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Jan Vedder's Wife

by Amelia E. Barr · English · Gutenberg #32144 · 367,295 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Jan Vedder's Wife

Author: Amelia E. Barr


        
Release date: April 26, 2010 [eBook #32144]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32144

Credits: E-text prepared by Katherine Ward and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana)


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generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries
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JAN VEDDER'S WIFE

by

AMELIA E. BARR







New York: Dodd, Mead & Company Publishers.

Copyright, 1885 by Dodd, Mead & Company




CONTENTS.


  Chapter I.--Jan's Wedding.                                         1
  Chapter II.--A Little Cloud in the Sky.                           17
  Chapter III.--Jan's Opportunity.                                  36
  Chapter IV.--The Desolated Home.                                  54
  Chapter V.--Shipwreck.                                            74
  Chapter VI.--Margaret's Heart.                                    94
  Chapter VII.--The Man at Death's Door.                           116
  Chapter VIII.--Death and Change.                                 140
  Chapter IX.--Jan at His Post.                                    167
  Chapter X.--Sweet Home.                                          193
  Chapter XI.--Snorro Is Wanted.                                   228
  Chapter XII.--Snorro and Jan.                                    252
  Chapter XIII.--Little Jan's Triumph.                             275
  Chapter XIV.--Jan's Return.                                      297
  Chapter XV.--Labor and Rest.                                     317




CHAPTER I.

JAN'S WEDDING.

  "Eastward, afar, the coasts of men were seen
  Dim, shadowy, and spectral; like a still
  Broad land of spirits lay the vacant sea
  Beneath the silent heavens--here and there,
  Perchance, a vessel skimmed the watery waste,
  Like a white-winged sea-bird, but it moved
  Too pale and small beneath the vail of space.
  There, too, went forth the sun
  Like a white angel, going down to visit
  The silent, ice-washed cloisters of the Pole."

    --RICHTER'S "TITAN."


More than fifty years ago this thing happened: Jan Vedder was
betrothed to Margaret Fae. It was at the beginning of the Shetland
summer, that short interval of inexpressible beauty, when the amber
sunshine lingers low in the violet skies from week to week; and the
throstle and the lark sing at midnight, and the whole land has an air
of enchantment, mystic, wonderful, and far off.

In the town of Lerwick all was still, though it was but nine o'clock;
for the men were at the ling-fishing, and the narrow flagged street
and small quays were quite deserted. Only at the public fountain there
was a little crowd of women and girls, and they sat around its broad
margin, with their water pitchers and their knitting, laughing and
chatting in the dreamlike light.

"Well, and so Margaret Fae marries at last; she, too, marries, like
the rest of the world."

"Yes, and why not?"

"As every one knows, it is easier to begin that coil than to end it;
and no one has ever thought that Margaret would marry Jan--he that is
so often at the dance, and so seldom at the kirk."

"Yes, and it is said that he is not much of a man. Magnus Yool can wag
him here; and Nicol Sinclair send him there, and if Suneva Torr but
cast her nixie-eyes on him, he leaves all to walk by her side. It is
little mind of his own he hath; besides that, he is hard to deal with,
and obstinate."

"That is what we all think, Gisla; thou alone hast uttered it. But we
will say no more of Jan, for oft ill comes of women's talk."

The speakers were middle-aged women who had husbands and sons in the
fishing fleet, and they cast an anxious glance toward it, as they
lifted their water pitchers to their heads, and walked slowly home
together, knitting as they went. Lerwick had then only one street of
importance, but it was of considerable length, extending in the form
of an amphitheater along the shore, and having numberless little lanes
or closes, intersected by stairs, running backward to an eminence
above the town. The houses were generally large and comfortable, but
they were built without the least regard to order. Some faced the sea,
and some the land, and the gable ends projected on every side, and at
every conceivable angle. Many of their foundations were drilled out of
the rock upon the shore, and the smooth waters of the bay were six
feet deep at the open doors or windows.

The utmost quiet reigned there. Shetland possessed no carts or
carriages, and only the clattering of a shelty's gallop, or the song
of a drunken sailor disturbed the echoes. The whole place had a
singular, old-world look, and the names over the doors carried one
back to Norseland and the Vikings. For in these houses their children
dwelt, still as amphibious as their forefathers, spending most of
their lives upon the sea, rarely sleeping under a roof, or warming
themselves at a cottage fire; a rugged, pious, silent race, yet
subject, as all Norsemen are, to fits of passionate and uncontrollable
emotion.

Prominently among the Thorkels and Halcros, the Yools and Traills,
stood out the name of Peter Fae. Peter had the largest store in
Lerwick, he had the largest fish-curing shed, he was the largest boat
owner. His house of white stone outside the town was two stories high,
and handsomely furnished; and it was said that he would be able to
leave his daughter Margaret £10,000; a very large fortune for a
Shetland girl. Peter was a Norseman of pronounced type, and had the
massive face and loose-limbed strength of his race, its faculty for
money-getting, and its deep religious sentiment. Perhaps it would be
truer to say, its deep Protestant sentiment, for Norsemen have always
been Protestants; they hated the Romish church as soon as they heard
of it.

If the Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-American wishes to see whence came the
distinguishing traits of his race, let him spend a few weeks among the
Shetland Norsemen, for they have pre-eminently those qualities we are
accustomed to pride ourselves upon possessing--the open air freshness
of look, the flesh and blood warmth of grip, the love of the sea, the
resolute earnestness of being and doing, the large, clear sincerity of
men accustomed to look stern realities in the face.

Peter's wife, Thora, was also of pure Norse lineage, and in many an
unrecognized way her ancestors influenced her daily life. She had
borne four sons, but, in the expressive form of Shetland speech, "the
sea had got them;" and her daughter Margaret was the sole inheritor of
their gathered gold. Thora was a proud, silent woman, whose strongest
affections were with her children in their lonely sea graves. In her
heart, deeper down than her faith could reach, lay a conviction that
the Faes and Thorkels who had sailed those seas for centuries had
"called" her boys to them. And she was always nursing an accusation
against herself for a rite which she had observed for their welfare,
but which she was now sure had been punished by their death. For
often, when they had been tossing on the black North Sea, she had gone
to the top of the hill, and looking seaward she had raised from the
past the brown-sailed ships, and the big yellow-haired men tugging at
their oars; and in her heart there had been a supplication to their
memory, which Peter, had he known it, would have denounced, with the
sternest wrath, as neither more nor less than a service to Satan.

But what do we know of the heart nearest to our own? What do we know
of our own heart? Some ancestor who sailed with Offa, or who fought
with the Ironsides, or protested with the Covenanters, or legislated
with the Puritans, may, at this very hour, be influencing us, in a way
of which we never speak, and in which no other soul intermeddles.

Thora had one comfort. Her daughter was of a spirit akin to her own.
Peter had sent her to Edinburgh, hoping that she would bring back to
his northern home some of those lowland refinements of which he had a
shadowy and perhaps exaggerated idea. But Margaret Fae's character
was not of that semi-fluid nature which can easily be run into new
molds. She had looked with distrust and dislike upon a life which
seemed to her artificial and extravagant, and had come back to
Shetland with every Norse element in her character strengthened and
confirmed.

What then made her betroth herself to Jan Vedder? A weak, wasteful
man, who had little but his good-natured, pleasant ways and his great
beauty to recommend him. And yet the wise and careful Margaret Fae
loved him; loved him spontaneously, as the brook loves to run, and the
bird loves to sing.

"But bear in mind, husband," said Thora, on the night of the
betrothal, "that this thing is of thy own doing. Thou hired Jan
Vedder, when thou couldst well have hired a better man. Thou brought
him to thy house. Well, then, was there any wonder that ill-luck
should follow the foolish deed?"

"Wife, the lad is a pleasant lad. If he had money to even Margaret's
tocher, and if he were more punctual at the ordinances, there would be
no fault to him."

"So I think, too. But when a man has not religion, and has beside
empty pockets, then he is poor for both worlds. It seems, then, that
our Margaret must marry with a poor man. And let me tell thee, it was
a little thing moved thee, for because Jan had a handsome face, and a
bright smile, thou liked him."

"Many a sore heart folks get who set liking before judgment. But if
there is good in the lad, then to get married will bring it out."

"That is as it may be. Often I have seen it bring out ill. Can any one
tell if a man be good or ill, unless they dwell under the same roof
with him? Abroad, who is so pleasant as Ragon Torr? But at home, every
body there has to look to his wishes."

At this point in the conversation, Margaret entered. She was a tall,
straight girl, with a finely-featured, tranquil face, admirably framed
in heavy coils of hair that were yellow as dawn. Her complexion was
exquisite, and her eyes blue, and cool, and calm. She was still and
passionless in manner, but far from being cold at heart; nevertheless,
her soul, with the purity of crystal, had something also of its sharp
angles; something which might perhaps become hard and cutting. She
carried herself loftily, and walked with an air of decision. Peter
looked at her steadily and said:

"Now, thou hast done ill, Margaret. When a young girl marries, she
must face life for herself; and many are the shoulders that ask for
burdens they can not bear."

"Yes, indeed! And it is all little to my mind," added the mother. "I
had spoken to thee for thy cousin Magnus Hay; and then here comes this
Jan Vedder!"

"Yes, he comes!" and Margaret stood listening, the pink color on her
cheeks spreading to the tips of her ears, and down her white throat.
"Yes, he comes!" and with the words, Jan stood in the open door. A
bright, handsome fellow he was! There was no one in all the Islands
that was half so beautiful.

"Peter," he cried joyfully, "here has happened great news! The
'Sure-Giver' is in the harbor with all her cargo safe. She came in
with the tide. All her planks and nails are lucky."

"That is great news, surely, Jan. But it is ill luck to talk of good
luck. Supper is ready sit down with us."

But Thora spoke no word, and Jan looked at Margaret with the question
in his eyes.

"It means this, and no more, Jan. I have told my father and mother
that thou would make me thy wife."

"That is what I desire, most of all things."

"Then there is little need of long talk. I betroth myself to thee here
for life or death, Jan Vedder; and my father and my mother they are
the witnesses;" and as she spoke, she went to Jan, and put her hands
in his, and Jan drew her proudly to his breast and kissed her.

Thora left the room without a glance at the lovers. Peter stood up,
and said angrily: "Enough, and more than enough has been said this
night. No, Jan; I will not put my palm against thine till we have
spoken together. There is more to a marriage than a girl's 'Yes', and
a wedding ring."

That was the manner of Jan's betrothal; and as he walked rapidly back
into the town, there came a feeling into his heart of not being quite
pleased with it. In spite of Margaret's affection and straightforward
decision, he felt humiliated.

"It is what a man gets who wooes a rich wife," he muttered; "but I
will go and tell Michael Snorro about it." And he smiled at the
prospect, and hurried onward to Peter's store.

For Michael Snorro lived there. The opening to the street was closed;
but the one facing the sea was wide open; and just within it, among
the bags of feathers and swans' down, the piles of seal skins, the
barrels of whale oil, and of sea-birds' eggs, and the casks of smoked
geese, Michael was sitting. The sea washed the warehouse walls, and
gurgled under the little pier, that extended from the door, but it was
the only sound there was. Michael, with his head in his hands, sat
gazing into the offing where many ships lay at anchor. At the sound of
Jan's voice his soul sprang into his face for a moment, and he rose,
trembling with pleasure, to meet him.

In all his desolate life, no one had loved Michael Snorro. A suspicion
that "he was not all there," and therefore "one of God's bairns," had
insured him, during his long orphanage, the food, and clothes, and
shelter, necessary for life; but no one had given him love. And
Michael humbly acknowledged that he could not expect it, for nature
had been cruelly unkind to him. He was, indeed, of almost gigantic
size, but awkward and ill-proportioned. His face, large and flat, had
the whiteness of clay, except at those rare intervals when his soul
shone through it; and no mortal, but Jan Vedder, had ever seen that
illumination.

It would be as hard to tell why Michael loved Jan as to say why
Jonathan's soul clave to David as soon as he saw him. Perhaps it was
an unreasonable affection, but it was one passing the love of woman,
and, after all, can we guess how the two men may have been spiritually
related? There was some tie of which flesh and blood knew not between
them.

"Michael, I am going to be married."

"Well, Jan--and what then?"

"It will be with me as others; I shall have children, and grow rich,
and old, and die."

"Who is it, Jan?"

"Margaret Fae."

"I thought that. Well, thou art sunshine, Jan, and she is like a pool
of clear water. If the sun shines not, then the water will freeze, and
grow cold and hard."

"Thou dost not like women, Michael."

"Nay, but I trust them not. Where the devil can not go, he sends a
woman. Well, then, he will find no such messenger for me. He must come
himself. That is well; the fight will be easier."

"When I am married I shall sail my own boat, and thou shalt be always
with me, Michael. We will feel the fresh wind blowing in the canvas,
and the salt spindrift in our faces, and the boat going as if she were
a solan flying for the rock."

"Is that thy thought, then? Let me tell thee that thou art counting
thy fish while they are swimming. Until Peter Fae's hands are full of
earth, he will not part with one gold piece. Make up thy mind to
that."

"Margaret will have her tocher."

"That will be seen; but if thou wants money, Jan, there it is in my
chest, and what greater joy can I have than to see it in thy hand--all
of it? It would be thy grace to me."

Then Jan rose up and laid his arm across Michael's shoulder; and
Michael's lifted face caught the glow of Jan's bending one and the
men's souls spoke to each other, though their lips never parted.

The next day proved Michael right. Peter did not name Margaret's
tocher. He said he would give Margaret a house with all needful
plenishing; and he promised also to pay all the wedding expenses. But
there was no word of any sum of ready money; and Jan was too proud in
his poverty to ask for his right. He did, indeed, suggest that when he
was a house-holder he should have more wages. But Peter would not see
the justice of any such addition. "I give thee all thou art worth, and
I will not give thee a Scotch merk more," he answered roughly. "When
it comes to a question of wage, Jan, the son and the stranger are the
same to me." And when Jan told his friend what had been promised,
Michael said only: "Well, then, thou wilt have the woman also."

The twelfth of August is "the fisherman's foy" in Shetland, and the
great feast of the Islands. It was agreed, therefore, that the
marriage should take place at that time. For there would be at least
two hundred fishing vessels in Brassy Sound at that time, and with
most of the fishermen Peter either had had business, or might have in
the future.

"For three days we will keep the feast for all who choose to come," he
said; and so, when the procession formed for the church, nearly six
hundred men and women were waiting to follow Jan and his bride. Then
Jan led her to the front of it, and there was a murmur of wonder and
delight. Her dress was of the richest white satin, and her heavy
golden ornaments--the heirlooms of centuries--gave a kind of barbaric
splendor to it. The bright sunlight fell all over her, and added to
the effect; and Jan, with a bridegroom's pardonable pride, thought she
looked more than mortal.

Going to the church, the procession preserved the gravity of a
religious rite; but on the return, some one touched lightly the
strings of a violin, and, in a moment, hundreds of voices were
chanting:

"It is often that I have said it: In the night thou art my dream, and
my waking thought in the morning.

