Father, Mother, and Son
As the two old people at Grimön came to know their stranger son, they wondered at him for many things.
“I tell you this, Joel,” said Mor Elversson to her husband one day, “that if I’d been taken away and brought up amongst gentlefolks as one of themselves, and then all suddenly had to lay it all by, and come to live on such fare as we can give, after being used to all manner of dainties; if I’d had to leave all that and turn to helping you in the fields and never so much as time to read in a book, nor ever change a word with finer folks, but only a pair of ninnies like you and me—if it was me was come to that, I’d be sullen and hard from morning to night, that I would. And I doubt but you’d be the same.”
Joel agreed that he would find it hard to be otherwise in such a case.
“And then look at Sven,” went on his wife. “As if there was never a thought of such in his head. And he’s not grieving over money and friends he’s lost or that sort. Never seems to trouble him that he’s no sort of pleasure nor enjoyment to turn to. He can go about here laughing and chaffing with me, and arguing with you, as if he’d never thought nor longing for better company. Every day the same—gentle and humble and glad as any God’s lamb. There’s but one thing I can see that plagues him.”
“Well, as for that, I can’t think any the worse of him for feeling so. It’s the disgrace that’s ever on his mind—and that’s a sore thing for any man to bear.”
“Ay, that’s true. And a cruel thing it is that folk can’t get used to him like, so he can’t go over to the post, or into a store, but there’s some that curl lips at him or let out an ugly word. And I’m as sure as can be in my heart he’s innocent all the time. Sven, he’s far and away above the rest of the children as the sun and the moon, and it’s in my mind he’s fretting for nothing at all. Ung-Joel might have done what they say, but never Sven.”
Day after day Mor Elversson talked in the same strain. As soon as she and her husband were together, she would fall to praising Sven.
“You don’t understand him, Joel,” she would say. “And his ways, and how he’s different. But I’d have thought you might have seen it by the difference in me. Washing and doing my hair neat, and sweeping and scrubbing and cleaning about the place. You don’t suppose it’s for your sake I do it?”
“Why,” said Joel, “as for that, you’ve always been a great one for keeping things clean and neat beyond other folks.” It was a way Joel had, of saying nice things to people whenever he could.
“It’s not only that,” said his wife, “but it’s changed me in other ways. I’m never angry about things now—I’ve turned soft as an eiderdown. Did you ever see a smile like Sven’s? When other folks look kindly at me, I’m glad enough, but when Sven looks at me that smiling way of his, I just feel I could fling myself naked into the sea if he said the word.”
Joel laughed.
“I don’t see there’d be any great gain in that if he did,” he said. “But there’s something in what you say there. To my mind, the boy’s like one of the stones that lie down on the shore, and always being rolled about by the waves. He’s got worn and smooth from all the hard knocks he’s got, till there’s not a sharp edge nor a corner anywhere.”
Truth to tell, Joel, was at least as interested in his son as was his wife. But, pleased though he was with the lad, he could not but be anxious about him. It seemed as if he were resigned now, to submit to the judgment that had been passed upon him, and keep away from his kind for ever. There seemed little chance of his leaving the island. But even there, he would not be cut off from all communication with his fellows, unless he wished it so. Joel had been clerk to the magistrate’s court for thirty years past, and in the course of that time had gained much knowledge of laws and regulations. In consequence, his help was often sought by neighbours wishing to make a will, draw up a contract, or arrange some similar matter in proper order. But when such visitors appeared, Sven Elversson never came in for a word with them. On the contrary, he would go off to the farthest part of the island as soon as a boat came in sight.
“Well, what’s he to do?” said Mor Elversson, when her husband spoke of his anxiety. “To begin with, he’s almost forgotten to speak his own tongue in all these years, and it’s only just beginning to come back to him. And when folk themselves turn shy of him as if he was a monster, what’s he to do?”
Joel threw back his head, drew in his breath audibly, and uttered words that his wife found it hard to understand.
“If I’d been born to be a musician,” he said, “I doubt but I’d manage to find me something to play on.”
“Well, and what then?” said his wife. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that, if it’s as I think, and our Sven’s meant to be a picture and example and show the way to others, then it can’t be right for him to live here on this bit of an island like a hermit.”
