Jan Vedder's Wife - Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (historical books to read txt) 📗

with respectable raiment; Jan was of that class. He was meanly dressed and he felt mean, and he had no money to buy a new suit. All Snorro's small savings he had used long before for one purpose or another, and his wages were barely sufficient to buy food, and to pay Jan's bill at Torr's; for, alas! Jan would go to Torr's. Snorro was in a sore strait about it, but if Torr's bill were not paid, then Jan would go to Inkster's, a resort of the lowest and most suspicious characters. Between the two evils he chose the lesser.

And Jan said in the freedom of Torr's many things which he ought not to have said: many hard and foolish things, which were repeated and lost nothing by the process. Some of them referred to his wife's cruelty, and to Peter Fae's interference in his domestic concerns. That he should talk of Margaret at all in such a place was a great wrong. Peter took care that she knew it in its full enormity; and it is needless to say, she felt keenly the insult of being made the subject of discussion among the sailor husbands who gathered in Ragon Torr's kitchen. Put a loving, emotional man like Jan Vedder in such domestic circumstances, add to them almost hopeless poverty and social disgrace, and any one could predict with apparent certainty his final ruin.

Of course Jan, in spite of his bravado of indifference, suffered very much. He had fits of remorse which frightened Snorro. Under their influence he often wandered off for two or three days, and Snorro endured during them all the agonies of a woman who has lost her child.

One night, after a long tramp in the wind and snow, he found himself near Peter Fae's house, and a great longing came over him to see his wife and child. He knew that Peter was likely to be at home and that all the doors were shut. There was a bright light in the sitting-room, and the curtains were undrawn. He climbed the inclosure and stood beside the window. He could see the whole room plainly. Peter was asleep in his chair on the hearth. Thora sitting opposite him, was, in her slow quiet way, crimping with her fingers the lawn ruffles on the newly ironed clothes. Margaret, with his son in her arms, walked about the room, softly singing the child to sleep. He knew the words of the lullaby--an old Finnish song that he had heard many a mother sing. He could follow every word of it in Margaret's soft, clear voice; and, oh, how nobly fair, how calmly good and far apart from him she seemed!


"Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bird of the meadow!
Take thy rest, little Redbreast.
Sleep stands at the door and says,
The son of sleep stands at the door and says,
Is there not a little child here?
Lying asleep in the cradle?
A little child wrapped up in swaddling clothes,
A child reposing under a coverlet of wool?"


Jan watched the scene until he could endure the heart-torture no longer. Had he not been so shabby, so ragged, so weather-stained, he would have forced his way to his wife's presence. But on such apparently insignificant trifles hang generally the great events of life. He could not bear the thought of this fair, calm, spotless woman seeing him in such a plight. He went back to Snorro, and was very cross and unreasonable with him, as he had been many times before. But Snorro was one of those rare, noble souls, who can do great and hopeless things, and continue to love what they have seen fall.

He not only pitied and excused Jan, he would not suffer any one to wrong, or insult him. All Torr's regular visitors feared the big man with the white, stern face, who so often called for Jan Vedder, and who generally took his friend away with him. Any thing that is genuine commands respect, and Snorro's love for Jan was so true, so tender, and unselfish, that the rudest soul recognized his purity. Even in Peter's store, and among the better class who frequented it, his honest affection was not without its result.

Jan usually avoided the neighborhood when Peter was there, but one afternoon, being half intoxicated, he went rolling past, singing snatches of "The Foula Reel." He was ragged and reckless, but through every disadvantage, still strikingly handsome. Michael Snorro lifted himself from the barrel which he was packing, and stood watching Jan with a face full of an inexpressible sorrow. Some one made a remark, which he did not hear, but he heard the low scornful laugh which followed it, and he saw Peter Fae, with a smile of contempt, walk to the door, and glance up the street after Jan.

"One thing I know," said Snorro, looking angrily at the group, "all of you have laughed in a very great company, for when a good man takes the road to hell, there also laughs the devil and all his angels. Yes, indeed."

It was as if a thunderbolt had fallen among them. Peter turned to his books, and one by one the men left the store, and Jan Vedder's name was not spoken again before Snorro by any one.

During the fishing season Jan went now and then to sea, but he had no regular engagement. Some said he was too unreliable; others, more honest, acknowledged they were superstitious about him. "Sooner or later ill luck comes with him," said Neil Scarpa. "I would as lief tread on the tongs, or meet a cat when going fishing as have Jan Vedder in my boat," said John Halcro. This feeling against him was worse than shipwreck. It drove Jan to despair. After a night of hard drinking, the idea of suicide began to present itself, with a frightful persistence. What was there for him but a life of dislike and contempt, or a swift unregretted death.

