“See here, Jan, I have been fifteen years with Peter Fae, and no feet but mine have ever entered this loft. Here thou canst be at peace. My dear Jan, lie thee down, and sleep now.”
Jan was glad to do it. He put the gold locket on Snorro’s table, and said, “Thou keep it. I bought it for her, and she sent it back to me.”
“Some day she will be glad of it. Be thou sure of that.”
During the summer Jan made short and quick voyages, and so he spent many an hour in this little retreat talking with Snorro, for he had much to annoy and trouble him. We do not get over living sorrows as easily as dead ones. Margaret in her grave would have lost the power to wound him, and he would gradually have ceased to lament her. But Margaret weeping in her father’s house; Margaret praying in the kirk for strength to bear his neglect and injustice; Margaret throwing open the Bluebeard chamber of their home, and discussing its tragedy with his enemies; this was a sorrow there was no forgetting. On his return from every voyage he sent her the money he had made, and some little token of his love with it. 84 She always sent both back without a word. She understood from them that Jan would come no more in person, and that she would have to make the next advance, either by voice or letter. Many times she had declared she would never do this, and the declaration even in her tenderest hours, bound her to her self-inflicted loneliness and grief. So on Snorro’s rude table the pretty womanly trinkets accumulated, and Snorro looked at them with constantly gathering anger.
One morning in October he heard a thing that made his heart leap. The physician of the town hurried into the store, and cried, “Peter Fae, here hath come a little man to thy house. A handsome lad he is, indeed. Now then, go and see him.”
“What of my daughter, Doctor?”
“She will do well enough.”
Snorro lifted never an eyelash, but his face glowed like fire. Jan, then, had a son! Jan’s son! Already he loved the child. Surely he would be the peacemaker. Now the mother and father must meet. He had almost forgiven Margaret. How he longed for Jan to come back. Alas! when he did, Margaret was 85 said to be dying; Peter had not been at his store for three days.
The double news met Jan as soon as he put his foot on the quay. “Thou hast a son, Jan.” “Thy wife is dying.” Jan was nearly distraught. With all a man’s strength of feeling, he had emotions as fervent and vivid as a woman: he forgot in a moment every angry feeling, and hastened to his wife. Peter opened the door; when he saw Jan, he could have struck him. He did what was more cruel, he shut the door in his face, and drew the bolt passionately across it.
Jan, however, would not leave the vicinity. He stopped the doctor, and every one that came and went. In a few hours this became intolerable to Peter. He ordered him to go away, but Jan sat on a large stone by the gate, with his head in his hands, and answered him never a word. Then he sent Thora to him. In vain Jan tried to soften her heart. “Margaret is unconscious, yet she mourns constantly for thee. Thou art my child’s murderer,” she said sternly. “Go thy ways before I curse thee.”
He turned away then and went down to the seaside, and threw himself, in an agony of 86 despair, upon the sand and the yellow tangle. Hour after hour passed; physical exhaustion and mental grief produced at length a kind of lethargy, that oblivion, rather than sleep, which comes to souls which have felt till they can feel no longer.
Just at dark some one touched him, and asked sternly, “Art thou drunk, Jan Vedder, to-day? To-day, when thy wife is dying?”
“It is with sorrow I am drunk.” Then he opened his eyes and saw the minister standing over him. Slowly he rose to his feet, and stood stunned and trembling before him.
“Jan! Go to thy wife. She is very ill. At the last she may want thee and only thee.”
“They will not let me see her. Do thou speak to Peter Fae for me.”
“Hast thou not seen her—or thy son?”
“I have not been within the door. Oh, do thou speak for me!”
“Come with me.”
Together they went back to Peter’s house. The door was locked, and the minister knocked. “Who is there?”
“It is I, and Jan Vedder. Peter, unbolt the door.”
“Thou art God’s minister and ever welcome; but I will not let Jan Vedder cross my door-stone.”
“Thou wilt let us both in. Indeed thou wilt. I am amazed at thee, Peter. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Art thou going to strive against God? I say to thee, unbolt the door, unbolt it quick, lest thou be too late. If thou suffer not mercy to pass through it, I tell thee there are those who will pass through it, the door being shut.”
Then Peter drew the bolt and set the door wide, but his face was hard as iron, and black as midnight.
“Jan,” said the minister, “thy wife and child are in the next room. Go and see them, it will be good for thee. Peter, well may the Lord Christ say, ‘I come as a thief in the night’; and be sure of this, he will break down the bars and burst open the doors of those who rise not willingly to let him in.”
In Shetland at that day, and indeed at the present day, the minister has almost a papal authority. Peter took the reproof in silence. Doctor Balloch was, however, a man who in any circumstances would have had influence and 88 authority among those brought in contact with him, for though he spared not the rod in the way of his ministry, he was in all minor matters full of gentleness and human kindness. Old and young had long ago made their hearts over to him. Besides, his great learning and his acquaintance with the tongues of antiquity were regarded as a great credit to the town.
While Jan was in his wife’s presence, Doctor Balloch stood silent, looking into the fire: Peter gazed out of the window. Neither spoke until Jan returned. Then the minister turned and looked at the young man. It was plain that he was on the verge of insensibility again. He took his arm and led him to a couch. “Lie down, Jan;” then turning to Peter he said, “Thy son has had no food to-day. He is faint and suffering. Let thy women make him some tea, and bring him some bread and meat.”
“I have said that he shall not eat bread in my house.”
“Then thou hast said an evil and uncharitable thing. Unsay it, Peter. See, the lad is fainting!”
“I can not mend that. He shall not break bread in my house.”
“Then I say this to thee. Thou shalt not break bread at thy Lord’s supper in His house. No, thou shalt not, for thou would be doing it unworthily, and eating damnation to thyself. What saith thy Lord Christ? If thine enemy hunger, feed him. Now, then, order the bread and tea for Jan Vedder.”
Peter called a woman servant and gave the order. Then, almost in a passion, he faced the minister, and said, “Oh, sir, if thou knew the evil this man hath done me and mine!”
“In such a case Christ’s instructions are very plain—‘Overcome evil with good.’ Now, thou knowest thy duty. If thou sin, I have warned thee—the sin is on thy own head.”
