An Orkney Maid

“We adored him,” wrote Sunna, in her most fervent religious mood, which was just as sincere as any other mood. “He was such a loving, clever little soul, and he lay so long within the hollow of Death’s sickle. There he heard and saw wonderful things, that I would not dare to speak of. Max has wept very sincerely. It is my lot apparently, to administer drops of comfort to him. In this world, I find that women can neither hide nor run away from men and their troubles, the moment anything goes wrong with them, they fly to some woman and throw their calamity on her.”

“It is easy to see which way Sunna is drifting,” said Rahal, after this letter had been read. “She will marry Maximus Grant, of course.”

“Mother, her grandfather wishes that marriage. It is very suitable. His silent, masterful way will cure Sunna’s faults.”

“It will do nothing of the kind. What the cradle rocks, the spade buries. If Sunna lives to be one hundred years old–a thing not unlikely–she will be Sunna. Just Sunna.”

During all this summer, Ragnor was deeply engrossed in his business, and the Vedders remained in Edinburgh, as did also Mistress Brodie, though she had had all the best rooms in her Kirkwall house redecorated. “It is her hesitation about grandfather. She will, and she won’t,” wrote Sunna, “and she keeps grandfather hanging by a hair.” Then she made a few scornful remarks about “the hesitating liaisons of old women” and concluded that it all depended upon the marriage ceremony.

Grandfather [she wrote] wants to sneak into some out of the way little church, and get the business over as quickly and quietly as possible; and Mistress Brodie has dreams of a peach-bloom satin gown, and a white lace bonnet. She thought “that was enough for a second affair”; and when I gently hoped that it was at least an affair of the heart, she said with a distinct snap, “Don’t be impertinent, Miss!” However, all this is but the overture to the great matrimonial drama, and it is rather interesting.

I saw by a late London paper that Thora’s lover has gone and got himself decorated, or crossed, for doing some dare-devil sort of thing about wounded men. I wonder how Thora will like to walk on Pall Mall with a man who wears a star or a medal on his breast. Such things make women feel small. For, of course, we could win stars and medals if we had the chance. Max considers Ian “highly praise-worthy.” Max lately has a way of talking in two or three syllables. I am trying to remember where I left my last spelling book; I fear I shall have to get up my orthography.

The whole of this year A. D. 1855 was one of commonplaces stirred by tragic events. It is this conjunction that makes the most prosaic of lives always a story. It only taught Thora and Rahal to make the most of such pleasures as were within their reach. In the evening Ragnor was always ready to share what they had to offer, but in the daytime he was getting his business into such perfect condition that he could leave it safely in charge of his son Robert for a year, or more, if that was his wish.

On the second of March, the Czar Nicholas died, and there was good hope in that removal. In June, General Raglan died of cholera, and on the following fifth of September, the Russians, finding they could no longer defend Sebastopol, blew up its defences and also its two immense magazines of munitions. This explosion was terrific, the very earth appeared to reel. The town they deliberately set on fire. Then on Sunday morning, September the ninth, the English and French took possession of the great fortress, though it was not until the last day of February, A. D. 1856, that the treaty of peace was signed.

After the occupation of Sebastopol, however, there was a cessation of hostilities, and the hospitals rapidly began to empty and the physicians and surgeons to return home. Dr. Frazer remained at his post till near Christmas, and was then able to leave the few cases remaining in the charge of competent nurses. Ian remained at his side and they returned to England together. It was then within a few days of Christmas, and Ian hastened northward without delay.

There was no hesitating welcome for him now; he was met by the truest and warmest affection, he was cheerfully given the honour which he had faithfully won. And the wedding day was no longer delayed, it was joyfully hastened forward. Bishop Hedley, the Vedders and Maximus Grant had already arrived and the little town was all agog and eager for the delayed ceremony. Sunna had brought with her Thora’s new wedding dress and the day had been finally set for the first of January.

“Thou will begin a fresh life with a fresh year,” said Rahal to her daughter. “A year on which, as yet, no tears have fallen; and which has not known care or crossed purpose. On its first page thou will write thy marriage joy and thy new hopes, and the light of a perfect love will be over it.”

In the meantime life was full of new delights to Thora. Wonderful things were happening to her every day. The wedding dress was here. Adam Vedder had brought her a pretty silver tea service, Aunt Barbie–now Madame Vedder–had remembered her in many of those womanwise ways, that delight the heart of youth. Even Dominie Macrae had sent her a gold watch, and the little sister-in-law had chosen for her gift some very pretty laces. Rich and poor alike brought her their good-will offerings, and many old Norse awmries were ransacked in the search for jewels or ornaments of the jade stone, which all held as “luck beyond breaking.”

