MBM
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 PAUL AND CHRISTINA 
 
 BY 
 
 AMELIA E. BARR 
 
 AUTHOR OF "JAN VEDDER'S WIFE," "A DAUGHTER or FIFE," 
 
 "THE BOW OF ORANGE RIBBON." " THE SQUIRE 
 
 OF SANDAL SIDE, ' ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1887. 
 
 BY 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.
 
 PS 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THIS SPRING OF LOVE, i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 PAUL THORJEN'S TEMPTATION, . . 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 A WILLFUL WOMAN, 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE MINISTER SPEAKS, .... 52 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 AT SORROW'S GATES, 68 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADOWS ARE, . . 85 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN WAY, . . 104 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 LOVE'S PATIENCE, ...... 122 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE, . . . .141 
 
 * 
 
 *54 
 *
 
 lv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD, ... 161 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 WELL WITH THE CHILD 181 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE MINISTER'S WIFE SPEAKS, ... 197 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 FROM THE FURNACE, FINE GOLD, . . . 213
 
 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THIS SPRING OF LOVE. 
 
 Lonely, dark islands, in pale sea-water, where, dimly peering, 
 Passed the white-sailed ships, scornfully, silently, wheeling and 
 
 vering, 
 Swift out of sight again ; while the wind searches what it finds 
 
 never 
 
 O'er the sand-reaches ; bays, billows, blown beaches, homeless 
 forever ! 
 
 Love's lips are always young ; 
 Love's lore is very old ; 
 If you have ever loved, the key you hold 
 
 To all that hath of Love been said or sung. 
 
 '"PHERE are forlorn and cheerless seas to the 
 J[ north of the Pentland Firth, but beyond 
 their belts of foam, and beyond the ocean pyra 
 mids of the Orcades, you may catch in clear 
 weather, the grey headlands of the lonely Shet 
 land Isles. 
 
 They are inhabited by no servile or savage 
 race ; for they are the children of those Norse-
 
 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 men who left their name and fame in France, 
 Italy and Spain, and who a century later took 
 service at Byzantium. Moslems in Asia and 
 Sclavonians on the Black Sea knew the temper 
 of their steel : and to this day the lions of the 
 Acropolis at Athens are scored with the runes 
 which tell of their triumphs. 
 
 It was in the Orkneys and Shetlands they 
 took the deepest root first helping the Pict 
 and then the Scot, and filling all the northern 
 isles with the stirring stories of their deeds. 
 The step between pagan sea-kings and Christian 
 whalers and fishermen is a long one, and it 
 required centuries to take even yet the old 
 life leavens the new and the better one. Walk 
 through a Shetland town, and it will be readily 
 seen that the names above the doors, are those of 
 the Icelandic Sagas, while the ordinary-spoken 
 English has many traces of their peculiar forms. 
 The men preserve much of their ancient 
 character ; they are silent, indomitable, adven 
 turous and deeply pious, inclined to be indolent 
 but ready at any moment for an enterprise full 
 of danger or promising great returns. The 
 women are remarkably handsome, tall and 
 stately, with cool, calm, blue eyes, and a great
 
 THIS SPRING OF LOl*E. 3 
 
 abundance of hair, yellow as the dawn. In the 
 old pagan days they ruled all things with a 
 high hand, but three centuries of austere and 
 mystical Calvinism has subdued to a more 
 womanly temper their lofty spirits. Yet who can 
 be absolutely delivered from their ancestors? 
 Not only do the physical peculiarities of the 
 tenth-century viking linger in the Shetlanders, 
 but the superstitions of Thor, marble the 
 natures, permeated through and through with 
 the sternest and most distinctive of Christian 
 creeds. 
 
 Such a man was Paul Thorsen. He had been 
 on Arctic seas when the great ice mountains 
 reeled around him, and he had sung hymns 
 amid the crashing uproar, because he " knew 
 right well that God was with him ! " And yet, 
 for Christina Bork's love he could go at mid 
 night to the kirk at Weesdale with a charm, and 
 
 offer a vow of alms " if all went as he desired it." 
 
 
 
 Coming home, he met his mate, Magnus 
 Yool. Magnus had on his fishing-suit of tanned 
 sheepskins, and he carried many a fathom of 
 line over his shoulders. On the dusky moor he 
 looked like some giant of an earlier world. 
 
 "Where hast thou been, Paul?" he asked.
 
 4 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " Well then, I have been to make a vow. 
 
 " And in the meantime the boat waits." 
 
 " I have vowed ten silver pieces to John 
 Sabiston's orphans." 
 
 "That is a good deal." 
 
 "As you take it." 
 
 " For what then ? " 
 
 "For the good-will of Christina Bork." 
 
 "As everyone knows, Christina's good-will 
 would be dear at a groat." 
 
 "What is it you mean, Magnus?" 
 
 " Well, it is neither more nor less than this : 
 I like not Christina. She is vain. She is self- 
 willed. She is unkind to her mother. And 
 know this, Paul the bad daughter will make 
 the bad wife." 
 
 " If thou had ever been in love, Magnus " 
 
 " I have loved once yes ! But thou wilt take 
 thy own way in this matter, that is well known, 
 Paul." 
 
 "I have seen that Christina hath faults, but 
 when a girl is loved in spite of her faults, what 
 then?" 
 
 "Well, then one marries!" and Magnus 
 shrugged his big shoulders as over an inevita 
 ble misfortune.
 
 THIS SPRING OF LOVE. 5 
 
 " But here are other things than marrying to 
 think about, Paul. It is time the lines were out, 
 and the boats are waiting for thee and forme." 
 And even as he spoke the harsh, plaintive cries 
 of the boatmen were heard amid the bellowing 
 of the waves that broke among the rocks on 
 the beach. 
 
 Though it was May, the night was dark, with 
 a wild carry overhead out of the north-west, and 
 a black sea tumbling wild and high about the 
 boats. Nothing could be distinctly seen, only 
 a vague trouble and turmoil, as if a battle was 
 going on in the dark. But these fishers were 
 used to the sea in all her moods and they 
 looked out over the tossing waters, spreading 
 away into endless dark without a fear. 
 
 " The Lord open the mouth of the grey fish 
 and hold His hand about the boat ! " said Mag 
 nus, reverently, as he lifted the anchor ; and 
 Paul turned, with a prayer on his lips, and 
 looked for a moment toward the home of his 
 beloved. 
 
 Christina was snugly tucked between feathers 
 and eider-down and she thought not of her 
 lover upon the black, bleak sea. She was a 
 beautiful girl, with a nature in which bitter and
 
 6 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 sweet were perversely mingled subtle, seduc 
 tive charms of manners were hers, and also a 
 native capacity for the treachery which is in the 
 blood and bone of wild animals accustomed to 
 compass their desires by craftiness and stealth. 
 All her virtues were in a rudimentary state ; a 
 supreme selfishness dominated her and when 
 selfishness is the subsoil of character, any evil 
 seed dropped into it, either by the wayside or 
 the fireside, is sure to grow. 
 
 She was the youngest of a large family and 
 the only child left to cheer her mother's old 
 age : for one night her father and brothers had 
 gone to the fishing and had frozen to death in 
 the open boat. The icy wind had slain those 
 whom the sea had spared, and when the boat 
 drifted in with the morningtide it was manned, 
 like a spectre bark, only with the dead. But 
 the terrible tragedy made no lasting impression 
 upon Christina ; and home circumstances, full 
 of gracious opportunities for a generous soul, 
 suggested nothing to her but a more resolute 
 protection of her own comfort and her own in 
 terests. 
 
 " But they are queer folk that have no faults," 
 said her mother ; " and very soon Christina will
 
 THIS SPRING Of LOVE. f 
 
 be a wife, with her own love and her own nome, 
 and the good will put down the bad." 
 
 So Helga Bork, with a wistful hopefulness, 
 looked always for what was good in her child's 
 character, hoping against hope with that con 
 stant anguish of patience which lifts a mother's 
 love so near to the divine mercy, which 
 " endureth forever." She was a woman nearly 
 sixty years old, with a grey head and a face 
 full of that pitifulness and sweetness that only 
 sorrow and hard experience of sorrow can give. 
 
 On the morning after Paul Thorsen had made 
 his vow, she was standing at the table cleaning 
 some fish and thinking lovingly and trustfully 
 of her child, when Christina entered the room, 
 rosy and smiling from ^her long sleep. She 
 broiled for herself some slices of mutton, toasted 
 her cake, made her tea, and then sat down 
 before the fire to eat and drink with a deliber 
 ate enjoyment. 
 
 She made such a very pretty picture that it 
 was not hard, in its beauty, to forget the intense 
 selfishness of the solitary meal ; not hard to 
 forget that the mother had been on the pier for 
 two hours helping to unload the boats, and 
 that, after her hard labor, she had come home
 
 PACL AtfD CHRISTINA. 
 
 to find the hearth cold and the breakfast un 
 cooked. When the neglect first began Chris 
 tina had made excuses : " She had a headache, 
 or a cold, or she had overslept herself." Then 
 she became tired of, or ashamed of, her excuses 
 and sulked in their place. 
 
 The mother had been mostly silent. If 
 neither love nor duty could make her daughter 
 care for her comfort she would not demand an 
 ungracious service. And very soon Christina 
 quite persuaded herself that her mother had 
 gone so many years to meet the boats that she 
 liked to go ; and from this point it was not 
 hard to arrive at another when any unusual 
 delay prevented the fire from being bright and 
 the house-place clean, she felt it as a personal 
 injury and annoyance. 
 
 This morning, however, all was cheery and 
 comfortable; and Christina, after her first cup 
 of tea, was inclined to be very talkative. 
 
 " There is to be a tea-party at Peter Hay's 
 to-night, mother, and I should well like to go." 
 
 "But, for all that I will not consent, Chris 
 tina. Thou knowest that there will be drink 
 ing and dancing the whole night through. Our 
 own men are all now busy at the nets ; the men
 
 THIS SPRING OF LOVE. 9 
 
 thou wilt meet at Hay's are like to be smug 
 glers and strangers. A good girl will not want 
 to dance with them. No, indeed ! " 
 
 " Thou thinkest I am sixty years old. If I 
 .want any pleasure, it is ever, ' No, I will not 
 consent.' " 
 
 "Christina, there was once a chicken shut up 
 from danger and it complained that it was not 
 allowed to feed openly on the dunghill. That 
 is the way with thee." 
 
 " Now then I will marry Paul Thorsen. He 
 loves me and he will give me my own way ; 
 and I shall go and come as it pleases me. That 
 is what! will do." 
 
 " Then thou wilt marry sorrow and bring 
 sorrow also to a good man's heart. If thou 
 marry Paul Thorsen it is my hope that he will 
 hold thee with a firm hand." 
 
 "If he can do that he can do something 
 worth talking about. See, he is coming here. 
 When he is well dressed he is not bad looking, 
 and I shall make him leave the nets and lines, 
 and do as far better men do. Then he can 
 wear broadcloth and a red sash and he will 
 bring me silk and lace, and gold ornaments, 
 and fine tea and brandy. Yes, indeed ! I shall
 
 10 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 want for nothing, and of all these things I will 
 also give thee a good share." 
 
 " Dost thou then think that thou can make 
 a smuggler of Paul Thorsen? Paul is an hon 
 est man, and the seed of Adam will not make 
 him less than an honest man." 
 
 " We shall see." 
 
 "Tell thy thought to him. Tell it to him 
 plain and soon. I know well what answer thou 
 wilt get." 
 
 " I will tell him at my own time. He will 
 do as I say. Good-morning to thee, Paul ! " 
 
 She rose as she spoke and stood with out 
 stretched hand looking at him ; her fair rosy 
 face in a flush of youth and beauty, and her 
 yellow hair floating round her like sunrise. 
 
 Never had she seemed to Paul so bewitch 
 ing, and never before had she been so kind. He 
 had a large, brave countenance, honest and 
 kindly, and eyes that reminded one of the sea, 
 and his face glowed crimson with joy, as with 
 a trembling sense of his coming happiness, he 
 drank the tea she made him. 
 
 The links and meadows were green and full 
 of flowers, and the skylarks building low among 
 them were filling the air with their rapturous
 
 THIS SPRING OF LOVE. II 
 
 songs. The sea was blue and dimpling with 
 incalculable laughter in the sunshine, and the 
 voices of countless water-birds mingled with 
 the whish-h of the incoming tide. Paul and 
 Christina went out together and while they 
 walked under the blue sky, in a world full of 
 the salt and sparkle and breeze of the waves, 
 Paul told Christina, with manly sincerity and 
 eagerness, how dearly he loved her; and she 
 promised him to be his wife. 
 
 Helga Bork knew how it was when she saw 
 her daughter coming home with Paul. For a 
 moment she felt a kind of pity for the young 
 man. Such a true heart ! Such a true love ! 
 She wondered that one so wise and prudent as 
 Paul Thorsen could not see that Christina had 
 no more heart than a kitten. 
 
 Perhaps he did see it, but she had grown 
 into his life as the sea and the stars had grown 
 into it. He could not bear to think of existence 
 without her. And perhaps he also thought that 
 it would be his delightful task to awaken 
 the slumbering soul of the girl. Very good 
 men often deceive themselves with this idea: 
 for the sleeping princess is the dream of all 
 pure, true lovers. So Paul rather liked Chris-
 
 13 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 tina's coldness and indifference to every one. 
 To win her affections with the morning dew 
 upon them that was Paul Thorsen's happy 
 dream. 
 
 For it is not women, but men, who love 
 romantically. Women like to marry prosperous 
 men, and wedding garments and housekeep 
 ing prospects divide with love their hearts. 
 Thus on the previous night while Paul was 
 hastening across the dark moor to make hi? 
 vow for her, Christina was sitting with her feel 
 upon the fender, trimming a new bonnet, an</ 
 laying plans for the silk and lace she intended 
 Paul to procure for her. 
 
 The marriage was to be solemnized at the 
 end 'of the summer fishing and Christina was 
 determined to have a great wedding feast. 
 
 " Paul hath promised me a silk dress," she 
 said, " and his mother will give me a gold ring 
 arid the chain his grandfather bought in Hol 
 land, and the necklace, too, perhaps. And we 
 shall have a great procession to the kirk, and a 
 feast, and a dance afterwards ! All this, and 
 more too ! " she added proudly. 
 
 " And I will give thee a good store of blankets, 
 and of knit clothing that my own hands have
 
 13 
 
 made. And besides, thou shalt have the silver 
 chain and cross that was brought hundreds of 
 years ago from the Southern Seas by thy fore- 
 father Bor thou hast seen how he lies in 
 stone, in Scalloway Kirk. Now, then, what has 
 Paul said to thee of thy home?" 
 
 " Paul hath a good house and he will buy 
 many new things for it. He has saved 400 
 and more, too, and he owns the boat in which 
 he sails, and part of the one which Nicol Sin 
 clair rents. Oh, I shall make myself very com 
 fortableafter a little ! " 
 
 "'After a little!' What dost thou mean, 
 then ? " 
 
 " When I get the house to myself." 
 " If thou would be a happy wife, I counsel 
 thee, meddle not in such a matter as that. 
 There is no man in Shetland loves his mother 
 better than Paul Thorsen loves Margery Thor- 
 sen. She was there before f hee. Think of that ! " 
 ' That may be, but is not my affair; and be 
 fore the winter she will go to her daughter at 
 Voe Ness. Nanna Thorsen married well. It 
 is with the daughter the mother should 
 stay. That is what I think ; and I shall soon 
 make Paul in the same mind. Thou wilt see ! "
 
 14 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " Paul's mother will be well away from thee ! " 
 said Helga, indignantly. "And know this it 
 is not with thee that I would live. I would ask 
 shelter with the seals in the Varra caves first ! 
 Yes, indeed I would ! " 
 
 " Now thou art angry for nothing. That is 
 ever thy way, mother. And why must thou 
 care for Margery Thorsen? She is no kin of 
 thine. It seems to me thou can think of every 
 one but thy own daughter." 
 
 " Well, then, thou thinkest very well for thy 
 self. In thy own heart thou art the first and 
 the last. Yes, indeed ! " 
 
 And Christina laughed and went off to the 
 public fountain for water. She carried the 
 small bucket upon her head with a lofty and 
 nonchalant grace. Her hands were occupied 
 with her fine knitting, and as the glancing 
 needles swiftly glided to and fro, she sang, in 
 a clear, shrill voice : 
 
 " Oh, my sailor comes over the sea 
 With a golden ring and chain for me, 
 
 And the King shall pay for it all ! 
 He'll merrily shake his canvas free, 
 He'll give them a chase over the sea, 
 And steal away by the Shetland lee 
 With a golden ring and chain for me, 
 
 And the King shall pay for it all 1
 
 THIS SPRING OF LOVE. 15 
 
 "The fisher may toil fora penny fee, 
 My sailor brings fortune over the sea ; 
 
 And the King must pay for it all ! 
 His ship is steady, and strong, and tight ; 
 He can sing and dance, and sail and fight ; 
 His hand is ready to take his right ; 
 A lucky cargo he lands to-night, 
 
 And the King must pay for it all ! " 
 
 As she finished the verse Jane Sinclair joined 
 her and said, " It is not wise, then, to sing such 
 songs. If the minister heard, he would not 
 like it, Christina. That is certain." 
 
 " Very well, then, he need not to listen." 
 
 " And Paul Thorsen would be of the same 
 mind." 
 
 " He too, then. He need not to listen." 
 
 " Is Paul not to be thy good-man?" 
 
 " ' Good-man ! ' Few of them deserve that 
 name." 
 
 " Paul is a good man. Art thou not to be 
 his wife?" 
 
 " One might get a worse marriage." 
 
 " I heard that he had asked thee to be his 
 wife.' 
 
 " I heard that, too." 
 
 " What did thou say to that question? " 
 
 " I said what I said." 
 
 " Thou can do nothing but mock, Christina."
 
 1 6 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 "Well then, Jane?" 
 
 " I will go into no more questions and 
 guesses with thee. There is too much love 
 in the world, else it would not be squandered 
 on the unworthy. That is what I think." 
 
 " Fret not thyself about Paul. It is his own 
 fault if he loves me. He can come, and he can 
 go. What hinders him ? " 
 
 " Love hinders him. Well thou knowest, in 
 the matter of love, the beginning is when one 
 likes, but the ending is when one can." Then 
 Jane turned away ; but Christina, seating her 
 self on the edge of the fountain, finished her 
 song to the babble and tinkle of the falling 
 water.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PAUL THORSEN'S TEMPTATION. 
 
 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, 
 Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. 
 
 Every man is the first man to himself, 
 And Eves are just as plentiful as apples, 
 
 is no one that can play the fool so 
 J[ completely as a wise man ; and many be 
 sides Magnus Yool were very sorry to see the 
 grave and good Paul Thorsen so bewitched by 
 a pretty face. " But why shall I talk to him 
 on the matter ? " asked Magnus, " for he hath 
 put his ears to sleep." Even Paul's mother, 
 after one or two attempts to reason with her 
 son, gave up all hope of preventing the mar 
 riage. 
 
 " What is to be is sure to happen," she said 
 with a dreary resignation ; " and when men will 
 not listen to reason, what need to be wasteful 
 of words ? "
 
 I& PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 And, indeed, there was good cause for the 
 hopeless resignation of Margery's decision. 
 For Paul's infatuation increased steadily. He 
 had been a careful, prudent man ; always living 
 strictly within the rim of his shilling, and put 
 ting a large share of his earnings away. But at 
 Christina's word his sovereigns melted into 
 ornaments and silk, and into new and often un 
 necessary furniture. If Paul Thorsen, aged 
 twenty-seven, could have foreseen what follies 
 Paul Thorsen, aged twenty-eight, would be 
 guilty of, he would have asked anxiously, 
 " Shall I, then, be mad a year hence ? " 
 
 It was well that the courtship was a short 
 one, and that at the end of three months Paul 
 took his bride to his home. It was a comfort 
 able house of five rooms, built of stone and well 
 furnished, and from the cellar to the roof-coping 
 it had been made spotlessly clean for its new 
 mistress. She came to it at the head of a bridal 
 procession of two hundred women and men ; 
 stepping proudly, in her silk dress and gold and 
 silver ornaments, to the joyful strains of the 
 bridal song. It swelled all along the line, it 
 filled the old grey streets with a jubilant noise, 
 for it was taken up by the women standing in
 
 PAUL THORSEN'S TEMPTATION. 1 9 
 
 their doors and looking from their windows; 
 and by the little children who ran alongside 
 and peeped at Christina with merry mischiev 
 ous faces as they piped, in thin clear voices : 
 
 " Hey the bonnie bride and the breast-knots of white ! 
 
 God bless her, on every hand, 
 
 With the health of the sea and the wealth of the sea, 
 With love and with gold, and with land. 
 
 Then there followed some days and weeks in 
 the which Paul thought himself to be the most 
 blessed of men. Christina was delighted with 
 her new position, and disposed to take to the 
 full all the privileges it gave her. And one of 
 her first acts of authority was to entirely re 
 arrange the house. Paul sat in his chair and 
 watched her. He found it delightful to see her 
 tripping busily about, and he was charmed to 
 be consulted about the position of every chair 
 and table. For she looked so beautiful with 
 her tucked-up hair and dress, and her fine arms 
 white and bare, and her little airs of perplexity 
 and interest so beautiful that he never wearied 
 of watching her. 
 
 But it was a very different thing to Margery 
 Thorsen. She sat pained and silent as the 
 rooms she had made so clean and pleasant were
 
 20 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 re-cleaned and re-ordered. Women may de 
 ceive men, but they rarely deceive women. 
 Margery understood Christina. She was quite 
 sure that all this pretty pretence was part of a 
 well-considered plan for her removal. But 
 what could she say? If she had given her 
 thought utterance Christina would have fled to 
 Paul with tears of injured innocence, and she 
 must have taken the position of a jealous and 
 unreasonable woman. 
 
 But oh, why did not Paul perceive the strait in 
 which she was? Paul, who had ever before been 
 so ready to enter into all her feelings, and sympa 
 thize with all her sorrows and annoyances. 
 Often she let her work drop, and looked into his 
 face with eyes full of grief and amazement. He 
 did not see in them the petrified tears the piti 
 ful questions, which none but he could answer. 
 Alas ! Alas ! that even the sweetest love 
 should too often be in its first development 
 purely selfish ; thinking only of its own happi 
 ness, forgetful of relative duties and of soberer 
 affections. Margery Thorsen uttered no com 
 plaint, but her heart grew very still ; so still that 
 she thought something must have died there. 
 For this was one of those dumb sorrows which
 
 PAUL THORSEN'S TEMPTATION. " 
 
 hunt in silent packs ; they do not bark, but oh ! 
 how they rend the desolate and aching heart ! 
 
 So, to Christina, the first weeks of her mar 
 ried life passed pleasantly enough. She was 
 well known, and she was quite happy in receiv 
 ing visits of congratulation and in the exhibi 
 tion of her pretty home. But in a little while 
 the interest in her wedding died out, and there 
 was no more to be said on that matter. Then 
 Isabel Hay married, and her tocher and fine 
 plenishing was on every one's tongue. Isabel 
 had been one of Christina's companions, and 
 she was among the first to call upon the new 
 bride. The visit filled her with dissatisfaction 
 about her own position. Isabel had a sofa 
 and a set of gilded china, and Christina, want 
 ing these things felt as if she had nothing. 
 
 Passing Nicol Sinclair's house she saw his 
 sister Jane standing within the open door. 
 Very soon they were talking of the bride, and 
 Christina spoke with ill-concealed jealousy of 
 her many belongings. 
 
 " But I envy her not, Christina," said Jane ; 
 "what comes wrong never stays long, 
 minister will tell you the same thing. He will 
 that."
 
 $1 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " Hay has done well for his family, Jane , 
 and it were a good thing if more of our men 
 had his spirit." 
 
 "Tell that to Paul Thorsen, and thou wilt 
 see how he will answer thee. And if a man 
 does wrong, then how can he do well ? Thou 
 knows better." 
 
 " I will tell Paul. Oh, yes ! I will tell him 
 soon and fast now. As for doing wrong, there 
 is no wrong in the matter. Hay pays good 
 money for whatever he brings into harbor. 
 Yes, indeed he does." 
 
 " He cheats the Government and he breaks 
 the laws. If he was caught he would go to 
 prison instead of to sea. A good woman will 
 not ask her man to take his honor and his life 
 in his hands for what ? That she may wear 
 fine clothes, and sit upon a sofa, and drink her 
 tea out of a gilded tea-cup. That is what I say." 
 
 " Thou art only a woman by thyself. There 
 is nothing wrong in the trade. That is what I 
 say. That is what wiser and richer folks than 
 thou art say. Yes, indeed ! " 
 
 " Why, then, did the minister reprove Hay, 
 not once, but twice, from the pulpit ? Why did 
 he refuse to him the holy cup ? Thou knows
 
 PAUL THOR SEN'S TEMPTATION. *$ 
 
 right well it is wrong. Thou must not be 
 another Eve, and let the devil use thee to tempt 
 a good man to sin." 
 
 " Who gave thee a license to preach to me ? 
 Now I will go, and it will be long ere I speak 
 to thee again, Jane Sinclair." 
 
 With the words she turned away from Jane, 
 holding her pretty head very high and lifting 
 her dress well, in order to show the fine latched 
 shoes which Paul had procured her by sending 
 to Aberdeen for them. 
 
 That night when Paul returned to his home 
 it was after ten hours' hard work and he was 
 physically very weary. Christina threw around 
 him all the enchantments of her beauty and 
 manner. She made him the hot, strong tea 
 which he loved, she fed him with the food he 
 relished, she sat beside him in the glow of the 
 comfortable fire, she caressingly held between 
 her own his big brown hand. When his pipe 
 had still further soothed him, she told him of 
 her visit to Isabel Sabay and expatiated on the 
 beauty and desirableness of the many things 
 which Isabel's house contained. 
 
 Paul grew restless as she spoke, but he .kept 
 his own opinion and answered her not.
 
 2 4 PAUL A. VI) CHRISTINA. 
 
 u Say that thou will give them to me. Say 
 that, Paul." 
 
 I cannot, then, say that. All I have, all I 
 can earn, is for thee. I will try and work 
 harderif I can get the work to do." 
 
 "How foolish thou art, Paul! Why need 
 thou work so hard ? Why dost thou go to the 
 fishing at all ? Such a strong man, such a good 
 sailor, as thou art ! The nets I would fling to 
 the bottom of the sea. Ragon Hay will give 
 thee far better work. Listen to me, Paul." 
 
 He roused himself then, and looked steadily 
 into the rosy face full o f winsome charms 
 lifted to his. -Dost thou mean the words 
 which thou hast said to me, Christina?" 
 
 "Ay, I mean them; every word, I mean it." 
 She thought her victory was won and she 
 smiled brightly and drew down his face and 
 kissed him. He rose up then and put her 
 gently, but very firmly, away from him. 
 "Know this, my Christina," he answered: "I 
 would cut off my right hand-ay, I would turn 
 my back on thee, beloved one, forever rather 
 than do the thing thou asks of me." 
 
 His eyes were glowing and his face stem and 
 set to his purpose. A wise woman would have
 
 PAUL T&ORSEN'S TEMPTATION. 25 
 
 perceived that he was as immovable on this 
 subject as Sunburgh Head. But Christina had 
 no conception of a nature beyond temptation. 
 If smiles would not move him then she would 
 try tears. She put her face upon her folded 
 arms and cried passionately. 
 
 He stood looking at her. Love and anger 
 strove hard in his heart. In a few moments 
 he touched her gently. " My Christina, stop 
 crying and then I will talk to thee." 
 
 The pretty, girlish figure, shaking with emo 
 tion, made him shiver with pain. He stooped 
 and kissed her unbound hair and passed it 
 gently through his fingers. 
 
 " Christina, wilt thou now listen to me ? " 
 
 "Thou art so cruel ! " she sobbed. 
 
 " Nay ; but I would be cruel if I took a penny 
 of wage from Ragon Hay. Let us stop this 
 talk now and forever. There is not coined 
 gold enough in the W 7 hole world to buy me ; 
 there is not a woman living who could tempt 
 me." 
 
 " I thought that I had married a man. It 
 seems, then, that I knew thee not." 
 
 " Such as I am thou wed me an honest 
 fisher that never made a dirty shilling."
 
 2 6 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 "Thou lovest me not." 
 
 " Oh, Christina ! I would give my life for thy 
 life! But my soul? No; that is another mat 
 ter. Dear, dear, dear, art thou to me, Christina ; 
 but this night thou hast hurt me very sorely. 
 It is as though thou had struck me a blow 
 across my heart it quivers in my breast, and 
 aches as if thou had wounded it." 
 
 He stood erect, but great tears were in his 
 eyes, and a divine pity in his soul, for the erring 
 woman whom he loved so tenderly. 
 
 "For a little while, Paul? A dozen trips 
 would do." 
 
 " Not one, Christina ! No, no ; indeed, no ! " 
 
 " Mind this, then ; I will ask nothing from 
 thee again. Thou wilt be sorry for this hour. 
 I tell thee that." 
 
 With the words on her lips she rose up in a 
 passion and went from the room, leaving Paul 
 shocked and almost sick with the sudden 
 trouble which had come to him. 
 
 The next day was a very stormy one. The 
 wind from the southward blew in savage gusts, 
 and the black clouds hung above a black sea 
 tumbling wild and high. Paul stood with his 
 mother at the open door, the swift rain smiting
 
 PAUL THOR SEN'S TEMPTATION. zj 
 
 their sad faces. It was afternoon, but Christina 
 had not spoken again to her husband. " She 
 had a headache," she said, and she remained 
 in her bed, deaf apparently both to Paul's and 
 Margery's offers of service. Nothing had been 
 told Margery concerning the dispute ; but she 
 understood very well that some great sorrow 
 had come to her son. 
 
 " It will be a wild night, Paul. Listen to me, 
 and go not to the fishing. See now, the sea- 
 birds are making for the rocks." 
 
 "Yes, I must go, my mother. Be thou kind 
 to Christina. Wilt thou ? " 
 
 "Yes, I will, For thy sake, I will be kind. 
 Stay yet for one moment, Paul." 
 
 Then she hastened up-stairs and said pleas- 
 antly, " Here is Paul going to the fishing, 
 Christina. It will be a bad night, I think. Do 
 thou ask him and he will stay at home. Yes, 
 he will if thou ask him." 
 
