JAN'S OPPORTUNITY.
"Thou broad-billowed sea,
Never sundered from thee,
May I wander the welkin below;
May the plash and the roar
Of the waves on the shore
Beat the march to my feet as I go;
Ever strong, ever free,
When the breath of the sea,
Like the fan of an angel, I know;
Ever rising with power,
To the call of the hour,
Like the swell of the tides as they flow."
--BLACKIE.
The gravitation of character is naturally toward its weakest point.
Margaret's weakest point was an intense, though unconscious,
selfishness. Jan's restless craving for change and excitement made him
dissatisfied with the daily routine of life, lazy, and often
unreasonable. His very blessings became offenses to him. His clean,
well-ordered house, made him fly to the noisy freedom of Ragon Torr's
kitchen. Margaret's never-ceasing industry, her calmness, neatness and
deliberation, exasperated him as a red cloth does a bull.
Suneva Torr had married Paul Glumm, and Jan often watched her as he
sat drinking his ale in Torr's kitchen. At home, it is true, she
tormented Glumm with her contrary, provoking moods; but then, again,
she met him with smiles and endearments that atoned for every thing.
Jan thought it would be a great relief if Margaret were only angry
sometimes. For he wearied of her constant serenity, as people weary of
sunshine without cloud or shadow.
And Margaret suffered. No one could doubt that who watched her face
from day to day. She made no complaint, not even to her mother. Thora,
however, perceived it all. She had foreseen and foretold the trouble,
but she was too noble a woman to point out the fulfillment of her
prophecy. As she went about her daily work, she considered, and not
unkindly, the best means for bringing Jan back to his wife and home,
and his first pride in them.
She believed that the sea only could do it. After all, her heart was
with the men who loved it. She felt that Jan was as much out of place
counting eggs, as a red stag would be if harnessed to a plow. She, at
least, understood the rebellious, unhappy look on his handsome face.
When the ling fishing was near at hand, she said to Peter: "There is
one thing that is thy duty, and that is to give Jan the charge of a
boat. He is for the sea, and it is not well that so good a sailor
should go out of the family."
"I have no mind to do that. Jan will do well one day, and he will do
as ill as can be the next. I will not trust a boat with him."
"It seems to me that where thou could trust Margaret, thou might well
trust nineteen feet of keel, and fifty fathom of long lines."
Peter answered her not, and Thora kept silence also. But at the end,
when he had smoked his pipe, and was lifting the Bible for the evening
exercise, he said: "Thou shalt have thy way, wife; Jan shall have a
boat, but thou wilt see evil will come of it."
"Thou wert always good, Peter, and in this thing I am thinking of more
than fish. There is sorrow in Margaret's house. A mother can feel
that."
"Now, then, meddle thou not in the matter. Every man loves in his own
way. Whatever there is between Jan and Margaret is a thing by itself.
But I will speak about the boat in the morning."
Peter kept his word, and kept it without smallness or grudging. He
still liked Jan. If there were trouble between him and Margaret he
regarded it as the natural initiation to married life. Norse women
were all high-spirited and wished to rule; and he would have despised
Jan if he had suspected him of giving way to Margaret's stubborn
self-will. Though she was his own daughter, he did not wish to see her
setting an example of wifely supremacy.
So he called Jan pleasantly and said, "I have saved for thee 'The Fair
Margaret.' Wilt thou sail her this season, Jan? She is the best boat I
have, as thou well knows. Fourteen hundred hooks she is to carry, and
thou can hire six men to go with thee."
It made Peter's eyes feel misty to see the instantaneous change in
Jan's face. He could not speak his thanks, but he looked them; and
Peter felt troubled, and said, almost querulously, "There, that will
do, son Jan; go now, and hire the men thou wants."
"First of all, I should like Snorro."
Peter hesitated, but he would not tithe his kindness, and he frankly
answered, "Well, then, thou shalt have Snorro--though it will go hard
with me, wanting him."
"But we will make it go well with thee on the sea, father."
"As for that, it will be as God pleases. A man's duty is all my claim
on thee. Margaret will be glad to see thee so happy." He dropped his
eyes as he spoke of Margaret. He would not seem to watch Jan, although
he was conscious of doing so.
"A woman has many minds, father. Who knows if a thing will make her
happy or angry?"