"I loved thee always; not for three months, not for a year, but I
loved thee from the first, and my love shall not wither, until death
part us.

"Oh, my beloved! My wife! Dearer to me than the light of the day!
Closer to me than my hands and feet! Nothing but death shall part thee
and me, forever!"

The singing opened their hearts; then came the feast and the dance,
that endless active dance which is the kind of riot in which grave
races give vent to the suppressed excitement of their lives. It did
not please Margaret; she was soon weary of the noise and commotion,
and heartily glad when, on the eve of the third day, she was called
upon to give the parting toast:

"Here's to the men who cast the net, and the long line," she cried,
lifting the silver cup above her head. "And may He hold His hand about
them all, and open the mouth of the gray fish!"

"And here's to the bride," answered the oldest fisher present, "and
may God give her a blessing in both hands!"

Then they separated, and some went to their homes in Lerwick and
Scalloway, and others sailed to Ireland and Scotland, and even
Holland; but Peter knew that however much the feast had cost him, it
was money put out at good interest, and that he would be very likely
to find it again at the next fishing season.




CHAPTER II.

A LITTLE CLOUD IN THE SKY.

  "All the flowers of Love and Happiness blow double."


As it happened that year the peerie, or Indian summer, was of unusual
length and beauty. The fine weather lingered until the end of October.
These weeks were full of joy to Margaret and to Jan, and in them Jan
showed himself in many a charming light. He played well upon the
violin, and as long as love was his theme Margaret understood him. He
recited to her stirring stories from the Sagas, and she thought only
how handsome he looked with his flashing eyes, and flushing face. She
never reflected, that the soul which could put life into these old
tales was very likely to be a soul akin to the restless adventurous
men of which they told. Her home and her love were sufficient for her
happiness, and she expected that Jan would measure his desires by the
same rule.

But in a few weeks Jan began to weary a little of a life all
love-making. Many things, laid aside for a time, renewed their
influence over him. He wished to let the romance and exaggeration of
his married position sink into that better tenderness which is the
repose of passion, and which springs from the depths of a man's best
nature. But Margaret was not capable of renunciation, and Jan got to
be continually afraid of wounding her sensibilities by forgetting some
outward token of affection. He tried to talk to her of his projects,
of his desire to go to sea again, of his weariness of the store. She
could understand none of these things. Why should he want to leave
her? Had he ceased to love her? Her father was happy in the store. It
offended her to hear a word against it. Yet she thought she loved Jan
perfectly, and would have deeply resented Michael Snorro's private
verdict against her--that she was a selfish woman.

One morning, as the first snow was beginning to fall, a big Dutch
skipper in his loose tunic and high cap, and wooden clogs, came
stalking into Peter's store, and said, "Well, here at last comes 'The
North Star.' Many of us thought she would come no more."

Jan was packing eggs, but he signed to Michael to take his place, and
in a few minutes he was among the crowd watching her arrival. She came
hurrying in, with all her sails set, as if she were fleeing from the
northern winter behind her. Her stout sides were torn by berg and
floe, her decks covered with seal skins and jawbones of whales, and
amidships there was a young polar bear growling in a huge cask. Her
crew, weather-beaten and covered with snow and frost, had the strange
look of men from lands unknown and far off. Jan had once sailed in
her, and her first mate was his friend. It was like meeting one from
the dead. Proudly and gladly he took him to his home. He wanted him to
see his beautiful wife. He was sure Margaret would be delighted to
welcome a man so brave, and so dear to him.

On the contrary, it was a deep offense to her. Christian Groat, in his
sheepskin suit, oily and storm-stained, unkempt and unshorn, seemed
strangely out of place in her spotless room. That he had fought with
the elements, and with the monsters of the deep, made him no hero in
her eyes. She was not thrilled by his adventures upon drifting floes,
and among ice mountains reeling together in perilous madness. The
story made Jan's blood boil, and brought the glistening tears into his
big blue eyes; but Margaret's pulses beat no whit quicker. Christian
Groat was only a vulgar whaler to her, and that Jan should bring him
to her hearth and table made her angry.

Jan was hurt and humiliated. The visit from which he had hoped so
much, was a pain and a failure. He walked back into the town with his
friend, and was scarcely able to speak. Margaret also was silent and
grieved. She thought Jan had wronged her. She had to make a clean
cushion for the chair in which the man had sat. She persisted for days
in smelling whale oil above the reek of the peat, above even the salt
keenness of the winter air. Her father had never done such a thing;
she could not understand Jan's thoughtlessness about her.

For two days she was silent, and Jan bore it very well, for he, too,
was hurt and angry. On the third he spoke to his wife, and little by
little the coolness wore away. But an active quarrel and some hard
words had perhaps been better, for then there might have followed some
gracious tears, and a loving reconciliation. As it was, the evenings
wore silently and gloomily away. Margaret sat, mechanically knitting,
her beautiful face wearing an expression of injury and resignation
that was intolerably annoying to a man of Jan's temper. But though she
said nothing to her husband during these unhappy hours, the devil
talked very plainly in her place.

"Why," he asked Jan, "do you stay beside a sulky woman, when there are
all your old companions at Ragon Torr's? There, also, is the song and
the tale, and the glass of good fellowship. And who would be so
heartily welcome as Jan Vedder?"

Jan knew all this well. But as he did not care to make his wife
unhappy, he determined to deceive her. It was snowing, and likely to
snow; Margaret would not come down to the store in such weather. So he
said to her, "Michael Snorro hath a fever. He can not work. That is a
bad business, for it is only I that can fill his place. The work will
keep me late, wait not for me." To himself he said: "To leave her
alone a few nights, that will be a good thing; when I stay next at my
own hearth, she may have something to say to me."

Margaret's nature was absolutely truthful. She never doubted Jan's
words. In that love of self which was a miserable omnipresence with
her, she was angry with Snorro for being sick and thus interfering in
her domestic life, but she fully believed her husband's statement.

Jan spent two evenings at Ragon Torr's, but on the third morning his
conscience smote him a little. He looked at Margaret, and wished she
would ask, "Wilt thou come home early to-night?" He would gladly have
answered her, "I will come at whatever hour thou desirest." But,
unfortunately, Margaret was at that moment counting her eggs, and
there were at least two missing. She was a woman who delighted in
small economies; she felt that she was either being wronged by her
servant, or that her fowls were laying in strange nests. At that
moment it was a subject of great importance to her; and she never
noticed the eager, longing look in Jan's eyes.

When he said at last. "Good-by to thee, Margaret;" she looked up from
her basket of eggs half reproachfully at him. She felt that Jan might
have taken more interest in her loss. She had not yet divined that
these small savings of hers were a source of anger and heart-burning
to him. He knew well that the price of her endless knitting, her
gathered eggs, wool, and swans' down, all went to her private account
in Lerwick Bank. For she had been saving money since she was a child
six years old, and neither father, mother, nor husband knew how much
she had saved. That was a thing Margaret kept absolutely to herself
and the little brown book which was in her locked drawer. There had
been times when Jan could have opened it had he desired; but he had
been too hurt and too proud to do so. If his wife could not
voluntarily trust him, he would not solicit her confidence. And it had
never struck Margaret that the little book was a hidden rock, on which
every thing might yet be wrecked. It was there, though the tide of
daily life flowed over it, and though it was never spoken of.

All that day Jan was sulky and obstinate, and Peter came near
quarreling with him more than once. But Peter thought he knew what
was the matter, and he smiled grimly to himself as he remembered
Margaret's power of resistance. Perhaps a fellow-feeling made him
unusually patient, for he remembered that Thora had not been brought
to a state of perfect obedience until she had given him many a day of
active discomfort. He watched Jan curiously and not without sympathy,
for the training of wives is a subject of interest even to those who
feel themselves to have been quite successful.

During the first hours of the day Jan was uncertain what to do. A
trifle would have turned him either way, and in the afternoon the
trifle came. A boat arrived from Kirkwall, and two of her crew were
far-off cousins. The men were in almost as bad condition as Christian
Groat. He would not risk soiling Margaret's chair-cushions again, so
he invited them to meet him at Ragon Torr's. As it happened Margaret
had an unhappy day; many little things went wrong with her. She longed
for sympathy, and began to wish that Jan would come home; indeed she
was half inclined to go to the store, and ask him if he could not.

She opened the door and looked out. It was still snowing a little, as
it had been for a month. But snow does not lie in Shetland, and the
winters, though dreary and moist, are not too cold for the daisy to
bloom every where at Christmas, and for the rye grass to have eight or
ten inches of green blade. There was a young moon, too, and the
Aurora, in a phalanx of rosy spears, was charging upward to the
zenith. It was not at all an unpleasant night, and, with her cloak and
hood of blue flannel, a walk to the store would be easy and
invigorating.

As she stood undecided and unhappy, she saw a man approaching the
house. She could not fail to recognize the large, shambling figure. It
was Michael Snorro. A blow from his mighty hand could hardly have
stunned her more. She shut the door, and sat down sick at heart. For
it was evident that Snorro was not ill, and that Jan had deceived her.
Snorro, too, seemed to hesitate and waver in his intentions. He walked
past the house several times, and then he went to the kitchen door.

In a few minutes Elga Skade, Margaret's servant, said to her, "Here
has come Michael Snorro, and he would speak with thy husband."
Margaret rose, and went to him. He stood before the glowing peats, on
the kitchen hearth, seeming, in the dim light, to tower to the very
roof. Margaret looked up with a feeling akin to terror at the large
white face in the gloom above her, and asked faintly, "What is't thou
wants, Snorro?"

"I would speak with Jan."

"He is not come yet to his home. At what hour did he leave the
store?"

At once Snorro's suspicions were aroused. He stood silent a minute,
then he said, "He may have gone round by thy father's. I will wait."

The man frightened her. She divined that he distrusted and disapproved
of her; and she could ask nothing more. She left him with Elga, but in
half an hour she became too restless to bear the suspense, and
returned to the kitchen. Snorro gave her no opportunity to question
him. He said at once, "It is few houses in Shetland a man can enter,
and no one say to him, 'Wilt thou eat or drink?'"

"I forgot, Snorro. I am troubled about Jan. What wilt thou have?"

"What thou hast ready, and Elga will get it for me."

A few minutes later he sat down to eat with a calm deliberation which
Margaret could not endure. She put on her cloak and hood, and calling
Elga, said, "If he asks for me, say that I spoke of my father's
house."

Then she slipped out of the front door, and went with fleet steps into
the town. The street, which was so narrow that it was possible to
shake hands across it, was dark and empty. The shops were all shut,
and the living rooms looked mostly into the closes, or out to the sea.
Only here and there a lighted square of glass made her shrink into the
shadow of the gables. But she made her way without hindrance to a
house near the main quay. It was well lighted, and there was the sound
and stir of music and singing, of noisy conversation and laughter
within it.

Indeed, it was Ragon Torr's inn. The front windows were uncurtained,
and she saw, as she hurriedly passed them, that the main room was full
of company; but she did not pause until within the close at the side
of the house, when, standing in the shadow of the outbuilt chimney,
she peered cautiously through the few small squares on that side. It
was as she suspected. Jan sat in the very center of the company, his
handsome face all aglow with smiles, his hands busily tuning the
violin he held. Torr and half a dozen sailors bent toward him with
admiring looks, and Ragon's wife Barbara, going to and fro in her
household duties, stopped to say something to him, at which every body
laughed, but Jan's face darkened.

Margaret did not hear her name, but she felt sure the remark had been
about herself, and her heart burned with anger. She was turning away,
when there was a cry of pleasure, and Suneva Torr entered. Margaret
had always disliked Suneva; she felt now that she hated and feared
her. Her luring eyes were dancing with pleasure, her yellow hair fell
in long, loose waves around her, and she went to Jan's side, put her
hand on his shoulder, and said something to him.

Jan looked back, and up to her, and nodded brightly to her request.
Then out sprang the tingling notes from the strings, and clear, and
shrill, and musical, Suneva's voice picked them up with a charming
distinctness:

  "Well, then, since we are welcome to Yool,
    Up with it, Lightfoot, link it awa', boys;
  Send for a fiddler, play up the Foula reel,
    And we'll skip it as light as a maw, boys."

Then she glanced at the men, and her father and mother, and far in the
still night rang out the stirring chorus:

  "The Shaalds of Foula will pay for it a'!
  Up with it, Lightfoot, and link it awa'."

Then the merry riot ceased, and Suneva's voice again took up the
song--

  "Now for a light and a pot of good beer,
    Up with it, Lightfoot, and link it awa', boys!
  We'll drink a good fishing against the New Year,
    And the Shaalds of Foula will pay for it a', boys.

  CHORUS:

  "The Shaalds of Foula will pay for it a';
  Up with it, Lightfoot, and link it awa'."

Margaret could bear it no longer, and, white and stern, she turned
away from the window. Then she saw Michael Snorro standing beside her.
Even in the darkness she knew that his eyes were scintillating with
anger. He took her by the arm and led her to the end of the close.
Then he said:

"Much of a woman art thou! If I was Jan Vedder, never again would I
see thy face! No, never!"

"Jan lied to me! To me, his wife! Did thou think he was at my
father's? He is in Ragon Torr's."

"Thou lied to me also; and if Jan is in Ragon Torr's, let me tell
thee, that thou sent him there."

"I lied not to thee. I lie to no one."

"Yea, but thou told Elga to lie for thee. A jealous wife knows not
what she does. Did thou go to thy father's house?"

"Speak thou no more to me, Michael Snorro." Then she sped up the
street, holding her breast tightly with both hands, as if to hold back
the sobs that were choking her, until she reached her own room, and
locked fast her door. She sobbed for hours with all the passionate
abandon which is the readiest relief of great sorrows that come in
youth. In age we know better; we bow the head and submit.

When she had quite exhausted herself, she began to long for some
comforter, some one to whom she could tell her trouble. But Margaret
had few acquaintances; none, among the few, of whom she could make a
confidant. From her father and mother, above all others, she would
keep this humiliation. God she had never thought of as a friend. He
was her Creator, her Redeemer, also, if it were his good pleasure to
save her from eternal death. He was the Governor of the Universe; but
she knew him not as a Father pitying his children, as a God tender to
a broken heart. Was it possible that a woman's sharp cry of wounded
love could touch the Eternal? She never dreamed of such a thing. At
length, weary with weeping and with her own restlessness, she sat down
before the red peats upon the hearth, for once, in her sorrowful
preoccupation, forgetting her knitting.

In the meantime, Snorro had entered Torr's, and asked for Jan. He
would take no excuse, and no promises, and his white, stern face, and
silent way of sitting apart, with his head in his hands, was soon felt
to be a very uncomfortable influence. Jan rose moodily, and went away
with him; too cross, until they reached the store, to ask, "Why did
thou come and spoil my pleasure, Snorro?"

"Neil Bork sails for Vool at the midnight tide. Thou told me thou
must send a letter by him to thy cousin Magnus."

"That is so. Since Peter will do nothing, I must seek help of Magnus.
Well, then, I will write the letter."

