Complete works of hall c.., p.416
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 416
“Ah, well! My God! My God!”
That night when the bell in the hall rang for prayers, and little Elin sat in her grandmother’s lap and the farm-servants trooped in with the awesome looks of persons who knew what shadow hung over the little house among the lonely hills, Magnus, in his quality of family priest, took up the Bible and hymn-book at the places where Anna opened for him. The chapter was from second Samuel and it ended with the verse —
“And the king was much moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept; and as he went he said, O my son, Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
The hymn was —
“Meek and low, meek and low,
I shall soon my Jesus know.”
When the singing ended the farm-servants went out one by one, each saying to Magnus —
“God give you a good night!”
And Magnus answered, as well as he could for the emotion that mastered him —
“And you! And you!”
XIV
IN the house of sorrow God closes the hearts of little children so that they may not break. Little Elin had been bright and happy the whole evening through. She was a merry little sprite whose laughter — like the rippling of a sunny stream — set everybody else laughing. Old Maria was at a loss to say which of her parents she resembled most. When the child laughed Maria said, “There’s a deal of the father in the little one,” and when she listened and looked up sideways Maria thought there was a deal of the mother too.
Anna put her to bed, and while she was being undressed her little tongue went like a shuttle. Existence had gone rapidly since she arrived, and she was full of stories: how she had gone to the chasm with Maria to pluck blueberries, and two big, black ravens sitting on a crag had looked down at her and croaked; how she had gone to the cow-house with Eric to see the cows milked, and Gudrun (to her infinite glee) had squirted some of the milk at her; and, above all, how all alone she had found a pet lamb and it was brown, because it had lost its mother, and lived in the elt-house, because its father had run away from it, and how it put its cold nose against her face and said “Bah,” and its name was Maggie!
“Maggie shall come and waken you in the morning, darling,” said Anna.
“Shall she come in here, gran’ma?”
“Yes, dear,” said Anna, and then the sunny stream of the child’s laughter rippled through the room.
“But now it’s late, and good little girls must be as quiet as mice.”
“Yes, gran’ma” — in a breathless whisper.
“This is to be your own little bedroom always, dearest, and grandma has made it nice, so that it may do for you when you grow up.”
“Yes, gran’ma” — another breathless whisper.
“That is the wardrobe for your clothes, and this is your little chest of drawers, and that — up there on the wall — that is your mamma’s guitar, and you will learn to play it some day.”
“Yes, gran’ma” — the whisper was growing a little weary. “The next room is the guest-room, and Uncle Magnus always sleeps there, except when there are strangers, so if you knock in the night he is sure to hear you.”
“Yes, gran’ma” — the whisper was getting slow and sleepy. “Grandma wants you to be such a good girl to Uncle Magnus. He loved your dear, sweet mother so much, oh so much, but he lost her — —”
“Same as Maggie’s mother?” — there was a sudden burst of wakefulness.
“Maggie’s mother was only a sheep, darling.”
“Oh!”
“But now God has given you to Uncle Magnus to make up to him for everything, so you must be as good as good to him.” —
“Yes, gran’ma” — the whisper was becoming faint.
“When you grow up to be a big, big girl, and grandma isn’t here, you must love him and comfort him just the same as if he had been your own father.”
“Y — es, gran’ma—”
“And if anybody ever comes and wants to take you away from him, you mustn’t go — you must always stay with Uncle Magnus.”
“Ye — es, gran—”
“That’s a good girl! And now climb up into bed, and grandma will kiss you and tuck you in for the night.”
“And will Maggie come in the morning?”
“Yes, dearest.”
“Good night, gran’ma!”
“Good night, my own darling.”
“Goo — nigh — gran’ — ma.”
END OF PART V
PART VI
“One moment in annihilation’s waste,
One moment of the Well of Life to taste —
The stars are setting and the caravan
Starts for the Dawn of Nothing — Oh, make haste!”
I
THE Danish mail-steamer Laura, outward bound on her midwinter trip from Copenhagen to Leith, and from Leith to Iceland, carried two saloon passengers only.
One of these, a comfortable elderly person of ample proportions, dressed in the warmest Icelandic vadmal, was an Iceland merchant returning from Edinburgh with a hundred tons of British produce. This was Jon Oddsson, formerly radical champion in politics, and now conservative leader in trade.
The other passenger was a tall, spare man apparently about fifty years of age, with large and luminous but weary eyes, long pale cheeks deeply scored with lines of thought, and a pointed beard that was beginning to be tinged with grey. This was Christian Christiansson, now ten years older than when he returned from the Riviera to London, and so changed in every feature by the strange characters which work and sorrow inscribe on a man’s face with the stem hand of Time, that few or none would have recognised him.
In the interval Christian Christiansson had carried out his plans and realised his expectations. Buried in the depths of London as a man dying on shipboard is buried in the vast grave of the sea, he had lived long as one who was dead, but his hour had struck at last. For five years he had been one of the most popular of living composers. His operas, founded on the Sagas of his own country, had made Iceland familiar to people everywhere; his works had been represented in every capital; his tunes had been played in every street, and it was almost as if he had breathed over Europe and set the air to song.