The present which pleased Thora most of all was a new wedding-dress, the gift of her mother. The rich ivory satin was perfect and peerless in its exquisite fit and simplicity; jewels, nor yet lace, could have added nothing to it. Sunna had brought it with her own toilet. In fact, she was ready to make a special sensation with it on the first of January, for her wedding garment as Thora’s bridesmaid was nothing less than a robe of gold and white shot silk, worn over a hoop. She had been wearing a hoop all winter in Edinburgh, but she was quite sure she would be the first “hooped lady” to appear in Kirkwall town. Thora might wear the bride veil, with its wreath of myrtle and rosemary, but she had a pleasant little laugh, as she mentally saw herself in the balloon of white and gold shot silk, walking majestically up the nave of St. Magnus. It was so long since hoops had been worn. None of the present generation of Kirkwall women could ever have seen a lady in a hoop, and behind the present generation there was no likelihood of any hooped ladies in Kirkwall.

Thora had no hoop. Her orders had been positively against it and unless Madame Vedder had slipped inside “the bell” she could not imagine any rival. As she made this reflection, she smiled, and then translated the smile into the thought, “If she has, she will look like a haystack.”

Now Ian’s military suit in his department had been of white duff or linen, plentifully adorned with gilt buttons and bands representing some distinctive service. It was the secret desire of Ian to wear this suit, and he rather felt that Thora or his mother-in-law should ask him to do so. For he knew that its whiteness and gilt, and tiny knots of ribbon, gave to the wearer that military air, which all men yearn a little after. He wished to wear it on his wedding day but Thora had not thought of it, neither had Sunna. However, on the 29th, Rahal, that kind, wise woman, asked him as a special favour, to wear his medical uniform. She said, “the townsfolk would be so disappointed with black broadcloth and a pearl-grey waistcoat. They longed to see him as he went onto the battlefield, to save or succour the wounded.”

“But, Mother,” he answered, “I went in the plainest linen suit to bring in the wounded and dying.”

“I know, dear one, but they do not know, and it is not worth while destroying an innocent illusion, we have so few of them as we grow old.”

“Very well, Mother, it shall be as you wish.”

“Of course Ian wished to wear it,” said Sunna.

“Oh, Sunna, you must not judge all men from Max.”

“I am far from that folly. Your father has been watching the winds and the clouds all day. So have I. Conall Ragnor is always picturesque, even poetical. I feel safe if I follow him. He says it will be fine tomorrow. I hope so!”

This hope was more than justified. It was a day of sunshine and little wandering south winds, and the procession was a fact. Now Ragnor knew that this marriage procession, as a national custom, was passing away, but it had added its friendliness to his own and all his sons’ and daughters’ weddings and he wanted Thora’s marriage ceremonial to include it. “When thou art an old woman, Thora,” he said to her, “then thou wilt be glad to have remembered it.”

At length the New Year dawned and the day arrived. All was ready for it. There was no hurry, no fret, no uncertainty. Thora rode to the cathedral in the Vedder’s closed carriage with her father and mother. Ian was with Maximus and Sunna in the Galt landeau. Adam Vedder and his bride rode together in their open Victoria and all were ready as the clock struck ten. Then a little band of stringed instruments and young men took their place as leaders of the procession, and when they started joyfully “Room for the Bride!” the carriages took the places assigned them and about two hundred men and women, who had gathered at the Ragnor House, followed in procession, many joining in the singing.

The cathedral was crowded when they reached it, and Dr. Hedley in white robes came forward to meet the bride and, with smiles and loving good will, to unite her forever to the choice of her soul.

It was almost a musical marriage. Melody began and followed and closed the whole ceremonial. About twenty returned with the bridal party to the Ragnor House to eat the bridal dinner, but the general townsfolk were to have their feast and dance in the Town Hall about seven in the evening. The Bishop stayed only to bless the meal, for the boat was waiting that was to carry him to a Convocation of the Church then sitting in Edinburgh. But he wore his sprig of rosemary on his vest, and he stood at Ragnor’s right hand and watched him mix the Bride Cup, watched him mingle in one large silver bowl of pre-Christian age the pale, delicious sherry and fine sugar and spices and stir the whole with a strip of rosemary. Then every guest stood up and was served with a cup, most of them having in their hand a strip of rosemary to stir it with. And after the Bishop had blessed the bride and blessed the bridegroom, he said, “I will quote for you a passage from an old sermon and after it, you will stir your cup again with rosemary and grow it still more plentifully in your gardens.