When it was finished, Jan said, "Snorro, who told thee I was at
Torr's?"

"Thou wert not at home. I went there, first."

"Then thou hast made trouble for me, be sure of that. My wife thought
that thou wast ill."

"It is a bad wife a man must lie to. But, oh, Jan! Jan! To think that
for any woman thou would tell the lie!"

Then Jan, being in that garrulous mood which often precedes
intoxication, would have opened his whole heart to Michael about his
domestic troubles; but Michael would not listen to him. "Shut thy
mouth tight on that subject," he said angrily. "I will hear neither
good nor bad of Margaret Vedder. Now, then, I will walk home with
thee, and then I will see Neil Bork, and give him thy letter."

Margaret heard their steps at the gate. Her face grew white and cold
as ice, and her heart hardened at the sound of Snorro's voice. She
had always despised him; now, for his interference with her, she hated
him. She could not tolerate Jan's attachment to a creature so rude and
simple. It was almost an insult to herself; and yet so truthfully did
she judge his heart, that she was quite certain Michael Snorro would
never tell Jan that she had watched him through Ragon Torr's window.
She blushed a moment at the memory of so mean an action, but instantly
and angrily defended it to her own heart.

Jan came in, with the foolish, good-natured smile of alcoholic
excitement. But when he saw Margaret's white, hard face, he instantly
became sulky and silent. "Where hast thou been, Jan?" she asked. "It
is near the midnight."

"I have been about my own business. I had some words to send by Neil
Bork to my cousin Magnus. Neil sails by the midnight tide."

She laughed scornfully. "Thy cousin Magnus! Pray, what shall he do for
thee? This is some new cousin, surely!"

"Well, then, since thy father keeps thy tocher from me, I must borrow
of my own kin."

"As for that, my father hath been better to thee than thou deservest.
Why didst thou lie to me concerning Snorro? He has had no fever. No,
indeed!"

"A man must ask his wife whether he can speak truth to her, or not.
Thou can not bear it. Very well, then, I must lie to thee."

"Yet, be sure, I will tell the truth to thee, Jan Vedder. Thou hast
been at Ragon Torr's, singing with a light woman, and drinking
with--"

"With my own kin. I advise thee to say nothing against them. As for
Suneva, there is no tongue in Lerwick but thine will speak evil of
her--she is a good girl, and she hath a kind heart. And now, then, who
told thee I was at Torr's?"

He asked the question repeatedly, and instead of answering it,
Margaret began to justify herself. "Have I not been to thee a good
wife? Has not thy house been kept well, and thy meals ever good and
ready for thee? Has any thing, great or little, gone to waste?"

"Thou hast been too good. It had been better if thou had been less
perfect; then I could have spoken to thee of my great wish, and thou
would have said, as others say, 'Jan, it would be a joy to see thee at
the main-mast, or casting the ling-lines, or running into harbor
before the storm, with every sail set, as though thou had stolen ship
and lading.' Thou would not want me to chaffer with old women about
geese-feathers and bird-eggs. Speak no more. I am heavy with sleep."

And he could sleep! That was such an aggravation of his offense. She
turned sometimes and looked at his handsome flushed face, but
otherwise she sat hour after hour silent and almost motionless, her
hands clasped upon her knee, her heart anticipative of wrong, and with
a perverse industry considering sorrows that had not as yet even
called to her. Alas! alas! the unhappy can never persuade themselves
that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."




CHAPTER III.

JAN'S OPPORTUNITY.

  "Thou broad-billowed sea,
    Never sundered from thee,
  May I wander the welkin below;
    May the plash and the roar
    Of the waves on the shore
  Beat the march to my feet as I go;
    Ever strong, ever free,
    When the breath of the sea,
  Like the fan of an angel, I know;
    Ever rising with power,
    To the call of the hour,
  Like the swell of the tides as they flow."

    --BLACKIE.


The gravitation of character is naturally toward its weakest point.
Margaret's weakest point was an intense, though unconscious,
selfishness. Jan's restless craving for change and excitement made him
dissatisfied with the daily routine of life, lazy, and often
unreasonable. His very blessings became offenses to him. His clean,
well-ordered house, made him fly to the noisy freedom of Ragon Torr's
kitchen. Margaret's never-ceasing industry, her calmness, neatness and
deliberation, exasperated him as a red cloth does a bull.

Suneva Torr had married Paul Glumm, and Jan often watched her as he
sat drinking his ale in Torr's kitchen. At home, it is true, she
tormented Glumm with her contrary, provoking moods; but then, again,
she met him with smiles and endearments that atoned for every thing.
Jan thought it would be a great relief if Margaret were only angry
sometimes. For he wearied of her constant serenity, as people weary of
sunshine without cloud or shadow.

And Margaret suffered. No one could doubt that who watched her face
from day to day. She made no complaint, not even to her mother. Thora,
however, perceived it all. She had foreseen and foretold the trouble,
but she was too noble a woman to point out the fulfillment of her
prophecy. As she went about her daily work, she considered, and not
unkindly, the best means for bringing Jan back to his wife and home,
and his first pride in them.

She believed that the sea only could do it. After all, her heart was
with the men who loved it. She felt that Jan was as much out of place
counting eggs, as a red stag would be if harnessed to a plow. She, at
least, understood the rebellious, unhappy look on his handsome face.
When the ling fishing was near at hand, she said to Peter: "There is
one thing that is thy duty, and that is to give Jan the charge of a
boat. He is for the sea, and it is not well that so good a sailor
should go out of the family."

"I have no mind to do that. Jan will do well one day, and he will do
as ill as can be the next. I will not trust a boat with him."

"It seems to me that where thou could trust Margaret, thou might well
trust nineteen feet of keel, and fifty fathom of long lines."

Peter answered her not, and Thora kept silence also. But at the end,
when he had smoked his pipe, and was lifting the Bible for the evening
exercise, he said: "Thou shalt have thy way, wife; Jan shall have a
boat, but thou wilt see evil will come of it."

"Thou wert always good, Peter, and in this thing I am thinking of more
than fish. There is sorrow in Margaret's house. A mother can feel
that."

"Now, then, meddle thou not in the matter. Every man loves in his own
way. Whatever there is between Jan and Margaret is a thing by itself.
But I will speak about the boat in the morning."

Peter kept his word, and kept it without smallness or grudging. He
still liked Jan. If there were trouble between him and Margaret he
regarded it as the natural initiation to married life. Norse women
were all high-spirited and wished to rule; and he would have despised
Jan if he had suspected him of giving way to Margaret's stubborn
self-will. Though she was his own daughter, he did not wish to see her
setting an example of wifely supremacy.

So he called Jan pleasantly and said, "I have saved for thee 'The Fair
Margaret.' Wilt thou sail her this season, Jan? She is the best boat I
have, as thou well knows. Fourteen hundred hooks she is to carry, and
thou can hire six men to go with thee."

It made Peter's eyes feel misty to see the instantaneous change in
Jan's face. He could not speak his thanks, but he looked them; and
Peter felt troubled, and said, almost querulously, "There, that will
do, son Jan; go now, and hire the men thou wants."

"First of all, I should like Snorro."

Peter hesitated, but he would not tithe his kindness, and he frankly
answered, "Well, then, thou shalt have Snorro--though it will go hard
with me, wanting him."

"But we will make it go well with thee on the sea, father."

"As for that, it will be as God pleases. A man's duty is all my claim
on thee. Margaret will be glad to see thee so happy." He dropped his
eyes as he spoke of Margaret. He would not seem to watch Jan, although
he was conscious of doing so.

"A woman has many minds, father. Who knows if a thing will make her
happy or angry?"

"That is a foolish saying, Jan. A wife must find her pleasure in the
thing that pleases her husband. But now thou wilt have but little
time; the boat is to be tried, and the hooks and lines are to go
over, and the crew to hire. I have left all to thee."

This pleased Jan most of all. Only a bird building its first nest
could have been as happy as he was. When at night he opened the
door of his house, and went in with a gay smile, it was like a
resurrection. The pale rose-color on Margaret's cheek grew vivid and
deep when he took her in his arms, and kissed her in the old happy
way. She smiled involuntarily, and Jan thought, "How beautiful she
is!" He told her all Peter had said and done. He was full of gratitude
and enthusiasm. He did not notice for a few moments that Margaret was
silent, and chillingly unresponsive. He was amazed to find that
the whole affair displeased her.

"So, then, I have married a common fisherman after all," she said
bitterly; "why, Suneva Torr's husband has a bigger boat than thine."

It was an unfortunate remark, and touched Jan on a very raw place. He
could not refrain from answering, "He hath had better luck than I.
Ragon Torr gave Glumm Suneva's tocher, and he has bought his own boat
with it."

"Why not? Every one knows that Glumm is a prudent man. He never gets
on his feet for nothing."

Jan was inexpressibly pained and disappointed. For a moment a feeling
of utter despair came over him. The boat lay upon his heart like a
wreck. He drank his tea gloomily, and the delicately-browned fish, the
young mutton, and the hot wheat cakes, all tasted like ashes in his
mouth. Perhaps, then, Margaret's heart smote her, for she began to
talk, and to press upon Jan's acceptance the viands which had somehow
lost all their savor to him. Her conversation was in like case. She
would not speak of the boat, since they could not agree about it; and
no other subject interested Jan. But, like all perfectly selfish
people, she imagined, as a matter of course, that whatever interested
her was the supreme interest. In her calm, even voice, she spoke of
the spring house-cleaning, and the growth of her pansies and tulip
bulbs, and did not know that all the time Jan was thinking of his
boat, heaving on the tide-top, or coming into harbor so heavy with
fish that she would be--in Shetland phrase--_lippering_ with the
water.

But, after all, the week of preparation was a very happy week to Jan
and Snorro; and on the sixteenth of May they were the foremost of the
sixty boats that sailed out of Lerwick for the ling ground. There was
a great crowd on the pier to see them off--mothers, and wives, and
sweethearts; boys, sick and sad with longing and envy; and old men,
with the glamor of their own past in their faces. Among them was
Suneva, in a bright blue dress, with blue ribbons fluttering in her
yellow hair. She stood at the pier-head and as they passed poured a
cup of ale into the sea, to forespeak good luck for the fleet. Jan
would have dearly liked to see his wife's handsome face watching him,
as he stood by the main-mast and lifted his cap to Peter. Margaret was
not there.

She really felt very much humiliated in Jan's position. She had always
held herself a little apart from the Lerwick women. She had been to
Edinburgh, she had been educated far above them, and she was quite
aware that she would have a very large fortune. Her hope had been to
see Jan take his place among the merchants and bailies of Lerwick. She
had dreams of the fine mansion that they would build, and of the fine
furniture which would come from Edinburgh for it. Margaret was one of
those women to whom a house can become a kingdom, and its careful
ordering an affair of more importance than the administration of a
great nation. When she chose Jan, and raised him from his humble
position, she had no idea that he would drift back again to the
fishing nets.

For the first time she carried her complaint home. But Thora in this
matter had not much sympathy with her. "The sea is his mother," she
said; "he loved her before he loved thee; when she calls him, he will
always go back to her."

"No man in Shetland hath a better business to his hand; and how can he
like to live in a boat, he, that hath a home so quiet, and clean, and
comfortable?"

Thora sighed. "Thou wilt not understand then, that what the cradle
rocks the spade buries. The sea spoke to Jan before he lay on his
mother's breast. His father hath a grave in it. Neither gold nor the
love of woman will ever keep them far apart; make up thy mind to
that."

All this might be true, but yet it humiliated Margaret. Besides, she
imagined that every wife in Lerwick was saying, "Not much hold has
Margaret Vedder on her husband. He is off to sea again, and that with
the first boat that sails." Yet if success could have reconciled her,
Jan's was wonderful. Not unfrequently "The Fair Margaret" took twenty
score ling at a haul, and every one was talking of her good luck.

During these days Jan and Snorro drew very close to each other. When
the baits were set most of the men went to sleep for three hours; but
Snorro always watched, and very often Jan sat with him. And oh, the
grand solemnity and serenity of these summer nights, when through
belts of calm the boats drifted and the islands in a charmed circle
filled the pale purple horizon before them. Most fair then was the
treeless land, and very far off seemed the sin and sorrow of life. The
men lay upon the deck, with a pile of nets or their folded arms for a
pillow, and surely under such a sky, like Jacob of old, they dreamed
of angels.

Snorro and Jan, sitting in the soft, mystical light, talked together,
dropping their voices involuntarily, and speaking slowly, with
thoughtful pauses between the sentences. When they were not talking,
Snorro read, and the book was ever the same, the book of the Four
Gospels. Jan often watched him when he thought Jan asleep. In that
enchanted midnight glow, which was often a blending of four
lights--moonlight and twilight, the aurora and the dawning--the
gigantic figure and white face, bending over the little book, had a
weird and almost supernatural interest. Then this man, poor, ugly, and
despised, had an incomparable nobility, and he fascinated Jan.

One night he said to him, "Art thou never weary of reading that same
book, Snorro?"

"Am I then ever weary of thee, my Jan? And these are the words of One
who was the first who loved me. Accordingly, how well I know his
voice." Then, in a fervor of adoring affection, he talked to Jan of
his dear Lord Christ, "who had stretched out his arms upon the cross
that he might embrace the world." And as he talked the men, one by
one, raised themselves on their elbows and listened; and the theme
transfigured Snorro, and he stood erect with uplifted face, and
looked, in spite of his fisher's suit, so royal that Jan felt humbled
in his presence. And when he had told, in his own simple, grand way,
the story of him who had often toiled at midnight with the fishers on
the Galilean sea, as they toiled upon the Shetland waters, there was a
great silence, until Jan said, in a voice that seemed almost strange
to them: "Well, then, mates, now we will look to the lines."

All summer, and until the middle of October, Jan continued at sea; and
all summer, whether fishing for ling, cod, or herring, "The Fair
Margaret" had exceptionally good fortune. There were many other
fishers who woke, and watched, and toiled in their fishing, who did
not have half her "takes." "It is all Jan's luck," said Glumm, "for it
is well known that he flings his nets and goes to sleep while they
fill."

"Well, then, 'it is the net of the sleeping fisherman takes:' that is
the wise saying of old times"--and though Snorro did not think of it,
the Shetland proverb was but the Norse form of the Hebrew faith: "He
giveth his beloved in their sleep."

Still, in spite of his success, Jan was not happy. A married man's
happiness is in the hands of his wife, and Margaret felt too injured
to be generous. She was not happy, and she thought it only just that
Jan should be made to feel it. He had disappointed all her hopes and
aspirations; she was not magnanimous enough to rejoice in the success
of his labors and aims. Besides, his situation as the hired skipper of
a boat was contemptible in her eyes; her servant was engaged to a man
in the same position. Another aggravating circumstance was that her
old schoolmate, the minister's niece (a girl who had not a penny piece
to her fortune) was going to marry a rich merchant from Kirkwall. How
she would exult over "Margaret Vedder who had married a common
fisherman." The exultation was entirely imaginary, but perhaps it hurt
as much as if it had been actually made.

