The son of sleep stands at the door and says,
Is there not a little child here?
Lying asleep in the cradle?
A little child wrapped up in swaddling clothes,
A child reposing under a coverlet of wool?”
Jan watched the scene until he could endure the heart-torture no longer. Had he not been so shabby, so ragged, so weather-stained, he would have forced his way to his wife’s presence. But on such apparently insignificant trifles hang generally the great events of life. He could not bear the thought of this fair, calm, spotless woman seeing him in such a plight. He went back to Snorro, and was very cross and unreasonable with him, as he had been many times before. But Snorro was one of those rare, noble souls, who can do great and hopeless things, and continue to love what they have seen fall.
He not only pitied and excused Jan, he 122 would not suffer any one to wrong, or insult him. All Torr’s regular visitors feared the big man with the white, stern face, who so often called for Jan Vedder, and who generally took his friend away with him. Any thing that is genuine commands respect, and Snorro’s love for Jan was so true, so tender, and unselfish, that the rudest soul recognized his purity. Even in Peter’s store, and among the better class who frequented it, his honest affection was not without its result.
Jan usually avoided the neighborhood when Peter was there, but one afternoon, being half intoxicated, he went rolling past, singing snatches of “The Foula Reel.” He was ragged and reckless, but through every disadvantage, still strikingly handsome. Michael Snorro lifted himself from the barrel which he was packing, and stood watching Jan with a face full of an inexpressible sorrow. Some one made a remark, which he did not hear, but he heard the low scornful laugh which followed it, and he saw Peter Fae, with a smile of contempt, walk to the door, and glance up the street after Jan.
“One thing I know,” said Snorro, looking 123 angrily at the group, “all of you have laughed in a very great company, for when a good man takes the road to hell, there also laughs the devil and all his angels. Yes, indeed.”
It was as if a thunderbolt had fallen among them. Peter turned to his books, and one by one the men left the store, and Jan Vedder’s name was not spoken again before Snorro by any one.