 " Paul Thorsen can take his own way. I 
 asked him last night to do something for my 
 sake, and he would not. Very well, then I will 
 ask nothing more of him." 
 
 " For all that I beg thee to ask him just this 
 once."
 
 28 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " No, I will not. I will ask nothing at all of 
 him." 
 
 Paul understood how it was when he saw his 
 mother's face. There was no need to say a word. 
 He kissed her and pulling his hat down over his 
 brows he went away into the storm. 
 
 No sooner had he gone than Christina arose. 
 There was to be a party at the bride's house 
 and she had promised to be there. Carefully 
 she dressed, and then, covering herself with the 
 long blue cloak and hood worn by all Shetland 
 women she went down stairs and opened thte 
 door. Margery looked up quickly for it was 
 nearly dark, and the rain was beating against 
 the windows. 
 
 "Where, then, art thou going, Christina? It 
 is on the edge of the night ; it is wet and windy 
 also." 
 
 " I am going to Isabel Sabay's. She has a 
 party to-night." 
 
 " Look over the sea ! Paul is there in the 
 wind and rain for thee and for me he is there ! 
 
 " It is his will to go fishing. It is my will to 
 go to Isabel's." 
 
 " If the wind continues to rise he will be in 
 great danger. Christina, I am sick with fear.
 
 PAUL THOR SEN'S TEMPTATIOE. 29 
 
 It is on my knees I shall pass the hours until 
 he returns if so it may please God to send him 
 back at all. Stay with me ! On such a night 
 as this the freezing Arctic wind came down 
 that slew thy father and thy brothers. Stay 
 and watch with me, Christina ! Paul is a good 
 man to thee and dearly does he love thee ! " 
 
 " I have promised Isabel." 
 
 " But Isabel knows well that a fisher's wife 
 must watch, and weep, and pray." 
 
 "It seems to me that thou loves weeping. 
 That may be well for thee ; but while I am young 
 I will be happy. I cannot help Paul by staying 
 with thee." 
 
 " There will be fiddling and dancing and sing 
 ing, and the light talk of light foolish hearts at 
 Isabel's. Oh, woman ! woman ! if Paul be 
 drowning while thou art dancing how could I 
 ever look at thy face again ? " 
 
 " Thou art talking to no purpose at all. I am 
 going to Isabel's." 
 
 Then Margery's anger rose. " Thou art a 
 cruel, bad wife ! Under the same roof I will 
 not live with thee another day." 
 
 " Well, then, I shall be able to live without 
 thee. And I am glad thou art going and I wish
 
 30 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 that thou had gone long since. Thou hast 
 made plenty of trouble between Paul and me. 
 When thou art away he may be kinder to me, 
 perhaps." 
 
 " Me make trouble between Paul and thee ! " 
 
 "Ay, thou hast done it. Very often thou 
 hast done it. Thou hast made Paul unkind to 
 me also." 
 
 " Paul unkind to thee ! Oh, how thou dost 
 lie ! I have been patient beyond wisdom with 
 thee. As for my poor Paul, he hath been fool 
 ishly kind to thee. Go thy ways now. I will 
 speak no more with thee." 
 
 Christina answered not, but she shut the door 
 violently as she passed through it. Then Mar 
 gery put her hands to her head and fell upon 
 her knees with a long, low cry the forlorn 
 cry of a heart which God has so made that it 
 cannot but cry when it is sore stricken. All 
 the waves of her stormy sea of trouble went 
 over her ; but it was not long until the tumult 
 was over, and a solemn silence took its place 
 a silence that was a sanctuary in which the 
 Divine voice could be heard. 
 
 In this calm she rose up, took the rush candle 
 4 -her hand, and went to the table where the
 
 PAUL TIf OR SEN'S TEMPTATION. 31 
 
 big Bible lay ; and as the good in all ages have 
 done, she opened it at a venture, hoping for 
 some word of comfort. 
 
 " Thou did'st walk through the sea with 
 Thine horses; through the heap of great 
 waters." * 
 
 That was sufficient for her. If Jehovah was 
 walking through the great waters she had no 
 fear. Paul was safe. And as for any slander 
 that might touch her good name she was de 
 termined to bear it in quietness. " It is well 
 known," she said to her heart, "that God rights 
 those who keep silence." 
 
 She sat musing until after midnight listen 
 ing to the rise and fall of the storm. Some 
 times there would be a sudden pause of intense 
 stillness and she felt compelled to listen as if 
 in it she was to hear some message of life and 
 death. Then came the tumult of rushing winds 
 and breaking waves, and the ever-recurring ter 
 ror that, above all the clamor, she would hear 
 that most fearful of all noises the crying of men 
 on a wrecked ship. No familiar experience had 
 made Margery able to keep such watches with 
 indifference ; and although she had that night 
 
 * Habakkuk, 3. 15.
 
 32 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 asked Christina to stay with her, the request 
 sprang from no desire for human companion 
 ship or sympathy, she had never found that 
 sufficient. It was such help as she had just 
 sought that she always looked for " One 
 friendly look, one certain word out of the vague 
 and vast." And, 
 
 Oh ! though oft she could not call, 
 
 But just was faithful, that was all, 
 
 And went right on ; yet close behind her 
 
 There would follow, and still find her, 
 
 Help, suie help !
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A WILFUL WOMAN. 
 
 What of the heart of love 
 
 That bleeds in thy breast, O man? 
 Thy bells prolonged unto knells, 
 Thy hope that a breath dispels, 
 Thy bitter, forlorn farewells 
 
 And the empty echoes thereof ? 
 
 Still we say as we go, 
 
 " Strange to think by the way, 
 Whatever there is to know, 
 
 That shall we know one day." 
 
 WHEN Paul spoke of going to the fishing 
 he knew the resolution to be one which 
 a v/ord or a look from Christina would break. 
 He had fully expected that she would urge him 
 not to go. Many a time, when the weather 
 was even less stormy, she had hung round his 
 neck with entreaties or had watched him away 
 with her bright blue eyes full of tears. This 
 night there was every lawful excuse for yield 
 ing to such a request and he hoped that Chris-
 
 34 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 tina would give him the opportunity of grant 
 ing what she desired. 
 
 But there is no resentment so cruel as the 
 resentment of a selfish soul whose vanity is 
 also made to suffer. Besides, she hoped even 
 yet, to work her husband to her own wishes. 
 Before she married him she had decided that 
 Paul should leave the fishing fleet, and join 
 that band of questionable traders whose profits, 
 if precarious, seemed to her so much more de 
 sirable. For there was no comparison in her 
 opinion between the ling and the herring of the 
 one fleet, and the silks, and tea, and brandy of 
 the other. 
 
 To the secrecy and danger of the latter en 
 terprise she had no objection. Her moral 
 nature was not a sensitive one ; she longed for 
 many other fine things besides a set of gilded 
 china and she really thought it was the duty 
 of Paul to satisfy her desires. His scruples 
 appeared to her ridiculous. " Dirke Hay and 
 Jeppe Sabay are as good men as Paul Thorsen, 
 and they do not ask the king's leave to buy and 
 sell as it pleases them." Thus she thought, as 
 she lay sulking in her bed. She recalled also 
 the beauty of Isabel Sabay's blue silk dress,
 
 A WILFUL WOMAN. 3$ 
 
 her gold brooch, and long gold ear-rings, and 
 she felt that unless Paul would do the same for 
 her she had made a great mistake in marrying 
 him. 
 
 " He says he loves me," she muttered ; " then 
 let him make me sure of it. If he will join Jeppe 
 Sabay I will believe he loves me ; if he won't 
 well, then it will be the worse for him ! If a 
 man has a beautiful wife he ought to give her 
 beautiful things. That is what Jeppe and Isa 
 bel say and my thought is the same. Yes, 
 indeed ! And I will make Paul to understand 
 it." 
 
 Margery's appeal had not greatly moved her. 
 " If there is really any danger," she thought, 
 " no man will know it better than Paul Thor- 
 sen. And also if he goes to the fishing to 
 night I can go to the party at Isabel's. There 
 will be some pleasure there and company to 
 my mind. Then Paul will see that I have a 
 will of my own and in the end he will do as I 
 counsel him. Why not ? Always he does so." 
 
 She was sure of this result because she was 
 unable to make a very important distinction 
 between Paul's personal preferences and his 
 moral convictions. The first Paul could easily
 
 36 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 surrender to her; the latter had their roots 
 deep in his nature and not for life itself would 
 'he relinquish a tittle of them. But Christina 
 having always succeeded in putting Paul's per 
 sonal desires below her own. could not suppose 
 a case where some intangible moral influence 
 should be more omnipotent than her wishes, 
 her beauty and her caresses. 
 
 So she would say no word to stay him from 
 the sea and Paul, heart-wounded and sorrow 
 ful in all his senses, set his face against the 
 wind and rain, and went with rapid strides to 
 wards the beach. On his way there, he pushed 
 open the door of Magnus Yool's cottage and 
 said, " I am for the fishing ; " and Magnus rose 
 without a word, put on his oil-skins, swung his 
 water-bottle by his side, and then with his 
 weighty tread followed his mate. 
 
 It was well known that Thorsen never much 
 minded weather, and though an old fisherman 
 looked dubiously up at the sky he did not think 
 of interfering. No men could handle a boat 
 more finely than Paul and Magnus, and for a 
 few minutes he watched them as they cowered 
 southward under a bare strip of mainsail, for 
 the tide was running with extraordinary swift-
 
 ' A WILFUL WOMAN. 37 
 
 ness and the gusts of wind struck the bit of 
 canvas like the sound of musketry. Then he 
 turned into his own cottage. The risk of life 
 was part of a fisherman's day's work, what need 
 then, to make a fuss about it ? 
 
 In the middle of the night Margery's watch 
 was over ; Paul came home. She heard his 
 feet upon the shingle and she rose quickly and 
 stirred the fire and set wide open the house 
 door. The light upon the threshold gave him 
 a sudden hope and he looked up eagerly. But 
 a moment's glance showed him it was not 
 Christina waiting with light and love to 
 welcome him. He loved his mother truly, but 
 he felt her presence at that moment to be a 
 keen disappointment. 
 
 " Thanks to The Best ! " said Margery, as her 
 son crossed the door-step ; and Paul, sad and 
 weary as he was, piously echoed the salutation. 
 Simple as the rite of gratitude was, its observ 
 ance lifted him out of the selfishness of his 
 mood. He made an effort to smile into his 
 mother's face and he drew the bar across the 
 door for her ere he sank with a sigh of relief 
 into the big chair by the ruddy fire. 
 
 He was worn out. His hair and beard
 
 3 3 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 were dripping, his clothing frozen stiff, his 
 hands cut and bleeding with handling the icy 
 rigging. "We have saved our lives and the 
 boat," he said drearily, "but the lines are lost." 
 
 " Let them go. If the burgh's men are safe, 
 let the deep sea have the lines." 
 
 He was painfully alert for any movement up 
 stair which might indicate that Christina had 
 heard his arrival. The continuance of her anger 
 almost terrified him. He was hungry for a 
 sight of her face, and he knew that he would be 
 wretched until he was at peace with her. But 
 he asked no questions until he sat drinking his 
 basin of hot tea by the fire. Then he said, 
 "Where is Christina, mother?" 
 
 " Isabel Sabay hath a tea-drinking. Chris 
 tina is there." 
 
 After a painful silence he asked, " Is it not 
 very late for a tea-drinking ? " 
 
 "Well, then there would be fiddles and 
 dancing. Thou knowest how the whole night 
 is often thus spent." 
 
 " Did she think I was at sea ? " 
 
 " Ay, she knew it well." 
 
 " Thou told her ? " 
 
 " Ay, I told her. Kind and strong words I
 
 A WILFUL WOMAN. 39 
 
 said to her, but she heard me not. The sound 
 of the fiddles had filled her ears." 
 
 " Mother, I am in trouble ; give me thy 
 counsel." 
 
 " Nay, I will say neither this nor that in the 
 matter. Only God can be counsellor between 
 a man and his wife. But when the rain is over, 
 thou must take me to thy sister's house. I will 
 stay here no longer." 
 
 Paul did not say "Why?" He only asked, 
 " Art thou sure this change must be ? " 
 
 " I think it will be best for thee that I go ; 
 or be sure there is nothing that could move 
 me. And if I be here, or if I be there, it can 
 make no difference between us two, Paul." 
 
 " For my sake bear a little longer, mother." 
 
 " Nay, it is better for thy sake that I go. It 
 can as I said, make no difference between us ; 
 it may make a deal of difference between thee 
 and Christina. She is weary of me, she loves 
 me not, I can never please her let me go 
 without more words about it." 
 
 He stooped forward and took her hands, and 
 kissed her ; after which he walked to the door 
 and looked out. The storm was fleeing south 
 ward ; only from the skirts of it yet fell the
 
 4 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 soaking rain. But the wind had lulled and he 
 could hear in the distance the laughter and fit 
 ful singing of a noisy party convoying each 
 other to their homes. He judged that they 
 were bringing Christina back and he went in 
 and sat down to wait for her. 
 
 She came into the house radiant with excite 
 ment and rosy with the fresh salt air. Throw 
 ing off her blue flannel cloak she advanced to 
 the fireside and stood there with the triumph 
 and air of a woman who feels her own power 
 and loveliness. Paul looked at her from under 
 his dropped eyelids. Her ruby-colored merino 
 set off perfectly the rose and snow of her ex 
 quisite complexion, and her bright yellow hair 
 fell in long wavy masses about her shoulders. 
 She knew she was torturing Paul and she en 
 joyed the cruel work, singing softly to herself 
 as she stood in the glowing shadows and sway- 
 ing her graceful form to the lilting melody. 
 
 Margery left the room and they were alone, 
 yet Christina would not speak to her husband. 
 Paul waited until he could bear it no longer ; 
 then he said slowly, " We came near to death's 
 door this night. All of the lines are gone to 
 the bottom,"
 
 A WILFUL WOMAN. 41 
 
 " Out of pure stubbornness-thou went to sea. 
 I am glad the lines are lost. I am that ! " 
 
 "When I go to the sea again, Christina fine 
 or foul weather thou stay at home! See thou 
 do it. I will not have thee dancing and sing 
 ing when I am between the great winds and 
 the deep sea. Mind that now ! " 
 
 " I will tell thee once for all, Paul Thorsen, 
 that I will go where I like and I will go when 
 I wish. Thou wilt do nothing to pleasure me. 
 Very well ; I will seek my own pleasure that 
 I will ! " And she turned and left him ere he 
 could answer her a wo-rd. 
 
 So he sat alone with his trouble ; sometimes 
 angry, sometimes covering his face to weep. 
 He was stunned, and shamed, and suffering, 
 and quite at a loss what to do. He thought of 
 all the men he had known and he discovered 
 no parallel in their cases to suit his own. Hour 
 after hour he sat stupid with wretched drifting 
 thoughts, until Margery came in to build up 
 the fire and make the breakfast. 
 
 Then he knew it was morning ; and he opened 
 the door and looked out at the wan gray light, 
 and the cold broken clouds, and the black toss 
 ing waves. " Worse things wait for men than
 
 42 PAU AND CHRISTINA, 
 
 death," he muttered, as he went back to his 
 chair by the smoking peats ; walking slow 
 and trailing, like a creature that had been 
 wounded. 
 
 Margery perceived that her son had been up 
 all night, that he had not slept, that he was in 
 great sorrow. But she did not reopen the sub 
 ject with him. Where was the use of asking, 
 " What said thou, and what did she answer 
 thee ? " For it was evident that the unhappy 
 husband had come to no understanding with 
 his wife, and Margery was wisely averse to 
 intermeddling between them. 
 
 She felt that it was best for her to go away. 
 Christina had said words which could not be 
 unsaid and. which she would be very likely to 
 reiterate. And there were many people who 
 would be inclined to take Christina's part ; for 
 man or woman complaining of a mother-in-law 
 speaks to a sympathy always forespoken and 
 waiting for them. Indeed, she was well aware 
 that already Christina had been pitied by Isa 
 bel Sabay, because of her presence in the house, 
 She knew that she had said to her : " Not long 
 would Jeppe's mother meddle or make in my 
 affairs ; and if thou would have thy husband
 
 A WILFUL WOMAN. 43 
 
 where a husband should be, them must be the 
 only one to say this or that to him." 
 
 Something of this under-current of averse 
 feeling Margery had long been sensitive to. It 
 was hard to give up her son, but then, as she 
 told herself, he had in a measure already given 
 her up. Once, she had been Paul's firsfthought ; 
 she was now his second. It was to Christina 
 he went first ; it was to Christina he looked for 
 welcome, and sympathy, and society. Perhaps 
 it was her duty to -accept the change as natural 
 and inevitable ; but, oh ! even in the ways of 
 duty a poor mother-heart can suffer a thou 
 sand pangs. 
 
 As she stooped over the turfs and scattered 
 the meal into the boiling water she was in her 
 sorrow quite as miserable as Paul. At sixty 
 years of age changes are not welcome, espe 
 cially when changes involve the giving up of an 
 old home and the removal to a new one. But 
 if it must be done, then Margery felt " it would 
 be well done if soon done ; " and after the 
 breakfast was eaten, she said, " To-day, Paul, I 
 will pack my linen and my clothes and what 
 ever is mine ; and to-morrow thou wilt take me 
 to Voe Ness, JSfot far from Nanna's cottage
 
 44 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 there is one long empty ; it will not be hard to 
 make myself very comfortable there." 
 
 " Mother, I like not such a way as that. My 
 father built this house for thee ; twenty years 
 hath thou lived in it." 
 
 " Well, well ! but now my lease in it is run 
 out I think Paul. Many a time lately I have 
 heard a voice saying to me, ' Go/ When the 
 soul speaks it ought to be obeyed. Yes, 
 indeed ! And it will better for thee to be alone 
 with thy wife ; moreover, what is better for 
 thee is better for me also." 
 
 " When a man is in trouble then he looks to 
 his mother." 
 
 " Sometimes also the trouble is not one 
 which a mother ought to sort. Between thee 
 and Christina I cannot put a word, no, nor a 
 look. She loves me not and, perhaps, I love 
 her not. The last few months have been very 
 hard to me ; and when a women is old she 
 looks to get out of the way of sorrow. So, then, 
 I am going. It is my hope that it will be for 
 thy happiness." 
 
 " There will be many unkind things spoken 
 on this matter ; and what is to be said to the 
 minister? He will surely blame me and how
 
 A WILFUL WOMAN. 45 
 
 can I tell him, ' Well, then, my mother and my 
 wife could not sit down on the same hearth.' " 
 
 " And wilt thou hope to see happiness through 
 the eyes of thy neighbours ? Only a fool does 
 that. What have they to do between thy 
 wife and thee ? Into Christina's hands thou 
 hast put thy welfare. Well, then, from her 
 only can come thy peace and thy prosperity. 
 The third person is the one person not need 
 ful. If I speak, or if I speak not it is the same. 
 My very presence can make the ill-feeling." 
 
 " No, no, my mother ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes, my son. Christina thinks while I 
 am in the house it is not entirely her house. 
 When she is alone she will take more interest 
 in it. Then, also, she will go less to Jeppe 
 Sabay's house. And the same thing will hap. 
 pen about thyself. When I am gone she will 
 not have to share one of thy words or smiles 
 with me ; and she will know that thou hast 
 only her to look after thy comfort and she will 
 be to thee a better wife. That is what I think 
 and hope." 
 
 " I meant not that my wife should push my 
 mother from her fireside. Christina hath a 
 kind heart."
 
 46 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 "Well, then, Christina must not be tried too 
 far. A young wife thinks that she is the only 
 wife in the word. It is years and tears that 
 turn a young wife into an old one. We must 
 not look for more than is natural. Without 
 further words, my Paul, let me go. It will be 
 the best thing for all of us." 
 
 Paul bowed his head and urged her no fur 
 ther. And then Margery, with a very natural 
 inconsistency, felt wounded that he accepted 
 the position with such an apparent relief. But 
 Margery's words had renewed hope in Paul's 
 heart. Perhaps Christina would indeed be 
 kinder and more domestic if she felt herself to 
 be in sole charge of his home and his comfort. 
 He had known sailors who were sulky and 
 inefficient while they had no interest in the 
 boat, turn out brave, prudent, and capable as 
 soon as they had become skippers and owners. 
 He was thinking of the possibilities this idea 
 suggested as his mother spoke ; and he was 
 mentally too slow a man to grasp both sides of 
 a question at once, much less to express a 
 double or a divided interest. 
 
 A day of dull, gray misery followed this con 
 versation. The sea was beaten quiet by the
 
 A WILFUL WOMAN. 47 
 
 constant heavy rain ; the peaty earth was a 
 quagmire, the streets of the little town lonely 
 and empty. Paul wandered about the house, 
 or sat gloomily mending his nets. Christina 
 slept heavily, or pretended to do so. She had 
 refused her breakfast, and declared herself too 
 sick to get up. Margery was packing her 
 personal property. Here and there, scattered 
 among Paul's newer furniture, there were pieces 
 of her own the simple, heavy bed, and table, 
 and chairs, which had been her bridal plenish 
 ing. Paul helped her to put them together, 
 and they spoke drearily the while of the best 
 way to carry them to Voe Ness. 
 
 " The sea way is the best way, mother. 
 Across the moor the road will be to find, and 
 who can tell where it may be ? Sinfather and 
 Slade will take them in their big boats. Thou 
 hast not much ! " 
 
 He said the last words pitifully as he looked 
 with troubled eyes into the sad, still face, 
 bending over the few plain household goods. 
 Truly they did not seem many, or of much 
 value ; but they were Margery's own. They 
 had associations no gold could buy. They 
 had been a part of her life. Her husband and
 
 4 8 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 children had given them a kind of home sanc 
 tity. She would not leave behind even the 
 cumbrous wooden cradle ; when Nanna came 
 to see her, Nanna could lay her little ones in its 
 comfortable shelter. 
 
 The next morning Margery was early up. 
 The rain was over, but there was no sunshine and 
 the outlook was as dismal as her own thoughts. 
 A thick mist muffled the roll of the surf upon 
 the beach, but it seemed to have a voice in it 
 which she vainly tried to understand. Then a 
 flock of plover rose from out of it, and with 
 their plaintive lament went past her on the 
 wind to the inland mosses. She followed 
 their flight with a sigh. Even these winged 
 creatures knew the stress of hunger and the 
 misery of bad weather. Their flight was weary, 
 their cry inexpressibly sad and lonely. 
 
 Paul touched her and she turned with him 
 into the house-place, and poured out the tea 
 and ate her last breakfast with him. Ere she 
 began she looked towards the stairs, and Paul 
 answered the question she did not put into 
 words. 
 
 " No, she is not coming. She is still sick." 
 The meal was short and silent, and when it
 
 A WILFUL WO MAX. 49 
 
 was over Margery said, quietly, " Go, now, for 
 the boats." 
 
 So Paul rose and went for the men and the 
 boats, and while he was away Margery made 
 her final preparations. At the last she went to 
 Christina. The girl appeared to be asleep and 
 her beauty had never before been so evident to 
 Margery. As she stood gazing at her, Christina 
 opened her eyes. 
 
 " I am come to say farewell to thee, Chris 
 tina." 
 
 " Where art thou going?" 
 
 " To Voe Ness ; to be near to my daughter 
 Nanna." 
 
 " I think thou art doing right now. It had 
 been well for me if thou had gone long ere 
 this." 
 
 " That is a thing by itself. We will not 
 enter into any talk about it. Let me kiss thee ; 
 and, I pray thee, be good and kind to Paul, for 
 he loves thee with all his soul." 
 
 " Trouble not thyself about Paul. When we 
 are left to ourselves we shall do as well as 
 other people, no doubt." 
 
 " Well, then, good-bye, Christina ! I have 
 washed the breakfast dishes and the fire is
 
 50 PAUL AND CHRISTINA, 
 
 burning well and the soup for the dinner sim 
 mers beside it." 
 
 She stooped slightly and looked earnestly 
 and kindly into the pretty, rosy face upon the 
 pillow. She hoped that Christina would lift it 
 and give her the kiss of reconciliation and good 
 will which she asked ; but the wilful woman 
 closed her eyes again and with a sleepy yawn, 
 said only, " Well then, good-by, Margery 
 Thorsen. And have thou no fear about Paul, 
 I s-hall manage him now very well." 
 
 In another hour Christina was alone in her 
 house and her authority. The last of Margery's 
 belongings had been removed and she had 
 watched the old woman walk away by Paul's 
 side and take her place in Sinfather's boat. As 
 soon as the boats had put out from the little 
 jetty to the open sea she began to dress her 
 self. She had made up her mind to forgive 
 Paul when he came back and to have ready for 
 him such a pleasant house and such a good 
 meal that he would understand at once Mar 
 gery, and not herself,had been to blame for the 
 discomfort and unhappiness of the past. 
 
 And there were many excuses for Paul if he 
 did not see beyond the things which Christina
 
 A WILFUL WOMAN. 51 
 
 made so agreeable to him. When he returned 
 at nightfall, wet and weary, he found her wait 
 ing with eyes full of tears and heard her mur 
 mur between tender kisses, her regrets and her 
 promises. He looked at the lovely woman and 
 the bright hearth and the comfortable meal 
 and remembered, that Christina, for weal or 
 woe, was a part of his own life ; and it was not 
 only in the way of affection but also of pru 
 dence to make the best of his fate. 
 
 So the wretched day had a happy evening : 
 Christina was full of new plans and hopes. She 
 really now meant to make her husband happy ; 
 and Paul was delighted with the future which 
 she pictured. He believed everything. He 
 hoped everything. He trusted in her again, 
 with all his great, honest soul.
 
 CHAPTER iv. 
 
 THE MINISTER SPEAKS. 
 
 But there's a Fate in Kindness, 
 Still to be least returned where most is given. 
 
 The Book of Life is one in which every one looks for the 
 same page the page of happiness. 
 
 Where sits our sulky, sullen dame, 
 Nursing her wrath to keep it warm, 
 
 SO Christina got rid of Margery, and for a 
 week or two she was sure that she was far 
 happier without her. But gradually, day after 
 day, Margery's worth in household matters was 
 forced upon her. She hated work, and she 
 soon found that she had many more little things 
 to do about the kitchen and table or to leave 
 undone; little things which she had never 
 thought about when they were regularly 
 attended to, but which when neglected made 
 a great difference in Paul's and her own 
 comfort. 
 When she was first married she had been
 
 THE MINISTER SPEAKS. 53 
 
 very proud of her house, and rather disposed to 
 be over-scrupulous about its care and arrange 
 ment. But she had speedily lost her interest 
 in it after her first visit to Isabel Sabay. Isa 
 bel's blue sofa and china tea-cups made her 
 own simpler furniture look contemptible to her. 
 Besides, Isabel was always getting some little 
 ornament or other a pretty vase, or a foreign 
 picture, or a beaded cushion while Paul had 
 certainly spent all the money he intended to 
 spend upon his house. She expected no ad 
 ditions, and could make no changes, and her 
 pretty little parlor had lost all favor in her 
 sight. Gradually all the rooms, except the two 
 in constant use, were neglected ; dust settled 
 upon their furniture, and an air of melancholy 
 pervaded them. 
 
 For into the selfish soil of her nature some 
 veiy evil seed had been dropped. After Mar 
 gery left her she was under no restraining in 
 fluence during the greater part of her time. She 
 went more and more to the Sabays, and her 
 intercourse with Isabel rapidly developed what 
 ever was idle and vain in her character. At 
 Sabay's house, also, she met very foolish young 
 women and reckless men whose lives were an
 
 54 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 alternation of hazardous enterprise and waste 
 ful profusion. 
 
 Their gay dress, their bravado, their gal 
 lantry, touched Christina's imagination. She 
 envied Isabel the pleasure of entertaining 
 them ; she envied the presents they brought 
 her. Her own life appeared so tame and poor 
 when she contrasted it with one into which 
 such stir and mirth and rich returns came. 
 
 And Isabel had frequently told her how 
 glad her husband would be if Paul could be 
 brought to join their enterprises. Indeed, if 
 Christina had known it, Isabel's main reason 
 for encouraging her visits at all was the hope 
 that through her influence Paul might be 
 induced to join Sabay in what they called 
 " the French trade." For few men could 
 manage a boat like Paul Thorsen. In any 
 wind or sea he would take her through 
 races and channels where no other sailor durst 
 venture. 
 
 But Christina believed that it was her beauty 
 and her pleasant manner, graceful dancing and 
 her skill in song and recitation that procured 
 her what she considered the honor of Isabel 
 Sabay's society. So Isabel was the great lady
 
 THE MINISTER SPEAKS. 55 
 
 of Christina's acquaintance, and she paid her 
 such court as fell within her ideas and expe 
 rience to give. The friendship was, however, a 
 hollow one, but it suited both women for 
 reasons of their own to continue it. 
 
 It had always annoyed Paul ; after his 
 mother's departure it began to anger him. 
 Frequently he came home unexpectedly during 
 the day and found his meal uncooked, his door 
 closed and his wife out. At such times he felt 
 sure she had been at Sabay's house although 
 she never would acknowledge it. That was bad 
 enough ; but he feared that very often when he 
 was at the night-fishing Christina was there 
 also. 
 
 He thought of her singing and dancing in 
 such company, or coming -home with it in the 
 small hours of the morning and a passion he 
 felt it difficult to control rose in his heart. His 
 mother's presence had been a protection to her 
 and a shield for her fair name ; but he felt that 
 it was now at the mercy of all who chose to 
 gossip about her. Such suspicions were bad 
 enough to bear, and yet he feared to take any 
 step to dispel his doubts lest he should verify 
 them instead.
 
 5<5 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 One afternoon Christina was going to Isabel 
 Sabay's. There was a young girl with her, and 
 a sailor whose bold swarthy face was set off by 
 a fierce moustache and ringlets of black hair. 
 His blue broadcloth and red sash, and the cut 
 lass in his belt put him far enough apart from 
 the fisherman of the Islands. It was Hal Kui- 
 per, one of the most successful smugglers of 
 the time. Always he was known to leave Hol 
 land with rich cargoes, but there were very few 
 men who ever saw the landing of them. He 
 was continually in danger, and yet so fortunate 
 in escaping that his craft had been popularly 
 named the Luck Penny. She lay that afternoon 
 with an innocent-looking ostentation in the 
 harbor, her raking masts and sternpost, her 
 high bilge and sharp bottom setting her dis 
 tinctively apart from the surrounding fishing 
 boats. 
 
