied Swertha; "but I heard her tell the Ranzelman wi' my ain lugs, that she intended that day to have gone on to Burgh-Westra, to speak with Minna Troil, but she had seen that at Stourburgh (indeed she said at Harfra, for she never calls it by the other name of Stourburgh) that sent her back to our town. gang your ways round, and ye shall have plenty of supper-ours is nae toom pantry, and still less a locked ane, though my master be a stranger, and no just that tight in the upper rigging, as the Ranzelman says."

Mordaunt walked round to the kitchen accordingly, where Swertha's care speedily accommodated him with a plentiful, though coarse meal, which indemnified him for the scanty hospitality he had experienced at Stourburgh.

In the morning, some feelings of fatigue made young Mertoun later than usual in leaving his bed; so that, contrary to what was the ordinary case, he found his father in the apartment where they eat, and which served them indeed for every common purpose, save that of a bedchamber or of a kitchen. The son greeted the father in mute reverence, and waited until he should address him.

"You were absent yesterday, Mordaunt?" said his father. Mordaunt's absence had lasted a week and more; but he had often observed that his father never seemed to notice how time passed during the period when he was affected with his sullen vapours. He assented to what the elder Mr Mertoun had said.

"And you were at Burgh-Westra, as I think?" continued his father. Yes, sir," replied Mordaunt.

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The elder Mertoun was then silent for some time, and paced_the floor in deep silence, with an air of sombre reflection, which seemed as if he were about to relapse into his moody fit. Suddenly turning to his son, however, he observed, in the tone of a query, "Magnus Troil has two daughters-they must be now young women; they are thought handsome, of course?"

"Very generally, sir," answered Mordaunt, rather surprised to hear his father making any inquiries about the individuals of a sex which he

D

usually thought so light of, a surprise which was much increased by the next question, put as abruptly as the former.

"Which think you the handsomest?"

"I, sir?" replied his son with some wonder, but without embarrassment "I really am no judge-I never considered which was absolutely the handsomest. They are both very pretty young women.'

"You evade my question, Mordaunt; perhaps I have some very particular reason for my wish to be acquainted with your taste in this matter. I am not used to waste words for no purpose. I ask you again, which of Magnus Troil's daughters you think most handsome?"

"Really, sir," replied Mordaunt "but you only jest in asking me such a question."

Young man," replied Mertoun, with eyes which began to roll and sparkle with impatience, "I never jest. I desire an answer to my question."

"Then, upon my word, sir," said Mordaunt, "it is not in my power to form a judgment betwixt the young ladies-they are both very pretty, but by no means like each other. Minna is dark-haired, and more grave than her sister-more serious, but by no means either dull or sullen." "Um,” replied his father; "you have been gravely brought up, and this Minna, I suppose, pleases you most?"

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No, sir, really I can give her no preference over her sister Brenda, who is as gay as a lamb in a spring morning-less tall than her sister, but so well formed, and so excellent a dancer

"That she is best qualified to amuse the young man who has a dull home and a moody father?" said Mr Mertoun.

Nothing in his father's conduct had ever surprised Mordaunt so much as the obstinacy with which he seemed to pursue a theme so foreign to his general train of thought and habits of conversation; but he contented himself with answering once more," that both the young ladies were highly admirable, but he had never thought of them with the wish to do either injustice, by ranking her lower than her sister-that others would probably decide between them, as they happened to be partial to a grave or a gay disposition, or to a dark or fair complexion; but that he could see no excellent quality in the one that was not balanced by something equally captivating in the other."

It is possible that even the coolness with which Mordaunt made this explanation might not have satisfied his father concerning the subject of investigation; but Swertha at this moment entered with breakfast, and the youth, notwithstanding his late supper, engaged in that meal with an air which satisfied Mertoun that he held it matter of more grave importance than the conversation which they had just had, and that he had nothing more to say upon the subject explanatory of the answers he had already given. He shaded his brow with his hand, and looked long fixedly upon the young man as he was busied with his morning meal. There was neither abstraction nor a sense of being observed in any of his motions; all was frank, natural, and open.

"He is fancy-free," muttered Mertoun to himself" so young, so lively, and so imaginative, so handsome and so attractive in face and person, strange, that at his age, and in his circumstances, he should have avoided the meshes which catch all the world beside!"

When the breakfast was over, the elder Mertoun, instead of proposing, as usual, that his son, who awaited his commands, should betake himself to one branch or other of his studies, assumed his hat and staff, and desired that Mordaunt should accompany him to the top of the cliff, called Sumburgh-head, and from thence look out upon the state of the ocean, agitated as it must still be by the tempest of the preceding day. Mordaunt was at the age when young men willingly exchange sedentary pursuits for active exercise, and started up with alacrity to comply with his father's request; and in the course of a few minutes they were mounting together the hill, which, ascending from the land side in a long, steep, and grassy slope, sinks at once from the summit to the sea in an abrupt and tremendous precipice.

The day was delightful; there was just so much motion in the air as to disturb the little fleecy clouds which were scattered on the horizon, and by floating them occasionally over the sun, to chequer the landscape with that variety of light and shade which often gives to a bare and unenclosed scene, for the time at least, a species of charm approaching to the varieties of a cultivated and planted country. A thousand flitting hues of light and shade played over the expanse of wild moor, rocks, and inlets, which, as they climbed higher and higher, spread in wide and wider circuit around them.

The elder Mertoun often paused and looked around upon the scene, and for some time his son supposed that he halted to enjoy its beauties; but as they ascended still higher up the hill, he remarked his shortened breath and his uncertain and toilsome step, and became assured, with some feelings of alarm, that his father's strength was, for the moment, exhausted, and that he found the ascent more toilsome and fatiguing than usual. To draw close to his side, and offer him in silence the assistance of his arm, was an act of youthful deference to advanced age, as well as of filial reverence; and Mertoun seemed at first so to receive it, for he took in silence the advantage of the aid thus afforded him.

It was but for two or three minutes, however, that the father availed himself of his son's support. They had not ascended fifty yards farther, ere he pushed Mordaunt suddenly, if not rudely, from him; and, as if stung into exertion by some sudden recollection, began to mount the acclivity with such long and quick steps, that Mordaunt, in his turn, was obliged to exert himself to keep pace with him. He knew his father's peculiarity of disposition; he was aware, from many slight circumstances, that he loved him not even while he took much pains with his education, and while he seemed to be the sole object of his care upon earth. But the conviction had never 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 some 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 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, 66 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 Fitfulhead."

"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

1 See Note G. Sale of Winds.