"That is a foolish saying, Jan. A wife must find her pleasure in the
thing that pleases her husband. But now thou wilt have but little
time; the boat is to be tried, and the hooks and lines are to go
over, and the crew to hire. I have left all to thee."
This pleased Jan most of all. Only a bird building its first nest
could have been as happy as he was. When at night he opened the
door of his house, and went in with a gay smile, it was like a
resurrection. The pale rose-color on Margaret's cheek grew vivid and
deep when he took her in his arms, and kissed her in the old happy
way. She smiled involuntarily, and Jan thought, "How beautiful she
is!" He told her all Peter had said and done. He was full of gratitude
and enthusiasm. He did not notice for a few moments that Margaret was
silent, and chillingly unresponsive. He was amazed to find that
the whole affair displeased her.
"So, then, I have married a common fisherman after all," she said
bitterly; "why, Suneva Torr's husband has a bigger boat than thine."
It was an unfortunate remark, and touched Jan on a very raw place. He
could not refrain from answering, "He hath had better luck than I.
Ragon Torr gave Glumm Suneva's tocher, and he has bought his own boat
with it."
"Why not? Every one knows that Glumm is a prudent man. He never gets
on his feet for nothing."
Jan was inexpressibly pained and disappointed. For a moment a feeling
of utter despair came over him. The boat lay upon his heart like a
wreck. He drank his tea gloomily, and the delicately-browned fish, the
young mutton, and the hot wheat cakes, all tasted like ashes in his
mouth. Perhaps, then, Margaret's heart smote her, for she began to
talk, and to press upon Jan's acceptance the viands which had somehow
lost all their savor to him. Her conversation was in like case. She
would not speak of the boat, since they could not agree about it; and
no other subject interested Jan. But, like all perfectly selfish
people, she imagined, as a matter of course, that whatever interested
her was the supreme interest. In her calm, even voice, she spoke of
the spring house-cleaning, and the growth of her pansies and tulip
bulbs, and did not know that all the time Jan was thinking of his
boat, heaving on the tide-top, or coming into harbor so heavy with
fish that she would be--in Shetland phrase--_lippering_ with the
water.
But, after all, the week of preparation was a very happy week to Jan
and Snorro; and on the sixteenth of May they were the foremost of the
sixty boats that sailed out of Lerwick for the ling ground. There was
a great crowd on the pier to see them off--mothers, and wives, and
sweethearts; boys, sick and sad with longing and envy; and old men,
with the glamor of their own past in their faces. Among them was
Suneva, in a bright blue dress, with blue ribbons fluttering in her
yellow hair. She stood at the pier-head and as they passed poured a
cup of ale into the sea, to forespeak good luck for the fleet. Jan
would have dearly liked to see his wife's handsome face watching him,
as he stood by the main-mast and lifted his cap to Peter. Margaret was
not there.
She really felt very much humiliated in Jan's position. She had always
held herself a little apart from the Lerwick women. She had been to
Edinburgh, she had been educated far above them, and she was quite
aware that she would have a very large fortune. Her hope had been to
see Jan take his place among the merchants and bailies of Lerwick. She
had dreams of the fine mansion that they would build, and of the fine
furniture which would come from Edinburgh for it. Margaret was one of
those women to whom a house can become a kingdom, and its careful
ordering an affair of more importance than the administration of a
great nation. When she chose Jan, and raised him from his humble
position, she had no idea that he would drift back again to the
fishing nets.
For the first time she carried her complaint home. But Thora in this
matter had not much sympathy with her. "The sea is his mother," she
said; "he loved her before he loved thee; when she calls him, he will
always go back to her."
"No man in Shetland hath a better business to his hand; and how can he
like to live in a boat, he, that hath a home so quiet, and clean, and
comfortable?"
Thora sighed. "Thou wilt not understand then, that what the cradle
rocks the spade buries. The sea spoke to Jan before he lay on his
mother's breast. His father hath a grave in it. Neither gold nor the
love of woman will ever keep them far apart; make up thy mind to
that."
All this might be true, but yet it humiliated Margaret. Besides, she
imagined that every wife in Lerwick was saying, "Not much hold has
Margaret Vedder on her husband. He is off to sea again, and that with
the first boat that sails." Yet if success could have reconciled her,
Jan's was wonderful. Not unfrequently "The Fair Margaret" took twenty
score ling at a haul, and every one was talking of her good luck.
