“I wish that Sinclair were here–in this room! I would lay his neck across my knee, and break it like a dog’s. I would that!”
“It would be a joy to see thee do it. I would say, ‘Well done, David Borson!’”
“I am glad that God has made Tophet for such men!” cried David, passionately. “Often I have trembled at the dreadful justice of the Holy One; I see now how good it is. To be sure, when God puts his hook into the nose of the wicked, and he is made to go a way he does not want to go, then he has to cease from troubling. But I wish not that he may cease from being troubled. No, indeed; I wish that he may have weeping and wailing! I will stay here. Some day Sinclair will come back; then he shall pay all he owes.”
Suddenly David remembered his father’s sad confession, and he was silent. The drowning of Bele Trenby and all that followed it flashed like a fiery thought through his heart, and he went into his room, and shut the door, and flung himself face downward upon the floor. Would God count his anger as very murder? Would he enter into judgment with him for it? Oh, how should a sinful man order all his way and words aright! And in a little while Barbara heard him weeping, and she said to herself:
NANNA AND VALA
“He is a good man. God loves those who remember him when they are alone and weep. The minister said that.”
This day had indeed been to David a kind of second birth. He had entered into a new life and taken possession of himself. He knew that he was a different being from the youth who had sailed for weeks alone with God upon the great waters; but still he was a riddle to himself, and it was this feeling of utter confusion and weakness and ignorance that had sent him, weeping and speechless, to the very feet of the divine Father.
But if the mind is left quite passive we are often instructed in our sleep. David awakened with a plan of life clearly in his mind. He resolved to remain with Barbara Traill, and follow his occupation of fishing, and do all that he could to make his cousin Nanna happy. The intense strength of his family affection led him to this resolve. He had not fallen in love with Nanna. As a wife she was sacred in his eyes, and it never entered his mind that any amount of ill treatment could lessen Sinclair’s claim upon her. But though far off, she was his cousin; the blood of the Borsons flowed alike through both their hearts; and David, who could feel for all humanity, could feel most of all for Nanna and Vala.