will not be long ere I meet that blessed thrall that cursed all
the generations of the Borsons. He and I will strike hands in that
quarrel; and it shall go ill with you and your children till the
last Borson be cursed off the face of the earth."
"I will flee unto the Omnipotent. He will keep even my shadow from
the evil ones that follow after. Now I will go, for I see there is
no hope of good-will between us two."
"And it is my advice that you go away from Shetland."
"That I will _not_ do. There are my cousins Nanna and Vala here; and
it is freely said that you have done them much ill. I will stay here
and do them all the good I can."
"Then you will have Nicol Sinclair to settle with. That is the best
of my wish. Nicol Sinclair is my third cousin, and I have given
him five hundred pounds because he hates the Borsons and is ready
to cross their happiness in all things possible. Pack, now, from my
presence! I have no more to say to you. I am no kin to you, and I
have taken good care to prevent the law making you kin. My will is
made. All that I have not given to Nicol Sinclair goes to make free
the slaves in Africa. Freedom! freedom! freedom!" she shrieked.
"Nothing is cruel but slavery."
It was the old Norse passion for liberty, strong and vital when every
other love was ashes. It was a passion also to which David instantly
responded. The slumbering sentiment awoke like a giant in his heart,
and he comprehended it by a racial instinct as passionate as her own.
"You have done well," he said. "Hunger and cold, pain and poverty,
are nothing if one has freedom. It is a grand thing to set a man or
a woman _free_."
"And yet you catch haddock and herring! Bah! we have nothing to do
with each other."
"Then farewell, aunt, and God give you mercy in the day you will need
mercy."
She was suddenly and stolidly silent. She fixed her eyes on the
dull glow of the burning peats, and relapsed into the torpor that
was her habitual mood. Its force was insurmountable. David went
slowly out of her presence, and was unable for some time to cast off
the depression of her icy influence. Yet the meeting had not been
without result. During it he had felt the first conscious throb of
that new passion for freedom which had sprung into existence at the
impetuous, glowing iteration of the mere word from his aunt's lips.
He felt its charm in the unaccustomed liberty of his own actions.
He was now entirely without claims but those his love or liking
voluntarily assumed. No one older than himself had the right to
reprove or direct him. He had at last come to his majority. He was
master of himself and his fate.
The first evidence of this new condition was a dignified reticence
with Barbara Traill. She was conscious of the change in her
lodger. She felt instinctively that he was no longer a child to
be questioned, and there was a tone of authority in his refusal to
discuss his aunt Sabiston with her which she could not but respect.
Indeed, it was no longer possible to speak to him of Mistress
Sabiston as Mistress Sabiston deserved to be spoken of. Her first
censure was checked by David's air of disapproval and his few
words of apology:
"She is, however, my aunt; and when one is ninety years old it is a
good excuse for many faults."
Matilda's utter refusal of his kin or kindness threw him more
exclusively upon Nanna and her child. And as all his efforts to
discover any other family connections were quite futile, he finally
came to believe that they three were the last of a family that had
once filled the lands of the Norsemen with the fame of their great
deeds. Insensibly this thought drew the bond tighter and closer,
though an instinct as pure as it was conventional taught him a
scrupulous delicacy with regard to this friendship. Fortunately,
in Shetland the blood-tie was regarded as a strong enough motive
for all David's attentions to a woman and child so desolate and
helpless. People said simply, "It is a good thing for Nanna Sinclair
that her cousin has come to Shetland." And it did not enter their
hearts to imagine an evil motive for kind deeds when there was one
so natural and obligatory.
So Shetland became dear and pleasant to David, and he gradually
grew into great favor. The minister made much of the young man, for
he respected his integrity and earnest piety, and loved him for
that tenderness and clearness of conscience which was sensitive to
the first approaches of wrong. The fishers and sailors of the
town gave him a warm admiration for his seamanship, and the praise
David had looked for at the beginning, and felt disappointed in not
receiving, was now given him by a kind of acclamation. Old sailors,
telling yarns of their ships and the queer, bold things their
ships had done, generally in some way climaxed their narratives by
an allusion to David Borson. Thus, Peter Redlands, talking to a group
of fishers one day, said:
"Where that lad learned the sea, and who taught him all the ways of
it, is beyond me; but say as you will, he can make harbor when none
of us could look at it. It is my belief David Borson can stick to
anything that can float."