 " Isn't she a darling ? " he said, proudly. 
 " Girls, she's lived through seas that have foun 
 dered a whole fishing fleet seas that ran over 
 her as if she wasn't there and there's some 
 pleasure in bringing a boat through a bad quar 
 ter like that." 
 
 Christina looked admiringly at the bold reck-
 
 THE MINISTER SPEAKS. 57 
 
 less fellow, and he was well inclined to increase 
 her admiration. 
 
 " It was ' touch and go,' on this last trip, I 
 can tell you that. I thought the cutter had us, 
 but our Luck was a bit beyond them. In the 
 very nick of time, up comes a fog to the west 
 ward and she cut into it as clean as if she had 
 been a knife. I knew my whereabouts, but the 
 cutter durst not follow and that night we stole 
 away into a sure place, and I landed every 
 pinch of her cargo." 
 
 They all laughed noisily at Hal's success and 
 Christina with a foolish vanity glanced proudly 
 at the women she met ; for she fancied they 
 must all be envying her attractions and her 
 company. She did not see the small spare man 
 who was following her with quick, determined 
 steps a man dressed in black with a stern face 
 and an air of great authority. 
 
 He speedily passed the group, then he turned 
 and met it face to face. "Christina Thorsen," 
 he said angrily, " I have something now to say 
 to thee." 
 
 She turned pale and looked uneasy. It 
 was the minister, a man with almost papal 
 authority in Shetland. Besides, Dr. Logic
 
 5 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 was not one who spared the rod in the 
 way of his ministry. He winked at no vice 
 and he discussed the eternal prospects of his 
 people with a freedom which made them 
 tremble. 
 
 Christina hesitated, but he took her hand and 
 waving away her companions said to them : 
 "You two can go forward. To-day I have 
 nothing to say to you." 
 
 " Well, then, we are thankful for that," 
 answered the man with a swaggering laugh ; 
 " and thou need not be in a hurry, a long time 
 hence will do." 
 
 "Yet for all that, Hal Kuiper, I will give 
 thee the word of the prophet Jeremiah, ' He 
 that getteth riches and not by right, shall leave 
 them in the midst of his days, and at his end 
 shall be a fool.' " 
 
 Then he turned Christina round toward her 
 home. " Much trouble hast thou given lately 
 to three hearts better than thy own. It is quite 
 time for thee to repent." 
 
 " No wrong have I done, sir." 
 
 " I tell thee plainly thou art wronging thy 
 good husband, and wronging thy good mother, 
 and wronging Margery Thorsen every hour of
 
 THE MINISTER SPEAKS. 59 
 
 thy idle, sinful life. I wonder at Paul's patience 
 with thee ! Thou dost not deserve it. Now 
 then, listen to what I say ; stay at thy house, 
 spin thy wool and do thy work and thy knit 
 ting as all good women in thy station do. 
 Humble thyself to thy husband, confess to him 
 all thy faults and ask his forgiveness with all 
 thy heart. Bring back the good woman thou 
 hast driven from her son's hearthstone, and go 
 thou and comfort thy poor old mother, whom, 
 like a cruel daughter, thou hast altogether 
 neglected. Dost thou hear me ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well then, when thou hast done these 
 things and they have forgiven thee, then come 
 thou to me, and I will pray with thee to thy 
 God. Dost thou hear me?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Listen then. If thou dost them not, 
 then I will certainly refuse to let thee come 
 to the table of the Lord, at the May occa 
 sion." 
 
 "And all this is because I go to see Isabel 
 Sabay ! Cannot a young woman have a little 
 pleasure with her friends?" 
 
 " What is it thou calls pleasure ; dangling
 
 60 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 with such men as Hal Kuiper ? men who 
 break the law and serve the devil for a few 
 sovereigns. I am ashamed of thee, Christina 
 Thorsen." 
 
 " I have done no wrong. I will say that. 
 Yes, I will." 
 
 " Last night, when it was a long while after 
 eleven o'clock, I was returning from John 
 Valzain's death-bed. Where was thy husband 
 then?" 
 
 Christina tapped the ground with her foot 
 and looked over the sea, but she did not answer 
 the question. 
 
 "Where was thy husband? We will stand 
 here until thou tell me." 
 
 "Well then, he was at the ling fishing. That 
 is his business. Can I help it ?" 
 
 "And I saw thee yes, I saw thee plainly 
 through Mistress Sabay's window dancing with 
 this Hal Kuiper devoting the limbs which 
 God made for thee to the service of Satan. 
 And Paul, thy husband, was at the same 
 moment between life and death on the rough 
 sea. Think shame of thyself ! Besides which 
 is it fit that Paul Thorsen's wife should make 
 merry with thieves?"
 
 THE MINISTER SPEAKS. 61 
 
 " They are not thieves ! It is well that Sabay 
 and Kuiper, hear thee not ! " 
 
 " Oh, indeed, I will say it to their faces ! The 
 men that can rob their country would steal out 
 of the Lord's bag if they got a chance. Why 
 land they their cargoes in the night? Dark 
 ness is the lock of God and they do not fear 
 to pick it. They are bad men. I forbid thee 
 to go among them, and I have told thee what 
 to do. See thou do it ! " 
 
 Then he left her. But in a moment he 
 returned and took her by the hand. His stern 
 face had relaxed ; the compassion of heaven 
 was in it. 
 
 " My daughter," he pleaded ; " do the thing 
 that is right, then God and all good men and 
 women will love thee. Surely that is better 
 than the laughter of fools." 
 
 She answered him not for her heart was hot 
 with anger. "This is Paul's doing," she 
 thought. " He has been to the manse com 
 plaining about me. Very well, I shall now 
 give him something to complain about. Yes, 
 I will that." 
 
 She took off her bonnet and sat down in the 
 empty houseplace. In spite of the spring sun-
 
 62 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 shine outside it had a dreary look. The peats 
 were dull, the hearth full of dead ashes ; there 
 was that general air of discomfort and untidi 
 ness about the room indicating the slovenly 
 housewife who hates her work. 
 
 Christina thought of none of these things 
 for the minister's words troubled her very 
 much. The threat he had made was no light 
 one. It was a punishment as severe socially 
 as it was religiously, and she trembled when 
 she considered what its results would be. But 
 nothing like penitence was in her heart only 
 a sullen, rebellious passion at all the circum 
 stances of her life. 
 
 "It is either my mother or Paul that has 
 been talking against me." That was the 
 decision at which she arrived, and as there was 
 still an hour of daylight she determined to see 
 her mother before Paul's return. She was well 
 aware in her own heart that she deserved 
 reproaches, but the thought did not humble 
 her. 
 
 "A young woman who has a husband and a 
 house has much to do. I shall tell my mother 
 that. It was her will that I married Paul. 
 Well then, it is not in two places I can be at
 
 THE MINISTER SPEAKS. 63 
 
 the same time. And it is far less yet, I shall 
 go to my mother's if I find that she has said 
 either good or bad of me to the minister." 
 
 With such thoughts she fed the angry storm 
 within her, until she reached Helga Bork's 
 cottage. The old woman had not seen her 
 daughter's approach for she sat within the house 
 busy with her knitting. There were people 
 who remembered Helga when she had been 
 even fairer than Christina ; but a hard life of 
 exposure, and a hard experience of want and 
 sorrow had robbed her of even that shadow of 
 beauty which ought to linger in old age. 
 
 Yet her face, though weather-beaten and 
 strongly lined, was calm and still, and her large 
 blue eyes had in them the serenity of a soul 
 which has accepted and accomplished sacrifice 
 and suffering. Her dress was of the humblest 
 material : a petticoat and josey of homespun 
 cloth, a tartan kerchief pinned across her breast, 
 and a whitejinen cap with large fluted borders. 
 She lifted her head as Christina crossed the 
 threshold and said, cheerily, " Well, then ! This 
 is a great pleasure. I looked not to see thee, 
 my Christina." 
 
 " That is so. I have heard thou hast been
 
 04 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 complaining of me to the minister. A mother 
 might stand up for her own daughter, but thou 
 wert always hard with me. A great shame 
 thou hast brought on me. I think thou art 
 a cruel mother ! " 
 
 She had wrought herself to a burst of pas 
 sionate weeping, and Helga let her knitting fall 
 and looked at her in amazement. " What art 
 thou saying ? Whenever was I hard and cruel 
 tothee? And how have I shamed thee? Too 
 kind and forbearing I have been ! " 
 
 "What did thou tell the minister about 
 me?" 
 
 " I spoke not to him of thee at all. Did he 
 say that I did? I will go with thee to his 
 house." 
 
 " No, no ! I meant not that. But this is what 
 happened : he insulted me on the open street 
 about thee." 
 
 " I understand it not. What said he ? " 
 
 " That I had altogether neglected thee as if 
 a girl can be daughter and wife also ? " 
 
 " I think that the minister was right. Thou 
 hast certainly altogether neglected and forgot 
 ten me. But I have never said the words only 
 at this moment to thy face," Helga had re-
 
 THE MINISTER SPEAKS. 65 
 
 sumed her knitting, and she spoke very calmly 
 and resolutely. 
 
 " How can I come here and mind also my 
 
 own house ? " 
 
 "Thou art often at Isabel Sabay's." 
 " Isabel is my friend. We have been friends 
 since we were little children." 
 
 "I am thy mother. I carried thee in my 
 arms when thou knew neither thy right hand 
 nor thy left. Is a mother's love to be forgotten 
 when thou hast a husband ? " 
 
 " There are men who think that." 
 "But Paul Thorsen is not among them. 
 Always he walks round by my cottage with the 
 fresh fish I had wanted often but that he re 
 membered me." 
 
 " Paul might have told me that ; then I could 
 have said so to the minister." 
 
 " There are some things even the minister 
 should not meddle in. I have complained not ; 
 I wish then that he had not complained for me. I 
 would not have thee shamed in the open street 
 for my neglect. As for me I have forgiven it. 
 I will speak to the minister that he press thee 
 not in this matter. A mother wants not a 
 forced service."
 
 66 
 
 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 11 Let the minister alone. I will not anger 
 him any further. What dost thou think he 
 said ? If I give not up Isabel he will not let 
 me go to the table." 
 
 " I think thou should give up Isabel. As all 
 the town knows she has much company that 
 is not good company for a young wife. Paul 
 would be glad if thou kept in thy own house." 
 " That is most likely, but Paul is not all the 
 world, I think." 
 
 "I heard that thou had forced Margery 
 Thorsen to go to her daughter. Many hard 
 words have been said about that affair." 
 
 "Oh, indeed! I forced her not away. She 
 went of her own ill-will. But I am right glad 
 she went. I think that she made much trouble 
 between Paul and me. Say that for me." 
 
 " I will tell thee what, Christina. Many are 
 looking to see thee make a false step. Disap 
 point them all. Stay at home and comfort thy 
 husband and give up those bad friends who 
 will be sure to lead thee into sin and trouble. 
 Only the good are happy. This is the truth, 
 my child." 
 
 "Every one is against Isabel and Jeppe 
 Sabay ; but they are very kind to me."
 
 THE MINISTER SPEAKS. $7 
 
 " They are not kind to thee. They are the 
 worst enemies thou hast ; and, as every one 
 knows, Hal Kuiper has taken the devil's 
 trade out of his hand for awhile." 
 
 " I see no harm in Hal. He has a good 
 heart, and a merry one. As for the smuggling, 
 what then? Hal and Jeppe only do openly 
 what many others do slyly behind the minister's 
 back." 
 
 " Yet for all that, the wrong-doers will get 
 into trouble. I am an old woman, Christina, 
 but I never saw anything but shame and punish 
 ment come from the breaking of the Ten Com 
 mandments." 
 
 Then Christina rose and Helga followed her 
 to the door, and as she drew the hood of her 
 blue flannel cloak over her child's fair hair she 
 kissed her tenderly and said, " My Christina, 
 may God's love be about thee! And look 
 into thy own heart, dear child for mind this ! 
 'tis not the sea that sinks the leaking boat, the 
 leak invites the sea."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 AT SORROW'S GATES. 
 
 I waive the quantum o' the sin, 
 
 The hazard of concealing. 
 But, och ! it hardens all within 
 
 And petrifies the feeling ! 
 * * * * * 
 
 To each his suffering ; all are me* 
 
 Condemned alike to groan, 
 The tender for another's pain, 
 
 The unfeeling for his own. j 
 
 /CHRISTINA went home in an unfavorable 
 \j temper for Paul's happiness. She had 
 quite persuaded herself that it was in response 
 to some request of his that Dr. Logic had so 
 pointedly reproved her. A certain habitual 
 respect restrained her feelings and opinions 
 with regard to the minister, but to Paul she 
 was determined to speak veiy plainly. If he 
 listened without sympathy to her complaint, 
 and did not resent the affront as personal to 
 himself also, then she determined to take her 
 life entirely into her own hands.
 
 AT SORROWS GATES. 69 
 
 " And if Paul like it, or if he like it not, my 
 own friends I will choose," she said, with a 
 lofty toss of her head ; " and Paul shall see 
 that I do not take matters in my hands for 
 nothing." 
 
 Her thoughts were entirely in this tenor as 
 she put on the kettle and began to prepare the 
 tea-table. When she opened the cupboard 
 door she breathed a strong, subtile odor, and 
 at that hour it seemed to her a singularly 
 pleasant and exhilarating one the odor of 
 French brandy. Many times lately she had 
 drank it in the form of hot punch at Isabel's ; 
 and the way for the temptation had been fully 
 prepared. 
 
 She never resisted it for a moment. When 
 Paul came to his home an hour afterwards he 
 found her visibly under its influence. It had 
 made her eyes wickedly bright and deepened 
 the rose on her cheek to a vivid scarlet. It 
 had also rendered her foolishly noisy and de 
 fiant. She told Paul what the minister had 
 said, and she laughed with a reckless mirth 
 that made him bite his lips and look at her 
 with a sickening fear and shame. 
 
 Before the dishes were washed, and the
 
 7 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 house tidied, sleep overcame her. With the 
 towel in her hand, she threw herself into a large 
 chair, in the stupor of alcoholic excess. Then 
 Paul stood up and looked at his fallen idol. 
 Love touched him with a wise and prescient 
 sadness. He saw afar off the fate waiting for 
 him. Great tears filled his eyes ; he clasped 
 and unclapsed his strong hands in a pitiful 
 restlessness. Very soon he locked the door, 
 closed the wooden shutters, and sat down in 
 the dull red glow of the peats, to commune 
 with his own heart. 
 
 For an hour there was not a movement in 
 the room, and not a sound but Christina's 
 heavy breathing. Then he uncovered his face, 
 stood up and lit a candle. The first thing he 
 did was to open the door, pour the liquid 
 demon upon the ground, and fling the bottle to 
 the shingle below him. Then he placed his 
 wife in a more comfortable position, and care 
 fully folded his plaid about her. 
 
 He had faced his trouble, and determined by 
 God's help to conquer it. " Perhaps he had 
 been appointed for the salvation of Christina, 
 and for that very reason God had given her to 
 him for a wife." The moment this thought
 
 AT SORROW'S GATES. 7 1 
 
 entered his heart he determined to be a willing 
 and faithful minister, and to work with God 
 cheerfully for that end. 
 
 He knew the boats were waiting for him, but 
 he would not leave Christina alone, and he 
 would not call in even her own mother to see 
 her in that shameful hour. About midnight 
 one of his mates came to tell him that the tide 
 served. 
 
 " I cannot leave my wife to-night," Paul 
 answered ; " she is in a bad way." 
 
 " And very sick she must be," said the man 
 to his companions, " for no one ever saw Paul 
 Thorsen before with a face so white and troub 
 led. He looked as though he had seen death. 
 Indeed he did ! " 
 
 In the chill of the earliest dawn Christina 
 awoke. She was sick and dazed, and had a 
 beating headache. As soon as she moved Paul 
 rose and gave her a cup of the tea he had ready 
 for her. 
 
 "What is the matter, Paul?" she asked; 
 " have I been ill ? " 
 
 Paul had determined not to parley with the 
 sin, and not to excuse a tittle of its shame to 
 her. Still, hard as the words were he said them
 
 72 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 gently and sadly : " Thou hast not been sick, my 
 wife, thou hast been drunk. I stayed from the 
 fishing to care for thee. I did not wish even 
 thy mother to see thee so." 
 
 " Drunk ! " she said the word with a forced 
 indifference, and then laughed. "Well, that is 
 the minister's fault. Now then, thou wilt have 
 something more to tell of me." 
 
 " Dost thou think that I would talk to him, 
 or to any other man, about thy faults ? Little 
 thou knows me ! " 
 
 She glanced furtively up at her husband. 
 He stood on the hearth with dropped eyes, 
 and a very sorrowful face. Her heart smote 
 her. At that moment she felt a real shame for 
 her sin. She went to his side, and said, 
 " Paul, I am sorry. I will do that thing no 
 more !" 
 
 Then he took her to his heart and kissed her. 
 He told her how he had poured out the brandy 
 upon the ground. He said solemnly to her, 
 " For thy sake, dear wife, I will never taste it 
 again. So then, it shall not come into our 
 home and be a temptation to thee." 
 
 She was weeping softly with her head against 
 his breast, and Paul felt keenly the shame, of her
 
 AT SORROW'S GATES. 73 
 
 shame and without making light of the offence 
 he strove to comfort her in her repentance. 
 
 As he went down to the boats that morning 
 many thoughts troubled him. He began to 
 wonder in what direction Christina's danger 
 lay, and he came to the conclusion that she 
 was too much alone. " She gets weary in her 
 solitude, and then there comes the thought of 
 Isabel and the gay company at her house. A 
 young woman wants some one to talk to. My 
 mother pleased her not ; but perhaps then, her 
 own mother may get closer to her heart." 
 
 So he mused as he turned into the road which 
 led to Helga Bork's. He had a great respect 
 for Helga. He was familiar with her sorrows, 
 her faith and patience and industrious poverty ; 
 and it had often been his thought that the 
 child of so good a mother must inherit her vir 
 tues ; and sooner or later make her own and his 
 life sweet with them. 
 
 As he neared the cottage he saw the old 
 woman on the shingle. She had set her creel 
 down among the brown tangle, and she stood 
 looking over the bleak, green surges. It was 
 a good place to talk, and Paul went to her. She 
 heard his footsteps and turned round, and when
 
 74 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 she saw it was Paul a pleasant smile flitted over 
 her strong, sad face, but it was immediately 
 followed by a look of anxiety. 
 
 " Thou hast not come here for nothing, Paul. 
 What then is the matter ? " 
 
 " It is Christina. I am in trouble about her, 
 and I thought of thee first of all." 
 
 " Many good gifts I have had from thee. 
 Now lean upon me in thy sorrow as much as 
 thou can. Has Christina been unkind to 
 thee?" 
 
 " So unkind she has been to herself, mother ! 
 What I have to say is this, and I say it out 
 last night Christina was drunk with brandy." 
 
 Helga took the blow with a pathetic patience. 
 Except in the tightening of her lips and the 
 quivering of her eyelids, she made no sign of 
 the suffering which Paul's words caused her. 
 And though her heart turned sick, yet in the 
 few moments' silence which followed the infor 
 mation she resolutely summoned her soul to 
 face its unlooked-for trial. She had long been 
 used to look out unflinchingly at the worst of 
 life, but for this last terror she was not pre 
 pared. Yet it was characteristic of her that 
 she neither blinked its reality, nor offered Paul
 
 AT SORROWS GATES. 75 
 
 consolations which he must have felt to be out 
 side of all real help. 
 
 " Every house has its cross, my son. Thine 
 is a bitter and a shameful one. Yet I blame 
 thee in some part. At the very first thou 
 should have put thyself between her and Isabel 
 Sabay." 
 
 " When the time for a thing has gone by, 
 then to talk of it is useless. The steps upon a 
 wrong way are neither seen nor heard till the 
 turning-back place is gone by. And to be sure 
 I might also say, ' Why did not thou put thy-, 
 self between Christina and Isabel Sabay?' ' 
 
 " Well, then, there have been reasons. Before 
 her marriage Christina went not among strange 
 people ; and after it, both thee and Christina 
 had perhaps been vexed had I said this or that 
 about her. A mother's heart is a nest of fear 
 ful love. She is not sure which is the right way 
 and the right word when her daughter is mar 
 ried. But now, Paul, I will put every doubt be 
 hind my back and I will work with thee heart 
 and hand in this matter. Only, mind what I 
 say ! Christina's soul is a little soul. It will 
 listen only to what begins and ends in itself. 
 At a weak rope one must pull gently."
 
 76 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " That is also my own thought. And to be 
 hard on Christina is not in my heart. When 
 did thou see her last, mother? " 
 
 "Alas! then I have seen little of her since 
 she was married ! My poor clothing and my 
 heavy toil have been a shame to her ; and be 
 cause I would not have the hard thoughts come 
 to hard words I have stayed away from thy 
 house. And she came not to my house. Also, 
 while thy mother was with her I thought, 
 'surely Christina has a friend and a coun 
 sellor.' " 
 
 " My mother has gone away to Voe Ness." 
 
 " That I heard also and my heart was angry 
 at Christina, and I said to it, ' Keep still ! We 
 will not meddle in this affair. Only bad words 
 can come to us if we do.' But I was sorry for 
 Margery Thorsen and I gave her no blame at 
 all. For when Christina heeds not her own 
 mother it was likely enough that she would be 
 disobedient to thy mother." 
 
 " But now thou must go to thy child. At 
 the end of all talk a mother's words will find a 
 road. Is not God's pleasure in a mother's 
 pleasure ? And God's displeasure in a mother's 
 displeasure? Yes, indeed J"
 
 AT SORROW'S GATES. 77 
 
 " I will go. But I will think about it a little 
 while. To make haste, thou knowest, even in 
 a good work is to please the devil." 
 
 "And thou wilt say no hard word? Go not 
 as if thou knew of my sorrow." 
 
 " Wise and kind I will be. I will utter no 
 reproach ; be sure of that. Why should I ? For 
 none of us shall enter heaven unless God cover 
 us with His mercy." 
 
 Then Paul went away ; walking slowly and 
 treading heavily over the sand shingle. He 
 had gone to Helga to secure her assistance in 
 his trial, but he did not mistrust God's help. 
 And he possessed also that strong, tender soul, 
 which is in itself " a thing that all things 
 serves." Even in the midst of his sorrowful 
 anxiety he could not be selfish ; for as he 
 passed God's bleak acre on the lonely hill-side, 
 he leaned a moment on the low stone wall, 
 lifted his cap and looked at the dead men's 
 graves. 
 
 The sea thundered on the rocks below and 
 the spindrift from the billows drenched the 
 little tufts and knots of harsh grass which 
 covered them : " Peace be to you, my comrades 
 in the graves ! " he said softly. " Peace be to
 
 78 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 you, O people of the graves ! God knoweth us 
 every one. You have passed on before and 
 we are following you." 
 
 As for Helga, she watched him far up the 
 beach, though she was scarcely conscious of 
 her gaze. Then she stooped to her work and 
 for a little while pursued it with apparent inter 
 est and industry, Suddenly, however, she 
 abandoned all further effort and returned 
 with hasty steps to her cottage. She put the 
 bar across the door and for some time wept 
 bitterly. 
 
 Nothing on earth is so pitiful as this passion 
 of sorrow in an old man or an old woman. We 
 feel as if they ought to have outlived such 
 storms. Every tear in age-dimmed eyes is a 
 reproach on some outrageous and unnatural 
 grief. Never since the loss of her husband 
 and sons had Helga so wept. The pains of 
 childbed, of babies dying at her breast; the 
 sharp endurance of her children's wants and 
 the forgetfulness of her own ; her hard labor 
 and hard fare and poor clothes, and all her 
 daily shifts and struggles had at least been 
 natural sufferings. 
 
 But Christina's cold ingratitude, her shame
 
 AT SORROW'S GATES. 79 
 
 of her home-spun dress and common toil, her 
 evident dislike to her presence in her finer 
 house, and the shadow of the sin and disgrace 
 following hard after her, were sorrows beyond 
 nature. Neither did weeping relieve her as 
 weeping relieves the young. When life is west 
 ering the clouds often return after the rain; and 
 when her passion of sorrow was over and a 
 strange sad stillness had succeeded it she was 
 still uncomforted and heavy-hearted. 
 
 After a while she washed her face, put on 
 her Sabbath dress and taking some wool of an 
 exquisite fineness from a chest she went to see 
 her daughter. 
 
 Christina was sitting over the fire pale and 
 heavy-eyed. The house had not been cleaned 
 or swept, and she was in the dress she had worn 
 the previous afternoon. A book stained and 
 torn lay upon her lap. Helga lifted it. " The 
 Smuggler's Bride " was its title. 
 
 " Why wilt thou read such books Christina ? 
 They are not fit for a good woman to read." 
 
 " I like them ; then will I read them. They 
 pass the time. Why should I not read them ? " 
 
 " It is a hard thing to 'pass time' without 
 hurting eternity And it is not good to read
 
 8o PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 books in which one gets acquainted with the 
 devil." 
 
 "The days are so long. The book makes 
 the hours short." 
 
 " I will tell thee a good way to make the 
 hours short. See what I have brought thee ! " 
 
 Then she showed her the soft white wool. 
 
 " For two years I have been saving the best 
 bits I found on the furze, because it was in rny 
 heart to knit thee a shawl fine enough for a 
 fairy. Now then, spin thou the wool for me 
 for thou art a good spinner spin it fine as a 
 spider's web if thou wilt, and in the winter I 
 will knit thee a shawl ; there shall not be such a 
 shawl in Shetland I promise thee." 
 
 " Thou art very kind, my mother, but I like 
 not such shawls. I have a friend who is going 
 to bring two shawls of China crape to Isabel Sa- 
 bay, and one of them is for me." 
 
 " Take it not Christina unless Paul pay the 
 price of it. People will talk ill of thee." 
 
 " Why should I lose my shawl for ill 
 tongues ? Let them talk. ' ' 
 
 " But it will grieve thy good husband." 
 
 " Speak not to me of such things. It is the 
 Sabays thou art coming to, I know that. My
 
 AT SORROWS GATES. 8 1 
 
 friends are they, and I will hear no ill said of 
 them." Then a sudden thought struck the young 
 wife and she asked sharply, "Was Paul at thy 
 house this morning ? " 
 
 " He was not at my house, but I saw him on 
 the shingle as I was looking for bait." 
 
 " And he told thee to come here? " 
 
 " He asked me to come and see thee as often 
 as I could. He thought thou wanted more 
 company, and he hoped thou would be glad to 
 see me. Art thou ? " 
 
 Christina bit her lips and remained silent. 
 
 "Art thou lonely?" 
 
 " Yes, I am lonely, and it seems also as if it 
 were a sin for a young woman to have a few 
 pleasant friends." 
 
 " Is there aught I can do for thee? I am thy 
 mother. Better than my life I love thee. Speak 
 to me from thy heart." 
 
 " There is nothing. Have I not a fine house 
 and a silk kirk dress and a good husband ? " 
 
 " Yet thou dost not look happy. What then 
 is thy trouble, Christina? " 
 
 " It is this," she cried passionately. " I hate 
 my life ; what is there in it but cooking and 
 spinning, and saying, ' Dear Paul ! ' '
 
 Sz PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 ''Think of the things that are not in it! 
 What if thou had poverty, and pain, and scold 
 ing, and hatred in it. Many women would 
 thank God for thy lot." 
 
 " Little would please them. There are women 
 who travel and see strange places, and who 
 have one fine thing after another. This sum 
 mer Isabel Sabay is going with her husband to 
 Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and to many other 
 towns in Holland.. Jeppe Sabay is something 
 of a man." 
 
 " He is not to be named with thy Paul. He 
 is not fit to sit in the same boat with him." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! Thou knows nothing at all, 
 mother. Jeppe Sabay has some spirit in him ! 
 As for Paul Thorsen, he will carry the nets till 
 he die or drown." 
 
 " Christina, my child " 
 
 "Talk not to me. Thou let me marry when 
 I was far too young, thou did that. I was so 
 young I knew not what was most to my liking. 
 I had seen only such men as Paul, thou told me 
 that the men who went to Glumm's, and Hays, 
 and Sabay's, were bad men not to be spoken 
 to by any good woman. And I believed thee. 
 So then I married Paul Thorsen, and it has been
 
 AT SOXROtV'S GATES. 8j 
 
 a great wrong to me, and the wrong has 
 brought misery, and the misery may bring 
 worse." 
 
 " Be just to thy mother, Christina. When 
 thou said to me, ' I will marry Paul Thorsen 
 and then I shall have my own way and go when 
 and where I want to go/ I told thee, ' If thou 
 marry for such a thing as that thou wilt bring 
 misery to a good man's home. That was what I 
 said to thee." 
 
 " Well, well ! I see that nothing will come of 
 our talk. Let us be quiet." 
 
 " Be not angry at my words " 
 
 " I am not angry ; only our chimneys will 
 smoke better far apart." 
 
 " It seems to me thou art in a way full of 
 danger. Go thou to the minister and he will 
 give thee the best of advice." 
 
 " I will not go near him, and I will not listen 
 to him if he come here. What has he to do 
 with my life ? Every stranger who comes to 
 Shetland laughs at us because we are all young 
 and old under his hoof. They say he is worse 
 than the Pope of Rome." 
 
 Helga reddened with anger. "Thou shalt 
 not speak of God's messenger in such a way. It
 
 84 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 is to call him no better than Antichrist. I will 
 not listen to thee. Oh, Christina ! if thou 
 would speak honestly to me ! What shall I do 
 for thee ? " 
 
 " There is nothing thou can do for me. I 
 shall find out my own way. I have a head 
 ache. We will not talk any more now." 
 
 " If thou art sick let me clean up the house 
 and put on the dinner." 
 
 " No ; when thou art gone I will do well 
 enough." 
 
 The words pained Helga and she rose sadly 
 and went away. 
 
 For a moment or two Christina looked after 
 the stout, homely figure in its long blue flannel 
 cloak and white linen cap, and she thought, " I 
 wonder how I ever came to be her child. John 
 Vandam says I am a cuckoo in a titlark's 
 nest." 
 
