CHAPTER V.

I do love these ancient ruins--

We never tread upon them but we set

Our foot upon some reverend history;

And, questionless, here, in this open court,

(Which now lies naked to the injuries

Of stormy weather,) some men lie interr'd,

Loved the Church so well, and gave so largely to it,

They thought it should have canopied their bones

Till doomsday;--but all things have their end--

Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men,

Must have like death which we have.

_Duchess of Malfy._

The ruinous church of Saint Ninian had, in its time, enjoyed great

celebrity; for that mighty system of Roman superstition, which spread

its roots over all Europe, had not failed to extend them even to this

remote archipelago, and Zetland had, in the Catholic times, her saints,

her shrines, and her relics, which, though little known elsewhere,

attracted the homage, and commanded the observance, of the simple

inhabitants of Thule. Their devotion to this church of Saint Ninian, or,

as he was provincially termed, Saint Ringan, situated, as the edifice

was, close to the sea-beach, and serving, in many points, as a landmark

to their boats, was particularly obstinate, and was connected with so

much superstitious ceremonial and credulity, that the reformed clergy

thought it best, by an order of the Church Courts, to prohibit all

spiritual service within its walls, as tending to foster the rooted

faith of the simple and rude people around in saint-worship, and other

erroneous doctrines of the Romish Church.

After the Church of Saint Ninian had been thus denounced as a seat of

idolatry, and desecrated of course, the public worship was transferred

to another church; and the roof, with its lead and its rafters, having

been stripped from the little rude old Gothic building, it was left in

the wilderness to the mercy of the elements. The fury of the

uncontrolled winds, which howled along an exposed space, resembling that

which we have described at Jarlshof, very soon choked up nave and aisle,

and, on the north-west side, which was chiefly exposed to the wind, hid

the outside walls more than half way up with mounds of drifted sand,

over which the gable-ends of the building, with the little belfry, which

was built above its eastern angle, arose in ragged and shattered

nakedness of ruin.

Yet, deserted as it was, the Kirk of Saint Ringan still retained some

semblance of the ancient homage formerly rendered there. The rude and

ignorant fishermen of Dunrossness observed a practice, of which they

themselves had wellnigh forgotten the origin, and from which the

Protestant Clergy in vain endeavoured to deter them. When their boats

were in extreme peril, it was common amongst them to propose to vow an

_awmous_, as they termed it, that is, an alms, to Saint Ringan; and when

the danger was over, they never failed to absolve themselves of their

vow, by coming singly and secretly to the old church, and putting off

their shoes and stockings at the entrance of the churchyard, walking

thrice around the ruins, observing that they did so in the course of the

sun. When the circuit was accomplished for the third time, the votary

dropped his offering, usually a small silver coin, through the mullions

of a lanceolated window, which opened into a side aisle, and then

retired, avoiding carefully to look behind him till he was beyond the

precincts which had once been hallowed ground; for it was believed that

the skeleton of the saint received the offering in his bony hand, and

showed his ghastly death's-head at the window into which it was thrown.

Indeed, the scene was rendered more appalling to weak and ignorant

minds, because the same stormy and eddying winds, which, on the one side

of the church, threatened to bury the ruins with sand, and had, in fact,

heaped it up in huge quantities, so as almost to hide the side-wall with

its buttresses, seemed in other places bent on uncovering the graves of

those who had been laid to their long rest on the south-eastern quarter;

and, after an unusually hard gale, the coffins, and sometimes the very

corpses, of those who had been interred without the usual cerements,

were discovered, in a ghastly manner, to the eyes of the living.

It was to this desolated place of worship that the elder Mertoun now

proceeded, though without any of those religious or superstitious

purposes with which the church of Saint Ringan was usually approached.

He was totally without the superstitious fears of the country,--nay,

from the sequestered and sullen manner in which he lived, withdrawing

himself from human society even when assembled for worship, it was the

general opinion that he erred on the more fatal side, and believed

rather too little than too much of that which the Church receives and

enjoins to Christians.

