ESAU'S BITTER CRY.
Shrinking from every human face, Jason turned in his dumb despair
towards the sea, for the moan of its long dead waves seemed to speak
to him in a voice of comfort if not of cheer. The year had deepened
to autumn, and the chill winds that scattered the salt spray, the
white curves of the breakers, the mists, the dapple-gray clouds, the
scream of the sea fowl, all suited with his mood, for at the
fountains of his own being the great deeps were broken up.
It was Tuesday, and every day thereafter until Saturday he haunted
the shore, the wild headland to seaward, and the lonesome rocks
on the south. There, bit by bit, the strange and solemn idea
of unrequited love was borne in upon him. It was very hard to
understand. For one short day the image of a happy love had stood up
before his mind, but already that day was dead. That he should never
again clasp her hand whom he loved, that all was over between
them--it was painful, it was crushing.
And oh! it was very cruel. His life seemed as much ended as if he had
taken his death-warrant, for life without hope was nothing worth. The
future he had fondly built up for both of them lay broken at his own
feet. Oh, the irony of it all! There were moments when evil passions
arose in his mind and startled him. Standing at the foot of the lone
crags of the sea he would break into wild peals of laughter, or
shriek out in rebellion against his sentence. But he was ashamed of
these impulses, and would sink away from the scene of them, though no
human eye had there been on him like a dog that is disgraced.
Yet he felt that like a man among men he could fight anything but
this relentless doom. Anything, anything--and he would not shrink.
Life and love, life and love--only these, and all would be well. But
no, ah! no, not for him was either; and creeping up in the dead of
night towards Lague, just that his eyes might see, though sorrow
dimmed them, the house where she lay asleep, the strong man would sob
like a woman, and cry out: Greeba! Greeba! Greeba!
But with the coming of day his strength would return, and watching
the big ships outside pass on to north and south, or listening to the
merry song of the seamen who weighed anchor in the bay, he told
himself sadly, but without pain, that his life in the island was
ended, that he could not live where she lived, surrounded by the
traces of her presence, that something called him away, and that he
must go. And having thus concluded his spirits rose, and he decided
to stay until after Sunday, thinking to see her then in church, and
there take his last tender look of her and bid her farewell in
silence, for he could not trust himself to speak.
So he passed what remained of his time until then without bitterness
or gloom, saying within himself as often as he looked with bereaved
eyes towards Lague, where it lay in the sunshine, "Live on, and be
happy, for I wish you no ill. Live on, and the memory of all this
will pass away."
But he did not in the meantime return to his work at the mill, which
stood as he had left it on the Tuesday when the carpenter fixed the
last of its roof timbers. This, with the general rupture of his
habits of life, was the cause of sore worry and perplexity to his
housemate.
"Aw, reglar bruk--bruk complete," old Davy said far and wide. "A
while ago ye couldn' hould him for workin' at the mill, and now he's
never puttin' a sight on it, and good goold waitin' for him; and
showin' no pride--and what he's thinkin' of no one's knowin'."
Davy tried hard to sound the depth of Jason's trouble, but having no
line to fathom it he had recourse to his excellent fancy.
"Aw, bless yer sowls, the thick as a haddick I was," he whispered one
day, "and me wonderin' why, and wonderin' why, and the thing as plain
as plain what's agate of the poor boy. It's divils that's took at
him--divils in the head. Aw, yes, and two of them, for it's aisy to
see there's fightin' goin' on inside of him. Aw, yes, same as they
tell of in Revelations; and I've seen the like when I was sailin'
forrin."
Having so concluded old Davy thought it his duty to consult an old
body that lived in a dark tangle of birchwood at Ballaglass.
"It's fit to make a man cry to see the way he's goin'," said he, "and
a few good words can't do no harm any way."
The old woman agreed with Davy as to the cause of trouble, and said
that Jason must be somebody after all, since what he had was a malady
the quality was much subject to; for to her own knowledge the "Clerk
o' the Rowls" had suffered from it when a little dancing girl from
France had left suddenly for England. Yet she made no question but
she should cure him, if Davy could contrive to hang about his neck
while he slept a piece of red ribbon which she would provide.
It was not easy for Davy to carry out his instructions, so little did
Jason rest, but he succeeded at length, and thought he remarked that
Jason became calmer and better straightway.
"But bless me, I was wrong," said he. "It was four divils the poor
boy had in his head; and two of them are gone, but the other two are
agate of him still."