Success, too, had made Jan more independent: or perhaps he had grown
indifferent to Margaret's anger, since he found it impossible to
please her. At any rate, he asked his friends to his house without
fear or apology. They left their footmarks on her floors, and their
fingermarks upon her walls and cushions, and Jan only laughed and
said, "There was, as every one knew, plenty of water in Shetland to
make them clean again." Numberless other little things grieved and
offended her, so little that, taken separately, they might have raised
a smile, but in the aggregate they attained the magnitude of real
wrongs.

But, happy or miserable, time goes on, and about the middle of October
even the herring fishing is over. Peter was beginning to count up his
expenses and his gains. Jan and Snorro were saying to one another, "In
two days we must go back to the store." That is, they were trying to
say it, but the air was so full of shrieks that no human voice could
be heard. For all around the boat the sea was boiling with herring
fry, and over them hung tens of thousands of gulls and terns. Marmots
and guillemots were packed in great black masses on the white foam,
and only a mad human mob of screaming women and children could have
made a noise comparable. Even that would have wanted the piercing
metallic ring of the wild birds' shriek.

Suddenly Snorro leaped to his feet. "I see a storm, Jan. Lower and
lash down the mast. We shall have bare time."

Jan saw that the birds had risen and were making for the rocks. In a
few minutes down came the wind from the north-east, and a streak of
white rain flying across the black sea was on top of "The Fair
Margaret" before the mast was well secured. As for the nets, Snorro
was cutting them loose, and in a few moments the boat was tearing down
before the wind. It was a wild squall; some of the fishing fleet went
to the bottom with all their crews. "The Fair Margaret," at much risk
of loss, saved Glumm's crew, and then had all she could manage to
raise her mizzen, and with small canvas edge away to windward for the
entrance of Lerwick bay.

Jan was greatly distressed. "Hard to bear is this thing, Snorro," he
said; "at the last to have such bad fortune."

"It is a better ending than might have been. Think only of that,
Jan."

"But Peter will count his lost nets; there is nothing else he will
think of."

"Between nets and men's lives, there is only one choice."

Peter said that also, but he was nevertheless very angry. The loss
took possession of his mind, and excluded all memory of his gains.
"It was just like Jan and Snorro," he muttered, "to be troubling
themselves with other boats. In a sudden storm, a boat's crew should
mind only its own safety." These thoughts were in his heart, though he
did not dare to form them into any clear shape. But just as a drop or
two of ink will diffuse itself through a glass of pure water and
defile the whole, so they poisoned every feeling of kindness which he
had to Jan.

"What did I tell thee?" he said to Thora, bitterly. "Jan does nothing
well but he spoils it. Here, at the end of the season, for a little
gust of wind, he loses both nets and tackle."

"He did well when he saved life, Peter."

"Every man should mind his own affairs. Glumm would have done that
thing first."

"Then Glumm would have been little of a man. And thou, Peter Fae,
would have been the first to tell Glumm so. Thou art saying evil, and
dost not mean it."

"Speak no more. It is little a woman understands. Her words are always
like a contrary wind."

Peter was very sulky for some days, and when at last he was ready to
settle with Jan, there was a decided quarrel. Jan believed himself to
be unfairly dealt with, and bitter words were spoken on both sides. In
reality, Peter knew that he had been hard with his son, harder by far
than he had ever intended to be; but in his heart there had sprung up
one of those sudden and unreasonable dislikes which we have all
experienced, and for which no explanation is possible. It was not
altogether the loss of the nets--he did not know what it was--but the
man he liked, and praised, and was proud of one week, he could hardly
endure to see or speak to the next.

"That ends all between thee and me," said Peter, pushing a little pile
of gold toward Jan. It was a third less than Jan expected. He gave it
to Margaret, and bade her "use it carefully, as he might be able to
make little more until the next fishing season."

"But thou wilt work in the store this winter?"

"That I will not. I will work for no man who cheats me of a third of
my hire."

"It is of my father thou art speaking, Jan Vedder; remember that. And
Peter Fae's daughter is thy wife, though little thou deservest her."

"It is like enough that I am unworthy of thee; but if I had chosen a
wife less excellent than thou it had perhaps been better for me."

"And for me also."

That was the beginning of a sad end; for Jan, though right enough at
first, soon put himself in the wrong, as a man who is idle, and has a
grievance, is almost sure to do. He continually talked about it. On
the contrary, Peter held his tongue, and in any quarrel the man who
can be silent in the end has the popular sympathy. Then, in some way
or other, Peter Fae touched nearly every body in Lerwick. He gave them
work, or he bought their produce. They owed him money, or they
expected a favor from him. However much they sympathized with Jan,
they could not afford to quarrel with Peter.

Only Michael Snorro was absolutely and purely true to him; but oh,
what truth there was in Michael! Jan's wrongs were his wrongs; Jan's
anger was but the reflection of his own.

He watched over him, he sympathized with him, he loved him entirely,
with a love "wonderful, passing the love of woman."




CHAPTER IV.

THE DESOLATED HOME.

  "For we two, face to face,
  God knows are further parted
  Than were a whole world's space
  Between."

       *       *       *       *       *

  "Lost utterly from home and me,
  Lonely, regretful and remote."


Jan now began to hang all day about Ragon Torr's, and to make friends
with men as purposeless as himself. He drank more and more, and was
the leader in all the dances and merry-makings with which Shetlanders
beguile their long winter. He was very soon deep in Torr's debt, and
this circumstance carried him the next step forward on an evil road.

One night Torr introduced him to Hol Skager, a Dutch skipper, whose
real cargo was a contraband one of tea, brandy, tobacco and French
goods. Jan was in the very mood to join him, and Skager was glad
enough of Jan. Very soon he began to be away from home for three and
four weeks at a time. Peter and Margaret knew well the objects of
these absences, but they would have made themselves very unpopular if
they had spoken of them. Smuggling was a thing every one had a hand
in; rich and poor alike had their venture, and a wise ignorance, and
deaf and dumb ignoring of the fact, was a social tenet universally
observed. If Jan came home and brought his wife a piece of rich silk
or lace, or a gold trinket, she took it without any unpleasant
curiosity. If Peter were offered a cask of French brandy at a nominal
price, he never asked any embarrassing questions. Consciences tender
enough toward the claims of God, evaded without a scruple the
rendering of Cæsar's dues.

So when Jan disappeared for a few weeks, and then returned with money
in his pocket, and presents for his friends, he was welcomed without
question. And he liked the life; liked it so well that when the next
fishing season came round he refused every offer made him. He gained
more with Hol Skager, and the excitement of eluding the coast guard or
of giving them a good chase, suited Jan exactly. The spirit of his
forefathers ruled him absolutely, and he would have fought for his
cargo or gone down with the ship.

Snorro was very proud of him. The morality of Jan's employment he
never questioned, and Jan's happy face and fine clothing gave him the
greatest pleasure. He was glad that he had escaped Peter's control;
and when Jan, now and then, went to the store after it was shut, and
sat an hour with him, no man in Shetland was as proud and happy as
Michael Snorro. Very often Jan brought him a book, and on one occasion
it was the wondrous old "Pilgrim's Progress," full of wood-cuts. That
book was a lifelong joy to Snorro, and he gave to Jan all the thanks
and the credit of it. "Jan brought him every thing pleasant he had. He
was so handsome, and so clever, and so good, and yet he loved him--the
poor, ignorant Snorro!" So Snorro reasoned, and accordingly he loved
his friend with all his soul.

At Jan's house many changes were taking place. In the main, Margaret
had her house very much to herself. No one soiled its exquisite
cleanliness. The expense of keeping it was small. She was saving
money on every hand. When Jan came home with a rich present in his
hand, it was easy to love so handsome and generous a man, and if Jan
permitted her to love him in her own way, she was very glad to do so.
The tie between man and wife is one hard to break. What tugs it will
bear for years, we have all seen and wondered at; and during this
interval if there were days when they were wretched, there were many
others when they were very happy together. The conditions rested
mainly with Margaret. When she could forget all her small ambitions
and disappointments, and give to her husband the smile and kiss he
still valued above every thing, then Jan was proud and happy and
anxious to please her. But Margaret was moody as the skies above her,
and sometimes Jan's sunniest tempers were in themselves an offense. It
is ill indeed with the man who is bound to misery by the cords of a
woman's peevish and unreasonable temper.

For a year and a half Jan remained with Hol Skager, but during this
time his whole nature deteriorated. Among the Shetland fishermen
mutual forbearance and mutual reliance was the rule. In position the
men were nearly equal, and there was no opportunity for an overbearing
spirit to exercise itself. But it was very different with Skager's
men. They were of various nationalities, and of reckless and unruly
tempers. The strictest discipline was necessary, and Jan easily
learned to be tyrannical and unjust, to use passionate and profane
language, to drink deep, and to forget the Sabbath, a day which had
been so sacred to him.

In his own home the change was equally apparent. Margaret began to
tremble before the passions she evoked; and Jan to mock at the
niceties that had hitherto snubbed and irritated him. Once he had been
so easy to please; now all her small conciliations sometimes failed.
The day had gone by for them. The more she humbled herself, the less
Jan seemed to care for her complaisance. To be kind too late, to be
kind when the time for kindness is passed by, that is often the
greatest injury of all.

At the end of eighteen months Jan and Skager quarreled. Skager had
become intimate with Peter Fae, and Peter was doubtless to blame. At
any rate, Jan was sure he was, and he spent his days in morose
complaining, and futile threats of vengeance--futile, because the poor
man's wrath always falls upon himself. When Peter heard them he could
afford to say contemptuously--"It is well known that Jan Vedder has a
long tongue and short hands;" or, "Between saying and doing the thing
is a great way."

In a few weeks even Ragon Torr got weary of Jan's ill-temper and
heroics. Besides, he was in his debt, and there seemed no prospect of
speedy work for him. Upon the whole, it was a miserable winter for the
Vedders. Jan made very little. Sometimes he killed a seal, or brought
in a bag of birds, but his earnings were precarious, and Margaret took
care that his table should be in accordance. She had money, of course,
but it was her own money, and a thing with which Jan had no right. She
ate her meager fare of salt fish and barley bread with a face of
perfect resignation; she gave up her servant and made no complaints,
and she did think it a most shameful injustice that, after all, Jan
should be cross with her. It did not strike her, that good meal, even
though she had procured it from her own private hoard, might have
been a better thing than the most saintly patience. There is much said
about the wickedness of doing evil that good may come. Alas! there is
such a thing as doing good that evil may come.

One afternoon in early spring Jan saw a flock of wild swans soaring
majestically on their strong wings toward a lake which was a favorite
resting place with them. He took his gun and followed after. They were
gathered in the very middle of the lake; his dog could not swim so
far, neither could his shot reach them. It seemed as if every promise
mocked him. Sulky and disappointed, he was returning home when he met
the Udaller Tulloch. He was jogging along on his little rough pony,
his feet raking the ground, and his prehistoric hat tied firmly on the
back of his head.

But in spite of his primitive appearance he was a man of wealth and
influence, the banker of the island, liked and trusted of all
men--except Peter Fae. With Peter he had come often in conflict; he
had superseded him in a civil office, he had spoken slightingly of
some of Peter's speculations, and, above all offenses, in a recent
kirk election he had been chosen Deacon instead of Peter. They were
the two rich men of Lerwick, and they were jealous and distrustful of
each other.

"Jan Vedder," said Tulloch, cheerily, "I would speak with thee; come
to my house within an hour."

It was not so fine a house as Peter's, but Jan liked its atmosphere.
Small glass barrels of brandy stood on the sideboard; there was a case
of Hollands in the chimney corner; fine tobacco, bloaters, and
sturgeons' roes were in comfortable proximity. A bright fire of peats
glowed on the ample hearth, and the Udaller sat eating and drinking
before it. He made Jan join him, and without delay entered upon his
business.

"I want to sell 'The Solan,' Jan. She is worth a thousand pounds for a
coaster; or, if thou wishes, thou could spoil Skager's trips with her.
She is half as broad as she is long, with high bilge, and a sharp
bottom; the very boat for these seas--wilt thou buy her?"

"If I had the money, nothing would be so much to my liking."

"Well, then, thy wife brought me £50 yesterday; that makes thy
account a little over £600. I will give thee a clear bill of sale and
trust thee for the balance. 'Tis a great pity to see a good lad like
thee going to waste. It is that."

"If I was in thy debt, then thou would own a part of me. I like well
to be my own master."

"A skipper at sea doth what he will; and every one knows that Jan
Vedder is not one that serves. Remember, thou wilt be skipper of
thy--own--boat!"

Jan's eyes flashed joyfully, but he said, "My wife may not like I
should use the money for this purpose."

"It is a new thing for a man to ask his wife if he can spend this or
that, thus or so. And to what good? Margaret Vedder would speak to her
father, and thou knows if Peter Fae love thee--or not."

These words roused the worst part of Jan's nature. He remembered, in a
moment, all the envy and wonder he would cause by sailing out of
harbor skipper of his own boat. It was the very temptation that was
irresistible to him. He entered into Tulloch's plan with all his
heart, and before he left him he was in a mood to justify any action
which would further his desire.

"Only give not thy thoughts speech, Jan," said Tulloch at parting;
"and above all things, trust not thy plans to a woman. When will thou
tell me 'yes' or 'no'?"

"To-morrow."

But Jan was not the man to hold counsel with his own soul. He wanted
human advice and sympathy, and he felt sure of Snorro. He went
straight to him, but the store was still open, and Peter Fae was
standing in the door, three of his neighbors with him. He looked at
Jan scornfully and asked--"Well, how many swans did thou get?"

"I have been after a purchase, Peter Fae."

"Good. How wilt thou pay for it, then?"

"I will take my own to pay for it."

Peter laughed, and turning away, answered, "Why, then, do I speak to
thee? Only God understands fools."

This conversation irritated Jan far more than many an actual wrong had
done. "I have indeed been a fool," he said to Snorro, "but now I will
look well to what concerns my own interest."

Then he told Michael of Tulloch's offer, and added, "At last, then, I
have the sum of my wife's savings, and I will show her she has been
saving for a good end. What dost thou think, Snorro?"

"I think the money is thine. All thine has been hers, or she had not
saved so much; all hers ought then to be thine. But it is well and
right to tell her of Tulloch's offer to thee. She may like to give
thee as a gift what else thou must take without any pleasure."

Jan laughed; it was an unpleasant laugh, and did not at all brighten
his face, but he resolved to a certain extent on taking Snorro's
advice. It was quite midnight when he reached his home, but Margaret
was sitting by a few red peats knitting. She was weeping, also, and
her tears annoyed him.

"Thou art ever crying like a cross child," he said. "Now what art thou
crying for?"

"For thy love, my husband. If thou would care a little for me!"

"That is also what I say. If thou would care a little for me and for
my well-doing! Listen, now! I have heard where I can buy a good boat
for £600. Wilt thou ask thy father for so much of thy tocher? To have
this boat, Margaret, would make me the happiest man in Shetland. I
know that thou can manage it if thou wilt. Dear wife, do this thing
for me. I ask thee with all my heart." And he bent toward her, took
the knitting away, and held her hands in his own.