Jan heard nothing of this conversation. The voices of the two men were only like spent waves breaking on the shores of his consciousness. But very soon a woman brought him a basin of hot tea, and he drank it and ate a few mouthfuls. It gave him a little strength, he gathered himself together, opened the door, and without speaking went out into the night. The minister followed, watching him carefully, until he saw Michael Snorro take him in his big arms, and carry him to a pile of seal-skins. Then he knew that he was in good hands.
Poor Jan! He was utterly spent and miserable. The few minutes he had passed at Margaret’s side, had brought him no comfort. He heard her constantly muttering his name, but it was in the awful, far-distant voice of a soul speaking through a dream. She was unconscious of his presence; he trembled in hers. Just for a moment Thora had allowed him to lift his son, and to press the tiny face against his own. Then all was darkness, and a numb, aching sorrow, until he found himself in Snorro’s arms.
Many days Margaret Vedder lay between life and death, but at length there was hope, and Jan sailed again. He went away very miserable, though he had fully determined it should be his last voyage if Margaret wished it so. He would see her on his return, he would tell her how sorry he was, he would sell The Solan and give back the £600; he would even humble himself to Peter, and go back to the store, if there were no other way to make peace with Margaret. He felt that no personal sacrifice would be too great, if by it he could win back his home, and wife, and son. The babe had softened his heart. He told himself—oh, 91 so often—“Thou art a father;” and no man could have had a sweeter, stronger sense of the obligations the new relation imposed. He was so sure of himself that he could not help feeling equally sure of Margaret, and also of Peter. “For the child’s sake, they will forgive me, Snorro, and I’ll do well, yes, I will do well for the future.”
Snorro had many fears, but he could not bear to throw cold water on Jan’s hopes and plans for reformation. He did not believe that his unconditional surrender would be a good foundation for future happiness. He did not like Jan’s taking the whole blame. He did not like his giving up The Solan at Margaret’s word. Neither Peter Fae, nor his daughter, were likely to exalt any one who humbled himself.
“It is money in the hand that wins,” said Snorro, gloomily, “and my counsel is, that thou bear thyself bravely, and show her how well The Solan hath done already, and how likely she is to clear herself and pay back that weariful £600 before two years have gone away. If she will have it, let her have it. Jan, how could she give thee up for £600! Did she love thee?”
“I do believe she did—and does yet, Snorro.”
“Only God, then, understands women. But while thou art away, think well of this and that, and of the things likely to follow, for still I see that forethought spares afterthought and after-sorrow.”
With words like these ringing in his ears, Jan again sailed The Solan out of Lerwick. He intended to make a coasting voyage only, but he expected delay, for with November had come storm and cold, fierce winds and roaring seas. Edging along from port to port, taking advantage of every tide and favorable breeze, and lying to, when sailing was impossible, six weeks were gone before he reached Kirkwall in the Orkneys. Here he intended to take in his last cargo before steering for home. A boat leaving Kirkwall as he entered, carried the news of The Solan’s arrival to Lerwick, and then Snorro watched anxiously every tide for Jan’s arrival.
But day after day passed and The Solan came not. No one but Snorro was uneasy. In the winter, in that tempestuous latitude, boats were often delayed for weeks. They ran from 93 shelter to shelter in constant peril of shipwreck, and with a full cargo a good skipper was bound to be prudent. But Snorro had a presentiment of danger and trouble. He watched night after night for Jan, until even his strength gave way, and he fell into a deep sleep. He was awakened by Jan’s voice. In a moment he opened the door and let him in.
Alas! Alas, poor Jan! It was sorrow upon sorrow for him. The Solan had been driven upon the Quarr rocks, and she was a total wreck. Nothing had been saved but Jan’s life, even that barely. He had been so bruised and injured that he had been compelled to rest in the solitary hut of a coast-guardsman many days. He gave the facts to Snorro in an apathy. The man was shipwrecked as well as the boat. It was not only that he had lost every thing, that he had not a penny left in the world, he had lost hope, lost all faith in himself, lost even the will to fight his ill fortune any longer.
“Do not drop in for an after-loss.
Ah, do not, when my heart hath scap’d this sorrow,
Come in the rereward of a conquered woe.”
—Shakespeare’s Sonnets, xc.
“Man is his own star, and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man
Commands all light, all influence, all fate.
Nothing to him falls early, or too late.”
—Fletcher’s “Honest Man’s Fortune.”
Jan, the sole survivor of The Solan, had brought the news of his own misfortune, but there was no necessity to hasten its publication. Nothing could be gained by telling it at once, and no one could be helped, so Snorro advised him to sleep all the following day. Jan hardly needed the advice. In a few minutes he sank into a dreamless lethargic sleep, which lasted nearly twenty-four hours. When he awoke from it, he said, “I will see Tulloch, and then I will sleep again, Snorro.”
“Let me go for thee.”
“Nay, then he will think that I am a coward. I must tell my own tale; he can but be angry.”
But Tulloch took his loss with composure. “Thou did the best that could be done, Jan,” he answered, when Jan had told the story of the shipwreck; “wind and wave are not at thy order.”
“Thou wilt say that for me? It is all I ask. I did my best, Tulloch.”
“I will say it; and in the spring I will see about another boat. I am not afraid to trust thee.”
Jan looked at him gratefully, but the hope was too far off to give much present comfort to him. He walked slowly back to the retreat Snorro had made for him, wondering how he was to get the winter over, wondering if Margaret would see him, wondering how best to gain her forgiveness, longing to see her face but not daring to approach her without some preparation for the meeting. For though she had come back to life, it had been very slowly. Snorro said that she never left the house, that she was still wan and weak, and that on the 96 rare occasions when he had been sent to Peter’s house, she had not spoken to him.
After his interview with Tulloch, he fell into a sound sleep again. When he awoke the day was well begun, and Peter was at the store. Looking through the cracks in the rude flooring, he could see him carefully counting his cash, and comparing his balance. Snorro, for a wonder, was quite idle, and Peter finally looked at him, and said fretfully:
“There is this and that to do. What art thou standing still for?”
“A man may stand still sometimes. I feel not like work to-day.”
“Art thou sick, then?”
“Who can tell? It may be sickness.”
