Although the sun during the middle of the Shetland summer scarcely
ceases to shine, the inhabitants of these isles, like other mortals,
require sleep, and take it at the usual time. Soon after the sea trip
Miss Wardhill had taken on board the "Saint Cecilia," Lawrence
Brindister was seen one afternoon to descend from his room, booted and
spurred, as if for a distant excursion, Hilda, who had her reasons for
so doing, watched him anxiously. He stamped about the house, clattering
his spurs, and muttering to himself, as was his custom, when anything
out of the usual course occupied his mind. At last, going to Surly
Grind's kennel, he loosed the dog, and entering his skiff, crossed the
voe, as if about to proceed to the mainland. Hilda breathed more freely
when he had gone, but seldom had she appeared so distracted, and little
at her ease, as she did till the usual hour of closing the castle gates.
The keys were brought to her, as was the custom, by David Cheyne, the
old butler, or Major Domo. As he made his bow, he cast a hurried glance
at her countenance, and on his way down stairs he shook his head,
muttering to himself, "This foreign gallant will bring no good to the
house of Lunnasting--that I see too well; and the sooner the islands are
quit of him and his ship--for all he looks so brave and so bonnie--the
better it will be for the young mistress."
Hilda, instead of retiring to rest, went to her tower; there she
remained for some time, pacing up and down the room, now glancing out on
the wide ocean, now clasping her hands in a manner expressive of doubt
and indecision.
"It is too late to retract," she exclaimed, at length; "why should I
think of it? What right has my father to complain? He leaves me here
without compunction, and am I to await his tardy permission to act, as I
have a full right to do, without it? No, that point is settled. Then
Bertha suggests that the world will call me unmaidenly, more than
indiscreet, and will say that I have been ready to throw myself into the
arms of the first stranger I have met; but what care I for this little
world of Shetland? I stand on my own rectitude. I shall be far away,
and can afford to despise all such insinuations. But the greatest doubt
Bertha, in her over-anxious love, has raised up before me, is that
regarding Hernan himself. Still I feel sure that he is all that is
honourable and noble. He has given me numberless assurances, undoubted,
that he is what he represents himself. The proofs he offers are so
clear, can I for a moment doubt him? His I have promised to be: his I
will be. I should be unworthy of the name of woman were I now to
discard him."
Such was the style of argument with which Hilda Wardhill persuaded
herself that she was right in the course she had resolved to adopt.
The marriage was duly solemnised according to the terms of the Roman
Catholic Church by Father Mendez. Hilda and Don Hernan signed their
names on a parchment placed before them, Bertha and Nanny Clousta
signing as witnesses, while Rolf Morton stepped forward and added his
name.
Two of Don Hernan's officers, Pedro Alvarez and another, signed their
names to the document as witnesses; whilst Lawrence protested against
the marriage, as being without the consent or knowledge of Hilda's
father, and, therefore, according to Shetland law, invalid. This
protest he made with an air of dignity wholly different from his usual
manner.
The midnight wedding ceremony at the old chapel terminated in a most
terrific hurricane, and the new married couple were compelled to take
refuge from the storm in the house of Bertha Morton.