An Orkney Maid Part 3

They came in a merry company, Boris, with Sunna Vedder on his arm leading them. They came joyously; singing, laughing, chattering, making all the noise that youth seems to think is essential to pleasure. However, I shall not describe this evening. A dinner-dance is pretty much alike in all civilized and semi-civilized communities.

It will really be more descriptive to indicate a few aspects in which this function of amus.e.m.e.nt differed from one of the same kind given last night in a fas.h.i.+onable home or hotel in New York.

First, the guests came all together from some agreed-upon rendezvous.

They walked, for private carriages were very rare and there were none for hire. However, this walking party was generally a very pleasant introduction to a more pleasant and intimate evening. The women were wrapped up in their red or blue cloaks, and the men carried their dancing slippers, fans, bouquets, and other small necessities of the ballroom.

Second, the old and the young had an equal share in any entertainment, and if there was a difference, it was in favour of the old. On this very night Conall Ragnor danced in every figure called, except a saraband, which he said was too slow and formal to be worth calling a dance. Even old Adam Vedder who had come on his own invitation--but welcome all the same--went through the Orkney Quickstep with the two prettiest girls present, Thora Ragnor and Maren Torrie. For honourable age was much respected and every young person wished to share his happiness with it.

A very marked characteristic was the evident pleasure old and young had in the gratification of their sense of taste, in the purely animal pleasure of eating good things. No one had a bad appet.i.te, and if anyone wished for more of a dish they liked, they asked for it. Indeed they had an easy consciousness of paying their hostess a compliment, and of giving themselves a little more pleasure.

Finally, they made the day, day; and the night, night. Such gatherings broke up about eleven o'clock; then the girls went home unwearied, to sleep, and morning found them rosy and happy, already wondering who would give them the next dance.

CHAPTER II

ADAM VEDDER'S TROUBLE

... they do not trust their tongues alone But speak a language of their own; Convey a libel in a frown, And wink a reputation down; Or by the tossing of a fan, Describe the lady and the man.--SWIFT

It is good to be merry and wise, It is good to be honest and true, It is well to be off with the old love Before you are on with the new.

Boris did not remain long in the home port. It was drawing near to Lent, and this was a sacred term very highly regarded by the citizens of this ancient cathedral town. Of course in the Great Disruption the National Episcopal Church had suffered heavy loss, but Lent was a circ.u.mstance of the Soul, so near and dear to its memory, that even those disloyal to their Mother Church could not forget or ignore it.

In some cases it was secretly more faithfully observed than ever before; then its penitential prayers became intensely pathetic in their loneliness. For these self-bereft souls could not help remembering the days when they went up with the mult.i.tude to keep the Holy Fast in the House of their G.o.d.

Rahal Ragnor had never kept it. It had been only a remnant of popery to her. Long before the Free Kirk had been born, she and all her family had been Dissenters of some kind or other. And yet her life and her home were affected by this Episcopal "In Memoriam" in a great number of small, dominating ways, so that in the course of years she had learned to respect a ceremonial that she did not endorse. For she knew that no one kept Lent with a truer heart than Conall Ragnor, and that the Lenten services in the cathedral interfered with his business to an extent nothing purely temporal would have been permitted to do.

So, after the little dance given to Boris, there was a period of marked quietness in Kirkwall. It was as if some mighty Hand had been laid across the strings of Life and softened and subdued all their reverberations. There was no special human influence exerted for this purpose, yet no one could deny the presence of some unseen, unusual element.

"Every day seems like Sabbath Day," said Thora.

"It is Lent," answered Rahal.

"And after Lent comes Easter, dear Mother."

"That is the truth."

