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Pramod Singh

Learn PySpark
Build Python-based Machine Learning and Deep
Learning Models
Pramod Singh
Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the

author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book’s
product page, located at www.​apress.​com/​978-1-4842-4960-4 . For
more detailed information, please visit www.​apress.​com/​source-code .

ISBN 978-1-4842-4960-4 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-4961-1

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4961-1

© Pramod Singh 2019

Apress Standard

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I dedicate this book to my wife, Neha, my son, Ziaan, and my parents.
Without you, this book wouldn’t have been possible. You complete my
world and are the source of my strength.
Introduction
The idea of writing this book had already been seeded while I was
working on my first book, and there was a strong reason for that. The
earlier book was more focused on machine learning using big data and
essentially did not deep-dive sufficiently into supporting aspects, but
this book goes a little deeper into the internals of Spark’s machine
learning library, as well as analyzing of streaming data. It is a good
reference point for someone who wants to learn more about how to
automate different workflows and build pipelines to handle real-time
data.
This book is divided into three main sections. The first provides an
introduction to Spark and data analysis on big data; the middle section
discusses using Airflow for executing different jobs, in addition to data
analysis on streaming data, using the structured streaming features of
Spark. The final section covers translation of a business problem into
machine learning and solving it, using Spark’s machine learning library,
with a deep dive into deep learning as well.
This book might also be useful to data analysts and data engineers,
as it covers the steps of big data processing using PySpark. Readers
who want to make a transition to the data science and machine learning
fields will also find this book a good starting point and can gradually
tackle more complicated areas later. The case studies and examples
given in the book make it really easy to follow and understand the
related fundamental concepts. Moreover, there are very few books
available on PySpark, and this book certainly adds value to readers’
knowledge. The strength of this book lies in its simplicity and on its
application of machine learning to meaningful datasets.
I have tried my best to put all my experience and knowledge into
this book, and I feel it is particularly relevant to what businesses are
seeking in order to solve real challenges. I hope that it will provide you
with some useful takeaways.
Acknowledgments
This is my second book on Spark, and along the way, I have come to
realize my love for handling big data and performing machine learning
as well. Going forward, I intend to write many more books, but first, let
me thank a few people who have helped me along this journey. First, I
must thank the most important person in my life, my beloved wife,
Neha, who selflessly supported me throughout and sacrificed so much
to ensure that I completed this book.
I must thank Celestin Suresh John, who believed in me and extended
the opportunity to write this book. Aditee Mirashi is one of the best
editors in India. This is my second book with her, and it was even more
exciting to work with her this time. As usual, she was extremely
supportive and always there to accommodate my requests. I especially
would like to thank Jim Markham, who dedicated his time to reading
every single chapter and offered so many useful suggestions. Thanks,
Jim, I really appreciate your input. I also want to thank Manoj Patil, who
had the patience to review every line of code and check the
appropriateness of each example. Thank you for your feedback and
encouragement. It really made a difference to me and the book.
I also want to thank the many mentors who have constantly forced
me to pursue my dreams. Thank you Sebastian Keupers, Dr. Vijay
Agneeswaran, Sreenivas Venkatraman, Shoaib Ahmed, and Abhishek
Kumar, for your time. Finally, I am infinitely grateful to my son, Ziaan,
and my parents, for their endless love and support, irrespective of
circumstances. You all make my world beautiful.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​Introduction to Spark
History
Data Collection
Data Storage
Data Processing
Spark Architecture
Storage
Resource Management
Engine and Ecosystem
Programming Language APIs
Setting Up Your Environment
Local Setup
Dockers
Cloud Environments
Conclusion
Chapter 2:​Data Processing
Creating a SparkSession Object
Creating Dataframes
Null Values
Subset of a Dataframe
Select
Filter
Where
Aggregations
Collect
 User-Defined Functions (UDFs)
Pandas UDF
Joins
Pivoting
Window Functions or Windowed Aggregates
Conclusion
Chapter 3:​Spark Structured Streaming
Batch vs.​Stream
Batch Data
Stream Processing
Spark Streaming
Structured Streaming
Data Input
Data Processing
Final Output
Building a Structured App
Operations
Joins
Structured Streaming Alternatives
Conclusion
Chapter 4:​Airflow
Workflows
Graph Overview
Undirected Graphs
Directed Graphs
DAG Overview
 Operators
Installing Airflow
Airflow Using Docker
Creating Your First DAG
Step 1:​Importing the Required Libraries
Step 2:​Defining the Default Arguments
Step 3:​Creating a DAG
Step 4:​Declaring Tasks
Step 5:​Mentioning Dependencies
Conclusion
Chapter 5:​MLlib:​Machine Learning Library
Calculating Correlations
Chi-Square Test
Transformations
Binarizer
Principal Component Analysis
Normalizer
Standard Scaling
Min-Max Scaling
MaxAbsScaler
Binning
Building a Classification Model
Step 1:​Load the Dataset
Step 2:​Explore the Dataframe
Step 3:​Data Transformation
Step 4:​Splitting into Train and Test Data
 Step 5:​Model Training
Step 6:​Hyperparameter Tuning
Step 7:​Best Model
Conclusion
Chapter 6:​Supervised Machine Learning
Supervised Machine Learning Primer
Binary Classification
Multi-class Classification
Building a Linear Regression Model
Reviewing the Data Information
Generalized Linear Model Regression
Decision Tree Regression
Random Forest Regressors
Gradient-Boosted Tree Regressor
Step 1:​Build and Train a GBT Regressor Model
Step 2:​Evaluate the Model Performance on Test Data
Building Multiple Models for Binary Classification Tasks
Logistic Regression
Decision Tree Classifier
Support Vector Machines Classifiers
Naive Bayes Classifier
Gradient Boosted Tree Classifier
Random Forest Classifier
Hyperparameter Tuning and Cross-Validation
Conclusion
Chapter 7:​Unsupervised Machine Learning
 Unsupervised Machine Learning Primer
Reviewing the Dataset
Importing SparkSession and Creating an Object
Reshaping a Dataframe for Clustering
Building Clusters with K-Means
Conclusion
Chapter 8:​Deep Learning Using PySpark
Deep Learning Fundamentals
Human Brain Neuron vs.​Artificial Neuron
Activation Functions
Neuron Computation
Training Process:​Neural Network
Building a Multilayer Perceptron Model
Conclusion
Index
About the Author and About the Technical
Reviewer

About the Author

Pramod Singh
has more than 11 years of hands-on
experience in data engineering and
sciences and is currently a manager
(data science) at Publicis Sapient in
India, where he drives strategic
initiatives that deal with machine
learning and artificial intelligence (AI).
Pramod has worked with multiple
clients, in areas such as retail, telecom,
and automobile and consumer goods,
and is the author of Machine Learning
with PyS park . He also speaks at major
forums, such as Strata Data, and at AI
conferences.
Pramod received a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics
engineering from Mumbai University and an MBA (operations and
finance) from Symbiosis International University, in addition to data
analytics certification from IIM–Calcutta.
Pramod lives in Bangalore with his wife and three-year-old son. In
his spare time, he enjoys playing guitar, coding, reading, and watching
soccer.

About the Technical Reviewer

Manoj Patil
has worked in the software industry for 19 years. He received an
engineering degree from COEP, Pune (India), and has been enjoying his
exciting IT journey ever since.
 As a principal architect at TatvaSoft,
Manoj has taken many initiatives in the
organization, ranging from training and
mentoring teams, leading data science
and ML practice, to successfully
designing client solutions from different
functional domains.
He began his career as a Java
programmer but is fortunate to have
worked on multiple frameworks with
multiple languages and can claim to be a
full stack developer. In the last five years,
Manoj has worked extensively in the
field of BI, big data, and machine
learning, using such technologies as
Hitachi Vantara (Pentaho), the Hadoop ecosystem, TensorFlow, Python-
based libraries, and more.
He is passionate about learning new technologies, trends, and
reviewing books. When he’s not working, he’s either exercising or
reading/listening to infinitheism literature.
© Pramod Singh 2019
P. Singh, Learn PySpark
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4961-1_1

1. Introduction to Spark
Pramod Singh1

(1) Bangalore, Karnataka, India

As this book is about Spark, it makes perfect sense to start the first
chapter by looking into some of Spark’s history and its different
components. This introductory chapter is divided into three sections. In
the first, I go over the evolution of data and how it got as far as it has, in
terms of size. I’ll touch on three key aspects of data. In the second
section, I delve into the internals of Spark and go over the details of its
different components, including its architecture and modus operandi.
The third and final section of this chapter focuses on how to use Spark
in a cloud environment.

History
The birth of the Spark project occurred at the Algorithms, Machine, and
People (AMP) Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. The project
was initiated to address the potential issues in the Hadoop MapReduce
framework. Although Hadoop MapReduce was a groundbreaking
framework to handle big data processing, in reality, it still had a lot of
limitations in terms of speed. Spark was new and capable of doing in-
memory computations, which made it almost 100 times faster than any
other big data processing framework. Since then, there has been a
continuous increase in adoption of Spark across the globe for big data
applications. But before jumping into the specifics of Spark, let’s
consider a few aspects of data itself.
 Data can be viewed from three different angles: the way it is
collected, stored, and processed, as shown in Figure 1-1.