 Then she listlessly tidied up her house ; but 
 she pitied herself all the while for the mistake 
 Providence had made concerning her birth, 
 quite unconscious of the fact that she was of 
 all her mother's children the least worthy of 
 the nest.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADOWS ARE." 
 
 In struggling with misfortune, 
 Lies the true proof of virtue. 
 
 Love, anguish, wrath, and grief to madness wrought, 
 Despair, and secret shame, and conscious thought 
 Of inborn worth. 
 
 By slow degrees his reason drove away 
 The mists of passion and resumed her sway. 
 
 FOR some days after this Paul remained 
 much with his wife. He had business to 
 attend to but he let it wait, and though he was 
 only a fisherman no mailed knight was ever 
 more chivalrous in passing by a wrong. In his 
 own way he comprehended that in true 
 marriage there must be a tie of patience as 
 well as of love ; and that the acknowledgment 
 and forgiveness of faults was a far better veil 
 for them than a blind admiration refusing to 
 see their existence. 
 
 And Christina, who was by no means deficient 
 in intelligent observation, was quite sensible 
 of all her husband's noble consideration for her. 
 There were hours in which she contrasted him 
 with her favorite heroes and yet deliberately
 
 86 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 set him above them. " If I had crossed Dirke 
 Biron, or Hal Kuiper as 1 have crossed Paul/' 
 she mused, " little they would have thought of 
 striking me. They and I had been fighting 
 long ere this. But Paul is good. And last 
 week when the storm was raging, and the little 
 Bread Winner was beating herself to match 
 wood on the Sandwich Rock, it was my Paul 
 who put his hand first upon the boat and who 
 asked, 'Who's coming?' But Paul is brave. 
 And I will not let Isabel say the first word 
 against him any more ; I won't that. For he 
 is far more handsome also than Jeppe Sabay, 
 who is black-looking, and who moves as slowly 
 as if he had lead in his boots." 
 
 Very often she mused in this strain, for 
 people do not grow evil all at once. And the 
 dissatisfaction Christina had expressed to her 
 mother was exaggerated by her condition of 
 shame and physical suffering, and it was, as yet, 
 only intermittent in character. In the main, 
 Paul and Paul's love seemed very good to her, 
 and at such times Paul believed himself to be 
 the happiest of husbands. 
 
 One beautiful day when the June tides were 
 " lipping " full upon the beach, the boats were
 
 "FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADOWS ARE." 87 
 
 leaving early for the herring ground and 
 Christina went down to the pier to watch Paul 
 away. She fluttered her kerchief as he sailed 
 out of harbour and called to him a wish for a 
 " lucky cast." She wore a short petticoat and 
 little josey of the fisher's wife the dress he 
 liked to see her in best of all others. And her 
 fair rosy face was so smiling, and her words so 
 loving and chesry, that Paul blessed her as she 
 stood in the blowing wind and thought her the 
 sweetest woman that God had ever made. 
 
 As she walked homeward through the town 
 some one called her. She stopped and looked 
 up. It was Isabel Sabay. Now Christina had 
 purposely avoided her house, but Isabel was 
 visiting an acquaintance and the temptation, 
 so sudden and so great, was not one which 
 Christina could resist. 
 
 "Whatever has there come between us, 
 Christina? Here have been Hal Kuiper and 
 Dirke Biron,and I know not who beside, watch 
 ing for thee. Yesterday Dirke went by thy 
 house, but Paul Thorsen was walking in the 
 yard as sulky as a watch-dog." 
 
 " There is no one can say truly that Paul 
 Thorsen is sulky. But he likes not Dirke, and
 
 88 PAUL AND CHRISTINA* 
 
 a man may show his mind, I think, without any 
 fault-finding." 
 
 " I think so, too. I know Jeppe Sabay does. 
 But all this is talk to no purpose. What I 
 want to say is a thing by itself. I am going to 
 make thee a good offer. Jeppe will take me to 
 Holland soon go thou with me. Ask Paul." 
 
 " I am sure that Paul will say ' No, thou must 
 stay at home.' " 
 
 " Ask him. Thou can surely get that much 
 out of him, and thee still wearing thy bride 
 clothes." 
 
 " Well, I will ask him. - I wish that he may 
 let me go." 
 
 "So many strange places and things we 
 shall see! 'And on the Dutch shore there are 
 dances every night, and pleasure and company 
 all the day. Thou wilt find out how beautiful 
 thou art there ; and as it is the fishing season, 
 Paul will not miss thee much. And I have 
 said I shall have little fun without thee ; for 
 Sabay will have this and that and the other to 
 do, and I care not to walk about strange places 
 all by myself. As for inoney, that is not thy 
 thought. I will pay every penny. Thou wilt 
 go, wilt thou not, Christina ? "
 
 "FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADOWS ARE." 89 
 
 Christina had caught her friends enthusiasm 
 by this time, and her face was glowing with 
 delight. It was precisely the thing, which of 
 all other things, she most desired. She would 
 not believe that Paul could deny her such a 
 great pleasure ; especially as during the herring 
 season he would be a great deal from home. 
 She thought about the plan all night ; it took 
 entire possession of her; she rose in the morn 
 ing with a determination to accomplish the 
 project, no matter what obstacles she had to 
 encounter. 
 
 The next morning she was at the door 
 watching for Paul, and afar off the happy hus 
 band saw her. His heart was so light with 
 pleasure that he came towards the house sing, 
 ing the " Casting Song." 
 
 Cast the nets over the side, cast the nets, 
 Fling them far and wide, fishers brave. 
 
 Christ with the fishers sat side by side ; 
 Be still, O wind and wave ! 
 
 Cast the nets over the side, cast the nets ! 
 
 This is your portion, fishers brave. 
 Christ with the fishermen broke His bread 
 
 Be still, O wind and wave ! 
 
 Cast the nets over the side, cast the nets ! 
 
 God feedeth the fishermen brave ; 
 Only from God do they take their bread : 
 
 Be still, O wind and wave !
 
 90 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 Cast the nets over the side, cast the nets ! 
 
 Fling them far and wide, fishers brave ! 
 Christ with the fishers sat side by side : 
 
 Be still, O wind and wave. 
 
 " Be still, O wind and wave ! " Christina 
 caught up the last line as a greeting, and their 
 voices mingled happily until his kiss broke the 
 melody. Her beauty, her smiles, her little 
 charming anxieties about his comfort touched 
 Paul to the very happiest depths of his nature. 
 He felt so proud of her; so grateful to her. 
 He thought he had never eaten so delicious a 
 breakfast. 
 
 But his pleasure was soon cruelly cut short, 
 for as he sat smoking after it Christina 
 said : 
 
 " Paul, I have a great thing to tell thee, 
 Isabel Sabay is going with her husband to Hol 
 land and she wants me to go with her. She 
 will pay all the money that is to pay ; so, then, 
 it will cost thee nothing at all. Now, Paul, 
 kits me, and say cheerfully to me that I may 
 go. It will be such a joy to me." 
 
 His heart sank like lead. He kept his face 
 bent and Christina saw that every moment it 
 grew sterner. At length he spoke, but slowly 
 and as if each word cost him an effort : " This
 
 "FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADOWS ARE." 91 
 
 is the hardest time in all the year for the fisher 
 men, my Christina. Thou knowest that. Who 
 will care for my food and clothes ? " 
 
 " My mother will come here ; she will be sure 
 to come. She will do very well for thee for' a 
 few weeks about five weeks, that is all." 
 
 He looked steadily then into her fair, eager 
 ly-lifted face ; and his eyes filled with hot 
 tears when he saw in it the anxiety to leave 
 him. This then, was the meaning of all 
 her pretty desire to please and comfort him. 
 He felt her affectionate caresses to be at that 
 moment an insult and a treachery. The pres 
 sure of her face against his shoulder hurt him, 
 and he said with a grave anger : " So thou 
 wants to go with Sabay and his wife,and Sa- 
 bay's wild crew to Holland ? I have good 
 knowledge how they drink and dance, and live 
 at these Dutch ports. Thou would be in the 
 heart and heat of one of the devil's rendezvous. 
 I tell thee thou shalt not go. It would be a 
 sin and a shame to even hear thee talk of such 
 a thing. Speak no more of it." 
 
 " Paul, dear Paul, let me go ! " 
 
 " It is an invite from the devil. Thou shalt 
 not go ! "
 
 9 2 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " Then I tell thee it shall be a bad thing for 
 thee." 
 
 ' Thou cannot frighten me into sin. A man 
 who believes in God does not fear the devil. 
 He has only to do right, and all will come right. 
 Yes, surely ! " 
 
 " Now listen to me if I do wrong it will be 
 thy fault." 
 
 " It would be my fault if I sent thee to a 
 school to learn wrong. I will never do that." 
 " I will go with Isabel now, without thy 
 'Yes ' or thy ' No ' in the matter." 
 
 He stood up and laid his hands upon her 
 shoulders. 
 
 " If thou doest that I will never speak to 
 thee again. If thou leaves my house against 
 my will, I tell thee one thing, never dare to 
 come back to it. I will lock my heart, and my 
 door against thee. I will go away go to 
 where I shall never see thy face any more." 
 
 Christina had seen angry men often, but 
 never such anger as Paul's cool, stern, mighty 
 wrath, expressing itself in words, calm and slow 
 and positive. His face blazed, and his eyes 
 terrified her. For a few moments he was the 
 Thor's son of a thousand years ago. She
 
 "FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADOWS ARE:' 93 
 
 shivered beneath his grasp and his look. Then 
 he remembered himself, and asked, 4< Did I hurt 
 thee ? I meant not that, my wife ! I would 
 hurt myself before thee*" 
 
 Christina did not answer him. She drew 
 herself away from his hands, and he could see 
 that a silent, rebellious spirit had taken posses 
 sion of her. 
 
 This event was a trial to Paul, as amazing as 
 it was unexpected. He had long felt that his 
 refusal to join Sabay in his ventures of sinful 
 profit and risk had made the man his enemy ; 
 and Christina's persistent friendship with his 
 family had been personally a great mortifica 
 tion to him. For a husband feels that a true 
 wife will espouse his cause and make his likes 
 and dislikes, in a great measure, her own. And 
 he could hardly bring himself to believe that 
 Christina was willing to desert him during the 
 hardest period of his toil, in order to be a com 
 panion to Sabay's wife. For after a hard night 
 on the sea he expected a restful home, a cheer 
 ful wife, and such attention to the creature- 
 comforts of food, and sleep, and clothing, as 
 made his toil possible to him. 
 
 He could not bear to think that Christina
 
 94 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 was willing to leave him to the care of others, 
 while she loitered and danced her hours away 
 with Jeppe and Isabel Sabay and such wickedly- 
 foolish company as they chose to take her into. 
 Setting aside the moral delinquency of Chris 
 tina's choice, the personal neglect and indiffer 
 ence which it involved towards himself wounded 
 and angered him beyond endurance. 
 
 He scarcely knew how to meet the circum 
 stance : but one thing, however, he was sure of 
 Christina should not go! He told himself 
 that it would be a sin to suffer her to do so. 
 " If it were for her good, or even for her inno 
 cent pleasure," he thought, " I would put away 
 my own like or dislike, and I would be glad 
 that the little one should be happy." Yes, lie 
 was quite sure that in such a case self-denial 
 would have been easy to him ; and by this test 
 he was equally sure that when her pleasure 
 involved present, and perhaps future sin, he 
 was quite justified in setting his face resolutely 
 against her gratification. 
 
 He looked again and again at his silent wife, 
 listlessly attending to the household duties, 
 which ought to have been such a pleasure to 
 Jier. Ever.y movement she made was .scorn-
 
 "FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADOWS ARE." 95 
 
 fully eloquent of her profound contempt for, 
 and her weariness of, her humble life. And so 
 complex is the human soul, that in the midst 
 of his own wretched outlook, he found himself 
 watching curiously the ambitious, dissatisfied 
 woman ; and thinking in a drifting way of the 
 angels in heaven, who, through ambition, fell 
 from heaven to hell. 
 
 " Dissatisfied with their lot, like Christina, 
 they were wanting to be greater than God made 
 them ! So ! so ! Envy, hatred, murmuring* 
 would follow ; and every fresh sin would call 
 for its mate. Yes, indeed! the road from 
 heaven to hell was easy enough, even for the 
 angels. How much more so for my little Chris 
 tina? Yet, if she would forget herself and lean 
 upon the Crucified One, then all things would 
 be possible to her." 
 
 Perhaps the mind is never so inclined to 
 speculation, and to run into side issues of all 
 kinds, as when some great trouble has oven 
 whelmed it. Paul had to keep recalling him, 
 self from aimless and irrelevant matters, some of 
 them quite trivial and out of sympathetic rela. 
 tion to the real question of his heart and head. 
 
 He grew impatient under an experience so
 
 9<> PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 little understood by him ; for with men like 
 PaulThorsen it is not the brain so much as the 
 heart which beats and hammers out the pur 
 poses of life into action. And as he saw from 
 Christina's manner that she would not be rea 
 soned with, he bethought himself of going into 
 the town. He felt that for him the endurance 
 of sorrow was not all. There must be some 
 thing to be done. 
 
 So he rose and lifted his cap. Christina 
 shrugged her shoulders and began to sing. He 
 could not have told what she was singing, but 
 the music irritated him like a slap in the face. 
 
 " Wilt thou be quiet," he said. " Thou hast 
 made me very miserable; I care not to hear 
 thee singing over thy cruel work." 
 
 " Well then, singing is the only pleasure thou 
 has left me; " and she looked him steadily in 
 the face as she lilted gaily, 
 
 " I have lost my land, I have lost my gold, 
 
 I never shall be as bonnie again, 
 My friends are double, my lover is cold, 
 But I'm blithe, I'm blithe, that my heart's my ain ! " 
 
 She had unbound her fine yellow hair, and 
 she sat upon a little stool, slowly combing out 
 its shining lengths. There was something so
 
 "FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADOWS ARE." 97 
 
 mocking, so bewitching, so nixie-like in her ap 
 pearance, that Paul trembled, ^.nd was fasci 
 nated. For a moment the old pagan leaped up 
 in his soul. He could have lifted her in his 
 arms and yielded to the enchantress all the 
 moral glory of his manhood. But the tempta 
 tion was swift as thought and it was instantly 
 followed by the mightier influnce of the Chris 
 tian generations more immediately behind him. 
 The spirit of his fathers strengthened him, and 
 he was instantly aware of all the resisting 
 power which centuries of the grand austerity 
 and profound mystery of Calvinism can give a 
 man. 
 
 Without another look, without a word, he 
 left her ; though he felt as if it was his life's 
 eleventh month, and all things were going to 
 decay with him love and honor and happiness 
 nearly over. He went down to the pier and 
 without making many direct inquiries he found 
 out that Sabay would sail in five days. Then 
 he walked up the beach and hid himself in a 
 lonely cave, where his only companions were 
 the seals and the blue pigeons. They hardly 
 minded him. The pigeons went cooing about 
 their affairs, and an old seal grandmother,
 
 98 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 white with age, lay pensively at the water-side 
 watching him. She was surrounded by her 
 children and grandchildren, nursing mothers 
 and babies, but after a look at Paul she did not 
 even think it necessary to send away the little 
 ones of the party. Men think one thing, ani 
 mals another, but who can tell how close to the 
 truth animals may come ? Evidently the old 
 seal knew that Paul was not that day dangerous. 
 Indeed, he scarcely noticed her. His thoughts 
 were all with Christina, and as the still hours 
 went by they gradually became calmer and ten 
 derer thoughts. When he rose to return home 
 he had determined to put Christina upon her 
 honor, and yet not to leave her to destruction, 
 if her honor failed her. 
 
 He spoke to her gravely, but yet kindly. 
 "Christina, thee and I will not quarrel for 
 Sabay and his wife, I will tell thee what shall 
 be done. When the Fisherman's Foy is over, 
 then I will take thee to Orkney to see my Uncle 
 Paul. I am his namesake, and he likes me well ; 
 and he will like thee also, I am sure of that. 
 He is a rich man and he has a fine large house 
 in Kirkwall. There is no finer house in the 
 Islands."
 
 " FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADO WS ARE." 99 
 
 " I care nothing for the Orkneys, nor for thy 
 Uncle Paul. Let me go with Isabel." 
 
 " I will not ! But perhaps, if I do well this 
 summer I will take thee to see Edinburgh. 
 There are some fishing boats from Leith here, 
 and I could afford to bring thee back by the 
 mail packet." 
 
 " I want to go with Isabel." 
 
 " Now listen to me. I forbid thee to go with 
 her. I forbid thee to speak to her. I put my 
 honor and my happiness in thy hands. Chris 
 tina ! Christina ! do not break my heart ! " 
 
 " Whatastirthou makes about nothingatall." 
 
 " It is not nothing. It is everything to thee 
 and to me. Promise me what I ask. Wilt 
 thou not speak to me ? Very well, then I shall 
 bring thy mother here to be between thee and 
 Isabel when I am away." 
 
 " No, thou shalt not set a spy over me. If 
 thou wilt force a promise from me, take it." 
 
 It was an ungracious concession, but Paul 
 was glad of even so much, though he went to 
 the fishing very anxious and heavy-hearted. 
 Without seeming to watch Sabay, he was pain 
 fully on the alert. But he perceived nothing 
 unusual in Christina's manner or movements
 
 loo PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 until the morning of the fifth day. Then he 
 saw a kind of furtive and tremulous way about 
 her, quite foreign to her usual mood. How 
 ever, he dressed himself for the boats, and went 
 away at the proper hour. But he did not sail 
 with them. 
 
 At the end of that pier at which Sabay'sship 
 was anchored, there was a shed used for shel 
 tering nets and ropes, and oars, etc. From this 
 shed Paul watched the fishing fleet drift out into 
 the bay ; and then he noticed a busy excite 
 ment on Sabay's craft. Her crew were evi 
 dently preparing to sail at a moment's notice. 
 Presently he heard Sabay, who stood against 
 the rail, give orders to crowd on every inch of 
 canvas ; and no sooner was this done than he 
 saw Isabel and Christina yes, it was Christina 
 hurrying to the ship. 
 
 In a moment he stood face to face with his 
 wife. There were a number of people on the 
 pier and he was anxious above all things to 
 spare her good name. 
 
 "Thou turn back with me." 
 
 He said the words in the same stern, quiet 
 tone which had before terrified her, and as he 
 spoke he grasped her hand firmly.
 
 "FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADOWS ARE." IOI 
 
 "Let her go with me, Paul Thorsen. No 
 harm shall come to her." 
 
 "I will take care of that myself, Mistress 
 Sabay. Come, Christina, I am in a hurry to 
 get home." 
 
 "Let her go with me, Thorsen. I promise 
 
 "I will fling her into the sea first, that I 
 will;" and he looked at the moment quite 
 capable of it. 
 
 " Well, thou art a brute, Paul Thorsen ! " 
 
 " Anything is better than a bad woman. Go 
 thy own way, but my wife shall not go with 
 thee." 
 
 There was no resisting the strong will and 
 the strong hand of the man. Christina durst 
 not even weep or implore. " Keep thy tears 
 and thy tongue," he said, " until we are alone. 
 Would thou have the whole town know that 
 thou wert running away from thy husband and 
 thy duty and thy home ? " 
 
 And as they walked together through the 
 town the women looked curiously at them. 
 What was Paul doing in his fisher's dress on 
 the streets at that hour, all the boats being at 
 sea? Besides which it was evident that some-
 
 102 PAUL AND CHRISTIKA. 
 
 thing unpleasant had happened, and that they 
 they were ill friends. But none yet guessed 
 the anguish of the strong man's heart. 
 
 For awhile Paul trembled in the great horror 
 of darkness that had gathered round him. All 
 his old, peaceful, profitable life was broken up; 
 his mother banished from his hearth, shame 
 and sin crouching by his doorstep, and the 
 misery was one from which not a portion 
 of his life could escape. How was he to 
 bear it ? 
 
 This was the question he was trying to solve, 
 tvhile Christina lying awake miserable and 
 angry heard him walking the houseplace all 
 through the summer night. But just at dawn 
 ing there came to him the word the only word 
 that in the great shipwrecks of life has power 
 to save, Love. As soon as he comprehended 
 it he was strong and the future became possible 
 to him. 
 
 Love. Christina should not wear out his 
 love. It should be strong as death and pitiful 
 as heaven. As Christ gave his life for him, so 
 afar off, but with true self-abnegation, he would 
 give his life to save the soul so dear to his soul. 
 He would be patient to her. He would for-
 
 "FOLDED CLOSE THE SHADOWS ARE." 103 
 
 give her seventy times seven if it should be 
 needful. 
 
 " Patient ! patient ! " he whispered ; " patient 
 unto the very end of life, and then? Then at 
 the bottom of patience there is heaven,"
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN WAY. 
 
 Could but the eyes that grow so dim 
 
 Beside a solitary fire 
 Look forth beyond the horizon's rim 
 
 And see the coming ship Desire, 
 Up like a flame the heart would leap ; 
 Although slow hours their watch must keep. 
 
 A man whose heart the rainiest moods 
 Leave softer and without a blot. 
 
 'T^HERE are hours that make the heart gray 
 JL and leave the hair untouched ; and min 
 ute by minute some of them were doled out to 
 Paul after he had brought Christina back to 
 her home. She had no sense of shame about 
 her intended sin ; she was only conscious of her 
 disappointment. Sullenly she threw herself 
 into a chair, and there was an air of mockery 
 and defiance on her face. 
 
 Paul stood at the window looking wistfully 
 over the sea. Far out on the horizon the her 
 ring fleet was at anchor, and he knew the men
 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN WAY. 105 
 
 were busy casting the nets. He felt all the 
 bitterness of the shameful tie which kept him 
 from his mates and his honest labor; and there 
 was a stern and righteous anger in his heart. 
 
 He waited long for Christina to speak. There 
 was indeed no excuse for her conduct ; but 
 surely she would express some contrition for it. 
 Christina had no such intention. She had fully 
 made up her mind to stand by the position she 
 had taken. And some kind of instinct advised 
 her to let Paul be the one to open any dispute 
 on the matter. She felt without being able to 
 analyze or comprehend the feeling that it 
 would be easier to stand upon the defensive 
 than to utter reproaches or to attack Paul's 
 position. So she suffered a dumb devil to take 
 possession of her, and with lowering brows and 
 dropped eyes she sat motionless and indifferent. 
 
 The dinner hour passed, the afternoon shad 
 ows grew longer, Paul was faint and hungry, 
 but Christina remained in an apparent apathy, 
 regardless and immovable. At length the silent 
 tension became intolerable and Paul turned 
 to her and said, " Christina, put on the kettle. 
 I want tea, and some bread and some fish." 
 
 She was as one that heard not. Her eyelids
 
 Io6 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 never moved, there was not a flicker of con 
 sciousness in her face. 
 
 "Wilt thou do as I wish?" 
 
 Then she began to tap the floor with her foot, 
 and a blaze of angry color dyed her cheeks 
 crimson. 
 
 " If thou wilt not make my tea then I must 
 send for thy mother to do thy duty for thee." 
 
 "As it pleases thee." 
 
 " Christina, for God's sake have some pity ! 
 What have I done to deserve thy cruelty and 
 the open disgrace thou hast put upon me?" 
 
 " Oh ! indeed, then. It is I who have been 
 shamed and made a town's talk of by thee ! A 
 kind husband thou art ! It was an ill day for 
 me when I married thee. Yes, indeed, it was ! " 
 
 " Wilt thou make my meal ? " 
 
 " No, I will not." 
 
 " Well, then, I must make it myself." 
 
 She let him do so, watching with lifted brows 
 and mocking smiles his sad, unhandy efforts. 
 For, though Paul was like most sailors, a very 
 fair cook on board a ship, he was unfamiliar 
 with household methods and utensils, and he 
 was constantly irritated at the number of little 
 difficulties he had to encounter.
 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN WAY. 107 
 
 But at length the tea was ready, Christina 
 had watched her husband lay her cup and plate, 
 and she had been debating with herself whether 
 she should share the meal or not. Her temper 
 urged her to fast, her appetite ordered her to 
 eat ; and in Christina the animal passion was 
 the strongest. Without waiting for Paul's 
 request she sat down at the table and helped 
 herself to the food prepared. After watching 
 her a moment Paul said, " The grace words 
 have not been said, Christina ; but indeed, then, 
 it would be a mockery to ask God to bless such 
 a meal as this. I fear me that it is the devil 
 who makes the third with us this day." 
 
 " I think that, too." 
 
 " Well, then, be sorry for the wicked deed 
 that it was in thy heart to do and let us make 
 an end of the trouble." 
 
 " Thou only art to blame for it. There was 
 no harm in going to Holland with the Sabays. 
 Openly and in the sight of all I asked thee to 
 let me go and thou would not. Very well then, 
 thou forced me to tell thee a lie and to put my 
 self in a corner for fingers to point at. I thank 
 thee not for such unkindness. Moreover, thou 
 shalt be very sorry yet for the thing thou hast
 
 I08 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 done this day. In a few weeks I shall not be in 
 thy debt." 
 
 " How can thou say such cruel words? For 
 thine own honor for thine own good, I stopped 
 thee. Ask from me any lawful, innocent pleas 
 ure and I will give thee it; yes, though I sell 
 the house to find the means." 
 
 " I have asked two things of thee. Both of 
 them thou hast refused. I will ask no more 
 then." 
 
 " Thou asked me to break the laws, to put 
 myself away from the love of God and the re 
 spect of good men to run the danger of im 
 prisonment and chains and exile. What good 
 wife would ask a thing like that ? Once more, 
 thou asked me to let thee go with drunkards 
 and thieves and foolish women to dance and 
 idle away thy life in a land that is not thy home, 
 and among men and women who are and who 
 ought to be strangers to thee. Wicked and 
 cruel I would have been to have let thee have 
 thy way in such matters." 
 
 " I care not. I would far rather be with 
 them than with thee." 
 
 He drew his lips tightly, the tears sprang 
 into his eyes and he struck the table with his
 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN WAY. 109 
 
 clenched fist a blow that made the tea cups 
 shiver. 
 
 " Listen to me ! Thou art my wife. Whether 
 thou love me, or love me not, I love thee ! I 
 love thee so well that I will not let Jeppe and 
 Isabel Sabay drive thee to the devil if I can help 
 it. So then thou shalt do my will, Christina. Like 
 a wicked, unruly child I will treat thee if thou 
 disobey me again." 
 
 " Thou wilt not dare to strike me!" 
 
 " I said not I would strike thee. I leave 
 blows to such men as Jeppe Sabay and Peter 
 Glumm. I would not strike a child. But this 
 is what I will do I will make things so that 
 when I am forced to be at the fishing thou 
 canst not leave the house ; and I will bring my 
 mother back here to see that no bad men or 
 women cross the threshold to keep thee in ill 
 company." 
 
 " Wilt thou tie me in my chair then ? " and 
 she laughed aloud with a scornful and defiant 
 laugh. 
 
 "Ay, I would do that if it were necessary; 
 though every knot would be a knot in my own 
 heart-strings. But this is what I ask of thee 
 be a good woman and do thy duty. Say thou
 
 HO PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 wilt and I will trust thee again ! Yes, I will 
 trust thee again with all my heart. Think of 
 this now our lives are bound together Chris 
 tina, and no one can part us. Shall we not try 
 and be happy ? I love thee ! I will indeed take 
 thee to Orkney and to Edinburgh and I will 
 buy thee a new dress and a tartan shawl." 
 
 " Since I could not go to the place I wanted 
 to go, I will not go to where thou wants to go. 
 Name not Orkney nor Edinburgh to me." 
 
 "Well, well, as for some company, this is 
 what I say. There are good pleasant women, 
 whom thou used to like to be with Jane Sin 
 clair, and Brenda Bewis, and Margaret Bare 
 foot, and many others. Ask them to thy house; 
 and I will play the violin for the innocent 
 dance, and thou can recite and sing. No one 
 can recite and sing like thee. Dost thou think 
 1 want to keep thee away from good company ? 
 No, indeed ! Ask it to thy house. I blame 
 myself that I thought not of this before, but 
 and he looked at her with a touching pathos 
 " thou wert all I wanted." 
 
 At these words she glanced up at Paul's kind, 
 yet troubled face and her heart reproached her 
 a little, though she answered not the gracious,
 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN WAY. in 
 
 considerate offer. However, her silence was 
 some gain, and Paul was still further gratified 
 when she rose and began to wash the dishes and 
 attended to her household duties. Not but 
 what his heart troubled him, even for his for 
 bearance. He was by no means sure that he 
 had acted wisely in passing by the offence so 
 easily ; and he knew that the minister would 
 regard his promises as a mere bribe to Chris 
 tina to do what was right. 
 
 Also there was something in Christina's face 
 that was not pleasant or reassuring ; and had he 
 known the thoughts passing in her heart he 
 would have been still more dissatisfied with the 
 position he had taken. For Christina was not 
 touched to any deep purpose by her husband's 
 consideration for her. She was only afraid of 
 the threat he had made. To be confined in her 
 house unless she went out with Paul, and to 
 have Margery Thorsen brought back and put 
 in authority over her, were two conditions of 
 life which Christina could not bear to think of. 
 Some concession to Paul was better ; and she 
 was ready to make just so much as was neces 
 sary to prevent him taking steps so offensive 
 and humiliating to her,
 
 112 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 Unfortunately it was the fishers' busiest time, 
 and Paul could not neglect the herring season 
 for upon it depended the comfort of the whole 
 year. He was compelled to leave his wife very 
 much alone, but he hoped as the Sabays were 
 in Holland she might form other and less ob 
 jectionable friends in their abssnce. He took 
 trouble to meet Jane Sinclair and Brenda Bare 
 foot ; and the women understood his motives 
 without explanations, and went to call upon 
 Christina. 
 
 They met with little courtesy, for if they had 
 understood Paul's invitation, Christina under 
 stood equally well their acceptance of it. She 
 said little the first time Jane Sinclair called ; but 
 when the visit was repeated she determined 
 to put a stop to the unwelcome intrusion. 
 
 " How are you doing, Christina ? " said Jane 
 pleasantly, as she stepped within the open 
 door; " I was passing, and I thought, well 
 then, I will give Christina the news." 
 
 " Many times you pass my door lately, Jane ; 
 and for what ? It is not in your way at all. 
 As for news, there is never anything newer 
 here than the day's tides." 
 