He stood thoughtfully by the big fire and moved not. Peter went on with his figures in a fidgety way. Presently Tulloch entered. The banker’s visits were rare ones, and Peter was already suspicious of them. But he laid down his pen, and with scrupulous civility said, “Good morning to thee, Tulloch—Deacon Tulloch, I should say. Wilt thou buy or sell aught this morning?”
“Good morning, Fae. I came to thee for news. Where is thy son Jan staying?”
Peter’s face darkened. “I know nothing at all about Jan Vedder. If he is at sea, he is out of thy world; if he is in harbor, he will be at Ragon Torr’s, or on board The Solan.”
“The Solan hath gone to pieces on the Quarr Rocks.”
Just for a moment a thrill of sinful triumph made Peter’s brown face turn scarlet, but he checked it instantly. “I heard not that,” he said gravely.
“Only Jan escaped—ship and crew went to the bottom.”
Peter shut his mouth tight, he was afraid to trust himself to speak.
“But Jan did his very best, no man could have done more. I saw him last night. He is ill and broken down by his trouble. Put out thy hand to him. Thou do that, and it will be a good thing, Fae.”
“Thou mind thy own affairs, Deacon Tulloch.”
“Well then it is my affair to tell thee, that there is a time for anger and a time for forgiveness. If Jan is to be saved, his wife can now do it. At this hour he is sick and sore-hearted, and she can win him back, she can save him now, Fae.”
“Shall I lose my child to save Jan Vedder? What is it to thee? What can thou know of a father’s duty? Thou, who never had child. Deacon thou may be, but thou art no Dominie, and I will order my household without thy word, thus or so. Yes, indeed I will!”
“Just that, Fae. I have spoken for a good man. And let me tell thee, if Margaret Vedder is thy daughter, she is also Jan’s wife; and if I were Jan, I would make her do a wife’s duty. If all the women in Shetland were to run back to their fathers for a little thing that offended them, there would be an end of marrying.”
Peter laughed scornfully. “Every one knows what well-behaved wives old bachelors have.”
“Better to be a bachelor, than have a wife like poor Jan Vedder has.”
“Thou art talking of my daughter. Wilt thou mind thy own affairs?”
“I meant well, Fae. I meant well. Both thee and I have much need of heaven’s mercy. It will be a good thing for us to be merciful. I am willing to help and trust Jan again. Thou 99 do so too. Now I will say ‘good morning’, for I see thou art angry at me.”
Peter was angry, intensely angry. Under the guise of Christian charity, Tulloch had come into his store and insulted him. Peter would believe in no other motive. And yet he was scarcely just to Tulloch, for his intentions had first and mainly been sincerely kind ones; but the tares are ever among the wheat, and it was true enough that before the interview was over Tulloch had felt a personal pleasure in his plain speaking.
Very soon there was a little crowd in Fae’s store. It was a cold, blustering day, and its warmth and company made it a favorite lounging place. Jan’s misfortune was the sole topic of conversation, and Jan’s absence was unfavorably criticised. Why did he not come among his fellows and tell them how it had happened? Here were good men and a good ship gone to the bottom, and he had not a word to say of the matter. They were all curious about the wreck, and would have liked to pass the long stormy day in talking it over. As it was, they had only conjectures. No one but Tulloch had seen Jan. They wondered where he was.
“At Torr’s, doubtless,” said Peter, harshly.
“It is likely. Jan ever flew to the brandy keg for comfort.”
“It is like he had been there before he steered for the Quarr Rocks.”
“It did not need brandy. He was ever careless.”
“He was foolhardy more than careless.”
“I never thought that he knew the currents and the coast, as a man should know it who has life and goods to carry safe.”
“He had best be with his crew; every man of it was a better man than he is.”
Snorro let them talk and wonder. He would not tell them where Jan was. One group succeeded another, and hour after hour Snorro stood listening to their conversation, with shut lips and blazing eyes. Peter looked at him with increasing irritability.
“Art thou still sick, Snorro?” he asked at length.
“Not I.”
“Why, then, art thou idle?”
“I am thinking. But the thought is too much for me. I can make nothing of it.”
Few noticed Snorro’s remark, but old Jal 101 Sinclair said, “Tell thy thought, Snorro. There are wise men here to read it for thee; very wise men, as thou must have noticed.”
Snorro caught something in the old man’s face, or in the inflection of his voice, which gave him an assurance of sympathy, so he said: “Well, then, it is this. Jan Vedder is evidently a very bad man, and a very bad sailor; yet when Donald Twatt’s boat sunk in the Vor Ness, Jan took his bonnet in his hand, and he put his last sovereign in it, and he went up and down Lerwick till he had got £40 for Twatt. And he gave him a suit of his own clothes, and he would hear no word wrong of him, and he said, moreover, that nothing had happened Twatt but what might happen the best man and the best sailor that ever lived when it would be God’s own time. I thought that was a good thing in Jan, but no one has spoke of it to-day.”
“People have ever thought thee a fool, Snorro. When thou art eighty years old, as Jal Sinclair is, perhaps thou wilt know more. Jan Vedder should have left Twatt to his trouble; he should have said, ‘Twatt is a drunken fellow, or a careless, foolhardy fellow; he is a bad 102 sailor, a bad man, and he ought to have gone to the bottom.‘” Then there was a minute’s uncomfortable silence, and the men gradually scattered.
Peter was glad of it. He had no particular pleasure in any conversation having Jan for a topic, and he was burning and smarting at Tulloch’s interference. It annoyed him also to see Snorro so boldly taking Jan’s part. His indignant face and brooding laziness was a new element in the store, and it worried Peter far beyond its importance. He left unusually early, and then Snorro closed the doors, and built up the fire, and made some tea, and broiled mutton and bloaters, and set his few dishes on the box which served him for a table. Jan had slept heavily all day, but when Snorro brought the candle near, he opened his eyes and said, “I am hungry, Snorro.”
“I have come to tell thee there is tea and meat waiting. All is closed, and we can eat and talk, and no one will trouble us.”
A Shetlander loves his tea, and it pleased Snorro to see how eagerly Jan drank cup after cup. And soon his face began to lose its weary, indifferent look, and he ate with keen relish the 103 simple food before him. In an hour Jan was nearly like himself once more. Then he remembered Margaret. In the extremity of his physical weakness and weariness, he had forgotten every thing in sleep, but now the delay troubled him. “I ought to have seen my wife to-day, Snorro; why did thou let me sleep?”
