"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. Ba...