 "You are wrong this morning, Christina.
 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN WAY. 113 
 
 Here is pretty Margaret Twatt to be married 
 at the Foy ; and Nanna Tulloch, she too, like 
 the rest ; and Mary Nicholson has a baby, a 
 pretty wee lass ; and Mistress Vedder is to give 
 a grand party to the minister's daughter who is 
 home from the Edinburgh schooling. Oh, in 
 deed ! there is a great deal to talk about." 
 
 " The minister's daughter ! I saw her, a 
 proud, upsetting girl. She had on a white 
 frock covered with little frills, and a blue sash, 
 with the ends down to the ground itself. Yes ; 
 if Christina Thorsen had worn a frock like that 
 the town had rung the bell about it." 
 
 " Thou art not Barbara Logic. What would 
 be veiy foolish in thee is the right thing in a 
 young girl who is of gentle kind, and who has 
 money of her own. Circumstances alter the 
 right and the wrong of many things. Think of 
 that, Christina ! " 
 
 " I know that every one is sure I am always 
 in the wrong. Whatever dress I wear is not 
 the right dress. What ever road I take it is the 
 wrong road. Whatever friends I choose they 
 are the friends I ought not to have. That is so 
 And I will tell thee more, Jane Sinclair. I 
 know well that Paul sent thee here. Now,
 
 114 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 what I counsel thee is this, waste no more of 
 thy time. If I may not choose my own friends, 
 I will not have those friends whom Paul chooses 
 for me." 
 
 " Thy heart will be sea-sick of the Sabays and 
 their kind, ere long. Thou wilt find them out. 
 Then, if thou wants a kind friend, I will be 
 where thy mother was to my mother. Put thy 
 thumb upon that promise. Keep it till the day 
 thou needst it, Christina." 
 
 "And when Paul Thorsen and thee have 
 some more confidences, tell him that Christina 
 thinks little of his wisdom in sending Jane Sin 
 clair to say words for him." 
 
 " Paul Thorsen gave me no words to say for 
 him. That is as sure as that I am Jane Sin 
 clair, a christened woman. But it is well known 
 that there is a shadow on thy hearth ; a shadow 
 cast by those who are not worthy to stand 
 there ; and if I could say a word to brighten it, 
 so glad I would be." 
 
 " Now, I w T ill tell thee something. It is not 
 the Sabays who make the shadow ; it is Paul 
 himself. From the very first he has been on 
 the wrong side of my wishes. When I married 
 him I thought surely he would join Sabay and
 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN WAY. 11$ 
 
 make me something better than a fisher's 
 wife." 
 
 " Think of this, Christina. Sabay's ways are 
 full of sin and danger. A wife should think 
 for her husband's good ; and oh ! how Paul 
 loves thee ! Gold cannot buy such love as Paul 
 gives thee." 
 
 " Well, then, gold can buy a great many 
 other good things things I long for very much 
 indeed. Did Paul tell thee I wanted to go to 
 Holland? Well then, I did want to go. In 
 Holland there is some life and some pleasure. 
 But here, what is it ? To-day will be like yes 
 terday and to-morrow, and all the rest of to 
 morrows will be like to-day." 
 
 " All over the world some people will be say 
 ing ' every day is alike and I am tired of my 
 life.' They are the people who think life is to 
 be only a game for their own pleasure. The 
 people who love nobody but themselves, who 
 try to make no life happy except their ov/n 
 life. Ask the minister and he will tell thee 
 that even Solomon, with all his gold and money, 
 found that kind of life all weariness and vanity. 
 To have duties, to be busy for others, that is 
 the way to be happy."
 
 Ii6 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " Plenty talk as thou talks. I believe not 
 such words. As for the minister, I do not set 
 my clock by him. No indeed ! " 
 
 " Well, I must go away now. Our words 
 have not built a bridge between us. I am 
 sorry, Christina. A good-day to thee." 
 
 Christina nodded indifferently and resumed 
 the book she was reading ; but Jane Sinclair 
 went quickly down the road, for she was hur 
 ried with a sense of her own delayed household 
 work. " So foolish and wicked is Christina," 
 she muttered to herself. " How can a woman 
 scorn a good husband and a good home, unless 
 she is like the magpies and has a drop o{ 
 devil's blood in her." 
 
 Helga had no better success in her efforts to 
 lighten Christina's solitude. Indeed, her 
 visits were at once set down as visits of surveil 
 lance, and as such were resented in a way very 
 hard for the mother to bear. Yet she continued 
 them for some time, always taking with her 
 little presents of birds' eggs or bits of fine wool 
 as her excuse. The very poverty of her offer 
 ings might have touched her daughter's heart. 
 But it did not ; and being one day in an ex 
 ceedingly fretful temper, she turned suddenly
 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN WAY. 1 1? 
 
 to Helga and asked : " How much does Paul 
 pay thee to watch me ? A very mean mother 
 art thou to be a spy upon thy daughter ! " 
 
 This suspicion had not entered Helga's mind 
 simply because she was a woman to whom 
 bribery of any kind would have been an impos 
 sible motive. She was sitting opposite Chris 
 tina with a tortoise-shell box in her hand. 
 Many a year ago it had been thrown upon the 
 coast from some wreck. Her husband had 
 given it to her when he was a brave young 
 whaler bound for the Greenland seas. In it 
 she had kept the little mementoes of her be 
 loved dead and her own wedding ring, which 
 had long ago become too small for a hand 
 knotted and swollen with hard labor and 
 rheumatic pains. 
 
 This day being utterly destitute of anything 
 likely to conciliate her daughter, she had be 
 thought her of the box, and she emptied and 
 took it to Christina. She had just been point 
 ing out to her the initials which ornamented 
 the silver plate upon the centre of the lid when 
 Christina asked her the cruel question. 
 
 In a moment the wilful woman was sorry for 
 it. But Helga did not answer. She laid the
 
 Ii8 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 box upon the table, drew her hood over her 
 head and went quickly away. Still there had 
 been such wounded love, such amazement of 
 grief, such complete hopelessness in the one 
 look she gave her suspicious child, that Chris 
 tina felt as if she never more could forget it. 
 She knew that her mother's soul had looked at 
 her through those sad, reproachful eyes, and 
 the look was one which went straight through 
 all disguises to her own soul. She longed to 
 run after Helga, to tell her that the words had 
 been uttered without thought ; that she was 
 sorry for them ; but somehow the act of atone 
 ment was unpermitted ; the Evil One within her 
 was her master. 
 
 Yet Christina suffered. She was constantly 
 unhappy because she absolutely refused to re 
 ceive any pleasure from her own blessings. 
 Her home was hateful in her eyes and she 
 would not try to make it bright and comfort 
 able. She fancied her mother and friends were 
 spies upon her actions, so she could receive no 
 pleasure from their society. Her husband was 
 a selfish tyrant who would permit her to enjoy 
 nothing she desired. And every day that she 
 nursed such thoughts they took more entire
 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN' WAY, 1 19 
 
 possession of her. The wrongs which she had 
 at first complained of through pure contradic 
 tion soon became real and actual wrongs 
 to her. 
 
 Ere long it was a pleasure to her if she could 
 render Paul as miserable as herself ; it was an 
 occupation to make him feel that he would 
 have been wiser had he let her go to Holland 
 with the Sabays. And she soon discovered 
 that in order to give Paul the most poignant 
 shame and grief she had but to exhibit herself 
 to him under the influence of wine or brandy, 
 and so, gradually, she deliberately chose this 
 form of annoyance. And at this time she was 
 doubly wicked in doing so, for she had in a 
 great measure to create the taste for the sin 
 which she had chosen as her weapon. Yet the 
 natural result followed the sin grew with 
 what it fed on, and in a marvellously short time 
 she loved drinking from its lowest point a 
 debased and perverted taste. 
 
 Seldom was Paul angry with her. When he 
 came in from the fishing, if she met him with 
 flushed cheeks and an abandon of reckless 
 mirth, he silently locked the door and sat
 
 120 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 speechless in her presence. For in such moods 
 he soon found it was folly to reason with her. 
 He only tempted her to mock at holy words. 
 Still the agony of the silent, loving man upon 
 the hearthstone did sometimes touch her. Then 
 she would draw near to him, and put her hand 
 in his hands and say thick hurried words of affec 
 tion, or of maudlin, meaningless contrition. And 
 though at such times his soul drew far away 
 from her, he never suffered her to see the repul 
 sion. Even in that unpromising hour he spoke 
 to her of God's love and of his own pity and 
 tenderness. 
 
 But it was in her hours of alcoholic stupor 
 that Paul's sufferings were the keenest. He 
 was then tortured with one dreadful fear if 
 she should die in one of them ! In such vigils 
 he durst not put out the light or leave her for 
 a moment. The thought that strengthened 
 him was ever the same, " I am watching for 
 her soul ! " He lost sight then of all smaller 
 objects her womanliness, her good name, his 
 own weariness, discomfort, and shame all 
 these things were too small to give him the 
 strength and the patience he needed. " Watch-
 
 CHRISTINA TAKES HER OWN WAY. 121 
 
 ing for her soul " to save it if possible, from 
 the fiend who followed hard after it. And for 
 this end he was willing to suffer, and to lose all 
 else sleep, health, money yea, if need be, 
 life itself.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LOVE'S PATIENCE. 
 
 If love in any heart arise, 
 
 And stir the tongue, and light the eyes, 
 
 And speed the foot, and fill the hand : 
 
 Oh then we all may understand 
 
 That though unthought of, God is there ; 
 
 And of denying Him beware. 
 
 'Tis hard the unbroken dark to bear, 
 But harder still re-gathering night. 
 
 THE road to ruin may be taken swiftly, but 
 very seldom altogether at headlong pace. 
 The miserable traveller has many moments 
 of misgiving, and makes many efforts either 
 to stand still or to turn backwards. Christina 
 though one of those women to whom per 
 sonal pleasure is far more than human affec 
 tion was sometimes subject to such futile ef 
 forts. Vague regrets stirred the fathomless 
 deep of her selfishness ; she pitied Paul a little, 
 she pitied herself a great deal ; she had a dim 
 sense of injury, and a certain fearful-looking 
 forward to consequences. In such hours she
 
 LOVE'S PATIENCE. 123 
 
 tried to step backward and find her old place. 
 
 But how impossible were such attempts. If 
 she dressed neatly and carefully and went into 
 town among her acquaintances many trifling 
 things made her understand that her old place 
 had almost forgotten her. Social events had 
 taken place of which she had not been informed. 
 Others were in preparation, and there had been 
 no consideration of her in them. People spoke 
 civilly, some even kindly to her, but yet she 
 felt herself to have become unnecessary, to be 
 outside, a visitor, a stranger, one neither to be 
 taken into consultation nor to be depended 
 upon. 
 
 Even with Paul, she had in some measure a 
 sense of the same feeling of loss. Paul had in 
 finite tenderness for her, but confidence between 
 them was much impaired. When she was un 
 der the influence of brandy, Christina was a 
 great chatterer ; Paul could therefore hold with 
 her none of that sweet communion in which two 
 faithful hearts exchange their most secret 
 thoughts, and hopes, and plans. Simple as 
 Paul's life was, he did not wish it laid bare to 
 the Sabays. There were things in it too 
 sacred for the jest or the scornful laugh. So,
 
 124 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 though Paul was always very loving to his wife 
 in these regretful moods, though he encouraged 
 her with unstinted praise and gratitude, though 
 he tried to renew the happiness of days long 
 past, Christina felt that she was but a fallen idol 
 set in her place again, felt that there was a 
 change, though she was unable to say in what 
 it consisted. 
 
 Only her mother was the same. In Helga's 
 presence Christina forgot that she had fallen 
 below the Christina of her youth. Many could 
 forgive her faults, but Helga could also quite 
 forget them. When Christina came to her 
 with a pleasant smile and a kind word she let 
 the other Christina pass from her memory like 
 a dream at sunrise. She did not even "look" 
 an advice ; she talked to her of daily events in 
 her usual calm way and always sent her daugh 
 ter home with the feeling of her childhood 
 about her ; no reproaches no admonitions, only 
 the common atmosphere of mother-love ; the 
 purest, sweetest, peacefulest of all influences. 
 
 In it Christina lifted her head again and felt, 
 for an hour the possibility of returning to the 
 path she had left and lost. Then she made 
 many good resolutions resolutions which drib-
 
 LOVE'S PA TIENCE. 1 25 
 
 bled out as brooks dry up in summer. Then, 
 also, she planned some kind action to be done 
 for her mother's or her husband's comfort ; but 
 alas ! alas ! 
 
 " What is the sorriest thing that enters hell? 
 None of the sins but this and that fair deed 
 Which a soul's sin at length could supersede." 
 
 So the short, vivid summer passed. The Foy 
 was over, and the stranger fishers said fare- 
 well, and sailed away. The calm, melancholy 
 days of the "little " or " after" summer were 
 bathing the islands in an ethereal hazy glamour ; 
 and after the weary vigils of the herring season 
 the men were resting a little, and the women 
 indulging in such simple social gatherings as 
 fell in easily with their preparations for the ap 
 proaching winter. 
 
 It was at this time the Sabays returned. 
 Christina, standing at her door, saw their vessel 
 coming into harbor. With her gray sails all 
 set, she was sailing easily before the wind and 
 she had even at a distance, the bluff, braggart 
 air of a successful coaster, with all her tackle 
 trim, 
 
 Sails fill'd and streamers waving ! 
 
 Christina's heart beat fasten She imagined
 
 126 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 herself thus home-coming after a summer's de 
 light ; with pleasant memories behind her and 
 new fineries in her trunk, and Paul waiting on 
 the pier to receive her. " What a time of hap 
 piness I might have had and how good it might 
 have been for Paul after it ! " she sighed ; " but 
 it is his own fault." For, in the end, she always 
 went back to the same point, " it is Paul's own 
 fault ! " 
 
 Paul was on the pier when Sabay cast 
 anchor. He saw Isabel leave the ship with all 
 her new braveries on ; a thick gold chain round 
 her neck and earrings of gold dropping almost 
 to her shoulders. She gathered up her gay 
 skirts and passed him with unequivocal marks 
 of her scorn and displeasure. Sabay only 
 glanced at him, but it was a glance of evil 
 meaning. 
 
 " Open ill-will it is to be between us, then," 
 said Paul to himself. "Well, that is better 
 than secret hatred. And my known enemy 
 Christina cannot visit ; " yet he turned home 
 ward with the feeling that he was in danger 
 and that his watch and his patience would have 
 to be doubled. 
 
 He had left Christina in one of her most
 
 LOVE'S PATIENCE. 127 
 
 pleasant moods. He found her sullen and irre 
 sponsive. " So early this trouble has begun," 
 he thought ; and then he sat down to smoke 
 and to reconsider his words, lest he might speak 
 too hastily. There was a pot boiling on the 
 fire and the steam lifted the lid with a mono 
 tonous clap that would have been disagree 
 able and irritating to people less mentally 
 occupied ; but Paul never noticed the noise 
 and Christina was too listless about all her sur 
 roundings at that hour to rise and remedy it. 
 Presently there was a footstep and she rose 
 hastily and went to the door. 
 
 A little laugh followed, a laugh of spontane 
 ous pleasure ; and she passed outside and closed 
 the doors behind her. Then Paul pushed aside 
 his chair and his angry movement was probably 
 heard, for Christina re-entered the house with 
 a letter in her hand. Paul looked at the paper 
 and Christina, a little defiantly, answered the 
 question his face asked, " It is from Isabel 
 my friend Isabel Sabay. She wants to see 
 me." 
 
 " Who brought it here ? " 
 
 " Dirke Biron." 
 
 " Let him not come here again \ Tell him I
 
 128 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 say so. No, thou shalt not speak to him. I 
 will give him the order with my own lips. I 
 will that ! " 
 
 " Be wise and leave Dirke alone. Dirke is 
 not a man such as thou art." 
 
 " I will not have him on my door-stone. It 
 is a disgrace to me and to thee. As for Isabel's 
 letter, heed it not. My dear Christina between 
 the Sabays and us there can be no friendship. 
 Only two hours ago he defied me on the pier 
 with the look of hell on his face. Between us 
 it is open hatred. Go not with thy husband's 
 enemy." 
 
 " To be kind to me is to be thy enemy. I 
 know nothing of thee and Jeppe quarrel with 
 him or not, as it pleases thee. But Isabel I 
 I love. Isabel is my friend. I am the first she 
 hath sent for. She has brought me a new dress, 
 and a gold brooch. For thy quarrels I cannot 
 live in a corner. 'Twere far better for thee if 
 thou showed thyself more of a friend to every 
 one." 
 
 " I tell thee this plainly to Isabel's thou 
 shalt not go ! I will stand at my door until we 
 both die of hunger ere I let thee through it on 
 such an errand."
 
 LOVE'S PATIENCE. 129 
 
 She looked in his face and perceived that 
 the threat was one he quite intended to keep. 
 " Very well then," she said to her heart ; " if 
 I cannot get to Isabel's one way I must go 
 the other. In a quarrel what can I do ? Paul 
 cares neither for my smiles nor my tears. But 
 behind his back I can get my own way and 
 that, too, will be Paul's own fault." 
 
 So she made an apparent submission : " Here 
 then is my letter. Reply to it thyself. When 
 a woman has a brute for a husband she must 
 crouch under his hand. Every pleasure thou 
 hast taken from me, and every friend." 
 
 " Only this thing I ask of thee, Christina ; 
 only. this. Do not go and eat, and drink, and 
 make thyself happy with my enemies. They 
 will teach thee to hate me." 
 
 " Thou art a good teacher thyself." 
 
 " If for my sake thou wilt give up the Sabays, 
 then I for thee will do all I can do to make 
 happiness. Ask what thou wilt, if it is right, 
 and if it is in my power I will do it." 
 
 Even as he was speaking she was thinking 
 how she could best gain by artifice all that she 
 desired. And this plan, once admitted, grew 
 steadily in her favor. She soon began to cast
 
 13 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 about for ways and means and before long to 
 feel a certain amount of pride in outwitting so 
 careful and clear-eyed a watchman. Just a 
 sufficient show of reluctance and of temper she 
 made to give an air of reality to the apparent 
 surrender of her wishes. And Paul believed 
 himself to have triumphed ; was so sure of it 
 after a two weeks' vigilance that he began to 
 go to sea again with an easy mind. He never 
 suspected that his wife was in constant corre 
 spondence with Isabel Sabay, and that as soon 
 as his boat was out of the harbor she was on 
 her way to visit her friend. 
 
 And his very consideration for Christina 
 proved now to be the screen which hid her sin. 
 Paul had never blamed her, never spoken ill of 
 her to any of his friends or acquaintances and 
 they felt a like delicacy in talking about her to 
 him. They supposed that he was aware of her 
 intimacy with the Sabays, and unable to pre 
 vent it ; and while some blamed his forbear 
 ance and others pitied his blindness, no one 
 felt it to be their place to point out to the 
 unhappy husband facts of which he was per 
 haps only too well aware. 
 
 So week after week went by in a kind of dull
 
 LOVE'S PATIENCE. 131 
 
 content. Paul had learned not to expect too 
 much and Christina was kinder to him and 
 more attentive to her house than she had been 
 for some time. Even when he perceived that 
 she had given way to her great temptation, he 
 never suspected she had been doing so in Isa 
 bel and Jeppe's company. And no one told 
 him ; for if delicacy restrained his friends, there 
 were motives quite as powerful which prevented 
 the information reaching him from other 
 quarters. The general public had lost all 
 interest in Christina ; her lapses from domestic 
 or social virtues were now an old story. 
 Besides, Paul Thorsen was not one to whom it 
 was easy to offer either advice or consolation. 
 Then again, men rather liked Jeppe Sabay ; at 
 any rate, they preferred not to quarrel with 
 him. In the way of buying and selling he 
 touched a great many people on the island. 
 His good will was worth having ; his ill will 
 was worth deprecating. 
 
 But he was Paul's bitter enemy. He did not 
 speak to Paul, he did not say a word against 
 him to any one ; but he delighted in taking his 
 revenge through Paul's wife. " He thought us 
 not fit company for the vain, silly fool," he
 
 *3 2 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 said to Isabel; "well then, in a little while, 
 every good woman will be shamed if Christina 
 Thorsen say, ' it is a good,' or ' a bad day ' to 
 her. Thou shalt see ! More and more she 
 drinks. It will soon be thy time and my time. 
 Dost thou forget that Paul Thorsen called thee 
 a bad woman ? I do not forget. No, indeed !" 
 "A good memory have I, also, Jeppe." 
 How could a weak woman like Christina help 
 falling into a snare so cunning and so tempting 
 when she had only her own strength to rely on? 
 Christina never tried to escape it. All her 
 efforts were directed to one object hiding her 
 visits to Sabay's house from Paul. The spiced 
 liquors, the dance, the song, the gay company 
 these things were potently irresistible to her ; 
 even though they were often mingled with little 
 spiteful tempers in Isabel, and very unpleasant 
 sneers from Jeppe hurting her personal pride 
 in every point. 
 
 So in spite of all, their influence over her 
 grew with the lapse of every week ; and when 
 it was fully assured they began to be less care 
 ful of the poor woman's good name to even 
 feel a certain wicked satisfaction in seeing her 
 stagger home through the streets of her native
 
 LOVE'S PA TIENCE. 133 
 
 town the laughter of the wicked-hearted and 
 the thoughtless. 
 
 Late one November afternoon Christina went 
 to the public fountain for some water. Five or 
 six women were idling around the curb talking 
 about her. " Thou should have seen her yes 
 terday, Gisla ; when out of Sabay's house she 
 came there was room for no one else in the 
 street. A bad woman is she ? And I am sorry 
 for Helga Bork, and for Paul Thorsen ; I am 
 that ! " 
 
 " They had not observed Christina's ap 
 proach and she heard the last remark. She 
 was nervous and irritable, and precisely in the 
 condition to lose all control over herself. Scorn 
 ful looks from the young woman and reproofs 
 and advices from the elder ones were met by 
 passionate counter assertions and most un 
 womanly anger. In the darkening street a 
 crowd was gathering, and there was a hubbub 
 of rude laughs and provoking taunts ; and above 
 all the clamor the shrill voice of the almost 
 irresponsible victim of it. 
 
 Suddenly into the exasperated throng strode 
 the minister. In the gloom his face showed 
 white and stern as an accusing angel's.
 
 *34 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " It is fools who make a mock at sin," he 
 said with visible anger. " Was there not one 
 woman among you with the pity of Christ in 
 her heart ? " 
 
 " With passion she is beside herself, minister." 
 
 " Who among you is without sin in that mat 
 ter, Gisla? Go to your homes. Christina, give 
 me thine hand. I will walk with thee." 
 
 She had spoken many bitter words of the 
 minister, she had made a mock of his authority 
 in Sabay's room; she had vowed she would never 
 speak with him or to him, but at this hour she 
 was not able to resist his influence. She suffered 
 him to take her hand, and he led her gently 
 away, as she sobbed out her passion like a pun 
 ished child. 
 
 But when he had placed her on her own 
 hearth, he spared her nothing of the reproof 
 she merited. His awful words terrified her ; 
 and when he left her with her own thoughts, 
 she felt as if hell was beneath her feet and 
 might open any moment to receive her. In a 
 short time she heard Paul's footsteps, and she 
 was glad of them ; for she was sick and trem 
 bling with the excitement of the scene she had 
 passed through, and with the dread apprehen-
 
 LOVE'S PATIENCE. 135 
 
 sions of Dr. Logic's reproof. Her husband's 
 face only intensified her fright for Paul had 
 met the minister and heard the shameful story 
 from his lips, and through all the tan of wind 
 and weather he was white with anger. 
 
 For once he did not notice Christina who 
 stood half-sorry and half-defiant in the middle 
 of the room. He did not even look at her; he 
 locked the door and sitting down on his un 
 happy hearth he wept bitterly. Not any phys 
 ical torture could have forced such tears from 
 Paul Thorsen. It was such a rain of sorrow as 
 might fall from an angel's eyes over a lost soul. 
 There was something piteously amazing in the 
 sight of this bearded giant shaking with his 
 emotion ; shivering and weeping in the cruel 
 power of a woman so weak and so unworthy. 
 
 His grief was intensified by the fact that she 
 was soon to become a mother. He determined 
 whatever it might cost not to leave her again. 
 The next morning he went to Donald Groat the 
 great merchant of the place and said to him . 
 "Thou knowest my trouble. I want now to 
 stay at home with my wife. Wilt thou let me 
 make thy nets for the next season ? I can 
 make them well."
 
 I3 6 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 "Thou may begin to-day, Paul. They will 
 be lucky nets that so good a man makes. My 
 heart is sorry for thee ! " 
 
 "We will not speak of that Donald. Every 
 one must drink the cup given him to drink ; 
 but God's love is at the bottom of the bitter 
 est." 
 
 Then they measured the nets and the twine 
 and Paul took his work home with him. But it 
 was a hard thing for so simple-hearted a man 
 to watch a woman whose passion made her 
 abnormally quick-witted in its gratification. 
 Christina was not long in getting word of her 
 situation to Isabel and the necessity for secrecy 
 and diplomacy added a piquant flavor to her 
 indulgencies. 
 
 About the New Year she had a son, and the 
 little upper chamber in which she lay was for 
 three months the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death. She went down to the grave twice 
 over and was as helpless as the child she 
 brought into the world. But in spite of their 
 weariness and anxiety they were in many re 
 spects the most hopeful and happy months 
 Paul had known for a long time. Christina 
 became in them gentle and loving. All the
 
 LOVE'S PATIENCE. 137 
 
 past was forgiven and the future had a halo of 
 hope about it. For the child was one of extra 
 ordinary beauty and Christina loved it with all 
 her heart. 
 
 Unfortunately at that day no one had thought 
 of protecting the weak from temptation. 
 Brandy and gin smuggled into the Islands from 
 Holland were in every house as naturally as 
 was the tea which both sexes drank in profu 
 sion. Paul's efforts to keep brandy out of his 
 wife's reach were regarded as very singular, for 
 brandy was the panacea for every sickness and 
 especially for every physical weakness. When 
 Christina was slowly creeping back to life it was 
 on brandy and new milk the doctor fed her; 
 and some of the women about the house were 
 constantly using it. In the warm closed rooms 
 the subtle odor was everywhere and contin 
 ually present. 
 
 Paul's opposition at this time was of no use. 
 In sickness the men of the house must give 
 way before the doctor and the women. Still 
 he hoped everything from the new interest 
 which had come into Christina's life. Her 
 baby was in all her thoughts, and Paul, with a 
 pure unselfishness encouraged its power. "And
 
 I3 8 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 a little child shall lead them." In some way 
 the words fastened themselves upon his mind 
 and he took them for a sign and a comfort and 
 trusted that the small dimpled baby hands 
 would be strong enough to slay the demon of 
 strong drink. 
 
 In the sweetest moments of their household 
 confidences Paul rather hinted at than spoke of 
 these hopes, for he was afraid of wounding 
 Christina and of calling back those sullen, 
 resentful moods which had always followed his 
 complaints however just they might be. Still 
 his own heart was so full of the new joy, and 
 he felt it to be such a compelling sweetness 
 and power to himself, that he would not doubt 
 its authority over the child's mother. 
 
 As Christina regained health and strength, 
 however, the fitful passion resumed its sway. 
 She tried to hide and to control it, but Paul 
 knew too well the faintest symptom of the 
 detested tyranny. He felt hopeless; the more 
 so as it was again May, and the herring season 
 proved to be one of unusual stir and bustle. 
 The harbor was crowded with boats. The nar 
 row streets in a morning were like a fair. There 
 were also several small parties of strangers,and
 
 LOVE'S PATIENCE. 139 
 
 among them an artist who was so struck with 
 the singular beauty of Christina and her baby 
 that he followed her all over to obtain sketches 
 of them. 
 
 It flattered her vanity. She was far more in 
 the street than in her house. Then Isabel 
 resumed her influence over her. She felt, or 
 she affected to feel, a great interest in the 
 beautiful baby. She was always delighted to 
 nurse it when Christina was weary. Sabay's 
 house was a very gay one at this time. It was 
 a great temptation to Christina. She went 
 there frequently, and whenever she went she 
 drank more or less. Yet she had given Paul 
 her promise not to cross its threshold, and 
 she was frequently obliged to lie away his sus 
 picions ; but if drinking and foolish company 
 be the first sins, then lying and all other sins 
 can easily follow them. 
 
 As the winter came on Paul wondered what 
 it was right for him to do. Christina's long 
 sickness had run him into debt which it had 
 taken all his summer's earnings to clear off. At 
 knotting nets he could not support his house. 
 Besides, the man's own nature demanded the 
 active, adventurous life for which it was made.
 
 140 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 He had borne the constraint before, and after 
 all it had effected nothing ; and now without 
 hard labor he was in danger of poverty and 
 debt. 
 
 At last he went to the minister for advice. 
 His answer was brief and decided. 
 
 " Go thou and do thy daily work, Paul Thor- 
 sen," he said. "Neglect of duty never yet 
 helped the right or prevented the wrong. This 
 afternoon I shall call upon Christina, for I have 
 something to say to her."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE. 
 
 Thus he speaks ' ' Repent ! Repentance 
 
 Smoothes Messiah's way ; 
 'Tis an old and weighty sentence, 
 
 Weigh it well to-day. 
 Hast thou nursed a sin? confess it. 
 Hast thou done a wrong ? redress it." 
 ****** 
 
 Raise thy disconsolate brows, 
 And front with level eyelids the to-come 
 And all the dark of the world. 
 
 WHEN the minister reached Paul's house 
 it was snowing slightly, but he found 
 Christina dressed to go out, with the child 
 folded under her cloak. 
 
 " Take off thy cloak," he said ; " it is not 
 proper for thee, this day, to take the child out." 
 
 " It will do him no hurt. Every day I take 
 him out. It is good for him." 
 
 " He might take cold. Croup is a dreadful 
 and a swift follower. If he should die " 
 
 " It would kill me, too. Why dost thou say 
 such words? Cruel are they."
 
 142 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 11 Me ! me ! I am not thinking of thee ! My 
 fears are for thy unbaptized babe ! Woman, 
 woman, if he died dare thou follow out the 
 thought?" 
 
 " Baptize him ; yes, thou wilt for Paul's 
 sake." 
 
