Prisoners of Conscience Part 5

"I have sinned," he said when he awoke; "but I am His child, and I cannot slip beyond His mercy. My life shall be atonement, and I will not fear to fall into His hands."

And, thank G.o.d, no grief lasts forever. As the days and weeks wore away Liot's sorrow for his wife grew more reasonable; then the spring came and the fis.h.i.+ng was to attend to; and anon little David began to interest his heart and make him plan for the future. He resolved to save money and send the lad to St. Andrew's, and give him to the service of the Lord. All that he longed for David should have; all that he had failed to accomplish David should do. He would give his own life freely if by this sacrifice he could make David's life worthy to be an offering at His altar.

The dream, though it never came true, comforted and strengthened him; it was something to live for. He was sure that, wherever in G.o.d's universe Karen now dwelt, she would be glad of such a destiny for her boy. He worked cheerfully night and day for his purpose, and the work in itself rewarded him. The little home in which he had been so happy and so miserable was sold, and the money put in the bank for "David's education." All Liot's life now turned upon this one object, and, happily, it was sufficient to restore to him that hope--that something to look forward to--which is the salt of life.

Matilda gave him no further trouble. She sent him a bill for Karen's board, and he paid it without a word; and this was the last stone she could throw; besides which, she found herself compelled by public opinion to make some atonement for her outrageous behavior, since in those days it would have been as easy to live in St. Petersburg and quarrel with the czar as to live in Shetland and not have the minister's approval. So Mistress Sabiston had a special interview with the Rev. Magnus Ridlon, and she also sent a sum of money to the kirk as a "mortification," and eventually was restored to all sacred privileges, except the great one of the holy table. This depended inexorably on her public exoneration of Liot and her cultivation of good-will toward him. She utterly refused Liot, and preferred to want the sacred bread and wine rather than eat and drink them with Liot Borson. And though Liot declared his willingness to forgive Matilda fully, in his heart he was not sorry to be spared the spiritual obligation.

So the seasons wore away, and summer and winter brought work and rest, until David was nearly six years old. By this time the women of Lerwick thought Liot should look for another wife. "There is Halla Odd," said Jean Borson; "she is a widow of thine own age and she is full-handed. It is proper for thee now to make a home for thyself and David. When a wife has been dead four years there has been mourning enough."

Impatient of such talk at first, Liot finally took it into some consideration; but it always ended in one way: he cast his eyes to that lonely croft where Karen slept, and remembered words she had once spoken:

"In a little while I shall go away, Liot, and people will say, 'She is in her grave'; _but I shall not be there._"

That was exactly Liot's feeling--Karen was not there. She had loved G.o.d and believed in heaven, and he was sure that she had gone to heaven. And from every spot on the open sea or the streeted town or the solitary moors he had only to look up to the place where his beloved dwelt. He did, however, as Jean Borson desired: he thought about Halla Odd; he watched her ways, and speculated about her money and her house skill and the likelihood of her making a good stepmother to David.

Probably, if events had taken their usual course, he would have married Halla; but at the beginning of the summer this thing happened: a fine private yacht was brought into harbor with her sails torn to rags and her mainmast injured. Coming down from the north, she had been followed and caught by a storm, and was in considerable distress when she was found by some Lerwick fisher-smacks. Then, as Liot Borson was the best sailmaker in the town, he was hired to put the yacht's canvas in good condition; and while doing so the captain of the yacht, who was also her owner, talked often with him about the different countries he had visited. He showed him paintings of famous places and many ill.u.s.trated volumes of travel, and so fired Liot's heart that his imagination, like a bird, flew off in all directions.

In a short time the damaged wayfarer, with all her new sails set, went southward, and people generally forgot her visit. But Liot was no more the same man after it. He lived between the leaves of a splendid book of voyages which had been left with him. Halla went out of his thoughts and plans, and all his desires were set to one distinct purpose--to see the world, and the whole world. David was the one obstacle. He did not wish to leave him in Shetland, for his intention was to bid farewell forever to the island. It had suddenly become a prison to him; he longed to escape from it. So, then, David must be taken away or the boy would draw him back; but the question was, where should he carry the child?

He thought instantly of his sister, who was married to a man in comfortable circ.u.mstances living at Stornoway, in the Outer Hebrides, and he resolved to take David to her. He could now afford to pay well for his board and schooling, and he was such a firm believer in the tie of blood-kins.h.i.+p that the possibility of the child not being kindly treated never entered his mind. And as he was thinking over the matter a man came from Stornoway to the Shetland fis.h.i.+ng, and spoke well of his sister Lizzie and her husband. He said also that their only child was in the Greenland whaling-fleet, and that David would be a G.o.dsend of love to their solitary hearts.

