of that occult world which we all carry with us, created in her, at
first, fear, and then a kind of angry, desperate resentment.
"Oh, how helpless I am!" she sighed. "I can think and feel, I can
fear and love, and I am not here by my own will; I did not place
myself here; I cannot keep myself here. My life is in the grasp of
a Power I cannot control. What am I to do? What can I do? Oh, how
miserable I am! All my life long I have seen '_Not for you_' written
on all I wished. Life is very hard," she said with a little sob.
And then she made no further complaint, but her heart grew so still,
she was sure something must have died there. Alas! was it hope?
"Life is very hard." With these words she lay down again, and between
sleeping and waking the hours wore on, and she rose at last from
her shivery sleep, even later than usual. Then she hurried breakfast
a little, and as the light grew over land and sea she tidied her
room and dressed Vala and herself for the kirk. As the sound of the
first service bell traveled solemnly over the moor she was ready to
leave the house. Her last duty was to put a peat or two upon the
fire, and as she was doing this she heard some one lift the sneck
and push open the door.
"It is David to carry Vala," she thought. "How good he is!"
But when she turned she saw that it was not David. It was her
husband, Nicol Sinclair. He walked straight to the fireside, and
sat down without a word. Nanna's heart sank to its lowest depths,
and a cold despair made her feet and hands heavy as lead; but she
slowly spread the cloth on the table, and bit by bit managed to
recollect the cup and saucer, the barley-cake, the smoked goose,
and the tea.
There was a terrible account between the man sitting on the hearth
and herself, and words of passionate reproach burned at her lips;
but she held her peace. Long ago she had left her cause with God;
he would plead it thoroughly. Even now, when her enemy was before
her, she had no thought of any other advocate.
Her pallor, her slow movements, her absolute dumbness, roused in
Sinclair an angry discomfort. And when Vala made a movement he lifted
her roughly, and with a brutal laugh said, "A nice plaything you
will be on board the _Sea Rover_!"
Nanna shivered at the words. She comprehended in a moment the torture
this man had probably come purposely to inflict upon her. Already
his cruel hands had crippled her child; and what neglect, what
terrors, what active barbarities, might he not impose on the little
one in the hell of his own ship! Who there could prevent him? Little
did Nicol Sinclair care for public opinion on land; but out at
sea, where Vala's tears and cries could bring her no help, what
pitiless inhumanities might he not practise?
"_Fly with the child!_"
The words were struck upon her heart like blows. But how should she
fly? and where to? Far or near, the law would find her out and would
give Vala to her father's authority. And she had no friend strong
enough to protect her. Only by death could she defy separation. Thus,
while she was pouring the boiling water on the tea-leaves, she was
revolving questions more agonizing than words have power to picture.
At length the food was on the table, and, save for those few
threatening words, the silence was unbroken. Sinclair sat down
to his meal with a bravado very near to cursing, and at that moment
the kirk bells began to ring again. To Nanna they were like a voice
from heaven. Quick as thought she lifted her child and fled from
the house.
[Illustration: "BUT SHE HELD HER PEACE."]
Oh, what stress of life and death was in her footsteps! Only to
reach the kirk! If she could do that, she would cling to the altar
and die there rather than surrender Vala to unknown miseries. Love
and terror gave her wings. She did not turn her head; she did not
feel the frozen earth or the cutting east wind; she saw nothing
but Vala's small face on her breast, and she heard nothing but the
echo in her heart of those terrible words threatening her with the
loss of her child.
When she reached the kirk the service had begun. The minister
was praying. She went into the nearest pew, and though all were
standing, she laid Vala on the seat, and slipped to her knees beside
her. She could not now cry out as she longed to do, and sob her
fright and anguish away at God's feet. "Folk would wonder at me. I
would disturb the service." These were her thoughts as soon as
the pressure of her flight was over. For the solemn voice of the
minister praying, the strength of numbers, the holy influence of
the time and place, cooled her passionate sense of wrong and danger,
and she was even a little troubled at her abandonment of what was
usual and Sabbath-like.
The altar now looked a long way off; only Sinclair at touch could
have forced her down that guarded aisle to its shelter. Heaven itself
was nearer, and God needed no explanations. He knew all. What was
the law of man to him? And he feared not their disapproval. Thus
in her great strait she overleaped her creed, and cast herself on
him who is "a God of the afflicted, an helper of the oppressed, an
upholder of the weak, a protector of the forlorn, a savior of them
that are without hope."
