“Now, thou hast done ill, Margaret. When a young girl marries, she must face life for herself; and many are the shoulders that ask for burdens they can not bear.”
“Yes, indeed! And it is all little to my mind,” added the mother. “I had spoken to thee for thy cousin Magnus Hay; and then here comes this Jan Vedder!”
“Yes, he comes!” and Margaret stood listening, the pink color on her cheeks spreading to the tips of her ears, and down her white throat. “Yes, he comes!” and with the words, Jan stood in the open door. A bright, handsome fellow he was! There was no one in all the Islands that was half so beautiful.
“Peter,” he cried joyfully, “here has happened great news! The ‘Sure-Giver’ is in the harbor with all her cargo safe. She came in with the tide. All her planks and nails are lucky.”
“That is great news, surely, Jan. But it is ill luck to talk of good luck. Supper is ready sit down with us.”
But Thora spoke no word, and Jan looked at Margaret with the question in his eyes.
“It means this, and no more, Jan. I have told my father and mother that thou would make me thy wife.”
“That is what I desire, most of all things.”
“Then there is little need of long talk. I betroth myself to thee here for life or death, Jan Vedder; and my father and my mother they are the witnesses;” and as she spoke, she went to Jan, and put her hands in his, and Jan drew her proudly to his breast and kissed her.
Thora left the room without a glance at the lovers. Peter stood up, and said angrily: “Enough, and more than enough has been said this night. No, Jan; I will not put my palm against thine till we have spoken together. There is more to a marriage than a girl’s ‘Yes’, and a wedding ring.”
That was the manner of Jan’s betrothal; and as he walked rapidly back into the town, there came a feeling into his heart of not being quite pleased with it. In spite of Margaret’s affection and straightforward decision, he felt humiliated.
“It is what a man gets who wooes a rich wife,” he muttered; “but I will go and tell Michael Snorro about it.” And he smiled at the prospect, and hurried onward to Peter’s store.
For Michael Snorro lived there. The opening to the street was closed; but the one facing the sea was wide open; and just within it, among the bags of feathers and swans’ down, the piles of seal skins, the barrels of whale oil, and of sea-birds’ eggs, and the casks of smoked geese, Michael was sitting. The sea washed the warehouse walls, and gurgled under the little pier, that extended from the door, but it was the only sound there was. Michael, with his head in his hands, sat gazing into the offing where many ships lay at anchor. At the sound of Jan’s voice his soul sprang into his face for a moment, and he rose, trembling with pleasure, to meet him.
In all his desolate life, no one had loved Michael Snorro. A suspicion that “he was not all there,” and therefore “one of God’s bairns,” had insured him, during his long orphanage, the food, and clothes, and shelter, necessary for life; but no one had given him love. And Michael humbly acknowledged that he could not expect it, for nature had been cruelly unkind to him. He was, indeed, of almost gigantic size, but awkward and ill-proportioned. His face, large and flat, had the whiteness of clay, except at those rare intervals when his soul shone through it; and no mortal, but Jan Vedder, had ever seen that illumination.
It would be as hard to tell why Michael loved Jan as to say why Jonathan’s soul clave to David as soon as he saw him. Perhaps it was an unreasonable affection, but it was one passing the love of woman, and, after all, can we guess how the two men may have been spiritually related? There was some tie of which flesh and blood knew not between them.
“Michael, I am going to be married.”
“Well, Jan – and what then?”
“It will be with me as others; I shall have children, and grow rich, and old, and die.”
“Who is it, Jan?”
“Margaret Fae.”
“I thought that. Well, thou art sunshine, Jan, and she is like a pool of clear water. If the sun shines not, then the water will freeze, and grow cold and hard.”
“Thou dost not like women, Michael.”
“Nay, but I trust them not. Where the devil can not go, he sends a woman. Well, then, he will find no such messenger for me. He must come himself. That is well; the fight will be easier.”
“When I am married I shall sail my own boat, and thou shalt be always with me, Michael. We will feel the fresh wind blowing in the canvas, and the salt spindrift in our faces, and the boat going as if she were a solan flying for the rock.”
“Is that thy thought, then? Let me tell thee that thou art counting thy fish while they are swimming. Until Peter Fae’s hands are full of earth, he will not part with one gold piece. Make up thy mind to that.”
“Margaret will have her tocher.”
“That will be seen; but if thou wants money, Jan, there it is in my chest, and what greater joy can I have than to see it in thy hand – all of it? It would be thy grace to me.”
Then Jan rose up and laid his arm across Michael’s shoulder; and Michael’s lifted face caught the glow of Jan’s bending one and the men’s souls spoke to each other, though their lips never parted.
The next day proved Michael right. Peter did not name Margaret’s tocher. He said he would give Margaret a house with all needful plenishing; and he promised also to pay all the wedding expenses. But there was no word of any sum of ready money; and Jan was too proud in his poverty to ask for his right. He did, indeed, suggest that when he was a house-holder he should have more wages. But Peter would not see the justice of any such addition. “I give thee all thou art worth, and I will not give thee a Scotch merk more,” he answered roughly. “When it comes to a question of wage, Jan, the son and the stranger are the same to me.” And when Jan told his friend what had been promised, Michael said only: “Well, then, thou wilt have the woman also.”
The twelfth of August is “the fisherman’s foy” in Shetland, and the great feast of the Islands. It was agreed, therefore, that the marriage should take place at that time. For there would be at least two hundred fishing vessels in Brassy Sound at that time, and with most of the fishermen Peter either had had business, or might have in the future.
“For three days we will keep the feast for all who choose to come,” he said; and so, when the procession formed for the church, nearly six hundred men and women were waiting to follow Jan and his bride. Then Jan led her to the front of it, and there was a murmur of wonder and delight. Her dress was of the richest white satin, and her heavy golden ornaments – the heirlooms of centuries – gave a kind of barbaric splendor to it. The bright sunlight fell all over her, and added to the effect; and Jan, with a bridegroom’s pardonable pride, thought she looked more than mortal.
Going to the church, the procession preserved the gravity of a religious rite; but on the return, some one touched lightly the strings of a violin, and, in a moment, hundreds of voices were chanting:
“It is often that I have said it: In the night thou art my dream, and my waking thought in the morning.
“I loved thee always; not for three months, not for a year, but I loved thee from the first, and my love shall not wither, until death part us.
“Oh, my beloved! My wife! Dearer to me than the light of the day! Closer to me than my hands and feet! Nothing but death shall part thee and me, forever!”
The singing opened their hearts; then came the feast and the dance, that endless active dance which is the kind of riot in which grave races give vent to the suppressed excitement of their lives. It did not please Margaret; she was soon weary of the noise and commotion, and heartily glad when, on the eve of the third day, she was called upon to give the parting toast:
“Here’s