When Sunday morning came Jason made himself ready for church, and
then lounged at the doorway of old Davy's cottage by the dial, to
watch the people go in at the gate. And many hailed him as they went
by in the sweet sunshine, and some observed among themselves that in
a few days his face had grown thin. In twos and threes they passed,
while Davy rang the bell from the open porch, and though Jason seemed
not to heed any of them, yet he watched them one by one. Matt
Mylechreest he saw, and Nary Crowe, now toothless and saintly, and
Kane Wade, who had trudged down from Ballure, and his wife Bridget,
grown wrinkled and yellow, and some bright young maidens, too, who
gave a side-long look his way, and John Fairbrother--Gentleman
John--who tripped along with silken bows on the toes of his shoes.
But one whom he looked for he did not see, and partly from fear that
she might not come, and partly from dread lest she should pass him so
closely by, he shambled into church with the rest before the bell had
stopped.
He had not often been to church during the four years that he had
lived on the island and the people made way for him as he pushed up
into a dark corner under the gallery. There he sat and watched as
before out of his slow eyes, never shifting their quiet gaze from the
door of the porch. But the bell stopped, and Greeba had not come;
and when Parson Gell hobbled up to the Communion-rail, still Greeba
was not there. Then the service was begun, the door was closed, and
Jason lay back and shut his eyes.
The prayers were said without Jason hearing them, but while the first
lesson was being read, his wandering mind was suddenly arrested. It
was the story of Jacob and Esau; how Isaac, their father, seeing the
day of his death at hand, sent Esau for venison, that he might eat
and bless him before he died; how Jacob under the person of Esau
obtained the blessing, and how Esau vowed to slay his brother Jacob.
"And Isaac, his father, said unto him: Who art thou? And he said, I
am thy son, thy first born Esau.
"And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? Where is he that
hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before
thou camest, and have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed?
"And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great
and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me
also, O my father.
* * *
"And Isaac, his father, answered and said unto him, Behold, thy
dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and the dew of heaven
from above;
"And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and
it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou
shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.
"And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father
blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my
father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob."
As Parson Gell at the reading-desk mumbled these words through his
toothless gums, it seemed to Jason as though he were awakening from a
long sleep--a sleep of four years, a sleep full of dreams, both sweet
and sad--and that everything was coming back upon him in a dizzy
whirl. He remembered his mother, her cruel life, her death, and his
own vow, and so vivid did these recollections grow in a moment that
he trembled with excitement.
A woman in a black crape bonnet, who sat next to him in the pew, saw
his emotions, and put a Bible into his hands. He accepted it with a
slight movement of the head, but when he tried to find the place he
turned dizzy and his hands shook. Seeing this the good woman, with a
look of pity and a thought of her runaway son who was far off, took
the Bible back, and after opening it at the chapter in Genesis,
returned it in silence. Even then he did not read, but sat with
wandering eyes, while nervous twitches crossed his face.
He was thinking that he had forgotten his great vow of vengeance,
lulled to sleep by his vain dream of love; he was telling himself
that his vow must yet be fulfilled or his mother who had urged him to
it, would follow him with her curse from her grave. For some minutes
this feeling grew more and more powerful, and more and more his limbs
and whole body quivered. The poor woman in the crape saw that he
trembled, and leaned towards him and asked if he was ill. But he only
shook his head and drew back in silence into the corner of the pew.
"I must be going mad," he thought, and to steady his mind he turned
to the book, thinking to follow the old parson as he lisped along.
It was a reference Bible that the woman had lent him, and as his eyes
rambled over the page, never resting until they alit on the words,
_then will I slay my brother Jacob_, he shuddered and thought "How
hideous!" All at once he marked the word _slay_ in the margin with
many references to it, and hardly knowing what he was doing he turned
up the first of them. From that moment his senses were in a turmoil,
and he knew nothing clearly of all that was being done about him. He
thought he saw that through all ages God had made man the instrument
of his vengeance on the wrongdoer. The stories of Moses, of Saul, of
Samson, came back to him one by one, and as he read a chill terror
filled his whole being.
He put the book down, trying to compose himself, and then he thought,
"How childish? God is King of earth and heaven, and needs the help of
no man." But his nervous fingers could not rest and he took up the
Bible again, while the parson prosed through his short sermon. This
time he turned away from the passages that haunted him, though "Esau,
Esau, Esau," rang in his head. Rolling the leaves in his hand he read
in one place how the Lord visits His vengeance upon the children for
the sins of the fathers, and then in another place how the nearest of
kin to him that is killed shall avenge the blood spilt, and then
again in yet another place how if man keeps not his covenant with the
Lord, the Lord will send a faintness upon him, and a great and woeful
trembling, so that the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase him.
