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

the world, and when Adam transgressed
my statutes, then was decreed that now is done.

"Then were the entrances of this world made narrow, full of
sorrow and travail; they are but few and evil, full of perils
and very painful.

"For the entrances of the elder world were wide and sure, and
brought immortal fruit.

But yet there is to be a restoration, Nanna."

"I know not," she answered wearily. "It is so far off--so far away."

"But it is promised. It is sure.

"The world shall be turned into the old silence seven days,
like as in former judgments, so that no man shall remain.

"And after seven days, the world, that yet awaketh not, shall
be raised up; and that shall die that is corrupt.

"And the earth shall restore those that are asleep in her; and
the dust, those that dwell in silence; and the secret places
shall deliver those souls that were committed unto them.

"And the Most High shall appear upon the seat of judgment, and
misery shall pass away, and the long suffering shall have an
end.

"But judgment shall remain; truth shall stand; and faith shall
wax strong."

"I know nothing of these things, David; I cannot think of them. What I want is some word of comfort about Vala--a little word from beyond would make all the difference. _Why_ is it not given? _Why_ is there no answering voice from the other side? There is none on this. _Why_ does God pursue a poor, broken-hearted woman so hardly? Even now, when I have wept my heart cold and dumb, I do not please him. One thing only is sure--my misery. Oh, _why, why_, David?"

And David could only drop his eyes before the sad, inquiring gaze of Nanna's. He murmured something about Adam and the cross, and told her sorrowfully that He who hung upon it, forsaken, in the dark, also asked, "Why?" The austerity and profound mystery of his creed gave him no more comforting answer to the pathetic inquiry.

He spent the day in the little hamlet, and, the weather being dry and not very cold, he persuaded Nanna to take a walk upon the cliff-top with him. She agreed because she had not the strength to oppose his desire; but if David had had any experience with suffering women, he would have seen at once how ineffectual his effort would be. The gray, icy, indifferent sea had nothing hopeful to say to her. The gray gulls, with their stern, cold eyes, watchful and hungry, filled her ears with nothing but painful clamoring. There was no voice in nature to cry, "Comfort," to a bruised soul.

She said the wind hurt her, that she was tired, that she would rather sit still in the house and shut her eyes and think of Vala. She leaned so heavily on him that David was suddenly afraid, and he looked with more scrutiny into her face. If his eyes had been opened he would have seen over its youth and beauty signs of a hand that writes but once; for when despair assumes the dignity of patience it carries with it the warrant of death.

They went slowly and silently back to the house, and as they approached it David said, "Some one has called, for the door is open." And they walked a little faster, so that Nanna's cheeks flushed with the movement and the wind.

Matilda Sabiston sat on the hearthstone grumbling at the cold, while the man-servant who had brought her so far was piling the peats upon the fire to warm her feet and hands. When David and Nanna entered she did not move, but she turned her eyes upon them with a malignant anger that roused in both a temper very different from that in which their hopeless walk had been taken. It was immediately noticeable in Nanna. She dropped David's hand and walked forward to her visitor, and they looked steadily at each other for a few moments. Then Matilda said:

"Think shame of yourself, to be so soon at the courting again, and, above all, with him!"

Nanna took no notice of the remark, but asked, "Why are you here? I wish to have no dealings with you, for no good can come of them."

"Would I come here for good? There is no good in any of your kind. I came here to tell you that I was glad that there is one Borson less."

"There has been death among your own kin, mistress," said David, "and such death as should make the living fear to bring it to remembrance."

"I know it. You ought to fear. Did you slay Nicol, as your father slew Bele Trenby, by water? or did you poison him with drugs? or is your hand red with his life-blood? And now, before the fish have had time to pick his bones, you are wooing his wife."

"Will you let Nanna alone? She is ill."

"Ill? Babble! Look at her rosy cheeks! She has been listening to your love-words. Who sent you to the _Sea Rover_? What were you doing there? A great plot! A wicked plot against poor Nicol!"

"I went to the _Sea Rover_ because--"

"Very ready you were to go to Nicol's ship and to do your will there! Oh, it was a great opportunity! None to see! none to tell tales! But I know you! I know you! The black drop of murder is in every Borson's veins."

