“By every thing! You are right, Jan.”
There was a few minutes’ silence, and then Jan said: “Shall I tell thee what trouble came to me through a woman in Shetland?”
“I would like to hear about it.”
Then Jan began. He spoke slowly and with some hesitation at first. His youth was connected with affairs about which the Shetlanders always spoke cautiously. His father had been one of the boldest and most successful of the men who carried on that “French trade” which the English law called smuggling. He had made money easily, had spent it lavishly, and at the last had gone to the bottom with his ship, rather than suffer her to be taken. His mother had not long survived her husband, but there had been money enough left to educate and provide for Jan until he reached manhood.
“I was ten years old when mother died,” he continued, “and since then no one has really loved me but Michael Snorro. I will tell thee how our love began. One day I was on the pier watching the loading of a boat. Snorro was helping with her cargo, and the boys were teasing him, because of his clumsy size and ugly face. One of them took Snorro’s cap off his head and flung it into the water. I was angry at the coward, and flung him after it, nor would I let him out of the water till he brought Snorro’s 176 cap with him. I shall never forget the look Snorro gave me that hour. Ever since we have been close friends. I will tell thee now how he hath repaid me for that deed.”
Then Jan spoke of Margaret’s return from school; of their meeting at one Fisherman’s Foy, and of their wedding at the next. All of Peter’s kindness and subsequent injustice; all of Margaret’s goodness and cruelty, all of Snorro’s affection and patience he told. He made nothing better nor worse. His whole life, as he knew and could understand it, he laid before Lord Lynne.
“And so thou sees,” he concluded, “how little to blame and how much to blame I have been. I have done wrong and I have suffered. Yes, I suffer yet, for I love my wife and she has cast me off. Dost thou think I can ever be worthy of her?”
“I see, Jan, that what you said is true—in any corner of the earth where women are, they can make men suffer. As to your worthiness, I know not. There are some women so good, that only the angels of heaven could live with them. That £600 was a great mistake.”