An Orkney Maid by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (classic book list TXT) 📖

/> "Then you will not get it. A year's strict mourning is due the dead, and the Ragnors will give every hour of it. Boris is their eldest son."

"They should remember also their living daughter Thora will suffer as well as myself."

"You are not putting yourself in a good light, John Macrae. Thora loves her brother with a great affection. Do you think she can comfort her grief for his loss, by giving you any loving honour that belongs to him? You do not know Thora Ragnor. She has her mother's just, strong character below all her gentle ways, and what her father and mother say she will endorse, without question or reluctance. Now I know that Ragnor had resolved on a year's separation and discipline, before he heard of his son's dangerous condition."

"Boris was not dead when that Vedder letter was written. He may not be dead now. He may not be going to die."

"It is only his wonderful physical strength that has kept him alive so long. Vedder said to me, they looked for his death at any hour. He cannot recover. His wound is a fatal one. It is beyond hope. Vedder wrote while he was yet alive, so that he might perhaps break the blow to his family."

"What then do you advise me to do?"

"Ragnor intends to go back with you and myself to Edinburgh. He will see your father and offer to buy you a commission as ensign in a good infantry regiment. We will ask your father if he will join in the plan."

"My father will not join in anything to help me. How much will an ensign's commission cost?"

"I think four or five hundred pounds. Ragnor would pay half, if your father would pay half."

Then Ian rose to his feet, and his eyes blazed with a fire no one had ever seen there before. "Bishop," he said, "I thank you for all you propose, but if I go to the trenches at Redan or the camp at Sebastopol, I will go on John Macrae's authority and personality. I have one hundred pounds, that is sufficient. I can learn all the great things you expect me to learn there better among the rankers than the officers. I have known the officers at Edinburgh Castle. They were not fit candidates for a bishopric."

The good man looked sadly at the angry youth and answered, "Go and talk the matter over with Thora."

"I will. Surely she will be less cruel."

"What do you wish, considering present circumstances?"

"I want the marriage carried out, devoid of all but its religious ceremony. I want to spend one month in the home prepared for us, and then I will submit to the punishment and schooling proposed."

"No, you will not. Do not throw away this opportunity to retrieve your so far neglected, misguided life. There is a great man in you, if you will give him space and opportunity to develop, John. This is the wide open door of Opportunity; go through, and go up to where it will lead you. At any rate do whatever Thora advises. I can trust you as far as Thora can." Then he held out his hand, and Ian, too deeply moved to speak, took it and left the cathedral without a word.

He found Thora alone in the parlour. She had evidently been weeping but that fact did not much soothe his sense of wrong and injustice. He felt that he had been put aside in some measure. He was not sure that even now Thora had been weeping for his loss. He told himself, she was just as likely to have been mourning for Boris. He felt that he was unjustly angry but, oh, he was so hopeless! Every one was ready to give him advice, no one had said to him those little words of loving sympathy for which his heart was hungry. He had felt it to be his duty to try and console Thora, and Thora had wept in his arms and he had kissed her tears away. She was now weary with weeping and suffering with headache. She knew also that talking against any decision of her father's was useless. When he had said the word, the man or woman that could move him did not live. Acceptance of the will of others was a duty she had learned to observe all her life, it was just the duty that Ian had thought it right to resist. So amid all his love and disappointment, there was a cruel sense of being of secondary interest and importance, just at the very time he had expected to be first in everyone's love and consideration.

Finally he said, "Dear Thora, I can feel no longer. My heart has become hopeless. I suffer too much. I will go to my room and try and submit to this last cruel wrong."

Then Thora was offended. "There is no one to blame for this last cruel wrong but thyself," she answered. "The death of Boris was a nearer thing to my father and mother than my marriage. Thy marriage can take place at some other time, but for my dear brother there is no future in this life."

"Are you even sure of his death?"

"My mother has seen him."

"That is nonsense."

"To you, I dare say it is. Mother sees more than any one else can see. She has spiritual vision. We are not yet able for it, nor worthy of it."

"Then why did she not see our wedding catastrophe? She might have averted it by changing the date."

"Ask her;" and as Thora said these words and wearily closed her eyes, Rahal entered the room. She went straight to Ian, put her arms round him and kissed him tenderly. Then Ian could bear no more. He sobbed like a boy of seven years old and she wept with him.

"Thou poor unloved laddie!" she said. "If thou had gone wrong, it would have been little wonder and little blame to thyself. I think thou did all that could be done, with neither love nor wisdom to help thee. Rahal does not blame thee. Rahal pities and loves thee. Thou hast been cowed and frightened and punished for nothing, all the days of thy sad life. Poor lad! Poor, disappointed laddie! With all my heart and soul I pity thee!"

For a few moments there was not a word spoken and the sound of Ian's bitter weeping filled the room. Ian had been flogged many a time when but a youth, and had then disdained to utter a cry, but no child in its first great sorrow, ever wept so heart-brokenly as Ian now wept in Rahal's arms. And a man weeping is a fearsome, pitiful sound. It goes to a woman's heart like a sword, and Thora rose and went to her lover and drew him to the sofa and sat down at his side and, with promises wet with tears, tried to comfort him. A strange silence that the weeping did not disturb was in the house and room, and in the kitchen the servants paused in their work and looked at each other with faces full of pity.

"The Wise One has put trouble on their heads," said a woman who was dressing a goose to roast for dinner and her helper answered, "And there is no use striving against it. What must be, is sure to happen. That is Right."

"All that we have done, is no good. Fate rules in this thing. I see that."

"The trouble came on them unawares. And if Death is at the beginning, no course that can be taken is any good."

"What is the Master's will? For in the end, that will orders all things."

"The mistress said the marriage would be put off for a year. The young man goes to the war."

"No wonder then he cries out. It is surely a great disappointment."

"Tom Snackoll had the same ill luck. He made no crying about it. He hoisted sail at midnight and stole his wife Vestein out of her window, and when her father caught them, they were man and wife. And Snackoll went out to speak to his father-in-law and he said to him, 'My wife can not see thee today, for she is weary and I think it best for her to be still and quiet'; and home the father went and no good of his journey. Snackoll got praise for his daring."

"Well then," said a young man who had just entered, "it is well known that Vestein and her father and mother were all fully willing. The girl could as easily have gone out of the door as the window. Snackoll is a boaster. He is as great in his talk as a fox in his tail."

Thus the household of Ragnor talked in the kitchen, and in the parlour Rahal comforted the lovers, and cheered and encouraged Ian so greatly that she was finally able to say to them:

"The wedding day was not lucky. Let it pass. There is another, only a year away, that will bring lasting joy. Now we have wept over our mischance, we will bury it and look to the future. We will go and wash away sorrow and put on fresh clothes, and look forward to the far better marriage a year hence."

And her voice and manner were so persuasive, that they willingly obeyed her advice and, as they passed her, she kissed them both and told Ian to put his head in cold water and get rid of its aching fever, for she said, "The Bishop will want thee to sing some of thy Collects and Hymns and thou wilt like to please him. He is thy good friend."

"I do not think so."

"He is. Thou may take that, on my word."

The evening brought a braver spirit. They talked of Boris and of his open-hearted, open-air life, and the Bishop read aloud several letters from young men then at the front. They were full of enthusiasm. They might have been read to an accompaniment of fife and drums. Ian was visibly affected and made no further demur about joining them. One of them spoke of Boris "leading his volunteers up the hill like a lion"; and another letter described his tenderness to the wounded and convalescents, saying "he spent his money freely, to procure them little comforts they could not get for themselves."

They talked plainly and from their hearts, hesitating not to call his name, and so they brought comfort to their heavy sorrow. For it is a selfish thing to shut up a sorrow in the heart, far better to look at it full in the face, speak of it, discuss its why and wherefore and break up that false sanctity which is very often inspired by purely selfish sentiments. And when this point was reached, the Bishop took from his pocket a small copy of the Apocrypha and said, "Now I will tell you what the wisest of men said of such an early death as that of our dear Boris:

"'He pleased God, and he was beloved of him, so that living among
sinners, he was translated.

"'Yea speedily was he taken away, lest that wickedness should
alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul.

"'He, being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time.

"'For his soul pleased the Lord, therefore hasted he to take him
away from among