The Jolly Roger Tales: 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventures. Лаймен Фрэнк Баум

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Brenda. A clause in her will specially directed, that all the books, implements of her laboratory, and other things connected with her former studies, should be committed to the flames.

      About two years before Norna’s death, Brenda was wedded to Mordaunt Mertoun. It was some time before old Magnus Troil, with all his affection for his daughter, and all his partiality for Mordaunt, was able frankly to reconcile himself to this match. But Mordaunt’s accomplishments were peculiarly to the Udaller’s taste, and the old man felt the impossibility of supplying his place in his family so absolutely, that at length his Norse blood gave way to the natural feeling of the heart, and he comforted his pride while he looked around him, and saw what he considered as the encroachments of the Scottish gentry upon the country (so Zetland is fondly termed by its inhabitants), that as well “his daughter married the son of an English pirate, as of a Scottish thief,” in scornful allusion to the Highland and Border families, to whom Zetland owes many respectable landholders; but whose ancestors were generally esteemed more renowned for ancient family and high cournge. than for accurately regarding the trifling distinctions of nuum and tuum. The jovial old man lived to the extremity of human life, with the happy prospect of a numerous succession in the family of his younger daughter. and having his board cheered alternately by the minstrelsj of Claud Halcro, and enlightened by the lucubrations of Mr, Triptolemus Yellowley, who, laying aside his high pretensions, was, when he became better acquainted with the manners of the islanders, and remembered the various misadventures which had attended his premature attempts al reformation, an honest and useful representative of his principal, and never so happy as when he could escape fron: the spare commons of his sister Barbara, to the genial table of the Udaller. Barbara’s temper also was much softened by the unexpected restoration of the horn of silver coins (the property of Norna), which she had concealed in the mansion of old Stourburgh, for achieving some of her myste rious plans, but which she now restored to those by whom il had been accidentally discovered, with an intimation, how ever, that it would again disappear unless a reasonable portior was expended on the sustenance of the family, a precautior to which Tronda Dronsdaughter (probably an agent o: Norna’s) owed her escape from a slow and wasting death by inanition.

      Mordaunt and Brenda were as happy as our mortal condition permits us to be. They admired and loved each othe; — enjoyed easy circumstances — had duties to discharge whicl they did not neglect; and, clear in conscience as light o heart, laughed, sung, danced, daffed the world aside, and bid it pass.

      But Minna — the high-minded and imaginative Minna — she gifted with such depth of feeling and enthusiasm, yet doomet to see both blighted in early youth, because, with the in experience of a disposition equally romantic and ignorant she had built the fabric of her happiness on a quicksan< instead of a rock, — was she, could she be happy? Reader she was happy; for, whatever may be alleged to the contrary by the sceptic and the scorner, to each duty performed there is assigned a degree of mental peace and high consciousness of honourable exertion, corresponding to the difficulty of the task accomplished. That rest of the body which succeeds to hard and industrious toil, is not to be compared to the repose which the spirit enjoys under similar circumstances. Her resignation, however, and the constant attention which she paid to her father, her sister, the afflicted Norna, and to all who had claims on her, were neither Minna’s sole nor her most precious source of comfort. Like Norna, but under a more regulated judgment, she learned to exchange the visions of wild enthusiasm which had exerted and misled her imagination, for a truer and purer connection with the world beyond us, than could be learned from the sagas of heathen bards, or the visions of later rhymers. To this she owed the support by which she was enabled, after various accounts of the honourable and gallant conduct of Cleveland, to read with resignation, and even with a sense of comfort, mingled with sorrow, that he had at length fallen, leading the way in a gallant and honourable enterprise, which was successfully accomplished by those companions, to whom his determined bravery had opened the road. Bunce, his fantastic follower in good, as formerly in evil, transmitted an account to Minna of this melancholy event, in terms which showed, that though his head was weak, his heart had not been utterly corrupted by the lawless life which he had for some time led, or at least that it had been amended by the change; and that he himself had gained credit and promotion in the same action, seemed to be of little consequence to him, compared with the loss of his old captain and comrade.1 Minna read the intelligence, and thanked Heaven, even while the eyes which she lifted up were streaming with tears, that the death of Cleveland had been in the bed of honour; nay, she even had the courage to add her gratitude, that he had been snatched from a situation of temptation ere circumstances had overcome his new-born virtue; and so strongly did this reflection operate, that her life, after the immediate pain of this event had passed away, seemed not only as resigned, but even more cheerful than before. Her thoughts, however, were detached from the world, and only visited it, with an interest like that which guardian spirits take for their charge, in behalf of those friends with whom she lived in love, or of the poor whom she could serve and comfort. Thus passed her life, enjoying from all who approached her, an affection enhanced by reverence; insomuch, that when her friends sorrowed for her death, which arrived at a late period of her existence, they were comforted by the fond reflection, that the humanity which she then laid down, was the only circumstance which had placed her, in the words of Scripture, “a little lower than the angels!”

      1 We have been able to learn nothing with certainty of Bunce’s fate; but our friend, Dr. Dryasdust, believes he may be identified with an old gentleman, who, in the beginning of the reign of George I., attended the Rose Coffeehouse regularly, went to the theatre every night, told mercilessly long stories about the Spanish Main, controlled reckonings, bullied waiters, and was generally known by the name of Captain Bounce.

       THE END

      Notes

      Note I. p.” 23. — Norse Fragments Near the conclusion of this chapter it is noticed that the old Norwegian sagas were preserved and often repeated by the fishermen of Orkney and Zetland, while that language was not yet quite forgotten. Mr. Baikie of Tanker-ness, a most respectable inhabitant of Kirkwall, and an Orkney proprietor, assured me of the following curious fact.

      A clergyman, who was not long deceased, remembered well when some remnants of the Norse were still spoken in the island called North Ronaldshaw. When Gray’s Ode, entitled the “ Fatal Sisters,” was first published, or at least first reached that remote island, the reverend gentleman had the well-judged curiosity to read it to some of the old persons of the isle, as a poem which regarded the history of their own country. They listened with great attention to the preliminary stanzas: —

      “Now the stonn begins to lour

       Haste the loom of hell prepare.

       Iron sleet of arrowy shower

       Hurtles in the darken’d air.”

      But when they had heard a verse or two more, they interrupted the reader, telling him they knew the song well in the Norse language, and had often sung it to him when he asked them for an old song. They called it the Magicians, or the Enchantresses. It would have been singular news to the elegant translator, when executing his version from the text of Bartholine, to have learned that the Norse original was still preserved by tradition in a remote corner of the British dominions. The circumstances will probably justify what is said in the text concerning the traditions of the inhabitants of those remote isles, at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

      Even yet, though the Norse language is entirely disused, except in so far as particular words and phrases are still retained, these fishers of the Ultima Thule are a generation much attached to these ancient legends. Of this the author learned a singular instance.

      About twenty years ago, a missionary clergyman had taken the resolution of traversing those wild islands, where he supposed there might be a lack of religious instruction, which he believed himself capable of supplying. After being some days at sea in an open boat, he arrived at North Ronaldshaw, where his appearance excited great speculation. СКАЧАТЬ