THE OUTCAST

[GRIMÖN]

ON THE island of Grimön, among the rocks and reefs of the western coast of Sweden, there lived, some years back, a man and his wife. The two were much unlike each other.

Joel Elversson, the husband, was the elder of the pair by fifteen years or so. Ill-favoured to look at, heavy and slow, he had always been, and age had not improved him. His wife, on the other hand, was still as neat and pleasant a little body as ever; far from having lost her looks, she seemed almost as pretty now, at fifty, as she had been at twenty.

One fine Sunday evening the couple were sitting on a big flat rock just outside their house, chatting together at their ease. Joel was a man who enjoyed hearing his own voice, and delivered his words with care. Just now he was giving his wife at some length the contents of an article he had read in the paper. The little woman listened, but her thoughts were not following very closely.

"Eh," she thought to herself, "he's a wonderful head has Joel, to be sure. How he can get all that out of a bit of print in a newspaper.... Pity he can't put his learning to some use for us both, instead of others."

Involuntarily she glanced across at the house. It was a good-sized place in itself, but in such a state of dilapidation as to be largely uninhabitable; the pair lived now in one small outbuilding, which the previous tenants, sea-captains all, had used for kitchen and larder.

"If only he'd had a liking for the sea," went on Mor Elversson to herself, "like his father and grandfather before him. He'd have laid by something now, and we'd be able to look forward to old age in ease and comfort. But he's always been set on farming and field work and such, and little enough it's brought us."

She did not move from her place while her husband was speaking, but her little head, that moved quickly and easily as a bird's, turned slightly as she glanced over the patches of cornfield and potato, little islands of growth among the barren rock that formed the greater part of the island.

Every little strip of cultivation was her husband's work; the very soil was, in a manner of speaking, his creation. He had brought endless boatloads of earth and manure to Grimön, in the firm conviction that he must one day reap a rich reward for his pains.

"All that trouble for so many bits of earth, and poor at that," thought his wife to herself. "Needs but one good northerly gale at Whitsuntide, and all the sowing and planting'd be nowhere Nay, 'tis to the sea we should look for our daily bread, living here as we do. There's neither right nor reason in it else."

Another movement of the quick little head, and she was looking out through the space between the tumbledown old house and the cottage, over the broad, gleaming surface of the water beyond.

"Ay, the sea," she sighed. "'Tis different with that. Freights and cargoes and good money paid. If I'd been a man, I'd have gone to sea from the first, and never taken up with the farm work at all. And here we're getting old and older, and what's to become of us when we're past work? There's none of the children'd stay at home to toil and moil that away—and small blame to them for that."

The last words must have been spoken aloud, for her husband turned sharply toward her. He had been describing the perils and hardships of an English expedition recently returned from the Arctic, and broke off now in the middle of a sentence.

"You're not listening," he said. But it was doubtless not the first time he had found himself talking to deaf ears, for he seemed neither surprised nor annoyed.

"Indeed I was," his wife assured him. "I was thinking this very moment how fine you talk, and how you'd do for a preacher."

"I don't know about that," said the husband, with a laugh. "If I can't keep one listener from thinking of all and sundry when I'm preaching, how'd I manage with a congregation?"

"But I was listening," his wife protested, somewhat discomfited. "I've got it all in my head now. How they lost their ship the very first winter and managed to build a snow house, and had to stay and live there for over a year, till all their food was gone, and they were chewing bits of hide."

There was a note of vexation in her voice, and her mouth twitched in a way it often did when anything troubled her.

"Wonder how it would feel," suggested her husband, casually, "if 'twas one of our own blood had been there starving in a snow hut."

The woman glanced at him sharply. What did he mean by that now? Something, surely. But Joel sat staring before him, with no trace of expression in his rheumy eyes.

"Well, if we were to spend all our time sitting thinking of other folks' troubles, there'd be little pleasure in life," she said, apologetically. "And, anyhow, they were saved in the end."

"That's true," Joel admitted. "There was a ship went out to find them, and they're safe back in England now."

"And all the honour and glory, and live happy ever after," concluded his wife.

