She opened the door and looked out. It was still snowing a little, as it had been for a month. But snow does not lie in Shetland, and the winters, though dreary and moist, are not too cold for the daisy to bloom every where at Christmas, and for the rye grass to have eight or ten inches of green blade. There was a young moon, too, and the Aurora, in a phalanx of rosy spears, was charging upward to the zenith. It was not at all an unpleasant night, and, with her cloak and hood of blue flannel, a walk to the store would be easy and invigorating.
As she stood undecided and unhappy, she saw a man approaching the house. She could not fail to recognize the large, shambling figure. It was Michael Snorro. A blow from his mighty hand could hardly have stunned her more. She shut the door, and sat down sick at heart. For it was evident that Snorro was not ill, and that Jan had deceived her. Snorro, too, seemed to hesitate and waver in his intentions. He walked past the house several times, and then he went to the kitchen door.
In a few minutes Elga Skade, Margaret’s servant, said to her, “Here has come Michael Snorro, and he would speak with thy husband.” Margaret rose, and went to him. He stood before the glowing peats, on the kitchen hearth, seeming, in the dim light, to tower to the very roof. Margaret looked up with a feeling akin to terror at the large white face in the gloom above her, and asked faintly, “What is’t thou wants, Snorro?”
“I would speak with Jan.”
“He is not come yet to his home. At what hour did he leave the store?”
At once Snorro’s suspicions were aroused. He stood silent a minute, then he said, “He may have gone round by thy father’s. I will wait.”
The man frightened her. She divined that he distrusted and disapproved of her; and she could ask nothing more. She left him with Elga, but in half an hour she became too restless to bear the suspense, and returned to the kitchen. Snorro gave her no opportunity to question him. He said at once, “It is few houses in Shetland a man can enter, and no one say to him, ‘Wilt thou eat or drink?’”
“I forgot, Snorro. I am troubled about Jan. What wilt thou have?”
“What thou hast ready, and Elga will get it for me.”
A few minutes later he sat down to eat with a calm deliberation which Margaret could not endure. She put on her cloak and hood, and calling Elga, said, “If he asks for me, say that I spoke of my father’s house.”
Then she slipped out of the front door, and went with fleet steps into the town. The street, which was so narrow that it was possible to shake hands across it, was dark and empty. The shops were all shut, and the living rooms looked mostly into the closes, or out to the sea. Only here and there a lighted square of glass made her shrink into the shadow of the gables. But she made her way without hindrance to a house near the main quay. It was well lighted, and there was the sound and stir of music and singing, of noisy conversation and laughter within it.
Indeed, it was Ragon Torr’s inn. The front windows were uncurtained, and she saw, as she hurriedly passed them, that the main room was full of company; but she did not pause until within the close at the side of the house, when, standing in the shadow of the outbuilt chimney, she peered cautiously through the few small squares on that side. It was as she suspected. Jan sat in the very center of the company, his handsome face all aglow with smiles, his hands busily tuning the violin he held. Torr and half a dozen sailors bent toward him with admiring looks, and Ragon’s wife Barbara, going to and fro in her household duties, stopped to say something to him, at which every body laughed, but Jan’s face darkened.
Margaret did not hear her name, but she felt sure the remark had been about herself, and her heart burned with anger. She was turning away, when there was a cry of pleasure, and Suneva Torr entered. Margaret had always disliked Suneva; she felt now that she hated and feared her. Her luring eyes were dancing with pleasure, her yellow hair fell in long, loose waves around her, and she went to Jan’s side, put her hand on his shoulder, and said something to him.
Jan looked back, and up to her, and nodded brightly to her request. Then out sprang the tingling notes from the strings, and clear, and shrill, and musical, Suneva’s voice picked them up with a charming distinctness:
“Well, then, since we are welcome to Yool,
Up with it, Lightfoot, link it awa’, boys;
Send for a fiddler, play up the Foula reel,
And we’ll skip it as light as a maw, boys.”
Then she glanced at the men, and her father and mother, and far in the still night rang out the stirring chorus:
“The Shaalds of Foula will pay for it a’!
Up with it, Lightfoot, and link it awa’.”
Then the merry riot ceased, and Suneva’s voice again took up the song —
“Now for a light and a pot of good beer,
Up with it, Lightfoot, and link it awa’, boys!
We’ll drink a good fishing against the New Year,
And the Shaalds of Foula will pay for it a’, boys.
“The Shaalds of Foula will pay for it a’;
Up with it, Lightfoot, and link it awa’.”
Margaret could bear it no longer, and, white and stern, she turned away from the window. Then she saw Michael Snorro standing beside her. Even in the darkness she knew that his eyes were scintillating with anger. He took her by the arm and led her to the end of the close. Then he said:
“Much of a woman art thou! If I was Jan Vedder, never again would I see thy face! No, never!”
“Jan lied to me! To me, his wife! Did thou think he was at my father’s? He is in Ragon Torr’s.”
“Thou lied to me also; and if Jan is in Ragon Torr’s, let me tell thee, that thou sent him there.”
“I lied not to thee. I lie to no one.”
“Yea, but thou told Elga to lie for thee. A jealous wife knows not what she does. Did thou go to thy father’s house?”
“Speak thou no more to me, Michael Snorro.” Then she sped up the street, holding her breast tightly with both hands, as if to hold back the sobs that were choking her, until she reached her own room, and locked fast her door. She sobbed for hours with all the passionate abandon which is the readiest relief of great sorrows that come in youth. In age we know better; we bow the head and submit.
When she had quite exhausted herself, she began to long for some comforter, some one to whom she could tell her trouble. But Margaret had few acquaintances; none, among the few, of whom she could make a confidant. From her father and mother, above all others, she would keep this humiliation. God she had never thought of as a friend. He was her Creator, her Redeemer, also, if it were his good pleasure to save her from eternal death. He was the Governor of the Universe; but she knew him not as a Father pitying his children, as a God tender to a broken heart. Was it possible that a woman’s sharp cry of wounded love could touch the Eternal? She never dreamed of such a thing. At length, weary with weeping and with her own restlessness, she sat down before the red peats upon the hearth, for once, in her sorrowful preoccupation, forgetting her knitting.
In the meantime, Snorro had entered Torr’s, and asked for Jan. He would take no excuse, and no promises, and his white, stern face, and silent way of sitting apart, with his head in his hands, was soon felt to be a very uncomfortable influence. Jan rose moodily, and went away with him; too cross, until they reached the store, to ask, “Why did thou come and spoil my pleasure, Snorro?”
“Neil Bork sails for Vool at the midnight tide. Thou told me thou must send a letter by him to thy cousin Magnus.”
“That is so. Since Peter will do nothing, I must seek help of Magnus. Well, then, I will write the letter.”
When it was finished, Jan said, “Snorro, who told thee I was at Torr’s?”
“Thou