This report satisfied Liot, and the rest was easily managed. Paul Borson urged him to stay until the summer fis.h.i.+ng was over; but Liot was possessed by the sole idea of getting away, and he would listen to nothing that interfered with this determination. He owned half the boat in which he fished, and as it was just at the beginning of the season he was obliged to buy the other half at an exorbitant price. But the usually prudent man would make no delays; he paid the price asked, and then quickly prepared the boat for the voyage he contemplated.

One night after David was asleep he carried him on board of her; and Paul divined his purpose, though it was unspoken. He walked with him to the boat, and they smoked their last pipe together in the moonlight on her deck, and were both very silent. Paul had told himself that he had a great deal to say to his cousin, yet when it came to the last hour they found themselves unable to talk. At midnight both men stood up.

"The tide serves," said Liot, softly, holding out his hand.

And Paul clasped it and answered: "G.o.d be with thee, Liot."

"We shall meet no more in this life, Paul."

"Then I tryst thee for the next life; that will be a good meeting.

Fare thee well. G.o.d keep thee!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE WATERS OF THE GREAT DEEP."]

"And thee also."

"Then we shall be well kept, both of us."

That was the last of Shetland for Liot Borson. He watched his kinsman out of sight, and then lifted his anchor, and in the silence and moonlight went out to sea. When the Lerwick people awoke in the morning Liot was miles and miles away. He was soon forgotten. It was understood that he would never come back, and there was no more interest in him than there is in the dead. Like them, he had had his time of sojourn, and his place knew him no more.

As for Liot, he was happy. He set his sails, and covered David more warmly, and then lay down under the midnight stars. The wind was at his back, and the lonely land of his birth pa.s.sed from his eyes as a dream pa.s.ses. In the morning the islands were not to be seen; they were hidden by belts of phantom foam, wreathed and vexed with spray and spindrift. There was, fortunately, no wrath in the morning tide, only a steady, irresistible set to the westward; and this was just what Liot desired. For many days these favorable circ.u.mstances continued, and Liot and David were very happy together; but as they neared the vexed seas which lash Cape Wrath and pour down into the North Minch, Liot had enough to do to keep his boat afloat.

He was driven against his will and way almost to the b.u.t.t of Lewis; and as his meal and water were very low, he looked for death in more ways than one. Then the north wind came, and he hoped to reach the broad Bay of Stornoway with it; but it was soon so strong and savage that nothing could be done but make all snug as possible for the gale and then run before it. It proved to be worse than Liot antic.i.p.ated, and, hungry and thirsty and utterly worn out, the helpless boat and her two dying occupants were picked up by some Celtic coasters from Uig, and taken to the little hamlet to which they were going.

There Liot stayed all summer, fis.h.i.+ng with the men of the place; but he was not happy, for, though they were Calvinists as to faith, they were very different from the fair, generous, romantic men of his own islands. For the fishers of Uig were heavy-faced Celts, with the impatient look of men selfish and greedy of gain. They made Liot pay well for such privileges as they gave him; and he looked forward to the close of the fis.h.i.+ng season, for then he was determined to go to Stornoway and get David a more comfortable and civilized home, after which he would sell his boat and nets. And then? Then he would take the first pa.s.sage he could get to Glasgow, for at Glasgow there were s.h.i.+ps bound for every port in the world.

It was on the 5th of September that he again set sail for Stornoway, and on the 11th he was once more brought back to Uig. A great storm had stripped him of everything he possessed but his disabled boat.

David was in a helpless, senseless condition, and Liot had a broken arm, and fainted from suffering and exhaustion while he was being carried on sh.o.r.e. In some way he lost his purse, and it contained all his money. He looked at the sea and he looked at the men, and he knew not which had it. So there was nothing possible for another winter but poverty and hard toil, and perchance a little hope, now and then, of a better voyage in the spring.

With endless labor and patience he prepared for this third attempt, and one lovely day in early June set sail for the b.u.t.t of Lewis. He had good weather and fair winds for two days; then the norther came and drove him round Vatternish, and into the dangerous whirlpools and vexed waterways of that locality. His boat began to leak, and he was forced to abandon her, and for thirty hours to thole the bl.u.s.tering winds and waves that tossed the little c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l, in which they took a last refuge, like a straw upon the billows. Again the men of Uig brought them to sh.o.r.e; and this time they were sulky, and expressed no sympathy for Liot's disappointment, loss, and suffering. They had become superst.i.tious about him, and they speculated and wondered at the ill luck that always drove him back to Skye. Roy Hunish, a very old man, spoke for the rest when he said, "It seems to me, Liot Borson, that the Lord has not sent you to Stornoway; he is against the journey." And Liot answered sadly: "He is against all I desire."