To her mind, there was nothing to be so serious about when all had come well at last. But her husband went on without changing his tone.

"I dreamt last night about our boy Sven," he said. "Dreamt he came and stood by my bed and said I'd done him a sore wrong. I won't say if I've any gift of dreaming true as a rule, and I don't know if there's anything in this or not. But it's a queer thing, all the same, to see his name in the paper here to-day."

The last words were spoken carelessly, as if the speaker were thinking only of himself. But from that moment he had no reason to complain of want of attention in his listener. His wife came close to him and deluged him with questions: Where was the name? What was it he had dreamt? Was there really anything about their boy Sven? Her voice grew shrill, her nose flushed, and tears stood in her eyes.

Had it been any other of their children, she would have been less easily moved. But it was different with Sven. They had given the boy away, when nine years old, to an English gentleman and his lady, who had come sailing along the coast in a yacht. The strangers had simply fallen in love with the child, and had promised, if he were entrusted to them, to bring him up as their own, as a rich gentleman, and make him their heir.

It was a wonderful prospect for the lad; his parents had felt that for his own sake they dared not refuse. If he stayed with them, he would have none to help him but themselves. And he was a bright child, with a clever head; they had often agreed that he would surely get on in the world if he had but the chance in his upbringing.

Seventeen years now since they had let him go, and during all that time they had heard nothing from him. Never a letter, never a word of greeting. They knew no more of him than if he had lain at the bottom of the sea.

"See there," said the man, handing across the paper to his wife. "List of those saved. Here it is. 'Sven E. Springfield.'"

"Yes, yes. 'Sven E. Springfield'—it's there, right enough."

"And that can't mean anything but Sven Elversson Springfield," Joel went on. "His own name, mine, and his foster-father's. There's no mistake about that."

Mor Elversson crushed the paper close. At that moment she felt that the son she had given up to others of her own free will was dearest of all her children.

"Why didn't you say straight out at once that Sven was there?" she said, reproachfully. "I wasn't listening. Now you'll have to tell it all over again."

Joel seemed somewhat at a loss. He had thought to tell her the whole story before saying a word about Sven; it would have been easier so. Then he could have seen how she took it, and acted accordingly.

However, he must tell her now. And he went on to explain all she wished to know. What was meant by the eightieth degree of latitude, for instance. And she listened, growing eager on her son's behalf for the honours to be won, and thinking surely he and his comrades must have reached farther than any before them. And what had they lived on after the ship had gone down with all their stores? The story of how the relief expedition had found them that summer, on the shores of Melville Island, had to be repeated over and over again.

"Oh, what he must have had to go through in all that time!" she exclaimed. "No, 'tis a wicked thing to give away one's own child to strangers."

"But he's made his fortune now, I suppose," she went on, relieved. "And they'll give him a host of medals and orders and all."

Soon she began to wonder how the boy had been received in England on his return.

"Millions of people came out to see them," said Joel. "'Arctic explorers' homecoming.'"

He felt ill at ease, anxious, and in fear. All their future depended on how he framed his words now; if he could say the thing as it must be said.

"If only we could have been there too," said his wife. "If I could but have stood at a street corner and seen him go by."

"No need for you to have stood at street corners," said Joel. "It says here there was a special steamer for parents and relatives to meet them."

The look of joy faded suddenly from her face. "Eh, Joel," she sighed. "Little good it would have been if we'd been there. They'd never have let you nor me go on that steamer boat. She wouldn't have let us."

"She" was Mor Elversson's word for the English lady that had taken away her son. She had never forgiven her for forbidding her son to write to his parents. And in her thoughts this stranger woman had become a monster.

"I doubt but they'd have let us see him, all the same," said Joel.

It was some relief to him, in a way, that his wife laid stress on little details such as this. He needed time to collect his thoughts before he could break the news to her. All their future depended on how it was said and taken; he told himself this again and again, as if to urge his mind to the effort.

"Never believe it!" cried the woman, stubbornly, with a toss of her head. "When she never so much as let him write a line all these years. And I doubt but he's little thought for us, anyway. Nine years old he was, when he went away, and sense enough, if he'd cared, to write without her knowing. But it's plain enough; she's put it into his head how we were common folk, and not the sort for a little young gentleman to be asking about."

