CHAPTER XXI
Joy, joy, in London now!
Southey.
The news of the capture of the Rover reached Kirkwall, about an hour before noon, and filled all men with wonder and with joy. Little business was that day done at the Fair, whilst people of all ages and occupations streamed from the place to see the prisoners as they were marched towards Kirkwall, and to triumph in the different appearance which they now bore, from that which they had formerly exhibited when ranting, swaggering, and bullying in the streets of that town. The bayonets of the marines were soon seen to glisten in the sun, and then came on the melancholy troop of captives, handcuffed two and two together. Their finery had been partly torn from them by their captors, partly hung in rags about them; many were wounded and covered with blood, many blackened and scorched with the explosion, by which a few of the most desperate had in vain striven to blow up the vessel. Most of them seemed sullen and impenitent, some were more becomingly affected with their condition, and a few braved it out, and sung the same ribald songs to which they had made the streets of Kirkwall ring when they were in their frolics.
The Boatswain and Goffe, coupled together, exhausted themselves in threats and imprecations against each other; the former charging Goffe with want of seamanship, and the latter alleging that the Boatswain had prevented him from firing the powder that was stowed forward, and so sending them all to the other world together. Last came Cleveland and Bunce, who were permitted to walk unshackled; the decent melancholy, yet resolved manner of the former, contrasting strongly with the stage strut and swagger which poor Jack thought it fitting to assume, in order to conceal some less dignified emotions. The former was looked upon with compassion, the latter with a mixture of scorn and pity; while most of the others inspired horror, and even fear, by their looks and their language.
There was one individual in Kirkwall, who was so far from hastening to see the sight which attracted all eyes, that he was not even aware of the event which agitated the town. This was the elder Mertoun, whose residence Kirkwall had been for two or three days, part of which had been spent in attending to some judicial proceedings, undertaken at the instance of the Procurator Fiscal, against that grave professor, Bryce Snailsfoot. In consequence of an inquisition into the proceedings of this worthy trader, Cleveland’s chest, with his papers and other matters therein contained, had been restored to Mertoun, as the lawful custodier thereof, until the right owner should be in a situation to establish his right to them. Mertoun was at first desirous to throw back upon Justice the charge which she was disposed to intrust him with; but, on perusing one or two of the papers, he hastily changed his mind – in broken words, requested the Magistrate to let the chest be sent to his lodgings, and, hastening homeward, bolted himself into the room, to consider and digest the singular information which chance had thus conveyed to him, and which increased, in a tenfold degree, his impatience for an interview with the mysterious Norna of the Fitful-head.
It may be remembered that she had required of him, when they met in the Churchyard of Saint Ninian, to attend in the outer isle of the Cathedral of Saint Magnus, at the hour of noon, on the fifth day of the Fair of Saint Olla, there to meet a person by whom the fate of Mordaunt would be explained to him. – “It must be herself,” he said; “and that I should see her at this moment is indispensable. How to find her sooner, I know not; and better lose a few hours even in this exigence, than offend her by a premature attempt to force myself on her presence.”
Long, therefore, before noon – long before the town of Kirkwall was agitated by the news of the events on the other side of the island, the elder Mertoun was pacing the deserted aisle of the Cathedral, awaiting, with agonizing eagerness, the expected communication from Norna. The bell tolled twelve – no door opened – no one was seen to enter the Cathedral; but the last sounds had not ceased to reverberate through the vaulted roof, when, gliding from one of the interior side-aisles, Norna stood before him. Mertoun, indifferent to the apparent mystery of her sudden approach, (with the secret of which the reader is acquainted,) went up to her at once, with the earnest ejaculation – “Ulla – Ulla Troil – aid me to save our unhappy boy!”
“To Ulla Troil,” said Norna, “I answer not – I gave that name to the winds, on the night that cost me a father!”
“Speak not of that night of horror,” said Mertoun; “we have need of our reason – let us not think on recollections which may destroy it; but aid me, if thou canst, to save our unfortunate child!”
“Vaughan,” answered Norna, “he is already saved – long since saved; think you a mother’s hand – and that of such a mother as I am – would await your crawling, tardy, ineffectual assistance? No, Vaughan – I make myself known to you, but to show my triumph over you – it is the only revenge which the powerful Norna permits herself to take for the wrongs of Ulla Troil.”
“Have you indeed saved him – saved him from the murderous crew?” said Mertoun, or Vaughan – “speak! – and speak truth! – I will believe every thing – all you would require me to assent to! – prove to me only he is escaped and safe!”
