Here there was another break in the letter, and then came this postscript.
"It is part of the penalty of life in these northern lands that for nearly one-half of the year we are entirely cut off from intercourse with the rest of the world, and are at the mercy of wind and sea for that benefit during the other half. My letter has waited these seven days for the passing of a storm before the ship that is to carry it can sail. This interval has seen the return of the sloop that I sent down the fiord as far as Smoky Point, but no tidings has she brought back of the vessel your father sailed in, and no certain intelligence has yet reached me from any other quarter. So let me not alarm you when I add that a report has come to Reykjavik by a whaler on the seas under Snaefell that an Irish schooner has lately been wrecked near the mouth of some basaltic caves by Stappen, all hands being saved, but the vessel gone to pieces, and crew and passengers trying to make their way to the capital overland. I am afraid to fear, and as much afraid to hope, that this may have been the ship that brought your father; but I am fitting out an expedition to go along the coast to meet the poor ship-broken company, for whoever they are they can know little of the perils and privations of a long tramp across this desolate country. If more and better news should come my way you shall have it in its turn, but meantime bethink you earnestly whether it is not now for you to come and to join me, and your father also, if he should then be here, and, if not, to help me to search for him. But it is barely just to you to ask so much without making myself clear, though truly you must have guessed my meaning. Then, dear Greeba, when I say 'Come,' I meanCome to be my wife. It sounds cold to say it so, and such a plea is not the one my heart has cherished; for through all these years I have heard myself whisper that dear word through trembling lips, with a luminous visionof my own face in your beautiful eyes before me. But that is not to be, save in an aftermath of love, if you will only let the future bring it. So, dearest love, my darling—more to me than place and power and all the world can give—come to me—come—come—come."
Now never did a letter bring more contrary feelings to man or maid than this one of Michael Sunlocks brought to Greeba. It thrilled her with love, it terrified her with fear; it touched her with delight, it chilled her with despair; it made her laugh, it made her weep; she kissed it with quivering lips, she dropped it from trembling fingers. But in the end it swept her heart and soul away with it, as it must have swept away the heart and soul of any maiden who ever loved, and she leaped at the thought that she must go to Sunlocks and to her father at once, without delay—not waiting to write, or for the messenger that was to come.
Yet the cooler moment followed, when she remembered Jason. She was pledged to him; she had given him her promise; and if she broke her word she would break his heart. But Sunlocks—Sunlocks—Sunlocks! She could hear his low, passionate voice in the words of his letter. Jason she had loved for his love of her; but Sunlocks she had loved of her love alone.
What was she to do? Go to Sunlocks, and thereby break her word and the heart of Jason, or abide by Jason, and break her own heart and the hope of Sunlocks? "Oh," she thought, "if the letter had but come a day earlier—one little day—nay, one hour—one little, little hour!" Then, in her tortured mind, she reproached Jason for keeping it back from her by his forgetfulness, and at the next instant she reproached Sunlocks for his tardy despatch, and last of all she reproached herself for not waiting for it. "Oh," she thought, "was ever a girl born to bring such misery to those who love her!"
All the long night thereafter she tossed in restless doubt, never once closing her eyes in sleep; and atdaydawnshe rose and dressed, and threw open her window, and coolwaves of morning air floated down upon her from the mountains, where the bald crown of Barrule was tipped with rosy light from the sun that was rising over the sea. Then, in the stillness of the morning, before the cattle in the meadows had begun to low, or the sheep on the hills to bleat, and there was yet no noise of work in the rickyard or the shippon, and all the moorland below lay asleep under its thin coverlet of mist, there came to her from across the fields the sound of a happy, cheery voice that was singing. She listened, and knew that it was Jason, chanting a song of Iceland after a night spent on the mountains; and she looked and saw that he was coming on towards the house, with his long, swinging stride and leap, over gorse and cushag and hedge and ditch.
It was more than she could bear after such night-long torment, to look upon the happiness she seemed about to wreck, so she turned her head away and covered her ears with her hands. But, recking nothing of this, Jason came on, singing in snatches and whistling by turns, until his firm tread echoed in the paved courtyard in the silence that was broken by nothing beside, except the wakening of the rooks in the elms.
"She must be awake, for she lies there, and her window is open," he thought to himself.
"Whisht!" he cried, tossing up a hand.
And then, without moving from where she stood, with her back resting against the window shutter, she turned her head about and her eyes aslant, and saw him beneath her casement. He looked buoyant and joyous, and full of laughter. A gun was over his shoulder, a fishing rod was in the other hand, at his belt hung a brace of birds, with the blood dripping on to his leggings, and across his back swung a little creel.
"Greeba, whisht!" he called again, in a loud whisper; and a third time he called her.
Then, though her heart smote her sore, she could not but step forward; and perhaps her very shame made her the more beautiful at that moment, for her cheeks were rosy red, and her round neck drooped, and her eyes were shy of the morning light, and very sweet she looked to the lad who loved her there.
"Ah!" he said almost inaudibly, and drew a long breath. Then he made pretence to kiss her, though so far out of reach, and laughed in his throat. After that he laid his gunagainst the porch, and untied the birds and threw them down at the foot of the closed door.
"I thought I would bring you these," he said. "I've just shot them."
"Then you've not been to bed," said Greeba nervously.
"Oh, that's nothing," he said, laughing. "Nothing for me. Besides, how could I sleep? Sleep? Why I should have been ready to kill myself this morning if I could have slept last night. Greeba!"
"Well!"
"You could never think what a glorious night it has been for me."
"So you've had good sport?" she said, feeling ashamed.
"Sport!" he cried, and laughed again. "Oh, yes, I've had sport enough," he said. "But what a night it was! The happiest night of all my life. Every star that shone seemed to shine for me; every wind that blew seemed to bring me a message; and every bird that sang, as the day was dawning, seemed to sing the song of all my happiness. Oh, it has been a triumphant night, Greeba."
She turned her head away from him, but he did not stop.
"And this morning, coming down from Barrule, everything seemed to speak to me of one thing, and that was the dearest thing in all the world. 'Dear little river,' I said, 'how happily you sing your way to the sea.' And then I remembered that before it got there it would turn the wheel for us at Port-y-Vullin some day, and so I said 'Dear little mill, how merrily you'll go when I listen to your plash and plunge, with her I love beside me."
She did not speak, and after a moment he laughed.
"That's very foolish, isn't it?" he said.
"Oh, no," she said. "Why foolish?"
"Well it sounds so; but, ah, last night the stars around me on the mountain top seemed like a sanctuary, and this morning the birds among the gorse were like a choir, and all sang together, and away to the roof their word rang out—Greeba! Greeba! Greeba!"
He could hear a faint sobbing.
"Greeba!"
"Yes?"
"You are crying."
"Am I? Oh, no! No, Jason, not that."
"I must go. What a fool I am," he muttered, and picked up his gun.