All her joy was gone and vanished now; the thoughts that had plagued her so often in the past came back with renewed force.

"I'll admit," said her husband—"I'll admit it's a strange thing Sven shouldn't have written a single word to us all that time. And it may well be 'twas their fault that wouldn't let him. I heard something up at the church to-day."

The woman said no word. She was too sick at heart to speak.

"This is going badly," said Joel to himself. "If she's in that humour, there's little hope anyway."

"The Pastor's had news from England," he said aloud. And now again he was touching on a matter he had thought to leave until his wife was more prepared, and in the mood to take it better. But there seemed no help for it now. "Pastor asked me to go along home with him. 'Twas he that gave me the newspaper here."

"The Pastor?"

"Yes. Wanted to talk to me about Sven."

"Huh! What do I care! 'Tis all the same now, the way he's turned out."

Joel made no reply to this, and they sat for a long time in silence. At last the woman burst out violently:

"I never knew the like of you for making a poor body curious. What was it Pastor's heard from England?"

"It was news of Sven. And Pastor's coming himself to tell you about it this evening."

The woman sprang to her feet. "Pastor himself—coming here! Well, of all the wonders.... And you sitting there and never said a word of it till now!"

She took a pace toward the house, thinking to look round and see that all was clean and in order. Then suddenly she stopped.

"What's he coming here for?" she said. "There must be something wrong."

She cast a keen glance at her husband, as if trying to look into his mind and read the thoughts within.

"Maybe Sven's turned softer now," she said, "after being up there in the ice and chewing bits of hide. Maybe he's wishful to come and see us, after all. But, mark my words, this time I say no! If we weren't good enough for him before, we're no better now."

"Be careful of your words," said her husband, warningly. "You never know but you might be sorry after." He felt a growing anger toward her for speaking so violently, and taking the whole thing differently from what he would have done himself.

Mor Elversson had forgotten all about seeing to the house now. Her husband's last words could mean but one thing—she had guessed rightly.

"And do you know what's the news Pastor's coming to tell?"

"I know something—yes."

"Was it himself told you to read out all that in the paper for me to hear?"

"Well, no. He was going to tell you himself, I take it. But I reckoned it was best you should know a little before he came, and be prepared."

"And just as well," said his wife. "Well that I knew of it in time. I might have been forgetting myself and saying good-day and welcome before I knew, and been sorry for it after."

Joel felt his anger increasing. "She'll spoil it all beyond mending," he thought to himself, "and it's all our future to think of. Eh, she'll never be wiser, only growing worse and worse for every year."

"I fancy Pastor 'll be glad to hear you can talk so careless like about Sven. All one to you ... well, 'twill make it easier for him to say what he's got to say."

"Easier? ..." repeated the woman, and her voice seemed harsher even than before. "What d'you mean by that?"

"Why, it looks as if Sven's in trouble after all. That procession, when they came home, that was to be last Sunday, and so it was, as fine as could be. Next day, too, there was banquets and invitations and things—and then all of a sudden it stopped. They'd come back from the Arctic all right, but folk were beginning to say strange things about them. Ugly things."

The woman's face set hard.

"You mean to tell me he's done something wrong?" she murmured between clenched teeth.

"Took down all the flowers and flags and stuff, and put a stop to everything. One day they could hardly make a way through the streets for folk crowding round to cheer the sight of them; and the next, those same folks ready to spit on them."

Mor Elversson raised her head.

"Well, I never heard ..." she cried. "I doubt it would have been better for him to have stayed with his own flesh and blood after all."

"Remember," said her husband, speaking more forcefully now, "it's not the first time such things have happened away on expeditions like that. They were starving, and mad with hunger, and didn't rightly know what they were doing. And then one of them couldn't stand it any longer, and took and cut his throat, and after that, well ..."

"Well? They ate him up, I suppose you mean?"

She spoke the words coldly, without a trace of excitement. Her heart was full of bitterness and disgust.