For it must be considered that in those days the ends of the earth had not been brought together. Emigration is an idea that hardly enters a Shetlander's mind at the present time; then it was a thing unknown. There were no societies for information, or for assistance. Every man relied upon his own resources, and Jan had none. He was in reality, a soul made for great adventures, condemned to fight life in the very narrowest lists.

When the warm weather came, he watched for Margaret, and made many attempts to see her. But she had all the persistence of narrow minds. She had satisfied herself that her duty to her father and to her son was before all other duties, and no cruelty is so cruel as that which attacks its victims from behind the ramparts of Duty and Conscience.

Thora frequently saw Jan, and he pleaded his cause eloquently to her. She was very sorry for him, and at times also very angry with him. She could not understand how Margaret's treatment should have taken all the heart and purpose out of his life. She would not let him say so; it was like casting the blame of all his idleness and dissipation upon her daughter. She would make no effort towards a reconciliation; while Margaret held him in such small estimation, she was sure that there could be no permanence in one, even if it could be effected.

Yet once or twice she spoke to Margaret in Jan's favor. If Margaret had desired to disobey her father, and see her husband, Thora's sympathies would have been with her; but no mother likes to put herself in a position which will give her child an opportunity of answering her with a look of reproachful astonishment. Something very like this had met her suggestion that "Jan must love his child, and long to see him."

Margaret was almost angry at such a supposition. "Jan love his child! It was impossible! No man who did so, would behave as Jan had done, and was still doing. To encourage Jan in any way was to disobey her father, and throw herself and her child upon Jan's mercies. She knew what they were. Even if she could see it to be her duty to sacrifice herself, on no account would she sacrifice the babe who had only her to think and care for him. She would do nothing in any way to prejudice its future." This was the tenor of her constant conversation. It was stated anew every morning, it was reiterated every hour of the day; and with every day's reiteration, she became more certain of her own wisdom and justice.

One night, after another useless effort to see his wife, Jan went to Torr's, and found Hol Skager there. Jan was in a reckless mood, and the thought of a quarrel was pleasant to him. Skager was inclined to humor him. They had many old grievances to go over, and neither of them picked their words. At length Jan struck Skager across the mouth, and Skager instantly drew his knife.

In a moment Torr and others had separated the men. Skager was persuaded to leave the house, and Jan, partly by force and partly by entreaty, detained. Skager was to sail at midnight, and Torr was determined that Jan should not leave the house until that hour was passed. Long before it, he appeared to have forgotten the quarrel, to be indeed too intoxicated to remember any thing. Torr was satisfied, but his daughter Suneva was not.

About ten o'clock, Snorro, sitting in the back door of the store, saw Suneva coming swiftly towards him. Ere he could speak she said, "Skager and Jan have quarreled and knives have been drawn. If thou knowest where Skager is at anchor, run there, for I tell thee, there was more of murder than liquor in Jan's eyes this night. My father thought to detain him, but he hath slipped away, and thou may be sure he has gone to find Skager."

Snorro only said, "Thou art a good woman, Suneva." He thought he knew Skager's harbor; but when he got there, neither boat nor man was to be seen. Skager's other ground was two miles in an opposite direction under the Troll Rock, and not far from Peter Fae's house. Snorro hastened there at his utmost speed. He was in time to see Skager's boat, half a mile out at sea, sailing southward. Snorro's mental processes were slow. He stood still to consider, and as he mused, the solemn stillness of the lonely place was broken by a low cry of pain. It was Jan's voice. Among a thousand voices Snorro would have known it. In a few moments he had found Jan, prone upon the cliff edge bleeding from a wound in his side.

He was still sensible and he smiled at Snorro, saying slowly, "Thou must not be sorry. It is best so."

Most fishermen know something of the treatment of a knife wound; Snorro staunched the blood-flow, as well as he was able, and then with gigantic strides went to Peter Fae's. Margaret sat spinning beside her baby's cradle, Peter had gone to bed, Thora dozed at the fireside.

The impatience of his knock and voice alarmed the women, but when Margaret heard it was Snorro's voice, she quickly unfastened the door.

"Is the store burning?" she asked angrily, "that thou comest in such hot haste?"

"Thy husband has been murdered. Take thou water and brandy, and go as quick as thou canst run to the Troll's Rock.