 " And it would be all thy fault, all thy fault. 
 Oh, wicked and cruel mother, where are there 
 words for thy sin ! " 
 
 " Thou might baptize him ? Do ! " 
 
 " I will not give the holy things of the 
 church but unto the children of righteousness. 
 No, I will not. The inheritance of heaven is 
 for the seed of those who love the Lord. Thou 
 hast not dared to come to His table for these 
 two years ; but thou hast rioted with publicans 
 and sinners. If thou loved thy son " 
 
 " I do love him." 
 
 " Then, first of all, thou wouldst have 
 brought him to his Father's house, and called 
 him by his Father's name, and sought for him 
 the blessing of God's elect ones." 
 
 "What shall I do? Tell me, what shall 
 I do?" 
 
 " I will give thee the choice of two things. 
 Give thy son to one of his grandmothers. Let
 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE. 143 
 
 her come with thy husband and make the 
 promises thou should make and bring up the 
 child for the Lord, then I will baptize him. 
 On next Sabbath day I will certainly baptize 
 him." 
 
 " I will not give my son to any one. No 
 indeed, I will not." 
 
 " I did not expect thou would. Well, then, 
 there is another way, and I trust thou wilt 
 walk in it. Thou must give up the Sabays and 
 all the companions thou hast met there ; thou 
 must give them up entirely and forever. Thou 
 must not taste nor even look upon any strong 
 liquor; for a little, and what is reasonable, 
 thou cast not take ; so then put the whole 
 thing from thee. Thou must be obedient to 
 thy good husband and more loving to thy 
 mother, and thou must come once every week 
 to see me and to tell me in whatever thou hast 
 failed. Then I will help and counsel thee, and 
 pray with thee. If thou art sick, or the child 
 is sick, and thou cannot come, send me word 
 by Paul and I will come to thee. All winter 
 thou must do this, and on the next May Occa 
 sion thou must publicly profess thy repentance 
 and thy faith in God's mercy. Then I will
 
 144 PAUL AND CHRISTINA, 
 
 give thee the holy cup, and I will baptize thy 
 little child into the family of God. Wilt thou 
 do these things?" 
 
 " I cannot give up the Sabays. Isabel would 
 say very hard things of me things which are 
 not true." 
 
 " Paul will stand at thy right hand and I 
 will stand at thy left. No one shall reproach 
 thee with the past. My daughter if now, with 
 all thy heart thou turn thee this day unto the 
 Lord, there will be far more for thee than can 
 be against thee." 
 
 Then he stood up and blessed the child and 
 left Christina weeping bitterly. He hoped that 
 she would came and see him and tell him that 
 she would take the road he had pointed out to 
 her and he watched anxiously for the visit. 
 
 But Christina made the mistake which so 
 many souls struggling with great temptations 
 make she determined upon a partial reforma 
 tion. She would take no more wine or brandy ; 
 and just yet, at any rate, she would not go to 
 Isabel's. There would be no occasion to tell 
 her the real reason ; the snow and the baby 
 would be excuse enough. Thus she was trying 
 poor, weak soul to do what the strongest
 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE. 145 
 
 natures fail to do to serve God and Mam 
 mon. 
 
 Paul could not help but see how earnestly his 
 wife was trying to conquer her faults ; his heart 
 was full of love and pity for her, and he cheered 
 her when she failed with such encouraging words 
 as his great forgiving nature taught him. Un 
 fortunately he was compelled to be much at 
 Scalloway, where he was building some boats 
 for the next season, and Christina was fre 
 quently left alone many days at a time. At 
 first these absences were full of care and fear to 
 Paul, but they were not at once abused. Helga 
 went frequently to see the baby, and the fond 
 young mother thought those hours short enough 
 which were given to talking over his pretty 
 ways and his many perfections. 
 
 She had not yet gone to see the minister, but 
 the resolve to submit herself to his guidance 
 was gradually becoming a definite purpose in 
 her mind. Yet Paul was afraid to urge her, for 
 she had that contradictious temper which re 
 fuses for the sake of refusing, as if concession 
 was a kind of submission. And the minister 
 did not further press her obligations. He 
 wished her allegiance to be given of free will,
 
 146 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 and independent of outside pressure. Certainly 
 he had awakened her conscience. He believed 
 then that it was best to permit conscience to 
 work in her both to will and to do what she 
 knew to be right. 
 
 In other ways, however, his influence helped 
 her. If he met her on the street, he made a 
 point of standing to talk with her. He noticed 
 the little child, he gave it his blessing. His 
 championship of her cause was so evident that 
 it insured her immunity from any overt act of 
 feminine ill-nature. From the manse, also, had 
 come the baby's first shoes ; little soft shields 
 of pretty pink wool, tied with pink ribbons. 
 Christina was immeasurably proud of them. A 
 few days after their reception she met Mrs. 
 Logic in the town, and the two women admired 
 together their snug fit on the sturdy little feet 
 they warmed and adorned. Several of Chris 
 tina's acquaintances saw the meeting, and their 
 observance added much to her pride and happi 
 ness. After it she did not care if Gisla Fae and 
 Suneva Torr passed her without a word. 
 
 " Let them!" she said to Paul; "what fear 
 have I of the slant look out of their envious 
 eyes ? What they have in their mind I heed
 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE. M7 
 
 not. Every one has something to boast of. I 
 have the little pink shoes. They have made 
 Gisla and Suneva blind with envy. For it is 
 something, indeed, for the minister's wife to 
 show one such favor." 
 
 " I thought Gisla would be kind to thee. A 
 good helper I have been to her husband more 
 than once." 
 
 " 'Twas not to be hoped, Paul, that Gisla 
 vould behave well to me when she behaves ill 
 t;o every one else." 
 
 She was sitting before the fire at his side, her 
 ?>aby sleeping on her knee, her right hand 
 dasped in Paul's hand. In the measure of hap 
 piness that had come to him he could not 
 afford to be critical ; many such speeches he 
 let pass in loving silence. For a true human 
 love is like the Divine love, in that it does not 
 willingly break the bruised reed or quench the 
 smoking flax. He felt that he could no more 
 separate the good and evil in her nature than 
 the husbandman could weed out the poppies 
 from the wheat. 
 
 As the mid-winter came on the class repre 
 sented by the Sabays indulged themselves in 
 constant dances and merry-makings. The sea-
 
 148 PAUL AND CHRISTIE A. 
 
 son was not favorable for their ventures. 
 Weather which enabled them to make quick 
 trips and run easily into the narrow, dangerous 
 vacs, was a necessary condition to success. So, 
 while the great winds were blowing from the 
 North, and the waves were running as high as 
 the gable of a house, they passed their time in 
 a riot, which they called pleasure, haunting 
 the various small public-houses of the Shetland 
 ports. 
 
 Sabay's was a favorite and well-known ren 
 dezvous ; the resort of the more wealthy mem 
 bers of this desperate class skippers and 
 owners of smuggling crafts ; men who had 
 made money in them, men who had money to 
 invest in subsequent expeditions. Sabay af 
 fected respectability, and in his entertainments 
 a certain decorum was insisted upon ; yet his 
 house at this season was always alight until very 
 late, and from it came the noise of laughter, 
 of singing, and of dancing to trouble the solemn 
 silence of the midnight hours. Very soon 
 Christina's light foot and witty tongue were 
 missed by Sabay's revellers and she was so 
 frequently inquired for that Isabel determined 
 to waive all ceremony, go and see her friend,
 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE. 1 49 
 
 and discover in what way she had offended 
 her. 
 
 She found Christina dressing her baby. At 
 first she was cold and shy, and apparently but 
 little gratified by Isabel's advances. But Isabel 
 had worked her weak, vain companion too often 
 to her own purposes not to understand how to 
 manage her. " Thou art asked for on every 
 hand," she said, "and there is no pleasure for 
 many if thou art not there to make it. Dirke 
 Biron said but last night, 'Where, then, is 
 Christina? I cannot dance, wanting her light 
 foot to time my own.' And after hearing thee 
 sing ' The Cutter's Chase,' who would want to 
 listen to Jessie Thorkel singing it ? Even Sabay 
 says he is longing to hear thee recite again 
 thou hast such a good store of old tales. Come 
 then for one hour only, come ! And I think 
 also that thou art selfish to keep thy baby so 
 much to thyself. I have spoken of the child's 
 great beauty, and many are anxious to see him. 
 Let me have my way this time, Christina ?" 
 
 Thus alternately touching Christina's per 
 sonal vanity and her maternal pride, Isabel 
 managed before she left not only to get Chris 
 tina's promise to join them that night, but also
 
 15 PAUL AND CHRISTINA, 
 
 to make her feel that it would be rather a plea 
 sant thing to keep her promise. She knew 
 that Paul would not be at home until the end 
 of the week. It was not likely he would ever 
 hear of the visit, and she was fully determined 
 only to go once, and no more. But she wanted 
 to exhibit her baby, and she wanted to sing 
 and dance, and take her farewell of the society 
 at Sabay's with an eclat which should be a 
 flattering memory, even when she was a pious 
 old woman. As for Paul, she resolved that she 
 would atone to him for her deception by being 
 more than usually kind and attentive to him. 
 She would make him very happy, and " surely," 
 she thought, " Isabel is quite right. If I make 
 Paul happy in his way when he is at home, 
 then I have a right to be happy in my way 
 when he is absent." 
 
 So she went to Isabel's and her presence was 
 made a festival of. Every one was delighted to 
 see her; the baby was exhibited and praised 
 enthusiastically. She thought she had never 
 been so happy, and that night she drank noth 
 ing but blanda* and tea, and she went home 
 before midnight. She was so pleased with her- 
 * Blanda, a pleasant, tart drink made from sour milk.
 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE. i$i 
 
 self for what she had not done that she quite 
 forgot the evil she had done. 
 
 When Paul returned she kept the promise 
 she had made to herself. She had never been 
 so affectionate and obedient. She regarded all 
 his wishes, she restrained her temper, she kept 
 her house in comfortable order; but she did 
 not tell her husband of her visit to Sabay's, 
 and Paul never once suspected it." 
 
 For a few weeks she was cautious and moder 
 ate. The people who visited Sabays were not 
 given to talking with those not in the " set," 
 nor were they likely to come in contact with 
 either Paul or the minister. A sense of secu 
 rity in her sin gradually blunted Christina's 
 prudent restrictions ; she began to go oftener 
 and to stay later. One night after she had been 
 dancing for some time, the smell of the spiced 
 negus affected her like an incantation. She 
 could not resist it ; she drank, and drank deeply, 
 and all her good resolutions were swept away 
 as a cloud before a mighty wind. 
 
 That was the beginning of a relapse which 
 soon began to tell upon her both physically 
 and morally. No one said a word to Paul, but 
 he became uneasy; he was certain something
 
 I$2 PAUL AND CIUtlSTIXA. 
 
 was wrong. Christina was depressed and irri 
 table again, and she resented all inquiries with 
 angry assertions that she was quite well. 
 Paul was afraid to ask questions lest he might 
 give excuse for realizing his fears ; he was afraid 
 to stay at home lest she should resent the sus 
 picion it implied. He began almost to think 
 that he had prayed in vain. 
 
 But could the eyes that grow so dim 
 
 Beside a solitary fire, 
 Look forth beyond the horizon's rim 
 And see the coming ship, Desire, 
 Up like a flame the heart would leap, 
 Although slow hours their watch must keep. 
 
 While the root, locked in slumber fast, 
 
 Rests through the weary winter tide, 
 
 The world speeds on, that God at last 
 
 His summer's heartseabe may provide, 
 And all love's tender prophecies 
 In tenderer blooms may realize. 
 
 Still it was hard for Paul to go on trusting 
 when trust was ever betrayed ; hard to go on 
 hoping when hope was at the mercy of a 
 woman weak and vain and unstable as water. 
 
 One afternoon such a feeling of terror took 
 possession of him that he dropped his tools, 
 though the boat he was building was nearly 
 finished, and started for his home. Over the
 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE. I S3 
 
 treeless desert through the black moss-water 
 and rank fen grass he hurried, for it was the 
 shortest road ; yet it was far in the night 
 when he saw the glimmering lights of his own 
 town. As he approached his house he per 
 ceived a red glow in the window and he shouted 
 aloud in his joy and gratitude, for he concluded 
 at once that Christina was in her home. How 
 could he suspect that the light had been pur 
 posely put there in order to deceive the passers- 
 by? 
 
 So he found the door locked and the house 
 empty. Sick with a shameful fear he went first 
 to Helga Bork's. Christina had visited her 
 more frequently since the birth of the baby. 
 Once or twice she had stayed all night with her 
 mother. It was his last hope and it was soon 
 dispelled. He did not even need to speak to 
 Ilclga. He saw her through the small window 
 sitting motionless before a handful of glowing 
 peats. Something in her attitude satisfied him 
 that she was quite alone. He turned impa 
 tiently round and went with rapid strides to 
 Sabay's house. Every window was lit, and 
 there was the sound of fiddles and the dull 
 beating of dancing feet.
 
 154 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " God help me ! God help me !" 
 
 He flung the brief petition into the cold dark 
 air and then went to the door. Two men 
 opened it, and passed out as he passed in. He 
 heard one of them say with a gay laugh, " the 
 little Christina ! " A raging fire was in his 
 heart then, and he determined to see for him 
 self how his wife was spending the hours of his 
 absence. 
 
 The sight was easily obtained. As he passed 
 along the crowded passage he had only to 
 glance through the open door into the large 
 public room. Christina was dancing with 
 Dirke Biron. Of all men he hated him most ; 
 and Christina knew it. Her cheeks were 
 flushed, her eyes flashing. She had on the 
 silk dress and the gold ornaments he had given 
 her for their own marriage. 
 
 At the same moment that he saw Christina 
 he heard the faint cry of a child. It was the 
 voice of his own boy and he believed it to be a 
 call for his help. Following the sound to a 
 small back room he found it on the knee of an 
 old crone who was so heavily asleep that she 
 never knew when Paul took it away. 
 
 The room reeked with brandy, and the
 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE. 155 
 
 stamping of the feet in the next room were like 
 blows upon his heart. He kissed the babe, 
 folded it tight under his big skin coat and went 
 out of the sinful place. 
 
 " I will save the child, at any rate," he said 
 fiercely. " Poor little innocent one ! She has 
 kept it out of the House of God, but she shall 
 never again take it into house of devil. No 
 indeed ! I will take care for that." 
 
 For a moment he hesitated between the 
 child's grandmothers ; but he very soon came 
 to a decision. Christina had too much influence 
 over Helga. He could not prevent her going 
 to see her mother, and thus she would retain an 
 influence over the child. With his own mother 
 he determined to leave it, and although Voe 
 Ness was six miles distant he went straight 
 there. 
 
 It was midnight when he arrived at Margery 
 Thorsen's cottage. The good woman was lying 
 awake in her bed when she heard her son's 
 voice. With the turn of the night a heavy 
 rain had come on and Paul was wet and 
 exceedingly weary. The child was crying 
 also ; its sobs were the first sounds Margery 
 heard.
 
 1 5 6 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " Paul ! " she said in amazement, " thou here, 
 and the child." 
 
 He could not answer her. His heart seemed 
 to be breaking. He was weeping and did not 
 know it. As Margery stirred up the peats and 
 added more fuel he uncovered the boy and put 
 his feet to the warmth. 
 
 " Speak to me, Paul. Why art thou here ? 
 Is thy wife ill, then?" 
 
 " My wife is dancing with Dirke Biron at 
 Sabay's ; dancing and drinking the good night 
 away. Oh, mother, mother !" 
 
 " Left she the child at home alone?" 
 
 " That had been better than to take it into 
 such a hell. Thou knowst of Aljoe Bent, the 
 old spaewife, who has grown gray in serving 
 the devil. It was on her knee I found my son. 
 She was stupid with brandy. The room was 
 heavy with its odor." 
 
 " And what then said Christina ? " 
 
 " She knew not. No one noticed me. Many 
 were coming and going. They thought I was 
 of their kind, or I had not been there. Without 
 question I passed in and out. That is the way 
 at these places. Should a good man's wife be 
 among such a crowd ?"
 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE 157 
 
 " My son, I am sorry for thee." 
 
 " Well then, it is the end, mother. I can bear 
 it no longer. For my sake thou will take the 
 child? Say that." 
 
 " I will take the child, and I will do all for 
 him as I did for thee, if I may." 
 
 "Who shall hinder thee? Not Christina. 
 In the morning at the daylight I will go and see 
 the minister and the magistrate and before 
 them I will give my son to thee. When they 
 hear the truth no doubt is there but they will 
 bind the gift sure." 
 
 "And then, my Paul?" 
 
 " Then I will go away, mother ; I will go 
 where I can never see Christina or hear from 
 her or about her ; for my life is broken in two 
 and all hope is gone away from me." 
 
 They sat talking until daylight and then Paul 
 rose up to finish the work he had begun. There 
 was no relenting this time in his heart. He 
 was sure that he could have forgiven a relapse 
 into drunkenness, and born patiently again her 
 old irritability; but for this deliberate wrong 
 hidden by smiles and kisses, which were in 
 tended to deceive him, he had no pardon. 
 
 Weary as he was he could not rest. At day-
 
 158 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 light he went to his own home, and there he 
 found Christina in hysterics of grief about her 
 lost child. No one had suspected Paul in the 
 matter and a messenger had been sent to Seal- 
 loway to inform him of the catastrophe which 
 had come to his house. There was a crowd of 
 women around Christina, and he sternly ordered 
 them away. 
 
 " The child is safe," he said ; " I took it." 
 
 When they were alone Christina ran to him. 
 " Paul, Paul, where is my baby ? " 
 
 " I have given the child mind, I have given 
 it to my mother. Thou shalt not see it again. 
 I will have it brought up for God. I see well 
 that thou art determined to go to the devil." 
 
 She cried, she implored, she shrieked, she 
 raved. He sat still and let her passion have it 
 sway. When through pure physical exhaus 
 tion she was silent, he said : " Christina thou 
 hast no more power over me in this matter. 
 Last night God sent me after the child. I know 
 He did. It cried to me from the very mouth 
 of hell. I have given my boy to my mother. 
 I will make the gift sure, and then I will go 
 away. I will not come back until thou art a 
 good woman or dead ! I can do no more for
 
 THE HOME LEFT DESOLATE. 159 
 
 thee but pray ; and may be I can pray with a 
 kinder heart when I am far off from the home 
 which thou hast made so miserable. God. for 
 give thee and save thee ! As for me, thou hast 
 pulled my life to pieces as a child breaks a 
 toy!" 
 
 " I am glad I have ! " she screamed. " I am 
 glad thou art going away, and I hope then thou 
 wilt never, never come back. I hate thee, Paul 
 Thorsen ; and as for the child, it is my child, 
 and I will have it, or I will kill it. I will that. 
 There now ! " 
 
 He put his hand to his forehead and stag 
 gered blindly over the doorstep and across the 
 moor. When he was very near out of sight 
 Christina stood up suddenly quiet. She be 
 came in a moment, as it were, sane and quiet 
 and sober. Then she ran to the gate and called 
 frantically. 
 
 " Paul ! Paul ! Come back to me ! I did not 
 mean it. I did not mean a word of it. I was 
 mad, mad, mad ! Paul, Paul, come back ! Come 
 back ! " 
 
 But he neither turned nor answered her. 
 Indeed, he did not hear her. A deaf and 
 dumb stupidity of sorrow possessed him. At
 
 160 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 that hour all his life his love and patience 
 seemed to have been barrener than ice. He was 
 in that darkness of desolation in which vainly 
 he looked from grief to God he could not see 
 Him.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD? 
 
 The way to find where to be patient, and where to be impa 
 tient, is to consider what is avoidable and what unavoidable. 
 
 We prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated 
 choice of good or evil. 
 
 Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves. 
 
 \ LL so useless ! All so useless ! " These 
 jf\ were the words that kept up in Paul's 
 heart their melancholy refrain. Love, patience, 
 self-denial without stint and without fail ; and 
 the end of them sin and folly, aggravated by a 
 traitorous deception. He was going through 
 deep waters and all the waves and the billows 
 went over him. His first visit was to Dr. Logic. 
 The good man heard the sad story with infinite 
 pity and regret, but he was far from losing 
 heart as Paul had done. 
 
 " Now then," he said, " God has taken the 
 work out of thy hands. He sees thou art not 
 able for it. But dost thou think He will fail ?
 
 1 62 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 I tell thee He will not. When men are sure 
 things are all going wrong, then it is that they 
 are all going right." 
 
 " I understand not." 
 
 " It is not necessary for thee to understand. 
 Can a mortal man comprehend the ways of 
 Omnipotence?" 
 
 "But alas, sir! if she should die suddenly! 
 If the child should die ! My heart stands still 
 with the fear." 
 
 " Thy season may not be God's season. God 
 can take plenty of time. He is never too soon ; 
 and oh, my son, be sure of this also He is 
 never too late." 
 
 Long they talked together, and doubtless 
 Paul received the strength and comfort he 
 needed ; for when he came out of the manse he 
 looked clear-eyed before him. He did not go 
 home again, but he remained at Voe Ness with 
 his mother for three days. Perhaps he hoped 
 that Christina would come to him and say or 
 do something which would make it possible for 
 him to stay with her. 
 
 As for Christina she never believed that 
 Paul would really leave her. Often he had 
 threatened to do so, but in the end he had
 
 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD? 163 
 
 always returned to his home. And Helga was 
 of the same opinion. At the first word of her 
 daughter's trouble she had gone to her ; and at 
 this time she did not altogether take Paul's 
 part. She was hurt at his disposal of the child. 
 If it were really necessary to take it from the 
 mother, she thought then that her claim was 
 before Margery Thorsen's. And she could not 
 understand the failure of Paul's patience. " At 
 the last," she murmured, " such a step to take. 
 It was not like Paul. All the town he has set 
 talking. His wife he has left to the scorn of 
 both the good and the bad. To me first he 
 ought to have come. I had persuaded him a 
 little longer to bear with Christina. Surely 
 while God had patience his need not have been 
 short. I see that a mother's love is stronger 
 than a husband's. And as for Margery Thor- 
 sen, she liked not my daughter. She had 
 wrongs from her, and there are few women who 
 can give good for evil." 
 
 Thinking and feeling thus, she did not urge 
 upon the wretched mother and wife a visit to 
 Voe Ness. She thought it would be better for 
 Paul to meet her on his own hearth. There 
 no unfriendly element would interfere between
 
 164 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 them. And sooner or later she was certain 
 Paul would so seek Christina ; and she com 
 forted her unhappy child with her own convic 
 tion. Even if he should stay away a whole 
 week, Helga secretly thought it might be a 
 good discipline; for, in spite of Christina's folly 
 and weakness, she loved her child with a pas 
 sionate fervor, and she loved Paul as well, per 
 haps, as it was in her nature to love. Helga's 
 and Christina's expectation ended, however, in 
 a startling and bitter disappointment ; for, on 
 the third day after he had left his home, Paul 
 sailed to Wick in order to join a fleet of whal 
 ing vessels bound for the Greenland seas. 
 
 The next morning Donald Groat notified 
 Christina that her husband had gone, and that 
 he would pay her from Paul's wages ten shil 
 lings weekly. Christina stared at the messenger 
 blankly for a moment and then fell senseless at 
 his feet. And when consciousness returned 
 there came with it the conviction of her loss and 
 her shame. Paul had really gone, really sailed 
 for Greenland ! He might be away for years. 
 He might never come back. The poor sinful 
 wife was in a state of distraction. She could 
 do nothing but weep and moan over their cruel
 
 WffO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD? 165 
 
 parting and the last bitter words she had said 
 to him. 
 
 But her stormy sorrow was very like the 
 passion of a child. She wept its first agony 
 away and then began to think what she should 
 do. Paul was beyond her power and her influ 
 ence, and as the days went by a steady anger 
 against him gradually gathered in her heart. 
 
 " What right had he to take her child from 
 her? She was doing no wrong to the child. 
 It was the New Year's holiday. It was a hard 
 case if she could not have a dance with a friend 
 in a friend's house." 
 
 In this manner she reasoned away all her con 
 victions of wrong-doing and all sorrow for the 
 consequences of her sin. 
 
 She would not listen to a word against the 
 Sabays. " They were very respectable people. 
 Isabel went to church regularly ; Sabay paid 
 his debts and was good to the poor. No one 
 did more for the poor. There were worse 
 people than the Sabays ; plenty of them ! " 
 
 Even her deception towards her husband 
 soon came to be a venial sin in her eyes : " It 
 wasn't her fault if Paul was so cruel and 
 unreasonable that she was obliged to take,
 
 1 66 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 unknown to him, an hour's innocent amuse 
 ment." Every one was to blame but herself 
 and the Sabays. 
 
 And one purpose grew with strength and 
 rapidity every day with her. She would have 
 her child. She was determined she would have 
 it. It was in vain that Helga told her it had 
 been formally given to Margery Thorsen by 
 Paul, and that the magistrate had ratified the 
 gift as one necessary for the child's welfare. 
 Christina laughed at the whole transac 
 tion. "As if any one could give a child away 
 from its own mother!" she answered, scorn 
 fully. 
 
 She would steal it away. To this thought 
 she settled positively down, and hour after hour 
 she pleaded with her mother to help her form 
 some plan by which she could get possession 
 of it. Once in her arms she would die rather 
 than resign it. She would fly to Sabay's. 
 There were men there who would take her part, 
 would fight for her right if it were necessary. If 
 she could do nothing else she would fly to Hol 
 land with it. But she felt certain that the 
 majority of parents would stand by her. 
 " Why," she exclaimed, it would be worse than
 
 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD? 167 
 
 Popery if the Church could separate a mother 
 and her child ! " 
 
 She was very angry at Dr. Logic. " What 
 right had he to stand before the magistrate and 
 say she was unfit to bring up her own son?" 
 She nursed such thoughts continually. They 
 took entire possession of her. 
 
 On the second Monday after Paul's departure 
 she went to Donald Groat's for her money. 
 When she came back her plans had altered 
 somewhat. She had been made to feel in the 
 most unequivocal manner that all the better 
 class of citizens held her in scorn and dislike. 
 She could see plainly that she would have no 
 sympathy from them. Women who hitherto 
 had always had a civil salutation for her passed 
 her now without notice. Some avoided her. A 
 few had open words of contempt to fling at her. 
 
 There were a number of men in Donald's 
 store and Donald's wife was also there. Mag 
 gie had always been her friend. She had had 
 a word of excuse for her when no one else 
 could find one. Her kind womanly heart had 
 pleaded more than once with Paul himself in 
 her favor. Thus, about the trip to Holland 
 she had said to him, " She is only a child, Paul,
 
 1 68 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 Thou should think of that. And she has a gay 
 heart and means no wrong, I think. Be patient 
 with her." So when Christina saw Maggie she 
 was glad for her heart was wounded by the 
 scoffing and scorn of the women she had met, 
 and she was longing for a word of kindness and 
 sympathy. 
 
 But when Maggie Groat saw Christina enter 
 she turned hurriedly round and went to the 
 other end of the store. Christina could not bear 
 it. "Maggie," she cried, and she followed and 
 began to excuse herself. But Maggie sorrow 
 fully shook her head. Then Christina got 
 angry and spoke with ill-considered warmth ; 
 and Donald felt himself obliged to interfere. 
 
 " Go to thy home," he said sternly. " Here 
 is thy money; I am not willing that thou 
 should speak to my wife any any more. Mind 
 that ! " 
 
 Several were standing round and heard Don 
 ald's remark, but no one said a word for her 
 except Olave Snackoll, a man whom she had 
 seen frequently at Sabay's. 
 
 " You are a pack pf cowardly hounds," he 
 blurted out, " to bay a poor lass to death for a 
 drink and a dance. Now then, the first man
 
 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD* 169 
 
 that speaks an unkind word to Christina Thor- 
 sen I'll give him a rope-ending for it I will, 
 by- 
 
 Christina looked gratefully at her defender 
 and yet with a kind of shame. She knew that 
 his advocacy set her still further apart. She 
 went out of the shop with a pale face and a 
 throbbing heart, and Paul's money in her hand 
 seemed to burn it. And as she walked home she 
 looked for no one's smile; nor did she care 
 much for such marks of disapprobation as fell 
 to her. " I will now go to Isabel," she thought. 
 " Why should I give up the only people who are 
 my friends? I will not give them up! Everyone 
 else has the black look and the buffet for me. 
 I will care no more about these very good peo 
 ple. No, indeed ! I will put myself under Isa 
 bel and Jeppe Sabay's protection and we shall 
 see then who will dare to say a word against 
 me. They may talk thus and so behind 
 Jeppe's back, but even Donald Groat is civil 
 enough to his face. He is that ! " 
 
 That very afternoon she went to see Isabel, 
 and Isabel welcomed her gladly. Both Jeppe 
 Sabay and his wife were eager enough to help 
 her in the recovery of her child ; or, for that
 
 170 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 matter, in any other plan she might have which 
 would annoy or thwart Paul Thorsen. That 
 he should have taken it away from their house 
 and have deserted his wife for being their guest, 
 was relatively as deep an affront to them as to 
 Christina herself. Sabay had talked loudly of 
 reprisals for the insult, and he and Isabel in 
 stantly perceived how easily they might reach 
 Paul through Paul's son. 
 
 Thus the intimacy was not only renewed, but 
 renewed on a much more familiar basis ; and 
 Christina was grateful for their friendship. 
 Whatever people might think, they did not dare 
 to insult her when Sabay or his wife was with 
 her. As for Helga's disapproval, that was a 
 thing she cared very little about. When Helga 
 said " I will not stay with thee if thou bring 
 Isabel Sabay and her crowd around," Christina 
 answered, " I cannot help that. Thy crowd 
 give me nothing but the black look and the ill 
 word and the back of their hand. Isabel and 
 Jeppe pity and protect me." 
 
 During these days Christina did not drink as 
 much as might have been expected. The 
 greater desire controlled the less, and it seemed 
 as if her whole existence was wound up in one
 
 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD t I?l 
 
 object the possession of her baby. But it 
 was an object composed of three dominant 
 passions mother-love, revenge, and that rest- 
 less craving for change and excitement which 
 had been steadily nourished in her heart by 
 reading foolish adventurous tales and by com 
 pany of the same sort. 
 