"They were no more accountable, really, than folk in a madhouse," said her husband. "And it says here in the paper they couldn't bring themselves to go on. Only started like."

"And Sven was in it, too?"

"When anything like that happens, they take good care all's in it. They made him do like the rest. But that was all."

"And now," cried his wife, with an indescribable contempt in her voice—"now I know what it is Pastor's got to say. Sven's not good enough for her now, and so he's got Pastor to come and persuade us to let him come back here. Isn't that it?"

"I daresay that would be best, if it could be done," said Joel, slowly.

"But I say no!" cried his wife. "I say no! He shan't come back here because he's nowhere else to go. He forgot all about us as long as he was well off and comfortable; don't let him think we're anxious to have him now. Poor and old we may be, and needing help. But we'll not have a son that's done things so nobody else will own him."

Joel Elversson looked at his wife, with anger and impatience in his eyes. He was old and weak, and it would have been a grand thing for him to have a son at home able to work. His wife's feeling seemed to him childish and unreasonable; she was obstinate; she was downright wicked. "Wait," he thought to himself. "Wait, and you'll soon hear something more to your mind."

"Just as I said," he went on aloud. "Pastor won't find it so hard, after all, to tell you what was in the letter."

"It—isn't it what I thought, then?" asked his wife in a milder tone. Her stubbornness was shaken by his evident anger and disapproval.

He looked at her sternly.

"Would you like me to tell you myself, or wait till Pastor comes?"

And in his impatience to punish her for her want of affection, he did not wait for an answer, but went on:

"They live in London—the Springfields. And Sven had gone back home to them there. But when the ugly stories began to get about, the father sent a paper with the news up to him—and a loaded revolver with it."

"And the mother—what about her? Did she know he'd sent it?"

"She knew—yes."

"And—and what then?"

"Then—why, it came about as they wished. That's all."

"And now—he's dead."

"Now—now you know what Pastor had to tell you," said her husband.

"And she," cried the poor mother—"she that was not his mother at all, but had had him with her all those years, she let him kill himself, when he'd done no wrong?"

She turned on her husband fiercely.

"You lie!" she cried. "It is not true!"

"I'd have said those very words myself an hour ago. I wouldn't have believed that a woman could be so heartless. But since I've heard you, now, I can believe it."

"But—but he hadn't only them to look to. He'd his mother and father here."

"Most likely he thought we'd take it the same way. And he wasn't so far wrong, it seems."

Mor Elversson turned away, and sat down on the rock. The tears ran down her cheeks. "Sven's dead," she said, "dead. No mother but a woman with a heart of stone—and she let him die."

She sat awhile, weeping and moaning.

"O God, why did we ever let him go? And that woman to send him to his death for nothing! When it was the others that made him ..."

"You'd better try and be calm a bit," said her husband. "Here's the Pastor coming. The boat's just putting in."

"Tell him I know all about it. He can go back again."

"Can't very well do that, when he's been at the trouble to come."

Joel walked away, and came back a moment later with the Pastor and a young man.

The priest walked up to the weeping woman.

"Joel tells me you've heard already, Mor Elversson," he said. "About Sven. He was concerned in a very unpleasant business, and his adopted parents sent him away."

Mor Elversson had risen to curtsey to the Pastor. She still held a corner of her apron to her eyes, but, for all her weeping, she caught a glimpse of the stranger with him.

"It's Sven," said a voice within her. "Sven...."

A host of thoughts crowded into her mind. She realized that Joel had lied to her, in his anger at her heartlessness. She felt, too, that she would never be able to overcome the sorrow she had felt on hearing that her son had tasted human flesh. She saw that they would have to keep this son at home with them now, since no one else would have him in their service. But in the midst of all these cold reflections she saw how thin and pale the boy looked, how his eyes begged her sympathy, and a wave of pity and love rose in her heart.

"Eh, Joel, Joel," she thought. "Always strange in his ways. He's shown me now what I am; made me see what I really feel. I know now, that for all the boy's been away from us all these years, and come back in disgrace, I can't but love him all the same."

And, without a word to the Pastor, she stepped forward to her son and bade him welcome, her husband watching her anxiously the while.

