"Many have talked of the fault, none but thou have asked me why or how it came that I was so foolish. I will tell thee the very truth. I went to spend the day with Nana Bork--with thy consent I went--and towards afternoon there came an invitation from McLeod to Nana to join an informal dance that night at eight o'clock. And Nana told me so many pleasant things about these little dances I could not resist her talk and I thought if I stayed with Nana all night thou would never know. I have heard that I stole away out of thy house to go to McLeod's. I did not! I went with Nana Bork whose guest I was."

"Why did thou not tell me this before?"

"I knew no one in Kirkwall would dare to say to thee this or that about thy grandchild, and I hoped thou would never know. I am sorry for my disobedience; it has always hurt me--if thou forgive it now, so much happier I will be."

Then Adam drew her to his side and kissed her, and words would have been of all things the most unnecessary. But he moved a chair close to him, and she sat down in it and laid her hand upon his knee and he clasped and covered it with his own.

"Very unkindly Boris has treated thee."

"He has mocked at my love before all Kirkwall. Well, then, it is Thora Ragnor's complacency that affronts me most. If she would put her boasting into words, I could answer her; but who can answer looks?"

"She is in the heaven of her first love. Thou should understand that condition."

"It is beyond my understanding; nor would I try to understand such a lover as Ian Macrae. I believe that he is a hypocrite--Thora is so easily deceived----"

"And thou?"

"I am not deceived. I see Boris just as he is, rude and jealous and hateful, but I think him a far finer man than Ian Macrae ever has been, or ever will be."

"Yes! Thou art right. Now then, let this affair lie still in thy heart. I think that he will come to see thee when the boats return from Shetland--if not, then I shall have something to say in the matter. I shall want my dinner very soon, and some other thing we will talk about. Let it go until there is a word to say or a movement to make."

"I will be ready for thee at twelve o'clock." With a feeling of content in her heart, Sunna went away. Had she not the Burns story to tell? Yet she felt quite capable of restraining the incident until she got to a point where its relation would serve her purpose or her desire.

CHAPTER VI

THE OLD, OLD TROUBLE

From reef and rock and skerry, over headland, ness and roe, The coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go.

... a girl with sudden ebullitions, Flashes of fun, and little bursts of song; Petulant, pains, and fleeting pale contritions, Mute little moods of misery and wrong.

Only a girl of Nature's rarest making, Wistful and sweet--and with a heart for breaking.

The following two weeks were a time of anxiety concerning Boris. The recruiting party with whom he had gone away had said positively they must return with whatever luck they had in two weeks; and this interval appeared to Sunna to be of interminable length. She spent a good deal of the time with Thora affecting to console her for the loss of Ian Macrae, who had left Kirkwall for Edinburgh a few days after the departure of Boris.

"We are 'a couple of maidens all forlorn,'" she sang, and though Thora disclaimed the situation, she could not prevent her companion insisting on the fact.

Thora, however, did not feel that she had any reason for being forlorn. Ian's love for her had been confessed, not only to herself, but also to her father and mother, and the marriage agreed to with a few reservations, whose wisdom the lovers fully acknowledged. She was receiving the most ardent love letters by every mail and she had not one doubt of her lover in any respect. Indeed, her happiness so pervaded her whole person and conduct that Sunna felt it sometimes to be both depressing and irritating.

Thora, however, was the sister of Boris, she could not quarrel with her. She had great influence over Boris, and Sunna loved Boris--loved him in spite of her anger and of his neglect. Very slowly went the two weeks the enlisting ships had fixed as the length of their absence, but the news of their great success made their earlier return most likely, and after the tenth day every one was watching for them and planning a great patriotic reception.

Still the two weeks went slowly away and it was a full day past this fixed time, and the ships were not in port nor even in sight, nor had any late news come from them. In the one letter which Rahal had received from her son he said: "The enlistment has been very satisfactory; our return may be even a day earlier than we expected."

So Sunna had begun to watch for the party three days before the set time, and when it was two days after it she was very unhappy.

"Why do they not come, Thora?" she asked in a voice trembling with fear. "Do you think they have been wrecked?"

