Jan Vedder's Wife Part 12

"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 pa.s.s 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 att.i.tude, and by the pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sed 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 of Jan, one, or both of them, know. But because the body has not been found, there hath been no inquest, and his mates let him go out of life like a stone dropped into the sea, and no more about it."

"They told thee that?"

"Ay, they did; and John Scarpa said thou had long hated Jan, and he did believe thou would rather lose Jan's life than save it. Yes, indeed!"

"And thou?"

"I said some angry words for thee. Ill thou hast been to Jan, cruel and unjust, but thou did not murder him. I do not think thou would do that, even though thou wert sure no man would know it. If I had believed thou hurt a hair of Jan's head, I would not be thy servant to-day."

"Thou judgest right of me, Snorro. I harmed not Jan. I never saw him.

I did not want him brought to my house, and therefore I made no haste to go and help him; but I hurt not a hair of his head."

"I will maintain that every where, and to all."

"What do they think came of Jan?"

"What else, but that he was pushed over the cliff-edge? A very little push would put him in the sea, and the under-currents between here and the Vor Ness might carry the body far from this sh.o.r.e. All think that he hath been drowned."

Then Peter turned away and sat down, silent and greatly distressed. A new and terrible suspicion had entered his mind with Snorro's words.

He was quite sure of his own innocence, but had Margaret pushed Jan over? From her own words it was evident she had been angry and hard with him. Was this the cause of the frantic despair he had witnessed.

It struck him then that Margaret's mother had ever been cold and silent, and almost resentful about the matter. She had refused to talk of it. Her whole behavior had been suspicious. He sat brooding over the thought, sick at heart with the sin and shame it involved, until Snorro said--"It is time to shut the door." Then he put on his cloak and went home.