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

and she heard nothing but the echo in her heart of those terrible words threatening her with the loss of her child.

When she reached the kirk the service had begun. The minister was praying. She went into the nearest pew, and though all were standing, she laid Vala on the seat, and slipped to her knees beside her. She could not now cry out as she longed to do, and sob her fright and anguish away at God's feet. "Folk would wonder at me. I would disturb the service." These were her thoughts as soon as the pressure of her flight was over. For the solemn voice of the minister praying, the strength of numbers, the holy influence of the time and place, cooled her passionate sense of wrong and danger, and she was even a little troubled at her abandonment of what was usual and Sabbath-like.

The altar now looked a long way off; only Sinclair at touch could have forced her down that guarded aisle to its shelter. Heaven itself was nearer, and God needed no explanations. He knew all. What was the law of man to him? And he feared not their disapproval. Thus in her great strait she overleaped her creed, and cast herself on him who is "a God of the afflicted, an helper of the oppressed, an upholder of the weak, a protector of the forlorn, a savior of them that are without hope."

When the preaching was over David and Barbara came to her; and David knit his brows when he saw her face, for it was the face of a woman who had seen something dreadful. Her eyes were full of fear and anguish, and she was yet white and trembling with the exertion of her hard flight.

"Nanna," he said, "what has happened?"

"My husband has come back."

"I heard last night that his ship was in harbor."

"He has come for Vala. He will take her from me. She will die of neglect and hard usage. He may give her to some stranger who will be cross to her. O David! David!"

"He shall not touch her."

"O David!"

"Put her in my arms _now_."

"Do you mean this?"

"I do."

"Can I trust you, David?"

"You may put it to any proof."

"Pass your word to me, cousin."

"As the Lord God Almighty lives, I will put my life between Vala and Nicol Sinclair!"

"But how?"

"I will take her to sea if necessary, for my boat can go where few will dare to follow."

Then he turned to Barbara and said: "Nicol Sinclair has indeed come back. He says he has come for Vala."

"Then the devil has led him here," answered Barbara, flashing into anger. "As for Vala, let her stay with me. She has a good guard at my house. There is Groat and his four sons on one side, and Jeppe Madson and his big brother Har on the other side; and there is David Borson, who is worth a whole ship's crew, to back them in anything for Vala's safety. Stay with me to-day, Nanna, and we will talk this matter out."

But Nanna shook her head in reply. As she understood it, duty was no peradventure; it was an absolute thing from which there was no turning away. And her duty was to be at home when her husband was there. But she put Vala's hand into David's hand, and then looked at the young man with eyes full of anxiety. He answered the look with one strong word:

"_Yes!_"

And she knew he would redeem it with his life, if that should be necessary.

Then she turned homeward, and walked with a direct and rapid energy. She put away thought; she formed no plan, she said no prayer. Her petition had been made in the kirk; she thought there would be a want of faith in repeating a request already promised. She felt even the modesty of a suppliant, and would not continually press into the presence of the Highest; for to the reverent there is ever the veil before the Shechinah.

And this conscious putting aside of all emotion strengthened her. When she saw her home she had no need to slacken her speed or to encourage herself. She walked directly to the door and opened it. There was no one there; the place was empty. The food on the table was untouched. Nothing but a soiled and crumpled handkerchief remained of the dreadful visitor. She lifted it with the tongs and cast it into the fire. Then she cleared away every trace of the rejected meal.

Afterward she made some inquiries in the adjoining huts. One woman only had seen his departure. "I could not go to kirk this morning," she said with an air of apology, "for my bairn is very sick; and I saw Nicol Sinclair go away. It was near the noon hour. Drunk he was, and worse drunk than most men can be. His face was red as a hot peat, and he swayed to and fro like a boat on the Gruting Voe. There was something no' just right about the man."

That was all she could learn, and she was very unhappy, for she could imagine no good reason for his departure. In some way or other he was preparing the blow he meant to deal her; and though it was the Sabbath, there would be no difficulty in finding men whom he could influence. And there was also his cousin Matilda Sabiston, that wicked old woman who had outlived all human passions but hatred. Against this man and the money and ill-will that would back him she could do nothing, but she "trusted in God that he would deliver her."

