Like pity shows the Lord to such
as worship him in fear."
Ps. 103. v. 2. 13.[*]
Version allowed by the authority of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland.
“Thou art a good man,” said Margaret to herself, as she waved her hand in farewell, and turned slowly homeward. Most women would have been impatient to tell the great news that had come to them, but Margaret could always wait. Besides, she had been ordered to go to Suneva with it, and the task was not a pleasant one to her. She had never been in her father’s house, since she left it with her son in her arms; and it was not an easy thing for a woman so proud to go and say to the woman who had supplanted her—“I have done wrong, and I am sorry for it.”
Yet it did not enter her mind to disobey the instructions given her; she only wanted time to consider how to perform them in the quietest, and least painful manner. She took the road by the sea shore, and sat down on a huge barricade of rocks. Generally such lonely communion with sea and sky strengthened and 285 calmed her; but this morning she could not bring her mind into accord with it. Accidentally she dislodged a piece of rock, and it fell among the millions of birds sitting on the shelving precipices below her. They flickered with piercing cries in circles above her head, and then dropped like a shower into the ocean, with a noise like the hurrahing of an army. Impatient and annoyed, she turned away from the shore, across the undulating heathy plateau. She longed to reach her own room; perhaps in its seclusion she would find the composure she needed.
As she approached her house, she saw a crowd of boys and little Jan walking proudly in front of them. One was playing “Miss Flora McDonald’s reel” on a violin, and the gay strains were accompanied by finger snappings, whistling, and occasional shouts. “There is no quiet to be found anywhere, this morning,” thought Margaret, but her curiosity was aroused, and she went toward the children. They saw her coming, and with an accession of clamor hastened to meet her. Little Jan carried a faded, battered wreath of unrecognizable materials, and he walked as proudly as Pompey may 286 have walked in a Roman triumph. When Margaret saw it, she knew well what had happened, and she opened her arms, and held the boy to her heart, and kissed him over and over, and cried out, “Oh, my brave little Jan, brave little Jan! How did it happen then? Thou tell me quick.”
“Hal Ragner shall tell thee, my mother;” and Hal eagerly stepped forward:
“It was last night, Mistress Vedder, we were all watching for the ‘Arctic Bounty;’ but she did not come, and this morning as we were playing, the word was passed that she had reached Peter Fae’s pier. Then we all ran, but thou knowest that thy Jan runs like a red deer, and so he got far ahead, and leaped on board, and was climbing the mast first of all. Then Bor Skade, he tried to climb over him, and Nichol Sinclair, he tried to hold him back, but the sailors shouted, ‘Bravo, little Jan Vedder!’ and the skipper he shouted ‘Bravo!’ and thy father, he shouted higher than all the rest. And when Jan had cut loose the prize, he was like to greet for joy, and he clapped his hands, and kissed Jan, and he gave him five gold sovereigns,—see, then, if he did not!” And little Jan 287 proudly put his hand in his pocket, and held them out in his small soiled palm.