"Oh no; don't say that."
"Greeba!"
"Well, Jason?"
"I'm going now, but——"
"Why?"
"I'm not my own man this morning. I'm talking foolishly."
"Well, and do you think a girl doesn't like foolishness?"
He threw his head back and laughed at the blue sky. "But I'm coming back for you in the evening. I am to get the last of my rafters on to-day, and when a building is raised it's a time to make merry."
He laughed again with a joyous lightness, and turned to go, and she waved her hand to him as he passed out of the gate. Then, one, two, three, four, his strong rhythmic steps went off behind the elms, and then he was gone, and the early sun was gone with him, for its brightness seemed to have died out of the air.
And being alone Greeba knew why she had tried to keep Jason by her side, for while he was with her the temptation was not strong to break in upon his happiness, but when he was no longer there, do what she would, she could not but remember Michael Sunlocks.
"Oh, what have I done that two brave men should love me?" she thought; but none the less for that her heart clamored for Sunlocks. Sunlocks, Sunlocks, always Sunlocks—the Sunlocks of her childhood, her girlhood, her first womanhood—Sunlocks of the bright eyes and the smile like sunshine.
And thinking again of Jason, and his brave ways, and his simple, manly bearing, and his plain speech so strangely lifted out of itself that day into words with wings, she only told herself that she was about to break his heart, and that to see herself do it it would go far to break her own. So she decided that she would write to him, and then slip away as best she could, seeing him no more.
At that resolve she sat and wrote four pages of pleading and prayer and explanation. But having finished her letter, it smote her suddenly, as she folded and sealed it, that it would be a selfish thing to steal away without warning, and leave this poor paper behind her to crush Jason, for though written in pity for him, in truth it was fraught with pity only for herself. As mean of soul as that she could not be,and straightway she threw her letter aside, resolved to tell her story face to face. Then she remembered the night of Stephen Orry's death, and the white lips of Jason as he stood above the dying man—his father whom he had crossed the seas to slay—and, again, by a quick recoil, she recalled his laughter of that morning, and she said within herself, "If I tell him, he will kill me."
But that thought decided her, and she concluded that tell him she must, let happen what would. So partly in the strength of her resolve, and partly out of its womanly weakness, and the fear that she might return to her first plan at last, she took up her own letter to Jason, and locked it in a chest. Then taking from the folds at her breast the letter of Sunlocks to herself, she read it again, and yet again, for it was the only love letter she had ever received, and there was a dear delight in the very touch of it. But the thought of that sensuous joy smote her conscience when she remembered what she had still to do, and thinking that she could never speak to Jason eye to eye, with the letter of Sunlocks lying warm in her bosom, she took it out, and locked it also in the chest.
Jason came back at sundown to fetch her away that they might make some innocent sport together because his mill was roofed. Then with her eyes on her feet she spoke, and he listened in a dull, impassive silence, while all the laughter died off his face and a look of blank pallor came over it. And when she had finished, she waited for the blow of his anger, but it did not come.
"Then all is over between us," he said with an effort.
And looking up, she saw that he was a forlorn man in a moment, and fell to her knees before him with many pitiful prayers for forgiveness. But he only raised her and said gently,
"Mistress Greeba, maybe I haven't loved you enough."
"No, no," she cried.
"I'm only a rough and ignorant fellow, a sort of wild beast, I dare say, not fit to touch the hand of a lady, and maybe a lady could never stoop to me."
"No, no, there's not a lady in all the world would stoop if she were to marry you."
"Then maybe I vexed you by finding my own advantage in your hour of need."
"No, you have behaved bravely with me in my trouble."
"Then, Greeba, tell me what has happened since yesterday."
"Nothing—everything. Jason I have wronged you. It is no fault of yours, but now I know I do not love you."
He turned his face away from her, and when he spoke again his voice broke in his throat.
"You could never think how fast and close my love will grow. Let us wait," he said.
"It would be useless," she answered.
"Stay," he said stiffly, "do you love anyone else?"
But before she had time to speak, he said quickly,
"Wait! I've no right to ask that question, and I will not hear you answer it."
"You are very noble, Jason," she said.
"I was thinking of myself," he said.
"Jason," she cried, "I meant to ask you to release me, but you have put me to shame and now I ask you to choose for me. I have promised myself to you, and if you wish it I will keep my promise."
At that he stood, a sorrowful man, beside her for a moment's space before he answered her, and only the tones of his voice could tell how much his answer cost him.
"No—ah, no," he said; "no, Greeba, to keep your promise to me would be too cruel to you."
"Think of yourself now," she cried.
"There's no need to do that," he said, "for either way I am a broken man. But you shall not also be broken-hearted, and neither shall the man who parts us."
Saying this, a ghastly white hand seemed to sweep across his face, but at the next moment he smiled feebly and said, "God bless you both."
Then he turned to go, but Greeba caught him by both hands.
"Jason," she murmured, "It is true I cannot love you, but if there was another name for love that is not—"
He twisted back to her as she spoke, and his face was unutterably mournful to see. "Don't look at me like that," he said, and drew away.
She felt her face flush deep, for she was ashamed. Love was her pole-star. What was Jason's? Only the blankness of despair.
"Oh, my heart will break," she cried. "Jason," she cried again, and again she grasped his hands, and againtheir eyes met, and then the brave girl put her quivering lips to his.
"Ah, no," he said, in a husky voice, and he broke from her embrace.
Shrinking from every human face, Jason turned in his dumb despair towards the sea, for the moan of its long dead waves seemed to speak to him in a voice of comfort if not of cheer. The year had deepened to autumn, and the chill winds that scattered the salt spray, the white curves of the breakers, the mists, the dapple-gray clouds, the scream of the sea fowl, all suited with his mood, for at the fountains of his own being the great deeps were broken up.
It was Tuesday, and every day thereafter until Saturday he haunted the shore, the wild headland to seaward, and the lonesome rocks on the south. There, bit by bit, the strange and solemn idea of unrequited love was borne in upon him. It was very hard to understand. For one short day the image of a happy love had stood up before his mind, but already that day was dead. That he should never again clasp her hand whom he loved, that all was over between them—it was painful, it was crushing.
And oh! it was very cruel. His life seemed as much ended as if he had taken his death-warrant, for life without hope was nothing worth. The future he had fondly built up for both of them lay broken at his own feet. Oh, the irony of it all! There were moments when evil passions arose in his mind and startled him. Standing at the foot of the lone crags of the sea he would break into wild peals of laughter, or shriek out in rebellion against his sentence. But he was ashamed of these impulses, and would sink away from the scene of them, though no human eye had there been on him like a dog that is disgraced.
Yet he felt that like a man among men he could fight anything but this relentless doom. Anything, anything—and he would not shrink. Life and love, life and love—only these, and all would be well. But no, ah! no, not for him was either; and creeping up in the dead of night towards Lague, just that his eyes might see, though sorrowdimmed them, the house where she lay asleep, the strong man would sob like a woman, and cry out: Greeba! Greeba! Greeba!