"Mistress, you are an old woman, and you may say your say. If you were a man it would be different. I would cut out your lying tongue, or make it eat its own words."

With railing and insolence she defied him to the act, and David stood looking at her with his hands in his pockets. As for Nanna, she had thrown off her cloak and seated herself on Vala's couch. She was trying to control her temper; but the little room was already impregnated with Matilda's personality, and Nanna could not escape from those indirect but powerful influences that distil from an actively evil life.

"I wish, Matilda Sabiston, that you would leave my house," she said. "I think that you have brought the devil in with you."

Then Matilda turned in her chair and looked at Nanna. Her face, handsomely prominent in youth, had become with sin and age like that of a bird of prey; it was all nose and two fierce, gleaming eyes.

"Do you talk of the devil?" she screamed. "You, who drove your husband to sin, and sent your baby to hell!"

Then Nanna, with a pitiful cry, buried her face in Vala's pillow; and David, full of anger, said:

"I will take you from this house, mistress. You were not asked to come here, and you cannot stay here."

"I will stay until I have said what you shall listen to. The child of this woman has been taken for your father's sin. The mother will go next. Then _you_ will bite the last morsel of Kol's curse. I am living only to see this."

"I fear not the curse of any man," said David, in a passion. "There is no power in any mortal's curse that prayer cannot wither. Keep it to yourself--you, who believe in it. As for me--"

"As for you, I will give you some advice. When the new minister is placed, go and tell him what Liot Borson told you at his death-hour. For I know well he did not die without boasting of his revenge on Bele Trenby. Death couldn't shut Liot's mouth till the words were out of it. Make the confession your father ought to have made, and let me hear it. I have said it, and fools have laughed at me, and wise men have hid the words in their hearts; and I will not die till my words are made true. And if you will not make them true, then the dead will have their satisfaction, and love will go to the grave and not to the bridal. Now, then, do what is before you. I have set you your task."

She spoke with a rapid passion that would not be interrupted, and then, still muttering threats and accusations, tottered out of the cot on her servant's arm. David was speechless. The truth bound him. What powers of divination this evil woman had, he knew not, but she at least had driven home the unacknowledged fear in his heart. He sat down by Nanna and tried to comfort her, but she could not listen to him. "Leave me alone to-day," she pleaded. "I have had all I can bear."

So he went back to Lerwick, feeling with every step he took that the task Matilda had set him would have to be accomplished. The humiliation would indeed be great, but if by confession he could ward off punishment from Nanna he must accept the alternative. Himself he took not into consideration. No threat and no fear of personal suffering could have forced him to speak; but if, peradventure, silence was sin, and sin brought sorrow, then his duty to others demanded from him the long-delayed acknowledgment. However, he was not yet certain of the right, and the new minister had not yet come, and there is always some satisfaction in putting off what is dubious and questionable.

The new minister was not finally settled until Christmas. He proved to be a young man with the air of theological schools still around him. David was afraid of him. He thought of the tender, mellowed temper of the old man whose place he was to fill, and wished that his acknowledgment had been made while he was alive. He feared to bring his father's spiritual case before one who had never known him, who had grown up "southward" under very different influences, who would likely be quite unable to go a step beyond the letter of the law.

He talked to Nanna frequently about the matter, and she was more than inclined to silence. "Let well alone, David," she said. "What good can come of calling back old sins and sorrows? Who has set you this task? One who has always hated you. If God had sent, would he have sent by _her_? No; but when the devil wants a cruel, wicked messenger, he can get none so fit for his purpose as a bad old woman."

However, while David hesitated Matilda went to the new minister. She prefaced her story by a gift of ten pounds for the replenishing of the manse, and then told it according to her own wishes and imagination.

"The minister dead and gone would not listen to me," she said. "He was a poor creature, and Liot Borson was one of his pets. The man could do no wrong in his eyes. So I have been sin-bearer for more than twenty years. Now, then, I look to you to clear this matter to the bottom, and let the talk about it come to an end once for all."

"It is a grave matter," said Minister Campbell, "and I am astonished that my predecessor let it rest so long--though doubtless he did it for the best, for there will be two sides to this, as to all other disputes."

"There is not," answered Matilda, angrily. "All is as I have told you."

"But, according to your testimony, Liot