Margaret dropped her eyes, and Jan watched her with a painful
interest. Did she love him or her £600 better? Her face paled and
flushed. She looked up quickly, and her lips parted. Jan believed that
she was going to say--"I have £600, and I will gladly give it to
thee." He was ready to fold her to his breast, to love her, as he had
loved her that day when he had first called her "wife." Alas! after a
slight hesitation, she dropped her pale face and answered slowly--"I
will not ask my father. I might as well ask the sea for fresh water."

Jan let her hands fall, and stood up. "I see now that all talk with
thee will come to little. What thou wants, is that men should give
thee all, and thou give nothing. When thou sayest, 'thy love,
husband,' thou means 'thy money, husband;' and if there is no money,
then there is ever sighs and tears. Many things thou hast yet to
learn of a wife's duty, and very soon I will give thee a lesson I had
done well to teach thee long since."

"I have borne much from thee, Jan, but at the next wrong thou does me,
I will go back to my father. That is what I shall do."

"We will see to that."

"Yes, we will see!" And she rose proudly, and with flashing eyes
gathered up her knitting and her wool and left the room.

The next morning Jan and Tulloch concluded their bargain. "The Solan"
was put in thorough order, and loaded with a coasting cargo. It was
supposed that Tulloch's nephew would sail her, and Jan judged it
wisest to show no interest in the matter. But an hour after all was
ready, he drew the £600 out of Tulloch's bank, paid it down for the
boat, and sailed her out of Lerwick harbor at the noon-tide. In ten
minutes afterward a score of men had called in Peter Fae's store and
told him.

He was both puzzled and annoyed. Why had Tulloch interfered with Jan
unless it was for his, Peter's, injury? From the secrecy maintained,
he suspected some scheme against his interests. Snorro, on being
questioned, could truthfully say that Jan had not told him he was to
leave Lerwick that morning; in fact, Jan had purposely left Snorro
ignorant of his movements. But the good fellow could not hide the joy
he felt, and Peter looked at him wrathfully.

It was seldom Peter went to see his daughter, but that evening he made
her a call. Whatever she knew she would tell him, and he did not feel
as if he could rest until he got the clue to Jan's connection with
Tulloch. But when he named it to Margaret, he found she was totally
ignorant of Jan's departure. The news shocked her. Her work dropped
from her hand; she was faint with fear and amazement. Jan had never
before left her in anger, without a parting word or kiss. Her father's
complaints and fears about Tulloch she scarcely heeded. Jan's behavior
toward herself was the only thought in her mind. Peter learned nothing
from her; but his irritation was much increased by what he considered
Margaret's unreasonable sorrow over a bad husband. He could not bear a
crying woman, and his daughter's sobs angered him.

"Come thou home to thy mother," he said, "when thy eyes are dry; but
bring no tears to my house for Jan Vedder."

Then Margaret remembered that she had threatened Jan with this very
thing. Evidently he had dared her to do it by this new neglect and
unkindness. She wandered up and down the house, full of wretched fears
and memories; love, anger, pride, each striving for the mastery.
Perhaps the bitterest of all her thoughts toward her husband arose
from the humiliating thought of "what people would say." For Margaret
was a slave to a wretched thraldom full of every possible tragedy--she
would see much of her happiness or misery through the eyes of others.

She felt bitterly that night that her married life had been a failure;
but failures are generally brought about by want of patience and want
of faith. Margaret had never had much patience with Jan; she had lost
all faith in him. "Why should she not go home as her father told her?"
This question she kept asking herself. Jan had disappointed all her
hopes. As for Jan's hopes, she did not ask herself any questions about
them. She looked around the handsome home she had given him; she
considered the profitable business which might have been his on her
father's retirement or death; and she thought a man must be wicked who
could regard lightly such blessings. As she passed a glass she gazed
upon her own beauty with a mournful smile and thought anew, how
unworthy of all Jan had been.

At daybreak she began to put carefully away such trifles of
household decoration as she valued most. Little ornaments bought in
Edinburgh, pieces of fancy work done in her school days, fine china,
or glass, or napery. She had determined to lock up the house and go to
her father's until Jan returned. Then he would be obliged to come for
her, and in any dispute she would at least have the benefit of a
strong position. Even with this thought, full as it was of the most
solemn probabilities, there came into her niggardly calculations the
consideration of its economy. She would not only save all the expenses
of housekeeping, but all her time could be spent in making fine
knitted goods, and a great many garments might thus be prepared
before the annual fair.

This train of ideas suggested her bank book. That must certainly go
with her, and a faint smile crossed her face as she imagined the
surprise of her father and mother at the amount it vouched for--that
was, if she concluded to tell them. She went for it; of course it was
gone. At first she did not realize the fact; then, as the possibility
of its loss smote her, she trembled with terror, and hurriedly turned
over and over the contents of the drawer. "_Gone!_" She said it with a
quick, sharp cry, like that of a woman mortally wounded. She could
find it nowhere, and after five minutes' search, she sat down upon her
bedside, and abandoned herself to agonizing grief.

Yes, it was pitiable. She had begun the book with pennies saved from
sweeties and story-books, from sixpences, made by knitting through
hours when she would have liked to play. The ribbons and trinkets of
her girlhood and maidenhood were in it, besides many a little comfort
that Jan and herself had been defrauded of. Her hens had laid for it,
her geese been plucked for it, her hands had constantly toiled for it.
It had been the idol upon the hearthstone to which had been offered up
the happiness of her youth, and before which love lay slain.

At first its loss was all she could take in, but very quickly she
began to connect the loss with Jan, and with the £600 he had asked her
to get for him at their last conversation. With this conviction her
tears ceased, her face grew hard and white as ice. If Jan had used her
money she was sure that she would never speak to him, never see him
again. At that hour she almost hated him. He was only the man who had
taken her £600. She forgot that he had been her lover and her husband.
As soon as she could control herself she fled to her father's house,
and kneeling down by Peter's side sobbed out the trouble that had
filled her cup to overflowing.

This was a sorrow Peter could heartily sympathize with. He shed tears
of anger and mortification, as he wiped away those of his daughter. It
was a great grief to him that he could not prosecute Jan for theft.
But he was quite aware that the law recognized Jan's entire right to
whatever was his wife's. Neither the father nor daughter remembered
how many years Jan had respected his wife's selfishness, and forgiven
her want of confidence in him; the thing he had done was an
unpardonable wrong.

Thora said very little. She might have reminded Peter that he had
invested all her fortune in his business, that he always pocketed her
private earnings. But to what purpose? She did not much blame Jan for
taking at last, what many husbands would have taken at first, but she
was angry enough at his general unkindness to Margaret. Yet it was not
without many forebodings of evil she saw Peter store away in an empty
barn all the pretty furniture of Margaret's house, and put the key of
the deserted house in his pocket.

"And I am so miserable!" wailed the wretched wife, morning, noon, and
night. Her money and her husband supplied her with perpetual
lamentations, varied only by pitiful defenses of her own conduct: "My
house was ever clean and comfortable! No man's table was better
served! I was never idle! I wasted nothing! I never was angry! And yet
I am robbed, and betrayed, and deserted! There never was so miserable
a woman--so unjustly miserable!" etc.

"Alas! my child," said Thora, one day, "did you then expect to drink
of the well of happiness before death? This is the great saying which
we all forget: _There_--not here--_there_ the wicked cease from
troubling; _there_ the weary are at rest. _There_ God has promised to
wipe away all tears, but not here, Margaret, _not here_."




CHAPTER V.

SHIPWRECK.

  "A man I am, crossed with adversity."

  "There is some soul of goodness in things evil;
  Would men observingly distill it out."


No man set more nakedly side by side the clay and spirit of his double
nature than Jan Vedder. No man wished so much and willed so little.
Long before he returned from his first voyage, he became sorry for the
deception he had practiced upon his wife, and determined to
acknowledge to her his fault, as far as he saw it to be a fault. He
was so little fond of money, that it was impossible for him to
understand the full extent of Margaret's distress; but he knew, at
least, that she would be deeply grieved, and he was quite willing to
promise her, that as soon as The Solan was clear of debt, he would
begin to repay her the money she prized so much.

Her first voyage was highly successful, and he was, as usual,
sanguine beyond all reasonable probabilities; quite sure, indeed, that
Tulloch and Margaret could both be easily paid off in two years.
Surely two years was a very short time for a wife to trust her husband
with £600. Arguing, then, from his own good intentions, and his own
hopes and calculations, he had persuaded himself before he reached
Lerwick again that the forced loan was really nothing to make any fuss
about, that it would doubtless be a very excellent thing, and that
Margaret would be sure to see it as he did.

The Solan touched Lerwick in the afternoon. Jan sent a message to
Tulloch, and hastened to his home. Even at a distance the lonely air
of the place struck him unpleasantly. There was no smoke from the
chimneys, the windows were all closed. At first he thought "Margaret
is gone for a day's visit somewhere--it is unlucky then." But as he
reached the closed gate other changes made themselves apparent. His
Newfoundland dog, that had always known his step afar off, and came
bounding to meet him, did not answer his whistle. Though he called
Brenda, his pet seal, repeatedly, she came not; she, that had always
met him with an almost human affection. He perceived before his feet
touched the threshold how it was: Margaret had gone to her father's,
or the animals and poultry would have been in the yard.

His first impulse was to follow her there and bring her home, and he
felt in his pocket for the golden chain and locket he had brought her
as a peace-offering. Then he reflected that by the time he could reach
Peter's house it would be the tea-hour, and he did not intend to
discuss the differences between Margaret and himself in Peter's
presence. Thora's good influence he could count upon; but he knew it
would be useless either to reason with or propitiate Peter. For fully
five minutes he stood at his bolted door wondering what to do. He felt
his position a cruel one; just home from a prosperous voyage, and no
one to say a kind word. Yes, he could go to Torr's; he would find a
welcome there. But the idea of the noisy room and inquisitive men was
disagreeable to him. Snorro he could not see for some hours. He
determined at last that the quiet of his own lonely home was the best
place in which to consider this new phase of affairs between him and
his wife, and while doing so he could make a cup of tea, and wash and
refresh himself before the interview.

He unfastened the kitchen shutter and leaped in. Then the sense of his
utter desolation smote him. Mechanically he walked through the
despoiled, dusty, melancholy rooms. Not a stool left on which he could
sit down. He laughed aloud--that wretched laugh of reckless sorrow,
that is far more pitiful than weeping. Then he went to Torr's. People
had seen him on the way to his home, and no one had been kind enough
to prevent his taking the useless, wretched journey. He felt deeply
wounded and indignant. There were not half a dozen men or women in
Lerwick whose position in regard to Jan would have excused their
interference, but of that he did not think. Every man and woman knew
his shame and wrong. Some one might have warned him. Torr shook his
head sympathetically at Jan's complaints, and gave him plenty of
liquor, and in an hour he had forgotten his grief in a drunken
stupor.

The next morning he went to Peter's house to see his wife. Peter knew
of his arrival, and he had informed himself of all that had happened
in Torr's room. Jan had, of course, spoken hastily and passionately,
and had drunk deeply, and none of his faults had been kept from
Margaret. She had expected him to come at once for her, to be in a
passion probably, and to say some hard things, but she also had
certainly thought he would say them to her, and not to strangers. Hour
after hour she watched, sick with longing and fear and anger, hour
after hour, until Peter came in, stern and dour, and said:

"Get thee to thy bed, Margaret. Jan Vedder has said words of thee this
night that are not to be forgiven, and he is now fathoms deep in
Torr's liquor. See thou speak not with him--good nor bad," and Peter
struck the table so angrily, that both women were frightened into a
silence, which he took for consent.

So when Jan asked to see his wife, Thora stood in the door, and in her
sad, still way told him that Peter had left strict orders against his
entering the house.

"But thou, mother, wilt ask Margaret to come out here and speak to me?
Yes, thou wilt do that," and he eagerly pressed in Thora's hand the
little present he had brought. "Give her this, and tell her I wait
here for her."

After ten minutes' delay, Thora returned and gave him the trinket
back. Margaret wanted her £600 and not a gold locket, and Jan had not
even sent her a message about it. His return had brought back the
memory of her loss in all its first vividness. She had had a dim hope
that Jan would bring her money with him, that he had only taken it to
frighten her; to lose this hope was to live over again her first keen
sorrow. In this mood it was easy for her to say that she would not see
him, or speak to him, or accept his gift; let him give her back her
£600, that was the whole burden of her answer.

Jan put the unfortunate peace-offering in his pocket, and walked away
without a word. "He will trouble thee no more, Margaret," said Thora,
quietly. Margaret fancied there was a tone of reproach or regret in
the voice. It angered her anew, and she answered, "It is well; it were
better if he had never come at all." But in her heart she expected Jan
to come, and come again, until she pardoned him. She had no intention
of finally casting him off. She meant that he should suffer
sufficiently to insure his future good behavior. She had to suffer
with him, and she regarded this as the hardest and most unjust part of
the discipline. She, who had always done her duty in all things.

It is true she had permitted her father to dismantle their home, but
she had had a distinct reason for that, and one which she intended to
have told Jan, had he come back under circumstances to warrant the
confidence. In fact she had begun to dislike the house very much. It
was too small, too far away from her mother, and from the town;
besides which, Peter had the very house she longed for vacant, and she
hoped so to manage her father, as to make the exchange she wished.
Perhaps, too, she was a little bit superstitious. No one had ever been
lucky in the house in which she and Jan had lived. She sometimes felt
angry at her father for thrusting it upon them. Even Elga Skade's love
affairs had all gone wrong there, and the girl was sure some malicious
sprite had power within its walls to meddle and make trouble. Elga had
left her, influenced entirely by this superstition, and Margaret had
brooded upon it, until it had obtained some influence over her;
otherwise, she would not have permitted her father to dismantle the
unhappy home without a protest.

As it was, with all its faults she was beginning to miss the
independence it gave her. No married woman ever goes back to the best
of homes, and takes the place of her maidenhood. Her new servant,
Trolla Bork, had warned her often of this. "When Bork was drowned,"
she said, "I went back to my parents, but I did not go back to my
home. No, indeed! There is a difference, even where there is no
unkindness. Thy own home is a full cup. Weep, if thou must weep, at
thy own fireside."

After Margaret's refusal to see Jan, he went back to his boat, and
employed himself all day about her cargo, and in settling accounts
with Tulloch. It was very late when he went to see Snorro. But Snorro
was waiting for him. Now that things had come to a crisis he was ready
to hear all Jan's complaints; he believed him in all things to have
done right.

"Thou hast asked her once, Jan," he said; "that was well and right.
Thou shalt not go again. No, indeed! Let her come and tell thee she
is sorry. Then thou can show her a man's heart, and forgive her
freely, without yea or nay in the matter. What right had she to pull
thy house to pieces without thy knowledge? Come, now, and I will show
thee the place I have made for thee when thou art in Lerwick."