But with the coming of day his strength would return, and watching the big ships outside pass on to north and south, or listening to the merry song of the seamen who weighed anchor in the bay, he told himself sadly, but without pain, that his life in the island was ended, that he could not live where she lived, surrounded by the traces of her presence, that something called him away, and that he must go. And having thus concluded his spirits rose, and he decided to stay until after Sunday, thinking to see her then in church, and there take his last tender look of her and bid her farewell in silence, for he could not trust himself to speak.
So he passed what remained of his time until then without bitterness or gloom, saying within himself as often as he looked with bereaved eyes towards Lague, where it lay in the sunshine, "Live on, and be happy, for I wish you no ill. Live on, and the memory of all this will pass away."
But he did not in the meantime return to his work at the mill, which stood as he had left it on the Tuesday when the carpenter fixed the last of its roof timbers. This, with the general rupture of his habits of life, was the cause of sore worry and perplexity to his housemate.
"Aw, reglar bruk—bruk complete," old Davy said far and wide. "A while ago ye couldn' hould him for workin' at the mill, and now he's never puttin' a sight on it, and good goold waitin' for him; and showin' no pride—and what he's thinkin' of no one's knowin'."
Davy tried hard to sound the depth of Jason's trouble, but having no line to fathom it he had recourse to his excellent fancy.
"Aw, bless yer sowls, the thick as a haddick I was," he whispered one day, "and me wonderin' why, and wonderin' why, and the thing as plain as plain what's agate of the poor boy. It's divils that's took at him—divils in the head. Aw, yes, and two of them, for it's aisy to see there's fightin' goin' on inside of him. Aw, yes, same as they tell of in Revelations; and I've seen the like when I was sailin' forrin."
Having so concluded old Davy thought it his duty to consult an old body that lived in a dark tangle of birchwood at Ballaglass.
"It's fit to make a man cry to see the way he's goin'," said he, "and a few good words can't do no harm any way."
The old woman agreed with Davy as to the cause of trouble, and said that Jason must be somebody after all, since what he had was a malady the quality was much subject to; for to her own knowledge the "Clerk o' the Rowls" had suffered from it when a little dancing girl from France had left suddenly for England. Yet she made no question but she should cure him, if Davy could contrive to hang about his neck while he slept a piece of red ribbon which she would provide.
It was not easy for Davy to carry out his instructions, so little did Jason rest, but he succeeded at length, and thought he remarked that Jason became calmer and better straightway.
"But bless me, I was wrong," said he. "It was four divils the poor boy had in his head; and two of them are gone, but the other two are agate of him still."
When Sunday morning came Jason made himself ready for church, and then lounged at the doorway of old Davy's cottage by the dial, to watch the people go in at the gate. And many hailed him as they went by in the sweet sunshine, and some observed among themselves that in a few days his face had grown thin. In twos and threes they passed, while Davy rang the bell from the open porch, and though Jason seemed not to heed any of them, yet he watched them one by one. Matt Mylechreest he saw, and Nary Crowe, now toothless and saintly, and Kane Wade, who had trudged down from Ballure, and his wife Bridget, grown wrinkled and yellow, and some bright young maidens, too, who gave a side-long look his way, and John Fairbrother—Gentleman John—who tripped along with silken bows on the toes of his shoes. But one whom he looked for he did not see, and partly from fear that she might not come, and partly from dread lest she should pass him so closely by, he shambled into church with the rest before the bell had stopped.
He had not often been to church during the four years that he had lived on the island and the people made way for him as he pushed up into a dark corner under the gallery. There he sat and watched as before out of his slow eyes, never shifting their quiet gaze from the door of the porch. But the bell stopped, and Greeba had not come;and when Parson Gell hobbled up to the Communion-rail, still Greeba was not there. Then the service was begun, the door was closed, and Jason lay back and shut his eyes.
The prayers were said without Jason hearing them, but while the first lesson was being read, his wandering mind was suddenly arrested. It was the story of Jacob and Esau; how Isaac, their father, seeing the day of his death at hand, sent Esau for venison, that he might eat and bless him before he died; how Jacob under the person of Esau obtained the blessing, and how Esau vowed to slay his brother Jacob.
"And Isaac, his father, said unto him: Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy first born Esau.
"And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? Where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed?
"And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father.
"And Isaac, his father, answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and the dew of heaven from above;
"And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.
"And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob."
As Parson Gell at the reading-desk mumbled these words through his toothless gums, it seemed to Jason as though he were awakening from a long sleep—a sleep of four years, a sleep full of dreams, both sweet and sad—and that everything was coming back upon him in a dizzy whirl. He remembered his mother, her cruel life, her death, and his own vow, and so vivid did these recollections grow in a moment that he trembled with excitement.
A woman in a black crape bonnet, who sat next to him in the pew, saw his emotions, and put a Bible into his hands. He accepted it with a slight movement of the head, butwhen he tried to find the place he turned dizzy and his hands shook. Seeing this the good woman, with a look of pity and a thought of her runaway son who was far off, took the Bible back, and after opening it at the chapter in Genesis, returned it in silence. Even then he did not read, but sat with wandering eyes, while nervous twitches crossed his face.
He was thinking that he had forgotten his great vow of vengeance, lulled to sleep by his vain dream of love; he was telling himself that his vow must yet be fulfilled or his mother who had urged him to it, would follow him with her curse from her grave. For some minutes this feeling grew more and more powerful, and more and more his limbs and whole body quivered. The poor woman in the crape saw that he trembled, and leaned towards him and asked if he was ill. But he only shook his head and drew back in silence into the corner of the pew.
"I must be going mad," he thought, and to steady his mind he turned to the book, thinking to follow the old parson as he lisped along.
It was a reference Bible that the woman had lent him, and as his eyes rambled over the page, never resting until they alit on the words,then will I slay my brother Jacob, he shuddered and thought "How hideous!" All at once he marked the wordslayin the margin with many references to it, and hardly knowing what he was doing he turned up the first of them. From that moment his senses were in a turmoil, and he knew nothing clearly of all that was being done about him. He thought he saw that through all ages God had made man the instrument of his vengeance on the wrongdoer. The stories of Moses, of Saul, of Samson, came back to him one by one, and as he read a chill terror filled his whole being.
He put the book down, trying to compose himself, and then he thought, "How childish? God is King of earth and heaven, and needs the help of no man." But his nervous fingers could not rest and he took up the Bible again, while the parson prosed through his short sermon. This time he turned away from the passages that haunted him, though "Esau, Esau, Esau," rang in his head. Rolling the leaves in his hand he read in one place how the Lord visits His vengeance upon the children for the sins of the fathers, and then in another place how the nearest of kin to him that is killed shall avenge the blood spilt, andthen again in yet another place how if man keeps not his covenant with the Lord, the Lord will send a faintness upon him, and a great and woeful trembling, so that the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase him.
