“Do not fear it,” said Minna; “my father can never be so unjust as to hold you liable for the offences of others.”
“But what will Magnus Troil say to my own demerits, fair Minna?” said Cleveland, smiling.
“My father is a Zetlander, or rather a Norwegian,” said Minna, “one of an oppressed race, who will not care whether you fought against the Spaniards, who are the tyrants of the New World, or against the Dutch and English, who have succeeded to their usurped dominions. His own ancestors supported and exercised the freedom of the seas in those gallant barks, whose pennons were the dread of all Europe.”
“I fear, nevertheless,” said Cleveland, “that the descendant of an ancient Sea-King will scarce acknowledge a fitting acquaintance in a modern rover. I have not disguised from you that I have reason to dread the English laws; and Magnus, though a great enemy to taxes, imposts, scat, wattle, and so forth, has no idea of latitude upon points of a more general character;—he would willingly reeve a rope to the yard-arm for the benefit of an unfortunate buccanier.”
“Do not suppose so,” said Minna; “he himself suffers too much oppression from the tyrannical laws of our proud neighbours of Scotland. I trust he will soon be able to rise in resistance against them. The enemy—such I will call them—are now divided amongst themselves, and every vessel from their coast brings intelligence of fresh commotions—the Highlands against the Lowlands—the Williamites against the Jacobites—the Whigs against the Tories, and, to sum the whole, the kingdom of England against that of Scotland. What is there, as Claud Halcro well hinted, to prevent our availing ourselves of the quarrels of these robbers, to assert the independence of which we are deprived?”
“To hoist the raven standard on the Castle of Scalloway,” said Cleveland, in imitation of her tone and manner, “and proclaim your father Earl Magnus the First!”
“Earl Magnus the Seventh, if it please you,” answered Minna; “for six of his ancestors have worn, or were entitled to wear, the coronet before him.—You laugh at my ardour,—but what is there to prevent all this?”
“Nothing will prevent it,” replied Cleveland, “because it will never be attempted—Any thing might prevent it, that is equal in strength to the long-boat of a British man-of-war.”
“You treat us with scorn, sir,” said Minna; “yet yourself should know what a few resolved men may perform.”
“But they must be armed, Minna,” replied Cleveland, “and willing to place their lives upon each desperate adventure.—Think not of such visions. Denmark has been cut down into a second-rate kingdom, incapable of exchanging a single broadside with England; Norway is a starving wilderness; and, in these islands, the love of independence has been suppressed by a long term of subjection, or shows itself but in a few muttered growls over the bowl and bottle. And, were your men as willing warriors as their ancestors, what could the unarmed crews of a few fishing-boats do against the British navy?—Think no more of it, sweet Minna—it is a dream, and I must term it so, though it makes your eye so bright, and your step so noble.”
“It is indeed a dream!” said Minna, looking down, “and it ill becomes a daughter of Hialtland to look or to move like a freewoman—Our eye should be on the ground, and our step slow and reluctant, as that of one who obeys a taskmaster.”
“There are lands,” said Cleveland, “in which the eye may look bright upon groves of the palm and the cocoa, and where the foot may move light as a galley under sail, over fields carpeted with flowers, and savannahs surrounded by aromatic thickets, and where subjection is unknown, except that of the brave to the bravest, and of all to the most beautiful.”
Minna paused a moment ere she spoke, and then answered, “No, Cleveland. My own rude country has charms for me, even desolate as you think it, and depressed as it surely is, which no other land on earth can offer to me. I endeavour in vain to represent to myself those visions of trees, and of groves, which my eye never saw; but my imagination can conceive no sight in nature more sublime than these waves, when agitated by a storm, or more beautiful, than when they come, as they now do, rolling in calm tranquillity to the shore. Not the fairest scene in a foreign land,—not the brightest sunbeam that ever shone upon the richest landscape, would win my thoughts for a moment from that lofty rock, misty hill, and wide-rolling ocean. Hialtland is the land of my deceased ancestors, and of my living father; and in Hialtland will I live and die.”
“Then in Hialtland,” answered Cleveland, “will I too live and die. I will not go to Kirkwall,—I will not make my existence known to my comrades, from whom it were else hard for me to escape. Your father loves me, Minna; who knows whether long attention, anxious care, might not bring him to receive me into his family? Who would regard the length of a voyage that was certain to terminate in happiness?”
“Dream not of such an issue,” said Minna; “it is impossible. While you live in my father’s house,—while you receive his assistance, and share his table, you will find him the generous friend, and the hearty host; but touch him on what concerns his name and family, and the frank-hearted Udaller will start up before you the haughty and proud descendant of a Norwegian Jarl. See you,—a moment’s suspicion has fallen on Mordaunt Mertoun, and he has banished from his favour the youth whom he so lately loved as a son. No one must ally with his house that is not of untainted northern descent.”
“And mine may be so, for aught that is known to me upon the subject,” said Cleveland.
“How!” said Minna; “have you any reason to believe yourself of Norse descent?”
“I have told you before,” replied Cleveland, “that my family is totally unknown to me. I spent my earliest days upon a solitary plantation in the little island of Tortuga, under the charge of my father, then a different person from what he afterwards became. We were plundered by the Spaniards, and reduced to such extremity of poverty, that my father, in desperation, and in thirst of revenge, took up arms, and having become chief of a little band, who were in the same circumstances, became a buccanier, as it is called, and cruized against Spain, with various vicissitudes of good and bad fortune, until, while he interfered to check some violence of his companions, he fell by their hands—no uncommon fate among the captains of these rovers. But whence my father came, or what was the place of his birth, I know not, fair Minna, nor have I ever had a curious thought on the subject.”
“He was a Briton, at least, your unfortunate father?” said Minna.
“I have no doubt of it,” said Cleveland; “his name, which I have rendered too formidable to be openly spoken, is an English one; and his acquaintance with the English language, and even with English literature, together with the pains which he took, in better days, to teach me both, plainly spoke him to be an Englishman. If the rude bearing which I display towards others is not the genuine character of my mind and manners, it is to my father, Minna, that I owe any share of better thoughts and principles, which may render me worthy, in some small degree, of your notice and approbation. And yet it sometimes seems to me, that I have two different characters; for I cannot bring myself to believe, that I, who now walk this lone beach with the lovely Minna Troil, and am permitted to speak to her of the passion which I have cherished, have ever been the daring leader of the bold band whose name was as terrible as a tornado.”