"Minna, with eager look, dropped the bridle, and stretched forward her arms, and even her body, over the precipice, in the attitude of a wild swan when balancing itself." A A 45812 EDINBURGH ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1867 The Pirate. Nothing in him—- Tempest. INTRODUCTION-(1831.) "Quoth he, there was a ship." This brief preface may begin like the tale of the Ancient Mariner, since it was on shipboard that the author acquired the very moderate degree of local knowledge and information, both of people and scenery, which he has endeavoured to embody in the romance of the Pirate. and billows. Our time, too, was at our own disposal, and, as most of us were fresh water sailors, we could at any time make a fair wind out of a foul one, and run before the gale in quest of some object of curiosity which lay under our lee. With these purposes of public utility and some personal amusement in view, we left the port of Leith on the 26th July, 1814, ran along the east coast of Scotland, viewing its different curiosities, In the summer and autumn of 1814, the author stood over to Zetland and Orkney, where we were was invited to join a party of Commissioners for some time detained by the wonders of a country the Northern Light-House Service, who proposed which displayed so much that was new to us; and, making a voyage round the coast of Scotland, and having seen what was curious in the Ultima Thule through its various groups of islands, chiefly for of the ancients, where the sun hardly thought it the purpose of seeing the condition of the many worth while to go to bed, since his rising was at this light-houses under their direction,—edifices so im-season so early, we doubled the extreme northern portant, whether regarding them as benevolent or political institutions. Among the commissioners who manage this important public concern, the sheriff of each county of Scotland which borders on the sea, holds ex-officio a place at the Board. These gentlemen act in every respect gratuitously, but have the use of an armed yacht, well found and fitted up, when they choose to visit the light-houses. An excellent engineer, Mr Robert Stevenson, is attached to the Board, to afford the benefit of his professional advice. The author accompanied this expedition as a guest; for Selkirkshire, though it calls him Sheriff, has not, like the kingdom of Bohemia in Corporal Trim's story, a seaport in its circuit, nor its magistrate, of course, any place at the Board of Commissioners,— -a circumstance of little consequence where all were old and intimate friends, bred to the same profession, and disposed to accommodate each other in every possible manner. The nature of the important business which was the principal purpose of the voyage, was connected with the amusement of visiting the leading objects of a traveller's curiosity; for the wild cape, or formidable shelve, which requires to be marked out by a light-house, is generally at no great distance from the most magnificent scenery of rocks, caves, termination of Scotland, and took a rapid survey of the Hebrides, where we found many kind friends. There, that our little expedition might not want the dignity of danger, we were favoured with a distant glimpse of what was said to be an American cruizer, and had opportunity to consider what a pretty figure we should have made had the voyage ended in our being carried captive to the United States. After visiting the romantic shores of Morven, and the vicinity of Oban, we made a run to the coast of Ireland, and visited the Giant's Causeway, that we might compare it with Staffa, which we had surveyed in our course. At length, about the middle of September, we ended our voyage in the Clyde, at the port of Greenock. And thus terminated our pleasant tour, to which our equipment gave unusual facilities, as the ship's company could form a strong boat's crew, independent of those who might be left on board the vessel, which permitted us the freedom to land wherever our curiosity carried us. Let me add, while reviewing for a moment a sunny portion of my life, that among the six or seven friends who performed this voyage together, some of them doubtless of different tastes and pursuits, and remaining for several weeks on board a small vessel. there never occurred the slightest dispute or disagreement, each seeming anxious to submit his own particular wishes to those of his friends. By this mutual accommodation all the purposes of our little expedition were obtained, while for a time we might have adopted the lines of Allan Cunningham's fine sea-song, "The world of waters was our home, And merry men were we!" But sorrow mixes her memorials with the purest remembrances of pleasure. On returning from the voyage which had proved so satisfactory, I found that fate had deprived her country most unexpectedly of a lady, qualified to adorn the high rank which she held, and who had long admitted me to a share of her friendship. The subsequent loss of one of those comrades who made up the party, and be the most intimate friend I had in the world, casts also its shade on recollections which, but for these imbitterments, would be otherwise so satisfactory. I may here briefly observe, that my business in this voyage, so far as I could be said to have any, was to endeavour to discover some localities which might be useful in the "Lord of the Isles," a poem with which I was then threatening the public, and which was afterwards printed without attaining remarkable success. But as at the same time the anonymous novel of "Waverley" was making its way to popularity, I already augured the possibility of a second effort in this department of literature, and I saw much in the wild islands of the Orkneys and Zetland, which I judged might be made in the highest degree interesting, should these isles ever become the scene of a narrative of fictitious events. I learned the history of Gow the pirate from an old sibyl, (the subject of Note G, end of this novel,) whose principal subsistence was by a trade in favourable winds, which she sold to mariners at Stromness. Nothing could be more interesting than the kindness and hospitality of the gentlemen of Zetland, which was to me the more affecting, as several of them had been friends and correspondents of my father. I was induced to go a generation or two farther back, to find materials from which I might trace the features of the old Norwegian Udaller, the Scottish gentry having in general occupied the place of that primitive race, and their language and peculiarities of manner having entirely disappeared. The only difference now to be observed betwixt the gentry of these islands, and those of Scotland in general, is, that the wealth and property is more equally divided among our more northern countrymen, and that there exists among the resident proprietors no men of very great wealth, whose display of its luxuries might render the others discontented with their own lot. From the same cause of general equality of fortunes, and the cheapness of living, which is its natural con sequence, I found the officers of a veteran regi ment who had maintained the garrison at Fort Charlotte, in Lerwick, discomposed at the idea of being recalled from a country where their pay, however inadequate to the expenses of a capitai, was fully adequate to their wants, and it was singelar to hear natives of merry England herself regretting their approaching departure from the melan choly isles of the Ultima Thule. Such are the trivial particulars attending the origin of that publication which took place several years later than the agreeable journey in which it took its rise. The state of manners which I have introduce) in the romance, was necessarily in a great degre imaginary, though founded in some measure a slight hints, which, shewing what was, seemed t give reasonable indication of what must once have been, the tone of the society in these sequester but interesting islands. In one respect I was judged somewhat has perhaps, when the character of Norna was pr nounced by the critics a mere copy of Meg We rilees. That I had fallen short of what I wishe and desired to express is unquestionable, other wise my object could not have been so widely taken; nor can I yet think that any person who w take the trouble of reading the Pirate with so attention, can fail to trace in Norna, — the vict of remorse and insanity, and the dupe of her ow imposture, her mind, too, flooded with all the w literature and extravagant superstitions of t north,- something distinct from the Dumfrie shire gipsy, whose pretensions to supernatan powers are not beyond those of a Norwood pr phetess. The foundations of such a character may be perhaps traced, though it be too true that necessary superstructure cannot have been miss upon them, otherwise the remark would have bes unnecessary. There is also great improbability the statement of Norna possessing power and portunity to impress on others that belief in b supernatural powers which distracted her own min. Yet, amid a very credulous and ignorant pop tion, it is astonishing what success may be attai by an impostor, who is, at the same time, an en siast. It is such as to remind us of the c which assures us that "The pleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat." Indeed, as I have observed elsewhere, the pr fessed explanation of a tale, where appearances? incidents of a supernatural character are explains on natural causes, has often, in the winding the story, a degree of improbability almost ey to an absolute goblin tale. Even the genius Mrs Radcliffe could not always surmount this d culty. ABBOTSFORD, 1st May, 1831. |