"Am I then afraid?" he asked himself, and shut the book once more. His head swam with vague thoughts. "I must keep my vow," he thought. "I am losing my senses," he thought again. "I am an Esau," he thought once more.
Then he looked around the church, and if he had seen Greeba at that moment the fire of his heart would have burnt itself out, and all thought of his vow would have gone from him as it had gone before. He did not see her, but he remembered her, and his soul dried away.
The service came to an end, and hestrodeoff, turning from every face; but John Fairbrother tripped after him on the road, touched him on the arm, looked up at him with a smirk, and said:—
"Then you don't know where she is?"
"Who?" said Jason.
"Then youdon'tknow, eh?" said John, with a meaning look.
"Who d'ye mean?—Greeba?"
"Just so. She's gone, though I warrant it's fetching coals to Newcastle to tell you so."
Hearing that, Jason pushed Gentleman John out of his way with a lunge that sent the dandy reeling, and bounded off towards Lague.
"Aw, well," muttered John, "you'd really think hedidn'tknow."
The woman in crape who had followed Jason out of the church, thinking to speak to him, said: "Lave him alone. It's the spirit of the Lord that's strivin' with him."
And old Davy, who came up at the moment, said: "Divils ma'am—divils in the head."
When Jason got to Lague he found the other Fairbrothers assembled there. Asher had missed Greeba the night before, and on rising late that morning—Sunday morning—he had so far conquered his laziness as to walk round to his brothers' houses and inquire for her. All six, except John, had then trudged back to Lague, thinking in their slow way to start a search, and they began their quest by ransacking Greeba's room. There they found two letters in a chest, clearly forgotten in a hasty leave-taking.One of them was Greeba's abandoned letter to Red Jason, the other was the letter of Michael Sunlocks to Greeba. The Fairbrothers read both with grim wonderment, and Jacob put Greeba's letter in his pocket. They were discussing the letter of Sunlocks as Jason entered; and they fell back at sight of his ashy face and the big beads of sweat that dropped from it.
"What's this? Where is she?" he said, and his powerful voice shook.
Without a word they handed him the letter, and he glanced it over and turned it in his hands, like one who does not see or cannot read.
"Where's she gone?" he said again, lifting his helpless eyes to the faces about him.
"The devil knows," said Jacob; "but see—read—'Michael Sunlocks,'" running his finger along the signature.
At that a groan like the growl of a beast came from Jason's throat, and like a baited dog he looked around, not yet knowing on whom his wrath should fasten.
"It's very simple. It's plain to see that she has gone to him," said Jacob.
And then Jason's face was crossed by a ghastly smile.
"Oh, I'm a woman of a man," he muttered, looking stupidly down at the paper in his hand. "A poor-spirited fool," he muttered again. "I must be so, God knows." But at the next moment his white face grew blood-red, and he cried: "My curse upon him," and with that he tossed back the letter and swung out of the house.
He went on to Port-y-Vullin, mounted the new mill, threw down the roof rafters, and every wall that they had rested upon, until not one stone was left above another, and the house, so near completion, was only a heap of ruins. Then he went into the old hut, took up his treasures and flung them out to sea.
Meantime, the six Fairbrothers were putting their heads together.
"President!" said Thurstan; "that's as good as Governor-General."
"The deuce!" said John.
"She'll be rich," said Ross. "I always said she was fit for a lady."
"Hum! We've made a mess of it," said Stean.
"Well, you wouldn't take my advice," said Asher. "I was for treating the girl fair."
"Stay," said Jacob, "it's not yet too late."
"Well, what's to be done?" said the others together.
"Go after her," said Jacob.
"Ah!"
"Hum! Listen! This is what we had better do," said Jacob. "Sell Ballacraine and take her the money, and tell her we never meant to keep it from her."
"That's good," said John.
"A Governor-General has pickings, I can tell you," said Jacob.
"But who'll go?" said Asher.
"Go! Hum! What! The deuce! Well I mightn't refuse to go myself," said Jacob.
"And maybe I wouldn't mind going with you," said John.
And so it was settled. But the other four said to themselves: "What about the pickings?" And then each, of himself, concluded secretly that if Jacob and John went to Iceland, Jacob and John would get all that was to be got by going, and that to prevent such cheating it would be necessary to go with them.
Jason paid the last of his debts in the Isle of Man, and then set sail for Iceland with less money in his pocket than Adam Fairbrother had carried there. He knew nothing of the whereabouts or condition of the man he was going to seek, except that Michael Sunlocks was at Reykjavik; for so much, and no more, he had read of the letter that the Fairbrothers put into his hands at Lague. The ship he first sailed by was a trader between Copenhagen and the greater ports of Scotland, and Ireland, and at the Danish capital he secured a passage in a whaler bound for Reykjavik. His double voyage covered more than six weeks though there was a strong fair wind from the coast of Scotland to the coast of Denmark, and again from Denmark to Iceland. The delay fretted him, for his heart was afire; but there was no help for it, he had to submit. He did so with no cheer of spirit, or he might have learned somethingfrom the yarns of the seamen. All the gossip that came his way was a chance remark of the master, a Dane, who one day stopped in front of him as he lay by the hatches, and asked if he was an Icelander born. He answered that he was. Was he a seagoing man? Yes. Ship-broken, maybe, in some foreign country? That was so. How long had he been away from Iceland? Better than four years.
"You'll see many changes since that time," said the master, "Old Iceland is turned topsy-turvy."
Jason understood this to mean some political revolution, and turned a deaf ear to it, for such things seemed but sorry trifling to one with work like his before him.
They had then just sighted the Westmann Islands, through a white sea vapor, and an hour later they lay three miles off a rocky point, while an open boat came out to them over the rough water from the island called Home.
It was the post-boat of that desolate rock, fetching letters from the mainland, and ready to receive them from Denmark. The postman was little and old, and his name was Patricksen.
"Well, Patricksen, and what's the latest from the old country?" sang out the master, after two newspapers had been thrown down and one letter taken up.
"Why, and haven't you heard it?" shouted the postman.
"What's that?" cried the master.
"They've put up the young Manxman," shouted the postman. "I knew his father," he added, and laughed mockingly, as he bent to the oars and started back with his newspapers over his three miles of tumbling sea.
Jason's mind threw off its torpor at the sound of those words. While the boat lay alongside he leaned over the gunwale and listened eagerly. When it sheered off he watched it until it had faded into the fog. Then he turned to the master and was about to ask a question, but quickly recovered himself and was silent. "Better not," he thought. "It would be remembered when all should be over."