During these days Jan and Snorro drew very close to each other. When
the baits were set most of the men went to sleep for three hours; but
Snorro always watched, and very often Jan sat with him. And oh, the
grand solemnity and serenity of these summer nights, when through
belts of calm the boats drifted and the islands in a charmed circle
filled the pale purple horizon before them. Most fair then was the
treeless land, and very far off seemed the sin and sorrow of life. The
men lay upon the deck, with a pile of nets or their folded arms for a
pillow, and surely under such a sky, like Jacob of old, they dreamed
of angels.
Snorro and Jan, sitting in the soft, mystical light, talked together,
dropping their voices involuntarily, and speaking slowly, with
thoughtful pauses between the sentences. When they were not talking,
Snorro read, and the book was ever the same, the book of the Four
Gospels. Jan often watched him when he thought Jan asleep. In that
enchanted midnight glow, which was often a blending of four
lights--moonlight and twilight, the aurora and the dawning--the
gigantic figure and white face, bending over the little book, had a
weird and almost supernatural interest. Then this man, poor, ugly, and
despised, had an incomparable nobility, and he fascinated Jan.
One night he said to him, "Art thou never weary of reading that same
book, Snorro?"
"Am I then ever weary of thee, my Jan? And these are the words of One
who was the first who loved me. Accordingly, how well I know his
voice." Then, in a fervor of adoring affection, he talked to Jan of
his dear Lord Christ, "who had stretched out his arms upon the cross
that he might embrace the world." And as he talked the men, one by
one, raised themselves on their elbows and listened; and the theme
transfigured Snorro, and he stood erect with uplifted face, and
looked, in spite of his fisher's suit, so royal that Jan felt humbled
in his presence. And when he had told, in his own simple, grand way,
the story of him who had often toiled at midnight with the fishers on
the Galilean sea, as they toiled upon the Shetland waters, there was a
great silence, until Jan said, in a voice that seemed almost strange
to them: "Well, then, mates, now we will look to the lines."
All summer, and until the middle of October, Jan continued at sea; and
all summer, whether fishing for ling, cod, or herring, "The Fair
Margaret" had exceptionally good fortune. There were many other
fishers who woke, and watched, and toiled in their fishing, who did
not have half her "takes." "It is all Jan's luck," said Glumm, "for it
is well known that he flings his nets and goes to sleep while they
fill."
"Well, then, 'it is the net of the sleeping fisherman takes:' that is
the wise saying of old times"--and though Snorro did not think of it,
the Shetland proverb was but the Norse form of the Hebrew faith: "He
giveth his beloved in their sleep."
Still, in spite of his success, Jan was not happy. A married man's
happiness is in the hands of his wife, and Margaret felt too injured
to be generous. She was not happy, and she thought it only just that
Jan should be made to feel it. He had disappointed all her hopes and
aspirations; she was not magnanimous enough to rejoice in the success
of his labors and aims. Besides, his situation as the hired skipper of
a boat was contemptible in her eyes; her servant was engaged to a man
in the same position. Another aggravating circumstance was that her
old schoolmate, the minister's niece (a girl who had not a penny piece
to her fortune) was going to marry a rich merchant from Kirkwall. How
she would exult over "Margaret Vedder who had married a common
fisherman." The exultation was entirely imaginary, but perhaps it hurt
as much as if it had been actually made.
Success, too, had made Jan more independent: or perhaps he had grown
indifferent to Margaret's anger, since he found it impossible to
please her. At any rate, he asked his friends to his house without
fear or apology. They left their footmarks on her floors, and their
fingermarks upon her walls and cushions, and Jan only laughed and
said, "There was, as every one knew, plenty of water in Shetland to
make them clean again." Numberless other little things grieved and
offended her, so little that, taken separately, they might have raised
a smile, but in the aggregate they attained the magnitude of real
wrongs.