As he entered the little bay, on the shore, and almost on the beach of

which the ruins are situated, he could not help pausing for an instant,

and becoming sensible that the scene, as calculated to operate on human

feelings, had been selected with much judgment as the site of a

religious house. In front lay the sea, into which two headlands, which

formed the extremities of the bay, projected their gigantic causeways of

dark and sable rocks, on the ledges of which the gulls, scouries, and

other sea-fowl, appeared like flakes of snow; while, upon the lower

ranges of the cliff, stood whole lines of cormorants, drawn up alongside

of each other, like soldiers in their battle array, and other living

thing was there none to see. The sea, although not in a tempestuous

state, was disturbed enough to rush on these capes with a sound like

distant thunder, and the billows, which rose in sheets of foam half way

up these sable rocks, formed a contrast of colouring equally striking

and awful.

Betwixt the extremities, or capes, of these projecting headlands, there

rolled, on the day when Mertoun visited the scene, a deep and dense

aggregation of clouds, through which no human eye could penetrate, and

which, bounding the vision, and excluding all view of the distant ocean,

rendered it no unapt representation of the sea in the Vision of Mirza

whose extent was concealed by vapours, and clouds, and storms. The

ground rising steeply from the sea-beach, permitting no view into the

interior of the country, appeared a scene of irretrievable barrenness,

where scrubby and stunted heath, intermixed with the long bent, or

coarse grass, which first covers sandy soils, were the only vegetables

that could be seen. Upon a natural elevation, which rose above the beach

in the very bottom of the bay, and receded a little from the sea, so as

to be without reach of the waves, arose the half-buried ruin which we

have already described, surrounded by a wasted, half-ruinous, and

mouldering wall, which, breached in several places, served still to

divide the precincts of the cemetery. The mariners who were driven by

accident into this solitary bay, pretended that the church was

occasionally observed to be full of lights, and, from that circumstance,

were used to prophesy shipwrecks and deaths by sea.

As Mertoun approached near to the chapel, he adopted, insensibly, and

perhaps without much premeditation, measures to avoid being himself

seen, until he came close under the walls of the burial-ground, which he

approached, as it chanced, on that side where the sand was blowing from

the graves, in the manner we have described.

Here, looking through one of the gaps in the wall which time had made,

he beheld the person whom he sought, occupied in a manner which assorted

well with the ideas popularly entertained of her character, but which

was otherwise sufficiently extraordinary.

She was employed beside a rude monument, on one side of which was

represented the rough outline of a cavalier, or knight, on horseback,

while, on the other, appeared a shield, with the armorial bearings so

defaced as not to be intelligible; which escutcheon was suspended by one

angle, contrary to the modern custom, which usually places them straight

and upright. At the foot of this pillar was believed to repose, as

Mertoun had formerly heard, the bones of Ribolt Troil, one of the remote

ancestors of Magnus, and a man renowned for deeds of valorous emprize in

the fifteenth century. From the grave of this warrior Norna of the

Fitful-head seemed busied in shovelling the sand, an easy task where it

was so light and loose; so that it seemed plain that she would shortly

complete what the rude winds had begun, and make bare the bones which

lay there interred. As she laboured, she muttered her magic song; for

without the Runic rhyme no form of northern superstition was ever

performed. We have perhaps preserved too many examples of these

incantations; but we cannot help attempting to translate that which

follows:--

"Champion, famed for warlike toil,

Art thou silent, Ribolt Troil?

Sand, and dust, and pebbly stones,

Are leaving bare thy giant bones.

Who dared touch the wild-bear's skin

Ye slumber'd on while life was in?--

A woman now, or babe, may come,

And cast the covering from thy tomb.

"Yet be not wrathful, Chief, nor blight

Mine eyes or ears with sound or sight!

I come not, with unhallow'd tread,

To wake the slumbers of the dead,

Or lay thy giant relics bare;

But what I seek thou well canst spare.

Be it to my hand allow'd

To shear a merk's weight from thy shroud;

Yet leave thee sheeted lead enough

To shield thy bones from weather rough.

"See, I draw my magic knife--

Never while thou wert in life

Laid'st thou still for sloth or fear,

When point and edge were glittering near;

See, the cerements now I sever--

Waken now, or sleep for ever!

