The Pirate
Walter Scott Scott
eBook
(, July 1, 2020)
The Pirate is a novel by Walter Scott (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832) , based roughly on the life of John Gow who features as Captain Cleveland. The setting is the southern tip of the main island of Shetland (which Scott visited in 1814), around 1700. It was published in 1822, the year after it was finished and the lighthouse at Sumburgh Head began to operate.Mr Mertoun and his son had arrived as strangers, and resided for several years in the remaining rooms of the old mansion of the Earls of Orkney, the father leading a very secluded life, while the son Mordaunt became a general favourite with the inhabitants, and especially with the udaller, Magnus Troil, and his daughters, Brenda and Minna. On his way home from a visit to them, he and the pedlar Snailsfoot sought shelter from a storm at a farmhouse, at Hafra, home of Triptolemus Yellowley agent of the Chamberlain of Orkney and Shetland, and his sister Barbara. The visitors were amused with the Yellowley's penurious ways, and encountered Norna, a relative of Magnus Troil who was supposed to be in league with the fairies, and to possess supernatural powers. The next day a ship was wrecked on the rocky coast, and, at the risk of his life, Mordaunt rescued the captain, Cleveland, as he was cast on the beach clinging to a plank, while Norna prevented his sea-chest from being pillaged. Cleveland was in fact a pirate, but they did not know this. The captain promised his preserver a trip in a consort ship which he expected would arrive shortly, and went to seek the udaller's help in recovering some of his other property that had been washed ashore. After the lapse of several weeks, however, during which the Troils had discontinued their friendly communications with him, Mordaunt heard that the stranger was still their guest, and that they were arranging an entertainment for St John's Eve, to which he had not been invited...