In Great Waters: Four Stories

by Thomas A. Janvier

At this old Jaap broke forth into a passionate outburst against his son-in-law: calling him by all the evil names that he could get together, crying out against his wickedness and his cruelty, and ending—as Jan's boat slid away from her moorings, with Jan standing at the tiller laughing at the old man's fury—by calling out with a deep grave energy, in strange contrast with his previous angry ravings: "God cannot and will not forgive. He will judge you and He will punish you. In His name I say to you: May the might of the angered waters be upon you—may you perish in the wrath of the Zuyder Zee!"

There was such a majesty in old Jaap's tone as he spoke those words, and such intense conviction, that all who heard him were thrilled strangely. Some of the old men of Marken, who were there that day, still will tell you that it seemed as though they heard the voice of one who truly was the very mouth-piece of God. Even Jan, they say, paled a little; but only for a moment—and then he was off out of the harbour with a jeer and a laugh.

But that was Jan's last laugh and jeer at his father-in-law, and his last sight of Marken. The next day the boats came hurrying home before a storm, but Jan's boat did not come with them. At first it was thought that he had put into the canal leading up to Edam—it was about there that the other fishermen had lost sight of him—but a couple of days later his boat drifted ashore, bottom upward, in the bight of Goudzee south of Monnikendam. That left room for guess-work. Certainty came at the end of a fortnight: when the two men who had been with him got back to Marken—after a trip to England in the steamer that had picked them up afloat—and told how the schuyt had gone over in the gale and spilt them all out into the sea. As for Jan, he never came back at all. As he and the other two men were thorough good sailors, and as the survivors themselves were quite at a loss to account for their catastrophe, there was only one way to explain the matter: old Jaap's curse had taken effect!

After that old Jaap had a place still more apart from the other islanders. What he had done to one he could do to another, it was whispered—and thenceforward he was both shunned and dreaded because of the power for life and death that was believed to be his. The reflex of this popular conviction seemed to find a place in his own heart, and now and again he would threaten with his curse those who got at odds with him. But he never uttered it; and the fact was observed that even in the case of the teasing little boys he was careful not to curse any one of his tormentors by name.

III

Certainly, if ever old Jaap had cursed any particular little boy it would have been Krelis Kess—who was quite the worst boy on the island, and who usually was the leader of the troop that hung about the old man's heels.

And even when Krelis got to be a big young fellow of twenty—old enough to go on escapades in Amsterdam of which the rumour, coming back to Marken, made all steady-going folk on the island look askance at him—he still took an ugly pleasure, as occasion offered, in stirring up old Jaap's wrath. If the old man chanced to pass by while he was sitting of a Sunday afternoon in Jan de Jong's tavern, drinking more gin-and-water than was good for him, it was one of his jokes to call out through the open window "Mad old Jaap!" in the shrill voice of a child; and to repeat his cry, with different inflections but always in the same shrill tones, until the old man would go off into a fury and shout his curse at the little boys who seemed to be so close about him but who could not anywhere be seen. At that Krelis would fall to laughing mightily, and so would the loose young fellows his companions—who had found out that that would send his hand to his pocket and give them free drinks all around.

Under such conditions it is not surprising that the wonder, and also the regret, of these young scapegraces was very great when on a certain Sunday afternoon in mid-spring time Krelis not only did not volunteer his usual pleasantry at old Jaap's expense—as the old man came shambling up the narrow street toward the tavern—but actually refused to practise it when it was suggested to him. And the wonder grew to be blank astonishment, a minute later, when he went to the window and begged Herr Visser to come in and have a glass of schnapps with him! To hear old Jaap called "Herr Visser" by anybody was enough to stretch to the widest any pair of Marken ears; but to hear him addressed in that stately fashion by Krelis Kess was enough to make any Marken man believe that his ears had gone crazy!

At first the young scamps in the tavern were quite sure that Krelis was about to play some new trick on old Jaap, and that this wonderful politeness was the beginning of it. But the marvel increased when the old man—who liked schnapps as well as anybody—joined the little company of tosspots and was treated by Krelis with as much respect as though he had been a burgomaster! And more than that, when the session was ended—and old Jaap, to whom such treats came rarely, was so far fuddled that he could not manage his legs easily—Krelis said that nothing could be pleasanter than a walk across to the Kerkehof in the cool of the evening, and so gave him a steadying arm home. As the two set off together the young fellows left behind stared at each other in sheer amazement; and such of the Marken folk as chanced to meet this strangely assorted couple marching amicably arm in arm together were inclined to disbelieve in their own eyes!

For a week, while they all were away at their fishing, there was a lull in the excitement; but it was aroused again the next Sunday when Krelis did not come as usual to the tavern—and went to a white heat when a late arrival, a young fellow who lived in the Kerkehof, told that as he came past Jaap Visser's house he had seen Krelis sitting on the bench in front of it talking away with old Jaap and making eyes behind old Jaap's back at Marretje. At first, being so entirely incredible, this statement was scouted scornfully; but it aroused so lively a discussion that presently the whole company left the tavern and went over in a body to the Kerkehof bent upon disproving or verifying it—and there, sure enough, were old Jaap and Krelis smoking their pipes together, and Marretje along with them, on the bench in front of old Jaap's door!