CHAPTER VII
THE CALL OF WAR
I came not to send peace but a sword.
– Matt. x, 34.
For when I note how noble Nature’s form
Under the war’s red pain, I deem it true
That He who made the earthquake and the storm,
Perchance made battles too.
The summer passed rapidly away for it was full of new interests. Thora’s wedding was to take place about Christmas or New Year, and there were no ready-made garments in those days; so all of her girl friends were eager to help her needle. Sunna spent half the day with her and all their small frets and jealousies were forgotten. Early in the morning the work was lifted, and all day long it went happily on, to their light-hearted hopes and dreams. Then in June and September Ian came to Kirkwall to settle his account with McLeod, and at the same time, he remained a week as the Ragnors’ guest. There was also Sunna’s intended visit to Edinburgh to talk about, and there was never a day in which the war and its preparations did not make itself prominent.
One of the pleasantest episodes of this period occurred early and related to Sunna. One morning she received a small box from London, and she was so amazed at the circumstance, that she kept examining the address and wondering “who could have sent it,” instead of opening the box. However, when this necessity had been observed, it revealed to her a square leather case, almost like those used for jewelry, and her heart leaped high with expectation. It was something, however, that pleased her much more than jewelry; it was a likeness of Boris, a daguerreotype–the first that had ever reached Kirkwall. A narrow scrap of paper was within the clasp, on which Boris had written, “I am all thine! Forget me not!”
Sunna usually made a pretense of despising anything sentimental but this example filled her heart with joy and satisfaction. And after it, she took far greater pleasure in all the circumstances relating to Thora’s marriage; for she had gained a personal interest in them. Even the details of the ceremony were now discussed and arranged in accord with Sunna’s taste and suggestions.
“The altar and nave must be decorated with flags and evergreens and all the late flowers we can secure,” she said.
“There will not be many flowers, I fear,” answered Mistress Ragnor.
“The Grants have a large greenhouse. I shall ask them to save all they possibly can. Maximus Grant delights in doing a kindness.”
“Then thou must ask him, Sunna. He is thy friend–perhaps thy lover. So the talk goes.”
“Let them talk! My lover is far away. God save him!”
“Where then?”
“Where all good and fit men are gone–to the trenches. For my lover is much of a man, strong and brave-hearted. He adores his country, his home, and his kindred. He counts honour far above money; and liberty, more than life. My lover will earn the right to marry the girl he loves, and become the father of free men and women!” And Rahal answered proudly and tenderly:
“Thou art surely meaning my son Boris.”
“Indeed, thou art near to the truth.”
Then Rahal put her arm round Sunna and kissed her. “Thou hast made me happy,” she said, and Sunna made her still more happy, when she took out of the little bag fastened to her belt the daguerreotype and showed her the strong, handsome face of her soldier-sailor boy.
During all this summer Sunna was busy and regular. She was at the Ragnors’ every day until the noon hour. Then she ate dinner with her grandfather, who was as eager to discuss the news and gossip Sunna had heard, as any old woman in Kirkwall. He said: “Pooh! Pooh!” and “Nonsense!” but he listened to it, and it often served his purpose better than words of weight and wisdom.
In the afternoons Mistress Brodie was to visit, and the winter in Edinburgh to talk over. Coming home in time to take tea with her grandfather, she devoted the first hour after the meal to practising her best songs, and these lullabyed the old man to a sleep which often lasted until “The Banded Men” were attended to. It might then be ten o’clock and she was ready to sleep.
All through these long summer days, Thora was the natural source of interest and the inciting element of all the work and chatter that turned the Ragnor house upside down and inside out; but Thora was naturally shy and quiet, and Sunna naturally expressive and presuming; and it was difficult for their companions to keep Thora and Sunna in their proper places. Every one found it difficult. Only when Ian was present, did Sunna take her proper secondary place and Ian, though the most faithful and attentive of lovers by mail, had only been able to pay Thora one personal visit. This visit had occurred at the end of June and he was expected again at the end of September. The year was now approaching that time and the Ragnor household was in a state of happy expectation.
It was an unusual condition and Sunna said irritably: “They go on about this stranger as if he were the son of Jupiter–and poor Boris! They never mention him, though there has been a big battle and Boris may have been in it. If Boris were killed, it is easy to see that this Ian Macrae would step into his place!”