There was a big loft over Peter's store, with a narrow ladder-like
stair to it. It was full of the lumber of thirty years and tenanted by
a colony of Norway rats, who were on the most familiar terms with
Snorro. Many of them answered to their names, none were afraid to eat
from his hand; one old shrewd fellow, gray with age, often crept into
Snorro's bosom, and in the warmth, lay hour after hour, watching with
wise, weird eyes the quiet face it trusted as it bent over a book.

There was a corner in this garret with a window looking seaward, and
here Snorro had cleared a small space, and boarded it up like a room.
A bed of down and feathers, with a cover of seal-skins occupied one
side; two rude seats, a big goods-box turned up for a table, and some
shelves full of the books Jan had brought him, completed its
furniture.

"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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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.




CHAPTER VI.

MARGARET'S HEART.

    "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 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 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 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
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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.




CHAPTER VII.

THE MAN AT DEATH'S DOOR.

        "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
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 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 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 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 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 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 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; 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 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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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?"

"Well, then, he hath forgotten."

"Nay, nay, Snorro. He never forgets. Behold he has graven thy name
upon his hands. Not on the mountains, for they shall depart; not on
the sun, for it shall grow dark; not on the skies, for they shall melt
with fervent heat; but on _his own hand_, Snorro. Now come with me,
and I will show thee, whether Lord Christ heard thee praying or not,
and I will tell thee how he sent me, his servant always, to answer thy
prayer. I tell thee at the end of all this thou shalt surely say:
'there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he
promised.'"

Then he lifted Michael's cap and gave it to him, and they locked the
store door, and in silence they walked together to the manse. For a
few minutes he left Snorro alone in the study. There was a large
picture in it of Christ upon the cross. Michael had never dreamed of
such a picture. When the minister came back he found him standing
before it, with clasped hands and streaming eyes.

"Can thou trust him, Michael?"

"Unto death, sir."

"Come, tread gently. He sleeps."

Wondering and somewhat awestruck Michael followed the doctor into the
room where Jan lay. One swift look from the bed to the smiling face of
Jan's saviour was all Michael needed. He clasped his hands above his
head, and fell upon his knees, and when the doctor saw the rapture in
his face, he understood the transfiguration, and how this mortal might
put on immortality.




CHAPTER VIII.

DEATH AND CHANGE.

  "Wield thine own arm!--the only way
  To know life is by living."


When Jan awoke Snorro was standing motionless beside him. He feebly
stretched out his hand, and pulled him close, closer, until his face
was on the pillow beside his own.

"Oh Jan, how could'st thou? My heart hath been nearly broken for
thee."

"It is all well now, Snorro. I am going to a new life. I have buried
the old one below the Troll Rock."

Until the following night the men remained together. They had much to
talk of, much that related both to the past and the future. Jan was
particularly anxious that no one should know that his life had been
saved: "And mind thou tell not my wife, Snorro," he said. "Let her
think herself a widow; that will please her best of all."

"There might come a time when it would be right to speak."

"I can not think it."

"She might be going to marry again."

Jan's face darkened. "Yes, that is possible--well then, in that case,
thou shalt go to the minister; he will tell thee what to do, or he
himself will do it."

"She might weep sorely for thee, so that she were like to die."

"Mock me not, Snorro. She will not weep for me. Well then, let me pass
out of memory, until I can return with honor."

"Where wilt thou go to?"

"Dost thou remember that yacht that was tied to the minister's jetty
four weeks ago?"

"Yes, I remember it."

"And that her owner stayed at the manse for two days?"

"Yes, I saw him. What then?"

"He will be back again, in a week, in a few days, perhaps to-morrow.
He is an English lord, and a friend of the minister's. I shall go away
with him. There is to be a new life for me--another road to take; it
must be a better one than that in which I have stumbled along for the
last few years. Thou art glad?"

"Yes, Jan, I am glad."

"If things should happen so that I can send for thee, wilt thou come
to me?"

"Yes, to the end of the world I will come. Thee only do I love. My
life is broken in two without thee."

Every day Snorro watched the minister's jetty, hoping, yet fearing, to
see the yacht which was to carry Jan away. Every night when the town
was asleep, he went to the manse to sit with his friend. At length one
morning, three weeks after Jan's disappearance, he saw the minister
and the English lord enter Peter's store together. His heart turned
sick and heavy; he felt that the hour of parting was near.

Peter was to send some eggs and smoked geese on board the yacht, and
the minister said meaningly to Snorro, "Be sure thou puts them on
board this afternoon, for the yacht sails southward on the midnight
tide." Snorro understood the message. When the store was closed he
made a bundle of Jan's few clothes; he had washed and mended them
all. With them he put the only sovereign he possessed, and his own
dearly-loved copy of the Gospels. He thought, "for my sake he may open
them, and then what a comfort they will be sure to give him."

It was in Snorro's arms Jan was carried on board at the very last
moment. Lord Lynne had given him a berth in the cabin, and he spoke
very kindly to Snorro. "I have heard," he said, "that there is great
love between you two. Keep your heart easy, my good fellow; I will see
that no harm comes to your friend." And the grateful look on Snorro's
face so touched him that he followed him to the deck and reiterated
the promise.

It was at the last a silent and rapid parting. Snorro could not speak.
He laid Jan in his berth, and covered him as tenderly as a mother
would cover her sick infant. Then he kissed him, and walked away. Dr.
Balloch, who watched the scene, felt the deep pathos and affection
that had no visible expression but in Snorro's troubled eyes and
dropped head; and Lord Lynne pressed his hand as a last assurance that
he would remember his promise concerning Jan's welfare. Then the
anchor was lifted, and the yacht on the tide-top went dancing
southward before the breeze.

At the manse door the minister said, "God be thy consolation, Snorro!
Is there any thing I, his servant, can do for thee?"

"Yes, thou can let me see that picture again."

"Of the Crucified?"

"That is what I need."

"Come then."

He took a candle from Hamish and led him into the study. In the dim
light, the pallid, outstretched figure and the divine uplifted face
had a sad and awful reality. Even upon the cultivated mind and heart,
fine pictures have a profound effect; on this simple soul, who never
before had seen any thing to aid his imagination of Christ's love, the
effect was far more potent. Snorro stood before it a few minutes full
of a holy love and reverence, then, innocently as a child might have
done, he lifted up his face and kissed the pierced feet.

Dr. Balloch was strangely moved and troubled. He walked to the window
with a prayer on his lips, but almost immediately returned, and
touching Snorro, said--

"Take the picture with thee, Snorro. It is thine. Thou hast bought it
with that kiss."

"But thou art weeping!"

"Because I can not love as thou dost. Take what I have freely given,
and go. Ere long the boats will be in and the town astir. Thou hast
some room to hang it in?"

"I have a room in which no foot but mine will tread till Jan comes
back again."

"And thou wilt say no word of Jan. He must be cut loose from the past
awhile. His old life must not be a drag upon his new one. We must give
him a fair chance."

"Thou knows well I am Jan's friend to the uttermost."

Whatever of comfort Snorro found in the pictured Christ, he sorely
needed it. Life had become a blank to him. There was his work,
certainly, and he did it faithfully, but even Peter saw a great change
in the man. He no longer cared to listen to the gossip of the store,
he no longer cared to converse with any one. When there was nothing
for him to do, he sat down in some quiet corner, buried his head in
his hands, and gave himself up to thought.

Peter also fancied that he shrank from him, and the idea annoyed him;
for Peter had begun to be sensible of a most decided change in the
tone of public opinion regarding himself. It had come slowly, but he
could trace and feel it. One morning when he and Tulloch would have
met on the narrow street, Tulloch, to avoid the meeting, turned
deliberately around and retraced his steps. Day by day fewer of the
best citizens came to pass their vacant hours in his store. People
spoke to him with more ceremony, and far less kindness.

He was standing at his store door one afternoon, and he saw a group of
four or five men stop Snorro and say something to him. Snorro flew
into a rage. Peter knew it by his attitude, and by the passionate
tones of his voice. He was vexed at him. Just at this time he was
trying his very best to be conciliating to all, and Snorro was
undoubtedly saying words he would, in some measure, be held
accountable for.

When he passed Peter at the store door, his eyes were still blazing
with anger, and his usually white face was a vivid scarlet. Peter
followed him in, and asked sternly, "Is it not enough that I must bear
thy ill-temper? Who wert thou talking about? That evil Jan Vedder, I
know thou wert!"

"We were talking of thee, if thou must know."

"What wert thou saying? Tell me; if thou wilt not, I will ask John
Scarpa."

"Thou wert well not to ask. Keep thy tongue still."

"There is some ill-feeling toward me. It hath been growing this long
while. Is it thy whispering against me?"

"Ask Tulloch why he would not meet thee? Ask John Scarpa what Suneva
Glumm said last night?"

"Little need for me to do that, since thou can tell me."

Snorro spoke not.

"Snorro?"

"Yes, master."

"How many years hast thou been with me?"

"Thou knows I came to thee a little lad."

"Who had neither home nor friends?"

"That is true yet."

"Have I been a just master to thee?"

"Thou hast."

"Thou, too, hast been a just and faithful servant. I have trusted
thee with every thing. All has been under thy thumb. I locked not gold
from thee. I counted not after thee. I have had full confidence in
thee. Well, then, it seems that my good name is also in thy hands.
Now, if thou doest thy duty, thou wilt tell me what Tulloch said."

"He said thou had been the ruin of a better man than thyself."

"Meaning Jan Vedder?"

"That was whom he meant."

"Dost thou think so?"

"Yes, I think so, too."

"What did Suneva Glumm say?"

"Well, then, last night, when the kitchen was full, they were talking
of poor Jan; and Suneva--thou knowest she is a widow now and gone back
to her father's house--Suneva, she strode up to the table, and she
struck her hand upon it, and said, 'Jan was a fisherman, and it is
little of men you fishers are, not to make inquiry about his death.
Here is the matter,' she said. 'Snorro finds him wounded, and Snorro
goes to Peter Fae's and sends Jan's wife to her husband. Margaret
Vedder says she saw him alive and gave him water, and went back for
Peter Fae. Then Jan disappears, and when Snorro gets back with a
doctor and four other men, there is no Jan to be found.' I say that
Margaret Vedder or Peter Fae know what came of Jan, one, or both of
them, know. But because the body has not been found, there hath been
no inquest, and his mates let him go out of life like a stone dropped
into the sea, and no more about it."

"They told thee that?"

"Ay, they did; and John Scarpa said thou had long hated Jan, and he
did believe thou would rather lose Jan's life than save it. Yes,
indeed!"

"And thou?"

"I said some angry words for thee. Ill thou hast been to Jan, cruel
and unjust, but thou did not murder him. I do not think thou would do
that, even though thou wert sure no man would know it. If I had
believed thou hurt a hair of Jan's head, I would not be thy servant
to-day."

"Thou judgest right of me, Snorro. I harmed not Jan. I never saw him.
I did not want him brought to my house, and therefore I made no haste
to go and help him; but I hurt not a hair of his head."

"I will maintain that every where, and to all."

"What do they think came of Jan?"

"What else, but that he was pushed over the cliff-edge? A very little
push would put him in the sea, and the under-currents between here and
the Vor Ness might carry the body far from this shore. All think that
he hath been drowned."

Then Peter turned away and sat down, silent and greatly distressed. A
new and terrible suspicion had entered his mind with Snorro's words.
He was quite sure of his own innocence, but had Margaret pushed Jan
over? From her own words it was evident she had been angry and hard
with him. Was this the cause of the frantic despair he had witnessed.
It struck him then that Margaret's mother had ever been cold and
silent, and almost resentful about the matter. She had refused to talk
of it. Her whole behavior had been suspicious. He sat brooding over
the thought, sick at heart with the sin and shame it involved, until
Snorro said--"It is time to shut the door." Then he put on his cloak
and went home.

Home! How changed his home had become! It was a place of silence and
unconfessed sorrow. All its old calm restfulness had gone. Very soon
after Jan's disappearance, Thora had taken to her bed, and she had
never left it since. Peter recognized that she was dying, and this
night he missed her sorely. Her quiet love and silent sympathy had
been for many a year a tower of strength to him. But he could not
carry this trouble to her, still less did he care to say any thing to
Margaret. For the first time he was sensible of a feeling of
irritation in her presence. Her white despairing face angered him. For
all this trouble, in one way or another, she was responsible.

He felt, too, that full of anxiety as he was, she was hardly listening
to a word he said. Her ears were strained to catch the first movement
of her child, who was sleeping in the next room. To every one he had
suddenly become of small importance. Both at home and abroad he felt
this. To such bitter reflections he smoked his pipe, while Margaret
softly sung to her babe, and Thora, with closed eyes, lay slowly
breathing her life away: already so far from this world, that Peter
felt as if it would be cruel selfishness to trouble her more with its
wrongs and its anxieties.

Four days afterward, Thora said to her daughter: "Margaret, I had a
token early this morning. I saw a glorious ship come sailing toward
me. Her sails were whiter than snow under the moonshine; and at her
bow stood my boy, Willie, my eldest boy, and he smiled and beckoned
me. I shall go away with the next tide. Ere I go, thou tell me
something?"

"Whatever thou ask me."

"What came of poor Jan Vedder?"

Then Margaret understood the shadow that had fallen between herself
and her mother; the chill which had repressed all conversation; the
silent terror which had perchance hastened death.

"Oh, mother!" she cried, "did thou really have this fear? I never
harmed Jan. I left him on the cliff. God knows I speak the truth. I
know no more."

"Thank God! Now I can go in peace." Margaret had fallen on her knees
by the bedside, and Thora leaned forward and kissed her.

"Shall I send for father?"

"He will come in time."

A few hours afterward she said in a voice already far away, as if she
had called back from a long distance, "When Jan returns be thou kinder
to him, Margaret."

"Will he come back? Mother, tell me!"

But there was no answer to the yearning cry. Never another word from
the soul that had now cast earth behind it. Peter came home early, and
stood gloomily and sorrowfully beside his companion. Just when the
tide turned, he saw a momentary light flash over the still face, a
thrill of joyful recognition, a sigh of peace, instantly followed by
the pallor, and chill, and loneliness of death.

At the last the end had come suddenly. Peter had certainly known that
his wife was dying, but he had not dreamed of her slipping off her
mortal vesture so rapidly. He was shocked to find how much of his own
life would go with her. Nothing could ever be again just as it had
been. It troubled him also that there had been no stranger present.
The minister ought to have been sent for, and some two or three of
Thora's old acquaintances. There was fresh food for suspicion in Thora
Fae being allowed to pass out of life just at this time, with none
but her husband and daughter near, and without the consolation of
religious rites.

Peter asked Margaret angrily, why she had neglected to send for
friends and for the minister?

"Mother was no worse when thou went to the store this morning. About
noon she fell asleep, and knew nothing afterward. It would have been
cruel to disturb her."

But in her own heart Margaret was conscious that under any circumstances
she would have shrunk from bringing strangers into the house. Since
Jan's disappearance, she had been but once to kirk, for that once had
been an ordeal most painful and humiliating. None of her old friends
had spoken to her; many had even pointedly ignored her. Women excel in
that negative punishment which they deal out to any sister whom they
conceive to have deserved it. In a score of ways Margaret Vedder had
been made to feel that she was under a ban of disgrace and suspicion.