Late the same day they came for the first time in full view of the southeast coast of Iceland. The fog had lifted before a strong breeze from the west, where the red sun was dipping into the sea. They were then by the needles of Portland, side on to the vast arch which the heavy blow of the tides of ten thousand years has beaten out of the rock. At the sea's edge were a hundred jagged prongs of burnt crag, flecked with the white wings and echoing withthe wild cry of countless sea birds; behind that was a plain of lava dust for seabeach; farther back the dome of a volcano, lying asleep under its coverlet of snow; still farther a gray glacier, glistening with silver spikes; and beyond all a black jokull, Wilderness-jokull, torn by many earthquakes, seamed and streaked with the unmelted ice of centuries and towering over a stony sea of desert, untrodden yet by the foot of man.
Desolate as the scene was, Jason melted at the sight of it; for this island, born of fire and frost, stood to him as the only place, in God's wide world that he could call his home, and little as it had done for him, less than nothing as he owed to it, yet it was his native land, and in coming back to its bleak and terrible shores he looked upon it with a thrill of the heart and saw it through his tears.
But he had little time and less desire to give way to tender feelings, and very soon he had small need to steel himself to the work before him, for everything served to spur him on to it. This was Iceland. This was the new home of Michael Sunlocks. This was where his mother had starved.
This was whereshehad fled to, who had wronged him sorely.
Early the next day they rounded the Smoky Point, leaving the Old Man crag under its shocks of foam to the right, and the rock called the Mealsack, under its white cloud of sea gulls, to the left, and began to beat down the fiord towards Reykjavik. It was not yet six o'clock—the Icelandic mid-evening—when they cast anchor inside the little island of Engy; but the year was far worn towards winter, and the night of the northern land had closed down.
And the time having come to leave the whaler, Jason remembered that he had been but a moody companion for his shipmates, though they had passed some perilous days and nights together. So he bade them good-bye with what cheer he could summon up at last, and the rough fellows kissed him after the manner of their people, showing no rancor at all, but only pity, and saying among themselves that it was plain to see he had known trouble and, though given to strangeoutburstswhen alone, was as simple and as gentle as a child, and would never hurt a fly.
He had hailed a passing boat to run him ashore, and it was one of the light skiffs with the double prow that the boys of Iceland use when they hunt among the rocks forthe eggs and down of the eider duck. Such, indeed though so late in the season, had that day been the work of the two lads whose boat he had chanced upon, and having dropped down to their side from the whaler with his few belongings—his long coat of Manx homespun over his arm, his seaman's boots across his shoulders, his English fowling piece in his hand and his pistol in his belt—he began to talk with them of their calling as one who knew it.
"Where have you been working, my lads?" said Jason.
"Out on Engy," said the elder of the boys.
"Found much?"
"Not to-day."
"Who cleans it?"
"Mother."
And at that a frown passed over Jason's face in the darkness. The boys were thinly clad, both were barelegged and barefooted. Plainly they were brothers, one of them being less than twelve years of age, and the other as young as nine.
"What's your father?"
"Father's dead," said the lad.
"Where do you live with your mother?"
"Down on the shore yonder, below the silversmith's."
"The little house behind the Missions, in front of the vats?"
"Yes, sir, do you know it?"
"I was born in it, my lad," said Jason sadly, and he thought to himself, "Then the old mother is dead."
But he also thought of his own mother, and her long years of worse than widowhood. "All that has yet to be paid for," he told himself with a cold shudder, and then he remembered that he had just revealed himself.
"See, my lads," he said, "here is a crown for you, and say nothing of who gave it you."
The little Icelandic capital twinkled low at the water's edge, and as they came near to it Jason saw that there was a flare of torchlights and open fires, with dark figures moving busily before the glow where he looked for the merchant stores that had faced the sea.
"What's this?" he asked.
"The fort that the new Governor is throwing up," said the boy.
Then through a number of smacks, some schooners, a brig, a coal hulk and many small boats, they ran in at thelittle wooden jetty that forked out over a reef of low rocks. And there some idlers who sat on casks under the lamp, with their hands in their pockets and their skin caps squashed down on their foreheads seemed to recognize Jason as he landed.
"Lord bless me," said one, with a look of terror, "it's the dead come to life again."
"God a-mercy me," said another, pausing with his snuff at his nose, "I could have sworn I fetched him a dead man out of the sea."
Jason knew them, but before they had so far regained their self-command as to hail to him, he had faced about, though eager to ask many questions, and walked away. "Better not," he thought, and hurried on.
He took the High Street towards the Inn, and then an irregular alley that led past the lake to a square in front of the Cathedral, and ended at a little house of basaltic blocks that nestled at its feet, for it was there he meant to lodge. It had been the home of a worthy couple whom he had known in the old days, caretakers of the Cathedral, and his mother's only friends in her last days. Old and feeble and very deaf they had both been then, and as he strode along in the darkness he wondered if he should find them still alive. He found them as he had left them: not otherwise changed than if the five years of his absence had been but five hours. The old man was still at the hearth chopping up some logs of driftwood, and the old woman was still at the table ironing her linen by the light of a rush candle. With uplifted hands and cries of wonderment they received him, and while he supped on the porridge and skyr that they set before him they talked and questioned.
"And where have you been this many a day?" said the old man.
"In England, Scotland, Denmark—many places," said Jason.
"Well they've buried you these four years and better," said the old man, with a grimace.
"Lord bless me, yes, love; and a cross over your grave too, and your name on it," said the old woman, with a look of awe.
"Who did that?" said Jason.
"JorgenJorgensen," said the old man, grinning.
"It's next to your mother's, love. He did that, too, forwhen he heard that she was gone he repented," said the old woman.
"It's no good folks repenting when their bad work's done and done with," said the old man.
"That's what I say. There's them above that won't call it repenting. And see what has come of it," said the old woman.
"What?" said Jason.
"Why, he has gone. Didn't you know, love?" said the old woman.
"How gone?" said Jason. "Dead?"
"Worse—disgraced—driven out of Iceland," said the old man.
Then an ugly smile crossed Jason's face. "It is the beginning," he thought.
"But the old mother is dead, is she not?" he said aloud.
"Your father's mother? Old MotherOrryson?" said the old woman.
"No such luck," the old man muttered. "Comes to service every morning, the old sinner."
"But there's another family living in her house," said Jason.
"Oh, that's because she's past her work, and the new Governor keeps her," said the old man. "No news of your father, though," he added, with a shrug, and then there was a silence for some minutes.
"Poor Rachel," said the old woman, presently. "Nowtherewas a good creature. And, bless me, how she was wrapped up in her boy! I was just like that when I had my poor little Olaf. I never had but one child neither. Well, my lad," she said, dropping her flat iron and raising her apron, "you can say you had a good mother anyhow."