“Nothing of that kind could happen! In thy own heart keep such foolish thoughts,” replied Vedder.
So the last days of September were restless and not very happy, for there was a great storm prevailing, and the winds roared and the rain fell in torrents and the sea looked as if it had gone mad. Before the storm there was a report of a big battle, but no details of it had reached them. For the Pentland Firth had been in its worst equinoctial temper and the proviso added to all Orkney sailing notices, “weather permitting,” had been in full force for nearly a week.
But at length the storm was over and everyone was on the lookout for the delayed shipping. Thora was pale with intense excitement but all things were in beautiful readiness for the expected guest. And Ian did not disappoint the happy hopes which called him. He was on the first ship that arrived and it was Conall Ragnor’s hand he clasped as his feet touched the dry land.
Such a home-coming as awaited him–the cheerful room, the bountifully spread table, the warm welcome, the beauty and love, mingling with that sense of peace and rest and warm affection which completely satisfies the heart. Would such a blissful hour ever come again to him in this life?
His pockets were full of newspapers, and they were all shouting over the glorious opening of the war. The battle of Alma had been fought and won; and the troops were ready and waiting for Inkerman. England’s usual calm placidity had vanished in exultant rejoicing. “An English gentleman told me,” said Ian, “that you could not escape the chimes of joyful bells in any part of the ringing island.’”
Vedder had just entered the room and he stood still to listen to these words. Then he said: “Men differ. For the first victory let all the bells of England ring if they want to. We Norsemen like to keep our bell-ringing until the fight is over and they can chime Peace. And how do you suppose, Ian Macrae, that the English and French will like to fight together?”
“Well enough, sir, no doubt. Why not?”
“Of Waterloo I was thinking. Have the French forgotten it? Ian, it is the very first time in all the history we have, that Frenchmen ever fought with Englishmen in a common cause. Natural enemies they have been for centuries, fighting each other with a very good will whenever they got a chance. Have they suddenly become friends? Have they forgot Waterloo?” and he shook his wise old head doubtfully.
“Who can tell, sir, but when the English conquer any nation, they feel kindly to them and usually give them many favours?”
“Well, then, every one knows that the same is both her pleasure and her folly; and dearly she pays for it.”
“Ian,” said Mistress Ragnor, “are the English ships now in the Black Sea? And if so, do you think Boris is with them?”
“About Boris, I do not know. He told me he was carrying ‘material of war.’ The gentleman of whom I spoke went down to Spithead to see them off. Her Majesty, in the royal yacht, Fairy, suddenly appeared. Then the flagship hauled home every rope by the silent ‘all-at-once’ action of one hundred men. Immediately the rigging of the ships was black with sailors, but there was not a sound heard except an occasional command–sharp, short and imperative–or the shrill order of the boatswain’s whistle. The next moment, the Queen’s yacht shot past the fleet and literally led it out to sea. Near the Nab, the royal yacht hove to and the whole fleet sailed past her, carried swiftly out by a fine westerly breeze. Her Majesty waved her handkerchief as they passed and it is said she wept. If she had not wept she would have been less than a woman and a queen.”
While Vedder and Ragnor were discussing this incident, and comparing it with Cleopatra at the head of her fleet and Boadicea at the head of her British army and Queen Elizabeth at Tewksbury reviewing her army, Mrs. Ragnor and Thora left the room. Ian quickly followed. There was a bright fire in the parlour, and the piano was open. Ian naturally drifted there and then Thora’s voice was wanted in the song. When it was finished, Mrs. Ragnor had been called out and they were alone. And though Mrs. Ragnor came back at intervals, they were practically alone during the rest of the evening.
What do lovers talk about when they are alone? Ah! their conversation is not to be written down. How unwritable it is! How wise it is! How foolish when written down! How supremely satisfying to the lovers themselves! Surely it is only the “baby-talk” of the wisdom not yet comprehensible to human hearts! We often say of certain events; “I have no words to describe what I felt”–and who will find out or invent the heavenly syllables that can adequately describe the divine passion of two souls, that suddenly find their real mate–find the soul that halves their soul, created for them, created with them, often lost or missed through diverse reincarnations; but sooner or later found again and known as soon as found to both. No wooing is necessary in such a case–they meet, they look, they love, and naturally and immediately take up their old, but unforgotten love patois. They do not need to learn its sweet, broken syllables, its hand clasps and sighs, its glances and kisses; they are more natural to them than was the grammared language they learned through years of painful study.