“Sleep was the first thing, and now we will see to thy clothes. They must be mended, Jan.”
Jan looked down at the suit he wore. It was torn and shabby and weather-stained, and it was all he had. But Snorro was as clever as any woman with the needle and thread. The poor fellow, indeed, had never had any woman friend to use a needle for him, and he soon darned, and patched, and washed clean what the winds and waves had left of Jan’s once handsome suit of blue.
As he worked they talked of the best means of securing an interview with Margaret, for Jan readily guessed that Peter would forbid it, and it was finally decided that Snorro should take her a letter, as soon as Peter was at the store next day. There was a little cave by the seaside 104 half way between the town and Peter’s house, and there Jan was to wait for Snorro’s report.
In the meantime Peter had reached his home. In these days it was a very quiet, somber place. Thora was in ill health, in much worse health than any one but herself suspected, and Margaret was very unhappy. This evening Thora had gone early to bed, and Margaret sat with her baby in her arms. When her father entered she laid him in the cradle. Peter did not like to have it in any way forced upon his notice, and Margaret understood well enough that the child was only tolerated for her sake. So, without any of those little fond obtrusive ways so natural to a young mother, she put the child out of the way, and sat down to serve her father’s tea.
His face was dark and angry, his heart felt hard to her at that hour. She had brought so much sorrow and shame on him. She had been the occasion of so many words and acts of which he was ashamed. In fact, his conscience was troubling him, and he was trying to lay the whole blame of his cruelty and injustice on her. For some time he did not speak, and she 105 was too much occupied with her own thoughts to ask him any questions. At length he snapped out, “Jan Vedder came back to Lerwick yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“I said yesterday. Did thou think he would run here to see thee the first moment? Not he. He was at Tulloch’s last night. He will have been at Torr’s all day, no doubt.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears, and Peter looked angrily at her.
“Art thou crying again? Now listen, thou art not like to see him at all. He has thrown thy £600 to the bottom of the sea—ship, cargo, and crew, all gone.”
“Jan? Father, is Jan safe?”
“He is safe enough. The devil holds his own from water. Now, if he does come to see thee, thou shalt not speak with him. That is my command to thee.”
Margaret answered not, but there was a look upon her face, which he understood to mean rebellion.
“Bring me the Bible here.” Then as he turned to the place he wanted, he said: “Now, Margaret, if thou art thinking to disobey thy 106 father, I want thee to hear in what kind of company thou wilt do so;” and he slowly read aloud:
“‘Backbiters—haters of God—despiteful—proud—boasters—inventors of evil things—disobedient to parents;’ dost thou hear, Margaret? ‘disobedient to parents—without understanding—covenant breakers—without natural affection—implacable—unmerciful.’”
“Let me see him once, father? Let me see him for half an hour.”
“Not for one moment. Disobey me if thou dares.”
“He is my husband.”
“I am thy father. Thy obligation to me began with thy birth, twenty years before thou saw Jan Vedder. Between man and wife there may be a divorce, between father and daughter there can be no bill of separation. The tie of thy obedience is for life, unless thou wilt take the risk of disobeying thy God. Very well, then, I say to thee, thou shalt not speak to Jan Vedder again, until he has proved himself worthy to have the care of a good woman. That is all I say, but mind it! If thou disobey me, I will never speak to thee again. I will 107 send thee and thy child from my sight, I will leave every penny I have to my two nephews, Magnus and Thorkel. That is enough. Where is thy mother?”
“She is in pain, and has gone to bed.”
“It is a sick house, I think. First, thou wert like to die, and ever since thy mother hath been ill; that also is Jan Vedder’s doing, since thou must needs fret thyself into a fever for him.” Then he took his candle and went to his sick wife, for he thought it best not to weaken his commands by any discussion concerning them.
Margaret did what most mothers would have done, she lifted her child for consolation. It was a beautiful child, and she loved it with an idolatrous affection. It had already taught her some lessons strange enough to Margaret Vedder. For its sake she had become conciliating, humble, patient; had repressed her feelings of mother-pride, and for the future good of her boy, kept him in a corner as it were. She had never suffered him to be troublesome, never intruded him upon the notice of the grandfather whom some day doubtless he would completely conquer. Ah, if she had only been 108 half as unselfish with Jan! Only half as prudent for Jan’s welfare!
She lifted the boy and held him to her breast. As she watched him, her face grew lovely. “My child!” she whispered, “for thee I can thole every thing. For thy sake, I will be patient. Nothing shall tempt me to spoil thy life. Thou shalt be rich, little one, and some day thee and I will be happy together. Thy father robbed thee, but I will not injure thee; no, indeed, I will not!”
So, after all, Jan’s child was to be the barrier between him and his wife. If Jan had chosen to go back to the class from which she had taken him, she would at least save her child from the suffering and contempt of poverty. What she would have done for his father, she would do for him. Yes, that night she fully determined to stand by her son. It might be a pleasure for her to see Jan, and even to be reconciled to him, but she would not sacrifice her child’s inheritance for her own gratification. She really thought she was consummating a grand act of self-denial, and wept a few pitiful tears over her own hard lot.
In the morning Peter was unusually kind to 109 her. He noticed the baby, and even allowed her to lay it in his arms while she brought him his seal-skin cloak and woolen mufflers. It was a dangerous advance for Peter; he felt his heart strangely moved by the sleeping child, and he could not avoid kissing him as he gave him back to his mother. Margaret smiled at her father in her deep joy, and said softly to him, “Now thou hast kissed me twice.” Nothing that Peter could have done would have so bound her to him. He had sealed his command with that kiss, and though no word of promise was given him, he went to his store comparatively light-hearted; he was certain his daughter would not disobey him.
While this scene was transpiring, one far more pathetic was taking place in Snorro’s room. Jan’s clothes had been washed and mended, and he was dressing himself with an anxious desire to look well in his wife’s eyes that was almost pitiful. Snorro sat watching him. Two women could hardly have been more interested in a toilet, or tried harder to make the most out of poor and small materials. Then Jan left his letter to Margaret with Snorro, and went to the cave agreed upon, to await the answer.
