“Ask her;” and as Thora said these words and wearily closed her eyes, Rahal entered the room. 257 She went straight to Ian, put her arms round him and kissed him tenderly. Then Ian could bear no more. He sobbed like a boy of seven years old and she wept with him.
“Thou poor unloved laddie!” she said. “If thou had gone wrong, it would have been little wonder and little blame to thyself. I think thou did all that could be done, with neither love nor wisdom to help thee. Rahal does not blame thee. Rahal pities and loves thee. Thou hast been cowed and frightened and punished for nothing, all the days of thy sad life. Poor lad! Poor, disappointed laddie! With all my heart and soul I pity thee!”
For a few moments there was not a word spoken and the sound of Ian’s bitter weeping filled the room. Ian had been flogged many a time when but a youth, and had then disdained to utter a cry, but no child in its first great sorrow, ever wept so heart-brokenly as Ian now wept in Rahal’s arms. And a man weeping is a fearsome, pitiful sound. It goes to a woman’s heart like a sword, and Thora rose and went to her lover and drew him to the sofa and sat down at his side and, with promises wet with tears, tried to comfort him. A strange silence that the weeping did not disturb 258 was in the house and room, and in the kitchen the servants paused in their work and looked at each other with faces full of pity.
“The Wise One has put trouble on their heads,” said a woman who was dressing a goose to roast for dinner and her helper answered, “And there is no use striving against it. What must be, is sure to happen. That is Right.”
“All that we have done, is no good. Fate rules in this thing. I see that.”
“The trouble came on them unawares. And if Death is at the beginning, no course that can be taken is any good.”
“What is the Master’s will? For in the end, that will orders all things.”
“The mistress said the marriage would be put off for a year. The young man goes to the war.”
“No wonder then he cries out. It is surely a great disappointment.”
“Tom Snackoll had the same ill luck. He made no crying about it. He hoisted sail at midnight and stole his wife Vestein out of her window, and when her father caught them, they were man and wife. And Snackoll went out to speak to his father-in-law and he said to him, ‘My wife can not see thee today, for she is weary and I think it best 259 for her to be still and quiet’; and home the father went and no good of his journey. Snackoll got praise for his daring.”