“The rosemary is for married men and man challengeth it, as belonging properly to himself. It helpeth the brain, strengtheneth the memory, and affects kindly the heart. Let this flower of man ensign your wisdom, love and loyalty, and carry it, not only in your hands, but in your heads and hearts.” Then he lifted his glass and stirred the wine with his strip of rosemary, and as he did so all followed his example, while he repeated from an old romance the following lines:

… “Before we divide,Let us dip our rosemariesIn one rich bowl of wine, to this brave girlAnd to the gentleman.”

With these words he departed, and the utmost and happiest interchange of all kinds of good fellowship followed. Every man and woman was at perfect ease and ready to give of the best they had. Even Adam Vedder delighted all, and especially his happy-looking bride, by his clever condensation of Sunna’s favourite story of “The Banded Men.” No finished actor could have made it, in its own way, a finer model of dramatic narrative, especially in its quaint reversal of the parts usually played by father and son, into those of the prodigal father and the money-loving, prudent son. Then a little whisper went round the table and it sprang from Sunna, and people smiled and remembered that Adam had won his wife from three younger men than himself and, as if by a single, solid impulse, they stirred their wine cups once more and called for a cheer for the old bridegroom, who had been faithful for forty years to his first love and had then walked off with her, from Provost, Lawyer and Minister; all of them twenty years younger than himself.

Getting near to three o’clock, they began to sing and Rahal was pleased to hear that sound of peace, for several guests were just from the battlefield and quite as ready for a quarrel as a song. Also during the little confusion of removing fruit and cake and glasses, and the substitution of the cups and saucers and the strong, hot, sweet tea that every Norseman loves, Ian and Thora slipped away without notice. Max Grant’s carriage put them in half-an-hour on the threshold of their own home. They crossed it hand and hand and Ian kissed the hand he held and Thora raised her face in answer; but words have not yet been invented that can speak for such perfect happiness.

Love is rich in his own right,He is heir of all the spheres,In his service day and nightSwing the tides and roll the years.What has he to ask of fate?Crown him, glad or desolate.Time puts out all other flamesBut the glory of his eyes;His are all the sacred names,His the solemn mysteries.Crown him! In his darkest dayHe has Heaven to give away!

Ian’s business arrangements curtailed the length of any festivity in relation to the marriage. He had already signed an agreement with Dr. Frazer to return to him as soon as possible after the twelfth day and remain as his assistant until he was fully authenticated a surgeon by the proper schools. In the meantime he would enter the London School of Medicine and Surgery and give to Dr. Frazer all the time not demanded by its hours and exercises. For this attention Ian was to receive from Dr. Frazer one hundred pounds a year. Furthermore, when Ian had received the proper authority to call himself Dr. John Macrae, he was to have the offer of a partnership with Dr. Frazer, on what were considered very favourable terms.

So their little romance was at last happily over. Ian was an infinitely finer and nobler man. He had dwelt amid great acts and great suffering for a year and had not visited the House of Mourning in vain. All that was light and trifling had fallen away from him. He regarded his life and talents now as a great and solemn charge and was resolved to make them of use to his fellows. And Thora was lovelier than she had ever been. She had learned self-restraint and she had hoped through evil days, till good days came; so then, she knew how to look for good when all appeared wrong and by faith and will, bring good out of evil.

After Thora and her husband left for London a great change took place in the Ragnor home. Ragnor had been preparing for it ever since his visit to London and, within a month, Robert Ragnor and his wife and family came from Shetland and took possession. It gave Rahal a little pain to see any woman in her place but that was nothing, she was going to give her dear Coll the dream of his life. She was going to travel with him, and see all the civilized countries in the world! She was going to London first, and last, of all!

CHAPTER XI

SEQUENCES

Not long ago I found in a list of Orkney and Shetland literature several volumes by a Conall Ragnor, two of them poetry. But that just tended to certify a suspicion. Sixty years ago I had heard him repeat some Gallic poems and had known instinctively, though only a girl of eighteen, that the man was a poet.

It roused in me a curiosity I felt it would be pleasant to gratify, and so a little while after I began this story, I wrote to a London newspaper man and asked him to send me some of his Orkney exchanges. I have a habit of trusting newspaper editors and I found this one as I expected, willing and obliging. He sent me two Orkney papers and the first thing I noticed was the prevalence of the old names. Among them I saw Mrs. Max Grant, and I thought I would write to her and take my chance of the lady turning out to be the old Sunna Vedder. It was quite a possibility, as we were apparently about the same age when I saw her. It was only for an hour or two in the evening we met, at the Ragnor house, but girls see a deal in an hour or two and if I remembered her, she had doubtless chronicled an opinion of me.

