Prisoners of Conscience by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (mini ebook reader txt) 📕

has to cease from troubling. But I wish not that he may cease from being troubled. No, indeed; I wish that he may have weeping and wailing! I will stay here. Some day Sinclair will come back; then he shall pay all he owes."

Suddenly David remembered his father's sad confession, and he was silent. The drowning of Bele Trenby and all that followed it flashed like a fiery thought through his heart, and he went into his room, and shut the door, and flung himself face downward upon the floor. Would God count his anger as very murder? Would he enter into judgment with him for it? Oh, how should a sinful man order all his way and words aright! And in a little while Barbara heard him weeping, and she said to herself:

"He is a good man. God loves those who remember him when they are alone and weep. The minister said that."

This day had indeed been to David a kind of second birth. He had entered into a new life and taken possession of himself. He knew that he was a different being from the youth who had sailed for weeks alone with God upon the great waters; but still he was a riddle to himself, and it was this feeling of utter confusion and weakness and ignorance that had sent him, weeping and speechless, to the very feet of the divine Father.

But if the mind is left quite passive we are often instructed in our sleep. David awakened with a plan of life clearly in his mind. He resolved to remain with Barbara Traill, and follow his occupation of fishing, and do all that he could to make his cousin Nanna happy. The intense strength of his family affection led him to this resolve. He had not fallen in love with Nanna. As a wife she was sacred in his eyes, and it never entered his mind that any amount of ill treatment could lessen Sinclair's claim upon her. But though far off, she was his cousin; the blood of the Borsons flowed alike through both their hearts; and David, who could feel for all humanity, could feel most of all for Nanna and Vala.

Nanna herself had acknowledged this claim. He remembered how gladly she had welcomed him; he could feel yet the warm clasp of her hand, and the shining of her eyes was like nothing he had ever before seen. Even little Vala had been pleased to lie in his strong arms. She had put up her small mouth for him to kiss, and had slept an hour upon his breast. As he thought of that kiss he felt it on his lips, warm and sweet. Yes, indeed; there was love in that poor little hut that David Borson could not bear to lose.

So he said to Barbara in the morning: "I will stay with you while it pleases us both."

And Barbara answered: "A great help and comfort thou wilt be to me, and doubtless God sent thee."


VI


KINDRED--THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

Shetland was, then, to be David's home, and he accepted the destiny gladly. He felt near to the people, and he admired the old gray town, with its roving, adventurous population. His first duty was to remove his personal belongings from his boat to Barbara Traill's house, and when this was done it was easy enough to set himself to business; for as soon as he went among the fishers and said, "My name is Borson, and I am the son of your old mate Liot Borson," he found himself in a circle of outstretched hands. And as he had brought his nets and lines with him, he had no difficulty in getting men who were glad to help him with his fishing, and to instruct him in the peculiarities of the coast and the set of its tides and currents.

For the rest, there was no sailor or fisher in Lerwick who was so fearless and so wise in all sea-lore as David Borson. Sink or swim, he was every inch a seaman. He read the sea as a landsman reads a book; he knew all its moods and its deceitfulness, and the more placid it was the more David mistrusted its intentions; he was always watching it. The men of Uig had been wont to say that David Borson would not turn his back on the sea, lest it should get some advantage over him. This intimacy of mistrust was the result of his life's training; it was the practical education of nearly twenty years.

His next move was to see the minister and present to him the letter from the minister of Uig, which authenticated his kirk standing and his moral character. He put on his kirk clothes for this call, and was sorry afterward that he had so hampered himself; for the good man met him with both hands outstretched, and blessed him in the name of the Lord.

"I married your father and mother, David," he said. "I baptized you into the fold of Lerwick kirk, and I buried your sweet mother in its quiet croft. Your father was near to me and dear to me. A good man was Liot Borson--a good man! When that is said, what more is left to say? While my life-days last I shall not forget Liot Borson." And then they talked of David's life in Uig, and when he left the manse he knew that he had found a friend.

It was then Thursday night, and he did not care to go to the fishing until the following Monday. Before he began to serve himself he wished to serve God, and so handsel his six days' work by the blessing of the seventh. This was the minister's advice to him, and he found that every one thought it right and good; so, though he made his boat ready for sea, she was not to try her speed and luck on her new fishing-ground until David had offered up thanksgiving for his safe journey, and supplications for grace and wisdom to guide his new life aright.