Very soon after Peter reached the store, Snorro left it. Peter saw him go, and he suspected his errand, but he knew the question had to be met and settled, and he felt almost sure of Margaret that morning. At any rate, she would have to decide, and the sooner the better. Margaret saw Snorro coming, but she never associated the visit with Jan. She thought her father had forgotten something and sent Snorro for it. So when he knocked, she said instantly, “Come in, Michael Snorro.”
The first thing Snorro saw was the child. He went straight to the cradle and looked at it. Then he kneeled down, gently lifted the small hand outside the coverlet, and kissed it. When he rose up, his face was so full of love and delight that Margaret almost forgave him every thing. “How beautiful he is,” he whispered, looking back at the sleeping babe.
Margaret smiled; she was well pleased at Snorro’s genuine admiration.
“And he is so like Jan—only Jan is still more beautiful.”
Margaret did not answer him. She was washing the china cups, and she stood at the table with a towel over her arm. Snorro 111 thought her more beautiful than she had been on her wedding day. During her illness, most of her hair had been cut off, and now a small white cap covered her head, the short, pale-brown curls just falling beneath it on her brow and on her neck. A long, dark dress, a white apron, and a white lawn kerchief pinned over her bosom, completed her attire. But no lady in silk or lace ever looked half so womanly. Snorro stood gazing at her, until she said, “Well, then, what hast thou come for?”
With an imploring gesture he offered her Jan’s letter.
She took it in her hand and turned it over, and over, and over. Then, with a troubled face, she handed it back to Snorro.
“No, no, no, read it! Oh, do thou read it! Jan begs thee to read it! No, no, I will not take it back!”
“I dare not read it, Snorro. It is too late—too late. Tell Jan he must not come here. It will make more sorrow for me. If he loves me at all, he will not come. He is not kind to force me to say these words. Tell him I will not, dare not, see him!”
“It is thou that art unkind. He has been 112 shipwrecked, Margaret Vedder; bruised and cut, and nearly tossed to death by the waves. He is broken-hearted about thee. He loves thee, oh, as no woman ever deserved to be loved. He is thy husband. Thou wilt see him, oh yes, thou wilt see him!”
“I will not see him, Snorro. My father hath forbid me. If I see Jan, he will turn me and the child from the house.”
“Let him. Go to thy husband and thy own home.”
“My husband hath no home for me.”
“For thou pulled it to pieces.”
“Go away, Snorro, lest worse words come. I will not sacrifice that little innocent babe for Jan.”
“It is Jan’s son—thou art ruining Jan—”
“Now, wilt thou go, Michael Snorro, and tell Jan that I say what my father says: when he is worthy of me I will come to him.”
“I will go, but I will tell thee first, that Jan will be worthy of thee long before thou art worthy of him.” Then, ere Margaret could prevent him, he walked to the cradle, lifted the child, and kissed it again and again, saying between each kiss, “That is for thy father, little one.”
The child was crying when he laid it down, and Margaret again angrily ordered him to leave the house. Before she had soothed it to peace, Snorro was nearly out of sight. Then Thora, who had heard the dispute, rose from her bed and came into the room. She looked ill and sad, and asked faintly, “What is this message sent to Jan Vedder? He will not believe it. Look for him here very soon, and be sure what thou doest is right.”
“My father told me what to do.”
“Yet ask thy heart and thy conscience also. It is so easy for a woman to go wrong, Margaret; it is almost impossible for her to put wrong right. Many a tear shall she wash it out with.”
“I have done no wrong to Jan. Dost thou think so?”
“When one gets near the grave, Margaret, there is a little light from beyond, and many things are seen not seen before. Oh, be sure thou art right about Jan! No one can judge for thee. Fear not to do what thy heart says, for at the end right will come right, and wrong will come wrong.”
There was a solemn stillness after this conversation. 114 Thora sat bent over beside the fire musing. Margaret, wearied with the feelings which her interview with Snorro had called forth, rested upon the sofa; she was suffering, and the silence and melancholy of her mother seemed almost a wrong to her. It was almost as if she had taken Jan’s part.
A knock at the door startled both women. Thora rose and opened it. It was Jan. “Mother,” he said, “I want to see my wife and child.”
“Margaret, speak for thyself.”
“I dare not see Jan. Tell him so.”
Thora repeated the message.
“Ask Margaret if that is her last word to me?”
Mechanically Thora asked the question, and after an agonizing pause Margaret gasped out, “Yes, yes—until—”
“Ask her to stand a moment at the window with the child. I long to see them.” Then he turned to go to the window, and Thora shut the door. But it was little use repeating Jan’s request, Margaret had fainted, and lay like one dead, and Thora forgot every thing till life returned to her daughter. Then as the apparent 115 unkindness was irrevocable and unexplainable, she said nothing of it. Why should she add to the sorrow Margaret was suffering?
And as for Jan, the universal opinion was that he ought to suffer. He had forfeited his wife, and his home, and his good name, and he had lost his boat. When a man has calamity upon calamity the world generally concludes that he must be a very wicked man to deserve them. Perhaps the world is right; but it is also just possible that the world, even with its six thousand years of gathered wisdom, may be wrong.
“Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped,
All I could never be,
All men ignored in me,
This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.”
It must be remembered, however, that Margaret was bound by ties whose strength this generation can hardly conceive. The authority of a father over a child in England and Scotland is still a very decided one. Fifty years ago in Shetland it was almost absolute. Margaret believed the fifth commandment to be as binding upon her as the first. From her childhood it had been pointed out to her as leading all the six defining our duty to our fellow-creatures. Therefore if she thought her father’s orders regarding Jan unkind, the possibility of disobeying them never presented itself.
Jan’s troubles were pointed out to her as the obvious results of Jan’s sins. How could he expect a blessing on a boat bought as he had bought The Solan? And what was the use of helping a man who was always so unfortunate? If Peter did not regard misfortune as a sin, he drew away from it as if it were something even worse. Sometimes God blesses a man through poverty, sometimes through riches, but until the rod blossoms even good Christians call it a chastening rod. Margaret had a dread of making her child share Jan’s evil destiny: perhaps she was afraid of it for herself. Self is such an omnipresent god, that it is easy to worship him in the dark, and to obey him almost unconsciously. When Margaret recovered from her faint, she was inclined to think she deserved praise for what she called her self-denial. She knew also that her father would be satisfied with her conduct, and Peter’s satisfaction took tangible forms. He had given her £100 when she broke up her home and left Jan; she certainly looked for some money equivalent for her present obedience. And yet she was quite positive this latter consideration had in no way at all influenced her 118 decision; she was sure of that; only, there could be no harm in reflecting that a duty done would have its reward.