So she said to herself, "Patience"; and she sat down to wait, shutting her eyes to the outside world, and drawing to a focus all the strength that was in her. The closed Bible lay on the table beside her, and occasionally she touched it with her hand. She had not been able to read it; but there was comfort in seeing the old, homely-looking book, with its everyday aspect and its pages full of kindly blessing, and still more comfort in putting herself in physical contact with its promises. They seemed to be more real. And as she sat hour after hour, psalms learned years before, and read many and many a time without apprehension of their meaning, began to speak to her. She saw the words with her spiritual sight, and they shone with their own glory. And she obtained what she so sorely needed:


A little comforting shadow
From the hot sun's fiery glow;
A little rest by the fountain
Where the waters of comfort flow.


When midnight struck she looked at the clock and thanked God. Surely she was safe for that night; and she turned the key in her door and went to sleep. And her sleep was that which God giveth to his beloved when they are to be strengthened for many days--a deep, dreamless suspense of all thought and feeling.

Yet, heavenly as the sleep had been, the awakening was a shock. And as the day grew toward noon she was as much troubled by the silence of events as her husband had been by the silence of her lips. Human hearts are nests of fear. Her whole soul kept going to the window, and she said, with the impatience of suspended suffering, "_Now! now!_ I have no fortitude for to-morrow, but I can bear anything _now_." Finally she resolved to go to Barbara's, and see Vala, and hear whatever there was to hear. But as she was putting on her cloak she saw David coming over the moor, and he was carrying Vala in his arms.

"So," she said, "I see that I will not need to run after my fate; it will come to me; and there will be no use striving against it. For what must be is sure to happen."

Then she turned back into the house, and David followed with unusual solemnity, and laid Vala upon her bed. "She is sleeping," he said, "and there is something to tell you, Nanna."

"About my husband?"

"Yes."

"Say it out at once, then."

"Last night he was carried to his own ship." And David's face was grave almost to sternness.

"Carried! Have you then hurt him, David?"

"No; he is a self-hurter. But this is what I know. He went from here to Matilda Sabiston's house. She had gone to kirk with two of her servants, and when she came back she found him delirious on the sofa. Then the doctor was sent for, and when he said the word 'typhus,' Matilda shrieked with passion, and demanded that he should be instantly taken away."

"But no! Surely not!"

"Yes; it was so. Both the minister and the doctor said it was right and best for him to be taken to his own ship. The town--yes, indeed, and the whole islands were in danger. And when they took him on board the _Sea Rover_, they found that two of the sailors were also very ill with the fever. They had been ill for a week, and Sinclair knew it; yet he came among the boats, and went through the town, speaking to many people. It was a wicked thing for him to do."

"It was just like him. Where is the _Sea Rover_ now lying?"

"She has been taken to the South Voe. The fishing-boats will watch lest the men are landed, and the doctor will go to the ship every day the sea will let him go."

"David, is it my duty--"

"No, it is not; there are five men with Sinclair. Three of them are, I believe, yet well men, and three can care for the sick and the ship. On the deck of the _Sea Rover_ a woman should not put her foot."

"But a ship with typhus on board?"

"Is a hell indeed! In this case, Nanna, it is a hell of their own making. They got the fever in a dance-house at Rotterdam. Sinclair knew of its presence, and laughed it to scorn. It was his mate who told the doctor so. Also, Nanna, there is Vala."

She went swiftly to the side of the sleeping child, and she was sure there was a change in her. David would not acknowledge it, but in forty-eight hours the signs of the fatal scourge were unmistakable. Then Nanna's house was marked and isolated, and she sat down to watch her dying child.


VIII


THE JUSTIFICATION OF DEATH

During the awful days of Vala's dying no one came near Nanna. She watched her child night and day, and saw it go out into the darkness that girds our life around, in unutterable desolation of soul. From the first Vala was unconscious, and she went away without a word or token of comfort to the despairing mother. There was unspeakable suffering and decay, and then the little breathing-house in which Vala had sojourned a short space was suddenly vacant. For a moment Nanna stood on the border-lands of being, where life hardly draws breath. _A little more_, and she would have pushed apart the curtains that divide us from that spiritual world which lies so close and which may claim us at any moment. _A little more_, and she would, in her loving agony, have pressed beyond manifestations to that which is ineffable and nameless.