“Escaped and safe, by my means,” said Norna – “safe, and in assurance of an honoured and happy alliance. Yes, great unbeliever! – yes, wise and self-opinioned infidel! – these were the works of Norna! I knew you many a year since; but never had I made myself known to you, save with the triumphant consciousness of having controlled the destiny that threatened my son. All combined against him – planets which threatened drowning – combinations which menaced blood – but my skill was superior to all. – I arranged – I combined – I found means – I made them – each disaster has been averted; – and what infidel on earth, or stubborn demon beyond the bounds of earth, shall hereafter deny my power?”
The wild ecstasy with which she spoke, so much resembled triumphant insanity, that Mertoun answered – “Were your pretensions less lofty, and your speech more plain, I should be better assured of my son’s safety.”
“Doubt on, vain sceptic!” said Norna – “And yet know, that not only is our son safe, but vengeance is mine, though I sought it not – vengeance on the powerful implement of the darker Influences by whom my schemes were so often thwarted, and even the life of my son endangered. – Yes, take it as a guarantee of the truth of my speech, that Cleveland – the pirate Cleveland – even now enters Kirkwall as a prisoner, and will soon expiate with his life the having shed blood which is of kin to Norna’s.”
“Who didst thou say was prisoner?” exclaimed Mertoun, with a voice of thunder – “
Who
, woman, didst thou say should expiate his crimes with his life?”
“Cleveland – the pirate Cleveland!” answered Norna; “and by me, whose counsel he scorned, he has been permitted to meet his fate.”
“Thou most wretched of women!” said Mertoun, speaking from between his clenched teeth, – “thou hast slain thy son, as well as thy father!”
“My son! – what son? – what mean you? – Mordaunt is your son – your only son!” exclaimed Norna – “is he not? – tell me quickly – is he not?”
“Mordaunt is indeed
my
son,” said Mertoun – “the laws, at least, gave him to me as such – But, O unhappy Ulla! Cleveland is your son as well as mine – blood of our blood, bone of our bone; and if you have given him to death, I will end my wretched life along with him!”
“Stay – hold – stop, Vaughan!” said Norna; “I am not yet overcome – prove but to me the truth of what you say, I would find help, if I should evoke hell! – But prove your words, else believe them I cannot.”
“
Thou
help! wretched, overweening woman! – in what have thy combinations and thy stratagems – the legerdemain of lunacy – the mere quackery of insanity – in what have these involved thee? – and yet I will speak to thee as reasonable – nay, I will admit thee as powerful – Hear, then, Ulla, the proofs which you demand, and find a remedy, if thou canst: —
“When I fled from Orkney,” he continued, after a pause – “it is now five-and-twenty years since – I bore with me the unhappy offspring to whom you had given light. It was sent to me by one of your kinswomen, with an account of your illness, which was soon followed by a generally received belief of your death. It avails not to tell in what misery I left Europe. I found refuge in Hispaniola, wherein a fair young Spaniard undertook the task of comforter. I married her – she became mother of the youth called Mordaunt Mertoun.”
“You married her!” said Norna, in a tone of deep reproach.
“I did, Ulla,” answered Mertoun; “but you were avenged. She proved faithless, and her infidelity left me in doubts whether the child she bore had a right to call me father – But I also was avenged.”
“You murdered her!” said Norna, with a dreadful shriek.
“I did that,” said Mertoun, without a more direct reply, “which made an instant flight from Hispaniola necessary. Your son I carried with me to Tortuga, where we had a small settlement. Mordaunt Vaughan, my son by marriage, about three or four years younger, was residing in Port-Royal, for the advantages of an English education. I resolved never to see him again, but I continued to support him. Our settlement was plundered by the Spaniards, when Clement was but fifteen – Want came to aid despair and a troubled conscience. I became a corsair, and involved Clement in the same desperate trade. His skill and bravery, though then a mere boy, gained him a separate command; and after a lapse of two or three years, while we were on different cruises, my crew rose on me, and left me for dead on the beach of one of the Bermudas. I recovered, however, and my first enquiries, after a tedious illness, were after Clement. He, I heard, had been also marooned by a rebellious crew, and put ashore on a desert islet, to perish with want – I believed he had so perished.”
“And what assures you that he did not?” said Ulla; “or how comes this Cleveland to be identified with Vaughan?”
