“Yes, I remember it.”
“And that her owner stayed at the manse for two days?”
“Yes, I saw him. What then?”
“He will be back again, in a week, in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. He is an English lord, and a friend of the minister’s. I shall go away with him. There is to be a new life for 142 me—another road to take; it must be a better one than that in which I have stumbled along for the last few years. Thou art glad?”
“Yes, Jan, I am glad.”
“If things should happen so that I can send for thee, wilt thou come to me?”
“Yes, to the end of the world I will come. Thee only do I love. My life is broken in two without thee.”
Every day Snorro watched the minister’s jetty, hoping, yet fearing, to see the yacht which was to carry Jan away. Every night when the town was asleep, he went to the manse to sit with his friend. At length one morning, three weeks after Jan’s disappearance, he saw the minister and the English lord enter Peter’s store together. His heart turned sick and heavy; he felt that the hour of parting was near.
Peter was to send some eggs and smoked geese on board the yacht, and the minister said meaningly to Snorro, “Be sure thou puts them on board this afternoon, for the yacht sails southward on the midnight tide.” Snorro understood the message. When the store was closed he made a bundle of Jan’s few clothes; he had 143 washed and mended them all. With them he put the only sovereign he possessed, and his own dearly-loved copy of the Gospels. He thought, “for my sake he may open them, and then what a comfort they will be sure to give him.”
It was in Snorro’s arms Jan was carried on board at the very last moment. Lord Lynne had given him a berth in the cabin, and he spoke very kindly to Snorro. “I have heard,” he said, “that there is great love between you two. Keep your heart easy, my good fellow; I will see that no harm comes to your friend.” And the grateful look on Snorro’s face so touched him that he followed him to the deck and reiterated the promise.