Figure 1-1 Three aspects of data

Data Collection
A huge shift in the manner in which data is collected has occurred over
the last few years. From buying an apple at a grocery store to deleting
an app on your mobile phone, every data point is now captured in the
back end and collected through various built-in applications. Different
Internet of things (IoT) devices capture a wide range of visual and
sensory signals every millisecond. It has become relatively convenient
for businesses to collect that data from various sources and use it later
for improved decision making.

Data Storage
In previous years, no one ever imagined that data would reside at some
remote location, or that the cost to store data would be as cheap as it is.
Businesses have embraced cloud storage and started to see its benefits
over on-premise approaches. However, some businesses still opt for on-
premise storage, for various reasons. It’s known that data storage
began by making use of magnetic tapes. Then the breakthrough
introduction of floppy discs made it possible to move data from one
place to another. However, the size of the data was still a huge
limitation. Flash drives and hard discs made it even easier to store and
transfer large amounts of data at a reduced cost. (See Figure 1-2.) The
latest trend in the advancement of storage devices has resulted in flash
drives capable of storing data up to 2TBs, at a throwaway price.

Figure 1-2 Evolution of data storage

This trend clearly indicates that the cost to store data has been
reduced significantly over the years and continues to decline. As a
result, businesses don’t shy away from storing huge amounts of data,
irrespective of its kind. From logs to financial and operational
transactions to simple employee feedback, everything gets stored.

Data Processing
The final aspect of data is using stored data and processing it for some
analysis or to run an application. We have witnessed how efficient
computers have become in the last 20 years. What used to take five
minutes to execute probably takes less than a second using today’s
machines with advanced processing units. Hence, it goes without saying
that machines can process data much faster and easier. Nonetheless,
there is still a limit to the amount of data a single machine can process,
regardless of its processing power. So, the underlying idea behind Spark
is to use a collection (cluster) of machines and a unified processing
engine (Spark) to process and handle huge amounts of data, without
compromising on speed and security. This was the ultimate goal that
resulted in the birth of Spark.

Spark Architecture
There are five core components that make Spark so powerful and easy
to use. The core architecture of Spark consists of the following layers, as
shown in Figure 1-3:
Storage
Resource management
Engine
Ecosystem
APIs

Figure 1-3 Core components of Spark

Storage
Before using Spark, data must be made available in order to process it.
This data can reside in any kind of database. Spark offers multiple
options to use different categories of data sources, to be able to process
it on a large scale. Spark allows you to use traditional relational
databases as well as NoSQL, such as Cassandra and MongoDB.

Resource Management
The next layer consists of a resource manager. As Spark works on a set
of machines (it also can work on a single machine with multiple cores),
it is known as a Spark cluster . Typically, there is a resource manager in
any cluster that efficiently handles the workload between these
resources. The two most widely used resource managers are YARN and
Mesos. The resource manager has two main components internally:
1. Cluster manager

2. Worker

It’s kind of like master-slave architecture, in which the cluster

manager acts as a master node, and the worker acts as a slave node in
the cluster. The cluster manager keeps track of all information
pertaining to the worker nodes and their current status. Cluster
managers always maintain the following information:
Status of worker node (busy/available)
Location of worker node
Memory of worker node
Total CPU cores of worker node
The main role of the cluster manager is to manage the worker nodes
and assign them tasks, based on the availability and capacity of the
worker node. On the other hand, a worker node is only responsible for
executing the task it’s given by the cluster manager, as shown in Figure
1-4.
Figure 1-4 Resource management
The tasks that are given to the worker nodes are generally the
individual pieces of the overall Spark application. The Spark application
contains two parts:
1. Task

2. Spark driver

The task is the data processing logic that has been written in either
PySpark or Spark R code. It can be as simple as taking a total frequency
count of words to a very complex set of instructions on an unstructured
dataset. The second component is Spark driver, the main controller of a
Spark application, which consistently interacts with a cluster manager
to find out which worker nodes can be used to execute the request. The
role of the Spark driver is to request the cluster manager to initiate the
Spark executor for every worker node.

Engine and Ecosystem

The base of the Spark architecture is its core, which is built on top of
RDDs (Resilient Distributed Datasets) and offers multiple APIs for
building other libraries and ecosystems by Spark contributors. It
contains two parts: the distributed computing infrastructure and the
RDD programming abstraction. The default libraries in the Spark toolkit
come as four different offerings.

Spark SQL
SQL being used by most of the ETL operators across the globe makes it
a logical choice to be part of Spark offerings. It allows Spark users to
perform structured data processing by running SQL queries. In
actuality, Spark SQL leverages the catalyst optimizer to perform the
optimizations during the execution of SQL queries.
Another advantage of using Spark SQL is that it can easily deal with
multiple database files and storage systems such as SQL, NoSQL,
Parquet, etc.

MLlib
Training machine learning models on big datasets was starting to
become a huge challenge, until Spark’s MLlib (Machine Learning
library) came into existence. MLlib gives you the ability to train
machine learning models on huge datasets, using Spark clusters. It
allows you to build in supervised, unsupervised, and recommender
systems; NLP-based models; and deep learning, as well as within the
Spark ML library.

Structured Streaming
The Spark Streaming library provides the functionality to read and
process real-time streaming data. The incoming data can be batch data
or near real-time data from different sources. Structured Streaming is
capable of ingesting real-time data from such sources as Flume, Kafka,
Twitter, etc. There is a dedicated chapter on this component later in this
book (see Chapter 3).

Graph X
This is a library that sits on top of the Spark core and allows users to
process specific types of data (graph dataframes), which consists of
nodes and edges. A typical graph is used to model the relationship
between the different objects involved. The nodes represent the object,
and the edge between the nodes represents the relationship between
them. Graph dataframes are mainly used in network analysis, and
Graph X makes it possible to have distributed processing of such graph
dataframes.

Programming Language APIs

Spark is available in four languages. Because Spark is built using Scala,
that becomes the native language. Apart from Scala, we can also use
Python, Java, and R, as shown in Figure 1-5.

Figure 1-5 Language APIs

Setting Up Your Environment

In this final section of this chapter, I will go over how to set up the
Spark environment in the cloud. There are multiple ways in which we
can use Spark:
 Local setup
Dockers
Cloud environment (GCP, AWS, Azure)
Databricks

Local Setup
It is relatively easy to install and use Spark on a local system, but it fails
the core purpose of Spark itself, if it’s not used on a cluster. Spark’s core
offering is distributed data processing, which will always be limited to a
local system’s capacity, in the case that it’s run on a local system,
whereas one can benefit more by using Spark on a group of machines
instead. However, it is always good practice to have Spark locally, as
well as to test code on sample data. So, follow these steps to do so:
1. Ensure that Java is installed; otherwise install Java.

2. Download the latest version of Apache Spark from

https://spark.apache.org/downloads.html .

3. Extract the files from the zipped folder.

4. Copy all the Spark-related files to their respective directory.

5. Configure the environment variables to be able to run Spark.

6. Verify the installation and run Spark.

Dockers
Another way of using Spark locally is through the containerization
technique of dockers . This allows users to wrap all the dependencies
and Spark files into a single image, which can be run on any system. We
can kill the container after the task is finished and rerun it, if required.
To use dockers for running Spark, we must install Docker on the system
first and then simply run the following command: [In]: docker
run -it -p 8888:8888 jupyter/pyspark-notebook".
Cloud Environments
As discussed earlier in this chapter, for various reasons, local sets are
not of much help when it comes to big data, and that’s where cloud-
based environments make it possible to ingest and process huge
datasets in a short period. The real power of Spark can be seen easily
while dealing with large datasets (in excess of 100TB). Most of the
cloud-based infra-providers allow you to install Spark, which
sometimes comes preconfigured as well. One can easily spin up the
clusters with required specifications, according to need. One of the
cloud-based environments is Databricks.

Databricks
Databricks is a company founded by the creators of Spark, in order to
provide the enterprise version of Spark to businesses, in addition to
full-fledged support. To increase Spark’s adoption among the
community and other users, Databricks also provides a free community
edition of Spark, with a 6GB cluster (single node). You can increase the
size of the cluster by signing up for an enterprise account with
Databricks, using the following steps:
1. Search for the Databricks web site and select Databricks
Community Edition, as shown in Figure 1-6.

Figure 1-6 Databricks web page

2. If you have a user account with Databricks, you can simply log in. If
you don’t have an account, you must create one, in order to use
Databricks, as shown in Figure 1-7.

Figure 1-7 Databricks login

3. Once you are on the home page, you can choose to either load a
new data source or create a notebook from scratch, as shown in
Figure 1-8. In the latter case, you must have the cluster up and
running, to be able to use the notebook. Therefore, you must click
New Cluster, to spin up the cluster. (Databricks provides a 6GB AWS
EMR cluster.)
 Figure 1-8 Creating a Databricks notebook
4. To set up the cluster, you must give a name to the cluster and select
the version of Spark that must configure with the Python version,
as shown in Figure 1-9. Once all the details are filled in, you must
click Create Cluster and wait a couple of minutes, until it spins up.

Figure 1-9 Creating a Databricks cluster

5. You can also view the status of the cluster by going into the Clusters
option on the left side widget, as shown in Figure 1-10. It gives all
 the information associated with the particular cluster and its
current status.

Figure 1-10 Databricks cluster list

6. The final step is to open a notebook and attach it to the cluster you
just created (Figure 1-11). Once attached, you can start the PySpark
code.