Some of this humiliation had not escaped Peter's keen observation; but
at the time he had regarded it as a part of the ill-will which he also
was consciously suffering from, and which he was shrewd enough to
associate with the mystery surrounding the fate of his son-in-law.
Connecting it with what Snorro had said, he took it for further proof
against his daughter. Thora's silence and evident desire to be left to
herself, were also corroborative. Did Thora also suspect her? Was
Margaret afraid to bring the minister, lest at the last Thora might
say something? For the same reason, had Thora's old intimates been
kept away? Sometimes the dying reveal things unconsciously; was
Margaret afraid of this? When once suspicion is aroused, every thing
feeds it. Twenty-four hours after the first doubt had entered Peter's
heart, he had almost convinced himself that Margaret was responsible
for Jan's death.

He remembered then the stories in the Sagas of the fair, fierce women
of Margaret's race. A few centuries previously they had ruled things
with a high hand, and had seldom scrupled to murder the husbands who
did not realize their expectations. He knew something of Margaret's
feelings by his own; her wounded self-esteem, her mortification at
Jan's failures, her anger at her poverty and loss of money, her
contempt for her own position. If she had been a man, he could almost
have excused her for killing Jan; that is, if she had done it in fair
fight. But crimes which are unwomanly in their nature shock the
hardest heart, and it was unwomanly to kill the man she had loved and
chosen, and the father of her child; it was, above all, a cowardly,
base deed to thrust a wounded man out of life. He tried to believe his
daughter incapable of such a deed, but there were many hours in which
he thought the very worst of her.

Margaret had no idea that her father nursed such suspicions; she felt
only the change and separation between them. Her mother's doubt had
been a cruel blow to her; she had never been able to speak of it to
her father. That he shared it, never occurred to her. She was wrapped
up in her own sorrow and shame, and at the bottom of her heart
inclined to blame her father for much of the trouble between her and
Jan. If he had dealt fairly with Jan after the first summer's fishing,
Jan would never have been with Skager. And how eager he had been to
break up her home! After all, Jan had been the injured man; he ought
to have had some of her tocher down. A little ready money would have
made him satisfied and happy; her life and happiness had been
sacrificed to her father's avarice. She was sure now that if the years
could be called back, she would be on Jan's side with all her heart.

Two souls living under the same roof and nursing such thoughts against
each other were not likely to be happy. If they had ever come to open
recrimination, things uncertain might have been explained; but, for
the most part, there was only silence in Peter's house. Hour after
hour, he sat at the fireside, and never spoke to Margaret. She grew
almost hysterical under the spell of this irresponsive trouble.
Perhaps she understood then why Jan had fled to Torr's kitchen to
escape her own similar exhibitions of dissatisfaction.

As the months wore on, things in the store gradually resumed their
normal condition. Jan was dead, Peter was living, the tide of popular
feeling turned again. Undoubtedly, however, it was directed by the
minister's positive, almost angry, refusal to ask Peter before the
kirk session to explain his connection with Jan's disappearance. He
had never gone much to Peter's store, but for a time he showed his
conviction of Peter's innocence by going every day to sit with him. It
was supposed, of course, that he had talked the affair thoroughly over
with Peter, and Peter did try at various times to introduce the
subject. But every such attempt was met by a refusal in some sort on
the minister's part. Once only he listened to his complaint of the
public injustice.

"Thou can not control the wind, Peter," he said in reply; "stoop and
let it pass over thee. I believe and am sure thy hands are clear of
Jan's blood. As to how far thou art otherwise guilty concerning him,
that is between God and thy conscience. But let me say, if I were
asked to call thee before the kirk session on the count of unkindness
and injustice, I would not feel it to be my duty to refuse to do so."
Having said this much, he put the matter out of their conversation;
but still such a visible human support in his dark hour was a great
comfort to Peter.

It was a long and dreary winter. It is amazing how long time can be
when Sorrow counts the hours. Sameness, too, adds to grief; there was
nothing to vary the days. Margaret went to bed every night full of
that despairing oppression which hopes nothing from the morrow. Even
when the spring came again her life had the same uniform gray tinge.
Peter had his fisheries to look forward to, and by the end of May he
had apparently quite recovered himself. Then he began to be a little
more pleasant and talkative to his daughter. He asked himself why he
should any longer let the wraith of Jan Vedder trouble his life? At
the last he had gone to help him; if he were not there to be helped,
that was not his fault. As for Margaret, he knew nothing positively
against her. Her grief and amazement had seemed genuine at the time;
very likely it was; at any rate, it was better to bury forever the
memory of a man so inimical to the peace and happiness of the Faes.

The fishing season helped him to carry out this resolution. His hands
were full. His store was crowded. There were a hundred things that
only Peter could do for the fishers. Jan was quite forgotten in the
press and hurry of a busier season than Lerwick had ever seen. Peter
was again the old bustling, consequential potentate, the most popular
man in the town, and the most necessary. He cared little that Tulloch
still refused to meet him; he only smiled when Suneva Glumm refused to
let him weigh her tea and sugar, and waited for Michael Snorro.

Perhaps Suneva's disdain did annoy him a little. No man likes to be
scorned by a good and a pretty woman. It certainly recurred to Peter's
mind more often than seemed necessary, and made him for a moment shrug
his shoulders impatiently, and mutter a word or two to himself.

One lovely moonlight night, when the boats were all at sea, and the
town nearly deserted, Peter took his pipe and rambled out for a walk.
He was longing for some womanly sympathy, and had gone home with
several little matters on his heart to talk over with Margaret. But
unfortunately the child had a feverish cold, and how could she
patiently listen to fishermen's squabbles, and calculations of the
various "takes," when her boy was fretful and suffering? So Peter put
on his bonnet, and with his pipe in his mouth, rambled over the moor.
He had not gone far before he met Suneva Glumm. Under ordinary
circumstances he would have let her pass him, but to-night he wanted
to talk, and even Suneva was welcome. He suddenly determined "to have
it out with her," and without ceremony he called to her.

"Let me speak to thee, Suneva; I have something to say."

She turned and faced him: "Well then, say it."

"What have I done to get so much of thy ill-will? I, that have been
friends with thee since I used to lift thee over the counter and give
thee a sweet lozenger?"

"Thou did treat poor Jan Vedder so badly."

"And what is Jan Vedder to thee, that thou must lift his quarrel?"

"He was my friend, then."

"And thy lover, perhaps. I have heard that he loved thee before he
ever saw my Margaret when she was at school in Edinburgh."

"Thou hast heard lies then; but if he had loved me and if I had been
his wife, Jan had been a good man this day; good and loving. Yes,
indeed!"

"Art thou sure he is dead?"

"Peter Fae, if any one can answer that question, thou can; thou and
thy daughter Margaret."

"I have heard thou hast said this before now."

"Ay, I have said it often, and I think it."

"Now, then, listen to me, and see how thou hast done me wrong."

Then Peter pleaded his own cause, and he pleaded it with such
cleverness and eloquence that Suneva quite acquitted him.

"I believe now thou art innocent," she answered calmly. "The
minister told me so long ago. I see now that he was right." Then she
offered Peter her hand, and he felt so pleased and grateful that
he walked with her all the way to the town. For Suneva had a great
deal of influence over the men who visited Torr's, and most of them
did visit Torr's. They believed all she said. They knew her warm,
straightforward nature, and her great beauty gave a kind of royal
assurance to her words.

Peter was therefore well pleased that he had secured her good will,
and especially that he had convinced her of his entire innocence
regarding Jan's life. If the subject ever came up over the fishers'
glasses, she was a partisan worth having. He went home well satisfied
with himself for the politic stroke he had made, and with the success
which had attended it.

Margaret had seen her father talking and walking with Suneva, and she
was very much offended at the circumstance. In her anger she made a
most imprudent remark--"My mother not a year dead yet! Suneva is a
bold, bad woman!"

"What art thou thinking of? Let me tell thee it was of Jan Vedder, and
Jan Vedder only, that we spoke."

Not until that moment had it struck Peter that Suneva was a widow, and
he a widower. But the thought once entertained was one he was not
disposed to banish. He sat still half an hour and recalled her bright
eyes, and good, cheerful face, and the pleasant confidential chat they
had had together. He felt comforted even in the memory of the warm
grip of her hand, and her sensible, honorable opinions. Why should he
not marry again? He was in the prime of life, and he was growing
richer every year. The more he thought of Suneva the warmer his heart
grew toward her.

He was not displeased when next day one of his old comrades told him
in a pawkie, meaning way, that he had "seen him walking with Glumm's
handsome widow." A man nearly sixty is just as ready to suppose
himself fascinating as a man of twenty. Peter had his courtiers, and
they soon found out that he liked to be twitted about Suneva; in a
little while a marriage between the handsome widow and the rich
merchant was regarded as a very probable event.

When once the thought of love and marriage has taken root in a man's
heart it grows rapidly. The sight of Suneva became daily more pleasant
to Peter. Every time she came to the store he liked her better. He
took care to let her see this, and he was satisfied to observe that
his attentions did not prevent her visits.

In a few weeks he had quite made up his mind; he was only watching for
a favorable opportunity to influence Suneva. In August, at the
Fisherman's Foy, it came. Peter was walking home one night, a little
later than usual, and he met Suneva upon the moor. His face showed his
satisfaction. "Long have I watched for this hour," he said; "now thou
must walk with me a little, for I have again some thing to say to
thee. Where hast thou been, Suneva?"

"Well, then, I took charge of Widow Thorkel's knitting to sell it for
her. She is bedridden, thou knows. I got a good price for her, and
have been to carry her the money."

"Thou art a kind woman. Now, then, be kind to me also. I want to have
thee for my wife."

"What will thy daughter say to that? She never liked me--nor have I
much liked her."

"It will be long ere I ask my daughter if I shall do this or that. It
is thee I ask. Wilt thou be my wife, Suneva?"

"It would not be a bad thing."

"It would be a very good thing for me, and for thee also. I should
have thy pleasant face, and thy good heart, and thy cheerful company
at my fireside. I will be to thee a loving husband. I will give thee
the house I live in, with all its plenishing, and I will settle £70 a
year on thee."

"That is but a little thing for thee to do."

"Then I will make it a £100 a year. Now what dost thou say?"

"I will marry thee, Peter, and I will do my duty to thee, and make
thee happy." Then she put her hand in his, and he walked home with
her.

Next day all Lerwick knew that Peter was going to marry Glumm's
handsome widow.




CHAPTER IX.

JAN AT HIS POST.

                    "Then like an embryo bird
  One day, he knew not how, but God that morn
  Had pricked his soul--he cracked his shelly case, and
  Claimed his due portion in a larger life.
  Into new life he starts, surveys the world
  With bolder scope, and breathes more ample breath."


With a great sigh of content Jan resigned himself to rest when the
parting was over; and "The Lapwing," with wind and tide in her favor,
went almost flying down the black North Sea. The motion of the vessel
and the scent of the salt breeze were like his mother's lap and his
native air. He had cast off his old life like an old garment. Michael
Snorro and Dr. Balloch were the only memories of it he desired to
carry into his new one. But at the first hour he could not even think
of them. He only wanted to sleep.

Very soon sleep came to him, steeped him from head to feet in
forgetfulness, lulled him fathoms deep below the tide of life and
feeling. It was after twelve the next noon when he opened his eyes.
Lord Lynne was sitting at the cabin table just opposite his berth. It
took Jan two or three moments to remember where he was, and during
them Lord Lynne looked up and smiled at him. Jan smiled back a smile
frank and trustful as a child's. It established his position at once.
Lord Lynne had been wondering what that position was to be, and he had
decided to let Jan's unconscious behavior settle it. Even an animal,
or a bird, that trusts us, wins us. The face that Jan turned to Lord
Lynne was just such a face as he would have turned to Snorro--it
trusted every thing, it claimed every thing, and every thing was given
it.

"You have had your health-sleep, Vedder; I dare say you are hungry
now?"

"Very hungry," answered Jan. "Is it breakfast time?"

"You mean is it lunch time? You will have to put two meals into one.
Shall I order you some fresh fish, and eggs, and a broiled bird?"

"The thought of them is good."

"And some roast mutton and potatoes?"

"Yes, and plenty of tea if thou pleases."

My lord had his lunch while Jan ate his breakfast, and a very pleasant
meal they made of it. The yacht was tossing and pitching a good deal,
but they were leaving the islands behind and sailing fast toward
smoother waters and brighter skies. Jan improved with every hour's
flight, and he would gladly have left his berth had Lord Lynne
permitted it.

"At Aberdeen," he said, "you shall go on shore, and see a physician.
Dr. Balloch thinks that he has treated you properly, but I promised
him to make sure of it."

The decision at Aberdeen was highly favorable. Jan was assured that he
might be on deck a few hours every day, with great advantage to his
health. They remained in Aberdeen two days. On the second day a trunk
bearing his name was brought on board. Lord Lynne was on shore at the
time, but his valet had it taken to Jan's room and opened. It
contained a quantity of linen and clothing.

Jan had a love for good clothing. He felt its influence, and without
reasoning about the matter, felt that it influenced every one else.
When he had put on the linen, and a yachting suit with its gilt
buttons, and had knotted the handkerchief at his neck, he felt that in
all eyes he was a different being from Vedder the fisherman.

It would have been a difficult matter to Lord Lynne to have given
clothing to some men, but Jan had not a vulgar feeling. He made no
protestations, no excuses, no promises of repayment; he was not
offensively demonstrative in his gratitude. He took the gift, as the
gift had been given, with pleasure and confidence, and he looked
handsome and noble in every thing he put on.

Lord Lynne was proud of him. He liked to see his crew watch Jan. He
encouraged his valet to tell him what they said of him. Every one had
invented some romance about the yacht's visitor; no one supposed him
to be of less than noble birth. The cook had a theory that he was some
prince who had got into trouble with his father. The secrecy with
which he had been brought on board at midnight, his scarcely healed
wound, the disguise of a fisherman's dress, were all regarded as
positive proofs of some singular and romantic adventure. On board "The
Lapwing" Jan was the central point of every man's interest and
speculations.

And at this time, even Lord Lynne was a little in the dark regarding
Jan. Dr. Balloch had only spoken of him as a young man going to ruin
for want of some friends. Incidentally he had alluded to his
matrimonial troubles, and, one evening when they were walking, he had
pointed out Margaret Vedder. She was standing on the Troll Rock
looking seaward. The level rays of the setting sun fell upon her. She
stood, as it were, in a glory; and Lord Lynne had been much struck
with her noble figure and with the set melancholy of her fine face.