"Surely," she said, in her gentlest voice, "it was just for this that the trouble came—that Joel and I might have you back again."

[IN GOD'S HOUSE]

SVEN ELVERSSON, the man who had been greeted as a son by the two old folk at Grimön, sat in the church at Applum, thanking God that he had found a place of refuge where he was not looked upon with horror and disgust.

On the lonely, rocky little island with its two poor inhabitants, he had no fear of encountering that downward curve of the lips that signified loathing. His father was an old man, and felt no disgust toward him, having no strong feelings any longer in that way. His mother was sensitive as ever, but she loved him.

The church in which he sat was an old wooden building, the ceiling decorated with a great picture of the Judgment. And every time he looked up he found himself involuntarily gazing at a big, black, grinning devil, who was thrusting fuel under a cauldron filled with sinners boiling in a sulphurous broth. Sven Elversson knew that particular fiend of old, from the time when he had been in that very church seventeen years before. A striking feature was the long tail, cloven in three at the tip, which he used with great dexterity to stir the boiling mess.

As a child he had often let his fancy play about the figure of this master cook, who managed so skilfully to tend his fire and his pot at the same time. Now, however, other thoughts were in his mind. If all those who every Sunday looked up at that merry spirit of the infernal kitchens at his boiling were suddenly told that there, in their midst, sat one of their fellows who had actually tasted human flesh, they would hardly let him remain there long.

There was one thing—he could find no other to compare with it—which civilised human beings could not do. Murder, adultery, cruelty, theft; these they could commit. They were not above such things as drunkenness, rape, treason, espionage. Such things as these were of daily occurrence. There were, no doubt, those who would shrink from any such crime, but the things were done. One of mankind's ancient sins there was which no longer existed in civilized countries—a thing too loathsome for any to contemplate. And that he had done. Yes, he was more to be abhorred than any fiend.

The only soul in the church, beyond his parents, who knew the reason of Sven Elversson's homecoming was the Priest. But the Pastor had received him kindly on the previous Sunday, showed him sympathy, and spoken with his father; had gone with him out to Grimön, and been pleased to see his mother's affectionate welcome—and had approved the idea of his remaining at home with his parents. The Priest had shown himself throughout as a tolerant and generous man.

To-day, as the Pastor entered his church, his eyes fell on Sven Elversson, the man from the starvation camp at Melville Island. And at sight of him he felt a stifling sensation in his throat.

He had helped this man, and done what he could for him; he had been glad to be the means of bringing him back to his home, and finding a refuge for an unfortunate who was made to suffer for what he had been forced to commit; a fellow creature in such desperate straits that he might otherwise have turned to suicide. But he had not thought to see him here in church.

At the vicarage, he would not have hesitated to receive him if he had come. But this he could not endure. The man had eaten human flesh—had been guilty of something heathenish, abominable. Surely, he ought to have understood himself that his presence there was intolerable.

A moment after, he reproached himself for his thoughts, accused himself of uncharitableness, and called to mind how Christ had bidden all sinners come to Him. He strove to rouse more sympathy in himself; he thought of the poor sinner's gentle, kindly bearing, and checked his first impulse to send the verger with a message asking him to leave the church. He went through the service, and delivered his sermon as usual, but could not free himself from a feeling of abhorrence.

The words he had to speak clung to his palate; he had to pause once or twice in his sermon and clear his tongue before he could go on. It was as if the taste of something loathsome actually filled his mouth; he seemed to be witnessing the scene as it had happened: the group of starving men flinging themselves upon the body of the suicide.

He would have felt nothing of this had it not been for the presence of the man himself there in the church. But the feeling had come upon him now, and he felt himself helpless in its grasp. He clenched his hands in strife with himself, turned in the pulpit so as to keep the figure of Sven Elversson away from sight; he strove to read the sermon as he had written it, forced himself to concentrate his thoughts upon his words, and suddenly the trouble was gone, and he felt at ease once more.