As for Jan, he let people say whatever they chose to say about him. To Tulloch and to Michael Snorro he described the tempest, and the desperation with which he had fought for his boat and his life; but defended himself to no one else. Day after day he passed in the retreat which Snorro had made him, and lying there he could plainly hear the men in Peter’s store talk about him. Often he met the same men in Torr’s at night, and he laughed bitterly to himself at their double tongues. There are few natures that would have been improved by such a discipline; to a man who had lost all faith in himself, it was a moral suicide.
Down, down, down, with the rapidity with which fine men go to ruin, went Jan. Every little thing seemed to help him to the bottom; yes, even such a trifle as his shabby clothes. But shabby clothes were not a trifle to Jan. There are men as well as women who put on respectability with respectable raiment; Jan was of that class. He was meanly dressed and he felt mean, and he 119 had no money to buy a new suit. All Snorro’s small savings he had used long before for one purpose or another, and his wages were barely sufficient to buy food, and to pay Jan’s bill at Torr’s; for, alas! Jan would go to Torr’s. Snorro was in a sore strait about it, but if Torr’s bill were not paid, then Jan would go to Inkster’s, a resort of the lowest and most suspicious characters. Between the two evils he chose the lesser.
And Jan said in the freedom of Torr’s many things which he ought not to have said: many hard and foolish things, which were repeated and lost nothing by the process. Some of them referred to his wife’s cruelty, and to Peter Fae’s interference in his domestic concerns. That he should talk of Margaret at all in such a place was a great wrong. Peter took care that she knew it in its full enormity; and it is needless to say, she felt keenly the insult of being made the subject of discussion among the sailor husbands who gathered in Ragon Torr’s kitchen. Put a loving, emotional man like Jan Vedder in such domestic circumstances, add to them almost hopeless poverty and social disgrace, and any one could predict with apparent certainty his final ruin.
Of course Jan, in spite of his bravado of indifference, suffered very much. He had fits of remorse which frightened Snorro. Under their influence he often wandered off for two or three days, and Snorro endured during them all the agonies of a woman who has lost her child.
One night, after a long tramp in the wind and snow, he found himself near Peter Fae’s house, and a great longing came over him to see his wife and child. He knew that Peter was likely to be at home and that all the doors were shut. There was a bright light in the sitting-room, and the curtains were undrawn. He climbed the inclosure and stood beside the window. He could see the whole room plainly. Peter was asleep in his chair on the hearth. Thora sitting opposite him, was, in her slow quiet way, crimping with her fingers the lawn ruffles on the newly ironed clothes. Margaret, with his son in her arms, walked about the room, softly singing the child to sleep. He knew the words of the lullaby—an old Finnish song that he had heard many a mother sing. He could follow every word of it in Margaret’s soft, clear voice; and, oh, how nobly fair, how 121 calmly good and far apart from him she seemed!
“Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bird of the meadow!
Take thy rest, little Redbreast.
Sleep stands at the door and says,
The son of sleep stands at the door and says,
Is there not a little child here?
Lying asleep in the cradle?
A little child wrapped up in swaddling clothes,
A child reposing under a coverlet of wool?”
Jan watched the scene until he could endure the heart-torture no longer. Had he not been so shabby, so ragged, so weather-stained, he would have forced his way to his wife’s presence. But on such apparently insignificant trifles hang generally the great events of life. He could not bear the thought of this fair, calm, spotless woman seeing him in such a plight. He went back to Snorro, and was very cross and unreasonable with him, as he had been many times before. But Snorro was one of those rare, noble souls, who can do great and hopeless things, and continue to love what they have seen fall.
He not only pitied and excused Jan, he 122 would not suffer any one to wrong, or insult him. All Torr’s regular visitors feared the big man with the white, stern face, who so often called for Jan Vedder, and who generally took his friend away with him. Any thing that is genuine commands respect, and Snorro’s love for Jan was so true, so tender, and unselfish, that the rudest soul recognized his purity. Even in Peter’s store, and among the better class who frequented it, his honest affection was not without its result.
Jan usually avoided the neighborhood when Peter was there, but one afternoon, being half intoxicated, he went rolling past, singing snatches of “The Foula Reel.” He was ragged and reckless, but through every disadvantage, still strikingly handsome. Michael Snorro lifted himself from the barrel which he was packing, and stood watching Jan with a face full of an inexpressible sorrow. Some one made a remark, which he did not hear, but he heard the low scornful laugh which followed it, and he saw Peter Fae, with a smile of contempt, walk to the door, and glance up the street after Jan.
“One thing I know,” said Snorro, looking 123 angrily at the group, “all of you have laughed in a very great company, for when a good man takes the road to hell, there also laughs the devil and all his angels. Yes, indeed.”
It was as if a thunderbolt had fallen among them. Peter turned to his books, and one by one the men left the store, and Jan Vedder’s name was not spoken again before Snorro by any one.
During the fishing season Jan went now and then to sea, but he had no regular engagement. Some said he was too unreliable; others, more honest, acknowledged they were superstitious about him. “Sooner or later ill luck comes with him,” said Neil Scarpa. “I would as lief tread on the tongs, or meet a cat when going fishing as have Jan Vedder in my boat,” said John Halcro. This feeling against him was worse than shipwreck. It drove Jan to despair. After a night of hard drinking, the idea of suicide began to present itself, with a frightful persistence. What was there for him but a life of dislike and contempt, or a swift unregretted death.
For it must be considered that in those days the ends of the earth had not been brought together. Emigration is an idea that hardly 124 enters a Shetlander’s mind at the present time; then it was a thing unknown. There were no societies for information, or for assistance. Every man relied upon his own resources, and Jan had none. He was in reality, a soul made for great adventures, condemned to fight life in the very narrowest lists.
When the warm weather came, he watched for Margaret, and made many attempts to see her. But she had all the persistence of narrow minds. She had satisfied herself that her duty to her father and to her son was before all other duties, and no cruelty is so cruel as that which attacks its victims from behind the ramparts of Duty and Conscience.
