Prisoners of Conscience by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (books to read this summer .TXT) 📖

that is bad for me."

"I was thinking of Nanna Sinclair," said Barbara, in a musing manner. "People do talk about you and her. I have heard say--"

"'I have heard say' is half a lie," answered David.

"I think that too; but Nanna's good name is to be thought of, and a man does not go every day to see a woman for nothing."

Then David leaped to his feet with a face like a flame. "The shortest and best answer is doing the thing," he muttered; and he walked straight to Nanna's house, telling himself as he went, "I have been too long about it; I must speak now, and she must answer me."

He was in his fishing-garb, for he intended going to sea with the tide then rising; but he thought no more of dressing for the interview than he thought of preparing his speeches. Hitherto he had in a manner drifted with the current of his great affection, never consciously asking himself where it was bearing him; but if people were talking about Nanna, then he must take away all occasion for suspicion--he must at once ask Nanna to be his wife. And as soon as he took the first step toward her he felt how close and dear she had become to him. He knew then that if Nanna was lost all the world would be nothing. She had grown into his life as the sea and the stars had grown, and he shrank from any thought that could imply separation. He walked with rapid steps across the moor, feeling dimly the beauty of the spring afternoon, with its haze of gold and purple on the horizon, where the gray clouds opened out in wistful stretches of daffodil skies.

The door of Nanna's house stood open, and the wind, full of the sharp salt savor of the sea, blew life into the little room. Nanna was busy with her knitting, and the soft, lace-like shawl lay upon her knee. David shut the door and went to her side. His heart was too full to hesitate or to choose words; the simplest were the best.

"Nanna, I have found out that I love you," he said. "Nanna, dearest woman, do you hear me?"

Then her cheeks burned rosy, and she looked at David, and her hands trembled, and the work fell from them.

"Love me a little, my dear! Love me, Nanna!"

"I do love you, David. Who in all the world have I but you?" And the beautiful woman stood up, and he took her within his arms and kissed her.

For a moment or two David was happy. His large, fair face shone; he laughed softly as he drew Nanna to his breast. He was really as intoxicated with joy as some men are with wine.

"We will be married next week, Nanna," he said; "this week--to-morrow, if you will. It has come to this: I must leave Barbara, and there is a house empty close to the quay, and it shall be our home, Nanna; for I have sixty pounds, my dear woman, and at last, at last--"

Before he reached this point he was sensible of some chill or dissent, but he was not prepared for Nanna's answer:

"David, why do you talk of marrying? It is ever that. I will not marry."

"Not yet, Nanna? Is it too soon? But why for a dead man will you keep me waiting?"

"I think not of any dead man."

"Is it Vala? Vala would rejoice in our happiness."

"I will not marry--no, not any man living."

"Why did you say that you loved me?"

"I do love you."

"No; you do not."

He put her gently away from him, and looked at her with a somber sternness. "You do not love me," he continued. "If you did, you would put me first; you would say, 'I will be your wife.' You would delight to make me happy--I, who have never been happy but in sharing your joys and sorrows."

"O David, I do love you!"

"Then be my wife."

"I cannot! I cannot!"

"Then you love me as light, vain women love: to make slaves of men, and bring them back and back to be hurt. It is not to be so with me. No, indeed! Farewell, Nanna."

His voice failed him. He turned toward the door, and for a moment Nanna could not realize that he was actually bidding her a final farewell. When she did she flew to his side, and arrested his hand as he was opening the door.

"Come back! Come back, David!" she entreated. "You are all wrong; you are very cruel to me. If you leave me it will break my heart! It will be the last blow, David. It is the very truth."

He hesitated enough to make Nanna weep with passionate distress, and this emotion he was not able to bear. He took her within his arm again, led her to a chair, and sat down at her side, and as he kissed the tears from her face said:

"If indeed you do love me, Nanna--"

"_If_ I do love you!" she interrupted. "I love none but you. You are heart of my heart and soul of my soul. I hear you coming when you are half a mile away. I have no joy but when you are beside me. I shall die of grief if you leave me in anger. I would count it heaven and earth to be your wife, but I dare not! I dare not!"

She was sobbing piteously when she ended this protestation, and David comforted her with caresses and tender words. "What fears you, Nanna?" he asked. "Oh, my dear, what fears you?"