But now it chanced that he came to a passage in the sermon dealing with falsehood, and how far it might be justified in certain cases. And at once his thoughts turned to Grimön, and the manner in which Joel Elversson had brought his wife to realize her true feelings. It was his custom frequently to illustrate his sermons with episodes from real life, and in doing so, he did not write down the story beforehand, but told it in such words as came to him at the moment. And now it occurred to him that the little happening at Grimön might be used by way of example.

He had had no thought before of using it, but now, carried away by his subject, he took it up.

He had not been speaking long before a warning thought crossed his mind—it was perhaps hardly well to make the matter known to the whole congregation. True, no one had asked him to keep it a secret. Nevertheless, he felt uneasy, and sought for some way of altering the story as he went on, but could find none, and told it as it was. He tried to emphasize only that part which bore on his subject, of falsehood and justification, but here again he failed, and told the very thing that should have remained unsaid, making known the entire affair to all those present.

At first, he felt ashamed of what he had done, then suddenly he was seized with a sense of exultation at thus treading underfoot the unclean spirit that had dared to appear in the church itself. "Despicable worm!" he thought. "That such a creature should ever presume to enter into my church—into the house of God."

He had struggled against the sense of loathing; now, it had crept upon him unawares and overwhelmed him.

All next day the Priest was ill at ease. He had not acted as a man should, with proper self-control. He had behaved like a child, like a savage, giving way to instinct at once.

In vain he tried to find some way in which to repair what he had done; it could not be altered now. He must wait until some opportunity offered. The more he made of the affair just now, the worse it would be.

But what a power—what a terrible power—lay in this sense of loathing, that it could thus overwhelm a man, as it had done with him, at the very moment when he stood as teacher and spiritual guide in a Christian church, speaking to Christian souls!

The little party from Grimön left the church as the preacher descended from the pulpit.

Once outside, they stopped involuntarily, and stood a moment by the church door, looking around.

The church stood in the middle of a level, open plain—an unusual thing in that part of the country. Not of very wide extent, but still considerable. One could see from one side to the other, and mark the doings of one's neighbours, yet, for all that, it was large enough to furnish ground for church and vicarage, and a score of homesteads and farms round about.

The plain was walled in by gray, rocky hills on every side—not very high, but still considerable. Both the north wind and the west could force their way across the barrier, yet it sufficed to shut out the view of everything beyond, even to the mountain peaks.

The whole plain was cut up into field on field of cultivated ground—and these were neither large nor small, but of a size to suit the standing of honest peasant farmers. And here and there among the fields were buildings, red and blue and white, likewise of an equable, respectable size. No big mansions dominating all the rest, and, on the other hand, no poor cottages such as might serve to exalt the appearance of the others, and make for pride in those who dwelt there.

As for the vegetation, it could not be called luxuriant, for there were no trees to be seen, whether as woods on the hillsides, or in groups on the plain, or set in rows along the waysides. On the other hand, it could not be denied that it was a fertile soil, as it lay there now in its autumn glory—a waving sea of wheat and grass and peas and beans and clover.

Almost in the middle of the plain stood the church, from which the Grimön folk themselves had just, as it were, been driven out. It was an old-fashioned wooden building, that could not be called altogether ugly, for it had a slender little tower rising up boldly, and leading the mind heavenward. On the other hand, it was hardly beautiful, by reason of its dark, heavy nave, that weighed down the soul to earth.

And in the stone-walled enclosure about the church itself, a gray-striped cat wandered to and fro while the three stood without. A handsome animal, well marked, with close, fine fur, and a pleasant softness in all its movements.

But as they watched it, there seemed to be something uncanny about the way its limbs moved under the soft skin. It was not only that it moved so silently, or that its green slits of eyes, as it looked at them, were so veiled and without expression. The thing was hateful because it was so smooth and soft and pleasant-looking, while all the time it thought of nothing but stealing and killing.

And as they looked, the cat seemed to grow and stretch itself and expand, until it rose so high as to shut out sight of the wall of hills. And as the creature grew, it purred and hummed and made all manner of playful, easy movements—and the horror of it increased.

And they saw that the beast was the loathing that had arisen about them—the loathing that was to grow and grow till it spread over all the plain, that could find no better soil for its growth than here, shut in within narrow bounds, where all things were level, equable, even....