Ian and Thora hardly knew how the week went. Every one respected their position and left them very much to their own inclinations. It led them to long, solitary walks, and to the little green skiff on the moonlit bay, and to short visits to Sunna, in order, mainly, that they might afterwards tell each other how far sweeter and happier they were alone.
They never tired of each other, and every day they recounted the number of days that had to pass ere Ian could call himself free from the McLeod contract. They were to marry immediately and Ian would go into Ragnor’s business as bookkeeper. Their future home was growing more beautiful every day. It was going to be the prettiest little home on the island. There was a good garden attached to it and a small greenhouse to save the potted plants in the winter. Ragnor had ordered its furniture from a famous maker in Aberdeen, and Rahal was attending with love and skill to all those incidentals of modern housekeeping, usually included in such words as silver, china, napery, ornaments, and kitchen-utensils. They were much interested in it and went every fine day to observe its progress. Yet their interest in the house was far inferior to their interest in each other, and Sunna may well be excused for saying to her grandfather:
“They are the most conceited couple in the world! In fact, the world belongs to them and all the men and women in it–the sun and the moon are made new for them, and they have the only bit of wisdom going. I hope I may be able to say ‘yes’ to all they claim until Saturday comes.”
“These are the ways of love, Sunna.”
“Then I shall not walk in them.”
“Thou wilt walk in the way appointed thee.”
“Pure Calvinism is that, Grandfather.”
“So be it. I am a Calvinist about birth, death and marriage. They are the events in life about which God interferes. His will and design is generally evident.”
“And quite as evident, Grandfather, is the fact that a great many people interfere with His will and design.”
“Yes, Sunna, because our will is free. Yet if our will crosses God’s will, crucifixion of some kind is sure to follow.”
“Well, then, today is Friday. The week has got itself over nearly; and tomorrow will be partly free, for Ian goes to Edinburgh at ten o’clock. Very proper is that! Such an admirable young man ought only to live in a capitol city.”
“If these are thy opinions, keep them to thyself. Very popular is the young man.”
“Grandfather, dost thou think that I am walking in ankle-tights yet? I can talk as the crowd talks, and I can talk to a sensible man like thee. Tomorrow brings release. I am glad, for Thora has forgotten me. I feel that very much.”
“Thou art jealous.”
Vedder’s assertion was near the truth, for undeniably Ian and Thora had been careless of any one but themselves. Yet their love was so vital and primitive, so unaffected and sincere, that it touched the sympathies of all. In this cold, far-northern island, it had all the glow and warmth of some rose-crowned garden of a tropical paradise. But such special days are like days set apart; they do not fit into ordinary life and cannot be continued long under any circumstances. So the last day came and Thora said:
“Mother, dear, it is a day in a thousand for beauty, and we are going to get Aunt Brodie’s carriage to ride over to Stromness and see the queer, old town, and the Stones of Stenness.”
“Go not near them. If you go into the cathedral you go expecting some good to come to you; for angels may be resting in its holy aisles, ready and glad to bless you. What will you ask of the ghosts among the Stones of Stenness? Is there any favour you would take from the Baal and Moloch worshipped with fire and blood among them?”
“Why, Mother,” said Thora, “I have known many girls who went with their lovers to Stenness purposely to join their hands through the hole in Woden’s Stone and thus take oath to love each other forever.”
“Thou and Ian will take that oath in the holy church of St. Magnus.”
“That is what we wish, Mother,” said Ian. “We wish nothing less than that.”
“Well, then, go and see the queer, old, old town, and go to the Mason’s Arms, and you will get there a good dinner. After it ride slowly back. Father will be home before six and must have his meal at once.”
“That is the thing we shall do, Mother. Ian thought it would be so romantic to take a lunch with us and eat it among the Stones of Stenness. But the Mason’s Arms will be better. The Masons are good men, Mother?”
“In all their generations, good men. Thy father is a Mason in high standing.”