Thora frequently saw Jan, and he pleaded his cause eloquently to her. She was very sorry for him, and at times also very angry with him. She could not understand how Margaret’s treatment should have taken all the heart and purpose out of his life. She would not let him say so; it was like casting the blame of all his idleness and dissipation upon her daughter. She would make no effort towards a reconciliation; while Margaret held him in such small estimation, she was 125 sure that there could be no permanence in one, even if it could be effected.
Yet once or twice she spoke to Margaret in Jan’s favor. If Margaret had desired to disobey her father, and see her husband, Thora’s sympathies would have been with her; but no mother likes to put herself in a position which will give her child an opportunity of answering her with a look of reproachful astonishment. Something very like this had met her suggestion that “Jan must love his child, and long to see him.”
Margaret was almost angry at such a supposition. “Jan love his child! It was impossible! No man who did so, would behave as Jan had done, and was still doing. To encourage Jan in any way was to disobey her father, and throw herself and her child upon Jan’s mercies. She knew what they were. Even if she could see it to be her duty to sacrifice herself, on no account would she sacrifice the babe who had only her to think and care for him. She would do nothing in any way to prejudice its future.” This was the tenor of her constant conversation. It was stated anew every morning, it was reiterated every hour of the day; 126 and with every day’s reiteration, she became more certain of her own wisdom and justice.
One night, after another useless effort to see his wife, Jan went to Torr’s, and found Hol Skager there. Jan was in a reckless mood, and the thought of a quarrel was pleasant to him. Skager was inclined to humor him. They had many old grievances to go over, and neither of them picked their words. At length Jan struck Skager across the mouth, and Skager instantly drew his knife.
In a moment Torr and others had separated the men. Skager was persuaded to leave the house, and Jan, partly by force and partly by entreaty, detained. Skager was to sail at midnight, and Torr was determined that Jan should not leave the house until that hour was passed. Long before it, he appeared to have forgotten the quarrel, to be indeed too intoxicated to remember any thing. Torr was satisfied, but his daughter Suneva was not.
About ten o’clock, Snorro, sitting in the back door of the store, saw Suneva coming swiftly towards him. Ere he could speak she said, “Skager and Jan have quarreled and knives have been drawn. If thou knowest where 127 Skager is at anchor, run there, for I tell thee, there was more of murder than liquor in Jan’s eyes this night. My father thought to detain him, but he hath slipped away, and thou may be sure he has gone to find Skager.”
Snorro only said, “Thou art a good woman, Suneva.” He thought he knew Skager’s harbor; but when he got there, neither boat nor man was to be seen. Skager’s other ground was two miles in an opposite direction under the Troll Rock, and not far from Peter Fae’s house. Snorro hastened there at his utmost speed. He was in time to see Skager’s boat, half a mile out at sea, sailing southward. Snorro’s mental processes were slow. He stood still to consider, and as he mused, the solemn stillness of the lonely place was broken by a low cry of pain. It was Jan’s voice. Among a thousand voices Snorro would have known it. In a few moments he had found Jan, prone upon the cliff edge bleeding from a wound in his side.
He was still sensible and he smiled at Snorro, saying slowly, “Thou must not be sorry. It is best so.”
Most fishermen know something of the treatment 128 of a knife wound; Snorro staunched the blood-flow, as well as he was able, and then with gigantic strides went to Peter Fae’s. Margaret sat spinning beside her baby’s cradle, Peter had gone to bed, Thora dozed at the fireside.
The impatience of his knock and voice alarmed the women, but when Margaret heard it was Snorro’s voice, she quickly unfastened the door.
“Is the store burning?” she asked angrily, “that thou comest in such hot haste?”
“Thy husband has been murdered. Take thou water and brandy, and go as quick as thou canst run to the Troll’s Rock. He lies there. I am going for the doctor.”
“Why did thou come here, Michael Snorro? Ever art thou a messenger of ill. I will not go.”
“Go thou at once, or I will give thee a name thou wilt shudder to hear. I will give it to thee at kirk, or market, or wherever I meet thee.”
Snorro fled to the town, almost in uttering the words, and Thora, who had at once risen to get the water and the brandy, put them into her daughter’s hands. “There is no time now for 129 talking. I will tell thy father and send him after thee. Shall we have blood on our souls? All of us?”
“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?”
“Art thou a woman? I tell thee, haste.”
“I dare not—oh, my child! I will wake father.”
“I command thee to go—this moment.”
Then, almost in a passion, Margaret went. The office of mercy had been forced upon her. She had not been permitted to consider her own or her child’s interest. No one had thought of her feelings in the matter. When she reached Jan’s side she was still indignant at the peremptory way in which she had been treated.
He felt her there, rather than saw her—“Margaret!” he said feebly, “Margaret! At last!”
“Yes,” she answered in bitter anger, “at last. Hast thou called me to see thy shameful end? A name full of disgrace thou leaves to me and to thy son.”
“Forgive me—I am sorry. Forgive!”
“I will not forgive thee. No woman injured as I have been, can forgive.”
His helplessness did not touch her. Her own wrongs and the wrongs of her child filled her 130 heart. She was determined that at this hour he should at least understand their full enormity, and she spoke with all the rapid bitterness of a slow, cold nature, wrought up to an unnatural passion. In justifying herself she forgot quite that she had been sent to succor him until help arrived. She was turning away when Jan, in a voice full of misery, uttered one word:
“Water!”
Something womanly in her responded to the pitiful, helpless cry. She went back, and kneeling by his side, put the bottle to his mouth. The touch of his head upon her arm stirred her strangely; ere she let it slip from her hold, he had fainted.
“Oh Jan! Jan! Jan! My husband! My husband! Oh Jan, dear, forgive me! Jan, I am here! It is thy Margaret! I still love thee! Yes, indeed, I love thee!—”
But it was too late. There was no response. She looked in horror and terror at the white face at her feet. Then she fled back to the house for help. Whether her father liked it or not, Jan must now be brought there. In that last moment she had forgiven him every thing. 131 All the love of her betrothal had come like a great wave over her heart. “Poor Jan! Poor Jan!” she sobbed, as she fled like a deer across the moor.