Mor Nathalia Elversson faced round toward the church, and, scraping with her nails at the red-painted wooden wall, tore loose a few splinters, which she laid between the leaves of her prayer book.

"Here in this church I was christened," she said, "when I was a week old. And here I was confirmed as a young girl. Here I was married, and here, like as not, they'll read the burial service over me. But, till that day comes, I'll enter there no more, as long as the shame of this day's left to endure."

[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?"

[THE "NAIAD"]

A FEW days after Christmas, Ung-Joel came back to Grimön with a message from Olaus, to ask if Sven would take a share in the herring fishery on board the motor-boat Naiad, belonging to his crew.

"He says it's hardly likely you could get taken on with any other crew," said Ung-Joel; "but seeing that you're my brother, I was to tell you. They'll not be the best of company, I doubt, that sail with Olaus."

Mor Elversson declared at once that it was out of the question; Sven should never have any dealings with any of them. But his father thought otherwise.

"It wouldn't be a bad thing, perhaps, if Sven tried to pick up the ways of the fishery on the coast here," he said. "And it's true enough he'd hardly get taken on with any other crew."

"Joel! How can you talk so!" cried his wife. "Who knows what they've been plotting and planning now, to send for him like that. Some new mischief, I'll be bound."

"Why, I only said 'twas a pity Sven shouldn't have a part in the fishery," said Joel, mildly.

But Sven remembered his father's words on Christmas Eve, and it came into his mind now that perhaps it was his wish to get him away from home.

"You can tell Olaus I'll come," he said to his brother.

"And thank him for offering. I'll go over to Fårön myself as soon as I can."

"Why not come back with me now?" said Ung-Joel. "Then you can get the things you want at our store. There was a telegram in this morning that the herring are shoaling thick up at Smögen. By to-morrow they'll be getting away all about."

There was a hurry of preparation for a while, and then the two brothers set off, leaving Joel and Thala alone.

For a week or so they heard no news of Sven, then one Sunday Ung-Joel came out to visit them.

Mor Thala was eager to know how matters had gone with Sven and the crew—for all she knew, they might have killed him.

"I've heard nothing but what folk say," answered the boy. "And that's this. The crew of the Naiad before counted one man that had helped to kill a child, and one that had starved an old woman to death, one that had burnt down a place, and one that never sold but what he'd stolen, and two that were fast drinking themselves to death—and now they'd got another to help, and that a man who'd eaten human flesh, so it would be hard to find a rougher crowd on one keel. I've heard nothing from Sven himself, but, from all accounts, he seems to be getting on all right with them."

"That's foolishness," said his mother. But for all her angry looks, she was glad to learn that no ill had come to Sven. "But don't forget as soon as you've word from Sven to come here and let us know. 'Tis the best you can do for your father and me."

A fortnight later, Ung-Joel came out to the island again.

"Here's what they're saying now," he began. "That the Naiad men won't be able to stand much more of Sven. They say, here's the dirtiest, meanest, stinking little boat all along the coast getting gradually clean and workmanlike, the motor taken to working properly instead of going on strike when it's most needed, the rags of sails they used to help now and then been patched and put in order, the faded old flag done away with and a bright new one in its place and the name painted clean on the stern with all the letters in gold; the food on board getting that decent you wouldn't know but what you were on shore, and clean pots and pans in the galley. And the way folk look at it is this: the Naiad men, they might at a pinch take any sort of scoundrel on board, but clean pots and pans and all the rest, it's more than they can put up with."

"Ah! you're making fun of me," said his mother. But it was plain to see that she was glad at heart. "And don't forget," she went on, "as soon as you've any word from Sven, come out and let us know. He's done no wrong, and we must know how it is with him, that he doesn't come to any harm."

But folk that live at Grimön have need of all their patience, waiting for news. All through another two weeks Mor Thala waited, before Ung-Joel came with news of his brother.

The outcast

THE OUTCAST

CONTENTS

[BOOK I]

THE OUTCAST

[GRIMÖN]

[IN GOD'S HOUSE]

[FATHER, MOTHER, AND SON]

[THE "NAIAD"]