“Yes, that is so! Then the Mason’s Arms may be lucky to us?”
“We make things lucky or unlucky by our willing and doing; but even so, it is not lucky to defy or deny what the dead have once held to be good or bad.”
“Well, then, why, Mother?”
“Not now, will we talk of whys and wherefores. It is easier to believe than to think. Take, in this last day of Love’s seven days, the full joy of your lives and ask not why of anyone.”
So the lovers went off gaily to see the land-locked bay and the strange old town of Stromness; and the house was silent and lonely without them and Rahal wished that her husband would come home and talk with her, for her soul was under a cloud of presentiments and she said to herself after a morning of fretful, inefficient work: “Oh, how much easier it is to love God than it is to trust Him. Are not my dear ones in His care? Yet about them I am constantly worrying; though perfectly well I know that in any deluge that may come, God will find an ark for those who love and trust Him. Boris knows–Boris knows–I have told him.”
About three o’clock she went to the window and looked towards the town. Much to her astonishment she saw her husband coming home at a speed far beyond his ordinary walk. He appeared also to be disturbed, even angry, and she watched him anxiously until he reached the house. Then she was at the open door and his face frightened her.
“Conall! My dear one! Art thou ill?” she asked.
“I am ill with anger and pity and shame!”
“What is thy meaning? Speak to me plainly.”
“Oh, Rahal! the shame and the cruelty of it! I am beside myself!”
“Come to my room, then thou shalt tell thy sorrow and I will halve it with thee.”
“No! I want to cry out! I want to shout the shameful wrong from the house-tops! Indeed, it is flying all over England and Scotland–over all the civilized world! And yet–my God! the guilty ones are still living!”
“Coll, my dear one, what is it thou most needs–cold water?”
“No! No! Get me a pot of hot tea.1 My brain burns. My heart is like to break! Our poor brave soldiers! They are dying of hunger and of every form of shameful neglect. The barest necessities of life are denied them.”
“By whom? By whom, Coll?”
“Pacifists in power and office everywhere! Give me a drink! Give me a drink! I am ill–get me tea–and I will tell thee.”
There was boiling water on the kitchen hob, and the tea was ready in five minutes. “Drink, dear Coll,” said Rahal, “and then share thy trouble and anger with me. The mail packet brought the bad news, I suppose?”
“Yes, about an hour ago. The town is in a tumult. Men are cursing and women are doing nothing less. Some whose sons are at the front are in a distraction. If Aberdeen were within our reach we would give him five minutes to say his prayers and then send him to the judgment of God. Englishmen and Norsemen will not lie down and rot under Russian tyranny. To die fighting against it sends them joyfully to the battlefield! But oh, Rahal! to be left alone to die on the battlefield, without help, without care, without even a drink of cold water! It is damnable cruelty! What I say is this: let England stop her bell-ringing and shouts of victory until she has comforted and helped her wounded and dying soldiers!”
“And Aberdeen? He is a Scotch nobleman–the Scotch are not cowards–what has he done, Coll?”
“Because he hates fighting for our rights, he persuades all whom his power and patronage can reach to lie down or he says they will be knocked down. So it may be, but every man that has a particle of the Divine in him would rather be knocked down than lie down–if down it had to be–but there is no question of down in it! Aberdeen! He is ‘England’s worst enemy’–and he holds the power given him by England to rule and ruin England! I wish he would die and go to judgment this night! I do! I do! and my soul says to me, ‘Thou art right.’”
“Coll, no man knoweth the will of the Almighty.”
“Then they ought to! The question has now been up to England for a two-years’ discussion, and they have only to open His Word and find it out”; then he straightened himself and in a mighty burst of joyful pride and enthusiasm cried out:
“‘Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.
“‘My goodness, and my fortress, my high tower, and my deliverer, my shield, and He in whom I trust, who subdueth the people under me.’”
Anon he began to pace the floor as he continued: “‘Rid us and deliver us, from the hands of strange children–whose mouth speaketh vanity, and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.’ Rahal, could there be a better description of Russia–‘her right hand of falsehood, her mouth speaking vanity?’ David put the very words needed in our mouths when he taught us to say, ‘rid us of such an enemy, and of all who strike hands with him!’ Yes, rid us. We want to be rid of all such dead souls! Rid us.”
