Jan Vedder's Wife Part 20

This service once begun grew by a very natural course of events.

Margaret delighted in it. The sick loved her calm, gentle ways. She was patient and silent, and yet sympathetic. She had that womanly taste which naturally sets itself to make dainty dishes for those who can not eat coa.r.s.e food. In a few months the sick all through the parish felt the soothing touch of her soft, cool hands, and became familiar with the tones of her low, even voice, as she read aloud the portions which Dr. Balloch usually selected for every case.

And as there is no service so gratefully remembered as that given in sickness, Margaret Vedder gradually acquired a very sincere popularity. It rather amazed Peter to hear such remarks as the following: "Luke Thorkel is better, thanks to Margaret Vedder." "John Johnson can go to the fis.h.i.+ng with an easy mind now, Margaret Vedder is caring for his sick wife." "The Widow Hay died last night. She would have died ere this, but for Margaret Vedder's care."

These outside duties made her home duties sufficient to fill all her time. She had no hours to spare for foolish repining, or morbid sorrow. Little Jan must be taught his letters, and his clothes must be made. Her garden, poultry and knitting kept her hands ever busy, and though her work was much of it of that silent kind which leads to brooding thought, she had now much of interest to fill her mind. Yet still, and always, there was the haunting, underlying memory of Jan's disappearance or death, keeping her life hushed and silent. To no one did she speak of it, and it seemed strange to her that Dr. Balloch visibly discouraged any allusion to it. Sometimes she felt as if she must speak to Snorro about it, but Snorro kept ever a little aloof from her. She was not very sure as to his friends.h.i.+p.

She thought this a little hard, for she had given him every opportunity to understand that her own animosity was dead. She permitted little Jan to spend nearly all his time with him, when he was not engaged in fis.h.i.+ng, or busy on the quays. And Snorro now spent much of his time at home. His earnings during the fis.h.i.+ng season more than sufficed for his wants. Every fine day in winter he was apt to call for little Jan, and Margaret rarely refused him the child's company.

And little Jan dearly loved Snorro. Snorro put him in the water, and taught him how to swim like a seal. Snorro made him a spear and taught him how to throw it. He made him a boat and taught him how to sail it.

He got him a pony and taught him how to ride it. Once they found a baby seal whose mother had been shot, and the child kept it at Snorro's house. There also he had a dozen pet rabbits, and three Skye terriers, and a wild swan with a broken wing, and many other treasures, which would not have been so patiently tolerated in the cleanliness and order of his own home.

So the time went pleasantly and profitably by for two years. Again the spring joy was over the land, and the town busy with the hope of the fis.h.i.+ng season. Snorro's plans were all made, and yet he felt singularly restless and unsettled. As he sat one evening wondering at this feeling, he said to himself: "It is the dreams I have had lately, or it is because I think of Jan so much. Why does he not write? Oh, how I long to see him! Well, the day will come, by G.o.d's leave."

Just as this thought crossed his mind, Dr. Balloch stepped across his threshold. Snorro rose up with a face of almost painful anxiety. He always a.s.sociated a visit from the doctor with news from Jan. He could scarcely articulate the inquiry, "Hast thou any news?"

"Great news for thee, Snorro. Jan is coming home from Africa. He is broken down with the fever. He wants thee. Thou must go to him at once, for he hath done grand work, and proved himself a hero, worthy even of thy true great love."

"I am ready--I have been waiting for him to call me. I will go this hour."

"Be patient. Every thing must be done wisely and in order. The first thing is supper. I came away without mine, so now I will eat with thee. Get the tea ready; then I will tell thee all I know."

As Snorro moved about, the doctor looked at his home. Every piece of furniture in it was of Snorro's own manufacture. His bed was a sailor's bunk against the wall, made soft with sheep-fleeces and covered with seal-skins. A chair of woven rushes for little Jan, a couple of stools and a table made from old packing boxes, and a big hearth-rug of sheep-skins, that was all. But over the fireplace hung the pictured Christ, and some rude shelves were filled with the books Jan had brought him. On the walls, also, were harpoons and seal spears, a fowling-piece, queer ribbons and branches of sea weeds, curiosities given him by sailors from all countries, stuffed birds and fish skeletons, and a score of other things, which enabled the doctor to understand what a house of enchantment it must be to a boy like little Jan.

In a few minutes the table was set, and Snorro had poured out the minister's tea, and put before him a piece of bread and a slice of broiled mutton. As for himself he could not eat, he only looked at the doctor with eyes of pathetic anxiety.

"Snorro, dost thou understand that to go to Jan now is to leave, forever perhaps, thy native land?"

"Wherever Jan is, that land is best of all."

"He will be in Portsmouth ere thou arrive there. First, thou must sail to Wick; there, thou wilt get a boat to Leith, and at Leith take one for London. What wilt thou do in London?"

"Well, then, I have a tongue in my head; I will ask my way to Portsmouth. When I am there it will be easy to find Jan's s.h.i.+p, and then Jan. What help can thou give me in the matter?"

"That I will look to. Jan hath sent thee 100."

Snorro's face brightened like sunrise. "I am glad that he thought of me; but I will not touch the money. I have already more than 20. Thou shalt keep the 100 for little Jan."

"Snorro, he hath also sent the 600 he took from his wife, that and the interest."

"But how? How could he do that already?"

"He has won it from the men who coin life into gold; it is mostly prize money."

"Good luck to Jan's hands! That is much to my mind."