Figure 1-11 Databricks notebook

Overall, since 2010, when Spark became an open source platform,

its users have risen in number consistently, and the community
continues to grow every day. It’s no surprise that the number of
contributors to Spark has outpaced that of Hadoop. Some of the reasons
for Spark’s popularity were noted in a survey, the results of which are
shown in Figure 1-12.
Figure 1-12 Results of Spark adoption survey

Conclusion
This chapter provided a brief history of Spark, its core components, and
the process of accessing it in a cloud environment. In upcoming
chapters, I will delve deeper into the various aspects of Spark and how
to build different applications with it.
© Pramod Singh 2019
P. Singh, Learn PySpark
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4961-1_2

2. Data Processing
Pramod Singh1

(1) Bangalore, Karnataka, India

This chapter covers different steps to preprocess and handle data in

PySpark. Preprocessing techniques can certainly vary from case to case,
and many different methods can be used to massage the data into
desired form. The idea of this chapter is to expose some of the common
techniques for dealing with big data in Spark. In this chapter, we are
going to go over different steps involved in preprocessing data, such as
handling missing values, merging datasets, applying functions,
aggregations, and sorting. One major part of data preprocessing is the
transformation of numerical columns into categorical ones and vice
versa, which we are going to look at over the next few chapters and are
based on machine learning. The dataset that we are going to make use
of in this chapter is inspired by a primary research dataset and contains
a few attributes from the original dataset, with additional columns
containing fabricated data points.

Note All the following steps are written in Jupyter Notebook,

running Spark on a Docker image (mentioned in Chapter 1). All the
subsequent code can also be run in Databricks.

Creating a SparkSession Object

The first step is to create a SparkSession object , in order to use
Spark. We also import all the required functions and datatypes from
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
pressure of his friend’s hand, and uttered the interjection “alas!” in
as pathetic a tone as he could.
Bunce immediately resumed: “You are right, my friend, these are
but vain visions of felicity, and it remains but for the unhappy
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Relieved at heart by this unexpected termination of Bunce’s
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“We will remain with him at every risk,” said Minna—“we may be
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“Go, in God’s name, my daughters,” said Magnus. “I am in God’s
hand; and when you are gone I shall care little for myself—and I
shall think and say, as long as I live, that this good gentleman
deserves a better trade.—Go—go—away with you!”—for they yet
lingered in reluctance to leave him.
“Stay not to kiss,” said Bunce, “for fear I be tempted to ask my
share. Into the boat with you—yet stop an instant.” He drew the
three captives apart—“Fletcher,” said he, “will answer for the rest of
the fellows, and will see you safe off the sea-beach. But how to
answer for Fletcher, I know not, except by trusting Mr. Halcro with
this little guarantee.”

He offered the minstrel a small double-barrelled pistol, which, he

said, was loaded with a brace of balls. Minna observed Halcro’s hand
tremble as he stretched it out to take the weapon. “Give it to me,
sir,” she said, taking it from the outlaw; “and trust to me for
defending my sister and myself.”
“Bravo, bravo!” shouted Bunce. “There spoke a wench worthy of
Cleveland, the King of Rovers!”
“Cleveland!” repeated Minna, “do you then know that Cleveland,
whom you have twice named?”
“Know him! Is there a man alive,” said Bunce, “that knows better
than I do the best and stoutest fellow ever stepped betwixt stem
and stern? When he is out of the bilboes, as please Heaven he shall
soon be, I reckon to see you come on board of us, and reign the
queen of every sea we sail over.—You have got the little guardian; I
suppose you know how to use it? If Fletcher behaves ill to you, you
need only draw up this piece of iron with your thumb, so—and if he
persists, it is but crooking your pretty forefinger thus, and I shall
lose the most dutiful messmate that ever man had—though, d—n
the dog, he will deserve his death if he disobeys my orders. And
now, into the boat—but stay, one kiss for Cleveland’s sake.”
Brenda, in deadly terror, endured his courtesy, but Minna,
stepping back with disdain, offered her hand. Bunce laughed, but
kissed, with a theatrical air, the fair hand which she extended as a
ransom for her lips, and at length the sisters and Halcro were placed
in the boat, which rowed off under Fletcher’s command.
Bunce stood on the quarter-deck, soliloquizing after the manner
of his original profession. “Were this told at Port-Royal now, or at the
isle of Providence, or in the Petits Guaves, I wonder what they would
say of me! Why, that I was a good-natured milksop—a Jack-a-lent—
an ass.—Well, let them. I have done enough of bad to think about it;
it is worth while doing one good action, if it were but for the rarity of
the thing, and to put one in good humour with oneself.” Then
turning to Magnus Troil, he proceeded—“By —— these are bona-
robas, these daughters of yours! The eldest would make her fortune
on the London boards. What a dashing attitude the wench had with
her, as she seized the pistol!—d—n me, that touch would have
brought the house down! What a Roxalana the jade would have
made!” (for, in his oratory, Bunce, like Sancho’s gossip, Thomas
Cecial, was apt to use the most energetic word which came to hand,
without accurately considering its propriety.) “I would give my share
of the next prize but to hear her spout—

‘Away, begone, and give a whirlwind

room,
Or I will blow you up like dust.—Avaunt!
Madness but meanly represents my
rage.’

And then, again, that little, soft, shy, tearful trembler, for Statira, to
hear her recite—
 ‘He speaks the kindest words, and looks
such things,
Vows with such passion, swears with so
much grace,
That ’tis a kind of heaven to be deluded
by him.’

What a play we might have run up!—I was a beast not to think of it
before I sent them off—I to be Alexander—Claud Halcro, Lysimachus
—this old gentleman might have made a Clytus, for a pinch. I was
an idiot not to think of it!”
There was much in this effusion which might have displeased the
Udaller; but, to speak truth, he paid no attention to it. His eye, and,
finally, his spy-glass, were employed in watching the return of his
daughters to the shore. He saw them land on the beach, and,
accompanied by Halcro, and another man, (Fletcher, doubtless,) he
saw them ascend the acclivity, and proceed upon the road to
Kirkwall; and he could even distinguish that Minna, as if considering
herself as the guardian of the party, walked a little aloof from the
rest, on the watch, as it seemed, against surprise, and ready to act
as occasion should require. At length, as the Udaller was just about
to lose sight of them, he had the exquisite satisfaction to see the
party halt, and the pirate leave them, after a space just long enough
for a civil farewell, and proceed slowly back, on his return to the
beach. Blessing the Great Being who had thus relieved him from the
most agonizing fears which a father can feel, the worthy Udaller,
from that instant, stood resigned to his own fate, whatever that
might be.

[38] Liquor brewed for a Christmas treat.

 CHAPTER XVII.
Over the mountains and under the
waves,
Over the fountains and under the graves,
Over floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey,
Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.
O
ld Song.

The parting of Fletcher from Claud Halcro and the sisters of

Burgh-Westra, on the spot where it took place, was partly
occasioned by a small party of armed men being seen at a distance
in the act of advancing from Kirkwall, an apparition hidden from the
Udaller’s spy-glass by the swell of the ground, but quite visible to the
pirate, whom it determined to consult his own safety by a speedy
return to his boat. He was just turning away, when Minna occasioned
the short delay which her father had observed.
“Stop,” she said; “I command you!—Tell your leader from me,
that whatever the answer may be from Kirkwall, he shall carry his
vessel, nevertheless, round to Stromness; and, being anchored
there, let him send a boat ashore for Captain Cleveland when he
shall see a smoke on the Bridge of Broisgar.”
Fletcher had thought, like his messmate Bunce of asking a kiss,
at least, for the trouble of escorting these beautiful young women;
and perhaps, neither the terror of the approaching Kirkwall men, nor
of Minna’s weapon, might have prevented his being insolent. But the
name of his Captain, and, still more, the unappalled, dignified, and
commanding manner of Minna Troil, overawed him. He made a sea
bow,—promised to keep a sharp look-out, and, returning to his boat,
went on board with his message.
As Halcro and the sisters advanced towards the party whom they
saw on the Kirkwall road, and who, on their part, had halted as if to
observe them, Brenda, relieved from the fears of Fletcher’s
presence, which had hitherto kept her silent, exclaimed, “Merciful
Heaven!—Minna, in what hands have we left our dear father?”
“In the hands of brave men,” said Minna, steadily—“I fear not for
him.”
“As brave as you please,” said Claud Halcro, “but very dangerous
rogues for all that.—I know that fellow Altamont, as he calls himself,
though that is not his right name neither, as deboshed a dog as ever
made a barn ring with blood and blank verse. He began with
Barnwell, and every body thought he would end with the gallows,
like the last scene in Venice Preserved.”
“It matters not,” said Minna—“the wilder the waves, the more
powerful is the voice that rules them. The name alone of Cleveland
ruled the mood of the fiercest amongst them.”
“I am sorry for Cleveland,” said Brenda, “if such are his
companions,—but I care little for him in comparison to my father.”
“Reserve your compassion for those who need it,” said Minna,
“and fear nothing for our father.—God knows, every silver hair on his
head is to me worth the treasure of an unsummed mine; but I know
that he is safe while in yonder vessel, and I know that he will be
soon safe on shore.”
“I would I could see it,” said Claud Halcro; “but I fear the Kirkwall
people, supposing Cleveland to be such as I dread, will not dare to
exchange him against the Udaller. The Scots have very severe laws
against theft-boot, as they call it.”
“But who are those on the road before us?” said Brenda; “and
why do they halt there so jealously?”
“They are a patrol of the militia,” answered Halcro. “Glorious John
touches them off a little sharply,—but then John was a Jacobite,—(e)
 ‘Mouths without hands, maintain’d at
vast expense,
In peace a charge, in war a weak
defence;
Stout once a-month, they march, a
blustering band,
And ever, but in time of need, at hand.’