“To change a name is common with such adventurers,” answered Mertoun, “and Clement had apparently found that of Vaughan had become too notorious – and this change, in his case, prevented me from hearing any tidings of him. It was then that remorse seized me, and that, detesting all nature, but especially the sex to which Louisa belonged, I resolved to do penance in the wild islands of Zetland for the rest of my life. To subject myself to fasts and to the scourge, was the advice of the holy Catholic priests, whom I consulted. But I devised a nobler penance – I determined to bring with me the unhappy boy Mordaunt, and to keep always before me the living memorial of my misery and my guilt. I have done so, and I have thought over both, till reason has often trembled on her throne. And now, to drive me to utter madness, my Clement – my own, my undoubted son, revives from the dead to be consigned to an infamous death, by the machinations of his own mother!”
“Away, away!” said Norna, with a laugh, when she had heard the story to an end, “this is a legend framed by the old corsair, to interest my aid in favour of a guilty comrade. How could I mistake Mordaunt for my son, their ages being so different?”
“The dark complexion and manly stature may have done much,” said Basil Mertoun; “strong imagination must have done the rest.”
“But, give me proofs – give me proofs that this Cleveland is my son, and, believe me, this sun shall sooner sink in the east, than they shall have power to harm a hair of his head.”
“These papers, these journals,” said Mertoun, offering the pocket-book.
“I cannot read them,” she said, after an effort, “my brain is dizzy.”
“Clement has also tokens which you may remember, but they must have become the booty of his captors. He had a silver box with a Runic inscription, with which in far other days you presented me – a golden chaplet.”
“A box!” said Norna, hastily; “Cleveland gave me one but a day since – I have never looked at it till now.”
Eagerly she pulled it out – eagerly examined the legend around the lid, and as eagerly exclaimed – “They may now indeed call me Reimkennar, for by this rhyme I know myself murderess of my son, as well as of my father!”
The conviction of the strong delusion under which she had laboured, was so overwhelming, that she sunk down at the foot of one of the pillars – Mertoun shouted for help, though in despair of receiving any; the sexton, however, entered, and, hopeless of all assistance from Norna, the distracted father rushed out, to learn, if possible, the fate of his son.
CHAPTER XXII
Go, some of you cry a reprieve!
Beggar’s Opera.
Captain Weatherport had, before this time, reached Kirkwall in person, and was received with great joy and thankfulness by the Magistrates, who had assembled in council for the purpose. The Provost, in particular, expressed himself delighted with the providential arrival of the Halcyon, at the very conjuncture when the Pirate could not escape her. The Captain looked a little surprised, and said – “For that, sir, you may thank the information you yourself supplied.”
“That I supplied?” said the Provost, somewhat astonished.
“Yes, sir,” answered Captain Weatherport, “I understand you to be George Torfe, Chief Magistrate of Kirkwall, who subscribes this letter.”
The astonished Provost took the letter addressed to Captain Weatherport of the Halcyon, stating the arrival, force, &c., of the pirates’ vessel; but adding, that they had heard of the Halcyon being on the coast, and that they were on their guard and ready to baffle her, by going among the shoals, and through the islands, and holms, where the frigate could not easily follow; and at the worst, they were desperate enough to propose running the sloop ashore and blowing her up, by which much booty and treasure would be lost to the captors. The letter, therefore, suggested, that the Halcyon should cruise betwixt Duncansbay Head and Cape Wrath, for two or three days, to relieve the pirates of the alarm her neighbourhood occasioned, and lull them into security, the more especially as the letter-writer knew it to be their intention, if the frigate left the coast, to go into Stromness Bay, and there put their guns ashore for some necessary repairs, or even for careening their vessel, if they could find means. The letter concluded by assuring Captain Weatherport, that, if he could bring his frigate into Stromness Bay on the morning of the 24th of August, he would have a good bargain of the pirates – if sooner, he was not unlikely to miss them.
“This letter is not of my writing or subscribing, Captain Weatherport,” said the Provost; “nor would I have ventured to advise any delay in your coming hither.”
The Captain was surprised in his turn. “All I know is, that it reached me when I was in the bay of Thurso, and that I gave the boat’s crew that brought it five dollars for crossing the Pentland Frith in very rough weather. They had a dumb dwarf as cockswain, the ugliest urchin my eyes ever opened upon. I give you much credit for the accuracy of your intelligence, Mr. Provost.”
“It is lucky as it is,” said the Provost; “yet I question whether the writer of this letter would not rather that you had found the nest cold and the bird flown.”
So saying, he handed the letter to Magnus Troil, who returned it with a smile, but without any observation, aware, doubtless, with the sagacious reader, that Norna had her own reasons for calculating with accuracy on the date of the Halcyon’s arrival.