"I will tell thee one instance, and that will make thee understand it better. Thou must know that it is not a very easy matter to blockade over three thousand miles of African coast, especially as the slave s.h.i.+ps are very swift, and buoyant. Indeed the Spanish and Portuguese make theirs of very small timbers and beams which they screw together.

When chased the screws are loosened, and this process gives the vessel amazing play. Their sails are low, and bent broad. Jan tells me that the fore-yard of a brig of one hundred and forty tons, taken by 'The Retribution' was seventy-six feet long, and her ropes so beautifully racked aloft, that after a cannonade of sixty shot, in which upward of fifty took effect, not one sail was lowered. Now thou must perceive that a chase in the open sea would mostly be in favor of vessels built so carefully for escape."

"Why, then, do not the Government build the same kind of vessels?"

"That is another matter. I will go into no guesses about it. But they do not build them, and therefore captures are mostly made by the boats which are sent up the rivers to lie in wait for the slavers putting out to sea. Sometimes these boats are away for days, sometimes even for weeks; and an African river is a dreadful place for British sailors, Snorro: the night air is loaded with fever, the days are terrible with a scorching sun."

"I can believe that; but what of Jan?"

"One morning Jan, with a four-oared gig, chased a slave brig. They had been at the river mouth all night watching for her. Thou knows, Snorro, what a fine shot our Jan is. When she came in sight he picked off five of her crew, and compelled her to run on sh.o.r.e to avoid being boarded. Then her crew abandoned her, in order to save their own lives, and 'The Retribution' hove her off. She proved to be a vessel of two hundred tons, and she carried one thousand slaves. She was taken as a prize into Sierra Leone, and sold, and then Jan got his share of her."

"But why did not the slavers fight?"

"Bad men are not always brave men; and sometimes they fly when no man pursues them. Portuguese slavers are proverbial cowards, yet sometimes Jan did have a hard fight with the villains."

"I am right glad of that."

"About a year ago, he heard of a brigantine of great size and speed lying in the old Calabar river with a cargo of slaves destined for Cuba. She carried five eighteen-pounder guns, and a crew of eighty men; and her captain had vowed vengeance upon 'The Retribution' and upon Jan, for the slavers he had already taken. Jan went down to the old Calabar, but he could not enter it, so he kept out of sight, waiting for the slaver to put to sea.

"At length she was seen coming down the river under all sail. Then 'The Retribution' lowered her canvas in order to keep out of sight as long as possible. When she hoisted it again, the slaver in spite of her boasts endeavored to escape, and then Jan, setting all the canvas his schooner could carry, stood after her in chase. The slaver was the faster of the two, and Jan feared he would lose her; but fortunately a calm came on and both vessels got out their sweeps. Jan's vessel, being the smaller, had now the advantage, and his men sent her flying through the water.

"All night they kept up the chase, and the next morning Jan got within range."

"Oh," cried Snorro, "if I had only been there! Why did no one tell me there was such work for strong men to do?"

"Now I will tell thee a grand thing that our Jan did. Though the slaver was cutting his rigging to pieces with her shot, Jan would not fire till he was close enough to aim only at her decks. Why, Snorro?

Because below her decks there was packed in helpless misery five hundred black men, besides many women and little children."

"That was like Jan. He has a good heart."

"But when he was close enough, he loaded his guns with grape, and ordered two men to be ready to lash the slaver to 'The Retribution,'

the moment they touched. Under cover of the smoke, Jan and ten men boarded the slaver, but unfortunately, the force of the collision drove 'The Retribution' off, and Jan and his little party found themselves opposed to the eighty villains who formed the slaver's crew.

"For a moment it seemed as if they must be overpowered, but a gallant little mids.h.i.+pman, only fourteen years old, Snorro, think of that, gave an instant order to get out the sweeps, and almost immediately 'The Retribution,' was alongside, and securely lashed to her enemy.

Then calling on the sailors to follow him the brave little lad boarded her, and a desperate hand to hand fight followed. After fifteen Spaniards had been killed and near forty wounded, the rest leaped below and cried for quarter."

"Snorro would have given them just ten minutes to say a prayer, no more. It is a sin to be merciful to the wicked, it is that; and the kindness done to them is unblessed, and brings forth sin and trouble.

I have seen it."

"What thinkest thou? When Jan flung open the hatches under which the poor slaves were fastened, sixty were dead, one hundred and twenty dying. During the twenty-eight hours' chase and fight in that terrible climate they had not been given a drop of water, and the air was putrid and hot as an oven. Most of them had to be carried out in the arms of Jan's sailors. There were seven babies in this h.e.l.l, and thirty-three children between the ages of two years and seven. Many more died before Jan could reach Sierra Leone with them. This is the work Jan has been doing, Snorro; almost I wish I was a young man again, and had been with him."

The doctor's eyes were full; Snorro's head was in his hands upon the table. When the doctor ceased, he stood up quivering with anger, and said, "If G.o.d would please Michael Snorro, he would send him to chase and fight such devils. He would give them the measure they gave to others, little air and less water, and a rope's end to finish them.

That would be good enough for them; it would that."

"Well, then, thou wilt go to Jan?"

"I must go to-morrow. How can I wait longer? Is there a mail boat in the harbor?"

"It was Lord Lynne brought me the news and the money. He will carry thee as far as Wick. The tide serves at five o'clock to-morrow morning, can thou be ready?"

"Ay, surely. Great joy hath come to me, but I can be ready to meet it."

"Lean on me in this matter as much as thou likest; what is there I can do for thee?"