"And to see how he humors a boat," continued Jan Wyck, "you would
think she was made out of flesh instead of out of three-inch planks.
I was out with him near the Old Man's Rocks last week, and he was
watching the water; and I said, 'What is it, David?' 'The sea,' he
said. 'It will be at its old tricks again in an hour or less.' And
the 'less' was right, for in fifteen minutes the word was, 'Reef,
and quick about it!' and then you know what--the rip and the roar,
and the boat leaping her full length. But David did not worry a
jot. He coaxed her beautifully, and kept her well in hand; and she
shook herself a little, and then away like a gull before the wind."
He was just as popular among the children and women of Lerwick. The
boys made an idol of him, for David was always ready to give them a
sail, or lend them his fowling-piece, or help them to rig their
toy boats. As for the maidens, the prettiest ones in Lerwick had a
shy smile for David Borson, and many wondered that such a beauty
as Asta Fae should smile on him in vain; but David had taken Nanna
and Vala into his heart, and his care and thought for them were so
constant that there was no room for any other interest. Yet Barbara
often talked to him about taking a wife; and even the minister,
doubtless led to such advice by female gossip and speculation,
thought it well to speak a word on the subject to him.
"You know, David," he said, "there are good girls and beautiful girls
that look kindly on you, and who wonder that your smiles are so cold
and your words so few; and it is my duty to say to you that evil may
come of your taking so much thought for your cousin and her child,
and the way to help her best is to help her through your own wife."
"I am not in the mind to marry, minister," he answered. "There is no
one girl dearer or fairer to me than another. And as for what I do
for my cousins, I think that God sent me to do it, and I shall not
be feared to make accounting to him for it."
"That is my belief also, David. Yet we are told to avoid the very
appearance of evil; and what is more, if it is not your pleasure to
marry, it is your duty; and how will you win past that?"
"I have not seen it to be my duty, minister."
"The promise is in the line of the righteous; the blessing is for you
and for your children; but if you have no wife or children, then is
the promise shortened and the blessing cut off. I think that you
should choose some good woman's daughter, and build yourself a home,
and then marry a wife."
The young man went out of the manse with this thought in his heart.
And not far off he met pretty Asta Fae, and he spoke to her and
walked with her as far as she was going; and he saw that she had the
sweetest of blue eyes, and that her smile was tender and her ways
gentle. And when he left her at her father's door, he held her hand
a moment and said, "It has been a pleasant walk to me, Asta." And
she looked frankly into his face and answered with rosy blushes,
"And to me also, David."
There was a warm glow at his heart as he went across the moor to
Nanna's; and he resolved to tell his cousin what the minister had
said, and ask her advice about Asta Fae; but when he reached Nanna's
cot she was sitting on the hearth with Vala upon her knees, and
telling her such a strange story that David would not for anything
lose a word of it. And as Nanna's back was to the open door she
did not see David enter, but went on with her tale, in the high,
monotonous tone of one telling a narrative whose every word is
well known and not to be changed.
"You see, Vala," she said, touching the child's fingers and toes,
"it was the old brown bull of Norraway, and he had a sore battle
with the deil, and he carried off a great princess; and you may know
how big he was, for he said to her, 'Eat out of my left ear, and
drink out of my right ear, and put by the leavings.' And ay they
rode, and on they rode, till they came to a dark and awesome glen,
and there the bull stopped and the lady lighted down. And the bull
said to her: 'Here you must stay while I go on and fight the deil.
And you must sit here on that stone, and move not hand or foot till
I come back, or else I'll never find you again. And if everything
round about you turns blue, I shall have beaten the deil; but if
all things turn red, then the deil will have conquered me.'"
"And so he left her, mammy, to go and fight the deil?"
"Ay, he did, Vala; and she sat still, singing."
"Sing me the lady's song, mammy."
Then Nanna intoned softly the strangest, wildest little tune. It was
like a Gregorian chant, and had but three notes, but to these she
gave a marvelous variety. David listened spellbound to the entreating
voice:
"'Seven long years I served for thee,
The glassy hill I clamb for thee,
The bloody shirt I wrang for thee,
And wilt thou not waken and come to me?'
But I'm thinking he never came back to the lady."
"Oh, yes, he did, mammy," said Vala, confidently. "Helga Storr told
me he came back a fine prince with a gold crown on his head, and the
deil went away empty and roaring mad."