Without puzzling himself farther concerning a circumstance which seemed inexplicable, the Captain requested that the examinations might proceed; and Cleveland and Altamont, as he chose to be called, were brought up the first of the pirate crew, on the charge of having acted as Captain and Lieutenant. They had just commenced the examination, when, after some expostulation with the officers who kept the door, Basil Mertoun burst into the apartment and exclaimed, “Take the old victim for the young one! – I am Basil Vaughan, too well known on the windward station – take my life, and spare my son’s!”
All were astonished, and none more than Magnus Troil, who hastily explained to the Magistrates and Captain Weatherport, that this gentleman had been living peaceably and honestly on the Mainland of Zetland for many years.
“In that case,” said the Captain, “I wash my hands of the poor man, for he is safe, under two proclamations of mercy; and, by my soul, when I see them, the father and his offspring, hanging on each other’s neck, I wish I could say as much for the son.”
“But how is it – how can it be?” said the Provost; “we always called the old man Mertoun, and the young, Cleveland, and now it seems they are both named Vaughan.”
“Vaughan,” answered Magnus, “is a name which I have some reason to remember; and, from what I have lately heard from my cousin Norna, that old man has a right to bear it.”
“And, I trust, the young man also,” said the Captain, who had been looking over a memorandum. “Listen to me a moment,” added he, addressing the younger Vaughan, whom we have hitherto called Cleveland. “Hark you, sir, your name is said to be Clement Vaughan – are you the same, who, then a mere boy, commanded a party of rovers, who, about eight or nine years ago, pillaged a Spanish village called Quempoa, on the Spanish Main, with the purpose of seizing some treasure?”
“It will avail me nothing to deny it,” answered the prisoner.
“No,” said Captain Weatherport, “but it may do you service to admit it. – Well, the muleteers escaped with the treasure, while you were engaged in protecting, at the hazard of your own life, the honour of two Spanish ladies against the brutality of your followers. Do you remember any thing of this?”
“I am sure
I
do,” said Jack Bunce; “for our Captain here was marooned for his gallantry, and I narrowly escaped flogging and pickling for having taken his part.”
“When these points are established,” said Captain Weatherport, “Vaughan’s life is safe – the women he saved were persons of quality, daughters to the governor of the province, and application was long since made, by the grateful Spaniard, to our government, for favour to be shown to their preserver. I had special orders about Clement Vaughan, when I had a commission for cruizing upon the pirates, in the West Indies, six or seven years since. But Vaughan was gone then as a name amongst them; and I heard enough of Cleveland in his room. However, Captain, be you Cleveland or Vaughan, I think that, as the Quempoa hero, I can assure you a free pardon when you arrive in London.”
Cleveland bowed, and the blood mounted to his face. Mertoun fell on his knees, and exhausted himself in thanksgiving to Heaven. They were removed, amidst the sympathizing sobs of the spectators.
“And now, good Master Lieutenant, what have you got to say for yourself?” said Captain Weatherport to the ci-devant Roscius.
“Why, little or nothing, please your honour; only that I wish your honour could find my name in that book of mercy you have in your hand; for I stood by Captain Clement Vaughan in that Quempoa business.”
“You call yourself Frederick Altamont?” said Captain Weatherport. “I can see no such name here; one John Bounce, or Bunce, the lady put on her tablets.”
“Why, that is me – that is I myself, Captain – I can prove it; and I am determined, though the sound be something plebeian, rather to live Jack Bunce, than to hang as Frederick Altamont.”
“In that case,” said the Captain, “I can give you some hopes as John Bunce.”
“Thank your noble worship!” shouted Bunce; then changing his tone, he said, “Ah, since an alias has such virtue, poor Dick Fletcher might have come off as Timothy Tugmutton; but howsomdever, d’ye see, to use his own phrase” —
“Away with the Lieutenant,” said the Captain, “and bring forward Goffe and the other fellows; there will be ropes reeved for some of them, I think.” And this prediction promised to be amply fulfilled, so strong was the proof which was brought against them.
The Halcyon was accordingly ordered round to carry the whole prisoners to London, for which she set sail in the course of two days.
During the time that the unfortunate Cleveland remained at Kirkwall, he was treated with civility by the Captain of the Halcyon; and the kindness of his old acquaintance, Magnus Troil, who knew in secret how closely he was allied to his blood, pressed on him accommodations of every kind, more than he could be prevailed on to accept.
Norna, whose interest in the unhappy prisoner was still more deep, was at this time unable to express it. The sexton had found her lying on the pavement in a swoon, and when she recovered, her mind for the time had totally lost its equipoise, and it became necessary to place her under the restraint of watchful attendants.