In the meantime Boris had gone to Edinburgh on the bark _Sea Gull_ to complete his cargo of Scotch ginghams and sewed muslins, native jewelry and table delicacies. Perhaps, indeed, the minimum notice accorded Lent in the metropolitan city had something to do with this journey, which was not a usual one; but after the departure of the _Sea Gull_ the Ragnor household had settled down to a period of domestic quiet. The Master had to make up the hours spent in the cathedral by a longer stay in the store, and the women at this time generally avoided visiting; they felt--though they did not speak of it--the old prohibition of unkind speech, and the theological quarrel was yet so new and raw that to touch it was to provoke controversy, instead of conversation.

It was at such vacant times that old Adam Vedder's visits were doubly welcome. One day in mid-Lent he came to the Ragnor house, when it was raining with that steady deliberation that gives no hope of anything better. Throwing off his waterproof outer garments, he left them to drip dry in the kitchen. An old woman, watching him, observed:

"Thou art wetting the clean floor, Master Vedder," and he briskly answered: "That is thy business, Helga, not mine. Is thy mistress in the house?"

"Would she be out, if she had any good sense left?"

"How can a man tell what a woman will do? Where is thy mistress?" and he spoke in a tone so imperative, that she answered with shrinking humility:

"I ask thy favour. Mistress Ragnor is in the right-hand parlour. I will look after thy cloak."

"It will be well for thee to do that."

Then Adam went to the right-hand parlour and found Rahal sitting by the fire sewing.

"I am glad to see thee, Rahal," he said.

"I am glad to see thee always--more at this time than at any other."

"Well, that is good, but why at this time more than at any other?"

"The town is depressed; business goes on, but in a silent fas.h.i.+on.

There is no social pleasure--surely the reason is known to thee!"

"So it is, and the reason is good. When people are confessing their sins, and asking pardon for the same, they cannot feel it to be a cheerful entertainment; and, as thou observed, it affects even their business, which I myself notice is done without the usual joking or quarrelling or drinking of good healths. Well, then, that also is right. Where is Thora?"

"She is going to a lecture this afternoon to be given by the Archdeacon Spens to the young girls, and she is preparing for it." And as these words were uttered, Thora entered the room. She was dressed for the storm outside, and wore the hood of her cloak drawn well over her hair; in her hands were a pair of her father's slippers.

"For thee I brought them," she said, as she held them out to Vedder.

"I heard thy voice, and I was sure thy feet would be wet. See, then, I have brought thee my father's slippers. He would like thee to wear them--so would I."

"I will not wear them, Thora. I will not stand in any man's shoes but my own. It is an unchancy, unlucky thing to do. Thanks be to thee, but I will keep my own standing, wet or dry. Look to that rule for thyself, and remember what I say. Let me see if thou art well shod."

Thora laughed, stood straight up, and drew her dress taut, and put forward two small feet, trigly protected by high-laced boots. Then, looking at her mother, she asked: "Are the boots sufficient, or shall I wear over them my French clogs?"

Vedder answered her question. "The clogs are not necessary," he said.

"The rain runs off as fast as it falls. Thy boots are all such trifling feet can carry. What can women do on this hard world-road with such impediments as French clogs over English boots?"

"Mr. Vedder, they will do whatever they want to do; and they will go wherever they want to go; and they will walk in their own shoes, and work in their own shoes, and be well satisfied with them."

"Thora, I am sorry I was born in the last century. If I had waited for about fifty years I would have been in proper time to marry thee."

"Perhaps."

"Yes; for I would not have let a woman so fair and good as thou art go out of my family. We should have been man and wife. That would certainly have happened."

"If two had been willing, it might have been. Now our talk must end; the Archdeacon likes not a late comer;" and with this remark, and a beaming smile, she went away.

Then there was a silence, full of words longing to be spoken; but Rahal Ragnor was a prudent woman, and she sighed and sewed and left Vedder to open the conversation. He looked at her a little impatiently for a few moments, then he asked:

"To what port has thy son Boris sailed?"

"Boris intends to go to Leith, if wind and water let him do so."

"Boris is not asking wind and water about his affairs. There is a question I know not how to answer. I am wanting thy help."

"If that be so, speak thy mind to me."

"I want a few words of advice about a woman."