Mordaunt was now seated by the fire, in an apartment indifferently well furnished, having a book in his hand, which he looked upon from time to time with signs of ennui and impatience; feelings which at length so far overcame him, that, flinging the volume on the table, he fixed his eyes on the fire, and assumed the attitude of one who is engaged in unpleasant meditation.
Norna, who sat opposite to him, and appeared busy in the composition of some drug or unguent, anxiously left her seat, and, approaching Mordaunt, felt his pulse, making at the same time the most affectionate enquiries whether he felt any sudden pain, and where it was seated. The manner in which Mordaunt replied to these earnest enquiries, although worded so as to express gratitude for her kindness, while he disclaimed any feeling of indisposition, did not seem to give satisfaction to the Pythoness.
“Ungrateful boy!” she said, “for whom I have done so much; you whom I have rescued, by my power and skill, from the very gates of death,—are you already so weary of me, that you cannot refrain from showing how desirous you are to spend, at a distance from me, the very first intelligent days of the life which I have restored you?”
“You do me injustice, my kind preserver,” replied Mordaunt; “I am not tired of your society; but I have duties which recall me to ordinary life.”
“Duties!” repeated Norna; “and what duties can or ought to interfere with the gratitude which you owe to me?—Duties! Your thoughts are on the use of your gun, or on clambering among the rocks in quest of sea-fowl. For these exercises your strength doth not yet fit you; and yet these are the duties to which you are so anxious to return!”
“Not so, my good and kind mistress,” said Mordaunt.—“To name one duty, out of many, which makes me seek to leave you, now that my strength permits, let me mention that of a son to his father.”
“To your father!” said Norna, with a laugh that had something in it almost frantic. “O! you know not how we can, in these islands, at once cancel such duties! And, for your father,” she added, proceeding more calmly, “what has he done for you, to deserve the regard and duty you speak of?—Is he not the same, who, as you have long since told me, left you for so many years poorly nourished among strangers, without enquiring whether you were alive or dead, and only sending, from time to time, supplies in such fashion, as men relieve the leprous wretch to whom they fling alms from a distance? And, in these later years, when he had made you the companion of his misery, he has been, by starts your pedagogue, by starts your tormentor, but never, Mordaunt, never your father.”
“Something of truth there is in what you say,” replied Mordaunt: “My father is not fond; but he is, and has ever been, effectively kind. Men have not their affections in their power; and it is a child’s duty to be grateful for the benefits which he receives, even when coldly bestowed. My father has conferred instruction on me, and I am convinced he loves me. He is unfortunate; and, even if he loved me not”——
“And he does not love you,” said Norna, hastily; “he never loved any thing, or any one, save himself. He is unfortunate, but well are his misfortunes deserved.—O Mordaunt, you have one parent only,—one parent, who loves you as the drops of the heart-blood!”
“I know I have but one parent,” replied Mordaunt; “my mother has been long dead.—But your words contradict each other.”
“They do not—they do not,” said Norna, in a paroxysm of the deepest feeling; “you have but one parent. Your unhappy mother is not dead—I would to God that she were!—but she is not dead. Thy mother is the only parent that loves thee; and I—I, Mordaunt,” throwing herself on his neck, “am that most unhappy—yet most happy mother.”
She closed him in a strict and convulsive embrace; and tears, the first, perhaps, which she had shed for many years, burst in torrents as she sobbed on his neck. Astonished at what he heard, felt, and saw,—moved by the excess of her agitation, yet disposed to ascribe this burst of passion to insanity,—Mordaunt vainly endeavoured to tranquillize the mind of this extraordinary person.
“Ungrateful boy!” she said, “who but a mother would have watched over thee as I have watched? From the instant I saw thy father, when he little thought by whom he was observed, a space now many years back, I knew him well; and, under his charge, I saw you, then a stripling,—while Nature, speaking loud in my bosom, assured me, thou wert blood of my blood, and bone of my bone. Think how often you have wondered to see me, when least expected, in your places of pastime and resort! Think how often my eye has watched you on the giddy precipices, and muttered those charms which subdue the evil demons, who show themselves to the climber on the giddiest point of his path, and force him to quit his hold! Did I not hang around thy neck, in pledge of thy safety, that chain of gold, which an Elfin King gave to the founder of our race? Would I have given that dear gift to any but to the son of my bosom?—Mordaunt, my power has done that for thee that a mere mortal mother would dread to think of. I have conjured the Mermaid at midnight, that thy bark might be prosperous on the Haaf! I have hushed the winds, and navies have flapped their empty sails against the mast in inactivity, that you might safely indulge your sport upon the crags!”
Mordaunt, perceiving that she was growing yet wilder in her talk, endeavoured to frame an answer which should be at once indulgent, soothing, and calculated to allay the rising warmth of her imagination.
“Dear Norna,” he said, “I have indeed many reasons to call you mother, who have bestowed so many benefits upon me; and from me you shall ever receive the affection and duty of a child. But the chain you mentioned, it has vanished from my neck—I have not seen it since the ruffian stabbed me.”
“Alas! and can you think of it at this moment?” said Norna, in a sorrowful accent.—“But be it so;—and know, it was I took it from thy neck, and tied it around the neck of her who is dearest to you; in token that the union betwixt you, which has been the only earthly wish which I have had the power to form, shall yet, even yet, be accomplished—ay, although hell should open to forbid the bans!”
“Alas!” said Mordaunt, with a sigh, “you remember not the difference betwixt our situation—her father is wealthy, and of ancient birth.”
“Not more wealthy than will be the heir of Norna of Fitful-head,” answered the Pythoness—“not of better or more ancient blood than that which flows in thy veins, derived from thy mother, the descendant of the same Jarls and Sea-Kings from whom Magnus boasts his origin.—Or dost thou think, like the pedant and fanatic strangers who have come amongst us, that thy blood is dishonoured because my union with thy father did not receive the sanction of a priest?—Know, that we were wedded after the ancient manner of the Norse—our hands were clasped within the circle of Odin,[32] with such deep vows of eternal fidelity, as even the laws of these usurping Scots would have sanctioned as equivalent to a blessing before the altar. To the offspring of such a union, Magnus has nought to object. It was weak—it was criminal, on my part, but it conveyed no infamy to the birth of my son.”
The composed and collected manner in which Norna argued these points began to impose upon Mordaunt an incipient belief in the truth of what she said; and, indeed, she added so many circumstances, satisfactorily and rationally connected with each other, as seemed to confute the notion that her story was altogether the delusion of that insanity which sometimes showed itself in her speech and actions. A thousand confused ideas rushed upon him, when he supposed it possible that the unhappy person before him might actually have a right to claim from him the respect and affection due to a parent from a son. He could only surmount them by turning his mind to a different, and scarce less interesting topic, resolving within himself to take time for farther enquiry and mature consideration, ere he either rejected or admitted the claim which Norna preferred upon his affection and duty. His benefactress, at least, she undoubtedly was, and he could not err in paying her, as such, the respect and attention due from a son to a mother; and so far, therefore, he might gratify Norna without otherwise standing committed.