Of the sisters of Burgh-Westra, Cleveland only heard that they remained ill, in consequence of the fright to which they had been subjected, until the evening before the Halcyon sailed, when he received, by a private conveyance, the following billet:
– “Farewell, Cleveland – we part for ever, and it is right that we should – Be virtuous and be happy. The delusions which a solitary education and limited acquaintance with the modern world had spread around me, are gone and dissipated for ever. But in you, I am sure, I have been thus far free from error – that you are one to whom good is naturally more attractive than evil, and whom only necessity, example, and habit, have forced into your late course of life. Think of me as one who no longer exists, unless you should become as much the object of general praise, as now of general reproach; and then think of me as one who will rejoice in your reviving fame, though she must never see you more!” —
The note was signed M. T.; and Cleveland, with a deep emotion, which he testified even by tears, read it an hundred times over, and then clasped it to his bosom.
Mordaunt Mertoun heard by letter from his father, but in a very different style. Basil bade him farewell for ever, and acquitted him henceforward of the duties of a son, as one on whom he, notwithstanding the exertions of many years, had found himself unable to bestow the affections of a parent. The letter informed him of a recess in the old house of Jarlshof, in which the writer had deposited a considerable quantity of specie and of treasure, which he desired Mordaunt to use as his own. “You need not fear,” the letter bore, “either that you lay yourself under obligation to me, or that you are sharing the spoils of piracy. What is now given over to you, is almost entirely the property of your deceased mother, Louisa Gonzago, and is yours by every right. Let us forgive each other,” was the conclusion, “as they who must meet no more.” – And they never met more; for the elder Mertoun, against whom no charge was ever preferred, disappeared after the fate of Cleveland was determined, and was generally believed to have retired into a foreign convent.
The fate of Cleveland will be most briefly expressed in a letter which Minna received within two months after the Halcyon left Kirkwall. The family were then assembled at Burgh-Westra, and Mordaunt was a member of it for the time, the good Udaller thinking he could never sufficiently repay the activity which he had shown in the defence of his daughters. Norna, then beginning to recover from her temporary alienation of mind, was a guest in the family, and Minna, who was sedulous in her attention upon this unfortunate victim of mental delusion, was seated with her, watching each symptom of returning reason, when the letter we allude to was placed in her hands.
“Minna,” it said – “dearest Minna! – farewell, and for ever! Believe me, I never meant you wrong – never. From the moment I came to know you, I resolved to detach myself from my hateful comrades, and had framed a thousand schemes, which have proved as vain as they deserved to be – for why, or how, should the fate of her that is so lovely, pure, and innocent, be involved with that of one so guilty? – Of these dreams I will speak no more. The stern reality of my situation is much milder than I either expected or deserved; and the little good I did has outweighed, in the minds of honourable and merciful judges, much that was evil and criminal. I have not only been exempted from the ignominious death to which several of my compeers are sentenced; but Captain Weatherport, about once more to sail for the Spanish Main, under the apprehension of an immediate war with that country, has generously solicited and obtained permission to employ me, and two or three more of my less guilty associates, in the same service – a measure recommended to himself by his own generous compassion, and to others by our knowledge of the coast, and of local circumstances, which, by whatever means acquired, we now hope to use for the service of our country. Minna, you will hear my name pronounced with honour, or you will never hear it again. If virtue can give happiness, I need not wish it to you, for it is yours already. – Farewell, Minna.”
Minna wept so bitterly over this letter, that it attracted the attention of the convalescent Norna. She snatched it from the hand of her kinswoman, and read it over at first with the confused air of one to whom it conveyed no intelligence – then with a dawn of recollection – then with a burst of mingled joy and grief, in which she dropped it from her hand. Minna snatched it up, and retired with her treasure to her own apartment.
From that time Norna appeared to assume a different character. Her dress was changed to one of a more simple and less imposing appearance. Her dwarf was dismissed, with ample provision for his future comfort. She showed no desire of resuming her erratic life; and directed her observatory, as it might be called, on Fitful-head, to be dismantled. She refused the name of Norna, and would only be addressed by her real appellation of Ulla Troil. But the most important change remained behind. Formerly, from the dreadful dictates of spiritual despair, arising out of the circumstances of her father’s death, she seemed to have considered herself as an outcast from divine grace; besides, that, enveloped in the vain occult sciences which she pretended to practise, her study, like that of Chaucer’s physician, had been “but little in the Bible.” Now, the sacred volume was seldom laid aside; and, to the poor ignorant people who came as formerly to invoke her power over the elements, she only rep