Other editions of book The Pirate

"The Pirate" is not connected with historic annals, nor does it deal with the sea, except in an incidental way. It is a tale of neighborhood life off the northeast coast of Scotland.Basil Mertoun, a reticent and misanthropic man about which nothing is known, takes up his residence in a tumble-down mansion on a Shetland cape, which he rents at a nominal sum from Magnus Troil, an old landowner. Basil is accompanied only by a young son, Mordaunt, who, more sociable and agreeable than his father, makes acquaintances all about the countryside. Especially does he frequent the Troil home, attracted thither by the two charming daughters of Magnus, Minna and Brenda; but he is so impartial in his attentions that the local gossips do not know which he courts. Returning from their home one stormy night he takes refuge in the cottage of the Yellowleys, an eccentric old farmer and his miserly sister; but is warned by Norna, a half-crazed seeress, to proceed on his way ...

"The Pirate" is a novel by the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, first published in 1822 and considered a masterpiece. For "The Pirate", Scott drew on his memories of a voyage to the Northern Isles in 1814, as guest of a commission inspecting Scotland's lighthouses. The novel was finished in little more than three months and was ready for publication in late October 1821. Hence, the novel is set at the beginning of the 18th century on the Shetland Islands, where Basil Mertoun lives as a tenant of Magnus Troil. In his youth, Mertoun has been betrayed by an unfaithful wife, and in a spirit of revenge, turned to piracy. Filled with self-reproach for his crimes, he lives as a recluse, along with his wife's son Mordaunt, whose paternity is doubtable."The Pirate" is also the story of the complicated romantic lives of the Troil sisters, Minna and Brenda.

The Pirate is a novel by Walter Scott, based roughly on the life of John Gow who features as Captain Cleveland.[1] 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. On his way home from a visit to them, he and the pedlar Snailsfoot sought shelter from a storm at the Yellowleys' farmhouse, where they were amused with their 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 bidden...

The circumstances in which “The Pirate” was composed have for the Editor a peculiar interest. He has many times scribbled at the old bureau in Chiefswood whereon Sir Walter worked at his novel, and sat in summer weather beneath the great tree on the lawn where Erskine used to read the fresh chapters to Lockhart and his wife, while the burn murmured by from the Rhymer’s Glen. So little altered is the cottage of Chiefswood by the addition of a gabled wing in the same red stone as the older portion, so charmed a quiet has the place, in the shelter of Eildon Hill, that there one can readily beget the golden time again, and think oneself back into the day when Mustard and Spice, running down the shady glen, might herald the coming of the Sheriff himself. Happy hours and gone: like that summer of 1821, whereof Lockhart speaks with an emotion the more touching because it is so rare,—

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