Peter had been roused and had reluctantly dressed himself. In such an hour of extremity he would have to give the wounded man shelter if he were brought there. But he tarried as long as possible, hoping that Snorro would remove Jan and take him into the town. To be roused from sleep to confront such a problem of duty was a very unpleasant affair, and Peter was sulkily tying his shoe-strings when Margaret, breathless and sobbing, returned for him.
Her impetuosity and her emotion quite mastered him. She compelled him to go with her to Jan. But when they reached the Troll Rock Jan had disappeared. There was nothing there but the blue sailor’s cap which he had worn. No human being was in sight. Any party of relief brought by Snorro could be seen for a mile. Margaret picked up the cap, and gazed at it in a maze of anguish. Only one thing could have happened. During her absence consciousness had returned to Jan, 132 and he, poor soul, remembering her cruel words, and seeing that she had left him there alone to die, had purposely edged himself over the cliff. The sea was twenty feet deep below it. She put her hands before her eyes, and shrieked until the welkin rang with her shrill, piercing cries. Peter could do nothing with her, she would not listen to him, and finally she became so frantically hysterical that he was alarmed for her life and reason, and had little opportunity that night to make any inquiries about his troublesome son-in-law.
Now, when God will help a man, he hath his own messenger. That night, Doctor Balloch sat in the open door of his house. This door was at the end of a little jetty to which his skiff was tied; and the whole expanse of the beautiful bay was before him. It was covered with boats, idly drifting about under the exquisite sky. Light ripples of laughter, and sweet echoes of song upon the waters, drifted toward him. He had read his evening portion, and he sat watching the flickering lights of the changing aurora. The portion had been the Nineteenth Psalm, and he was wishing that the Sweet Singer of Israel, who thought the Judean 133 heavens “declared the glory of God,” could have seen the Shetland skies.
Suddenly, and peremptorily, a voice encompassed him—a soft, penetrating voice, that came like the wind, he knew not how or whence, “Take thy boat and go to the Troll Rock.” He rose at once and went to the end of the jetty. The sea, darkly blue, was smooth as glass, the air clear, the majestic headlands imparting to the scene a solemn cathedral grandeur. He strove to shake off the strange impression, but it grew stronger and more imperative, and he said softly, as if answering some one, “I will go.”
He returned to the house and called his servant Hamish. Hamish and he lived alone, and had done so for more than thirty years, and they thoroughly trusted each other.
“Untie the boat, Hamish. We are going for a row. We will go as far as Troll Rock.”
This rock projected over the sea, which flowed into a large cave under it; a cave which had long been a favorite hiding place for smuggled cargoes. But when the minister reached it, all was silence. Hamish looked at his master curiously. What could he mean by resting 134 on his oars and watching so desolate and dangerous a place? Very soon both were aware of a human voice; the confused, passionate echoes of Margaret’s above them; and these had not long ceased when Jan Vedder fell from the rock into the water.
“This man is to be saved, Hamish; it is what we have come for.” Hamish quietly slipped into the water, and when Jan, speechless and insensible, rose to the surface, he caught him with one arm and swam with him to the boat. In another moment he was in the bottom of it, and when he came to himself, his wound had been dressed, and he was in the minister’s own bed.
“Now, thou wilt do well enough, Jan, only thou must keep quiet body and mind.”
“Tell no one I am here. Thou wilt do that for me? Yes, thou wilt. Let them think I am at the bottom of the Troll Rock—for God’s sake.”
“I will tell no one, Jan. Thou art safe here; be at perfect rest about that matter.”
Of course the minister thought Jan had committed some crime. It was natural for every one to suspect Jan of doing wrong. But the 135 fact that he had been sent so obviously to save him was, in the doctor’s mind, an evidence of the divine interest in the youth which he was glad to share. He had been appointed his preserver, and already he loved him. He fully trusted Hamish, but he thought it well to say to him:
“We will speak to no one of our row to the Troll Rock, Hamish.”
“Does Hamish ever talk, master?”
“No, thou art a wise man; but here there is more to guide than I yet understand.”
“Look nor word of mine shall hinder it.”
For four days the doctor stayed near Jan, and never left his house. “I will be quiet and let the news find me,” he thought. It came into the manse kitchen in various forms. Hamish received every version of the story with that grave shake of the head which fits so admirably every requirement of sympathy. “It was all a great pity,” was his most lengthy comment; but then Hamish never exceeded half a dozen words on any subject.
On the fourth evening, which was Saturday, Peter Fae sent this message to the minister: “Wilt thou come down to my store for the 136 good of a wretched soul?” It was then getting late, and Peter stood in his shop-door alone. He pointed to Michael Snorro, who sat in a corner on some seal-skins in a stupor of grief.
“He hath neither eaten nor slept since. It is pitiful. Thou knowest he never had too much sense—”
“I know very clever men who are fools, besides Michael Snorro. Go thy ways home. I will do what I can for him—only, it had been kinder, had thou sent for me ere this.”
He went to Snorro and sat down beside him. “Thou wilt let me speak to thee, Snorro. I come in God’s name. Is it Jan?”
“Yes, it is Jan. My Jan, my Jan, my friend! the only one that ever loved me. Jan! Jan! Jan!” He said the last words in an intense whisper. It seemed as if his heart would break with each.
“Is Jan’s loss all thy grief, Snorro?”
“Nay, there is more. Has thou found it out?”
“I think so. Speak to me.”
“I dare not speak it.”
“It is as sinful to think it. I am thy true 137 friend. I come to comfort thee. Speak to me, Snorro.”
Then he lifted his face. It was overspread by an expression of the greatest awe and sorrow:
“It is also my Lord Christ. He hath deceived me. He said to me, whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do. I asked him always, every hour to take care of Jan. If I was packing the eggs, or loading the boats, or eating my dinner, my heart was always praying. When Jan was at sea, I asked, ‘take care of him,’ when he was at Torr’s, I prayed then the more, ‘dear Lord Christ, take care of him.’ I was praying for him that night, at the very hour he perished. I can pray no more now. What shall I do?”
“Art thou sure thou prayed for the right thing?”
“He said, ‘whatsoever.’ Well, then, I took him at his word. Oh yes, I believed every word he said. At the last, I thought, he will surely save Jan. I will pray till his time comes. He will not deceive a poor soul like me, for he knows right well that Snorro loves him.”
“And so thou thinkest that Christ Jesus who died for thee hath deceived thee?”