"What is it you are telling about, Nanna?" said David, his face eager
and alight with interest.
She rose up then, with Vala in her arms, her eyes shining with her
sweet, motherly story-telling. "It is only an old tale, David," she
answered. "I know not who made it up. My mother told it to me, and
her mother to her, and so back through years that none can count.
Yes, indeed; what little child does not know the story of the big
brown bull of Norraway?"
"I never heard of it before," said David.
"To be sure; your mother did not live to talk to you--poor little
lad!"
"Now, then, Nanna, tell it to me for my mother's sake." And he sat
down on the cricket by her side, and took Vala on his knee; and Nanna
laughed, and then, with the little formal importance of the reciter,
said: "Well, so it shall be, then. Here beginneth the story of the
big brown bull of Norraway and his fight with the deil." And the
old tale fell from her lips full of charm, and David listened with
all the delight of a child. And when it had been twice told, Nanna
began to talk of the burnt Njal and the Icelandic sagas, and the
more so as she saw David was full of strange wonder and delight,
and that every word was fresh and enthralling to him.
"Yet it is a thing to be wondered at," she said finally, "that you,
David, know not these old histories better than I do; for I have
often heard that no one in all the islands could tell a story so
well as Liot Borson. Yes, and the minister once said, and I heard
him, that he would walk ten miles to hear from your father's lips
once more the sad happenings of his ancestor, the brave, helpful
Gisli."
"This is a great thing to me, Nanna," answered David, in a voice
low and quiet, for he was feeling deeply. "And I look to you now
for what has never been told me. Who, then, was my ancestor Gisli?"
"If your father held his peace about him, he surely thought it best
to do so, and so ask me not to break a good resolve."
"Nay, but I must ask you. My heart burns; I feel that there is a life
behind me into which I must look. Help me, Nanna. And, more, the
name Gisli went to my head. It is not like other strange names. I
love this man whom I have not seen and never heard of until this
hour. What has he to do with me?"
"_He was one of us._ And because he was so good and great the
thrall's curse fell the harder on him, and was the more
regarded--hard enough it has been on all the Borsons; and perhaps
your father thought it was well you heard not of it. Many a time
and oft I have wished it had not entered my ears; for when one sorrow
called to another sorrow, and one wrong trod on the heels of
another wrong, I have been angry at the false, ungrateful man
who brought such ill fortune upon his unborn generations."
"Now you make me so anxious and wilful that nothing but the story
of the thrall's curse will do for me. I shall not eat or sleep till
I hear it."
"'Tis a tale of dishonor and unthankfulness, and not so well known
to me as to Jorn Thorkel. He can tell it all, and will gladly do so."
"But for all that, I will hear it from you, Nanna, and you only, for
it concerns us only. Tell me what you know, and the rest can wait
for Jorn."
"So, then, you will have it; but if ill comes of the knowledge do
not blame me. It began in the days of Harold Fairhair, one thousand
years ago. There was a Gisli then, and he had a quarrel with a
berserker called Bjorn, and they agreed to fight until one was dead.
And the woman who loved Gisli told him that her foster-father, Kol,
who was a thrall, had a sword that whoever wielded would win in
any fight. And Gisli sent for Kol and asked him:
"'Hast thou ever a good sword?'
"And Kol answered: 'Many things are in the thrall's cot, not in the
king's grange.'
"'Lend me thy sword for my duel with Bjorn,' said Gisli.
"And Kol said: 'Then this thing will happen: thou wilt never wish to
give it up. And yet I tell thee, this sword will bite whatever it
falls on, nor can its edge be deadened by spells, for it was forged
by the dwarfs, and its name is Graysteel. And make up thy mind,' he
said, 'that I will take it very ill indeed if I get not my sword
back when I ask for it.'
"So Gisli took the sword and slew Bjorn with it, and got good fame
for this feat. And time rolled on, and he gave not back the sword;
and one day Kol met him, and Gisli had Graysteel in his hand, and
Kol had an ax.
"And Kol asked if the sword had done him good service at his great
need, and Gisli was full of its praises.
"'Well, now,' said Kol, 'I should like it back.'
"'Sell it to me,' said Gisli.
"'No,' said Kol.
"'I will give thee thy freedom for it,' said Gisli.
"'I will not sell it,' said Kol.