When they had been warmed and fed and rested in one of the nearest cottages, Liot took David in his arms and went back to his old hut.

He put the sleeping child in the bunk, and then sat down on the cold, dark hearthstone. What Hunish expressed so plainly was the underlying thought in his own heart. He could not escape from a conclusion so tragically manifested. In sorrow too great for tears, he compelled himself to resign all his hopes and dreams--a renunciation as bitter as wormwood, but not as cruelly bitter as the one it included; for his rejection was also the rejection of his son. G.o.d had not forgiven him, nor had he accepted David's dedication to his service, for he had stripped him of all means to accomplish it. He might have permitted him to reach Stornoway and leave the boy among his kindred; he had chosen rather to include David in the sin of his father. This was the thought that wounded his heart like a sword. He went to the sleeping boy and kissed his face, weeping most of all for the sorrow he had brought on the innocent one.

If this earth be a penal world, Liot that night went down to one of its lowest h.e.l.ls. Sorrow of many kinds brutally a.s.sailed him. He hid nothing from his consciousness. He compelled himself to see over again the drowning of Bele--that irreparable wrong which had ruined all his happiness; he compelled himself to stand once more by Karen's coffin, and listen to his own voice calling G.o.d to witness his innocence; he compelled himself to admit that he had thought G.o.d had forgotten his sin of seven years ago. And when these things had been thought out to the end, his heart was so full that he quite unconsciously gave utterance to his thoughts in audible speech. The tones of his voice in the darkness were like those of a man praying, and the hopeless words filled the sorrowful room with a sense of suffering:

"So, then, it is for a life-sentence that I am sent here. There is to be no pardon till I have dreed out the years appointed me in the gust and poverty of this dreadful place, among its hard, unfriendly men. My G.o.d! I am but thirty-three years old. How long wilt thou be angry with me? And the little lad! Pa.s.s me by, but oh, be merciful to him!"

A great silence followed this imploration. The man was waiting. For hours he sat motionless; but just before dawn he must have heard a word of strength or comfort, for he rose to his feet and bowed his head. He was weeping bitterly, and his voice was like a sob; but from that hut on the wild Skye coast there arose with a heartbroken cry the sublimest of mortal prayers--"_Thy will be done._"

IV

THE DOOR WIDE OPEN

Resignation is not always contentment, and though Liot accepted G.o.d's will in place of his own will, he took it rather with a dour patience than with a cheerful satisfaction. Yet in a certain way life gets made independent of our efforts. A higher power than our own brings events about, finds a way across the hills of difficulty, smooths out the rough places, and makes straight what our folly has made crooked. When it became certain that Liot would make his life-home near Uig the men on that coast began to treat him with more friendliness, and the women pitied and cared a little for his motherless boy. And by and by there came a new minister, who found in Liot a man after his own heart. The two men became familiars, and the friends.h.i.+p made life more supportable to both.

It was a hard existence, however, for the child. Liot loved his son, but he was not a demonstrative father, and he thought more of doing his duty to David than of showing him affection or providing him with pleasure. For when all hopes of making him a minister were over David lost something in Liot's estimation. He was, then, just a common lad, in whose heart, as a matter of course, folly and disobedience were bound up. It was his place to exorcise everything like joy, and with the phantoms of a gloomy creed to darken and terrify his childhood.

Before David had shed his baby teeth, h.e.l.l and the devil were tremendous realities to him. An immaculate, pitiless G.o.d, who delighted in taking vengeance on his enemies, haunted all his boyhood's dreams; and the "scheme of salvation," by which perchance this implacable Deity might be conciliated, was the beginning and the end of his education. With an amazing distinctness in question and answer, this "scheme" was laid before him, and by the word and the rod of admonition he was made familiar with the letter of its awful law.

Here, then, was a child whom a sad destiny had led far away from happiness. His nature was singularly affectionate, yet he had no memory of a mother's kiss, or, indeed, of any tender human kindness.

No one petted or loved him; no one heeded his childish sorrows and sufferings. He had toothaches and earaches, about which he felt it useless to speak. He went into the boats with his father as soon as he could bait a line, and was forced to endure all that men endured from salt-water boils, chilblains, frost-bites, and the las.h.i.+ng of spray-laden winds. Cold and hunger, heat and thirst, and the frequent intolerable sleepiness of overtaxed strength made up the sad drama of his childhood; and he played his part in it with a patient submission that sometimes won from his father astonishment and a few words of praise or admiration.