Then Rahal reminded her husband that only recently his physician had warned him against all excitement, especially of anger, and so finally induced him to take a sedative and go to sleep. But sleep was far from her. She sat down in her own room and closed her eyes against all worldly sights and sounds. Her soul was trying to reach her son’s soul and impress upon it her own trust in the love and mercy of the “God of battles.” She had hoped that some word or thought of Boris would come back to her in such a personal manner that she would feel that he was thinking of her and of the many sweet spiritual confidences they had had together.
But nothing came, no sign, no word, no sudden, flashing memory of some special promise. All was void and still until she heard the voices of Thora and Ian. Then she went down to them and found that the evil news had met them on their way home. She asked Ian if he had any knowledge of the whereabouts of Boris. Ian thought he might be at sea, as his ship was at Spithead among the carrying ships of the navy. “If he had been in Alma’s fight, you might have heard from him,” he added. “It would be his first battle and he would want to write to you about it. That would be only natural.”
“Well, then, I will look for good news. If bad news is coming, I will not pay it the compliment of going to meet it. Have you had a pleasant day? Where first did you go?”
“To the land-locked Bay of Stromness which was full of ships of all sizes, of schooners, and of little skiffs painted a light green colour like the pleasure skiffs of Kirkwall.”
“And the town?”
“Was very busy while we were there. It has but one long street, with steep branches running directly up the big granite hill which shelters it from the Atlantic. What I noticed particularly was, that the houses on the main street all had their gables seaward; and are so built that the people can step from their doors into their boats. I liked that arrangement. Stromness is really an Orcadean Venice. The town is a queer old place, with a non-English and non-Scotch look. The houses have an old-world appearance and the names over the doorways carry you back to Norseland. Only one street is flagged and little bays run up into the street through its whole length. But the place appeared to be very busy and happy. I noticed few Scotch there, the people seemed to be purely Norse. All were busy–men, women and children.”
“It used to be the last port for the Hudson Bay Company,” said Rahal, “and the big whaling fleets, and in days of war and convoys there were hundreds of big ships in its wonderful harbour. I suppose that you had no time to visit any of the ancient monuments there?” Rahal asked.
“No; Thora told me her grandmother Ragnor was buried in its cemetery and that her grave was near the church door and had a white pillar at the head of it. So we walked there.”
“Well, then?”
“I cannot describe to you the savage, lonely grandeur of its situation. It frightened me.”
“The men and women who chose it were not afraid of it.”
“Thora says its memory frightened her for years.”
“Thora was only eight years old when her father placed the pillar at the head of his mother’s grave. It was then she saw it–but at eight years many people are often more sensitive than at eighty. Yes, indeed! They may see, then, what eyes dimmed by earthly vision cannot see, and feel what hearts hardened by earth’s experiences cannot feel. Thora’s spiritual sight was very keen in childhood and is not dimmed yet.”
At these words Thora entered the room, wearing the little frock of white barége she had saved for this last day of Ian’s visit. Her face had been bathed, her hair brushed and loosened but yet dressed with the easiest simplicity. She was in trouble but she knew when to speak of trouble, and when to be silent. Her mother was talking of Stromness; when her father came, he would know all, and say all. So she went softly about the room, putting on the dinner table those last final accessories that it was her duty to supply.
Yet the conversation was careless and indifferent. Rahal talked of Stromness but her heart was far away from Stromness, and Thora would have liked to tell her mother how beautifully their future home had been papered, and all three were eager to discuss the news that had come. But all knew well that it would be better not to open the discussion till Ragnor was present to inform and direct their ignorance of events.
On the stroke of six, Ragnor entered. He had slept and washed and was apparently calm, but in some way his face had altered, for his heart had mastered his brain and its usual expression of intellectual strength was exchanged for one of intense feeling. His eyes shone and he had the look of a man who had just come from the presence of God.
“We are waiting for you, dear Coll,” said Rahal; and he answered softly: “Well, then, I am here.” For a moment his eyes rested on the table which Rahal had set with extra care and with the delicacies Ian liked best. Was it not the last dinner he would eat with them for three months? She thought it only kind to give it a little distinction. But this elaboration of the usual home blessings did not produce the expected results. Every one was anxious, the atmosphere of the room was tense and was not relieved until Ragnor had said a grace full of meaning and had sat down and asked Ian if he “had heard the news brought by that day’s packet?”