I fancy they halted just now, taking us, as they saw us on the brow
of the hill, for a party of the sloop’s men, and now they can
distinguish that you wear petticoats, they are moving on again.”
They came on accordingly, and proved to be, as Claud Halcro had
suggested, a patrol sent out to watch the motions of the pirates, and
to prevent their attempting descents to damage the country.
They heartily congratulated Claud Halcro, who was well known to
more than one of them, upon his escape from captivity; and the
commander of the party, while offering every assistance to the
ladies, could not help condoling with them on the circumstances in
which their father stood, hinting, though in a delicate and doubtful
manner, the difficulties which might be in the way of his liberation.
When they arrived at Kirkwall, and obtained an audience of the
Provost, and one or two of the Magistrates, these difficulties were
more plainly insisted upon.—“The Halcyon frigate is upon the coast,”
said the Provost; “she was seen off Duncansbay-head; and, though I
have the deepest respect for Mr. Troil of Burgh-Westra, yet I shall be
answerable to law if I release from prison the Captain of this
suspicious vessel, on account of the safety of any individual who
may be unhappily endangered by his detention. This man is now
known to be the heart and soul of these buccaniers, and am I at
liberty to send him aboard, that he may plunder the country, or
perhaps go fight the King’s ship?—for he has impudence enough for
any thing.”
“Courage enough for any thing, you mean, Mr. Provost,” said
Minna, unable to restrain her displeasure.
 “Why, you may call it as you please, Miss Troil,” said the worthy
Magistrate; “but, in my opinion, that sort of courage which proposes
to fight singly against two, is little better than a kind of practical
impudence.”
“But our father?” said Brenda, in a tone of the most earnest
entreaty—“our father—the friend, I may say the father, of his
country—to whom so many look for kindness, and so many for
actual support—whose loss would be the extinction of a beacon in a
storm—will you indeed weigh the risk which he runs, against such a
trifling thing as letting an unfortunate man from prison, to seek his
unhappy fate elsewhere?”
“Miss Brenda is right,” said Claud Halcro; “I am for let-a-be for
let-a-be, as the boys say; and never fash about a warrant of
liberation, Provost, but just take a fool’s counsel, and let the
goodman of the jail forget to draw his bolt on the wicket, or leave a
chink of a window open, or the like, and we shall be rid of the rover,
and have the one best honest fellow in Orkney or Zetland on the lee-
side of a bowl of punch with us in five hours.”
The Provost replied in nearly the same terms as before, that he
had the highest respect for Mr. Magnus Troil of Burgh-Westra, but
that he could not suffer his consideration for any individual, however
respectable, to interfere with the discharge of his duty.
Minna then addressed her sister in a tone of calm and sarcastic
displeasure.—“You forget,” she said, “Brenda, that you are talking of
the safety of a poor insignificant Udaller of Zetland, to no less a
person than the Chief Magistrate of the metropolis of Orkney—can
you expect so great a person to condescend to such a trifling subject
of consideration? It will be time enough for the Provost to think of
complying with the terms sent to him—for comply with them at
length he both must and will—when the Church of Saint Magnus is
beat down about his ears.”
“You may be angry with me, my pretty young lady,” said the
good-humoured Provost Torfe, “but I cannot be offended with you.
The Church of Saint Magnus has stood many a day, and, I think, will
outlive both you and me, much more yonder pack of unhanged
dogs. And besides that your father is half an Orkneyman, and has
both estate and friends among us, I would, I give you my word, do
as much for a Zetlander in distress as I would for any one, excepting
one of our own native Kirkwallers, who are doubtless to be
preferred. And if you will take up your lodgings here with my wife
and myself, we will endeavour to show you,” continued he, “that you
are as welcome in Kirkwall, as ever you could be in Lerwick or
Scalloway.”
Minna deigned no reply to this good-humoured invitation, but
Brenda declined it in civil terms, pleading the necessity of taking up
their abode with a wealthy widow of Kirkwall, a relation, who already
expected them.
Halcro made another attempt to move the Provost, but found
him inexorable.—“The Collector of the Customs had already
threatened,” he said, “to inform against him for entering into treaty,
or, as he called it, packing and peeling with those strangers, even
when it seemed the only means of preventing a bloody affray in the
town; and, should he now forego the advantage afforded by the
imprisonment of Cleveland and the escape of the Factor, he might
incur something worse than censure.” The burden of the whole was,
“that he was sorry for the Udaller, he was sorry even for the lad
Cleveland, who had some sparks of honour about him; but his duty
was imperious, and must be obeyed.” The Provost then precluded
farther argument, by observing, that another affair from Zetland
called for his immediate attention. A gentleman named Mertoun,
residing at Jarlshof, had made complaint against Snailsfoot the
Jagger, for having assisted a domestic of his in embezzling some
valuable articles which had been deposited in his custody, and he
was about to take examinations on the subject, and cause them to
be restored to Mr. Mertoun, who was accountable for them to the
right owner.
In all this information, there was nothing which seemed
interesting to the sisters excepting the word Mertoun, which went
like a dagger to the heart of Minna, when she recollected the
circumstances under which Mordaunt Mertoun had disappeared, and
which, with an emotion less painful, though still of a melancholy
nature, called a faint blush into Brenda’s cheek, and a slight degree
of moisture into her eye. But it was soon evident that the Magistrate
spoke not of Mordaunt, but of his father; and the daughters of
Magnus, little interested in his detail, took leave of the Provost to go
to their own lodgings.
When they arrived at their relation’s, Minna made it her business
to learn, by such enquiries as she could make without exciting
suspicion, what was the situation of the unfortunate Cleveland,
which she soon discovered to be exceedingly precarious. The
Provost had not, indeed, committed him to close custody, as Claud
Halcro had anticipated, recollecting, perhaps, the favourable
circumstances under which he had surrendered himself, and loath,
till the moment of the last necessity, altogether to break faith with
him. But although left apparently at large, he was strictly watched
by persons well armed and appointed for the purpose, who had
directions to detain him by force, if he attempted to pass certain
narrow precincts which were allotted to him. He was quartered in a
strong room within what is called the King’s Castle, and at night his
chamber door was locked on the outside, and a sufficient guard
mounted to prevent his escape. He therefore enjoyed only the
degree of liberty which the cat, in her cruel sport, is sometimes
pleased to permit to the mouse which she has clutched; and yet,
such was the terror of the resources, the courage, and ferocity of
the pirate Captain, that the Provost was blamed by the Collector, and
many other sage citizens of Kirkwall, for permitting him to be at
large upon any conditions.
It may be well believed, that, under such circumstances,
Cleveland had no desire to seek any place of public resort, conscious
that he was the object of a mixed feeling of curiosity and terror. His
favourite place of exercise, therefore, was the external aisles of the
Cathedral of Saint Magnus, of which the eastern end alone is fitted
up for public worship. This solemn old edifice, having escaped the
ravage which attended the first convulsions of the Reformation, still
retains some appearance of episcopal dignity. This place of worship
is separated by a screen from the nave and western limb of the
cross, and the whole is preserved in a state of cleanliness and
decency, which might be well proposed as an example to the proud
piles of Westminster and St. Paul’s.
It was in this exterior part of the Cathedral that Cleveland was
permitted to walk, the rather that his guards, by watching the single
open entrance, had the means, with very little inconvenience to
themselves, of preventing any possible attempt at escape. The place
itself was well suited to his melancholy circumstances. The lofty and
vaulted roof rises upon ranges of Saxon pillars, of massive size, four
of which, still larger than the rest, once supported the lofty spire,
which, long since destroyed by accident, has been rebuilt upon a
disproportioned and truncated plan. The light is admitted at the
eastern end through a lofty, well-proportioned, and richly-
ornamented Gothic window; and the pavement is covered with
inscriptions, in different languages, distinguishing the graves of
noble Orcadians, who have at different times been deposited within
the sacred precincts.
Here walked Cleveland, musing over the events of a misspent
life, which, it seemed probable, might be brought to a violent and
shameful close, while he was yet in the prime of youth.—“With these
dead,” he said, looking on the pavement, “shall I soon be numbered
—but no holy man will speak a blessing; no friendly hand register an
inscription; no proud descendant sculpture armorial bearings over
the grave of the pirate Cleveland. My whitening bones will swing in
the gibbet-irons, on some wild beach or lonely cape, that will be
esteemed fatal and accursed for my sake. The old mariner, as he
passes the Sound, will shake his head, and tell of my name and
actions, as a warning to his younger comrades.—But, Minna! Minna!
—what will be thy thoughts when the news reaches thee?—Would to
God the tidings were drowned in the deepest whirlpool betwixt
Kirkwall and Burgh-Westra, ere they came to her ear!—and O! would
to Heaven that we had never met, since we never can meet again!”
 He lifted up his eyes as he spoke, and Minna Troil stood before
him. Her face was pale, and her hair dishevelled; but her look was
composed and firm, with its usual expression of high-minded
melancholy. She was still shrouded in the large mantle which she
had assumed on leaving the vessel. Cleveland’s first emotion was
astonishment; his next was joy, not unmixed with awe. He would
have exclaimed—he would have thrown himself at her feet—but she
