"And is that all thou thinkest Norna can do?" said the sibyl; "thou shalt know her powers are not bounded within such a narrow space. Hear me, Mordaunt, youth of a foreign land, but of a friendly heart-Dost thou quit this doomed mansion with those who now prepare to leave it?"

"I do not I will not, Norna," replied Mordaunt; "I know not your motive for desiring me to remove, and I will not leave, upon these dark threats, the house in which I have been kindly received in such a tempest as this. If the owners are unaccustomed to our practice of unlimited hospitality, I am the more obliged to them that they have relaxed their usages, and opened their doors in my behalf."

"He is a brave lad," said Mistress Baby, whose superstitious feelings had been daunted by the threats of the supposed sorceress, and who, amidst her eager, narrow, and repining disposition, had, like all who possess marked character, some sparks of higher feeling, which made her sympathize with generous sentiments, though she thought it too expensive to entertain them at her own cost "He is a brave lad," she again repeated, "and worthy of ten geese, if I had them to boil for him, or roast either. I'll warrant him a gentleman's son, and no churl's blood."

"Hear me, young,Mordaunt," said Norna, "and depart from this house. Fate has high views on you you shall not remain in this hovel to be crushed amid its worthless ruins, with the relics of its more worthless inhabitants, whose life is as little to the world as the vegetation of the house-leek, which now grows on their thatch, and which shall soon be crushed amongst their mangled limbs."

"III will go forth," said Yellowley, who, despite of his bearing himself scholarly and wisely, was beginning to be terrified for the issue of the adventure; for the house was old, and the walls rocked formidably to the blast.

"To what purpose?" said his sister. "I trust the Prince of the power of the air has not yet such like power over those that are made in God's image, that a good house should fall about our heads, because a randy quean" (here she darted a fierce glance

at the Pythoness) "should boast us with her glamour, as if we were sae mony dogs to crouch at her bidding!"

"I was only wanting," said Triptolemus, ashamed of his motion, "to look at the bear-braird, which must be sair laid wi’ this tempest; but if this honest woman like to bide wi' us, I think it were best to let us a' sit doun canny thegither, till it's working weather again."

"Honest woman!" echoed Baby "Foul warlock thief! Aroint ye, ye limmer!" she added, addressing Norna directly; "out of an honest house, or, shame fa' me, but I'll take the bittle* to you!"

Norna cast on her a look of supreme contempt; then, stepping to the window, seemed engaged in deep contemplation of the heavens, while the old maid-servant, Tronda, drawing close to her mistress, implored, for the sake of all that was dear to man or woman, "Do not provoke Norna of Fitful-head! You have no sic woman on the mainland of Scotland - she can ride one of these clouds as easily as man ever rode on a sheltie."

"I shall live to see her ride on the reek of a fat tar-barrel," said Mistress Baby; "and that will be a fit pacing palfrey for her."

Again Norna regarded the enraged Mrs. Baby Yellowley with a look of that unutterable scorn which her haughty features could so well express, and moving to the window which looked to the north-west, from which quarter the gale seemed at present to blow, she stood for some time with her arms crossed, looking out upon the leaden-coloured sky, obscured as it was by the thick drift, which, coming on in successive gusts of tempest, left ever and anon sad and dreary intervals of expectation betwixt the dying and the reviving blast.

Norna regarded this war of the elements as one to whom their strife was familiar; yet the stern serenity of her features had in it a cast of awe, and at the same time of authority, as the cabalist may be supposed to look upon the spirit he has evoked, and

*The beetle with which the Scottish housewives used to perform the office of the modern mangle, by beating newly washed linen on a smooth stone for the purpose, called the beetling-stone.

which, though he knows how to subject him to his spell, bears still an aspect appalling to flesh and blood. The attendants stood by in different attitudes, expressive of their various feelings. Mordaunt, though not indifferent to the risk in which they stood, was more curious than alarmed. He had heard of Norna's alleged power over the elements, and now expected an opportunity of judging for himself of its reality. Triptolemus Yellowley was confounded at what seemed to be far beyond the bounds of his philosophy; and, if the truth must be spoken, the worthy agriculturist was greatly more frightened than inquisitive. His sister

was not in the least curious on the subject; but it was difficult to say whether anger or fear predominated in her sharp eyes and thin compressed lips. The pedlar and old Tronda, confident that the house would never fall while the redoubted Norna was beneath its roof, held themselves ready for a start the instant she should take her departure.

