Jan Vedder's Wife. Barr Amelia E.
Vedder who had married a common fisherman.” The exultation was entirely imaginary, but perhaps it hurt as much as if it had been actually made.
Success, too, had made Jan more independent: or perhaps he had grown indifferent to Margaret’s anger, since he found it impossible to please her. At any rate, he asked his friends to his house without fear or apology. They left their footmarks on her floors, and their fingermarks upon her walls and cushions, and Jan only laughed and said, “There was, as every one knew, plenty of water in Shetland to make them clean again.” Numberless other little things grieved and offended her, so little that, taken separately, they might have raised a smile, but in the aggregate they attained the magnitude of real wrongs.
But, happy or miserable, time goes on, and about the middle of October even the herring fishing is over. Peter was beginning to count up his expenses and his gains. Jan and Snorro were saying to one another, “In two days we must go back to the store.” That is, they were trying to say it, but the air was so full of shrieks that no human voice could be heard. For all around the boat the sea was boiling with herring fry, and over them hung tens of thousands of gulls and terns. Marmots and guillemots were packed in great black masses on the white foam, and only a mad human mob of screaming women and children could have made a noise comparable. Even that would have wanted the piercing metallic ring of the wild birds’ shriek.
Suddenly Snorro leaped to his feet. “I see a storm, Jan. Lower and lash down the mast. We shall have bare time.”
Jan saw that the birds had risen and were making for the rocks. In a few minutes down came the wind from the north-east, and a streak of white rain flying across the black sea was on top of “The Fair Margaret” before the mast was well secured. As for the nets, Snorro was cutting them loose, and in a few moments the boat was tearing down before the wind. It was a wild squall; some of the fishing fleet went to the bottom with all their crews. “The Fair Margaret,” at much risk of loss, saved Glumm’s crew, and then had all she could manage to raise her mizzen, and with small canvas edge away to windward for the entrance of Lerwick bay.
Jan was greatly distressed. “Hard to bear is this thing, Snorro,” he said; “at the last to have such bad fortune.”
“It is a better ending than might have been. Think only of that, Jan.”
“But Peter will count his lost nets; there is nothing else he will think of.”
“Between nets and men’s lives, there is only one choice.”
Peter said that also, but he was nevertheless very angry. The loss took possession of his mind, and excluded all memory of his gains. “It was just like Jan and Snorro,” he muttered, “to be troubling themselves with other boats. In a sudden storm, a boat’s crew should mind only its own safety.” These thoughts were in his heart, though he did not dare to form them into any clear shape. But just as a drop or two of ink will diffuse itself through a glass of pure water and defile the whole, so they poisoned every feeling of kindness which he had to Jan.
“What did I tell thee?” he said to Thora, bitterly. “Jan does nothing well but he spoils it. Here, at the end of the season, for a little gust of wind, he loses both nets and tackle.”
“He did well when he saved life, Peter.”
“Every man should mind his own affairs. Glumm would have done that thing first.”
“Then Glumm would have been little of a man. And thou, Peter Fae, would have been the first to tell Glumm so. Thou art saying evil, and dost not mean it.”
“Speak no more. It is little a woman understands. Her words are always like a contrary wind.”
Peter was very sulky for some days, and when at last he was ready to settle with Jan, there was a decided quarrel. Jan believed himself to be unfairly dealt with, and bitter words were spoken on both sides. In reality, Peter knew that he had been hard with his son, harder by far than he had ever intended to be; but in his heart there had sprung up one of those sudden and unreasonable dislikes which we have all experienced, and for which no explanation is possible. It was not altogether the loss of the nets – he did not know what it was – but the man he liked, and praised, and was proud of one week, he could hardly endure to see or speak to the next.
“That ends all between thee and me,” said Peter, pushing a little pile of gold toward Jan. It was a third less than Jan expected. He gave it to Margaret, and bade her “use it carefully, as he might be able to make little more until the next fishing season.”
“But thou wilt work in the store this winter?”
“That I will not. I will work for no man who cheats me of a third of my hire.”
“It is of my father thou art speaking, Jan Vedder; remember that. And Peter Fae’s daughter is thy wife, though little thou deservest her.”
“It is like enough that I am unworthy of thee; but if I had chosen a wife less excellent than thou it had perhaps been better for me.”
“And for me also.”
That was the beginning of a sad end; for Jan, though right enough at first, soon put himself in the wrong, as a man who is idle, and has a grievance, is almost sure to do. He continually talked about it. On the contrary, Peter held his tongue, and in any quarrel the man who can be silent in the end has the popular sympathy. Then, in some way or other, Peter Fae touched nearly every body in Lerwick. He gave them work, or he bought their produce. They owed him money, or they expected a favor from him. However much they sympathized with Jan, they could not afford to quarrel with Peter.
Only Michael Snorro was absolutely and purely true to him; but oh, what truth there was in Michael! Jan’s wrongs were his wrongs; Jan’s anger was but the reflection of his own.
He watched over him, he sympathized with him, he loved him entirely, with a love “wonderful, passing the love of woman.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE DESOLATED HOME
“For we two, face to face,
God knows are further parted
Than were a whole world’s space
Between.”
“Lost utterly from home and me,
Lonely, regretful and remote.”
Jan now began to hang all day about Ragon Torr’s, and to make friends with men as purposeless as himself. He drank more and more, and was the leader in all the dances and merry-makings with which Shetlanders beguile their long winter. He was very soon deep in Torr’s debt, and this circumstance carried him the next step forward on an evil road.
One night Torr introduced him to Hol Skager, a Dutch skipper, whose real cargo was a contraband one of tea, brandy, tobacco and French goods. Jan was in the very mood to join him, and Skager was glad enough of Jan. Very soon he began to be away from home for three and four weeks at a time. Peter and Margaret knew well the objects of these absences, but they would have made themselves very unpopular if they had spoken of them. Smuggling was a thing every one had a hand in; rich and poor alike had their venture, and a wise ignorance, and deaf and dumb ignoring of the fact, was a social tenet universally observed. If Jan came home and brought his wife a piece of rich silk or lace, or a gold trinket, she took it without any unpleasant curiosity. If Peter were offered a cask of French brandy at a nominal price, he never asked any embarrassing questions. Consciences tender enough toward the claims of God, evaded without a scruple the rendering of Cæsar’s dues.
So when Jan disappeared for a few weeks, and then returned with money in his pocket, and presents for his friends, he was welcomed without question. And he liked the life; liked it so well that when the next fishing season came round he refused every offer made him. He gained more with Hol Skager, and the excitement of eluding the coast guard or of giving them a good chase, suited Jan exactly. The spirit of his forefathers ruled him absolutely, and he would have fought for his cargo or gone down with the ship.
Snorro was very proud of him. The morality of Jan’s employment he never questioned, and Jan’s happy face and fine clothing gave him the greatest pleasure. He was glad