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

and I will show thee, whether Lord Christ heard thee praying or not, and I will tell thee how he sent me, his servant always, to answer thy prayer. I tell thee at the end of all this thou shalt surely say: 'there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised.'"

Then he lifted Michael's cap and gave it to him, and they locked the store door, and in silence they walked together to the manse. For a few minutes he left Snorro alone in the study. There was a large picture in it of Christ upon the cross. Michael had never dreamed of such a picture. When the minister came back he found him standing before it, with clasped hands and streaming eyes.

"Can thou trust him, Michael?"

"Unto death, sir."

"Come, tread gently. He sleeps."

Wondering and somewhat awestruck Michael followed the doctor into the room where Jan lay. One swift look from the bed to the smiling face of Jan's saviour was all Michael needed. He clasped his hands above his head, and fell upon his knees, and when the doctor saw the rapture in his face, he understood the transfiguration, and how this mortal might put on immortality.


CHAPTER VIII.


DEATH AND CHANGE.

"Wield thine own arm!--the only way
To know life is by living."

When Jan awoke Snorro was standing motionless beside him. He feebly stretched out his hand, and pulled him close, closer, until his face was on the pillow beside his own.

"Oh Jan, how could'st thou? My heart hath been nearly broken for thee."

"It is all well now, Snorro. I am going to a new life. I have buried the old one below the Troll Rock."

Until the following night the men remained together. They had much to talk of, much that related both to the past and the future. Jan was particularly anxious that no one should know that his life had been saved: "And mind thou tell not my wife, Snorro," he said. "Let her think herself a widow; that will please her best of all."

"There might come a time when it would be right to speak."

"I can not think it."

"She might be going to marry again."

Jan's face darkened. "Yes, that is possible--well then, in that case, thou shalt go to the minister; he will tell thee what to do, or he himself will do it."

"She might weep sorely for thee, so that she were like to die."

"Mock me not, Snorro. She will not weep for me. Well then, let me pass out of memory, until I can return with honor."

"Where wilt thou go to?"

"Dost thou remember that yacht that was tied to the minister's jetty four weeks ago?"

"Yes, I remember it."

"And that her owner stayed at the manse for two days?"

"Yes, I saw him. What then?"

"He will be back again, in a week, in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. He is an English lord, and a friend of the minister's. I shall go away with him. There is to be a new life for me--another road to take; it must be a better one than that in which I have stumbled along for the last few years. Thou art glad?"

"Yes, Jan, I am glad."

"If things should happen so that I can send for thee, wilt thou come to me?"

"Yes, to the end of the world I will come. Thee only do I love. My life is broken in two without thee."

Every day Snorro watched the minister's jetty, hoping, yet fearing, to see the yacht which was to carry Jan away. Every night when the town was asleep, he went to the manse to sit with his friend. At length one morning, three weeks after Jan's disappearance, he saw the minister and the English lord enter Peter's store together. His heart turned sick and heavy; he felt that the hour of parting was near.

Peter was to send some eggs and smoked geese on board the yacht, and the minister said meaningly to Snorro, "Be sure thou puts them on board this afternoon, for the yacht sails southward on the midnight tide." Snorro understood the message. When the store was closed he made a bundle of Jan's few clothes; he had washed and mended them all. With them he put the only sovereign he possessed, and his own dearly-loved copy of the Gospels. He thought, "for my sake he may open them, and then what a comfort they will be sure to give him."

It was in Snorro's arms Jan was carried on board at the very last moment. Lord Lynne had given him a berth in the cabin, and he spoke very kindly to Snorro. "I have heard," he said, "that there is great love between you two. Keep your heart easy, my good fellow; I will see that no harm comes to your friend." And the grateful look on Snorro's face so touched him that he followed him to the deck and reiterated the promise.

It was at the last a silent and rapid parting. Snorro could not speak. He laid Jan in his berth, and covered him as tenderly as a mother would cover her sick infant. Then he kissed him, and walked away. Dr. Balloch, who watched the scene, felt the deep pathos and affection that had no visible expression but in Snorro's troubled eyes and dropped head; and Lord Lynne pressed his hand as a last assurance that he would remember his promise concerning Jan's welfare. Then the anchor was lifted, and the yacht on the tide-top went dancing southward before the breeze.

At the manse door the minister said, "God be thy consolation, Snorro! Is there any thing I, his servant, can do for thee?"

"Yes, thou can let me see that picture again."