Having looked on the sky for some time in a fixed attitude, and with the most profound silence, Norna at once, yet with a slow and elevated gesture, extended her staff of black oak towards that part of the heavens from which the blast came hardest, and in the midst of its fury chanted a Norwegian invocation, still preserved in the Island of Uist, under the name of the Song of the Reim-kennar, though some call it the Song of the Tempest. The following is a free translation, it being impossible to render literally many of the elliptical and metaphorical terms of expression, peculiar to the ancient Northern poetry:

"Stern eagle of the far north-west,

1.

Thou that bearest in thy grasp the thunderbolt,

Thou whose rushing pinions stir ocean to madness,

Thou the destroyer of herds, thou the scatterer of navies,

Thou the breaker down of towers,

Amidst the scream of thy rage,

Amidst the rushing of thy onward wings,

Though thy scream be loud as the cry of a perishing nation,

Though the rushing of thy wings be like the roaring of ten thousand waves, Yet hear, in thine ire and thy haste,

Hear thou the voice of the Reim-kennar.

2.

Thou hast met the pine-trees of Drontheim,

Their dark-green heads lie prostrate beside their uprooted stems;
Thou hast met the rider of the ocean,

The tall, the strong bark of the fearless rover,

And she has struck to thee the topsail

That she had not veil'd to a royal armada;

Thou hast met the tower that bears its crest among the clouds,

The battled massive tower of the Jarl of former days,

And the cope-stone of the turret

Is lying upon its hospitable hearth;

But thou too shalt stoop, proud compeller of clouds,
When thou hearest the voice of the Reim-kennar.

3.

"There are verses that can stop the stag in the forest,
Ay, and when the dark-colour'd dog is opening on his track;
There are verses can make the wild hawk pause on his wing,
Like the falcon that wears the hood and the jesses,

And who knows the shrill whistle of the fowler.

Thou who canst mock at the scream of the drowning mariner,
And the crash of the ravaged forest,

And the groan of the overwhelmed crowds,

When the church hath fallen in the moment of prayer,

There are sounds which thou also must list,

When they are chanted by the voice of the Reim-kennar.

4.

"Enough of wo hast thou wrought on the ocean,
The widows wring their hands on the beach;
Enough of wo hast thou wrought on the land,
The husbandman folds his arms in despair;
Cease thou the waving of thy pinions,
Let the ocean repose in her dark strength;
Cease thou the flashing of thine eye,

Let the thunderbolt sleep in the armoury of Odin;

Be thou still at my bidding, viewless racer of the north-western Heaven, Sleep thou at the voice of Norna the Reim-kennar!"

We have said, that Mordaunt was naturally fond of romantic poetry and romantic situation; it is not therefore surprising that he listened with interest to the wild address thus uttered to the wildest wind of the compass, in a tone of such dauntless enthusiasm. But though he had heard so much of the Runic rhyme and of the northern spell, in the country where he had so long dwelt, he was not on this occasion so credulous as to believe that the tempest, which had raged so lately, and which was now be

ginning to decline, was subdued before the charmed verse of Norna. Certain it was, that the blast seemed passing away, and the apprehended danger was already over; but it was not improbable that this issue had been for some time foreseen by the Pythoness, through signs of the weather imperceptible to those who had not dwelt long in the country, or had not bestowed on the meteorological phenomena the attention of a strict and close observer. Of Norna's experience he had no doubt, and that went a far way to explain what seemed supernatural in her demeanour. Yet still the noble countenance, half-shaded by dishevelled tresses, the air of majesty with which, in a tone of menace as well as of command, she addressed the viewless spirit of the tempest, gave him a strong inclination to believe in the ascendency of the occult arts over the powers of nature; for, if a woman ever moved on earth to whom such authority over the laws of the universe could belong, Norna of Fitful-head, judging from bearing, figure, and face, was born to that high destiny.

The rest of the company were less slow in receiving conviction. To Tronda and the jagger none was necessary; they had long believed in the full extent of Norna's authority over the elements. But Triptolemus and his sister gazed at each other with wondering and alarmed looks, especially when the wind began perceptibly to decline, as was remarkably visible during the pauses which Norna made betwixt the strophes of her incantation. A long silence followed the last verse, until Norna resumed her chant, but with a changed and more soothing modulation of voice and tune.

"Eagle of the far north-western waters,

Thou hast heard the voice of the Reim-kennar,
Thou hast closed thy wide sails at her bidding,

And folded them in peace by thy side.

My blessing be on thy retiring path!

When thou stoopest from thy place on high,

Soft be thy slumbers in the caverns of the unknown ocean,

Rest till destiny shall again awaken thee;

Eagle of the north-west, thou hast heard the voice of the Reim-kennar!"

"A pretty sang that would be to keep the corn from shaking in har'st," whispered the agriculturist to his sister; "we must