Meantime he had been faithful to the pledge he had made with himself. His name was a household word, but it was no more than a name, and his identity had never been revealed. No temptation had prevailed with him to disclose it, and the few who knew his secret had found it to their interest to maintain the mystery. And now he was returning to his own country rich and famous — rich as the man who strikes ore from the rock and finds it pouring down on him in an avalanche of gold, but famous only as the “hidden folk” are famous, the good fairies who leave food and drink at the doors of poor men and then steal away before they awake in the dawn.
How changed the old world was when he emerged at length into the light of open day! The telegram he sent from London, asking for a berth to be reserved for him, had almost paralysed the captain with excitement and delight. It was the same old Captain Zimsen, who in former days had given him the best room when he was in favour, and the worst when he was in disgrace. The moment he set foot on the ship, lying in dock at Leith, the time-serving old salt had been there — hat in hand — to lead him to his private cabin.
“Do me the honour to occupy my state-room, sir, and if there is anything you could wish — any little dainty for the table—”
“You are very good, very obliging.”
“Don’t mention it, sir. It is a pleasure, a privilege, to do anything in my power for the most distinguished Icelander of modern times. Do they know you are coming, Mr. Christiansson?”
“Not yet, Captain.”
“What a pity! What a reception they would have given you! But they will, they will!”
If the world was changed, the man was changed also The buoyancy of youth was gone, and over the old captivating gaiety of manner and expression, a sad gravity had fallen, as if a lilac-tree, still bright with blossom, had been borne down by snow. But after two days at sea his spirits rose, and he felt like a slave who had been emancipated, like a prisoner set free.
It was fifteen years since he had left his own country, but he was returning to it at last, as he had always hoped and intended to do. He had left it in disgrace, he was going back to it in honour; he had left it in poverty, he was going back to it with wealth. He was going back as the prodigal, yet not, like the prodigal, empty-handed and ashamed, but able to make amends, and to wipe the tears from all eyes.
Would it be wrong to permit himself to be known? If the people of Iceland, more observant than this old captain, identified in Christian Christiansson the Oscar Stephensson who was thought to be dead, would it be false to the pledge he had made with himself to submit to their recognition? Fifteen years he had lived in obscurity — was it not enough for penance and pardon? Were not the doors of his dungeon even yet broken open? Could he not believe that he was delivered from the body of the death he had lived in? He had lived, he had died — might he not live again?
II
DURING the ten years in which he had been as a dead man all channels of communication had been closed to him, and except for information casually gathered, he had little or no knowledge of what had occurred in Iceland. And now, finding himself for the first time face to face with men who had been in constant touch with his people, he had a hundred questions which he yearned to ask: “Is my mother alive? Is she well? And my little daughter — has God been good to me and let her live, or is all my labour wasted?”
But he was afraid to learn the truth too suddenly, so he waited and watched and listened for answers to the questions he dared not ask. Meantime he tried to amuse himself with the curiosity of the captain and his fellow-passengers, who were clearly at a loss to know who he was, where he was born, and what family of the Christianssons he came from. It was a perilous pleasure, a dizzy joy, to listen to the names of his family and to hear himself discussed; and sometimes, in mortal shame of the subterfuges to which his disguise condemned him, he could hardly resist an impulse to blurt out the truth of his identity, and sometimes he had to leap up from his place in the smoking-room and fly.
“You’ve not been home very lately, Mr. Christiansson?” said the captain, who was smoking his long pipe after midday dinner while the ship swung along in open sea.
“Not very lately, Captain,” said Christian Christiansson.
“You’ll see changes, then,” said the merchant.
“No doubt, no doubt!”
“The new constitution has worked wonders for Iceland, sir.”
“Worked wonders, has it?”
“The barter trade has gone, the cash business is established everywhere, and as for the fishing, it’s another industry, sir.”
“Another industry, is it?”
“Judge for yourself, sir. Instead of the old open boats we have sixty smacks, manned by twenty men apiece, and going as far as six days out and home again.”
“Then the people were right, after all, who used to say the old trade was doomed and the water was to be the wealth of Iceland?”
“They were that, sir,” said the merchant, inflating his chest and pulling down his waistcoat. “Everybody has benefited by the change, and I shouldn’t be surprised if you find your own people better off than when you left them — that is to say if they are still alive.”
“If they’re still alive,” said Christian Christiansson, dropping both voice and eyes.
“By the way, were you at home in Governor Stephen’s time, Mr. Christiansson?” asked the captain, “Well, yes, Captain, yes, I was at home then,” said Christian Christiansson, with a momentary faltering in his voice.
“In that case you must have seen the beginning of the end. The old Governor tried to resist the change, and lived with a sword over his head all his latter days, poor devil.”
