Amelia Barr - Prisoners of Conscience

In the early part of this century there lived at Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, a man called Liot Borson. He was no ignoble man; through sea-fishers and sea-fighters he counted his forefathers in an unbroken line back to the great Norwegian Bor, while his own life was full of perilous labor and he was off to sea every day that a boat could swim. Liot was the outcome of the most vivid and masterful form of paganism and the most vital and uncompromising form of Christianity. For nearly eight hundred years the Borsons had been christened, but who can deliver a man from his ancestors? Bor still spoke to his son through the stirring stories of the sagas, and Liot knew the lives of Thord and Odd, of Gisli and the banded men, and the tremendous drama of Nial and his sons, just as well as he knew the histories of the prophets and heroes of his Old Testament. It is true that he held the former with a kind of reservation, and that he gave to the latter a devout and passionate faith, but this faith was not always potential. There were hours in Liot’s life when he was still a pagan, when he approved the swift, personal vengeance which Odin enjoined and Christ forbade–hours in which he felt himself to be the son of the man who had carried his gods and his home to uninhabited Iceland rather than take cross-marking for the meek and lowly Jesus.

In his youth–before his great sorrow came to him–he had but little trouble from this subcharacter. Of all the men in Lerwick, he knew best the king stories and the tellings-up of the ancients; and when the boats with bare spars rocked idly on the summer seas waiting for the shoal, or the men and women were gathered together to pass the long winter nights, Liot was eagerly sought after. Then, as the women knit and the men sat with their hands clasped upon their heads, Liot stood in their midst and told of the wayfarings and doings of the Borsons, who had been in the Varangian Guard, and sometimes of the sad doom of his fore-elder Gisli, who had been cursed even before he was born.

He did not often speak of Gisli; for the man ruled him across the gulf of centuries, and he was always unhappy when he gave way to the temptation to do so; for he could not get rid of the sense of kinship with him, nor of the memory of that withering spaedom with which the first Gisli had been cursed by the wronged thrall who slew him–“ This is but the beginning of the ill luck which I will bring on thy kith and kin after thee. ”

Never had he felt the brooding gloom of this wretched heirship so vividly as on the night when he first met Karen Sabiston. Karen lived with her aunt Matilda Sabiston, the richest woman in Lerwick and the chief pillar of the kirk and its societies. On that night the best knitters in Lerwick were gathered at her house, knitting the fine, lace-like shawls which were to be sold at the next foy for some good cause which the minister should approve. They were weary of their own talk, and longing for Liot to come and tell them a story. And some of the young girls whispered to Karen, “When Liot Borson opens the door, then you will see the handsomest man in the islands.”

“I have seen fine men in Yell and Unst,” answered Karen; “I think I shall see no handsomer ones in Lerwick. Is he fair or dark?”

“He is a straight-faced, bright-faced man, tall and strong, who can tell a story so that you will be carried off your feet and away wherever he chooses to take you.”

“I have done always as Karen Sabiston was minded to do; and now I will not be moved this way or that way as some one else minds.”

“As to that we shall see.” And as Thora Glumm spoke Liot came into the room.

“The wind is blowing dead on shore, and the sea is like a man gone out of his wits,” he said.

And Matilda answered, “Well, then, Liot, come to the fire.” And as they went toward the fire she stopped before a lovely girl and said, “Look, now, this is my niece Karen; she has just come from Yell, and she can tell a story also; so it will be, which can better the other.”

Then Liot looked at Karen, and the girl looked up at him; in that instant their souls remembered each other. They put their hands together like old lovers, and if Liot had drawn her to his heart and kissed her Karen would not have been much astonished. This sweet reciprocity was, however, so personal that onlookers did not see it, and so swift that Liot appeared to answer promptly enough:

“It would be a good thing for us all if we should hear a new story. As for me, the game is up. I can think of nothing to-night but my poor kinsman Gisli, and he was not a lucky man, nor is it lucky to speak of him.”

“Is it Gisli you are talking about?” asked Wolf Skegg. “Let us bring the man among us; I like him best of all.”

“He had much sorrow,” said Andrew Grimm.

“He had a good wife,” answered Gust Havard; “and not many men are so lucky.”

“’Twas his fate,” stammered a very old man, crouching over the fire, “and in everything fate rules.”

“Well, then, Snorro, fate is justice,” said Matilda; “and as well begin, Liot, for it will be the tale of Gisli and no other–I see that.”

Then Liot stood up, and Karen, busy with her knitting, watched him. She saw that he had brown hair and gray eyes and the fearless carriage of one who is at home on the North Sea. His voice at first was frank and full of brave inflections, as he told of the noble, faithful, helpful Gisli, pursued by evil fortune even in his dreams. Gradually its tones became sad as the complaining of the sea, and a brooding melancholy touched every heart as Gisli, doing all he might do to ward off misfortune, found it of no avail. “For what must be must be; there is no help for it,” sighed Liot. “So, then, love of wife and friends, and all that good-will dared, could not help Gisli, for the man was doomed even before his birth.”

Then he paused, and there was a dead silence and an unmistakable sense of expectation; and Liot’s face changed, and he looked as Gisli might have looked when he knew that he had come to his last fight for life. Also for a moment his eyes rested on old Snorro, who was no longer crouching over the hearth, but straight up and full of fire and interest; and Snorro answered the look with a nod, that meant something which all approved and understood; after which Liot continued in a voice full of a somber passion:

“It was the very last night of the summer, and neither Gisli nor his true wife, Auda, could sleep. Gisli had bad dreams full of fate if he shut his eyes, and he knew that his life-days were nearly over. So they left their house and went to a hiding-place among the crags, and no sooner were they there than they heard the voice of their enemy Eyjolf, and there were fourteen men with him. ‘Come on like men,’ shouted Gisli, ‘for I am not going to fare farther away.’”

Then old Snorro raised himself and answered Liot in the very words of Eyjolf:

“‘Lay down the good arms thou bearest, and give up also Auda, thy wife.’”

“‘Come and take them like a man, for neither the arms I bear nor the wife I love are fit for any one else!’” cried Liot, in reply. And this challenge and valiant answer, though fully expected, charged the crowded room with enthusiasm. The women let their knitting fall and sat with parted lips and shining eyes, and the men looked at Liot as men look whose hands are on their weapons.

“So,” continued Liot, “the men made for the crags; but Gisli fought like a hero, and in that bout four men were slain. And when they were least aware Gisli leaped on a crag, that stands alone there and is called Oneman’s Crag, and there he turned at bay and called out to Eyjolf, ‘I wish to make those three hundred in silver, which thou hast taken as the price of my head, as dear bought as I can; and before we part thou wouldst give other three hundred in silver that we had never met; for thou wilt only take disgrace for loss of life.’ Then their onslaught was harder and hotter, and they gave Gisli many spear-thrusts; but he fought on wondrously, and there was not one of them without a wound who came nigh him. At last, full of great hurts, Gisli bade them wait awhile and they should have the end they wanted; for he would have time to sing this last song to his faithful Auda: