It was then for the first time since her lying-in that the old mother came to her. She had been out searching for Stephen, and had just come upon news of him.
"He has gone in an English ship," she cried. "He sailed last night, and I have lost him forever."
And at that she leaned her quivering white face over the bed, and raised her clenched hand over Rachel's face.
"Son for son," she cried again. "May you lose your son, even as you have made me to lose mine."
The child seemed likely to answer to the impious prayer, for its little strength waned visibly. And in those first hours of her shameful widowhood the evil thought came to Rachel to do with it as the baser sort among her people were allowed to do with the children they did not wish to rear—expose it to its death before it had yet touched food. But in the throes, as she thought, of its extremity, the love of the mother prevailed over the hate of the wife, and with a gush of tears she plucked the babe to her breast. Then the neighbor, who out of pity and charity had nursed her in her dark hour, ran for the priest, that with the blessing of baptism the child might die a Christian soul.
The good man came, and took the little, sleep-bound body from Rachel's arms, and asked her the name. She did not answer, and he asked again. Once more, having no reply, he turned to the neighbor to know what the father's name had been.
"Stephen Orry," said the good woman.
"Then Stephen Stephensen," he began, dipping his fingers into the water; but at the sound of that name Rachel cried, "No, no, no."
"He has not done well by her, poor soul," whispered the woman; "call it after her own father."
"Then Jorgen Jorgensen," the priest began again; and again Rachel cried, "No, no, no," and raised herself upon her arm.
"It has no father," she said, "and I have none. If it is to die, let it go to God's throne with the badge of no man's cruelty; and if it is to live, let it be known by no man's name save its own. Call it Jason—Jason only."
And in the name of Jason the child was baptised, and so it was that Rachel, little knowing what she was doing in her blind passion and pain, severed her son from kith and kin. But in what she did out of the bitterness of her heart God himself had his own great purposes.
From that hour the child increased in strength, and soon waxed strong, and three days after, as the babe lay cooing at Rachel's breast, and she in her own despite was tasting the first sweet joys of motherhood, the old mother of Stephen came to her again.
"This is my house," she said, "and I will keep shelter over your head no longer. You must pack and away—you and your brat, both of you."
That night the Bishop of the island—Bishop Petersen, once a friend of Rachel's mother, now much in fear of the Governor, her father—came to her in secret to say that there was a house for her at the extreme west of the fishing quarter, where a fisherman had lately died, leaving the little that he had to the Church. There she betook herself with her child as soon as the days of her lying-in were over. It was a little oblong shed, of lava blocks laid with peat for mortar, resembling on the outside two ancient seamen shoving shoulders together against the weather, and on the inside two tiny bird cages.
And having no one now to stand to her, or seem to stand, in the place of bread-winner, she set herself to such poor work as she could do and earn a scanty living by. This was cleaning the down of the eider duck, by passing it through a sieve made of yarn stretched over a hoop. By a deft hand, with extreme labor, something equal to sixpence a day could be made in this way from the English traders. With such earnings Rachel lived in content, and if Jorgen Jorgensen had any knowledge of his daughter's necessities he made no effort to relieve them.
Her child lived—a happy, sprightly, joyous bird in its little cage—and her broken heart danced to its delicious accents. It sweetened her labors, it softened her misfortunes, it made life more dear and death more dreadful; it was the strength of her arms and the courage of her soul, her summons to labor and her desire for rest. Call her wretched no longer, for now she had her child to love. Happy little dingy cabin in the fishing quarter, amid the vats for sharks' oil and the heaps of dried cod! It was filled with heaven's own light, that came not from above but radiated from the little cradle where her life, her hope, her joy, her solace lay swathed in the coverlet of all her love.
And as she worked through the long summer days on the beach, with the child playing among the pebbles at her feet, many a dream danced before her of the days to come, when her boy would sail in the ships that came to their coast, and perhaps take her with him to that island of the sea that had been her mother's English home, where men were good to women and women were true to men. Until then she must live where she was, a prisoner chained to a cruel rock; but she would not repine, she could wait, for the time of her deliverance was near. Her liberator was coming. He was at her feet; he was her child, her boy, her darling; and when he slumbered she saw him wax and grow, and when he awoke she saw her fetters break. Thus on the bridge of hope's own rainbow she spanned her little world of shame and pain.
The years went by, and Jason grew to be a strong-limbed, straight, stalwart lad, red-haired and passionate-hearted, reckless and improvident as far as improvidence was possible amid the conditions of his bringing up. He was a human waterfowl, and all his days were spent on the sea. Such work as was also play he was eager to do. He would clamber up the rocks of the island of Engy outside the harbor, to take the eggs of the eider duck from the steep places where she built her nest; and from the beginning of May to the end of June he found his mother in the eider down that she cleaned for the English traders. People whispered to Rachel that he favored his father, both in stature and character, but she turned a deaf ear to their gloomy forebodings. Her son was as fair as the day to look upon, and if he had his lazy humors, he had also one quality which overtopped them all—he loved his mother. People whispered again that in this regard also he resembled his father, who amid many vices had the same sole virtue.
Partly to shut him off from the scandal of the gossips, who might tell him too soon the story of his mother's wrecked and broken life, and partly out of the bitterness and selfishness of her bruised spirit, Rachel had brought up her boy to speak the tongue of her mother—the English tongue. Her purpose failed her, for Jason learned Icelandic on the beach as fast as English in the house; he heard the story of his mother's shame and of his father's baseness, and brought it back to her in the colors of a thrice-told tale. Vain effort of fear and pride! It was nevertheless to prepare the lad for the future that was before him.
And through all the days of her worse than widowhood, amid dark memories of the past and thoughts of the future wherein many passions struggled together, the hope lay low down in Rachel's mind that Stephen would return to her. Could he continue to stand in dread of the threat of his own wife? No, no, no. It had been only the hot word of a moment of anger, and it was gone. Stephen was staying away in fear of the brother of Patricksen. When that man was dead, or out of the way, he would return. Then he would see their boy, and remember his duty towards him, and if the lad ever again spoke bitterly of one whom he had never yet seen, she on her part would chide him, and the light of revenge that had sometimes flashed in his brilliant blue eyes would fade away and in uplooking and affection he would walk as a son with his father's hand.
Thus in the riot of her woman's heart hope fought with fear and love with hate. And at last the brother of Patricksen did indeed disappear. Rumor whispered that he had returned to the Westmann Islands, there to settle for the rest of his days and travel the sea no more.
"Now he will come," thought Rachel. "Wherever he is, he will learn that there is no longer anything to fear, and he will return."
And she waited with as firm a hope that the winds would carry the word as Noah waited for the settling of the waters after the dove had found the dry land.
But time went on and Stephen did not appear, and at length under the turmoil of