When the preaching was over David and Barbara came to her; and David
knit his brows when he saw her face, for it was the face of a woman
who had seen something dreadful. Her eyes were full of fear and
anguish, and she was yet white and trembling with the exertion of
her hard flight.
"Nanna," he said, "what has happened?"
"My husband has come back."
"I heard last night that his ship was in harbor."
"He has come for Vala. He will take her from me. She will die of
neglect and hard usage. He may give her to some stranger who will be
cross to her. O David! David!"
"He shall not touch her."
"O David!"
"Put her in my arms _now_."
"Do you mean this?"
"I do."
"Can I trust you, David?"
"You may put it to any proof."
"Pass your word to me, cousin."
"As the Lord God Almighty lives, I will put my life between Vala and
Nicol Sinclair!"
"But how?"
"I will take her to sea if necessary, for my boat can go where few
will dare to follow."
Then he turned to Barbara and said: "Nicol Sinclair has indeed come
back. He says he has come for Vala."
[Illustration: AT THE KIRK.]
"Then the devil has led him here," answered Barbara, flashing into
anger. "As for Vala, let her stay with me. She has a good guard at my
house. There is Groat and his four sons on one side, and Jeppe Madson
and his big brother Har on the other side; and there is David Borson,
who is worth a whole ship's crew, to back them in anything for Vala's
safety. Stay with me to-day, Nanna, and we will talk this matter out."
But Nanna shook her head in reply. As she understood it, duty was
no peradventure; it was an absolute thing from which there was no
turning away. And her duty was to be at home when her husband was
there. But she put Vala's hand into David's hand, and then looked at
the young man with eyes full of anxiety. He answered the look with
one strong word:
"_Yes!_"
And she knew he would redeem it with his life, if that should be
necessary.
Then she turned homeward, and walked with a direct and rapid energy.
She put away thought; she formed no plan, she said no prayer. Her
petition had been made in the kirk; she thought there would be a
want of faith in repeating a request already promised. She felt even
the modesty of a suppliant, and would not continually press into the
presence of the Highest; for to the reverent there is ever the veil
before the Shechinah.
And this conscious putting aside of all emotion strengthened her.
When she saw her home she had no need to slacken her speed or to
encourage herself. She walked directly to the door and opened it.
There was no one there; the place was empty. The food on the table
was untouched. Nothing but a soiled and crumpled handkerchief
remained of the dreadful visitor. She lifted it with the tongs and
cast it into the fire. Then she cleared away every trace of the
rejected meal.
Afterward she made some inquiries in the adjoining huts. One woman
only had seen his departure. "I could not go to kirk this morning,"
she said with an air of apology, "for my bairn is very sick; and
I saw Nicol Sinclair go away. It was near the noon hour. Drunk he
was, and worse drunk than most men can be. His face was red as a
hot peat, and he swayed to and fro like a boat on the Gruting Voe.
There was something no' just right about the man."
That was all she could learn, and she was very unhappy, for she
could imagine no good reason for his departure. In some way or
other he was preparing the blow he meant to deal her; and though it
was the Sabbath, there would be no difficulty in finding men whom he
could influence. And there was also his cousin Matilda Sabiston,
that wicked old woman who had outlived all human passions but hatred.
Against this man and the money and ill-will that would back him she
could do nothing, but she "trusted in God that he would deliver her."
So she said to herself, "Patience"; and she sat down to wait,
shutting her eyes to the outside world, and drawing to a focus all
the strength that was in her. The closed Bible lay on the table
beside her, and occasionally she touched it with her hand. She had
not been able to read it; but there was comfort in seeing the old,
homely-looking book, with its everyday aspect and its pages full of
kindly blessing, and still more comfort in putting herself in
physical contact with its promises. They seemed to be more real. And
as she sat hour after hour, psalms learned years before, and read
many and many a time without apprehension of their meaning, began to
speak to her. She saw the words with her spiritual sight, and they
shone with their own glory. And she obtained what she so sorely
needed:
A little comforting shadow
From the hot sun's fiery glow;
A little rest by the fountain
Where the waters of comfort flow.