Jason finished his supper and went out into the town. All thoughts, save one thought, had been banished from his mind. Where was this Michael Sunlocks? What was he? How was he to be met with? "Better not ask," thought Jason. "Wait and watch." And so he walked on. Dark as was the night, he knew every step of the way. The streets looked smaller and meaner than he remembered them, and yet they showed an unwonted animation. Oil lamps hung over many stalls, the stores were still open and people passed to and fro in little busy throngs. Recalling that heavy quiet of that hour of nightfive years ago, Jason said to himself, "The town has awakened from a long sleep."
To avoid the glances of prying eyes, he turned down towards the bridge, passing the Deanery and the Bishop's Palace. There the streets were all but as quiet as of old, the windows showed few lights, and the monotonous chime of the sea came up through the silence from the iron-bound shore. Yet, even there, from two houses, there were sounds of work. These were the Latin school and the jail. In the school a company of students was being drilled by a sergeant, whose words of command rang out in the intervals of shuffling feet.
"What does this mean?" said Jason to a group of young girls, who, with shawls over their heads, were giggling together in the darkness by the gate.
"It's the regiment started by the new Governor," said one of the girls.
"The new Governor again," thought Jason, and turned away.
From the jail there came a noise as of carpenters hammering.
"What are they doing there?" said Jason to a little tailor, who passed him on the street at that moment with his black bag on his back.
"Turning the jail into a house for the new Governor," said the tailor.
"Again the new Governor," said Jason, and he strode on by the tailor's side. "A stirring fellow, whoever he may be."
"That's true, young as he is," said the tailor.
"Is he then so young?" said Jason, carelessly.
"Four or five and twenty, hardly more," said the tailor, "but with a headpiece fit for fifty. He has driven those Danish thieves out of the old country, with all their trick and truck. Why, you couldn't call your bread your own—no, nor your soul neither. Oh, a Daniel, sir—a young Daniel. He's to be married soon. She's staying with the old Bishop now. They say she's a foreigner."
"Who?" said Jason.
"Why, his wife that is to be," said the tailor. "Good-night, sir," he cried, and turned down an alley.
Then Jason remembered Greeba, and the hot blood tingled in his cheeks. Never yet for an instant had it come to him to think that Michael Sunlocks and the newGovernor were the same man, and that Greeba and his bride were one. But, telling himself that she might even then be in that little town, with nothing but the darkness hiding him from her sight, he shuddered at the near chance of being discovered by her, and passed on by the river towards the sea. Yet, being alone there, with only the wash of the waves for company, he felt his great resolve begin to pall, as a hundred questions rose to torment him. Suppose she were here, and they were to meet, dare he after all dothat?Though she loved this man, could he still dothat?Oh, was it not horrible to think of—that he should cross the seas forthat?
So, to put an end to the torture of such questionings, and escape from himself, he turned back from the shore to where the crowds looked thickest in the town. He went as he came, by the bank of the river, and when he was crossing the bridge some one shot past him on a horse. It was a man, and he drew up sharply at the Bishop's Palace, threw his reins over the pier of the gate, and bounded into the house with the light foot that goes with a light heart. "The new Governor," thought Jason, though he had seen him only as a shadow. "Who is he, I wonder?" he thought again, and with a sigh for his own condition within sight of this man's happiness he pushed heavily along.
Hardly had he got back into the town when he was seen and recognized, for with a whoop and a spring and a jovial oath a tipsy companion of former days came sweeping down upon him from the open door of a drinking-shop.
"What? Jason? Bless my soul! Come in," the fellow cried, embracing him; and to avoid the curious gaze of the throng that had gathered on the pavement Jason allowed himself to be led into the house.
"Well, God save us! So you're back! But I heard you had come. Old Jon Olafsson told us. He was down at the jetty. Boys," the fellow shouted to a little company of men who sat drinking in the hot parlor, "he's another Lazarus, come back from the dead."
"Here's to his goot healt, den," said a fat Dutch captain, who sat on the hearth, strumming a fiddle to tune it.
And while the others laughed and drank, a little deformed dwarf in a corner with an accordion between his twisted fingers began to play and sing.
"This is the last thing that should have happened,"thought Jason, and with many excuses he tried to elbow his way out. But the tipsy comrade held him while he rattled on:
"Been away—foreign, eh? Married since? No? Then the girls of old Iceland are best, eh? What? Yes? And old Iceland's the fairest land the sun shines upon, eh? No? But, Lord bless me, what a mess you made of it by going away just when you did!"
At that Jason, while pushing his way through, turned about with a look of inquiry.
"Didn't know it? What? That after the mother died old Jorgen went about looking for you? No? Wanted? Why, to make a man of you, boy. Make you his son and the like of that, and not too soon either. And when he couldn't find you he took up with this Michael Sunlocks."
"Michael Sunlocks?" Jason repeated, in a distant sort of voice.
"Just so; this precious new Governor that wants to put down all the drinking."
"The new Governor?"
"Yes. Putyournose out, boy; for that was the start of his luck."
Jason felt dizzy, and under the hard tan of his skin his face grew white.
"You should know him, though. No? Well, after old Jorgen had quarrelled with him, everybody said he was a kind of bastard brother of yours."
The reeking place had got hotter and hotter. It was now stifling, and Jason stumbled out into the street.
Michael Sunlocks was the new Governor, and Michael Sunlocks was about to be married to Greeba. Thrice had this man robbed him of his blessing, standing in the place that ought to have been his; once with his father, once with Greeba, and once again with Jorgen Jorgensen.
He tried to reckon it all up, but do what he would he could not keep his mind from wandering. The truth had fallen upon him at a blow, and under his strong emotions his faculties seemed to be slain in a moment. He felt blind, and deaf, and unable to think. Presently, without knowing where he was going, but impelled by some blind force, and staggering along like a drunken man, he found himself approaching the Bishop's Palace.
"He is there," he thought: "the man who has stood in my place all his days: the man who has stripped me ofevery good thing in life. He is there, in honor, and wealth, and happiness; and I am here, a homeless outcast in the night. Oh, that I could do it now—now—now!"
But at that he remembered that he had never yet seen Michael Sunlocks, to know him from another man. "I must wait," he thought. "I must go to work cautiously. I must see him first, and watch him."
The night was then far spent towards midnight; the streets had grown quiet, the lights of the town no longer sent a yellow glare over the grass-clad housetops, and from a quiet sky the moon and stars shone out.
Jason was turning back towards his lodgings when he heard a voice that made him stand. It was a woman's voice singing, and it came with the undertones of some string instrument from the house in front of him. After a moment he pushed the gate open and walked across the little grass plat until he came beneath the only window from which a light still shone. There he stopped and listened, laying his hand on the sill to steady himself.
Ah! now he knew the voice too well. It was Greeba's. She was there; she was on the other side of that wall at that instant. And she was singing. It was a love-song that she sang. Her very heart seemed to speak in it, for her tones were the tones of love, andhemust be beside her.
"It is for him she has left me," thought Jason, in the whirl of his dazed brain; "for him and his place, his station, and the pride of his success."