Mor Elversson looked at her husband, and a wealth of tenderness shone in her eyes.
“You’ve lived on this bit of an island all your life,” she said. “But there’s folk enough have been able to come and learn from you and plague you with no end of things.”
Joel waved his hand impatiently.
“What’s that compared to Sven? I never learned things when I was young, but Sven—he was set to it in time. There’s nothing to stand in his way.”
“There’s one thing....”
“There’s that, of course....”
“And that’s everywhere, where you’d least expect it. Like a cat lying in wait, and before you know, it’s at his throat.”
“Ay,” said Joel. “That’s just the trouble. And what’s done can’t be undone. There’s no sort of miracle could keep that cat from flying at him.”
“But, Joel, remember, if it hadn’t been for the trouble, he’d never have come back home to us again. Though I know in my heart he’s innocent,” she added.
And again and again she said the same. So overjoyed was she at having her son back home that she could hardly understand why he and his father troubled themselves about what other folk thought. “Never heed them,” she said to Sven. “They’re just foolish. You’re better than all of them. The one that sneered at you the other day when you went to the post, he’d be in prison for forgery if he had his due. Don’t fancy he’s any call to look down on others.”
But as time went on, she could not but feel that Joel was right, and that her son was gradually becoming a recluse, shunning his fellows altogether. And not only that. His manner had grown so humble that it almost made him appear ridiculous. He seemed wishful to efface himself altogether in his misery.
“No,” she thought to herself. “This will never do. Something must happen soon. Surely the Lord will not forsake us altogether.”
The parish of Applum, to which Grimön belonged, included, not only the level tract of the mainland as seen from the church, but also some dozen little islets off the coast, and the fishing village of Knapefiord, which last, with its boathouses and sheds, long quays and harbour basins, vessels and buoys, seems to spread out as far over the water as over the land.
Mor Elversson often rowed over to the village with butter and eggs, and in talking with her customers, housewives who had known her for years, she made frequent endeavours to praise this son of hers who had come home, assuring all that he could never have done any wrong.
But she soon found that all her pains were to no purpose. No unkind words were said, but those she spoke to pretended not to hear, as when a person known to be otherwise sensible enough makes some unreasonable assertion.
“Oh, they’re over good and holy for this earth,” said Mor Elversson bitterly, when she came home. “Full to the brim with faith and righteousness, till there’s no room for a drop of mercy in them.”
Joel himself met with no better success.
Of late, when people came to ask his help in this or that, he had taken to hinting that he was getting too old for the work, and that his son Sven ought soon to take over in his father’s stead. But the suggestion passed unheeded everywhere. Fisher or farmer, whoever it might be, all were as deaf on that one subject as the sternly righteous housewives of Knapefiord.
On Christmas Eve, Joel and his wife and their son sat in the little dwelling at Grimön, talking of the future.
“Look here. Mother,” said Sven, who seemed in particularly good humour this evening, “don’t you think this kitchen place is dark and uncomfortable? What do you say to moving into the house itself?”
“Heavens!” cried his mother. “What’s the boy thinking of! Why, there’s neither roof nor floor to the place.”
“That’s no worse than can be mended,” answered Sven. “I’ve been looking at the walls; they’re sound enough. There’s fine big rooms there, with plenty of light, and looking out over the sea. It’s a shame to let the old captains’ house go to rack and ruin.”
Both father and mother agreed in this. But there was the question of money.
Sven explained that he had money of his own—not from his foster-parents, but money he had fairly earned. Before starting out on the expedition he had been promised a thousand pounds to be paid on his return. And this he had now received.
But Joel, for all that he had felt no qualms himself, suddenly saw how the old sea-captains who had lived there before would turn in their graves.
“Not with that money!” he cried. “I’d be glad to see the old house set to rights—but not with that money—no!”
Mother and son looked up at him in surprise. But both of them realized in a moment what was in his mind, and no more was said.
Joel sat thinking of the old sea-captains with their weather-beaten faces, their tarry fists and thirsty throats, good-natured, cheery men, not over-careful of their speech, nor dainty in their choice of company. His fathers, no doubt, had been of the same breed—and now he had told his son he was not good enough to live in the house that had been theirs. Told him that the money he had earned at the risk of his life on those same waters where they had voyaged and won their own was not good enough to be spent in mending their home.