Thou wilt not wake? the deed is done!--

The prize I sought is fairly won.

"Thanks, Ribolt, thanks,--for this the sea

Shall smooth its ruffled crest for thee,--

And while afar its billows foam,

Subside to peace near Ribolt's tomb.

Thanks, Ribolt, thanks--for this the might

Of wild winds raging at their height,

When to thy place of slumber nigh,

Shall soften to a lullaby.

"She, the dame of doubt and dread,

Norna of the Fitful-head,

Mighty in her own despite--

Miserable in her might;

In despair and frenzy great,--

In her greatness desolate;

Wisest, wickedest who lives,

Well can keep the word she gives."

While Norna chanted the first part of this rhyme, she completed the task

of laying bare a part of the leaden coffin of the ancient warrior, and

severed from it, with much caution and apparent awe, a portion of the

metal. She then reverentially threw back the sand upon the coffin; and

by the time she had finished her song, no trace remained that the

secrets of the sepulchre had been violated.

Mertoun remained gazing on her from behind the churchyard wall during

the whole ceremony, not from any impression of veneration for her or her

employment, but because he conceived that to interrupt a madwoman in her

act of madness, was not the best way to obtain from her such

intelligence as she might have to impart. Meanwhile he had full time to

consider her figure, although her face was obscured by her dishevelled

hair, and by the hood of her dark mantle, which permitted no more to be

visible than a Druidess would probably have exhibited at the celebration

of her mystical rites. Mertoun had often heard of Norna before; nay, it

is most probable that he might have seen her repeatedly, for she had

been in the vicinity of Jarlshof more than once since his residence

there. But the absurd stories which were in circulation respecting her,

prevented his paying any attention to a person whom he regarded as

either an impostor or a madwoman, or a compound of both. Yet, now that

his attention was, by circumstances, involuntarily fixed upon her person

and deportment, he could not help acknowledging to himself that she was

either a complete enthusiast, or rehearsed her part so admirably, that

no Pythoness of ancient times could have excelled her. The dignity and

solemnity of her gesture,--the sonorous, yet impressive tone of voice

with which she addressed the departed spirit whose mortal relics she

ventured to disturb, were such as failed not to make an impression upon

him, careless and indifferent as he generally appeared to all that went

on around him. But no sooner was her singular occupation terminated,

than, entering the churchyard with some difficulty, by clambering over

the disjointed ruins of the wall, he made Norna aware of his presence.

Far from starting, or expressing the least surprise at his appearance in

a place so solitary, she said, in a tone that seemed to intimate that he

had been expected, "So,--you have sought me at last?"

"And found you," replied Mertoun, judging he would best introduce the

enquiries he had to make, by assuming a tone which corresponded to her

own.

"Yes!" she replied, "found me you have, and in the place where all men

must meet--amid the tabernacles of the dead."

"Here we must, indeed, meet at last," replied Mertoun, glancing his

eyes on the desolate scene around, where headstones, half covered in

sand, and others, from which the same wind had stripped the soil on

which they rested, covered with inscriptions, and sculptured with the

emblems of mortality, were the most conspicuous objects,--"here, as in

the house of death, all men must meet at length; and happy those that

come soonest to the quiet haven."

"He that dares desire this haven," said Norna, "must have steered a

steady course in the voyage of life. _I_ dare not hope for such quiet

harbour. Darest _thou_ expect it? or has the course thou hast kept

deserved it?"

"It matters not to my present purpose," replied Mertoun; "I have to ask

you what tidings you know of my son Mordaunt Mertoun?"

"A father," replied the sibyl, "asks of a stranger what tidings she has

of his son! How should I know aught of him? the cormorant says not to

the mallard, where is my brood?"

"Lay aside this useless affectation of mystery," said Mertoun; "with the

vulgar and ignorant it has its effect, but upon me it is thrown away.

The people of Jarlshof have told me that you do know, or may know,

something of Mordaunt Mertoun, who has not returned home after the

festival of Saint John's, held in the house of your relative, Magnus

Troil. Give me such information, if indeed ye have it to give; and it

shall be recompensed, if the means of recompense are in my power."

