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.