There was a strange smile on Sven Elversson’s face that evening—a gentle, patient, and forgiving smile. It had been there many a time before, when he had felt how his fellow men shunned him. But now, now that his father had shown a trace of the same feeling as all others had toward him, the smile of resignation seemed to settle on his face as if for good.
When Joel saw that look in his son’s face, and marked how it stayed, and did not pass, he rose to his feet, and tried with kindly words to make amends. The boy answered with kindly words in return, but the look on his face remained.
Joel was angry with himself for having reopened the old wound. He understood that the lad had been keeping the news of the money a secret, in order to bring it out that very evening. And the sense of shame grew on him, till he felt unable to stay in the room, and took his hat and went out into the dark. Perhaps in his absence the boy’s mother could tell him what were his father’s real feeling toward him.
Hardly had Joel gone out, however, when a party of seven wild, drunken fellows came storming into the kitchen. They wanted Sven—Sven Elversson—to come out with them and be merry. They had taken a boat across on purpose to fetch him.
Mor Elversson looked at the men, and saw they were a crew of fishermen numbering some of the worst an wildest men on that part of the coast. And behind the rest, as if trying to remain unperceived, was one of her own sons, Ung-Joel, who was working in a store at Knapefiord.
And, turning from the drunken men with their unsteady gestures and foolish laughter, she looked at the boy, her son, whom they had come to plague and torture. A slender lad, finely built, with soft, gentle eyes and clean white hands. Neatly dressed he was, too, and shaved and orderly. He did not drink or smoke or spit about the place, and never a rough word passed his lips.
The others, who had come to make a jest of one in trouble, knew well enough that he had had a better upbringing than themselves, that he had led a richer life, and had a better understanding. They came because they hated him, because they looked on him as a worm to be trodden underfoot, a despicable creature that should not be let live in any Christian house.
As the strangers entered, a feeling of helplessness came over Sven. Not an ordinary faintness or loss of consciousness: it was simply that he felt unable to move. It seemed as if something were telling him plainly that this must be the end of his life. These men were come to torture him to death. And it was useless to resist. After all, life, as it was for him, now was hardly worth any great effort to preserve.
One of the men had found a dead snake by the roadside earlier in the day. He had taken it home and shown it to his comrades.
“Looks tempting,” one of them had said.
“Yes. Anybody like to eat it?”
“Take it over to Grimön and ask Sven Elversson if he’d like it. He eats all sorts of things.”
“Ay, just the thing for him.”
And thus it was they had hit on the idea of coming to Grimön. They had a vague feeling that a man so vile as this Sven Elversson ought not to be left to enjoy his Christmas in peace; surely that was the very time he should be punished, and without mercy.
They had brought his brother with them to show them the way in the dark; the boy had agreed without any great reluctance. He was by no means as drunk as the others, but his feelings toward Sven were much the same as theirs. He was constantly being sneered at on account of the relationship, and many an ugly word was flung at him for his brother’s misdeed. And he asked himself, what right had Sven to come home in this way and make trouble for them all? He stood now behind the broad backs of the rest, chuckling already at what was to come.
“Joel, Ung-Joel,” cried his mother at sight of him. “What’s all this? What do they want with Sven?”
The boy was used to answering without hesitation when that voice questioned him. And he spoke out now:
“They want him to eat a snake.”
Sven Elversson felt even more powerless than before. He could see the whole scene; these men commanding him to eat, and he would refuse. Then they would set on him, with blows and kicks. And still he would say no. There was no power on earth now that could compel him to such a ghastly act—they might torture him to death.
But there was still a little respite left before he would be forced to go with them.
The fellow who had found the snake that morning drew out the long smooth thing from his pocket, and, rocking unsteadily, held it out before the mother’s face.
“A rare little feast it’ll be for him,” he said.
“You call yourselves men?” cried the woman. “And you think I’ll let him go with you, that’s better than all of you together?”
The men burst out into a shout of laughter.
“He won’t have to go farther than down to the shore,” said the man who had just spoken. “We’ll make a fire and cook it for him there.”
Sven Elversson felt his strength returning. “It will soon be time,” he said to himself. “By to-night it will be all over. And better so.”