When midnight struck she looked at the clock and thanked God. Surely
she was safe for that night; and she turned the key in her door
and went to sleep. And her sleep was that which God giveth to his
beloved when they are to be strengthened for many days--a deep,
dreamless suspense of all thought and feeling.
Yet, heavenly as the sleep had been, the awakening was a shock. And
as the day grew toward noon she was as much troubled by the silence
of events as her husband had been by the silence of her lips. Human
hearts are nests of fear. Her whole soul kept going to the window,
and she said, with the impatience of suspended suffering, "_Now!
now!_ I have no fortitude for to-morrow, but I can bear anything
_now_." Finally she resolved to go to Barbara's, and see Vala, and
hear whatever there was to hear. But as she was putting on her
cloak she saw David coming over the moor, and he was carrying Vala
in his arms.
"So," she said, "I see that I will not need to run after my fate; it
will come to me; and there will be no use striving against it. For
what must be is sure to happen."
Then she turned back into the house, and David followed with unusual
solemnity, and laid Vala upon her bed. "She is sleeping," he said,
"and there is something to tell you, Nanna."
"About my husband?"
"Yes."
"Say it out at once, then."
"Last night he was carried to his own ship." And David's face was
grave almost to sternness.
"Carried! Have you then hurt him, David?"
"No; he is a self-hurter. But this is what I know. He went from
here to Matilda Sabiston's house. She had gone to kirk with two
of her servants, and when she came back she found him delirious
on the sofa. Then the doctor was sent for, and when he said the word
'typhus,' Matilda shrieked with passion, and demanded that he should
be instantly taken away."
"But no! Surely not!"
"Yes; it was so. Both the minister and the doctor said it was right
and best for him to be taken to his own ship. The town--yes, indeed,
and the whole islands were in danger. And when they took him on
board the _Sea Rover_, they found that two of the sailors were also
very ill with the fever. They had been ill for a week, and Sinclair
knew it; yet he came among the boats, and went through the town,
speaking to many people. It was a wicked thing for him to do."
"It was just like him. Where is the _Sea Rover_ now lying?"
"She has been taken to the South Voe. The fishing-boats will watch
lest the men are landed, and the doctor will go to the ship every day
the sea will let him go."
"David, is it my duty--"
"No, it is not; there are five men with Sinclair. Three of them are,
I believe, yet well men, and three can care for the sick and the
ship. On the deck of the _Sea Rover_ a woman should not put her foot."
"But a ship with typhus on board?"
"Is a hell indeed! In this case, Nanna, it is a hell of their own
making. They got the fever in a dance-house at Rotterdam. Sinclair
knew of its presence, and laughed it to scorn. It was his mate who
told the doctor so. Also, Nanna, there is Vala."
She went swiftly to the side of the sleeping child, and she was sure
there was a change in her. David would not acknowledge it, but in
forty-eight hours the signs of the fatal scourge were unmistakable.
Then Nanna's house was marked and isolated, and she sat down to
watch her dying child.
VIII
THE JUSTIFICATION OF DEATH
During the awful days of Vala's dying no one came near Nanna.
She watched her child night and day, and saw it go out into the
darkness that girds our life around, in unutterable desolation of
soul. From the first Vala was unconscious, and she went away without
a word or token of comfort to the despairing mother. There was
unspeakable suffering and decay, and then the little breathing-house
in which Vala had sojourned a short space was suddenly vacant. For
a moment Nanna stood on the border-lands of being, where life
hardly draws breath. _A little more_, and she would have pushed
apart the curtains that divide us from that spiritual world which
lies so close and which may claim us at any moment. _A little
more_, and she would, in her loving agony, have pressed beyond
manifestations to that which is ineffable and nameless.
But at the last moment the flesh-and-blood conductor of spirit
failed; a great weakness and weariness made her passive under the
storm of sorrow that drove like rain to the roots of her life.
When she was able to move, Vala lay sad and still. All was over,
and Nanna stood astonished, smitten, dismayed, on a threshold she
could not pass. The Eternal had given, and it was a gift; he had
taken away, and it was an immeasurable loss, and she could not
say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord." She was utterly desolate;
and when she washed for the last time the little feet that had
never trod the moor or street or house, she thought her heart
would break. _Who_ had led them through the vast spaces of the
constellations? _Whither_ had they been led? There was no answer to
her moaning question. She looked from her dead Vala to God, and all
was darkness. She could not see him.