“Very brokenly, Father,” was the answer. “Two men, whom we met on the Stromness road, told us that it was ‘bad with the army,’ but they were excited and in a great hurry and would not stand to answer our questions.”
“No wonder! No wonder!”
“Whatever is the matter, Father?”
“I cannot tell you. The words stumble in my throat, and my heart burns and bleeds. Here is the London Times! Read aloud from it what William Howard Russell has witnessed–I cannot read the words–I would be using my own words–listen, Rahal! Listen, Thora! and oh, may God enter into judgment at once with the men responsible for the misery that Russell tells us of.”
At this point, Adam Vedder entered the room. He was in a passion that was relieving itself by a torrent of low voiced curses–curses only just audible but intensely thrilling in their half-whispered tones of passion. In the hall he had taken off his hat but on entering the room he found it too warm for his top-coat, and he began to remove it, muttering to himself while so doing. There was an effort to hear what he was saying but very quickly Ragnor stopped the monologue by calling:
“Adam! Thee! Thou art the one wanted. Ian is just going to read what the London Times says of this dreadful mismanagement.”
“‘Mismanagement!’ Is that what thou calls the crime? Go on, Ian! More light on this subject is wanted here.”
So Ian stood up and read from the Times’ correspondent’s letter the following sentences:
“The skies are black as ink, the wind is howling over the staggering tents, the water is sometimes a foot deep, our men have neither warm nor waterproof clothing and we are twelve hours at a time in the trenches–and not a soul seems to care for their comfort or even their lives; the most wretched beggar who wanders about the streets of London in the rain leads the life of a prince compared with the British soldiers now fighting out here for their country.
… “The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting; there is not the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness, the stench is appalling, the fetid air can barely struggle out through chinks in the walls and roofs, and for all I can observe the men die without the least effort being made to save them. They lie just as they were let down on the ground by the poor fellows, their comrades, who brought them on their backs from the camp with the greatest tenderness but who are not allowed to remain with them. The sick appear to be tended by the sick, and the dying by the dying. There are no nurses–and men are literally dying hourly, because the medical staff of the British army has forgotten that old rags of linen are necessary for the dressing of wounds.”
“My God!” cried Ian, as he let the paper fall from the hands he clasped passionately together, “My God! How can Thou permit this?”
“Well, then, young man,” said Adam, “thou must remember that God permits what He does not will. And Conall,” he continued, “millions have been voted and spent for war and hospital materials, where are the goods?”
“The captain of the packet told me no one could get their hands on them. Some are in the holds of vessels and other things so piled on the top of them that they cannot be got at till the hold is regularly emptied. Some are stored in warehouses which no one has authority to open–some are actually rotting on the open wharves, because the precise order to remove them to the hospital cannot be found. The surgeons have no bandages, the doctors no medicine, and as I said there are no nurses but a few rough military orderlies. The situation paralyses those who see it!”
“Paralyses! Pure nonsense!” cried Vedder, whose face was wet with passionate tears, though he did not know it. “Paralyses! No, no! It must make them work miracles. I am going to Edinburgh tomorrow. I am going to buy all the luxuries and medicines I can afford for the lads fighting and suffering. Sunna is going to spend a week in gathering old linen in Kirkwall and then Mistress Brodie and she will bring it with them. Rahal, Thora, you must do your best. And thou, Conall?”
“Adam, thou can open my purse and take all thou thinks is right. My Boris may be among those dear lads; his mother will have something to send him. Wilt thou see it is set on a fair way to reach his hand?”
“I will take it to him. If he be in London with his vessel, I will find him; if he be at the front, I will find him. If he be in Scutari hospital, I will find him!”
“Oh, Adam, Adam!” cried Rahal, “thou art the good man that God loves, the man after His own heart.” Her face was set and stern and white as snow, and Thora’s was a duplicate of it; but Ragnor, during his short interval of rest, had arrived at that heighth and depth of confidence in God’s wisdom which made him sure that in the end the folly and wickedness of men would “praise Him”; so he was ready to help, and calm and strong in his sorrow.