Then, remembering how his love of this woman had fooled him through five treacherous years, turning him aside from thoughts of his vow, giving him his father's money for his mother's wrongs, and how she who had been so damned dear to him had drawn him on in the days of her trouble, and cast him off when another beckoned to her, he cried in his tortured heart, "Oh, God in heaven, give me this man into my hands."
Jason went back to his lodging by the Cathedral, found the old caretaker sitting up for him, made some excuse forreturning late, and turned in to bed. His room was the guest-chamber—a little, muggy, stifling box, with bed and bedding of eider down sewed into canvas sacks. He threw off his boots and lay down in his clothes. Hour followed hour and he did not sleep. He was nevertheless not wholly awake, but retained a sort of sluggish consciousness which his dazed brain could not govern. Twelve had chimed from the great clock of the turret overhead as he lay down, and he heard one, two, three, and four follow in their turn. By this time he was feeling a dull pain at the back of his head, and a heavy throbbing in his neck. Until then he had been ever a man of great bodily strength, with never an ache or ailment. "I am making myself ill before anything is done," he thought, "and if I fall sick nothing can come of my enterprise. That must not be." With an effort of will he composed himself to sleep. Still for a space he saw the weary night wear on; but the lapse, the broken thread, and the dazed sense stole over him at last, and he dropped into a deep slumber. When he awoke the white light of midday was coming in strong dancing bars through the rents of the dark blanket that covered the little window, the clock of the Cathedral was chiming twelve once again, and over the little cobble causeway of the street in front there was the light patter of many sealskin shoes. "How could I sleep away my time like this with so much to do?" he thought, and leapt up instantly.
His old landlady had more than once looked in upon him during the morning, and watched him with an air of pity. "Poor lad, he looks ill," she thought; and so left him to sleep on. While he ate his breakfast, of skyr and skate and coffee, the good soul busied herself about him, asking what work he had a mind to do now that he had come back, and where he meant to look for it, with other questions of a like kind. But he answered her many words with few of his own, merely saying that he intended to look about him before deciding on anything, and that he had something in his pocket to go on with in the meanwhile.
Some inquiries he made of her in his turn, and they were mainly about the new President, or Governor; what like he was to look upon, and what his movements were, and if he was much seen in the town. The good body could tell him very little, being old, very deaf, and feeble on her feet, and going about hardly at all farther than the floors of the Cathedral on cleaning days. But her deaf old husband,hobbling in from the street at that moment, said he had heard somebody say that a session of Althing was sitting then, and that under the Republic that had lately been proclaimed, Michael Sunlocks presided at the parliament-house daily about midday.
Hearing this, Jason rose from his unfinished breakfast, and went out on some pretended errand; but when he got to the wooden shed where Althing held its session he found the sitting over and the delegates dispersed. His only object had been to see Michael Sunlocks that he might know him, and having lost his first opportunity he returned the following day, coming earlier, before the sitting had begun or the delegates had yet gathered. But though he lounged within the door yard, while the members passed through, jesting and laughing together, he saw no one young enough to answer to Michael Sunlocks. He was too much in dread of attracting attention to inquire of the few idlers who looked on like himself, so he went away and came yet again the next day after and waited as before. Once more he felt that the man he looked for had not passed in with the rest, and, between fear of exciting suspicion and of throwing away further chances, he questioned the doorkeeper of the Chamber. This person stuttered before every word, but Jason learned at length that Michael Sunlocks had not been there for a week, that by the rule of the new Constitution the Governor presided only at the sittings of the higher house, the Council, and that the present sittings were those of the lower house, the Senate.
That was Thursday, and Jason reflected that though four days were gone nothing was done. Vexed with himself for the caution that had wasted so much time, he boldly started inquiries on many sides. Then he learned that it was the daily practice of the Governor to go at twelve o'clock noon to the embankment in front of the merchant stores, where his gangs of masons were throwing up the new fort. At that hour that day Jason was there, but found that the Governor had already been and gone. Going earlier the next day, Friday, he learned that the Governor had not yet come, and so he lay about to wait for him. But the men whom he had questioned began to cast curious glances in his direction, and to mutter together in groups. Then he remembered that it was a time of revolution, that he might be mistaken for a Danish spy, and as such be forthwithseized and imprisoned. "That would stop everything," he thought, and moved away.
In a tavern of a by-street, a long lean youth, threadbare and tipsy, formerly a student and latterly expelled from the college for drunkenness, told him that the new Governor turned in at the Latin school every evening at dusk, to inspect the drill of the regiment he had enrolled. So to the Latin school at dusk Jason made his way, but the place was dark and silent when he came upon it, and from a lad who was running out at the moment he heard that the drill-sergeant had fallen ill, and the drill been discontinued.
On the wharf by the jetty the boatman who had recognized him on landing, old Jon Olafsson, told him that serving whiting and skate to the Bishop's Palace he found that the new Governor was ever coming and going there. Now of all houses Jason had most avoided that house, lest he should be seen of those eyes that would surely read his mission at a glance. Yet as night fell in, and he might approach the place with safety, he haunted the ways that led to it. But never again did he see Michael Sunlocks even in the uncertain darkness, and thinking how hard it was to set eyes on this man, whom he must know of a surety before ever his enterprise could be ripe, a secret dread took hold of him, and he all but renounced his design. "Why is it that I cannot see him?" he thought. "Why, of all men in the town, is he the only one whom I can never meet face to face? Why, of all men here, am I the only one whom he has never seen?" It was as if higher powers were keeping them apart.
By this time he realized that he was being observed, for in the dusk, on the Thingvellir road, that led past Government House, three men overtook him, and went on to talk with easy confidence in signs and broken words. He saw that they were Danes; that one was old and white-headed; another was young, sallow, and of a bitter spirit; and the third, who was elderly, was of a meek and quiet manner.
"How are they going on in the old country? Anything done yet? When are they coming?" said the young man.
"Ah, don't be afraid," said the old man. "We know you are watching him," he added, with a side-long motion of the head towards Government House. "But he will send no more of our sons and brothers to the sulphur mines, to slave like beasts of burden. His days are numbered."
Then the young man laughed bitterly.
"They say he is to be married. Let him make merry while he may," he said with a deep oath.
And at that Jason faced about to them.
"You have been mistaken, sirs," he said. "I am not a spy, and neither am I an assassin."
He walked away with what composure he could command, but he trembled like a leaf, for by this encounter three new thoughts possessed him; first, that when his attempt had been made and his work done, he who believed himself appointed by God as the instrument of His righteous retribution, would stand no otherwise before man than as a common midnight murderer; next, that unless he made haste with his design he would be forestalled by others with baser motives; and, again, that if his bearing had so nearly revealed his purpose to the Danes it might suggest it to others with more interest in defeating it.