It was a hurried burial in a driving storm. The sea rolled in
fateful billows, the winds whistled loud and shrill, the rain
soaked Nanna through and through. Two or three of her neighbors
followed afar off; they wished her to see they were not oblivious
of her grief and loss, but they dared not break the ordinance of
town and kirk and voluntarily and without urgent reason come in
contact with the contagion; for the island not many years previously
had been almost decimated by the same scourge, and every man and
woman was the guardian, not only of his or her own life, but of
the lives of the community.
Nanna understood this. She saw the dark, cloaked figures of her
friends standing in the storm at a distance, and she knew the
meaning of their upraised hands; but she had no heart to answer the
signal of sympathy. Alone, she stood by the small open grave and saw
it filled. The rain beat on it, and she was glad that it beat on her.
It was with difficulty, and only with some affected anger, the
two men who had buried the child got her to return to her home.
How vacant it was! How unspeakably lonely! The stormy dreariness
outside the cot, the atmosphere of sorrow and loss within it, were
depressing beyond words. And what can be said of the loneliness
and sorrow within the soul? But in every bitter cup there is one drop
bitterest of all; and in Nanna's case this was David's neglect and
apparent desertion. She had received no message from him, nor had
he come near her in all her trouble. Truly, he must have broken
the law to do so; but Nanna was sure no town ordinance would have
kept her from David's side in such an hour, and she despised that
obedience to law which could teach him such cowardly neglect.
Day after day passed, and he came not. The fever was by this time in
all the cottages around her, and the little hamlet was a plague-spot
that every one avoided. But, for all that, Nanna's heart condemned
her cousin. She tried him by her own feelings, and found him guilty
of unpardonable selfishness and neglect. And oh, how dreary are
those waste places left by the loved who have deserted us! With
what bitter tears we water them! Vala and David had been her last
tie to love and happiness. "Thank God," she cried out in her misery,
"it can only be broken once!"
Vala had been in her grave a week--a week of days that turned the
mother's heart gray--before Nanna heard a word of comfort. Then once
more David lifted the latch of the cot and entered her presence.
She was sitting still and empty-handed, and her white face and the
quivering of her lips pierced him to the heart.
"Nanna! Nanna!" he said.
Then she rose, and looked round the lonely room, and David understood
what she meant.
"Nanna! Nanna!" was still all that he could say. He could find no
words fit for such sorrow; but there was the truth to speak, and
that might have some comfort in it. So he took her hands in his,
and said gently:
"Nanna! dear Nanna! your husband is dead."
"I am glad of it!" she answered. "He killed Vala twice over." Her
voice was low and weary, and she asked no question about the matter.
"Did you think I had forgotten you, Nanna?"
"Well, then, yes."
"Forgotten you and Vala?"
"It looked most like it. I thought you were either feared for
yourself or the law."
"No wonder men think ill of God, whom they do not know, when they
are so ready to think ill of men, whom they do know."
"O David! how could you desert me? Can you think of all that I have
suffered alone? God nor man has helped me."
"Poor, poor Nanna!"
"If you had been ill to death, neither the words of men nor the power
of the law could have kept me from your sick-bed. No, indeed! I
would have risked everything to help you. Where were you at all,
David?"
"I was on the _Sea Rover_."
"The _Sea Rover_! That is Nicol's ship. What did he do to you? What
were you there for?"
"I was on the _Sea Rover_ nursing your husband."
"My God!"
"That is the truth, Nanna. I have just finished my task."
"Who sent you?"
"The minister came to me with the order, and I could not win by it
and face God and man again."
"What said he? O David! David!"
"He said, 'David Borson, there are four men ill with typhus this
morning on the _Sea Rover_. The one man yet unstricken is quite
broken down with fright and fatigue. The doctor says some one ought
to go there. What do you think?' And I said, 'Minister, do you mean
me?' And he smiled a bit and answered, 'I thought you would know
your duty, David.'"
"But why _your_ duty, David? Surely Vala was dearer and nearer."
"The minister said, 'You are a lone man, David, and you fear God;
so, then, you need not fear the fever.'"
"And he knew that you hated Sinclair! Knew that Sinclair had come
to my house with the fever on him--knew that he had lifted my poor
bairn, only that he might give her the death-kiss!"