"'I will also give thee land and sheep and cattle and goods as much
as thou wantest,' said Gisli.
"'I will not sell it a whit more for that,' said Kol.
"'Put thy own price on it in money, and I will get thee a fair wife
also,' said Gisli.
"'There is no use talking about it,' said Kol. 'I will not sell it,
whatsoever thou offerest. It has come to what I said would happen:
that thou wouldst not give me back my weapon when thou knewest what
virtue was in it.'
"'And I too will say what will happen,' said Gisli. 'Good will befall
neither of us; for I will _not_ give up the sword, and it shall
never come into any man's hand but mine, if I have my will.'
"Then Kol lifted his ax, and Gisli drew Graysteel, and they smote
at each other. Kol's blow fell on Gisli's head, so that it sank
into the brain; and Graysteel fell on Kol's head, and his skull was
shattered, and Graysteel broke asunder. Then, as Kol gave up the
ghost, he said:
"'It had been better that thou hadst given me my sword when I asked
for it, for this is only the beginning of the ill fortune I will
bring on thy kith and kin forever.'
"And so it has been. For a thousand years the tellings-up of our
family are full of troubles that this thrall's curse has brought
upon us. Few of our men have grown gray-headed; in the sea and on
the battlefield they have found their graves; and the women have had
sorrow in marriage and death in child-bearing."
"It was an evil deed," said David.
"It was a great curse for it also; one thousand years it has followed
Gisli's children."
"Not so! I believe it not! Neither the dead nor the living can curse
those whom God blesses."
"Yet always the Borsons have had the worst of ill fortune. We three
only are now left of the great earls who ruled in Surnadale and in
Fjardarfolk, and see how poor and sorrowful we are. My life has been
woven out of grief and disappointment; Vala will never walk; and as
for your own youth, was it not labor and sorrow only?"
"I believe not in any such spaedom. I believe in God the Father
Almighty, and in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. And as for
the cursing of man, dead or alive, I will not fear what it can do
to me. Gisli was indeed well served for his mean, ungrateful deed,
and it would have been better if the berserker Bjorn had cut his
false heart out of him."
"Such talk is not like you, David. I can see now that your father
did right to keep these bloody stories from your hearing. There is no
help in them."
"Well, I know not that. This night the minister was talking to me
about taking a wife. If there be truth or power in Kol's curse, why
should any Borson be born, that he or she may bear his spite? No; I
will not marry, and--"
"In saying that you mock your own words. Where, then, is your trust
in God? And the minister is right; you ought to take a wife. People
think wrong of a young man who cannot fix his heart on one good
woman. There is Christina Hey. Speak to her. Christina is sweet and
wise, and will make a good wife."
"I met Asta Fae as I came here. Very pretty indeed is her face, and
she has a way to win any heart."
"For all that, I do not think well of Asta. She is at the dance
whenever there is one, and she has more lovers than a girl should
have."
"Christina has land and money. I care not for a wife who is richer
than myself."
"Her money is nothing against her; it will be a help."
"I know not," he answered, but without interest. "You have given me
something to think of that is better than wooing and wedding, Nanna.
My heart is quite full. I am more of a man than I have ever been. I
can feel this hour that there is life behind me as well as before me.
But I will go now, for to-morrow is the Sabbath and we shall meet
at the kirk; and I will carry Vala home for you if you say so, Nanna."
"Well, then," she answered, "to-morrow is not here, David; but it
will come, by God's leave. I dreamed a dream last night, and I look
for a change, cousin. But this or that, my desire is that God would
choose for me."
"That also is my desire," said David, solemnly.
"As for me, I have fallen into a great strait; only God can help me."
She was standing on the hearth, looking down at Vala. Tears were
in her eyes, and a divine pity and sorrow made tender and gentle her
majestic beauty. David looked steadily at her, and something, he
knew not what, seemed to pierce his very soul--a sweet, aching pain,
never felt before, inexplicable, ineffable, and as innocent as the
first holy adoration of a little child. Then he went out into the
still, starry night, and tried to think of Christina Hey; but she
constantly slipped from his consciousness, like a dream that has
no message.