"There is no more that I can do now until the early tide on Monday morning," he said to Barbara Traill, "and I will see if I can find any more of my kin-folk. Are any of my mother's family yet living?"

"The Sabistons have all gone south to the Orkneys. They are handy at money-getting, and the rumor goes abroad that they are rich and masterful, and ill to deal with; but they were ever all that, or the old tellings-up do them much wrong."

"Few people are better spoken of than they deserve."

"That is so. Yet no one in Lerwick is so well hated as your great-aunt Matilda Sabiston. She is the last of the family left in Shetland. Go and see her if you wish to; I have nothing to say against it; but I can give you a piece of advice: lean not for anything on Matilda Sabiston."

"All I want of her is a little love for my mother's sake; so I will go and see her. For the sake of the dead she will at least be civil."

"Nothing will come of the visit. It is not to be expected that Matilda will behave well to you, when she behaves ill to every one else."

"For all that, I would like to look upon her. We are blood-kin. I have a right to see her face; I have a right to offer her my service and my duty; whether she will take it or throw it from her is to be seen."

"She will _not_ take it. However, here is your dinner ready, and after you have eaten it go and see your kinswoman. You will easily find her; she lives in the largest house in Lerwick."

The little opposition to his desires confirmed David in his resolve. When he had eaten, and dressed himself in his best clothing, he went to Matilda Sabiston's house. It was a large stone dwelling, and had been famous for the unusual splendor of its furnishing. David was astonished and interested, but not in the least abashed; for the absorbing idea in his mind was that of kindred, and the soft carpets, the velvet-covered chairs and sofas, the pictures and ornaments, were only the accessories of the condition. An old woman, grim and of few words, opened the heavy door, and then tottered slowly along a narrow flagged passage before him until they came to a somberly furnished parlor, where Mistress Sabiston was sitting, apparently asleep.

"Wake up, mistress," said the woman. "Here be some one that wants to see you."

"A beggar, then, either for kirk or town. I have nothing to give."

"Not so; he is a fair, strong lad, who says you are his aunt."

"He lies, whoever he is. Let me see the fool, Anita."

"Here he is, mistress. Let him speak for himself." And Anita stood aside and permitted David to enter the room.

Matilda sat in a large, uncushioned chair of black wood--the chair of her fore-elder Olaf, who had made it in Iceland from some rare drift, and brought it with his other household goods to Shetland ten generations past. It was a great deal too large for her shrunken form, and her old, old face against its blackness looked as if it had been carved out of the yellow ivory of Sudan. Never had David seen a countenance so void of expression; it was like a scroll made unreadable by the wear and dust of years. Life appeared to have retreated entirely to her eyes, which were fierce and darkly glowing. And the weight and coldness of her great age communicated itself; he was chilled by her simple presence.

"What is your business?" she asked.

"I am the son of your niece Karen."

"I have no niece."

"Yea, but you have. Death breaks no kinship. It is souls that are related, not bodies; and souls live forever."

"Babble! In a word, what brought you here?"

"I came only to see you."

"Well, then, I sent not for you."

"Yet I thought you would wish to see me."

"I do not."

"Liot Borson is dead."

"I am glad of it. He was a murderer while he lived, and now I hope that he is a soul in pain forevermore."

"I am his son, and you must not--"

"Then what brought you here? I have hoped you were dead for many a year. If all the Borsons, root and branch, were gone to their father the devil, it would be a pleasure to me. I have ever hated them; to all who knew them they were bringers of bad luck," she muttered angrily, looking into David's face with eyes full of baleful fire.

"Yet is love stronger than hate, and because my mother was of your blood and kin I will not hate you."

"Hear a wonder!" she screamed. "The man will not hate me. Son of a murderer, I want not one kind thought from you."

"There is no cause to call my father what neither God nor man has called him."

"Cause enough! I know that right well."

"Then it is only right you give proof of such assertions. Say what you mean and be done with it."

"Ah! you are getting angry at last. Your father would have been spitting fire before this. But it was not with fire he slew Bele Trenby--no, indeed; it was with water. Did he not tell you so