Such words made glorious epochs in the boy's life; he could remember every one of them. Once, when Liot could get no one to launch a boat and go with him to the help of four men drowning before their eyes, the ten-year-old lad came radiantly forward and said, "Take me, father; I will go with you." And the two went on the desperate errand together, and brought back safely the men ready to perish.

Then, when all was well over and the child stood trembling with exhaustion, Liot drew him close to his side, and pushed his wet hair from his brow, and said with proud tenderness, "You are a good, brave boy. G.o.d bless you, David!" And the happy upward look of the child had his mother's smile in it, and before Liot knew what he was doing he had stooped and kissed him. The event was a wonderful one, and it made a tie between the father and the son that it was beyond the power of time to loosen.

Liot's own boyhood had been filled with the dreams and stories of the elder world. He had been conscious all his life of this influence streaming up from the centuries behind him, and coloring, and even moving, his present existence. The fierce hatred he felt for Bele Trenby came from unchristened ancestors, and the dumb murder, which had darkened his life and sent him to Uig, from the same source. He told David none of these stirring sagas. He was resolved that the knowledge of the thrall's curse should not call sorrow to him. He never named the heroic Gisli in his hearing.

And once, when he found an old fisherman reciting "Ossian" to David, he fell into such anger as terrified every one. Indeed, he said words at that hour which would have made much trouble and ill-will if the minister had not justified them and called Liot's anger a "righteous one."

And in those days there was absolutely no literature for the people.

Books were dear and scarce; ten years might pa.s.s without a new one drifting into a hamlet; and newspapers were few and for the rich alone. David, then, had but one book--the Holy Scriptures. He read them, and read them again, and found everything in them.

Fortunately, the wonderful wisdom and stories of the Apocrypha had not then been discarded; the book had its place between the Old and the New Testament. And David was wise with Solomon, and saw beautiful visions with Esdras, and lived and glowed and fought with the heroic Maccabees.

And we who have far more books than we can read can hardly understand how David loved the Bible. It was his poetry, his philosophy, his history; it was, above all, the speech of G.o.d to man.

Through it he breathed the air of the old, old East, and grew up under the shadows of Judea's palms and olives; so that the rainy gloom of the coast of Skye was but an accident of his existence.

Abraham and Joseph, Moses and Joshua, were far more real personages to David Borson than the Duke of Wellington or Napoleon and his twelve marshals. Through the stormy days when it was impossible to go to sea, and in the long winter nights, when he stretched himself before the red peats with a little oil-cruse, he and the Bible were friends and companions. It kept him in direct relation with G.o.d and heaven; it fed him on faith; it made him subject to duty; it gave him a character at once courageous and gentle, calm and ideal--such a character as is very rare in our days, and which, where it does exist, will _not_ be transmitted.

So that, with all his hard work and many deprivations, David had his happy hours. And the years went by, and he grew up to a fair and stately manhood, not rebelling against his fate, but taking it as a part of the inscrutable mystery of life and death constantly before his eyes. Others around him suffered in like manner, and at the end one thing happened to all. No; it was not the tyranny of nature nor of his material life that troubled David as he approached manhood; it was the spiritual tyranny under which he lived and prayed which darkened his days and filled his nights with thoughts which he dared not follow to their proper conclusion and was equally afraid to dismiss.

This was his dilemma. He had been taught by a father whom he trusted implicitly that life was only a short and precarious opportunity for working out his salvation with fear and trembling; peradventure he might be counted among the remnant whom G.o.d would elect to save from eternal misery. And in a measure the constant east winds and cloudy heavens, the cold and stormy seas, and the gloom and poverty of all his surroundings were so many confirmations of this unhappy conviction. Yet it was very hard for him to believe that the G.o.d of the Bible, "like a father pitying his children,"

was the G.o.d of his Shorter and Longer Catechisms. As his twentieth year approached these doubts and questions would not be put away, and yet he dared not speak of them either to the minister or to his father.

Then, one night, as he was watching his lines and hooks, something happened which broke the adamantine seal upon his soul. He was quite alone in his boat, and she was drifting slowly under the full moon; there was not a sound upon the ocean but the wash of the water against her sides. He was sitting motionless, thinking of the sadness and weariness of life, and wis.h.i.+ng that G.o.d would love him, though ever so little, and, above all, that he would give him some word or sign of his care for him. His hands were clasped upon his knees, his eyes fixed on the far horizon; between him and the G.o.d whom he so ignorantly feared and desired there was apparently infinite s.p.a.ce and infinite silence.