The shadow that rested on Jaap Visser's mind was a deep melancholy that
for the most part kept him silent, yet that was broken now and then by
outbursts of rage in which he raved against the cruel wickedness of the
sea. It did not unfit him for work. He had his living to make; and he
made it, as all the men of Marken made their living, by fishing. But
those who sailed with him in his schuyt said that always as the net
came home he hauled upon it with tight-shut eyes; that always, as it
was drawn inboard, he turned away--until the thrashing of the fish and
some word about the catch from his companions assured him that he might
look without fear of such a sight as that which had flashed burning
through his eyes and had turned his brain.
When he was on land he spent little time in his own home: of which, and
of the baby motherless, his mother had taken charge. Usually he was to
be found within or lingering near the graveyard that lies between the
Kerkehof and the Hafenbeurt: an artificial mound, like those whereon
the several villages on the island are built, raised high enough
to be above the level of the waters which cover Marken in times of
great storm. Before this strange habit of his had become a matter of
notoriety, a dozen or more of the islanders, as they passed at night
along the path beside the graveyard, had been frightened pretty well
out of their wits by seeing his tall figure rise from among the graves
suddenly and stand sharply outlined against the star-gleam of the sky.
But in those days, as I have said, his madness was no more than a
sombre melancholy--save for his fitful outbursts of rage against the
sea. The bitterness that came into his heart came later: when his
daughter was a woman grown and Jan de Witt married her--and presently
deserted her, as was known openly, for an Edam jade over on the
mainland. Things went worse and worse for a while: until one day when
old Jaap--even then they were beginning to call him old Jaap--fell into
a burning rage with his son-in-law and cursed him as he deserved for
the scoundrel that he was.
It was down at the dock that the two men came together. The schuyts
were going out, and Jan was aboard his own boat making ready to cast
off. Half the island folk were there--the fishermen about to sail, and
their people come to see them get away. Some one--who did not see old
Jaap standing on the piling near where Jan's boat lay--called out: "The
fishing is good off Edam still, eh, Jan?" And then there was a general
laugh as Jan answered, laughing also: "Yes, there's good fishing off
Edam--better than there is nearer home."
At this old Jaap broke forth into a passionate outburst against his
son-in-law: calling him by all the evil names that he could get
together, crying out against his wickedness and his cruelty, and
ending--as Jan's boat slid away from her moorings, with Jan standing at
the tiller laughing at the old man's fury--by calling out with a deep
grave energy, in strange contrast with his previous angry ravings: "God
cannot and will not forgive. He will judge you and He will punish you.
In His name I say to you: May the might of the angered waters be upon
you--may you perish in the wrath of the Zuyder Zee!"
There was such a majesty in old Jaap's tone as he spoke those words,
and such intense conviction, that all who heard him were thrilled
strangely. Some of the old men of Marken, who were there that day,
still will tell you that it seemed as though they heard the voice of
one who truly was the very mouth-piece of God. Even Jan, they say,
paled a little; but only for a moment--and then he was off out of the
harbour with a jeer and a laugh.
But that was Jan's last laugh and jeer at his father-in-law, and his
last sight of Marken. The next day the boats came hurrying home before
a storm, but Jan's boat did not come with them. At first it was thought
that he had put into the canal leading up to Edam--it was about there
that the other fishermen had lost sight of him--but a couple of days
later his boat drifted ashore, bottom upward, in the bight of Goudzee
south of Monnikendam. That left room for guess-work. Certainty came at
the end of a fortnight: when the two men who had been with him got back
to Marken--after a trip to England in the steamer that had picked them
up afloat--and told how the schuyt had gone over in the gale and spilt
them all out into the sea. As for Jan, he never came back at all. As he
and the other two men were thorough good sailors, and as the survivors
themselves were quite at a loss to account for their catastrophe, there
was only one way to explain the matter: old Jaap's curse had taken
effect!
After that old Jaap had a place still more apart from the other
islanders. What he had done to one he could do to another, it was
whispered--and thenceforward he was both shunned and dreaded because of
the power for life and death that was believed to be his. The reflex of
this popular conviction seemed to find a place in his own heart, and
now and again he would threaten with his curse those who got at odds
with him. But he never uttered it; and the fact was observed that even
in the case of the teasing little boys he was careful not to curse any
one of his tormentors by name.