"This is what I fear," she answered, freeing herself from his embrace, and looking steadily at him. "This is what I fear, David. If we were married I might have another child--I might have many children."

Then he clasped her hand tightly, for he began to see where Nanna was leading him, as she continued with slow solemnity:

"Can you, can the minister, can any human being, give me assurance they will be elect children? If you can, I will be your wife to-morrow. If you cannot, as the God of my father lives, I will not bring sons and daughters into life for sin and sorrow here, and for perdition hereafter. The devil shall not so use my body! To people hell? No; I will not--not even for your love, David!"

Her words, so passionate and positive, moved him deeply. He was the old David again--the light, the gladness, all but the tender, mournful love of the past, gone from his face. He held both her hands, and he looked down at them lying in his own as he answered:

"Both of us are His children, Nanna. We are His by generations and by covenant. He has promised mercy to such. Well, then, we may have a reasonable hope--"

"Hope! No, no, David! I must have something better than hope. I hoped for Vala, and my hope has been my hell. And as for the child--my God! where is the child?"

"We love God, Nanna, and the children of the righteous--"

"Are no safer than the children of the wicked, David. I have thought of this continually. There was John Beaton's son; he killed a man, and died on the gallows-tree, to the shame and the heartbreak of his good father and mother. The lad had been baptized, too,--given to God when he drew his first breath,--and God must have rejected him. Minister Stuart's son forged a note, and was sent with felons across the sea. His father and mother had prayed for him all the days of his life; he was brought to the kirk and given to God in baptism; and God must have rejected him also. Think of good Stephen and Anna Blair's children. Their daughter's name cannot be spoken any more, and their sons are bringing down their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave--with sorrow and shame too. Go through the whole kirk, the whole town, the islands themselves, and you will be forced to say, David, that it is the children of the righteous that go to the devil."

"Nanna! Nanna!"

"It is the truth, David. How the good God can treat his bairns so, I know not; but you and I may also deserve his wrath in like manner. I am feared to hope different. O David, I am feared to be a mother again!"

"Nanna! Nanna! what can I say?"

"There is nothing to say. If I should meet Vala in that place where infants 'earnestly desire to see and love God, and yet are not able to do so,' I should cover my face before the child. If she blamed me, I should shiver in speechless agony; if she did not blame me, it would be still harder to bear. Were we only sure--but we are not sure."

"_We are not sure._" David repeated the words with a sad significance. Nanna's argument, evolved from her own misery and illustrated by that misery, had been before David's eyes for months. He could not escape from such reasoning and from such proof, and his whole life, education, and experience went to enforce the pitiful dilemma in which their love had placed them.

"It is His will, and we must bear it to the uttermost," continued Nanna, with a sorrowful resignation.

"I am very wretched, Nanna."

"So am I, David, very wretched indeed. I used to think monks and nuns, and such as made a merit of not marrying, were all wrong; maybe they are nearer right than we think for. Doubtless they have a tender conscience toward God, and a tender conscience is what he loves."

Then David rose from Nanna's side and walked rapidly to and fro in the room. Motion helped him to no solution of the tremendous difficulty. And Nanna's patient face, her fixed outward gaze, the spiritual light of resolute decision in her eyes, gave to her appearance an austere beauty that made him feel as if this offering up of their love and all its earthly sweetness was a sacrifice already tied to the horns of the altar, and fully accepted.

Now, the law of duty lay very close to David's thoughts; it was an ever-present consciousness, haunting his very being; but the sensual nature always shrinks away from it. David sat down and covered his face with his hands, and began to weep--to sob as strong men sob when their sorrow is greater than they can bear; as they never sob until the last drop, the bitterest drop of all, is added--the belief that God has forsaken them. This was the agony which tore David's great, fond heart in two. It forced from him the first pitiful words of reproach against his God:

"I was sure at last that I was going to be happy, and God is not willing. From my youth up he has ay laid upon me the rod of correction. I wish that I had never been born!"

"My poor lad! but you are not meaning it." And Nanna put her arms around his neck and wept with him. For some minutes he let her do so, for he was comforted by her sympathy; but at last he stood up, passed his hand across his eyes, and said as bravely as he could:

"You are right, Nanna. If you feel in this way, I dare not force your conscience. But I must go away