imposed at once silence and composure on him, by raising her
finger, and saying, in a low but commanding accent,—“Be cautious—
we are observed—there are men without—they let me enter with
difficulty. I dare not remain long—they would think—they might
believe—O, Cleveland! I have hazarded every thing to save you!”
“To save me?—Alas! poor Minna!” answered Cleveland, “to save
me is impossible.—Enough that I have seen you once more, were it
but to say, for ever farewell!”
“We must indeed say farewell,” said Minna; “for fate, and your
guilt, have divided us for ever.—Cleveland, I have seen your
associates—need I tell you more—need I say, that I know now what
a pirate is?”
“You have been in the ruffians’ power!” said Cleveland, with a
start of agony—“Did they presume”——
“Cleveland,” replied Minna, “they presumed nothing—your name
was a spell over them. By the power of that spell over these
ferocious banditti, and by that alone, I was reminded of the qualities
I once thought my Cleveland’s!”
“Yes,” said Cleveland, proudly, “my name has and shall have
power over them, when they are at the wildest; and, had they
harmed you by one rude word, they should have found—Yet what do
I rave about—I am a prisoner!”
“You shall be so no longer,” said Minna—“Your safety—the safety
of my dear father—all demand your instant freedom. I have formed
a scheme for your liberty, which, boldly executed, cannot fail. The
light is fading without—muffle yourself in my cloak, and you will
easily pass the guards—I have given them the means of carousing,
and they are deeply engaged. Haste to the Loch of Stennis, and hide
yourself till day dawns; then make a smoke on the point, where the
land, stretching into the lake on each side, divides it nearly in two at
the Bridge of Broisgar. Your vessel, which lies not far distant, will
send a boat ashore.—Do not hesitate an instant!”
“But you, Minna!—Should this wild scheme succeed,” said
Cleveland, “what is to become of you?”
“For my share in your escape,” answered the maiden, “the
honesty of my own intention will vindicate me in the sight of
Heaven; and the safety of my father, whose fate depends on yours,
will be my excuse to man.”
In a few words, she gave him the history of their capture, and its
consequences. Cleveland cast up his eyes and raised his hands to
Heaven, in thankfulness for the escape of the sisters from his evil
companions, and then hastily added,—“But you are right, Minna; I
must fly at all rates—for your father’s sake I must fly.—Here, then,
we part—yet not, I trust, for ever.”
“For ever!” answered a voice, that sounded as from a sepulchral
vault.
They started, looked around them, and then gazed on each
other. It seemed as if the echoes of the building had returned
Cleveland’s last words, but the pronunciation was too emphatically
accented.
“Yes, for ever!” said Norna of the Fitful-head, stepping forward
from behind one of the massive Saxon pillars which support the roof
of the Cathedral. “Here meet the crimson foot and the crimson hand.
Well for both that the wound is healed whence that crimson was
derived—well for both, but best, for him who shed it.—Here, then,
you meet—and meet for the last time!”
“Not so,” said Cleveland, as if about to take Minna’s hand; “to
separate me from Minna, while I have life, must be the work of
herself alone.”
“Away!” said Norna, stepping betwixt them,—“away with such
idle folly!—Nourish no vain dreams of future meetings—you part
here, and you part for ever. The hawk pairs not with the dove; guilt
matches not with innocence.—Minna Troil, you look for the last time
on this bold and criminal man—Cleveland, you behold Minna for the
last time!”
“And dream you,” said Cleveland, indignantly, “that your
mummery imposes on me, and that I am among the fools who see
more than trick in your pretended art?”
“Forbear, Cleveland, forbear!” said Minna, her hereditary awe of
Norna augmented by the circumstance of her sudden appearance.
“O, forbear!—she is powerful—she is but too powerful.—And do you,
O Norna, remember my father’s safety is linked with Cleveland’s.”
“And it is well for Cleveland that I do remember it,” replied the
Pythoness—“and that, for the sake of one, I am here to aid both.
You, with your childish purpose, of passing one of his bulk and
stature under the disguise of a few paltry folds of wadmaal—what
would your device have procured him but instant restraint with bolt
and shackle?—I will save him—I will place him in security on board
his bark. But let him renounce these shores for ever, and carry
elsewhere the terrors of his sable flag, and his yet blacker name; for
if the sun rises twice, and finds him still at anchor, his blood be on
his own head.—Ay, look to each other—look the last look that I
permit to frail affection,—and say, if ye can say it, Farewell for ever!”
“Obey her,” stammered Minna; “remonstrate not, but obey her.”
Cleveland, grasping her hand, and kissing it ardently, said, but so
low that she only could hear it, “Farewell, Minna, but not for ever.”
“And now, maiden, begone,” said Norna, “and leave the rest to
the Reimkennar.”
“One word more,” said Minna, “and I obey you. Tell me but if I
have caught aright your meaning—Is Mordaunt Mertoun safe and
recovered?”
“Recovered, and safe,” said Norna; “else woe to the hand that
shed his blood!”
Minna slowly sought the door of the Cathedral, and turned back
from time to time to look at the shadowy form of Norna, and the
stately and military figure of Cleveland, as they stood together in the
deepening gloom of the ancient Cathedral. When she looked back a
second time they were in motion, and Cleveland followed the
matron, as, with a slow and solemn step, she glided towards one of
the side aisles. When Minna looked back a third time, their figures
were no longer visible. She collected herself, and walked on to the
eastern door by which she had entered, and listened for an instant
to the guard, who talked together on the outside.
“The Zetland girl stays a long time with this pirate fellow,” said
one. “I wish they have not more to speak about than the ransom of
her father.”
“Ay, truly,” answered another, “the wenches will have more
sympathy with a handsome young pirate, than an old bed-ridden
burgher.”
Their discourse was here interrupted by her of whom they were
speaking; and, as if taken in the manner, they pulled off their hats,
made their awkward obeisances, and looked not a little embarrassed
and confused.
Minna returned to the house where she lodged, much affected,
yet, on the whole, pleased with the result of her expedition, which
seemed to put her father out of danger, and assured her at once of
the escape of Cleveland, and of the safety of young Mordaunt. She
hastened to communicate both pieces of intelligence to Brenda, who
joined her in thankfulness to Heaven, and was herself wellnigh
persuaded to believe in Norna’s supernatural pretensions, so much
was she pleased with the manner in which they had been employed.
Some time was spent in exchanging their mutual congratulations,
and mingling tears of hope, mixed with apprehension; when, at a
late hour in the evening, they were interrupted by Claud Halcro,
who, full of a fidgeting sort of importance, not unmingled with fear,
came to acquaint them, that the prisoner, Cleveland, had
disappeared from the Cathedral, in which he had been permitted to
walk, and that the Provost, having been informed that Minna was
accessary to his flight, was coming, in a mighty quandary, to make
enquiry into the circumstances.
 When the worthy Magistrate arrived, Minna did not conceal from
him her own wish that Cleveland should make his escape, as the
only means which she saw of redeeming her father from imminent
danger. But that she had any actual accession to his flight, she
positively denied; and stated, “that she had parted from Cleveland in
the Cathedral, more than two hours since, and then left him in
company with a third person, whose name she did not conceive
herself obliged to communicate.”
“It is not needful, Miss Minna Troil,” answered Provost Torfe; “for,
although no person but this Captain Cleveland and yourself was seen
to enter the Kirk of St. Magnus this day, we know well enough that
your cousin, old Ulla Troil, whom you Zetlanders call Norna of Fitful-
head, has been cruising up and down, upon sea and land, and air,
for what I know, in boats and on ponies, and it may be on
broomsticks; and here has been her dumb Drow, too, coming and
going, and playing the spy on every one—and a good spy he is, for
he can hear every thing, and tells nothing again, unless to his
mistress. And we know, besides, that she can enter the Kirk when all
the doors are fast, and has been seen there more than once, God
save us from the Evil One!—and so, without farther questions asked,
I conclude it was old Norna whom you left in the Kirk with this
slashing blade—and, if so, they may catch them again that can.—I
cannot but say, however, pretty Mistress Minna, that you Zetland
folks seem to forget both law and gospel, when you use the help of
witchcraft to fetch delinquents out of a legal prison; and the least
that you, or your cousin, or your father, can do, is to use influence
with this wild fellow to go away as soon as possible, without hurting
the town or trade, and then there will be little harm in what has
chanced; for, Heaven knows, I did not seek the poor lad’s life, so I
could get my hands free of him without blame; and far less did I
wish, that, through his imprisonment, any harm should come to
worthy Magnus Troil of Burgh-Westra.”
“I see where the shoe pinches you, Mr. Provost,” said Claud
Halcro, “and I am sure I can answer for my friend Mr. Troil, as well
as for myself, that we will say and do all in our power with this man,
Captain Cleveland, to make him leave the coast directly.”
“And I,” said Minna, “am so convinced that what you recommend
is best for all parties, that my sister and I will set off early to-morrow
morning to the House of Stennis, if Mr. Halcro will give us his escort,
to receive my father when he comes ashore, that we may acquaint
him with your wish, and to use every influence to induce this
unhappy man to leave the country.”
Provost Torfe looked upon her with some surprise. “It is not
every young woman,” he said, “would wish to move eight miles
nearer to a band of pirates.”
“We run no risk,” said Claud Halcro, interfering. “The House of
Stennis is strong; and my cousin, whom it belongs to, has men and
arms within it. The young ladies are as safe there as in Kirkwall; and
much good may arise from an early communication between Magnus
Troil and his daughters. And happy am I to see, that in your case,
my good old friend,—as glorious John says,—