So he knew that Jan had had trouble about his wife, and also that he
had been wounded in a fight; and putting the two things together he
made a perfectly natural inference. He was aware, also, that Margaret
was Peter Fae's daughter and a probable heiress. If he thought of
Jan's social position, he doubtless considered that only a Shetland
gentleman would aspire to her hand. But he made no effort whatever to
gain Jan's confidence; if he chose to give it, he would do so at the
proper time, and without it they were very happy. For Lord Lynne had
been a great traveler, and Jan never wearied of hearing about the
places he had visited. With a map before him, he would follow every
step up and down Europe. And across Asian seas, through Canadian
cities, and the great plains of the West, the two men in memory and
imagination went together.

Nothing was said of Jan's future; he asked no questions, gave no
hints, exhibited no anxiety. He took his holiday in holiday spirit,
and Lord Lynne understood and appreciated the unselfishness and the
gentlemanly feeling which dictated the apparent indifference. At
Margate the yacht went into harbor. Lord Lynne expected letters there,
which he said would decide his movements for the winter. He was silent
and anxious when he landed; he was in a mood of reckless but assumed
indifference when he came on board again.

After dinner he spread the large map on the saloon table, and
said: "Vedder, what do you say to a few months' cruise in the
Mediterranean? I am not wanted at home, and I should like to show
you some of the places we have talked about. Suppose we touch at the
great Spanish ports, at Genoa, Venice, Naples and Rome, and then
break the winter among the Isles of Greece and the old Ionian
cities?"

Jan's face beamed with delight; there was no need for him to speak.

"And," continued his lordship, "as I sleep a great deal in warm
climates, I shall want a good sailor aboard. I saw by the way you
handled the yacht during that breeze in 'The Wash,' that you are one.
Will you be my lieutenant this winter? I will pay you £100 a quarter;
that will keep you in pocket money."

"That will be a great deal of money to me, and I shall be very glad to
earn it so pleasantly."

"Then that settles matters for a few months--when we get back it will
be time to buckle to work. Heigh-ho! Lieutenant, head 'The Lapwing'
for the Bay of Biscay, and we will set our faces toward sunshine, and
cast care and useless regret behind our backs."

At Gibraltar Lord Lynne evidently expected letters, but they did not
come. Every mail he was anxious and restless, every mail he was
disappointed. At length he seemed to relinquish hope, and 'The
Lapwing' proceeded on her voyage. One night they were drifting slowly
off the coast of Spain. The full moon shone over a tranquil sea, and
the wind blowing off shore, filled the sails with the perfume of
orange blossoms. Lord Lynne had sent that day a boat into Valencia,
hoping for letters, and had been again disappointed. As he walked the
deck with Jan in the moonlight, he said sadly, "I feel much troubled
to-night, Jan."

"Ever since we were in Gibraltar I have seen that thou hast some
trouble, my lord. And I am sorry for thee; my own heart is aching
to-night; for that reason I can feel for thy grief too."

"I wonder what trouble could come to a man hid away from life in such
a quiet corner of the world as Shetland?"

"There is no corner too quiet, or too far away, for a woman to make
sorrow in it."

"By every thing! You are right, Jan."

There was a few minutes' silence, and then Jan said: "Shall I tell
thee what trouble came to me through a woman in Shetland?"

"I would like to hear about it."

Then Jan began. He spoke slowly and with some hesitation at first. His
youth was connected with affairs about which the Shetlanders always
spoke cautiously. His father had been one of the boldest and most
successful of the men who carried on that "French trade" which the
English law called smuggling. He had made money easily, had spent it
lavishly, and at the last had gone to the bottom with his ship, rather
than suffer her to be taken. His mother had not long survived her
husband, but there had been money enough left to educate and provide
for Jan until he reached manhood.

"I was ten years old when mother died," he continued, "and since then
no one has really loved me but Michael Snorro. I will tell thee how
our love began. One day I was on the pier watching the loading of a
boat. Snorro was helping with her cargo, and the boys were teasing
him, because of his clumsy size and ugly face. One of them took
Snorro's cap off his head and flung it into the water. I was angry at
the coward, and flung him after it, nor would I let him out of the
water till he brought Snorro's cap with him. I shall never forget the
look Snorro gave me that hour. Ever since we have been close friends.
I will tell thee now how he hath repaid me for that deed."

Then Jan spoke of Margaret's return from school; of their meeting at
one Fisherman's Foy, and of their wedding at the next. All of Peter's
kindness and subsequent injustice; all of Margaret's goodness and
cruelty, all of Snorro's affection and patience he told. He made
nothing better nor worse. His whole life, as he knew and could
understand it, he laid before Lord Lynne.

"And so thou sees," he concluded, "how little to blame and how much to
blame I have been. I have done wrong and I have suffered. Yes, I
suffer yet, for I love my wife and she has cast me off. Dost thou
think I can ever be worthy of her?"

"I see, Jan, that what you said is true--in any corner of the earth
where women are, they can make men suffer. As to your worthiness, I
know not. There are some women so good, that only the angels of heaven
could live with them. That £600 was a great mistake."

"I think that now."

"Jan, life is strangely different and yet strangely alike. My
experience has not been so very far apart from yours. I was induced to
marry when only twenty-one a lady who is my inferior in rank, but who
is a very rich woman. She is a few years older than I, but she is
beautiful, full of generous impulses, and well known for her
charitable deeds."

"You are surely fortunate."

"I am very unhappy."

"Does she not love thee?"

"Alas! she loves me so much that she makes both her own and my life
miserable."

"That is what I do not understand."

"Her love is a great love, but it is a selfish love. She is willing
that I should be happy in her way, but in no other. I must give her
not only my affection, but my will, my tastes, my duties to every
other creature. My friends, horses, dogs, even this yacht, she regards
as enemies; she is sure that every one of them takes the thought and
attention she ought to have. And the hardest part is, that her noble
side only is seen by the world. I alone suffer from the fault that
spoils all. Consequently the world pities her, and looks upon me very
much as the people of Lerwick looked on you."

"And can thou do nothing for thy own side?"

"Nothing. I am in the case of a very worthy old Roman lord who desired
to divorce his wife. There was a great outcry. All his friends were
amazed. 'Is she not handsome, virtuous, rich, amiable?' they asked.
'What hath she done to thee?' The Roman husband pointed to his sandal.
'Is it not new, is it not handsome and well made? But none of you can
tell where it pinches me.' That old Roman and I are brothers. Every
one praises 'my good wife, my rich wife, my handsome wife,' but for
all that, the matrimonial shoe pinches me."

This confidence brought the two men near together. Henceforward there
was no lack of conversation. While every other subject fails, a
domestic grievance is always new. It can be looked at in so many ways.
It has touched us on every side of our nature. We are never quite sure
where we have been right, and where wrong. So Lord Lynne and Jan
talked of 'My Lady' in Lynnton Castle, and of Margaret Vedder in her
Shetland home, but the conversations were not in the main unkind
ones. Very early in them Lynne told Jan how he had once seen his wife
standing on the Troll Rock at sunset, "lovely, and grand, and
melancholy, as some forsaken goddess in her desolated shrine."

They were sitting at the time among the ruins of a temple to Pallas.
The sun was setting over Lydian waters, and Jan seemed to see in the
amber rays a vision of the tall, fair woman of his love and dreams.
She ruled him yet. From the lonely islands of that forlorn sea she
called him. Not continents nor oceans could sever the mystical tie
between them. On the sands close by, some young Greek girls were
dancing to a pipe. They were beautiful, and the dance was picturesque,
but Jan hardly noticed them. The home-love was busy in his heart.
"Until death us part." Nothing is more certain, in a life of such
uncertainty.

Amid the loveliest scenes of earth they passed the winter months. It
was far on in May when they touched Gibraltar on their return. Letters
for both were waiting there. For Jan a short one from Dr. Balloch, and
a long one from Michael Snorro. He was sitting with Snorro's in his
hand when Lord Lynne, bright and cheerful, came out of his cabin. "I
have very fair news, Jan; what has the mail brought you?" he asked.

"Seldom it comes for nothing. I have heard that my mother-in-law is
dead. She was ever my friend, and I am so much the poorer. Peter Fae
too is in trouble; he is in trouble about me. Wilt thou believe that
the people of Lerwick think he may have----"

"Murdered you?"

"Yes, just that."

"I have often thought that the suspicion would be a natural one. Has
he been arrested?"

"No, no; but he is in bad esteem. Some speak not to him. The minister,
though, he stands by him."

"That is enough. If Dr. Balloch thought it necessary, he would say
sufficient to keep Peter Fae out of danger. A little popular
disapproval will do him good. He will understand then how you felt
when wife and friends looked coldly on you, and suspicion whispered
things to injure you that no one dared to say openly. Let Peter suffer
a little. I am not sorry for him."

"Once he liked me, and was kind to me."

"Jan!"

"Yes, my friend."

"We are now going straight to Margate. I am promised office, and shall
probably be a busy public man soon. It is time also that you buckled
down to your work. We have had our holiday and grown strong in
it--every way strong. What next?"

"Thou speak first."

"Well, you see, Jan, men must work if they would be rich, or even
respectable. What work have you thought of?"

"Only of the sea. She is my father and my mother and my inheritance.
Working on land, I am as much out of place as a fish out of water."

"I think you are right. Will you join the Merchant Service, or do you
think better of the Royal Navy? I have a great deal of influence with
the Admiralty Lords, and I have often wished I could be a 'blue
jacket' myself."

"Above all things, I would like the Royal Navy."

"Then you shall be a 'blue jacket;' that is quite settled and well
settled, I am sure. But every moment will take time, and it will
probably be winter before I can get you a post on any squadron likely
to see active service. During the interval I will leave 'The Lapwing'
in your care, and you must employ the time in studying the technical
part of your profession. I know an old captain in Margate who will
teach you all he knows, and that is all that any of them know."

Jan was very grateful. The prospect was a pleasant one and the actual
experience of it more than fulfilled all his expectations. "The
Lapwing" was his home and his study. For he soon discovered how
ignorant he was. Instruction in naval warfare was not all he needed.
Very soon the old captain was supplemented by the schoolmaster. The
days were too short for all Jan wished to learn. He grudged the hours
that were spent in sleep. So busy was he that he never noticed the
lapse of time, or, if he did, it was only that he might urge himself
to greater efforts.

It did not trouble him that Lord Lynne seldom wrote, and never came.
His salary was promptly paid, and Jan was one of the kind of men whom
good fortune loves. He did not worry over events. He did not keep
wondering what she was going to do for him, or wish night and day that
she would make haste with the next step in his behalf. He took
gratefully and happily the good he had, and enjoyed it to the utmost.

When a change came it was the first week in November. A lovely
afternoon had not tempted Jan from his books. Suddenly the cabin door
was darkened; he lifted his head, and saw Lord Lynne regarding him
with a face full of pleasure. He came rapidly forward and turned over
the volumes on the table with great interest. "I am glad to see these
books, Jan," he said, "Arithmetic, Geography, History, French--very
good, indeed! And your last letter delighted me. The writing was
excellent. Her Majesty's officers ought to be educated gentlemen; and
you are now one of them."

Jan looked up, with eager, inquiring face.

"Yes, sir; you are now Lieutenant Jan Vedder, of Her Majesty's
Schooner Retribution. You are to sail for the African coast within a
week. Jan, I congratulate you!"

Jan rose and put out both hands. The action was full of feeling. No
words could have been so eloquent. It was worth an hour of words, and
Lord Lynne so understood it.

"I called at the mail as I came through the town, here is a letter for
you. While you read it I will go through the yacht."

When he returned Jan was walking anxiously about with the letter in
his hand. "Has bad news come with the good, Jan?"

"I know not if it be bad or if it be good. Peter Fae hath married
again."

"Do you know the new wife?"

"Well I know her. She was ever a good friend to me, but my wife liked
her not."

"Is she young or old, pretty or otherwise?"

"Few women are so handsome, and she has not yet thirty years."

"Then it is likely Peter Fae has found a master?"

"That, too, is likely. Snorro says that he hath settled on her the
house in which he lives, with much money beside. Perhaps now my
Margaret will be poor. I can not think that she will live with Suneva.
What then will she do? I wish to see her very much."

"That you can not possibly do, Lieutenant Vedder. You will be under
orders in the morning. To leave your post now, would be desertion. I
do not fear for your wife. She knows very well how to look after her
own interests. The two women in Peter's house will be Greek against
Greek, and your wife will certainly win some victories."

"I would not have her suffer, my friend."

"She will not suffer. It is likely I may be in Lerwick next summer; I
will see to that. Have you saved any thing of your salary?"

"I have spent very little of it. I have now over £300."

"Then I advise you to send £200 to Dr. Balloch for her. Tell him if
help is needed to give it. He will understand the wisest way in which
it can be offered. If it is not needed, he can save it toward that
£600."

"I can send £300."

"No, you can not. Uniforms must be bought, and fees must be paid, and
there are numerous other expenses to meet. Now you must pack your
clothes and books. To-morrow you must be in Portsmouth; there 'The
Retribution' is waiting for you and for orders. The orders may arrive
at any hour, and it is possible you may have to sail at once."

The next afternoon Jan was in Portsmouth. It was a wonderful thing for
him to tread the deck of his own ship; a handsome, fast-sailing
schooner, specially built for the African blockade. She carried a
heavy pivot gun and a carronade, and had a crew of fifty officers and
men. He could scarcely believe that he was to command her, even when
his officers saluted him. In three days he was to sail, and there was
much to be done in the interval. But the hurry and bustle was an
advantage; he had no time to feel the strangeness of his position; and
men soon get accustomed to honor. On the third day he filled his place
with the easy nonchalance of long authority.

It was fortunate for Jan that the mission on which he was sent was one
that stirred him to the very depths of his nature. In the seclusion
and ignorance of his life in Shetland, he had heard nothing of the
wrongs and horrors of slavery. It is doubtful if there had ever come
into his mind, as a distant idea, the thought of a race of men who
were as black as he was white. Therefore when Lord Lynne explained to
him the cruelty and wickedness of the slave traffic, Jan heard him at
first with amazement, then with indignation. That passionate love of
freedom and that hatred of injustice, which are at the foundation of
the Norse character, were touched at every point. The tears of pity,
the fire of vengeance, were in his eyes. To chase a slaver, to punish
her villainous owners, to liberate her captives! Jan took in the whole
grand duty at once.

"I see you are pleased with your prospects, Jan. Many would not be.
The duty of the African blockading squadron is very hard; it is not a
favorite station. That fact made your appointment so easy."

"Only one thing could make my prospects brighter."

"What is that thing?"

"If Snorro could go with me! How he would rejoice in such work! He
is so strong; when he is angry, he is as strong as six men, I
think. Once I saw him put a sick fisherman behind his back, and
compel the boat crew to give him his share. Yes, indeed! They looked
in Snorro's face, and did what he said without a word. He would fly
on these men-catchers like a lion. He would stamp them under his
feet. It is a war that would make Snorro's heart glad. He would
slay the foe as he would pour out water, and for the weak and
suffering he would lay down his life. He would, indeed!"

Jan spoke rapidly, and with enthusiasm. Lord Lynne looked at him with
admiration, as he said: "It is too late now to send for Snorro. How
you do love that man, Jan!"

"Well, then, he deserves it. I would be a cur if I loved him not. I
love thee, too. Thou saved me fr

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