His mother glanced toward him, and marked how he sat still, with the same sad, forgiving smile on his lips. No trace of anger or sign of resistance showed in his face; only a gentle, submissive sadness.
“Sven, you’re never thinking of going with them?” cried his mother. “D’you know who he is, that man there? Olaus from Fårön, that helped to kill his newborn child—and left the woman to bear it all when she’d most need of him.”
The men roared with laughter.
“Don’t be afraid, Mor Thala,” said Olaus. “We’ll look after Sven all right. We’ll salt and pepper it for him and make it nice. A snake’s nothing to him after what he’s been used to.”
“Look there!” cried the mother again, pointing to the biggest and wildest-looking of the men. “That’s Corfitzson from Fiskebäck. He’s done a power of evil in his day—and ’twas him that set fire to a shed full of cattle, to get the insurance money.”
“Never mind her talk, boy, you come along with us,” said Corfitzson, laying a hand on Sven’s shoulder.
But Mor Thala went on without a stop.
“And there’s Bertil from Strömsundet. If you’d know the worst of him, he’s only starved his grandmother to death. She lived just two months after he came into the house. And him there in the corner—that’s Torsson from Iggenäs, that never sold a fish but what he stole from others’ nets, and those two there that can hardly stand for the drink in them, that’s Rasmussen and Hjelmfeldt. They drink up all their earnings and leave their wives and bairns to starve.”
Her voice had risen almost to a shriek; she was quivering with rage and terror. Even the men shrank back a moment before her fury, and forgot to laugh.
“And that one there, behind all the rest,” she went on, bitterly. “Can you see who that is? Your own brother, Ung-Joel, it is. He’s done no more harm as yet than leaving his father and mother to perish for lack of a helping hand. The times I’ve begged and prayed of him to come out here and help us, but he’d never hear. There, lad, that’s the men that have come to bid you go with them—but you won’t; you can’t....”
But as she spoke, Sven rose to his feet, gentle and forgiving as ever, ready to submit and suffer.
The men laughed again.
“That’s right, my son,” said Olaus, who was evidently the leader. “Just as well to come with a good grace. You’d have little chance against the lot of us.”
But Mor Elversson was not the one to give up without doing all in her power. With a rapid movement she grasped the body of the snake that Olaus still held in his hand, wrested it from him, and flung it into the next room, placing herself before the door.
At that moment the outer door opened, and Joel came hurrying in.
“What’s here?” he said, looking round. “What are you rioting here about? What do you want with Sven?”
Two of the men had sprung forward to force Mor Thala aside from the doorway; two of the others had gripped Sven by the shoulders and were thrusting him before them.
Without a moment’s hesitation the old man flung himself upon them.
“Out with you! Leave the boy alone,” he cried.
And suddenly Sven Elversson was himself again. Something within him was whispering: “Now, now is the time! Father and mother are fighting on your side.”
“Ung-Joel,” he cried to his brother, who was still keeping away behind the rest. “Open the door there, quick!”
The boy obeyed instinctively; it was as if he could not disregard an order given in that house. In a moment Sven had gripped Olaus by the middle, lifted him off his feet, and flung him out.
Corfitzson rushed forward to the rescue, but found himself gripped in turn by a pair of strong arms, lifted, and flung out after his leader.
Then it was that Ung-Joel stepped forward and stood by his brother’s side. There was a moment of wild tumult, and the place was cleared.
Ung-Joel bolted the door behind his former comrades. Then, solemnly, he stepped up to his brother and offered his hand.
“How did you manage it?” he asked, after a pause, with frank admiration. “I’ll get you to teach me that throw.”
The elder brother’s face was flushed with the fight; his look of patient resignation was gone.
“You’ve given them a lesson, you may be sure,” went on the younger. “They’ll know better than to trouble you again. But what made you take it so patiently all this time, when you’re a match for the worst of them?”
Now for the first time Sven Elversson lost his self-control. Sinking down in a chair, he buried his face in his hands.
“What’s the use?” he cried, desperately. “How can I defend myself when all the time I hate myself more than any of them can ever do? Hate and loathe myself worse than you can ever think. Horrible, horrible. No one knows as well as I do what it is I’ve done—what it is I’ve sinned against. Is it any comfort to me to stop the mouths of a drunken crowd when all the time I’ve that on my mind that’s ghastlier than all?”