"The wide round of earth," replied Norna, "holds nothing that I would

call a recompense for the slightest word that I throw away upon a living

ear. But for thy son, if thou wouldst see him in life, repair to the

approaching Fair of Kirkwall, in Orkney."

"And wherefore thither?" said Mertoun; "I know he had no purpose in that

direction."

"We drive on the stream of fate," answered Norna, "without oar or

rudder. You had no purpose this morning of visiting the Kirk of Saint

Ringan, yet you are here;--you had no purpose but a minute hence of

being at Kirkwall, and yet you will go thither."

"Not unless the cause is more distinctly explained to me. I am no

believer, dame, in those who assert your supernatural powers."

"You shall believe in them ere we part," said Norna. "As yet you know

but little of me, nor shall you know more. But I know enough of you, and

could convince you with one word that I do so."

"Convince me, then," said Mertoun; "for unless I am so convinced, there

is little chance of my following your counsel."

"Mark, then," said Norna, "what I have to say on your son's score, else

what I shall say to you on your own will banish every other thought from

your memory. You shall go to the approaching Fair at Kirkwall; and, on

the fifth day of the Fair, you shall walk, at the hour of noon, in the

outer aisle of the Cathedral of Saint Magnus, and there you shall meet a

person who will give you tidings of your son."

"You must speak more distinctly, dame," returned Mertoun, scornfully,

"if you hope that I should follow your counsel. I have been fooled in my

time by women, but never so grossly as you seem willing to gull me."

"Hearken, then!" said the old woman. "The word which I speak shall touch

the nearest secret of thy life, and thrill thee through nerve and bone."

So saying, she whispered a word into Mertoun's ear, the effect of which

seemed almost magical. He remained fixed and motionless with surprise,

as, waving her arm slowly aloft, with an air of superiority and triumph,

Norna glided from him, turned round a corner of the ruins, and was soon

out of sight.

Mertoun offered not to follow, or to trace her. "We fly from our fate in

vain!" he said, as he began to recover himself; and turning, he left

behind him the desolate ruins with their cemetery. As he looked back

from the very last point at which the church was visible, he saw the

figure of Norna, muffled in her mantle, standing on the very summit of

the ruined tower, and stretching out in the sea-breeze something which

resembled a white pennon, or flag. A feeling of horror, similar to that

excited by her last words, again thrilled through his bosom, and he

hastened onwards with unwonted speed, until he had left the church of

Saint Ninian, with its bay of sand, far behind him.

Upon his arrival at Jarlshof, the alteration in his countenance was so

great, that Swertha conjectured he was about to fall into one of those

fits of deep melancholy which she termed his dark hour.

"And what better could be expected," thought Swertha, "when he must

needs go visit Norna of the Fitful-head, when she was in the haunted

Kirk of Saint Ringan's?"

But without testifying any other symptoms of an alienated mind, than

that of deep and sullen dejection, her master acquainted her with his

intention to go to the Fair of Kirkwall,--a thing so contrary to his

usual habits, that the housekeeper wellnigh refused to credit her ears.

Shortly after, he heard, with apparent indifference, the accounts

returned by the different persons who had been sent out in quest of

Mordaunt, by sea and land, who all of them returned without any tidings.

The equanimity with which Mertoun heard the report of their bad success,

convinced Swertha still more firmly, that, in his interview with Norna,

that issue had been predicted to him by the sibyl whom he had consulted.

The township were yet more surprised, when their tacksman, Mr. Mertoun,

as if on some sudden resolution, made preparations to visit Kirkwall

during the Fair, although he had hitherto avoided sedulously all such

places of public resort. Swertha puzzled herself a good deal, without

being able to penetrate this mystery; and vexed herself still more

concerning the fate of her young master. But her concern was much

softened by the deposit of a sum of money, seeming, however moderate in

itself, a treasure in her eyes, which her master put into her hands,

acquainting her at the same time, that he had taken his passage for

Kirkwall, in a small bark belonging to the proprietor of the island of

Mousa.