——‘After much debate,

The man prevails above the magistrate.’”

The Provost smiled, nodded his head, and indicated, as far as he

thought he could do so with decency, how happy he should be if the
Fortune’s Favourite, and her disorderly crew, would leave Orkney
without further interference, or violence on either side. He could not
authorize their being supplied from the shore, he said; but, either for
fear or favour, they were certain to get provisions at Stromness. This
pacific magistrate then took leave of Halcro and the two ladies, who
proposed the next morning, to transfer their residence to the House
of Stennis, situated upon the banks of the salt-water lake of the
same name, and about four miles by water from the Road of
Stromness, where the Rover’s vessel was lying.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
Fly, Fleance, fly!—Thou mayst escape.
Macb
eth.

It was one branch of the various arts by which Norna

endeavoured to maintain her pretensions to supernatural powers,
that she made herself familiarly and practically acquainted with all
the secret passes and recesses, whether natural or artificial, which
she could hear of, whether by tradition or otherwise, and was, by
such knowledge, often enabled to perform feats which were
otherwise unaccountable. Thus, when she escaped from the
tabernacle at Burgh-Westra, it was by a sliding board which covered
a secret passage in the wall, known to none but herself and Magnus,
who, she was well assured, would not betray her. The profusion,
also, with which she lavished a considerable income, otherwise of no
use to her, enabled her to procure the earliest intelligence respecting
whatever she desired to know, and, at the same time, to secure all
other assistance necessary to carry her plans into effect. Cleveland,
upon the present occasion, had reason to admire both her sagacity
and her resources.
Upon her applying a little forcible pressure, a door which was
concealed under some rich wooden sculpture in the screen which
divides the eastern aisle from the rest of the Cathedral, opened, and
disclosed a dark narrow winding passage, into which she entered,
telling Cleveland, in a whisper, to follow, and be sure he shut the
door behind him. He obeyed, and followed her in darkness and
silence, sometimes descending steps, of the number of which she
always apprized him, sometimes ascending, and often turning at
short angles. The air was more free than he could have expected,
the passage being ventilated at different parts by unseen and
ingeniously contrived spiracles, which communicated with the open
air. At length their long course ended, by Norna drawing aside a
sliding panel, which, opening behind a wooden, or box-bed, as it is
called in Scotland, admitted them into an ancient, but very mean
apartment, having a latticed window, and a groined roof. The
furniture was much dilapidated; and its only ornaments were, on the
one side of the wall, a garland of faded ribbons, such as are used to
decorate whale-vessels; and, on the other, an escutcheon, bearing
an Earl’s arms and coronet, surrounded with the usual emblems of
mortality. The mattock and spade, which lay in one corner, together
with the appearance of an old man, who, in a rusty black coat, and
slouched hat, sat reading by a table, announced that they were in
the habitation of the church-beadle, or sexton, and in the presence
of that respectable functionary.
When his attention was attracted by the noise of the sliding
panel, he arose, and, testifying much respect, but no surprise, took
his shadowy hat from his thin grey locks, and stood uncovered in the
presence of Norna with an air of profound humility.
“Be faithful,” said Norna to the old man, “and beware you show
not any living mortal the secret path to the Sanctuary.”
The old man bowed, in token of obedience and of thanks, for she
put money in his hand as she spoke. With a faltering voice, he
expressed his hope that she would remember his son, who was on
the Greenland voyage, that he might return fortunate and safe, as
he had done last year, when he brought back the garland, pointing
to that upon the wall.
“My cauldron shall boil, and my rhyme shall be said, in his
behalf,” answered Norna. “Waits Pacolet without with the horses?”
The old Sexton assented, and the Pythoness, commanding
Cleveland to follow her, went through a back door of the apartment
into a small garden, corresponding, in its desolate appearance, to
the habitation they had just quitted. The low and broken wall easily
permitted them to pass into another and larger garden, though not
much better kept, and a gate, which was upon the latch, let them
into a long and winding lane, through which, Norna having
whispered to her companion that it was the only dangerous place on
their road, they walked with a hasty pace. It was now nearly dark,
and the inhabitants of the poor dwellings, on either hand, had
betaken themselves to their houses. They saw only one woman, who
was looking from her door, but blessed herself, and retired into her
house with precipitation, when she saw the tall figure of Norna stalk
past her with long strides. The lane conducted them into the
country, where the dumb dwarf waited with three horses, ensconced
behind the wall of a deserted shed. On one of these Norna instantly
seated herself, Cleveland mounted another, and, followed by Pacolet
on the third, they moved sharply on through the darkness; the
active and spirited animals on which they rode being of a breed
rather taller than those reared in Zetland.
After more than an hour’s smart riding, in which Norna acted as
guide, they stopped before a hovel, so utterly desolate in
appearance, that it resembled rather a cattle-shed than a cottage.
“Here you must remain till dawn, when your signal can be seen
from your vessel,” said Norna, consigning the horses to the care of
Pacolet, and leading the way into the wretched hovel, which she
presently illuminated by lighting the small iron lamp which she
usually carried along with her. “It is a poor,” she said, “but a safe
place of refuge; for were we pursued hither, the earth would yawn
and admit us into its recesses ere you were taken. For know, that
this ground is sacred to the Gods of old Valhalla.—And now say, man
of mischief and of blood, are you friend or foe to Norna, the sole
priestess of these disowned deities?”
“How is it possible for me to be your enemy?” said Cleveland.
—“Common gratitude”——
“Common gratitude,” said Norna, interrupting him, “is a common
word—and words are the common pay which fools accept at the
hands of knaves; but Norna must be requited by actions—by
sacrifices.”
“Well, mother, name your request.”
 “That you never seek to see Minna Troil again, and that you leave
this coast in twenty-four hours,” answered Norna.
“It is impossible,” said the outlaw; “I cannot be soon enough
found in the sea-stores which the sloop must have.”
“You can. I will take care you are fully supplied; and Caithness
and the Hebrides are not far distant—you can depart if you will.”
“And why should I,” said Cleveland, “if I will not?”
“Because your stay endangers others,” said Norna, “and will
prove your own destruction. Hear me with attention. From the first
moment I saw you lying senseless on the sand beneath the cliffs of
Sumburgh, I read that in your countenance which linked you with
me, and those who were dear to me; but whether for good or evil,
was hidden from mine eyes. I aided in saving your life, in preserving
your property. I aided in doing so, the very youth whom you have
crossed in his dearest affections—crossed by tale-bearing and
slander.”
“I slander Mertoun!” exclaimed Cleveland. “By heaven, I scarce
mentioned his name at Burgh-Westra, if it is that which you mean.
The peddling fellow Bryce, meaning, I believe, to be my friend,
because he found something could be made by me, did, I have since
heard, carry tattle, or truth, I know not which, to the old man, which
was confirmed by the report of the whole island. But, for me, I
scarce thought of him as a rival; else, I had taken a more
honourable way to rid myself of him.”
“Was the point of your double-edged knife, directed to the bosom
of an unarmed man, intended to carve out that more honourable
way?” said Norna, sternly.
Cleveland was conscience-struck, and remained silent for an
instant, ere he replied, “There, indeed, I was wrong; but he is, I
thank Heaven, recovered, and welcome to an honourable
satisfaction.”
“Cleveland,” said the Pythoness, “No! The fiend who employs you
as his implement is powerful; but with me he shall not strive. You
are of that temperament which the dark Influences desire as the
tools of their agency; bold, haughty, and undaunted, unrestrained by
principle, and having only in its room a wild sense of indomitable
pride, which such men call honour. Such you are, and as such your
course through life has been—onward and unrestrained, bloody and
tempestuous. By me, however, it shall be controlled,” she concluded,
stretching out her staff, as if in the attitude of determined authority
—“ay, even although the demon who presides over it should now
arise in his terrors.”
Cleveland laughed scornfully. “Good mother,” he said, “reserve
such language for the rude sailor that implores you to bestow him
fair wind, or the poor fisherman that asks success to his nets and
lines. I have been long inaccessible both to fear and to superstition.
Call forth your demon, if you command one, and place him before
me. The man that has spent years in company with incarnate devils,
can scarce dread the presence of a disembodied fiend.”
This was said with a careless and desperate bitterness of spirit,
which proved too powerfully energetic even for the delusions of
Norna’s insanity; and it was with a hollow and tremulous voice that
she asked Cleveland—“For what, then, do you hold me, if you deny
the power I have bought so dearly?”
“You have wisdom, mother,” said Cleveland; “at least you have
art, and art is power. I hold you for one who knows how to steer
upon the current of events, but I deny your power to change its
course. Do not, therefore, waste words in quoting terrors for which I
have no feeling, but tell me at once, wherefore you would have me
depart?”
“Because I will have you see Minna no more,” answered Norna
—“Because Minna is the destined bride of him whom men call
Mordaunt Mertoun—Because if you depart not within twenty-four
hours, utter destruction awaits you. In these plain words there is no
metaphysical delusion—Answer me as plainly.”
“In as plain words, then,” answered Cleveland, “I will not leave