In his former rashness he had gone everywhere, even where the throngs were thickest, and talked with everyone, even the six stalwart constables who had taken the place of the rheumatic watchmen whom he knew in earlier days. But from the hour of that meeting with the Danes he found himself going about as stealthily as a cat, watching everybody, thinking everybody was watching him, shrinking from every sight, and quaking at every sound. "They can do what they like with me after it is over," he thought, "but first let it be done."
He felt afraid, who had never before known the taste of fear; he felt weary, who had never until then known what it was to be tired. "Oh, what is this that is coming over me?" he thought. "If I am doing well, why do I tremble?" For even while he planned his daring attempt a great feebleness seemed to be in all his members.
Thus it chanced that on the next day thereafter, Saturday, he saw many busy preparations along the line of the High Street and its byways, such as the swinging of pulley ropes from house front to house front and the shaking out of bunting, without asking what festival they purported. But returning to his lodging in the evening he found his landlady busy with preparations of a like kind about the entrance to the yard of the Cathedral, and then he knew too well what new thing was coming. All the same he asked, and his landlady answered him:
"Lord bless me," she cried, "and haven't you heard that the young Governor is to be wedded?"
"When?" said Jason.
"To-morrow," said the old body.
"Where?"
"Why, in the Cathedral, surely. It will be a bonny sight, I promise you. You would like to see it, I make no doubt. Well, and so you shall, my son. I'll get you in. Only leave it to me. Only leave it to me."
Jason had expected this answer; like a horse that quivers under the lash, while it is yet hissing over his head, he had seen the blow coming, yet when it came it startled and stunned him. He got up, touching no food, and staggered back into the street.
It was now dark night. The stores were lit up by their open lamps, whose noisome smoke streamed out over the pathway, and mingled with the foul vapors that came from the drinking shops. The little town was very busy; throngs of people passed to and fro, and there was much shouting and noisy laughter.
To Jason all this was a mass of confusion, like a dream that is vague and broken and has no semblance of reality. His knees smote together as he walked, and his mind was clogged and numbed. At length he was conscious that some brawlers who were lounging at the door of a tavern were jeering as he went by them, and that a woman who was passing at the same moment was rating them roundly.
"Can't you see he's ill?" she was saying, and they were laughing lustily.
He turned towards the sea, and there, with only the black beach before his eyes and the monotonous beat of the waves in his ears, his faculties grew clearer. "Oh God!" he thought, "am I to strike him down before her face and at the very foot of the altar? It is terrible. It must be true that I am ill—or perhaps mad—or both."
But he wrestled with his irresolute spirit and overcame it. One by one he marshalled his reasons and bit by bit he justified himself. When his anger wavered against the man who had twice supplanted him, he recalled his vow to execute judgment, and when his vow seemed horrible he remembered that Greeba herself had wronged him.
Thus he had juggled with himself night after night, and if morning after morning peace had come with the coming of light, it was gone forever now. He rehearsed everything in his mind and saw it all as he meant it to be. To-morrow while the bells were ringing he would go into theCathedral. His old landlady, the caretaker, would put him in the front seat before the altar-rail. The pews would already be thronged, and there would be whispering behind him, and little light fits of suppressed laughter. Presently the old Bishop would come, halting along in his surplice, holding the big book in his trembling hands. Then the bridegroom would step forward, and he should see him and mark him and know him. The bride herself would come next in a dazzling cloud of her bridesmaids, all dressed in white. Then as the two stood together—he and she, hand in hand, glancing softly at each other, and with all other eyes upon them, he himself would rise up—and do it. Suddenly there would be a wild cry, and she would turn towards him, and see him, and understand him, and fall fainting before him. Then while both lay at his feet he would turn to those about him and say, very calmly, "Take me. It was I." All being done, he would not shrink, and when his time came he would meet his fate without flinching, and in the awful hereafter he would stand before the white throne and say, "It would have been an evil thing if God's ways had not been justified before men: so I have executed on earth His judgment who has said in His Holy Writ that the wrongdoer shall surely suffer vengeance, even to the third and fourth generation ofhischildren."
Thinking so, in the mad tangle of his poor, disordered brain, yet with a great awe upon him as of one laden with a mission from on high, Jason went back to his lodging, threw himself down, without undressing, upon the bed, and fell into a heavy sleep.
When he awoke next morning the bells in the turret overhead were jangling in his ears, and his deaf old landlady was leaning over him and calling to him.
"Get up, love, get up: it's late, love; you'll miss it all, love; it's time to go in, love," she was saying; and a little later she led him by a side door into the Cathedral.
He took a seat where he had decided to take it, in a corner of the pew before the altar-rail, and all seemed the same as he had pictured. The throngs of people were behind him, and he could hear their whispering and light laughter while they waited. There was the door at which the venerable Bishop would soon enter, carrying his big book, and there was the path, kept free and strewn with flowers, down which the bride and her train would pass on to the red formbefore him. Ah! the flowers—blood red and purple—how sweetly they trailed over altar-rail, and pulpit, and the tablet of the ten commandments! Following them with his eyes, while with his hands he fumbled his belt forthatwhich he had concluded to carry there, suddenly he was smitten with an awful dread. One line of the printed words before him seemed to come floating through the air down to his face in a vapor of the same blood-red.
Thou shalt do no murder!
Jason started to his feet. Why was he there? What had he come to do? He must go. The place was stifling him. In another moment he was crushing his way out of the Cathedral. He felt like a man sentenced to death.
Being in the free air again he regained his self-control. "What madness! It is no murder," he thought. But he could not get back to his seat, and so he turned to where the crowd was thickest outside. That was down the line of the pathway to the wide west entrance. As he approached this point he saw that the people were in high commotion. He hurried up to them and inquired the cause. The bridal party had just passed through. At that moment the full swell of the organ came out through the open doors. The marriage service had begun.
After a while Jason had so far recovered his composure as to look about him. Deep as the year had sunk towards winter, the day was brilliant. The air was so bright that it seemed to ring. The sea in front of the town smiled under the sunlight; the broad stretch of lava behind it glistened, the glaciers in the distance sparkled, and the black jokulls far beyond showed their snowy domes against the blue sky. Oh, it was one of God's own mornings, when all His earth looks glad. And the Cathedral yard—for all it slept so full of dead men's bones—was that day a bright and busy place. Troops of happy girls were there in their jackets of gray, braided with gold or silver, and with belts of filigree; troops of young men, too, in their knee breeches, with bows of red ribbon, their dark-gray stockings and sealskin shoes; old men as well in their coats of homespun; and old women in their long blue cloaks; children in their plaited kirtles, and here and there a traveller with his leather wallet for his snuff and money. At the entrance gate there was a triumphal arch of ribbons and evergreens, and under its shadow there were six men with horns and guns, ready for a salute when the bride appeared; and in the street outside therewas a stall laden with food and drink for all who should that day come and ask.