"Ah, no," he said, in a husky voice, and he broke from her embrace.
CHAPTER VI.
Esau's Bitter Cry
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 sorrow dimmed 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, but when 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 word slay in 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, and then 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 he strode off, 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 you don't know, 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 he didn't know."
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.
CHAPTER VII.
The Yoke of Jacob
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 something from 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 with the 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 where she had 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 strange outbursts when 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 for the 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 the little 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.
"Jorgen Jorgensen," said the old man, grinning.
"It's next to your mother's, love. He did that, too, for when 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 Mother Orryson?" 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. "Now there was 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 night five 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 new Governor 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 do that? Though she loved this man, could he still do that? Oh, was it not horrible to think of – that he should cross the seas for that?