"Am I then afraid?" he asked himself, and shut the book once more.
His head swam with vague thoughts. "I must keep my vow," he thought.
"I am losing my senses," he thought again. "I am an Esau," he thought
once more.
Then he looked around the church, and if he had seen Greeba at that
moment the fire of his heart would have burnt itself out, and all
thought of his vow would have gone from him as it had gone before. He
did not see her, but he remembered her, and his soul dried away.
The service came to an end, and he strode off, turning from every
face; but John Fairbrother tripped after him on the road, touched him
on the arm, looked up at him with a smirk, and said:--
"Then you don't know where she is?"
"Who?" said Jason.
"Then you _don't_ know, eh?" said John, with a meaning look.
"Who d'ye mean?--Greeba?"
"Just so. She's gone, though I warrant it's fetching coals to
Newcastle to tell you so."
Hearing that, Jason pushed Gentleman John out of his way with a lunge
that sent the dandy reeling, and bounded off towards Lague.
"Aw, well," muttered John, "you'd really think he _didn't_ know."
The woman in crape who had followed Jason out of the church, thinking
to speak to him, said: "Lave him alone. It's the spirit of the Lord
that's strivin' with him."
And old Davy, who came up at the moment, said: "Divils ma'am--divils
in the head."
When Jason got to Lague he found the other Fairbrothers assembled
there. Asher had missed Greeba the night before, and on rising late
that morning--Sunday morning--he had so far conquered his laziness as
to walk round to his brothers' houses and inquire for her. All six,
except John, had then trudged back to Lague, thinking in their slow
way to start a search, and they began their quest by ransacking
Greeba's room. There they found two letters in a chest, clearly
forgotten in a hasty leave-taking. One of them was Greeba's
abandoned letter to Red Jason, the other was the letter of Michael
Sunlocks to Greeba. The Fairbrothers read both with grim wonderment,
and Jacob put Greeba's letter in his pocket. They were discussing the
letter of Sunlocks as Jason entered; and they fell back at sight of
his ashy face and the big beads of sweat that dropped from it.
"What's this? Where is she?" he said, and his powerful voice shook.
Without a word they handed him the letter, and he glanced it over and
turned it in his hands, like one who does not see or cannot read.
"Where's she gone?" he said again, lifting his helpless eyes to the
faces about him.
"The devil knows," said Jacob; "but see--read--'Michael Sunlocks,'"
running his finger along the signature.
At that a groan like the growl of a beast came from Jason's throat,
and like a baited dog he looked around, not yet knowing on whom his
wrath should fasten.
"It's very simple. It's plain to see that she has gone to him," said
Jacob.
And then Jason's face was crossed by a ghastly smile.
"Oh, I'm a woman of a man," he muttered, looking stupidly down at the
paper in his hand. "A poor-spirited fool," he muttered again. "I must
be so, God knows." But at the next moment his white face grew
blood-red, and he cried: "My curse upon him," and with that he tossed
back the letter and swung out of the house.
He went on to Port-y-Vullin, mounted the new mill, threw down the
roof rafters, and every wall that they had rested upon, until not one
stone was left above another, and the house, so near completion, was
only a heap of ruins. Then he went into the old hut, took up his
treasures and flung them out to sea.
Meantime, the six Fairbrothers were putting their heads together.
"President!" said Thurstan; "that's as good as Governor-General."
"The deuce!" said John.
"She'll be rich," said Ross. "I always said she was fit for a lady."
"Hum! We've made a mess of it," said Stean.
"Well, you wouldn't take my advice," said Asher. "I was for treating
the girl fair."
"Stay," said Jacob, "it's not yet too late."
"Well, what's to be done?" said the others together.
"Go after her," said Jacob.
"Ah!"
"Hum! Listen! This is what we had better do," said Jacob. "Sell
Ballacraine and take her the money, and tell her we never meant to
keep it from her."
"That's good," said John.
"A Governor-General has pickings, I can tell you," said Jacob.
"But who'll go?" said Asher.
"Go! Hum! What! The deuce! Well I mightn't refuse to go myself," said
Jacob.
"And maybe I wouldn't mind going with you," said John.
And so it was settled. But the other four said to themselves: "What
about the pickings?" And then each, of himself, concluded secretly
that if Jacob and John went to Iceland, Jacob and John would get all
that was to be got by going, and that to prevent such cheating it
would be necessary to go with them.