these islands—not, at least, till I have seen Minna Troil; and never
shall your Mordaunt possess her while I live.”
 “Hear him!” said Norna—“hear a mortal man spurn at the means
of prolonging his life!—hear a sinful—a most sinful being, refuse the
time which fate yet affords for repentance, and for the salvation of
an immortal soul!—Behold him how he stands erect, bold and
confident in his youthful strength and courage! My eyes, unused to
tears—even my eyes, which have so little cause to weep for him, are
blinded with sorrow, to think what so fair a form will be ere the
second sun set!”
“Mother,” said Cleveland, firmly, yet with some touch of sorrow in
his voice, “I in part understand your threats. You know more than
we do of the course of the Halcyon—perhaps have the means (for I
acknowledge you have shown wonderful skill of combination in such
affairs) of directing her cruise our way. Be it so,—I will not depart
from my purpose for that risk. If the frigate comes hither, we have
still our shoal water to trust to; and I think they will scarce cut us
out with boats, as if we were a Spanish xebeck. I am therefore
resolved I will hoist once more the flag under which I have cruised,
avail ourselves of the thousand chances which have helped us in
greater odds, and, at the worst, fight the vessel to the very last;
and, when mortal man can do no more, it is but snapping a pistol in
the powder-room, and, as we have lived, so will we die.”
There was a dead pause as Cleveland ended; and it was broken
by his resuming, in a softer tone—“You have heard my answer,
mother; let us debate it no further, but part in peace. I would
willingly leave you a remembrance, that you may not forget a poor
fellow to whom your services have been useful, and who parts with
you in no unkindness, however unfriendly you are to his dearest
interests.—Nay, do not shun to accept such a trifle,” he said, forcing
upon Norna the little silver enchased box which had been once the
subject of strife betwixt Mertoun and him; “it is not for the sake of
the metal, which I know you value not, but simply as a memorial
that you have met him of whom many a strange tale will hereafter
be told in the seas which he has traversed.”
“I accept your gift,” said Norna, “in token that, if I have in aught
been accessary to your fate, it was as the involuntary and grieving
agent of other powers. Well did you say we direct not the current of
the events which hurry us forward, and render our utmost efforts
unavailing; even as the wells of Tuftiloe[39] can wheel the stoutest
vessel round and round, in despite of either sail or steerage.—
Pacolet!” she exclaimed, in a louder voice, “what, ho! Pacolet!”
A large stone, which lay at the side of the wall of the hovel, fell
as she spoke, and to Cleveland’s surprise, if not somewhat to his
fear, the misshapen form of the dwarf was seen, like some
overgrown reptile, extricating himself out of a subterranean passage,
the entrance to which the stone had covered.
Norna, as if impressed by what Cleveland had said on the subject
of her supernatural pretensions, was so far from endeavouring to
avail herself of this opportunity to enforce them, that she hastened
to explain the phenomenon he had witnessed.
“Such passages,” she said, “to which the entrances are carefully
concealed, are frequently found in these islands—the places of
retreat of the ancient inhabitants, where they sought refuge from
the rage of the Normans, the pirates of that day. It was that you
might avail yourself of this, in case of need, that I brought you
hither. Should you observe signs of pursuit, you may either lurk in
the bowels of the earth until it has passed by, or escape, if you will,
through the farther entrance near the lake, by which Pacolet entered
but now.—And now farewell! Think on what I have said; for as sure
as you now move and breathe a living man, so surely is your doom
fixed and sealed, unless, within four-and-twenty hours, you have
doubled the Burgh-head.”
“Farewell, mother!” said Cleveland, as she departed, bending a
look upon him, in which, as he could perceive by the lamp, sorrow
was mingled with displeasure.
The interview, which thus concluded, left a strong effect even
upon the mind of Cleveland, accustomed as he was to imminent
dangers and to hair-breadth escapes. He in vain attempted to shake
off the impression left by the words of Norna, which he felt the more
powerful, because they were in a great measure divested of her
wonted mystical tone, which he contemned. A thousand times he
regretted that he had from time to time delayed the resolution,
which he had long adopted, to quit his dreadful and dangerous
trade; and as often he firmly determined, that, could he but see
Minna Troil once more, were it but for a last farewell, he would leave
the sloop, as soon as his comrades were extricated from their
perilous situation, endeavour to obtain the benefit of the King’s
pardon, and distinguish himself, if possible, in some more
honourable course of warfare.
This resolution, to which he again and again pledged himself, had
at length a sedative effect on his mental perturbation, and, wrapt in
his cloak, he enjoyed, for a time, that imperfect repose which
exhausted nature demands as her tribute, even from those who are
situated on the verge of the most imminent danger. But how far
soever the guilty may satisfy his own mind, and stupify the feelings
of remorse, by such a conditional repentance, we may well question
whether it is not, in the sight of Heaven, rather a presumptuous
aggravation, than an expiation of his sins.
When Cleveland awoke, the grey dawn was already mingling with
the twilight of an Orcadian night. He found himself on the verge of a
beautiful sheet of water, which, close by the place where he had
rested, was nearly divided by two tongues of land that approach
each other from the opposing sides of the lake, and are in some
degree united by the Bridge of Broisgar, a long causeway, containing
openings to permit the flow and reflux of the tide. Behind him, and
fronting to the bridge, stood that remarkable semicircle of huge
upright stones, which has no rival in Britain, excepting the inimitable
monument at Stonehenge. These immense blocks of stone, all of
them above twelve feet, and several being even fourteen or fifteen
feet in height, stood around the pirate in the grey light of the
dawning, like the phantom forms of antediluvian giants, who,
shrouded in the habiliments of the dead, came to revisit, by this pale
light, the earth which they had plagued by their oppression and
polluted by their sins, till they brought down upon it the vengeance
of long-suffering Heaven.[40]
 Cleveland was less interested by this singular monument of
antiquity than by the distant view of Stromness, which he could as
yet scarce discover. He lost no time in striking a light, by the
assistance of one of his pistols, and some wet fern supplied him with
fuel sufficient to make the appointed signal. It had been earnestly
watched for on board the sloop; for Goffe’s incapacity became daily
more apparent; and even his most steady adherents agreed it would
be best to submit to Cleveland’s command till they got back to the
West Indies.
Bunce, who came with the boat to bring off his favourite
commander, danced, cursed, shouted, and spouted for joy, when he
saw him once more at freedom. “They had already,” he said, “made
some progress in victualling the sloop, and they might have made
more, but for that drunken old swab Goffe, who minded nothing but
splicing the main-brace.”
The boat’s crew were inspired with the same enthusiasm, and
rowed so hard, that, although the tide was against them, and the air
or wind failed, they soon placed Cleveland once more on the
quarter-deck of the vessel which it was his misfortune to command.
The first exercise of the Captain’s power was to make known to
Magnus Troil that he was at full freedom to depart—that he was
willing to make him any compensation in his power, for the
interruption of his voyage to Kirkwall; and that Captain Cleveland
was desirous, if agreeable to Mr. Troil, to pay his respects to him on
board his brig—thank him for former favours, and apologize for the
circumstances attending his detention.
To Bunce, who, as the most civilized of the crew, Cleveland had
intrusted this message, the old plain-dealing Udaller made the
following answer: “Tell your Captain that I should be glad to think he
had never stopped any one upon the high sea, save such as have
suffered as little as I have. Say, too, that if we are to continue
friends, we shall be most so at a distance; for I like the sound of his
cannon-balls as little by sea, as he would like the whistle of a bullet
by land from my rifle-gun. Say, in a word, that I am sorry I was
mistaken in him, and that he would have done better to have
reserved for the Spaniard the usage he is bestowing on his
countrymen.”
“And so that is your message, old Snapcholerick?” said Bunce
—“Now, stap my vitals if I have not a mind to do your errand for you
over the left shoulder, and teach you more respect for gentlemen of
fortune! But I won’t, and chiefly for the sake of your two pretty
wenches, not to mention my old friend Claud Halcro, the very visage
of whom brought back all the old days of scene-shifting and candle-
snuffing. So good morrow to you, Gaffer Seal’s-cap, and all is said
that need pass between us.”
No sooner did the boat put off with the pirates, who left the brig,
and now returned to their own vessel, than Magnus, in order to
avoid reposing unnecessary confidence in the honour of these
gentlemen of fortune, as they called themselves, got his brig under
way; and, the wind coming favourably round, and increasing as the
sun rose, he crowded all sail for Scalpa-flow, intending there to
disembark and go by land to Kirkwall, where he expected to meet
his daughters and his friend Claud Halcro.

[39] A well, in the language of those seas, denotes one of the

whirlpools, or circular eddies, which wheel and boil with
astonishing strength, and are very dangerous. Hence the
distinction, in old English, betwixt wells and waves, the latter
signifying the direct onward course of the tide, and the former the
smooth, glassy, oily-looking whirlpools, whose strength seems to
the eye almost irresistible.
[40] Note VII.—The Standing Stones of Stennis.
 CHAPTER XIX.
Now, Emma, now the last reflection
make,
What thou wouldst follow, what thou
must forsake
By our ill-omen’d stars and adverse
Heaven,
No middle object to thy choice is given.
Henr
y and Emma.