"Of the Crucified?"

"That is what I need."

"Come then."

He took a candle from Hamish and led him into the study. In the dim light, the pallid, outstretched figure and the divine uplifted face had a sad and awful reality. Even upon the cultivated mind and heart, fine pictures have a profound effect; on this simple soul, who never before had seen any thing to aid his imagination of Christ's love, the effect was far more potent. Snorro stood before it a few minutes full of a holy love and reverence, then, innocently as a child might have done, he lifted up his face and kissed the pierced feet.

Dr. Balloch was strangely moved and troubled. He walked to the window with a prayer on his lips, but almost immediately returned, and touching Snorro, said--

"Take the picture with thee, Snorro. It is thine. Thou hast bought it with that kiss."

"But thou art weeping!"

"Because I can not love as thou dost. Take what I have freely given, and go. Ere long the boats will be in and the town astir. Thou hast some room to hang it in?"

"I have a room in which no foot but mine will tread till Jan comes back again."

"And thou wilt say no word of Jan. He must be cut loose from the past awhile. His old life must not be a drag upon his new one. We must give him a fair chance."

"Thou knows well I am Jan's friend to the uttermost."

Whatever of comfort Snorro found in the pictured Christ, he sorely needed it. Life had become a blank to him. There was his work, certainly, and he did it faithfully, but even Peter saw a great change in the man. He no longer cared to listen to the gossip of the store, he no longer cared to converse with any one. When there was nothing for him to do, he sat down in some quiet corner, buried his head in his hands, and gave himself up to thought.

Peter also fancied that he shrank from him, and the idea annoyed him; for Peter had begun to be sensible of a most decided change in the tone of public opinion regarding himself. It had come slowly, but he could trace and feel it. One morning when he and Tulloch would have met on the narrow street, Tulloch, to avoid the meeting, turned deliberately around and retraced his steps. Day by day fewer of the best citizens came to pass their vacant hours in his store. People spoke to him with more ceremony, and far less kindness.

He was standing at his store door one afternoon, and he saw a group of four or five men stop Snorro and say something to him. Snorro flew into a rage. Peter knew it by his attitude, and by the passionate tones of his voice. He was vexed at him. Just at this time he was trying his very best to be conciliating to all, and Snorro was undoubtedly saying words he would, in some measure, be held accountable for.

When he passed Peter at the store door, his eyes were still blazing with anger, and his usually white face was a vivid scarlet. Peter followed him in, and asked sternly, "Is it not enough that I must bear thy ill-temper? Who wert thou talking about? That evil Jan Vedder, I know thou wert!"

"We were talking of thee, if thou must know."

"What wert thou saying? Tell me; if thou wilt not, I will ask John Scarpa."

"Thou wert well not to ask. Keep thy tongue still."

"There is some ill-feeling toward me. It hath been growing this long while. Is it thy whispering against me?"

"Ask Tulloch why he would not meet thee? Ask John Scarpa what Suneva Glumm said last night?"

"Little need for me to do that, since thou can tell me."

Snorro spoke not.

"Snorro?"

"Yes, master."

"How many years hast thou been with me?"

"Thou knows I came to thee a little lad."

"Who had neither home nor friends?"

"That is true yet."

"Have I been a just master to thee?"

"Thou hast."

"Thou, too, hast been a just and faithful servant. I have trusted thee with every thing. All has been under thy thumb. I locked not gold from thee. I counted not after thee. I have had full confidence in thee. Well, then, it seems that my good name is also in thy hands. Now, if thou doest thy duty, thou wilt tell me what Tulloch said."

"He said thou had been the ruin of a better man than thyself."

"Meaning Jan Vedder?"

"That was whom he meant."

"Dost thou think so?"

"Yes, I think so, too."

"What did Suneva Glumm say?"

"Well, then, last night, when the kitchen was full, they were talking of poor Jan; and Suneva--thou knowest she is a widow now and gone back to her father's house--Suneva, she strode up to the table, and she struck her hand upon it, and said, 'Jan was a fisherman, and it is little of men you fishers are, not to make inquiry about his death. Here is the matter,' she said. 'Snorro finds him wounded, and Snorro goes to Peter Fae's and sends Jan's wife to her husband. Margaret Vedder says she saw him alive and gave him water, and went back for Peter Fae. Then Jan disappears, and when Snorro gets back with a doctor and four other men, there is no Jan to be found.' I say that Margaret Vedder or Peter Fae know what came