 She imagined herself the heroine of some 
 tragic story, and then she began to hug the 
 circumstances of sin and sorrow surrounding 
 her as if they were an evil fate, and she some 
 innocent and unfortunate victim. Thus a sickly 
 sentimentality took the place which a genuine 
 shame and repentance ought to have occupied. 
 
 And Sabay pulled his long moustache and 
 grinned with a quiet scorn at her heroics and 
 tears and romancing. " What a born little 
 fool she is ! " he said to his wife, contemptu 
 ously. " There is precious small fun in deceiv 
 ing her." 
 
 " She was always a silly thing, Jeppe. And 
 yet to see the way Paul Thorsen went on about 
 her you would have thought she was the one 
 fair woman in the islands." 
 
 Then Sabay pulled his moustache a little 
 more thoughtfully. " Well, well," he said, " if
 
 *7 2 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 a woman is coined a farthing you can't make a 
 sovereign of her. Listen to me, Isabel. To 
 morrow the Swallow will be in port. See 
 Christina and tell her this. On the next night 
 that which she is always talking about doing 
 must be done." 
 
 " What else ? She will ask me this and that." 
 
 " Dirke Biron and I myself will go with her." 
 
 " If the night be stormy, Jeppe, what then ? " 
 
 " Just the same. I never take the weather 
 
 into my plans. Fair weather or foul I carry 
 
 them out. Fair weather or foul we must get 
 
 the child that night. The Swallow will be 
 
 unloaded and waiting at the pier. The tide 
 
 serves at nine o'clock. They may be well on 
 
 the way to Holland before daylight." 
 
 The next morning Isabel called early at 
 Christina's. She found her walking about the 
 floor under great emotion. She had been 
 dreaming of her baby and of Margery Thorsen, 
 and she was precisely in the mood to let any 
 influence bearing upon this subject irritate and 
 excite her. She loved her child and she hated 
 Margery; which feeling was the stronger it 
 would have been sometimes hard to say. With 
 a pity in which there was a good deal of con-
 
 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD? 173 
 
 tempt Isabel watched her movements and 
 listened to her threats and lamentatings. 
 
 " Why art thou so easy satisfied ? " she 
 asked. " If I was in thy place the child would 
 be in my breast, and Margery Thorsen walking 
 about with empty arms and loud words. And 
 I wonder at thee ! Crying over a wrong never 
 yet made the wrong right." 
 
 " Oh, then, I am going to Margery Thorsen's 
 this day! What follows will be seen and 
 heard tell of." 
 
 " Thou art a fool ! I will tell thee what will 
 follow. Margery will see thee coming and will 
 bolt thee outside her door. Dost thou know 
 her cottage ? Jeppe says there are as many 
 as twenty cottages at Voe Ness. 
 
 " I was never at Voe Ness," answered Chris 
 tina, sullenly. 
 
 " From a blazing passion into the sulks ! 
 Who knows how to talk to thee ? I think, also, 
 if my child had been but six miles away I had 
 gone in the dark and on the sly to see if he 
 fared well or ill. But, as Jeppe says, women 
 are all on a different pattern." 
 
 "That is easy said. If thou had tried to do 
 it some difficulties would have been found.
 
 174 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 Until to-day there has been no frost. The 
 road to Voe Ness in wet weather, even in the 
 day-light, is a bottomless road to those who 
 know not where to put the feet. At night it 
 is impossible. Who was to take me the sea 
 way? And if I had managed that way every 
 wife in the village would have been watching 
 and wondering what strange boat came, and 
 who with it. So then when I landed and asked 
 for Margery's cottage, there would have been 
 plenty to put this and that together and to 
 say : ' Well, Christina Thorsen, is this really 
 thee ? And what dost thou think of thyself ? ' 
 But to-day it is different. The road is hard 
 frozen ; a pony will take me there in one hour, 
 and as for the women's ill-will, I will run my 
 risk of that. Surely some one will show me 
 which is Margery Thorsen's house." 
 
 " And that is something very important. I 
 will tell thee why. This night Jeppe and 
 Dirke Biron will help thee to get thy child. 
 They will carry thee in the boat to Voe Ness, 
 and they will time the journey so that in the 
 dark and at the supper-hour they will land. 
 Here and there they cannot wander seeking 
 Margery's house. Dirke and thee must go to
 
 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD? 175 
 
 it straight. Then it is something very import 
 ant that 'the way to it is known ; the quick and 
 the near way. My advice is this : Go at once 
 to Voe Ness. Mark the house well, and the 
 way to it from the landing. Keep thy eyes 
 very quick and bright, for much will depend 
 upon such knowledge." 
 
 "To-night! So soon ! Is it true?" 
 
 " Yes ; art thou glad or not ? " 
 
 " I wish it were this hour." 
 
 " The Swallow leaves for Rotterdam at nine 
 o'clock. If this wind last thou and thy boy 
 may be a long way nearer to Holland by day 
 light. Jcppe is going with thee. Thou art 
 his passenger, and who shall hinder him from 
 taking his price if he have the offer? A skip 
 per is there to take his boat from port to 
 port." 
 
 " And at Rotterdam what shall I do ? " 
 
 " Thou wilt go to the Nassau Arms. To that 
 inn many English come, and much English is 
 used ; very well, one who can serve and speak 
 it is very necessary. This place is a good place, 
 and Jeppe has the promise of it for thee. But, 
 indeed, if thou wert a woman of spirit thou 
 would not ask me, ' what shall I do ? ' With
 
 I7 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 thy child to feed, thou would find the work 
 that is fit for thee." 
 
 " Always with a hard word thou ends every 
 thing, Isabel." 
 
 " It is for thy good. But the first thing is 
 the best thing, and that is thy ride to Voe Ness 
 
 
 
 See that thou make all clear in thy own mind, 
 for if there is any failure through thee, Jeppe 
 Sabay will be thy enemy forever. He is not 
 used to have things go wrong with him." 
 
 " I will do my part. Fear not ! " 
 
 " At six to-night thou art to be watching. 
 The boat will be ready and the men waiting." 
 
 " Listen. If I go to Voe Ness to-day, will 
 they not be suspicious and more careful to 
 night, perhaps even on the watch?" 
 
 " Little thou knows of men and women 
 When thou hast been once there to-day, It is 
 not likely they will look for thee back. And 
 if thou go now by the road they will not think 
 of thee coming by the sea at night time. So 
 then to visit Margery Thorsen to-day is the 
 best way to leave an open door for to-night." 
 
 " Well, thy words are in a good season ; for 
 here comes Skade's boy with the pony." 
 
 " Then J will go ; forget not to-night at six "
 
 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD? 1 77 
 
 "At six ; no one will wait for me a minute." 
 
 It was a cold, clear day, with that gray look 
 in the north which prefigured a coming snow 
 storm. But Christina thought not of that ; she 
 was satisfied when she found the road over the 
 moor hard enough to bear the pony's light feet. 
 The little creature had, moreover, a wonderful 
 instinct concerning moss land, and he picked 
 his way with a sagacity which might even have 
 been trusted in the dark. 
 
 When she reached Voe Ness her heart sank 
 a little. The small, heather-thatched cottages 
 were scattered about in the coves of the rough 
 coast, and a more lonely looking hamlet in the 
 bleak winter weather it would have been hard 
 to find. There was a solitary post at the out 
 skirts of the moor, which had probably been 
 put there for the purpose of securing ponies, 
 and she tied hers to it and walked forward to 
 the cottages. Several women had noticed her, 
 and she went frankly to the nearest and asked 
 for Margery's cottage. It was civilly pointed 
 out, and Christina was glad to find that it was 
 very close to the sea, and rather apart from any 
 others. 
 
 The door was shut ; she opened it without
 
 178 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 ceremony. Margery was cleaning some fish at 
 a table ; she looked up, let the knife in her 
 hand fall, and lifted the child who was playing 
 on a sheepskin rug before the fire. 
 
 At the sight of his fair sweet face, Christina 
 burst into passionate weeping and entreaties. 
 And the child remembered her also, and 
 stretched out his arms and called her in the 
 pretty cooing way so delightful and so intelli 
 gible to a mother's heart. 
 
 " Let me hold him in my arms, Margery 
 Thorsen ! One moment let me hold him, I pray 
 thee ! " 
 
 Margery was in a hard strait. For a few min 
 utes she resisted Christina's prayers and tears ; 
 but they were so well seconded by the baby's 
 cries that at length she suffered the longing 
 mother to clasp her boy in her arms. Still, 
 Margery was suspicious. She knew the woman 
 with whom she had to deal she kept her eyes 
 upon her face; and when she saw Christina glance 
 quickly and furtively at the door, she went to 
 it and loudly called her daughter, Nanna. Sev 
 eral other women were in sight also and they 
 answered the imperative beckoning of her hand 
 at once. So, in a moment or two, Margery's
 
 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CHILD? *79 
 
 cottage was filled with her neighbors, strong, 
 resolute women, quite able and quite willing to 
 defend Margery's rights. 
 
 Christina saw her position at once, but with 
 the promise of the night's triumph before her 
 she could afford to wait patiently. It even 
 pleased her to affect an overwhelming penitence 
 and affection ; her humility and self-condemna 
 tion was touching. It made Margery Thorsen 
 herself sorry for her. And one tender-hearted 
 woman proposed that Christina should come to 
 Voe Ness and live with Margery, and so have 
 a share in the care of the child. 
 
 " It would be a great help to thee, Margery," 
 she pleaded ; " and I think also that thy son 
 Paul would not object." 
 
 And though Margery shook her head she was 
 full of sympathy, and she said kindly ; " Come 
 again, come often, Christina, and see thy child. 
 I do not wish that he should forget thee. No, 
 indeed ! And if thou art truly sorry for thy 
 faults, then together sometimes we can watch 
 and pray for Paul's return." 
 
 Upon the whole Christina left a very favora 
 ble impression in the village one so favorable, 
 that it was almost a wrong to Margery. Her
 
 I So AUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 childlike manner and face disarmed reproaches 
 and bespoke a kind of pity ; especially when 
 taken in connection with her tears and con 
 fessions, her protestations and regrets. She 
 felt thoroughly pleased with her performance 
 as she went home. She had left with Mar 
 gery's permission to come again in a week. 
 She was quite certain no one would dream of 
 her returning in a few hours.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 WELL WITH THE CHILD. 
 
 The Power that ministers to God's decrees 
 
 And executes on earth what He forsees, 
 
 Called Providence, 
 
 Comes with resistless force, and finds or makes its way 
 
 An unseen Hand makes all our Moves. 
 
 Fate, and the dooming gods are deaf to tears. 
 
 Dryden. 
 ******* 
 
 The little feet that never trod 
 Earth, never strayed in field or street, 
 What hand leads upward back to God 
 
 The little feet ? 
 ****** 
 
 Oh, but the strength of regrets that strain and sicken 
 Yearning for Love that the veil of death endears, 
 Slackens not wing for the wings of years that quicken 
 Years upon years. 
 
 WHEN Christina arrived at her own home, 
 the short winter afternoon was over. 
 It was quite dark and there was a soft, thin 
 drizzle of snow, that, as yet, melted as it fell. 
 She was glad to see there was no light in the 
 kitchen, for its absence assured her that Helga 
 was not there to embarrass her preparations.
 
 1 82 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 Indeed, ever since Isabel had resumed her visits 
 the old woman had gone less and less to her 
 daughter's house. She could not shut the door 
 against Christina's visitors, and yet she disliked 
 their company quite as much as they objected 
 to her grave and melancholy face and manner. 
 But sometimes Helga came just before dark, 
 and stayed out the long nights with her 
 daughter. Christina had been fearing such a 
 visit that night ; she could hardly have sent 
 her mother home, and if she were present the 
 most necessary preparations for her voyage 
 might have roused suspicion. 
 
 " All is dark, and I shall not have any one to 
 watch and wonder over me. Thank God for 
 that ! " she said, with that sinful inappropriate- 
 ness which so often accompanies the ejacula 
 tion from the mouth of the thoughtless and 
 irreverent. 
 
 She turned loose the pony and entered her 
 house. " It is the last time, and I am glad of 
 it ! Much sorrow and disappointment and suf 
 fering have I had under this roof ! In Holland 
 at the Nassau Arms, there will be something 
 to be seen and to be heard and I shall have 
 my child ! In spite of all of them minister
 
 WELL WITH THE CHILD. 183 
 
 and magistrate, Margery and Paul I shall have 
 my child ! How I deceived every one this after 
 noon ! Dirke Biron is quite right, I must be a 
 very clever woman I think, indeed, I shall do 
 great things in Holland." 
 
 So she mused, as she drew the peats together 
 and put on the kettle for her tea. It was then 
 four o'clock, and she had much to do, and was 
 not anxious to call attention to her movements. 
 Her stock of money was low, but she had some 
 fine clothing, and she could on no account 
 think of going without part of it. Yet Isabel 
 had said nothing on the subject, and she could 
 think of no way to get a trunk carried on 
 board The Swallow. Her mortification at this 
 part of the Sabays' thoughtlessness was veiy 
 great. 
 
 " They could so easily have sent a sailor from 
 The Swallow for my clothes, and if Isabel had 
 been herself going, she would not have for 
 gotten ; " she muttered, nearly crying in her 
 vexation at this oversight. However, she 
 made a large bundle of such garments as she 
 valued most, and then she began to lock away 
 such of her household treasures as she could 
 in the big sea-chests and the wall-presses. For
 
 1 84 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 nothing is more remarkable about such friend 
 ships as the one existing between Isabel and 
 Christina as. their complete and apparently un 
 reasonable want of faith and confidence. 
 Christina was willing to trust herself and her 
 child to the Sabay's care and direction, but she 
 had many doubts and anxieties about her half- 
 spun linen and blankets, and her personal 
 effects, and china and furniture. 
 
 However, she left a letter on the table for her 
 mother, putting all things under her charge 
 until her return. She said nothing of her 
 plans, or of her destination, and she threw the 
 whole blame of her proceedings upon those 
 who had " so cruelly outraged her mother-love 
 for her own child." She knew well that on this 
 point she had a great deal of sympathy from 
 Helga, and she believed also that many other 
 women would judge her leniently, and think 
 the step she had taken a justifiable one. " Why, 
 even Jane Sinclair said it was a hard thing to 
 take the child from its mother's breast and 
 Jane was one of, them that thought Paul was 
 made without faults." 
 
 She was too excited to eat, but she forced 
 herself to take some hot tea, and then she
 
 WELL WITH THE CHILD. 185 
 
 carefully extinguished the fire and light. 
 Standing by the little window in the dark 
 room, the minutes pressed heavily and fearfully 
 upon her heart. She thought the hour would 
 never strike. Down upon the shingle, just 
 below the house, Paul had built a small jetty 
 or pier for his own convenience, andSabayhad 
 sent her word the boat would be there at six 
 o'clock. Restlessly she wandered from the 
 window to the door, uncertain, fearful, and 
 more depressed than she knew by the absence 
 of fire and light upon her hearth, and by the 
 cold and gloom outside. For the snow was 
 now heavier, and the whole moor had become 
 white and spectral ; the lonely huts rising up 
 black and well defined, like islands in a spell 
 bound sea. 
 
 At length she saw a lantern lifted three 
 times. It was the sign agreed upon. With a 
 sentimental sigh for her own hard fate, she shut 
 the door of her home, and in a few minutes was 
 in the boat. Biron helped her into it with a 
 remark about the snow ; Sabay grumbled at the 
 big bundle of clothing a little, but there was 
 no conversation, for the men were naturally 
 silent at sea, and Christina was wrought up to
 
 1 86 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 a pitch of excitement far beyond the capacity 
 of her ordinary speech. 
 
 She was not afraid, however, dark and stormy 
 as it was. Sabay knew the coast as well as he 
 knew his own room ; Biron could have sailed it 
 blindfold. And when they reached Voe Ness, 
 the men were all in for the night : every cottage 
 door was shut, and from every cottage window 
 the light of the evening fire or lamp streamed 
 through the small square of glass. 
 
 Christina had noted well the position of Mar 
 gery Thorscn's cottage. She went straight to 
 it. Biron walked silently by her side ; Sabay 
 stayed in the boat. The small window was un 
 curtained, except by some pots of flowers on a 
 shelf, and Margery was sitting by the fire. She 
 had not lit the lamp, but in the glow of the red 
 peat, sat knitting. The whole room was easily 
 seen ; and Biron in a glance took notice of 
 everything that concerned the object of their 
 visit. 
 
 He perceived that it was a large, comfortable 
 room, with a homely beauty of its own. The 
 bed, gay with patchwork, stood in one corner ; 
 he saw that the child was not in it.' The walls 
 were tinted ochre, and bright with pewter and
 
 WELL WITH THE CHILD. 187 
 
 crockery, and before the hearth there was a 
 large sheepskin rug. Just on the edge of the 
 rug was a wooden cradle ; pne of those low, 
 old-fashioned cradles with a kind of wooden 
 hood to shield the child's head, and large, broad 
 rockers. In this cradle Christina's baby was 
 lying fast asleep. 
 
 She hid herself behind a stack of peats at the 
 corner of the cottage. Biron knocked at the 
 door. When Margery opened it, he said ; 
 " Good mother, let me warm and dry myself 
 at thy fire ; and give me a cup of tea, if thou 
 wilt." 
 
 He had a frank face, and a pleasant way, and 
 Margery's kind heart was easily touched. 
 " Come in, and welcome ! " she answered. Then 
 she shut the door, and put a chair upon the 
 sheepskin, and went into the little room behind 
 the houseplace, to light her lamp, get some 
 more peats, and fill the kettle. 
 
 She was not away three minutes, but during 
 them Biron handed out the child to the waiting 
 mother, re-arranged the cradle, and drew his 
 chair into such a position as to shadow the 
 head of it. 
 
 Margery suspected nothing. She let Biron
 
 1 88 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 help her to build up the fire, and as she brewed 
 him a pot of tea, and toasted a herring and a 
 barley cake, he talked to her of her son Paul, 
 with whom he had once made a voyage to 
 Iceland. He had found the subject of which 
 Margery never tired. He told her stories 
 of Paul's bravery, of his unselfishness, his 
 kind heart and helpful ways ; and when he 
 said : " To have sailed with Paul Thorsen is 
 something good to think about," Margery's face 
 was shining with love, and happy tears filling 
 her eyes almost to overflowing. 
 
 Yet ; though Biron talked, he ate and drank 
 with haste, and Margery was sorry that he 
 would not stay in the village all night. " The 
 moor is dangerous," she said, " and my son-in 
 law will gladly give thee a rug by the fireside 
 that is better than the snow." 
 
 " I know the moor well, mother ; every step 
 of it, I know ; and, besides, as thou seest, I 
 have my lantern. If I hurry not away I shall 
 lose my ship, and that is not a thing a good 
 sailor likes to do." 
 
 So he rose to go, and Margery buttoned his 
 big pilot coat, and going to a drawer, took from 
 it a warm comforter.
 
 WELL WITH THE CHILD. 189 
 
 " Thou wear this," she said, " for thou hast 
 sailed with my Paul, and so then, thou art wel 
 come to me. It will keep the cold blast from 
 thee a little ; " and Biron suffered her to tie it 
 round his neck, though as he told Sabay after 
 wards, " he felt about as mean as if it was the 
 hangman's rope." 
 
 He had not gone twenty yards when he heard 
 a wild shriek, and Margery flung open her door 
 and called him back. He did not answer her, 
 and very soon other doors were flung open, and 
 there was a hubbub of men's voices, and the 
 flashing of lanterns in the hands of people hur 
 rying hither and thither. 
 
 He was very quickly overtaken, but his well- 
 assumed shock and amazement, and his frank 
 denial, quite disarmed all suspicion regarding 
 him. Yet he had half a mind to tell the truth, 
 when one of the men said pitifully: "The little 
 fellow is sick, too ; he has had a cold and a 
 fever all day. The fever was very high ere he 
 fell asleep." 
 
 " His mother, then came to see him this 
 afternoon, and he cried much when she went 
 away." 
 
 " The fever may have gone to his brain then."
 
 190 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 "Ay, and the poor child may have crept out 
 of his cradle into the dark night." 
 
 " Margery says that is not possible ; he could 
 not open the door." 
 
 " And yet how else ? Margery must have 
 left the door open." So the searchers divided 
 themselves, into three parties, and examined 
 every foot of ground that it was possible for a 
 child to have reached. Others, who held to 
 the opinion that the child had been stolen, took 
 the different routes across the moor, slowly 
 and hopelessly fighting their way against the 
 increasing snow-storm. But nobody thought of 
 the sea way, or their swift boats, well manned, 
 could have easily overtaken Sabay, who had 
 also to contend with an adverse wind and the 
 snow in his face. 
 
 Christina, upon receiving her child from 
 Biron, had folded it up completely in a coat of 
 skins, and fled with it to the boat. The child 
 was struggling and crying hoarsely ere it put 
 off from the shore, but the noise was quickly 
 lost in the beating of the surf. Something, 
 however, about the child's crying startled her, 
 and she partially uncovered its face and bent to 
 it. Its breathing was short imd labored ; its
 
 WELL WITH THE CHILD. 191 
 
 face very hot. A sharp fear smote her heart, 
 and she listened with painful intentness to 
 every respiration. 
 
 When they were about half way the child had 
 a paroxysm, the character of which was beyond 
 doubt. 
 
 " Croup ! " said Sabay in a terrified voice ; 
 " and now then, what is to be done ? " 
 
 What indeed ! on the dark sea, the wind and 
 the waves rapidly rising , the snow, and the 
 spindrift in their faces ? 
 
 The wretched mother bent over the agonized 
 child in an agony as great as its own. Sabay 
 strained at the oars like a giant, but he knew 
 of no cove or inlet fit for landing where there 
 was any human help at hand. Christina's own 
 house was the very nearest shelter they could 
 reach. She had resolved never to return there. 
 She had congratulated herself when she shut 
 its door behind her ; but oh? how she longed 
 for it now. She thought every moment an 
 hour until they touched the jetty ; then she 
 fled at her utmost speed to its warmth with her 
 sick child. 
 
 " Thou put him in a hot bath at once, and I 
 will go for thy mother and the doctor," said
 
 192 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 Sabay ; and then he hurried off in the direction 
 of the town. 
 
 Unfortunately, as she had not intended to 
 come back to her house, the fire was out. The 
 things she wanted were not in their usual place ; 
 she had forgotten where she had put them ; in 
 her distress she could find nothing she wanted. 
 The peats would not kindle, the water had 
 been left outside and was frozen ; she felt as if 
 she was in an evil dream, struggling with 
 impossibilities. At last in a passion of weeping 
 she abandoned the effort, and lifting the suffer 
 ing babe she held it to her breast in despair. 
 Oh ! in that hour, how she longed for the heart 
 and the arm of Paul to lean upon. 
 
 It was not very long until Helga came, but it 
 seemed to Christina an interminable space of 
 wretchedness. She was white with snow, and 
 pallid with fear and the exertion of making her 
 way against the storm. From Sabay she had 
 heard as much of the sad story as was necessary 
 to account for the extremity she was needed 
 in, and she stopped not to ask questions, or 
 even to offer consolation. 
 
 Her deft hands soon kindled the turfs, and 
 Christina gave a sob of gratitude when she saw
 
 WELL WITH THE CHILD, 193 
 
 once more the red glow upon the hearth the 
 hearth which she had purposely made cold and 
 desolate. Helga had a sad knowledge of the 
 disease from which the child was suffering ; it 
 had strangled two of her own little ones. She 
 entered into the fight against it with all her 
 heart and all her strength. She knew what was 
 to be done and she did it with a wonderful 
 rapidity. But though she spoke hopefully to 
 Christina, it was evident that she was anxious 
 and fearful. She went often to the door ; sha 
 could not avoid murmuring wishes for the doc. 
 tor's arrival, with broken prayers for the pity 
 and help of God. It was midnight when the 
 physician came, though Sabay had indeed 
 spared no trouble to find and bring him to the 
 sick child. 
 
 He entered the cottage like a Fate, weary 
 and wet, and not in much sympathy with 
 Christina ; for Sabay had thought it best to 
 tell him the whole truth. Sternly he looked at 
 the white-faced mother, and pityingly at 
 the flushed, gasping little sufferer in her 
 arms. 
 
 " Too late ! " he said, " he is dying." 
 
 " Oh, no, no, no ! " shrieked Christina.
 
 194 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " Save him ! Save him ! Thou can save him ! 
 Yes, thou can ! " 
 
 " Be quiet, woman ! I cannot save him. He 
 may live an hour. He may live until dawn. 
 No human power can save him. God pity him ! 
 God help and release him ! " 
 
 Then Helga spoke : " If this be so, run 
 thou for the minister. Run for him, quick! 
 The child is not baptized ! Oh, my God, the 
 child is not baptized ! " 
 
 " What kind of woman are you ? " he asked, 
 angrily. But he mounted his pony and rode 
 away at his utmost speed. 
 
 Then the terror and the suffering deepened 
 every moment. It was soon beyond the 
 mother's power to witness. She laid the child 
 in Helga's arms, and fled into another room, 
 out of the sight and sound of the death agony. 
 Forced down, by Sorrow's hand, upon her knees, 
 her first distracted imploration was that God 
 would remove her child from its suffering. 
 Just then her mother heart could think of 
 nothing but the hopeless intensity of its physi 
 cal anguish. 
 
 Ah ! there are hours even in this life, in 
 which the sinful soul tastes of the unutterable
 
 WELL WITH THE CHILD. 19$ 
 
 woe of an hereafter filled with a repentance 
 which availeth nothing ! 
 
 So, minute by minute of that awful night was 
 a separate torture to Christina. Wringing her 
 hands, restlessly walking to and fro ; now on 
 her knees, now at the window ; moaning, shiv 
 ering, weeping, she endured the full chastise 
 ment she had brought upon herself. 
 
 " And the minister comes not ! " These words 
 she kept repeating in a dull, despairing voice, 
 or else in a passion of reproachful entreaties. 
 " My poor baby, what has he done ? How 
 cruel to him ! Oh, the dreadful outside dark 
 ness ! My little one shut out in it ! I cannot 
 bear it ! What shall I do ? What shall I do ? " 
 
 At length, on the eastern horizon there was a 
 pallor of light ; that early shudder of dawn 
 which detaches so many lives that mysterious 
 hour when all the fires of nature burn low and 
 the dying cease to struggle. Then Helga 
 touched her sadly, and when Christina raised 
 her woeful face she said. " It is over. He is 
 dead ! " 
 
 "Dead!" Helga was appalled by the for 
 lorn misery with which the wretched mother 
 echoed the words.
 
 196 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 "Dead! And the minister has not been?" 
 She asked the question more with her eyes 
 than with her tongue, for the words shivered to 
 pieces upon her parted lips. 
 
 Helga could only shake her head. Her heart 
 was full of an awful resignation. She went and 
 stood beside the little one, about whom there 
 had been such anger and heart-burning. He 
 had been fondly loved, and yet he had " sepa 
 rated dear friends." Paul and Christina, Mar 
 gery and herself, had said hard things, and felt 
 bitterness toward each other, because of him ; 
 and now, where were all their claims ? " The 
 Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken him away." 
 Yes, somehow, when all was thought and said, 
 in spite of catechism and creed, she trusted "it 
 was well with the child." And what she 
 " hoped " she tried with all her soul to believe.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE MINISTER'S WIFE SPEAKS. 
 
 Have not we, too ? Yes ; we have 
 Answers, and we know not whence ; 
 
 Echoes from beyond the grave 
 Recognised Intelligence. 
 
 Remorse is the chastisement of crime ; repentance is iU 
 expiation. The first belongs to a troubled conscience ; the 
 other to a soul changed for the better. 
 
 IS it a thing impossible or incredible that the 
 enfranchised spirit, ere it treads the star- 
 sown spaces which lead to brighter constella 
 tions, should linger a little while on the earth 
 to look once more on some beloved face or 
 spot, to convey some intelligence that it only 
 can take ? Many such traditions the world has ; 
 thousands more have been jealously guarded in 
 reverent hearts and never communicated. Cer 
 tainly, about the hour of the child's death, 
 Paul saw him. He was keeping the mid-watch 
 alone ; his mates were all asleep. The ship 
 was slowly making her way through the bleak
 
 I9& PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 Arctic waters. It was a calm night, lit by 
 myriads of wondrous stars, and there were no 
 sounds in all the lonely world but the roll of 
 the great waves and the sighing of the wind in 
 the canvas. 
 
 Paul was not distinctly thinking of his home ; 
 he had turned his face to the north, and was 
 looking for some sign of changing weather. 
 Suddenly there was his boy's face. It was a 
 little above and before him, and it grew out of 
 the surrounding gloom as fair and clear as the 
 stars grow out of the darkness. It was there 
 and it was gone in a moment ; but, oh ! how 
 full of love and mightiest comfort had been the 
 revelation ! 
 
 " My little lad is dead ! " Never did Paul 
 doubt that fact. The thing was beyond reason, 
 but it was sure as the stars above him. " He 
 came to make me certain of his remembrance 
 and his blessedness ! I have seen!" And for 
 a few minutes his soul was thrilled with a rap- 
 ture higher than earth can give. The child's 
 gain was so apparent he hardly considered his 
 own loss. 
 
 And, indeed, his first personal feelings and 
 thoughts were given to Christina and not to his
 
 THE MINISTER'S WIFE SPEAKS. 199 
 
 child. " Poor Christina ! Poor Christina ! " 
 The words, only half-formed upon his lips, called 
 up a thousand memories of the woman he loved, 
 loved dearer he knew it then than his own 
 life. He cast his eyes down to his broad left 
 shoulder, for he almost thought to see her rosy 
 face upon it surely he felt it there ! 
 
 How she must have suffered in the boy's 
 death ! He wondered if she had been near to 
 him. Surely his mother would send for her in 
 such an hour. Many a sad conjecture he 
 formed, and every one brought Christina nearer 
 to him. He had been very angry with her, 
 and his heart very hard towards her, but all 
 the anger was gone gone and he knew not 
 how. He longed to be with her, and to com 
 fort her. 
 
 But alas ! he had put impassable bars between 
 them. He could not even write her a letter. 
 For a long time they must be really as far apart 
 as if the ocean were a grave between them. 
 Then, with the consideration of earthly wrong 
 and earthly sorrow, came sadness and regret. 
 He thought of his desolate home, and of the 
 broken hopes and slain faith that filled its empty 
 chambers, with unavailing tears. And he felt
 
 200 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 that if Christina had wounded love by folly and 
 treachery, he also had wounded it by the nar 
 rowness of his trust and the limitations of his 
 patience. At that hour he knew that he would 
 have been better at the side of his wife, far 
 better than in the lonely peace of the ark in 
 which he had shut himself. 
 