"Oh, no! Nothing of the kind! They may have sailed westward to Harris.

My father thinks so." But she appeared so little interested that Sunna turned to Mistress Ragnor and asked her opinion.

"Well, then," answered Rahal, "they _are_ staying longer than was expected, but who can tell what men in a ship will do?"

"They will surely keep their word and promise."

"Perhaps--if it seem a good thing to them. Can thou not see? They are masters on board ship. Once out of Lerwick Bay, the whole world is before them. Know this, they might go East or West, and say to no man 'I ask thy leave.' As changeable as the sea is a sailor's promise."

"But Boris is thy son--he promised thee to be home in two weeks. Men do not break a promise made on their mother's lips. How soon dost thou expect him?"

"At the harbour mouth he might be, even this very minute. I want to see my boy. I love him. May the good G.o.d send those together who would fain be loved!"

"Boris is in command of his own ship. He was under no man's orders. He ought not to break his promise."

"With my will, he would never do that."

"Dost thou think he will go to the war with the other men?"

"That he might do. What woman is there who can read a man's heart?"

"His mother!"

"She might, a little way--no further--just as well 'no further.' Only G.o.d is wise enough, and patient enough, to read a human heart. This is a great mercy." And Rahal lifted her face from her sewing a moment and then dropped it again.

Almost in a whisper Sunna said "Good-bye!" and then went her way home.

She walked rapidly; she was in a pa.s.sion of grief and mortification, but she sang some lilting song along the highway. As soon, however, as she pa.s.sed inside the Vedder garden gates, the singing was changed into a scornful, angry monologue:

"These Ragnor women! Oh, their intolerable good sense! So easy it is to talk sweetly and properly when you have no great trouble and all your little troubles are well arranged! Women cannot comfort women.

No, they can not! They don't want to, if they could. Like women, I do not! Trust them, I do not! I wish that G.o.d had made me a man! I will go to my dear old grandad!--He will do something--so sorry I am that I let Thora see I loved her brother--when I go there again, I shall consider his name as the bringer-on of yawns and boredom!"

An angry woman carries her heart in her mouth; but Sunna had been trained by a wise old man, and no one knew better than Sunna Vedder did, when to speak and when to be silent. She went first to her room in order to repair those disturbances to her appearance which had been induced by her inward heat and by her hurried walk home so near the noontide; and half an hour later she came down to dinner fresh and cool as a rose washed in the dew of the morning. Her frock of muslin was white as snow, there was a bow of blue ribbon at her throat, her whole appearance was delightfully satisfying. She opened her grandfather's parlour and found him sitting at a table covered with papers and little piles of gold and silver coin.

"Suppose I was a thief, Grandfather?" she said.

"Well then, what would thou take first?"

"I would take a kiss!" and she laid her face against his face, and gave him one.

"Now, thou could take all there is. What dost thou want?"

"I want thee! Dinner is ready."

"I will come. In ten minutes, I will come----" and in less than ten minutes he was at the dinner table, and apparently a quite different man from the one Sunna had invited there. He had changed his coat, his face was happy and careless, and he had quite forgotten the papers and the little piles of silver and gold.

Sunna had said some things to Thora she was sorry for saying; she did not intend to repeat this fault with her grandfather. Even the subject of Boris could lie still until a convenient hour. She appeared, indeed, to have thrown off her anger and her disappointment with the unlucky clothing she had worn in her visit to Thora. She had even a.s.sured herself of this change, for when it fell to her feet she lifted it reluctantly between her finger and thumb and threw it aside, remarking as she did so, "I will have them all washed over again! Soda and soap may make them more agreeable and more fortunate."

And perhaps if we take the trouble to notice the fact, clothing does seem to have some sort of sympathy or antagonism with its wearers.

Also, it appears to take on the mood or feeling predominant, looking at one time crisp and perfectly proper, at another time limp and careless, as if the wearer informed the garment or the garment explained the wearer. It is well known that "Fashions are the external expression of the mental states of a country, and that if its men and women degenerate in their character, their fashions become absurd."