In about five weeks Mrs. Grant’s letter in answer to mine arrived. She began it by saying she remembered me, because I wore a hat, a sailor’s hat, and she said it was the first hat she ever saw on a woman’s head. She said also, that I told her women were beginning to wear them for shopping and walking and driving, or out at sea, but never for church or visiting. All of which I doubtless said, for it was my first hat. And I do not remember women wearing hats at all until about this time.

I suppose [she continued] thou wants to know first of all about the Vedders. They were the people then, and they have not grown a bit smaller, nor do they think any less of themselves yet. My grandfather married again and was not sorry for it. I don’t know whether his wife was sorry or not. I took Maximus Grant for a husband for, after Boris Ragnor died, I did not care who I took, provided he had plenty of good qualities and plenty of gold. We lived together thirty years very respectably. I took my way and I usually expected him to do the same. We had four sons, and they have nine sons among them, and all of the nine are now fighting the vipers they have been coddling for forty or fifty years. Some are in the regular army, some in the navy, and some in the plucky, fighting little navy, patrolling England and her brood of coastwise islands. They are a tough, rough, hard lot, but I love them all better than anything else in this world. There are a good many Vedder houses in Orkney, and they are all full of little squabbling, fighting, never clean, and never properly dressed little brats, from four to eleven years old. So I don’t worry about there being Vedders enough to run things the way they want them run.

The Ragnors are here in plenty. All the men are at the war, all the women running fishing boats or keeping general shops, to which I like to see the Germans going. They are told what kind of people they are as they walk up to the shops; and they get what they want at an impoverishing price. Serve them right! Men, however, will pay any money for a thing they want.

There has not been such good times in Orkney since I was born, as there is now. We have an enemy to beat in trade and an enemy to beat in fight at our very doors, and our men are neither to hold nor to bind, they are that top-lofty. War is a man’s native air. My sons and grandsons are all two inches taller than they were and they defy Nature to contradict them. I never attempt it. Well, then, they are proper men in all things, a little hard to deal with and masterful, but just as I wish them. My grandfather died fifty years ago, he might have lived longer if he had not married. His widow wept in the deepest black and people thought she was sorry.

The Ragnors are mostly here and in Shetland. Conall Ragnor never really settled down again. Rahal and he lived in Edinburgh or London, when not travelling. I heard that Conall wrote books and really got money for them. I cannot believe that. Rahal died first. Conall lived a month after her. They were laid in earth in Stromness Church-yard. My grandfather wanted to bring the body of Boris home and bury it in Stromness, and I would not let him. He is all mine where he sleeps in the Crimea. I don’t want him among a congregation of his brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts.

I suppose thou must have heard of Thora’s husband. He really did become famous, and I was told his father forgave him all his youthful follies. It was said Thora managed that in some clever way; but I’m sure I don’t know what to say. Thora never seemed at all clever to me. She had many children, but she died long ago, though she did live long enough to see her husband knighted and her eldest boy marry the daughter of a lord. I have no doubt she was happy in her own way, only she never did dress herself as a person in the best society ought to have done. I once told her so. “Well, then,” she said, “I dress to please my husband.” Imagine such simplicity! As to myself I am getting near to ninety, but I live a good life and God helps me. I have kept my fine hair and complexion and I run around on my little errands quite comfortably. Indeed I am sunwise able for everything I want. I shall be glad to hear from thee again, and if thou wilt send me occasionally some of those delightful American papers, thou wilt make me much thy debtor. Also, I want thee to tell all the brave young Americans thou knows that if they would like a real life on the ocean wave, they ought to join our wonderful patrol round the English coast. They will learn more and see more and feel more in a month, in this little interfering navy, than they’d learn in a lifetime in a first-class man-of-war.

Write to me again and then we shall have tied our friendship with a three-fold letter. Thine, with all good will and wishes,

Sunna Vedder Grant.

This is a woman’s letter and it must have a postscript. It is only two lines of John Stuart Blackie’s, and it should have been at the beginning, but it will touch your heart at the end as well as at the beginning.

“Oh, for a breath of the great North Sea,Girdling the mountains!”S. V. G.

1

The Norsemen of Shetland and Orkney drank tea in every kind of need or crisis. No meal without it, no pleasure without it; and it was equally indispensable in every kind of trouble or fatigue.