"No, no! How could any father, any man, be as bad as that, Nanna?"
"You know not how bad the devil can make a man when he enters into
him. And how could the minister send you such a hard road?"
"It was made easy to me; it was indeed, Nanna. The sensible presence
of God, and the shining of his face on me, though only for a moment,
made me willing to give up all my anger and all my revenge, and wait
on my enemy, and do what I could for him to the last moment."
"And Vala? How could you forget her?"
"I did not forget her. I was feared for the child, though I would
not say that to you. Barbara told me she had fret all night, and when
I said it would be for her mother, the woman shook her head in a way
that made me tremble. I was on my way to see her and you when I met
the minister, and he sent me the other way."
"Why did you not tell him that you feared for Vala?"
"I said that, and he said, 'Nanna will be able to care for the
little one; but there is a strong man needed to care for her husband;
Nicol Sinclair will be hard to manage.' And then he minded me of the
man's sinful life, and he said peradventure it might be the purpose
of God even yet to give him another opportunity for repentance
through me."
"If he had known Nicol Sinclair as I--"
"Yes, Nanna, but it is an awful thing to die eternally. If I could
help to save any one from such a fate, even my worst enemy,--even
your enemy and Vala's,--what should I have done? Tell me."
"Just what you did. You have done right. Yes; though the man killed
Vala, you have done right! You have done right!"
"I knew that would be your last word."
"Did he have one good thought, one prayer, to meet death with?"
"He did not. It was a wild night when he was in the dead thraws--a
wild night for the flitting; and he went out in storm and darkness,
and the sea carried him away."
"God have mercy upon him! I have not a tear left for Nicol Sinclair."
"It was an awful death; but on the same night there was a very good
death after a very good life. You have heard, Nanna?"
"I have heard nothing. For many days all has been still and
tidingless. The fever is in every house, and no one comes near
but the doctor, and he speaks only to the sick."
"Well, then, the good minister has gone home. He was taken with the
fever while giving the sacrament to Elder Somerlid. And he knew that
he would die, for he said, 'John Somerlid, we shall very soon drink
this cup together in the house of our Father in heaven.' So when
he got back to the manse he sent for Elder Peterson, and gave him
his last words."
"And I know well that they would be good words."
"They were like himself, full of hope. He spoke about his books, and
the money in his desk to pay all his debts, and then he said:
"'The days of my life are ended, but I have met the hand of God,
Peter, and it is strong to lead and to comfort me. A word was
brought to me even as I held the blessed cup in my hand. Read to
me from the Book while I can listen to it.' And Peterson asked,
'What shall I read?' And the minister said, 'Take the Psalms.
There is everything in the Psalms.' So Peterson read the ones he
called for, and after a little the minister said:
"'That will do, Peter. I turn now from the sorrow and pain and
darkness of earth to the celestial city, to infinite serenities,
to love without limit, to perfect joy. And when I am dead, see
you to my burying, Peter. Lay me in the grave with my face to the
east, and put above me Jesus Christ's own watchword, "_Thy kingdom
come._"' After that he asked only for water, and so he died."
"Blessed are such dead. There is no need to weep for them."
"That is one thing sure; but I have seen this, Nanna: that the wicked
is unbefriended in his death-pang."
"And after it, David? O David, after it?"
"There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the worker of
iniquity may hide," he answered with an awful solemnity.
"O David, we come into the world weeping, and we go out fearing. It
is a hard travail, both for body and soul."
And David walked to the little table on which the Book lay, and
he turned the leaves until he found the words he wanted. And Nanna
watched him with eyes purified by that mysterious withdrawal into
the life of the soul which comes through a great sorrow.
"It was not always so, Nanna," he said. "Listen!
"For their sakes I made the world, and when Adam transgressed
my statutes, then was decreed that now is done.
"Then were the entrances of this world made narrow, full of
sorrow and travail; they are but few and evil, full of perils
and very painful.
"For the entrances of the elder world were wide and sure, and
brought immortal fruit.
But yet there is to be a restoration, Nanna."
"I know not," she answered wearily. "It is so far off--so far away."
"But it is promised. It is sure.
"The world shall be turned into the old silence seven days,
like as in former judgments, so that no man shall remain.