Amelia E. Barr

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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.” ”

“ He is a merry little fellow, he hath kept me laughing.”
“Come here, Jan!” In her anger, she grasped the child’s arm roughly, and he cried out, and clung to Suneva.
Then Margaret’s temper mastered her as it had never done before in her life. She struck the child over and over again, and, amid its cries of pain and fright, she said some words to Suneva full of bitterness and contempt.
“Thee love thy child!” cried Suneva in a passion, “not thou, indeed! Thou loves no earthly thing but thyself. Every day the poor baby suffers for thy bad temper—even as his father did.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Jan begs thee to read it! No, no, I will not take it back!”
“I dare not read it, Snorro. It is too late—too late. Tell Jan he must not come here. It will make more sorrow for me. If he loves me at all, he will not come. He is not kind to force me to say these words. Tell him I will not, dare not, see him!”
“It is thou that art unkind. He has been 112 shipwrecked, Margaret Vedder; bruised and cut, and nearly tossed to death by the waves. He is broken-hearted about thee. He loves thee, oh, as no woman ever deserved to be loved. He is thy husband. Thou wilt see him, oh yes, thou wilt see him!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thou has not suffered one hour longer than was necessary. Week by week, month by month, year by year, thy heart has been growing more humble and tender, more just and unselfish; but it was not until Snorro brought thee those poor despised love-gifts of Jan’s that thou wast humble and tender, and just, and unselfish enough to leave all and go and seek thy lost husband. ”

“ Nothing is so conducive to a strong affection as a long sweet course of love-letters, and both of them impressed their souls on the white paper which bore to each other their messages of affection. It was really their wooing time, and never lover was half so impatient to claim his bride, as Jan was to see again his fair, sweet Margaret. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who ever saw her weep at Jan’s name? I had liked her better if she had wept more.”
“It is little men know of women; their smiles and their tears alike are seldom what they seem. I think Margaret loves her husband and mourns his loss sincerely; but she is not a woman to go into the market-place to weep. Do what is right and just to her, I counsel thee to do that. Now I will say ‘Farewell, brave Snorro.’ We may not meet again, for I am growing old.”
“We shall anchor in the same harbor at last. If thou go first, whatever sea I am on, speak me on thy way, if thou can do so.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 160 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. ”

“ 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 187 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. ”

“ A stranger suddenly dropped in these Shetland islands, especially in winter, would not unnaturally say, “how monotonously dreary life must be here! In such isolation the heart must lose its keen sense of sympathy, and be irresponsive and dumb.” That is the great mistake about the affections. It is not the rise and fall of empires, the birth and death of kings, or the marching of armies that move them most. When they answer from their depths, it is to the domestic joys and tragedies of life. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!” ”