The sun was high in heaven; the boats were busily fetching off
from the shore the promised supply of provisions and water, which,
as many fishing skiffs were employed in the service, were got on
board with unexpected speed, and stowed away by the crew of the
sloop, with equal dispatch. All worked with good will; for all, save
Cleveland himself, were weary of a coast, where every moment
increased their danger, and where, which they esteemed a worse
misfortune, there was no booty to be won. Bunce and Derrick took
the immediate direction of this duty, while Cleveland, walking the
deck alone, and in silence, only interfered from time to time, to give
some order which circumstances required, and then relapsed into his
own sad reflections.
There are two sorts of men whom situations of guilt, terror, and
commotion, bring forward as prominent agents. The first are spirits
so naturally moulded and fitted for deeds of horror, that they stalk
forth from their lurking-places like actual demons, to work in their
native element, as the hideous apparition of the Bearded Man came
forth at Versailles, on the memorable 5th October, 1789, the
delighted executioner of the victims delivered up to him by a
bloodthirsty rabble. But Cleveland belonged to the second class of
these unfortunate beings, who are involved in evil rather by the
concurrence of external circumstances than by natural inclination,
being, indeed, one in whom his first engaging in this lawless mode
of life, as the follower of his father, nay, perhaps, even his pursuing
it as his father’s avenger, carried with it something of mitigation and
apology;—one also who often considered his guilty situation with
horror, and had made repeated, though ineffectual efforts, to escape
from it.
Such thoughts of remorse were now rolling in his mind, and he
may be forgiven, if recollections of Minna mingled with and aided
them. He looked around, too, on his mates, and, profligate and
hardened as he knew them to be, he could not think of their paying
the penalty of his obstinacy. “We shall be ready to sail with the ebb
tide,” he said to himself—“why should I endanger these men, by
detaining them till the hour of danger, predicted by that singular
woman, shall arrive? Her intelligence, howsoever acquired, has been
always strangely accurate; and her warning was as solemn as if a
mother were to apprize an erring son of his crimes, and of his
approaching punishment. Besides, what chance is there that I can
again see Minna? She is at Kirkwall, doubtless, and to hold my
course thither would be to steer right upon the rocks. No, I will not
endanger these poor fellows—I will sail with the ebb tide. On the
desolate Hebrides, or on the north-west coast of Ireland, I will leave
the vessel, and return hither in some disguise—yet why should I
return, since it will perhaps be only to see Minna the bride of
Mordaunt? No—let the vessel sail with this ebb tide without me. I
will abide and take my fate.”
His meditations were here interrupted by Jack Bunce, who,
hailing him noble Captain, said they were ready to sail when he
pleased.
“When you please, Bunce; for I shall leave the command with
you, and go ashore at Stromness,” said Cleveland.
“You shall do no such matter, by Heaven!” answered Bunce. “The
command with me, truly! and how the devil am I to get the crew to
obey me? Why, even Dick Fletcher rides rusty on me now and then.
You know well enough that, without you, we shall be all at each
other’s throats in half an hour; and, if you desert us, what a rope’s
end does it signify whether we are destroyed by the king’s cruisers,
or by each other? Come, come, noble Captain, there are black-eyed
girls enough in the world, but where will you find so tight a sea-boat
as the little Favourite here, manned as she is with a set of tearing
lads,

‘Fit to disturb the peace of all the world,

And rule it when ’tis wildest?’”

“You are a precious fool, Jack Bunce,” said Cleveland, half angry,
and, in despite of himself, half diverted, by the false tones and
exaggerated gesture of the stage-struck pirate.
“It may be so, noble Captain,” answered Bunce, “and it may be
that I have my comrades in my folly. Here are you, now, going to
play All for Love, and the World well Lost, and yet you cannot bear a
harmless bounce in blank verse—Well, I can talk prose for the
matter, for I have news enough to tell—and strange news, too—ay,
and stirring news to boot.”
“Well, prithee deliver them (to speak thy own cant) like a man of
this world.”
“The Stromness fishers will accept nothing for their provisions
and trouble,” said Bunce—“there is a wonder for you!”
“And for what reason, I pray?” said Cleveland; “it is the first time
I have ever heard of cash being refused at a seaport.”
“True—they commonly lay the charges on as thick as if they were
caulking. But here is the matter. The owner of the brig yonder, the
father of your fair Imoinda, stands paymaster, by way of thanks for
the civility with which we treated his daughters, and that we may
not meet our due, as he calls it, on these shores.”
“It is like the frank-hearted old Udaller!” said Cleveland; “but is
he at Stromness? I thought he was to have crossed the island for
Kirkwall.”
 “He did so purpose,” said Bunce; “but more folks than King
Duncan change the course of their voyage. He was no sooner ashore
than he was met with by a meddling old witch of these parts, who
has her finger in every man’s pie, and by her counsel he changed his
purpose of going to Kirkwall, and lies at anchor for the present in
yonder white house, that you may see with your glass up the lake
yonder. I am told the old woman clubbed also to pay for the sloop’s
stores. Why she should shell out the boards I cannot conceive an
idea, except that she is said to be a witch, and may befriend us as
so many devils.”
“But who told you all this?” said Cleveland, without using his spy-
glass, or seeming so much interested in the news as his comrade
had expected.
“Why,” replied Bunce, “I made a trip ashore this morning to the
village, and had a can with an old acquaintance, who had been sent
by Master Troil to look after matters, and I fished it all out of him,
and more, too, than I am desirous of telling you, noble Captain.”
“And who is your intelligencer?” said Cleveland; “has he got no
name?”
“Why, he is an old, fiddling, foppish acquaintance of mine, called
Halcro, if you must know,” said Bunce.
“Halcro!” echoed Cleveland, his eyes sparkling with surprise
—“Claud Halcro?—why, he went ashore at Inganess with Minna and
her sister—Where are they?”
“Why, that is just what I did not want to tell you,” replied the
confidant—“yet hang me if I can help it, for I cannot baulk a fine
situation.—That start had a fine effect—O ay, and the spy-glass is
turned on the House of Stennis now!—Well, yonder they are, it must
be confessed—indifferently well guarded, too. Some of the old
witch’s people are come over from that mountain of an island—Hoy,
as they call it; and the old gentleman has got some fellows under
arms himself. But what of all that, noble Captain!—give you but the
word, and we snap up the wenches to-night—clap them under
hatches—man the capstern by daybreak—up topsails—and sail with
the morning tide.”
“You sicken me with your villainy,” said Cleveland, turning away
from him.
“Umph!—villainy, and sicken you!” said Bunce—“Now, pray, what
have I said but what has been done a thousand times by gentlemen
of fortune like ourselves?”
“Mention it not again,” said Cleveland; then took a turn along the
deck, in deep meditation, and, coming back to Bunce, took him by
the hand, and said, “Jack, I will see her once more.”
“With all my heart,” said Bunce, sullenly.
“Once more will I see her, and it may be to abjure at her feet this
cursed trade, and expiate my offences”——
“At the gallows!” said Bunce, completing the sentence—“With all
my heart!—confess and be hanged is a most reverend proverb.”
“Nay—but, dear Jack!” said Cleveland.
“Dear Jack!” answered Bunce, in the same sullen tone—“a dear
sight you have been to dear Jack. But hold your own course—I have
done with caring for you for ever—I should but sicken you with my
villainous counsels.”
“Now, must I soothe this silly fellow as if he were a spoiled child,”
said Cleveland, speaking at Bunce, but not to him; “and yet he has
sense enough, and bravery enough, too; and, one would think,
kindness enough to know that men don’t pick their words during a
gale of wind.”
“Why, that’s true, Clement,” said Bunce, “and there is my hand
upon it—And, now I think upon’t, you shall have your last interview,
for it’s out of my line to prevent a parting scene; and what signifies a
tide—we can sail by to-morrow’s ebb as well as by this.”
Cleveland sighed, for Norna’s prediction rushed on his mind; but
the opportunity of a last meeting with Minna was too tempting to be
resigned either for presentiment or prediction.
 “I will go presently ashore to the place where they all are,” said
Bunce; “and the payment of these stores shall serve me for a
pretext; and I will carry any letters or message from you to Minna
with the dexterity of a valet de chambre.”
“But they have armed men—you may be in danger,” said
Cleveland.
“Not a whit—not a whit,” replied Bunce. “I protected the wenches
when they were in my power; I warrant their father will neither
wrong me, nor see me wronged.”
“You say true,” said Cleveland, “it is not in his nature. I will
instantly write a note to Minna.” And he ran down to the cabin for
that purpose, where he wasted much paper, ere, with a trembling
hand, and throbbing heart, he achieved such a letter as he hoped
might prevail on Minna to permit him a farewell meeting on the
succeeding morning.
His adherent, Bunce, in the meanwhile, sought out Fletcher, of
whose support to second any motion whatever, he accounted
himself perfectly sure; and, followed by this trusty satellite, he
intruded himself on the awful presence of Hawkins the boatswain,
and Derrick the quarter-master, who were regaling themselves with
a can of rumbo, after the fatiguing duty of the day.
“Here comes he can tell us,” said Derrick.—“So, Master
Lieutenant, for so we must call you now, I think, let us have a peep
into your counsels—When will the anchor be a-trip?”
“When it pleases heaven, Master Quarter-master,” answered
Bunce, “for I know no more than the stern-post.”
“Why, d—n my buttons,” said Derrick, “do we not weigh this
tide?”
“Or to-morrow’s tide, at farthest?” said the Boatswain—“Why,
what have we been slaving the whole company for, to get all these
stores aboard?”
“Gentlemen,” said Bunce, “you are to know that Cupid has laid
our Captain on board, carried the vessel, and nailed down his wits
under hatches.”
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