An Orkney Maid Part 23

Your humble but sincere friend, JEAN HAY.

This letter Thora read to the last word but she was nearly blind when she reached it. All her senses rang inward. "I am dying!" she thought, and she tried to reach the bed but only succeeded in stumbling against a small table full of books, knocking it down and falling with it.

Mistress Ragnor and her visitor heard the fall and they were suddenly silent. Immediately, however, they went to the foot of the stairway and called, "Thora." There was no answer, and the mother's heart sank like lead, as she hastened to her daughter's room and threw open the door. Then she saw her stricken child, lying as if dead upon the floor. Cries and calls and hurrying feet followed, and the unconscious girl was quickly freed from all physical restraints and laid at the open window. But all the ordinary household methods of restoring consciousness were tried without avail and the case began to a.s.sume a dangerous aspect.

At this moment Ragnor arrived. He knelt at his child's side and drew her closer and closer, whispering her name with the name of the Divine One; and surely it was in response to his heart-breaking entreaties the pa.s.sing soul listened and returned. "Father," was the first whisper she uttered; and with a glowing, grateful heart, the father lifted her in his arms and laid her on her bed.

Then Rahal gave him the two letters and sent him away. Thora was still "far off," or she would have remembered her letters but it was near the noon of the next day when she asked her mother where they were.

"Thy father has them."

"I am sorry, so sorry!"

That was all she said but the subject appeared to distress her for she closed her eyes, and Rahal kissed away the tears that slowly found their way down the white, stricken face. However, from this hour she rallied and towards night fell into a deep sleep which lasted for fourteen hours; and it was during this anxious period of waiting that Ragnor talked to his wife about the letters which were, presumably, the cause of the trouble.

"Those letters I gave thee, Coll, did thou read both of them?"

"Both of them I read. Ian's was the happy letter of an expectant bridegroom. Only joy and hope was in it. It was the other one that was a death blow. Yes, indeed, it was a bad, cruel letter!"

"And the name? Who wrote it?"

"Jean Hay."

"Jean Hay! What could Jean have to do with Thora's affairs?"

"Well, then, her conscience made her interfere. She had heard some evil reports about Ian's life and she thought it her duty, after yours and Thora's kindness to her, to report these stories."

"A miserable return for our kindness! This is what I notice--when people want to say cruel things, they always blame their conscience or their duty for making them do it."

"Here is Jean's letter. Thou, thyself, must read it."

Rahal read it with constantly increasing anger and finally threw it on the table with pa.s.sionate scorn. "Not one word of this stuff do I believe, Coll! Envy and jealousy sent that news, not grat.i.tude and good will! No, indeed! But I will tell thee, Coll, one thing I have always found sure, it is this; that often, much evil comes to the good from taking people out of their poverty and misfortunes. They are paying a debt they owe from the past and if we a.s.sume that debt we have it to pay in some wise. That is the wisdom of the old, the wisdom learned by sad experience. I wish, then, that I had let the girl pay her own debt and carry her own burden. She is envious of Thora. Yet was Thora very good to her. Do I believe in her grat.i.tude? Not I! Had she done this cruel thing out of a kind heart, she would have sent this letter to me and left the telling or the not telling to my love and best judgment. I will not believe anything against Ian Macrae!

Nothing at all!"

"Much truth is in thy words, Rahal, and it is not on Jean Hay's letter I will do anything. I will take only Ian's 'yes,' or 'no' on any accusation."

"You may do that safely, Coll, I know it."

"And I will go back to Edinburgh with him and see his father. Perhaps we have all taken the youth too far on his handsome person and his sweet amiability."

"Thou wrote to his father when Thora was engaged to him, with thy permission."

"Well, then, I did."

"What said his father?"

"Too little! He was cursed short about all I named. I told him Thora was good and fair and well educated; and that she would have her full share in my estate. I told him all that I intended to do for them about their home and the place which I intended for Ian in my business, and referred him to Bishop Hedley as to my religious, financial, social and domestic standing."

"Why did thou name Bishop Hedley to him? They are as far apart as Leviticus and St. John. And what did he say to thee in reply?"

"That my kindness was more than his son deserved, etc. In response to our invitation to be present at the marriage ceremony, he said it was quite impossible, the journey was too long and doubtful, especially in the winter; that he was subject to sea-sickness and did not like to leave his congregation over Sunday. Rahal, I felt the paper on which his letter was written crinkling and crackling in my hand, it was that stiff with ecclesiastic pomp and spiritual pride. I would not show thee the letter, I put it in the fire."

"Poor Ian! I think then, that he has had many things to suffer."

"Rahal, this is what I will do. I will meet the packet on Sat.u.r.day and we will go first to my office and talk the Hay letter over together.

If I bring Ian home with me, then something is possible, but if I come home alone, then Thora must understand that all is over--that the young man is not to be thought of."

"That would kill her."

"So it might be. But better is death than a living misery. If Ian is what Jean Hay says he is, could we think of our child living with him?

Impossible! Rahal, dear wife, whatever can be done I will do, and that with wisdom and loving kindness. Thy part is harder, it must be with our dear Thora."

"That is so. And if there has to be parting, it will be almost impossible to spread the plaster as far as the sore."

"There is the Great Physician----"

"I know."

"Tell her what I have said."

"I will do that; but just yet, she is not minding much what any one says."

However, on Sat.u.r.day afternoon Thora left her bed and dressed herself in the gown she had prepared for her bridegroom's arrival. The nervous shock had been severe and she looked woefully like, and yet unlike, herself. Her eyes were full of tears, she trembled, she could hardly support herself. If one should take a fresh green leaf and pa.s.s over it a hot iron, the change it made might represent the change in Thora.

Jean Hay's letter had been the hot iron pa.s.sed over her. She had been told of her father's decision, but she clung pa.s.sionately to her faith in Ian and her claim on her father's love and mercy.

"Father will do right," she said, "and if he does, Ian will come home with him."

The position was a cruel one to Conall Ragnor and he went to meet the packet with a heavy heart. Then Ian's joyful face and his impatience to land made it more so, and Ragnor found it impossible to connect wrong-doing with the open, handsome countenance of the youth. On the contrary, he found himself without intention declaring:

"Well, then, I never found anything the least zig-zaggery about what he said or did. His words and ways were all straight. That is the truth."

Yet Ian's happy mood was instantly dashed by Ragnor's manner. He did not take his offered hand and he said in a formal tone: "Ian, we will go to my office before we go to the house. I must ask thee some questions."

"Very well, sir. Thora, I hope, is all right?"

"No. She has been very ill."

"Then let me go to her, sir, at once."

"Later, I will see about that."

"Later is too late, let us go at once. If Thora is sick----"

"Be patient. It is not well to talk of women on the street. No wise man, who loves his womenkin, does that."

Then Ian was silent; and the walk through the busy streets was like a walk in a bad dream. The place and circ.u.mstances felt unreal and he was conscious of the sure presence of a force closing about him, even to his finger tips. Vainly he tried to think. He felt the trouble coming nearer and nearer, but what was it? What had he done? What had he failed to do? What was he to be questioned about?

Young as he was his experiences had taught him to expect only injury and wrong. The Ragnor home and its love and truth had been the miracle that had for nine months turned his brackish water of life into wine.