“A wise old man, though, wasn’t he?” said Christian Christiansson — he could scarcely trust himself to speak.
“Wise?” said the merchant, with a curl of the lip. “No man is wise who will not be warned, and he had warning enough. But it was his sons who settled hint.”
Christian Christiansson looked up with a start. “Ah, yes, of course, his sons, he had two sons, I remember. What became of them?”
“One of them is living at Thingvellir still.”
“Living still, is he?”
“If you call it living — up to his ears in debt.”
“In debt, you say?”
“Always has been, always will be. As for the other one — Olaf, Eric — what was his name, now?”
“Was it Oscar?” said Christian Christiansson, with a catch in his throat.
“Oscar it was — what a memory you must have, sir! Oscar Stephensson! He used to think he could do a little in your line, sir, but he was here to-day and there to-morrow, and he never did anything in his life except put an end to it. You would hear what happened — it all came out in the newspapers.”
“Died abroad, didn’t he?”
“Shot himself in a gambling hell, sir.”
“The young rascal!” said the captain, taking his pipe out of his mouth to laugh. “I took it out of him though. The last time he crossed from Iceland I made him sleep in the hold.”
“Serve him right, the scoundrel,” said the merchant.
“A scoundrel, was he?”
“He used to beat his poor young wife black and blue, sir.”
“Beat his wife, you say?”
“She died of his ill-usage,’anyway. He killed his father too. The night he went away he broke open the Governor’s safe and carried off everything.”
“Broke open the Governor’s safe?”
“That’s so — the old man died a pauper.”
“Died a pauper?”
“Left nothing behind him, so it comes to the same thing. Every stick in the house had to be sold to the new Minister.”
“But is this true?”
“True enough, sir. Everything came out at the general election. The Governor and the old Factor were rival candidates, and they told us the family secrets.”
“And is this all they say at home of Oscar Stephensson?”
“All? Not a tenth of it.”
“Then his very name must be hated in Iceland?”
“Hated? Execrated, sir. Not that anybody cares about the old Governor; he is dead and gone with the rotten system he tried to support, but as for his son, nobody can say bad enough about him.”
“So that if he had lived and come back alive—”
“He would have been hounded out of the country, sir.”
“Just so, just so,” said Christian Christiansson, and rising with a startling gesture he stumbled back to his state-room.
The merchant looked after him uneasily. “Who the deuce can he be, I wonder!”
“I wonder!” said the captain, pulling at his extinguished pipe.
It was impossible! The odium attaching to the name of Oscar Stephensson made it impossible that Christian Christiansson could ever reveal his identity. He had thought that the dust of death might cover his transgressions, but rumour and report had kept them alive and magnified them. Even the effort of his family to conceal the truth about his offences had given birth to falsehood and fostered slander.
The people of Iceland must never know that Christian Christiansson was Oscar Stephensson. If they suspected, he must use means to deepen his disguise; if they questioned, he must deny.
What else had he expected? In thinking he could ever allow himself to be known in his true name and character, what secret craving of pride and vanity had he been cherishing unawares? His errand to Iceland was one of penance and atonement — at the bottom of his heart he had been looking to it as the top and high-tide of his career, the flush and crown of his success, as the hour of triumph when he was to justify the friends who had loved him, to put to rout the enemies who had hated him, and to come off with flying colours at the last. If so, he was rightly punished. Oscar Stephensson was dead, and nothing and nobody could bring him to life again.
III
CHRISTIAN CHRISTIANSSON became more reserved as the vessel approached its destination. Every mile of the voyage was full of memories, and the sweetest were the bitterest, the happiest were the hardest to bear. He was standing in the bow when he caught his first glimpse of Iceland, glimmering white and blue like a sheeted ghost in the distance where its glaciers rose out of the sea. And then, thinking of the enchanted hopes of the days when he had first seen it so, and how many of them were now dead under ashes, he would have broken down badly but for the captain, who came up behind him and said in his cheery croak —
“There it is, sir! There’s your country! That’s the place you’ve made them all hear about!”
Christian Christiansson returned to his cabin immediately, and he was not seen on deck again until the following morning, when the Laura was steaming up the fiord. And then the merchant, in his shore-going hat and overcoat, began to point out the sights to him as to a stranger.
“There’s the old town, sir. Bigger, I’ll be bound, than when you saw it last. That’s the new shipyard on the right, and that’s the leper hospital on the left. This is Engey, the island with the eider-duck — famous place for young folks courting, sir. That’s the old cathedral in the middle, and that’s Government House to the left of it. They’re nearly hidden by the new warehouses now — I built them myself, sir.”
The Laura cast anchor under the town, amid a fleet of smacks and coal-hulks, and remembering how he had stood there last, Christian Christiansson’s emotion would have mastered him again but for the bustle that was going on around — the orders of the captain from the bridge, the shouts of the sailors who were lowering the ladder, and the cries of the men who had come out in small boats and were clambering up to the deck.