VII
SO FAR AND NO FARTHER
David Borson was stirred to the very seat of life by the things Nanna
had told him. It did not enter his heart to doubt their truth. The
shameful deed of the first Gisli, and the still strong order of its
consequences, which neither the guilt of his children hastened, nor
their innocence delayed, nor their expiation arrested, was the
dominant feeling aroused by her narrative. The whole story, with its
terrible Nemesis, fitted admirably into the system of Calvinistic
theology, and David had not yet come to the hour in which faith
would crush down fatalism. The words of these ancient sagas went
singing and swinging through his brain and heart, and life seemed
so wonderful and bewildering, its sorrows so great and certain, its
needs so urgent and present, and heaven, alas! so far off.
There came to him also, as he slowly trod the lonely moor, the most
awful of all conceptions of eternity--the revelation of _a repentance
that could undo nothing_. He was righteously angry at Gisli's base
ingratitude; he was sorry for his sin; but others had doubtless
felt the same anger and sorrow, and it had been ineffectual. Helpless
and passive in the hands of destiny, a nameless dread, an urgent
want of help and comfort, forced him to feel out into the abyss
for something more than flesh and blood to lean on; and then he
found that God is best of all approached in indefinite awe and
worship, and that moments of tender, vague mystery, haunted by
uncertain presentiments, bring him near.
"Well, then," he said as he came to the door of his house, "the
wicked may be a rod, and smite for generations; but the rod is in the
hand of God, and I will remind myself that my God is the Everlasting,
Almighty, Infinite One; and I will ask him to give sentence with
me, and to deliver me from the wicked, whether they be in the body
or out of the body." And he walked through the house-place where
Barbara was sitting, and saw her not; for he was saying to himself,
"'Why art thou so vexed, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted
within me? O put thy trust in God: for I will yet give him thanks,
which is the help of my countenance, and my God.'"
Nanna sat motionless for long after David left her. She had many
causes for anxiety. She was fearful of losing her work, and absolute
poverty would then be her lot. It was a fear, however, and not a
certainty; and after a little reflection she also threw her care
upon the Preserver of men. "Be at peace," she said to her heart.
"God feeds the gulls and the ravens, and he will not starve Nanna and
Vala."
It was harder to combat her spiritual anxieties. She was sorry
she had told David about the thrall's curse. Her first instinct
was to ask his father and mother to forgive her; then she suddenly
remembered that praying to or for the dead was a sin for a kirk
session to meet on. And this thought led her easily to the dream
that had troubled her last night's sleep and made her day dark
with sorrowful fears. All her life she had possessed something of
that sixth sense by which we see and anticipate things invisible.
And it is noticeable that many cripples have often a seraphic
intelligence, a far-reaching vision, and very sensitive spiritual
aptitudes. Vala was of this order. She too had been singularly
depressed; she had seen more than she could tell; she was as restless
and melancholy as birds just before their migrations, and she looked
at her mother with eyes so wistful, so full of inquiry, so "far off,"
that Nanna trembled under their fearfully prescient intimations.
Alas for the dangerous happiness of maternity! How prodigious are its
inquietudes! How uncertain its consolations!
She told David that she had dreamed a dream, and that she looked
for a change; and she had made this statement as simply and as
confidently as if she had said, "The wind is from the north, and I
look for a storm." Repeated experiences had taught her, as they
teach constantly, that certain signs precede certain events, and that
certain dreams are dictated by that delicate antenna of spiritual
instinct which feels danger to be near and warns of it.
Nanna had had _the dream_ that ever forecast her misfortunes, and she
sat thinking of its vague intimations, and tightening her heart for
any sorrow. She had been forewarned that she might be forearmed,
and she regarded this warning as a mark of interest and favor from
beyond the veil. God had always spoken to his children in dreams
and by the oracles that abide in darkness, and Nanna knew that in
many ways "dreams are large possessions." She fell asleep pondering
what her vision of the preceding night might mean, and awoke next
morning, while it was still dark, with a dim sense of fear and sorrow
encompassing her.
"But everything frightens one when night, the unknown, takes the
light away," she thought. And she rose and lighted a lamp, and
looked at Vala. The child was in a deep and healthy slumber, and the
sight of its face calmed and satisfied her. Yet she was strangely
apprehensive, and there was a weight on her heart that made her faint
and trembling. She knew right well that some hitherto unknown sorrow
was creeping like a mist over her life, and she had not yet the
strength and the pang of conflict.
Have we not too? Yes, we have
Answers, and we know not whence;
Echoes from beyond the grave,
Recognized intelligence.