 There is no fact in life more solemnly strange 
 than the apparent jarring of its elements. Life 
 and death, joy and sorrow, dreamy reflection 
 and physical prowess, touch each other without 
 our bespeaking. Into the midst of Paul's re 
 gretful memories and solemn apprehendings 
 came suddenly the urgent call for the boats and 
 the harpoons, and all the tumult of a strife 
 such as giants of the sea and giants of the land 
 must wage for the mastery. 
 
 And far off in the lonely islands, where 
 Christina was sitting in a maze of despairing 
 grief, Dr. Logic was wondering over the same 
 ever-recurring antithesis. He had gone the 
 previous evening some miles into the interior 
 to solemnise a marriage. He had not intended 
 to return until the following day, and the 
 doctor's appeal roused him from sleep, and 
 bbnded in his ears with the gay notes of the
 
 THE MINISTERS WIFE SPEAKS. 20 1 
 
 violins speeding mirthfully away the last of the 
 wedding guests. 
 
 Out from the house of feasting and rejoicing 
 into the house of death and mourning he passed. 
 When he entered it he saw the dead child lying 
 upon a couch made of two chairs, and dressed 
 for its burial. Whiter than the white gown he 
 wore, the beautiful curves of his small face were 
 as firm and pure as if death intended them to 
 last for ages. 
 
 Helga was kneeling beside the corpse, her 
 brown seamed face and brown knotted hands 
 showing so plainly beside the beautiful pallor 
 of the dead child what toil and suffering can 
 do to humanity in three-score years. No one 
 could read the awful, pitiful thoughts which 
 filled the minister's heart as he stood by the 
 dead babe. He did not speak a word, but he 
 covered his face with his hands and sat down 
 upon the hearthstone shivering in soul and 
 body. For the snow had changed to a mourn 
 ful rain, and the ride over the dreary moor in 
 the early dawn had been a chill and wretched 
 one, but far more chill and wretched was the 
 atmosphere in which his soul now wondered, 
 cowering before the spiritual terrors it evoked.
 
 202 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " Where is Christina ? " he asked at length. 
 
 " In her room. Wilt thou see her ? " 
 
 " No, I will not see her. I have nothing yet 
 to say to her." 
 
 " She is suffering " 
 
 " She ought to suffer. I am not sorry for her 
 at this hour. Hast thou sent word to Margery 
 Thorsen ? " 
 
 " I have not yet seen any soul here but the 
 doctor and thyself." 
 
 " Well, well, I will send her word. Stay thou 
 with thy daughter and watch her well. In such 
 hours as this the devil does his will." 
 
 He went away, but his tender conscience was 
 torturing him. All day he walked up and down 
 his study wondering if he were to blame. He 
 had denied baptism to the child, hoping thereby 
 to bring the mother back into the fold of the 
 church with it. Had he done well to put off 
 one duty in order to induce another? When he 
 had sanctioned the transfer of the child to its 
 grandmother he knew Paul was going away, 
 Oh ! why had he not then urged upon them the 
 immediate necessity of the rite? Alas! alas! if 
 through his misjudgment or forgetfulness the 
 child were lost !
 
 THE MINISTER'S WIFE SPEAKS. 203 
 
 There were hours in which the distracted 
 mother hardly suffered more than this good 
 pastor, hours in which he could well under 
 stand the comfort which Popery provided for 
 despairing affection in prayers for the dead, if 
 he had believed in their efficacy, what suppli 
 cations he would have offered for Christina's 
 unbaptized babe. 
 
 His wife watched him with a singularly dis 
 senting anxiety. He could feel that into this 
 trouble of his she did not enter with her usual 
 tender sympathy. One night, after he had sat 
 silent beside her for a long time, she said, 
 "Alexander, what is this thing that troubles 
 thee ? Donald Groat and others also have said 
 more than once that thou art looking ill ; and I 
 can see well that thou sleeps little and eats 
 less." 
 
 Then he told her the terrible fear in his 
 heart, and he was astonished to see her placid 
 face remain unruffled. 
 
 " No wonder," she answered, " that thou hast 
 no comfort in thy prayer about this matter. It 
 is a trial of thy own making. If thou wilt go 
 on a warfare to which thou art not sent, how 
 can thou expect that God will help thee ? He
 
 204 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 will not do it. And, indeed, I think thou art 
 much to blame for giving place to such hard 
 thoughts about thy God. I do that ! " 
 
 " Oh ! Barbara Logic, thou knowest little ! " 
 
 " Well, then, I know this much that the 
 water and the blood spilled on Calvary cleanses 
 from all sin. As thou sayest well, ' The Insti 
 tutes ' and ' The Authorities ' ; I know them 
 not, but I know the Gospels, and I have not so 
 learned Christ as to think it possible that one 
 of these little ones can perish, No, indeed ! " 
 
 " I did not think, Barbara, that I had a here 
 tic sitting on the very hearthstone of the 
 manse." 
 
 " If thou counts what I have said for heresy, 
 ^then make up thy mind that every true mother 
 is a heretic." 
 
 " Barbara ! " 
 
 " I say so. There is not one that believes 
 God created her child for eternal damnation. 
 No, indeed, there is not one! And when thou 
 preaches that doctrine in the pulpit, their hearts 
 deny it, deny it all the time, and every word 
 of it." 
 
 " I thought thy mind was always on thy 
 house, and on thy house duties.
 
 THE MINISTER'S WIFE SPEAKS. 205 
 
 " Women think many things as they go up 
 and down, and there is no license necessary for 
 reading the Word in one's own house. So, then, 
 one day I saw something in this book that gave 
 me great matter for thought, and maybe 
 through it I have changed my mind on some 
 things," and she rose and lifted a large volume 
 from a shelf. 
 
 " That is not a Bible, my wife. It is a Con 
 cordance. What dost thou want with it ? " 
 
 " I will show thee." 
 
 Then she turned the leaves with a kind of 
 triumph, and made him notice how many 
 columns were needed for the words " Faith " 
 and " Believe " ; for it was through this quaint 
 inlet the woman had come to the knowledge of 
 the Gospel's highest lesson the abounding, 
 all-sufficing love of God. 
 
 " I was looking for a verse one morning, 
 Alexander, and I was astonished that God 
 should have much to say about Faith. But 
 I read every word, and when I had done so I 
 thought better of God than ever I had dared to 
 do before ; and I know right well that hell is 
 for the workers of iniquity and the blas 
 phemers, and not for the little children who
 
 206 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 have thought no evil, and who have done no 
 evil " 
 
 " But many great and good men, my Bar 
 bara " 
 
 " I think little of them if they contradict the 
 Gospels. Thou hast in thy study a book of 
 hymns, made by the earliest Fathers of the 
 Church ; men whom I have heard thee say may 
 have sat at the feet of the Apostles. Were 
 they not greater than any who have come after 
 them ? For the very Spirit of the Redeemer 
 yet lingered among them. Very well ; now I 
 will go and get it, and thou shalt see what 
 they thought on this matter ; and I pray thee 
 to show it also to that miserable woman, Chris 
 tina Thorsen." 
 
 In a few minutes she returned with a book, 
 and opening at " An Ancient Syrian Hymn, A.D. 
 90," she read aloud, with her soul in every word : 
 
 " ' The Just One saw that iniquity increased on earth, 
 And that sin had dominion over all men, 
 And he sent his Messenger, and removed 
 A multitude of fair little ones, 
 And called them to the pavilion of happiness. 
 
 Like lilies taken from the wilderness 
 
 Children are planted in paradise : 
 
 And like pearls in diadems 
 
 Children are inserted in the Kingdom, 
 
 And without ceasing shall hymn forth His praise.'
 
 THE MINISTER'S WIFE SPEAKS. 21 
 
 Now then, my husband, what is thy opinion of 
 such words?" 
 
 " I think they are very beautiful words ; and 
 it may be, also, that in His mercy they are 
 likewise true." It was not Dr. Logic's way to 
 give up a religious point to any one, least of all 
 to his wife. But he had received a singular 
 degree of comfort from her confidence. The 
 clue had been given him, and he followed it 
 with a clear and honest vision. 
 
 To Paul's mother and all his friends the 
 death of the child in its unbaptized state was 
 a calamity of an extraordinary kind. Such a 
 circumstance had never occurred among the 
 Thorsens within the memory of any living 
 member of the family, and Margery was well 
 aware that every Thorsen from far and near 
 would demand an explanation of what ap 
 peared to be an act of wicked neglect. She 
 spent a most miserable night after the abduc 
 tion of the child, tossed about from one fear 
 to another, and unable to rest a moment, 
 although she knew that every man in Voe Ness 
 was doing all that could be done to relieve her 
 anxiety. 
 
 When the dawn came the imperative neces-
 
 208 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 sity for day's food and day's work forced itself 
 into her methodical life. As she moved about, 
 the empty cradle, with its scattered coverlets, 
 tortured her. She put it out of her sight, with 
 many self-reproaches for her faithlessness. 
 Then she built up the fire, and set the 
 kettle upon the hearth, and so, potter- 
 ing about among her regular duties, she 
 tried to get over the miserable hours of sus 
 pense. 
 
 Some time before noon she heard the heavy 
 tread of feet coming across the shingle to her 
 door, and she knew they were the feet of one 
 bringing tidings. She rose with difficulty, but, 
 before she could take a step forward, Hacon 
 Flett entered the cottage and with a sad and 
 sombre face said, "The child is dead," Mar 
 gery ! " 
 
 "Where is he, then? Hast thou brought 
 him here ? " She had grown as gray as ashes 
 while she spoke. 
 
 " He is at Paul's house." 
 
 " Then Christina took him ? ' 
 
 " Yes, Christina and Sabay." 
 
 "What evil came to him what accident?" 
 
 " He died of croup. This morning, very
 
 THE MINISTER'S U'll-E SPEAKS. 209 
 
 early, he went. When the doctor was got, 
 even then gone was all hope." 
 
 " Oh, Hacon ! Was no one else there ? Speak 
 to me. The minister did no one send for 
 him?" 
 
 " He was at Peter Beg's wedding. The 
 doctor went for him. It was too late ? " 
 
 " ' Too late ! ' Go from me, Hacon Flett. I 
 will never like to hear thee speak again. ' Too 
 late ! ' I shall hear the words in thy voice as 
 long as I live. Now then, go, and leave me 
 with myself only." 
 
 In the afternoon she was determined to see 
 the child ; and she got two of the fishers to 
 row her to Paul's jetty. The first terror of the 
 situation had been succeeded in Margery's 
 heart by anger anger all the more bitter be- 
 cause she felt herself to be included in the 
 condemnation. She had expected that Chris- 
 tina would oppose her entrance ; but the door 
 of the sorrowful house responded easily to her 
 touch, and sick and weary and wrathful she 
 came into the presence of the dead child. 
 Helga sat with her head in her hands upon the 
 hearth. Christina's misery was of that restless, 
 imperative kind which demands motion, and
 
 210 PAUL AND CHRISTINA, 
 
 she was walking up and down the floor with a 
 face whose despairing sorrow revealed a mental 
 agony beyond the power of words, and beyond 
 also the care for them. 
 
 She never noticed Margery, and Helga barely 
 lifted her head and let it drop again. No one 
 said to the wretched worn-out woman a word, 
 or seemed to attach any meaning to her visit. 
 
 " As much welcome I would find on the mid 
 dle of the moss, I think," she said bitterly. 
 
 " There is great trouble here," returned Hel 
 ga, without raising her head. 
 
 " Great trouble of a bad woman's own making, 
 then." 
 
 " The hand of God is on her. Thou may 
 keep silence." 
 
 " And this is the awful thing neither of you 
 thought of the minister." 
 
 " Thou knowest nothing ; and let me tell 
 thee, had the child been in my care, I had 
 thought of the minister long ago. I hold thee 
 not guiltless in the matter, thou art more to 
 blame than Christina, that is what I say." 
 
 Margery had loosened her cloak, and hung it 
 to dry before the fire, and after a slight hesita 
 tion she went towards the little shrouded form.
 
 THE MINISTER'S WIFE SPEAKS. 211 
 
 Ere she reached it Christina had placed herself 
 between. She did not speak, but there was 
 something in the mother's eyes which terrified 
 Margery. Without a word she returned to the 
 hearth and sat down beside Helga. 
 
 Helga was well used to that patient anguish 
 in which solitary sorrows must be borne. She 
 could sit communing with her own sad soul or 
 with her Maker hour after hour and make no 
 movement of impatience or suffering. But 
 Margery had neither her temperament nor her 
 discipline. She wanted to talk, she wanted to 
 defend herself, to tell Christina her sin, to do 
 something, or find something, or hear something 
 which would break the terrible strain and ten 
 sion of her grief and doubt and fearful appre 
 hension. 
 
 She had hoped to see Dr. Logic in the house 
 of death ; she wanted to know what he had said 
 about the child. 
 
 " Nothing, neither good nor evil, he spoke. 
 But, with his eyes covered, he sat and prayed." 
 " And to Christina what said he ? " 
 " He is not cruel. Nothing he said, yet." 
 Then Helga relapsed into silence and Chris 
 tina returned to her monotonous walk up and
 
 212 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 down the room beside her dead baby. So 
 Margery perceived that there was neither com 
 fort to be obtained nor given in such hopeless 
 and antagonistic company. 
 
 And as far as Christina was concerned the 
 situation remained practically unchanged, 
 though days and weeks went by. More and 
 more the pitiable hopelessness of her sorrow 
 gained ground. She had begged her mother 
 to leave her alone with her grief and despair, 
 but Helga would not, at this time, heed her 
 wishes. Yet, to all intents, she remained alone ; 
 sometimes weeping with an abandon that left 
 her in complete physical prostration, but far 
 more frequently sitting all day in a dull, sullen 
 despondency that made Helga sick with more 
 than one new terror. 
 
 Yes, there are silences in life far more pathetic 
 than the silence of death ; and Christina, sitting 
 speechless in her spiritual terror and agony 
 through days and nights which hoped nothing 
 from the morrow, was a far more sorrowful 
 spectacle than grief voicing itself in loud and 
 shrill lamentings.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FROM THE FURNACE, FINE GOLD. 
 
 The errors of Thy creatures praise Thee, Lord ! 
 
 Not they who err are damned, but who, being wroti&. 
 
 In obdurate persistency to err 
 
 Refuse all bettering. 
 
 Hope lives for all who flounder boldly on 
 
 Through quaggy bogs, till firmer footing founq 
 
 Gives glorious pro?pect. 
 
 He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over 
 me was love. Sol. Song, ii. 14. 
 
 /CHRISTINA'S remorse was indeed great, 
 \j but alas ! it was as yet only a barren, 
 suffering sorrow. There was no repentance in 
 it ; it was rather a mixture of defiance and 
 despair. Yet she recognized clearly every sin 
 ful step she had taken. She was no longer able 
 to deceive herself, and at length she decided 
 accurately enough between Paul and the Sabays. 
 In this respect the scales had quite fallen from 
 her eyes ; she understood Isabel's motives now, 
 and estimated justly how she had been deliber 
 ately sacrificed to her own selfish ends, and to 
 Jeppe Sabay's spite at her husband. 
 
 And Christina was selfish enough to resent
 
 214 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 the whole matter bitterly. There were hours 
 in which she felt that she could dare and brave 
 anything and everything for the joy of person 
 ally revenging herself upon them. It seemed 
 intolerable to her that Isabel should still be 
 happy and respected. 
 
 One day, while she was reproaching herself 
 with these thoughts, there was a knock at the 
 door. Very few people now called upon Chris 
 tina, and she always left the room if there were 
 any indication of a visitor. But Christina knew 
 this knock well, and yet Helga was astonished 
 to see her walk without hesitation to the door 
 and open it. Isabel Sabay stood there. Isabel, 
 in a fine muslin dress and a long gold chain 
 round her neck, and a gold watch fastened at 
 her ribbon-belt. 
 
 She had frequently sent Christina messages 
 of sympathy; messages, it must be admitted, 
 which Helga had very rarely given her unhappy 
 daughter ; but this was her first visit. She put 
 out her hand and would have entered but for 
 the pale, stern woman who stood defiantly clasp 
 ing the half-open door. 
 
 " Why, then, Christina, how ill thou art look 
 ing ! I heard that thou had been ill, and I have
 
 FROM THE FUtitfACZ, FINE GOLD. 215 
 
 been very sorry for thee. Now, I have some 
 thing to tell thee." 
 
 " 1 will listen to nothing from thee. Too often 
 have I listened but no more. I am a bad 
 woman, but thou art worse than I am. Come no 
 more to my house." 
 
 " What is the matter with thee ? Hast thou 
 lost thy senses?" and she looked questioningly 
 at Helga, who stood a little behind her daughter. 
 
 " I have come to my senses, that is the matter. 
 With thee and at thy house I played the fool 
 for thy amusement, too ! I will not talk with 
 thee longer. Thou art to blame that my Paul 
 
 left me. Thou art to blame that my baby 
 
 Go! and come here no more at any time." 
 
 " A wicked, ungrateful woman art thou, 
 Christina Thorsen! Bear thy own sins and 
 blame me not for them. After all that my 
 Jeppe did for thee, too ! Well, well, thou 
 art what every one calls thee a very bad 
 woman ! " 
 
 " I know that I am a bad woman. I know 
 too, that I am a most miserable woman. What 
 folly and sin have done to me thou can see. 
 Dost thou believe that thou can escape punish 
 ment ? I am sure thou cannot."
 
 216 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 " I will never speak to thee again. No decent 
 woman will ever speak to thee again. As for 
 Dirke Biron " 
 
 " In my hearing say not his name " and she 
 closed the door ; not hastily or in anger, but 
 with a weary sadness that made Helga's heart 
 ache." 
 
 "Thou answered well in all things, Chris 
 tina." 
 
 " But I can never undo the past, mother. 
 That is where the sorrow begins." 
 
 "And I am glad that thou gave Isabel 
 a part of the blame, for she deserved it ; and 
 perhaps thy words may trouble her heart 
 yet." 
 
 " She taught me to drink. She made me a 
 scorn and a laughing-stock. She mocked at 
 my good Paul, and miserable made both his 
 life and his home through my help. And I let 
 her I let her do these things, and bowed to 
 her, and thanked her for all her cruelty ! Oh, 
 fool, fool, fool that I was ! " 
 
 " Well, then, it would delight her now to say 
 ' Christina Thorsen is drinking herself to 
 death.' " 
 
 " Oh, but I will not give her this pleasure.
 
 FROM THE FURNACE, FINE GOLD. 217 
 
 See them keep the dreadful stuff out of my 
 sight. Don't let me smell it. Don't name it 
 in my presence. I may die of grief, but I will 
 not die of drink to please her. Indeed I will 
 not." 
 
 " Let me send for the minister ; he will give 
 thee good counsel perhaps, indeed, he may 
 give thee some comfort." 
 
 " Thou shalt not speak his name to me. He 
 hath always brought me trouble. At the first, 
 did he not prophesy that terrible death for my 
 little murdered bairn murdered, body and 
 sou l " 
 
 At this point the conversation always closed, 
 for Christina either went away, or relapsed into 
 heart-breaking sobs and tears. 
 
 Thus the summer and the winter passed 
 miserably enough. No word came from Paul. 
 No comfort of any kind entered the lonely 
 rooms where Christina and her mother kept 
 such woful vigils. 
 
 During these months Christina never left the 
 house, and gradually all her acquaintances for 
 got her, until no one ever thought of calling 
 upon the forsaken woman. Her very name 
 was spoken in that hushed and furtive way
 
 2l8 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 which implies some terrible crime and some 
 terrible retribution. 
 
 At length another spring came, and with it 
 the fair long nights, lovely in soft, amber ra 
 diance and still serenity. Then all the men 
 went to the fishing, and the women, who were 
 very busy in the day, went early to sleep. So 
 one night, about ten o'clock, Christina felt that 
 she could be quite alone if she ventured out. 
 She put on her cloak and hood and took the 
 road to tbe graveyard. She knew well the 
 lonely corner of it in which her baby was Laid, 
 and her feet trod the road of sorrow with a 
 grief beyond expression. 
 
 Down with her face against the sod and her 
 arms across the little green mound the heart 
 broken mother lay. Such a little mound ! A 
 child might leap it, and yet it separated her 
 from hope and happiness as far as the starry 
 spaces above her. Yet, surely, she found some 
 comfort in these visits, for night after night she 
 travelled the same sad road. 
 
 Perhaps Helga said something to the minis 
 ter on the subject, for when Christina slowly 
 closed the gate one night and turned home 
 wards, she saw him standing beside her.
 
 FROM TOE FURNACE, FINE GOLD. .219 
 
 " Christina," he said very gently, " how is it 
 with thee, my daughter ? " 
 
 " Thou knowest it is ill with me." 
 
 " I saw thee coming here and I followed 
 thee." 
 
 " At the very mid-night wilt thou come and 
 say hard words to me ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ! I came to to try and comfort 
 thee." 
 
 He looked at her white, shrunken face, and 
 sorrow-haunted eyes, and a great pity filled hir. 
 soul, as he slowly ejaculated : " How much 
 thou hast suffered ! " 
 
 "Well, then, I ought to suffer. Oh! sir, l>j 
 there no hope for my baby? If God would let 
 me bear it all, I am willing. Is there no use 
 praying ? Will He not listen now ? Can I do 
 nothing ? Nothing at all ? 
 
 " Christina, weep for thyself and no more for 
 thy sinless babe ! I do believe, I believe with 
 all my soul, that he is safe among those blessed 
 children that do always behold His face." 
 
 She trembled, she swayed like a reed, she 
 gasped a moment for breath, and then, leaning 
 against the church-yard wall, she began to cry 
 softly. It was one of those healing showers
 
 220 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 through which Nature relieves herself from 
 some terrible strain or terror. He waited 
 patiently till it was over, then he took her by 
 the hand and walked home with her. And 
 never had a pastor an hour of more solemn 
 beauty and influence in which to drop the 
 good seed. The ineffable loveliness of the 
 Shetland night touched everything. The purple 
 and rose of sunset were waiting for the opal 
 and saffron of the dawn. The moon hung 
 enraptured over a sea as smooth as a mirror. 
 The larks were twittering in the grass at their 
 feet. 
 
 And as they walked the good man comforted 
 her regarding her child's eternal safety with 
 an assurance that came from his own carefully- 
 considered faith. He spoke hopefully to her 
 of her own future, and he so won the desolate 
 woman's heart and reverence, that, with a grat 
 itude which could find no other fitting expres 
 sion, she lifted the skirt of his coat and 
 kissed it. 
 
 After that night Christina was led by him as 
 he would have led a little child. All the com 
 fort he had found for himself he gave freely to 
 her, and in the gift the blessing was doubled.
 
 FROM THE FURNACE, FINE GOLD. 221 
 
 And at last, as she wandered one night alone 
 by the sea-side praying, there came to her that 
 miraculous change and consolation, that " peace 
 of Christ " passing understanding, which 
 
 Is not quiet and is not ease, 
 
 But something deeper far than these 
 
 that restful life within the soul, and beneath 
 all other life, which the world can neither' give 
 nor take away. 
 
 In the afternoon Dr. Logic had said to her, 
 " The Jews transferred their sin to their sin- 
 offering. Now Christ is thy sin-offering lay 
 all thy guilt and fears on Him." 
 
 At the time the words had not made much 
 impression on her, but as she stood upon the 
 shingle looking over the bay with its drifting 
 fleet of fishing vessels, they came back to her 
 with an irresistible power. She comprehended 
 Him of whom also she was comprehended. 
 She submitted and prostrated herself, and 
 Jesus raised her up. Something untranslatable 
 passed between her soul and His ; she knew 
 that she was forgiven, and like one of old she 
 went to her house justified. And as she went 
 full of a new joy she kept repeating over and
 
 222 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 over a little verse which she had recently read, 
 and which lingered in her memory like music : 
 
 Most sweet Jesus, long-suffering Jesus, 
 
 Heal the wounds of my soul, 
 
 Jesus, and sweeten my heart, 
 
 I pray Thee, most merciful Jesus, my Saviour ! 
 
 That I, saved, may magnify Thee. 
 
 After this, she no longer hid herself from the 
 world, and no longer neglected the duties of 
 her simple life. She expected humiliations 
 and trials, but Dr. Logic had made her under 
 stand clearly that they who forsake life's duties 
 for fear of its temptations declare God to be a 
 hard master. 
 
 ' Do thy daily work, Christina, and go in and 
 out about thy lawful business, and His grace 
 will be sufficient for thee. Thou wilt find it so, 
 I know, and am sure thou will," he said, and 
 Christina was not disappointed. 
 
 In some measure the way had been prepared 
 for her, both by the friendship of the minister 
 and the anger of Isabel Sabay. Both circum 
 stances told in her favor ; and the physical 
 traces of the anguish she had endured were so 
 evident that every good soul pitied her. It 
 was indeed as if they, as well as God, said to
 
 FROM THE FURNACE, FINE GOLD. 223 
 
 her "it is enough. That will do." And she 
 read the kindly thought in every face. 
 
 The first time, however, that she went to 
 Donald Groat's after her long seclusion was a 
 little trial to her. She feared that some of 
 Sabay's friends would be hanging around the 
 shop or the quay ; and she could not forget that 
 Donald had been very hard to her on her last 
 visit. But Helga was ill, and the money was 
 needed, and Christina felt that the trial ought 
 to be faced. All was much better than she 
 had expected. Donald spoke gently to her, 
 and, after a glance into her face, went to a door, 
 and called his wife. 
 
 " Here is poor Christina Thorsen," he said ; 
 "come thou, and say a kind word to her," and 
 the two women sat down together, and, ere 
 Christina knew it, her head was on the shoulder 
 of Maggie Groat, and she was crying a little 
 soft, gentle tears, that made both hearts pitiful 
 and gracious. As she was going away Donald 
 said kindly, " Well, then, Christina, I have 
 some good news for thee. There has been 
 word of Paul and of the North Star. The 
 ship wintered in Disco, and she hath done well, 
 and may be home sooner than was looked for."
 
 224 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 And the news made Christina's pale cheeks 
 burn, and her heart beat wildly, for during the 
 past few months she had thought a great deal 
 about Paul, and about his gentleness to her, 
 and his patience with her. 
 
 Thus day by day her character deepened and 
 broadened; for day by day she was fighting 
 that selfishness which had been the sin making 
 all other sins possible to her. She had many a 
 hard fight with it, and even her conquests were 
 often dimmed by a sulky after-mood ; but the 
 most persistent foe has to give way at last to a 
 persistent antagonism. 
 
 Before the next May occasion, much had 
 been done by Christina Thorsen. She had vol 
 untarily gone to see Margery ; she had gone 
 again and again, until the justly-offended wo 
 man had forgiven and put out of her memory 
 her wrongs. And she had said some words to 
 her own mother which had brought happy 
 smiles to Helga's careworn face. And in other 
 directions she had obtained, not all at once, 
 but surely a measure of respect which she had 
 never enjoyed before ; for Mrs. Logic invited 
 her to the manse, and that invitation opened 
 every other door to her.
 
 FROM THE FURNACE, FINE GOLD. 225 
 
 On the Sabbath before the communion 
 Christina had certainly a great trial, but she 
 went bravely and solemnly through it. For, 
 after reading aloud the names of new commu 
 nicants, the minister said, " Christina Thorsen 
 also, after an honest repentance and acknowl 
 edgment of her sins before God and man, de 
 sires, on public profession of her faith, to be 
 received into the household of the Church, 
 and the visible communion of its members." 
 
 She was pale as death as she stood up in the 
 midst of the congregation, but Dr. Logic's 
 voice had in it a singular sympathy and gentle 
 ness, and it seemed as if every one caught its 
 spirit. Many a pleasant word and smile, and 
 many a hearty hand-clasp after the service, 
 assured her that her return to her Father's 
 house and table was hailed with holy joy by all 
 His children. 
 
 Soon after this event there came news again 
 of Paul's ship. It was expected before the 
 winter closed in, and Donald Groat said there 
 was neither word nor rumour of any death, or 
 sickness or accident on board of her. Then 
 Christina put her house in perfect order, and 
 began to spin fine wool and to knit hosiery and
 
 226 PAUL AND CHRISTINA. 
 
 make Paul some new clothing, for she knew 
 well that he would come home needing all 
 things. So early and late she was at her wheel 
 and her hands were busy and her heart happy 
 and hopeful. 
 
 One day, as the winter was setting in with a 
 fall of snow, Donald Groat sent her this word : 
 " The North Star is in the Sound, and Paul 
 Thorsen is on her. See thou give him a good 
 welcome, and may God bless it ! " Then Chris 
 tina threw her cloak on and ran to the manse. 
 Her face was pale but full of eagerness and 
 hope, and when Dr. Logic said, " What is it, 
 then, Christina?" she answered, with hardly- 
 restrained excitement, " It is the North Star. 
 She is in the Sound, and will be to quay some 
 time to-day. Oh, sir ! Thou go and meet Paul, 
 and tell him everything for me. Tell him how 
 sorry I am for all the past. Tell him that till 
 the end of life I will now be a good wife to 
 him." 
 
 And the minister smiled happily, and, as he 
 put on his coat and fur hat, encouraged the 
 trembling woman with many hopeful words. 
 Yet, oh ! how long was the short Shetland day ! 
 How full of vague doubts and fears ! How
 
 FROM THE FURNACE, FINE GOLD. 227 
 
 anxious with all love's sweet anxieties and 
 cares. It was almost dark when the vessel was 
 safely anchored and the cargo turned over to 
 Donald Groat's guardianship. 
 
 But at last she heard the quick, heavy tread 
 of her husband ! At last ! At last ! He came 
 rapidly across the shingle, he flung wide open 
 the door, and called out joyfully, " Christina / 
 Christina ! " 
 
 She was standing waiting smiling and weep 
 ing, and half-afraid but at the words she flew 
 to the arms opened to receive her, and, clasped 
 to Paul's heart, sobbed out, amid his tears and 
 kisses of joy, her repentance and her love. 
 
 THE END.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 41584
 
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