But, happy or miserable, time goes on, and about the middle of October
even the herring fishing is over. Peter was beginning to count up his
expenses and his gains. Jan and Snorro were saying to one another, "In
two days we must go back to the store." That is, they were trying to
say it, but the air was so full of shrieks that no human voice could
be heard. For all around the boat the sea was boiling with herring
fry, and over them hung tens of thousands of gulls and terns. Marmots
and guillemots were packed in great black masses on the white foam,
and only a mad human mob of screaming women and children could have
made a noise comparable. Even that would have wanted the piercing
metallic ring of the wild birds' shriek.
Suddenly Snorro leaped to his feet. "I see a storm, Jan. Lower and
lash down the mast. We shall have bare time."
Jan saw that the birds had risen and were making for the rocks. In a
few minutes down came the wind from the north-east, and a streak of
white rain flying across the black sea was on top of "The Fair
Margaret" before the mast was well secured. As for the nets, Snorro
was cutting them loose, and in a few moments the boat was tearing down
before the wind. It was a wild squall; some of the fishing fleet went
to the bottom with all their crews. "The Fair Margaret," at much risk
of loss, saved Glumm's crew, and then had all she could manage to
raise her mizzen, and with small canvas edge away to windward for the
entrance of Lerwick bay.
Jan was greatly distressed. "Hard to bear is this thing, Snorro," he
said; "at the last to have such bad fortune."
"It is a better ending than might have been. Think only of that,
Jan."
"But Peter will count his lost nets; there is nothing else he will
think of."
"Between nets and men's lives, there is only one choice."
Peter said that also, but he was nevertheless very angry. The loss
took possession of his mind, and excluded all memory of his gains.
"It was just like Jan and Snorro," he muttered, "to be troubling
themselves with other boats. In a sudden storm, a boat's crew should
mind only its own safety." These thoughts were in his heart, though he
did not dare to form them into any clear shape. But just as a drop or
two of ink will diffuse itself through a glass of pure water and
defile the whole, so they poisoned every feeling of kindness which he
had to Jan.
"What did I tell thee?" he said to Thora, bitterly. "Jan does nothing
well but he spoils it. Here, at the end of the season, for a little
gust of wind, he loses both nets and tackle."
"He did well when he saved life, Peter."
"Every man should mind his own affairs. Glumm would have done that
thing first."
"Then Glumm would have been little of a man. And thou, Peter Fae,
would have been the first to tell Glumm so. Thou art saying evil, and
dost not mean it."
"Speak no more. It is little a woman understands. Her words are always
like a contrary wind."
Peter was very sulky for some days, and when at last he was ready to
settle with Jan, there was a decided quarrel. Jan believed himself to
be unfairly dealt with, and bitter words were spoken on both sides. In
reality, Peter knew that he had been hard with his son, harder by far
than he had ever intended to be; but in his heart there had sprung up
one of those sudden and unreasonable dislikes which we have all
experienced, and for which no explanation is possible. It was not
altogether the loss of the nets--he did not know what it was--but the
man he liked, and praised, and was proud of one week, he could hardly
endure to see or speak to the next.
"That ends all between thee and me," said Peter, pushing a little pile
of gold toward Jan. It was a third less than Jan expected. He gave it
to Margaret, and bade her "use it carefully, as he might be able to
make little more until the next fishing season."
"But thou wilt work in the store this winter?"
"That I will not. I will work for no man who cheats me of a third of
my hire."
"It is of my father thou art speaking, Jan Vedder; remember that. And
Peter Fae's daughter is thy wife, though little thou deservest her."
"It is like enough that I am unworthy of thee; but if I had chosen a
wife less excellent than thou it had perhaps been better for me."
"And for me also."
That was the beginning of a sad end; for Jan, though right enough at
first, soon put himself in the wrong, as a man who is idle, and has a
grievance, is almost sure to do. He continually talked about it. On
the contrary, Peter held his tongue, and in any quarrel the man who
can be silent in the end has the popular sympathy. Then, in some way
or other, Peter Fae touched nearly every body in Lerwick. He gave them
work, or he bought their produce. They owed him money, or they
expected a favor from him. However much they sympathized with Jan,
they could not afford to quarrel with Peter.
Only Michael Snorro was absolutely and purely true to him; but oh,
what truth there was in Michael! Jan's wrongs were his wrongs; Jan's
anger was but the reflection of his own.
He watched over him, he sympathized with him, he loved him entirely,
with a love "wonderful, passing the love of woman."