“See here, Jan, I have been fifteen years with Peter Fae, and no feet but mine have ever entered this loft. Here thou canst be at peace. My dear Jan, lie thee down, and sleep now.”
Jan was glad to do it. He put the gold locket on Snorro’s table, and said, “Thou keep it. I bought it for her, and she sent it back to me.”
“Some day she will be glad of it. Be thou sure of that.”
During the summer Jan made short and quick voyages, and so he spent many an hour in this little retreat talking with Snorro, for he had much to annoy and trouble him. We do not get over living sorrows as easily as dead ones. Margaret in her grave would have lost the power to wound him, and he would gradually have ceased to lament her. But Margaret weeping in her father’s house; Margaret praying in the kirk for strength to bear his neglect and injustice; Margaret throwing open the Bluebeard chamber of their home, and discussing its tragedy with his enemies; this was a sorrow there was no forgetting. On his return from every voyage he sent her the money he had made, and some little token of his love with it. 84 She always sent both back without a word. She understood from them that Jan would come no more in person, and that she would have to make the next advance, either by voice or letter. Many times she had declared she would never do this, and the declaration even in her tenderest hours, bound her to her self-inflicted loneliness and grief. So on Snorro’s rude table the pretty womanly trinkets accumulated, and Snorro looked at them with constantly gathering anger.
One morning in October he heard a thing that made his heart leap. The physician of the town hurried into the store, and cried, “Peter Fae, here hath come a little man to thy house. A handsome lad he is, indeed. Now then, go and see him.”
“What of my daughter, Doctor?”
“She will do well enough.”
Snorro lifted never an eyelash, but his face glowed like fire. Jan, then, had a son! Jan’s son! Already he loved the child. Surely he would be the peacemaker. Now the mother and father must meet. He had almost forgiven Margaret. How he longed for Jan to come back. Alas! when he did, Margaret was 85 said to be dying; Peter had not been at his store for three days.
The double news met Jan as soon as he put his foot on the quay. “Thou hast a son, Jan.” “Thy wife is dying.” Jan was nearly distraught. With all a man’s strength of feeling, he had emotions as fervent and vivid as a woman: he forgot in a moment every angry feeling, and hastened to his wife. Peter opened the door; when he saw Jan, he could have struck him. He did what was more cruel, he shut the door in his face, and drew the bolt passionately across it.
Jan, however, would not leave the vicinity. He stopped the doctor, and every one that came and went. In a few hours this became intolerable to Peter. He ordered him to go away, but Jan sat on a large stone by the gate, with his head in his hands, and answered him never a word. Then he sent Thora to him. In vain Jan tried to soften her heart. “Margaret is unconscious, yet she mourns constantly for thee. Thou art my child’s murderer,” she said sternly. “Go thy ways before I curse thee.”