Chapter X: The Day of the Wedding

The wedding was to be in early spring; as soon as the weather was open, because Cormac would not wait any longer, and there were no signs of Toothgnasher’s ship. Stangerd did not at all understand why he was in such a hurry, and he could not tell her, though he knew very well why it was.

He felt that if he was not married very soon he would not be married at all. It was not that he did not love Stangerd, and love her very much, but that he loved her in another way--a way which irritated and confused him and hampered the free passage of his mind. He could not enjoy the sight of her beauty, or be happy in seeing her do things beautifully, as formerly he had. He loved her now in a greedy and grudging way, which seemed to sap the roots of happiness. He did not like to see her look at another man or even give her mind to anything which was not to do with him. He said to himself, “I think of nothing but her--and why should she be otherwise? Must all the giving be on my side?” It was not so at all, if he had thought, or been able to think, of it. She loved him with the whole of her being; and what more could she have done? But there it was. His happiness was destroyed by this love; his song forsook him. His mind was preoccupied: he had no hold on it. He could not think, or see good things, or take pleasure in anything. Stangerd filled him up. There were times when he cursed the day on which he saw her; times when he hated her.

And while he must by all means see her, know what she was doing, and prevent her being with other people, he was not happy with her. He was silent and morose. He made her unhappy, and knew that he did. There seemed always a grievance unatoned for, and another forming upon the scar of the old. All this was so unlike himself that he could not help contrasting it with what he had been before disaster fell upon him. In thinking it over, it seemed to him that he had been inconceivably happy before this fell upon him. He seemed to be looking back from a dark place upon himself free and glorious in the light of the sun. That he should count the day of his plighting his day of disaster shows you to what a state he had come. And yet he desired her keenly, and thought day and night of what he should do to her when she was his.

As for Stangerd, she would have been happy enough if he could have left her alone. It was very pleasant to her to feel his domination when it was plainly exerted by love. His kisses were fierce and furious, but they were sweet if they were dangerous. She had a cool head and a steady heart; she did not love in that sort of way; but she admired those who did, and allowed him what he chose without fear or sense of danger. But when love became something like hate, when kisses turned to biting, she was made unhappy, and came to resent it as an indignity.

“What have I done? Why do you treat me like this?” she would ask him, and he would gloom and scowl.

“You have shown me what you really are. You have no heart, but in your beautiful bosom you have a dark nest of pride. Pride like a bed of snakes is there--a dozen angry heads with darting tongues. Flat heads with narrow eyes looking all ways to strike.”

Tears clouded her blue eyes. “You are hateful to say such things. I let you do what you choose with me; you come and go as you will, and I am always here for you. You are free of the house, and free of me--and yet you never have kind looks for it. I don’t know what has come over you.”

In her heart of hearts she believed that he had been cursed by the spae-wife; but she dared not hint it for her life. Some such thing had been whispered, and Cormac had flown into a great passion and gone out with his sword in his hand to find the man who had said it.

* * * * *

So the time wore on, and the ice broke up upon the firth, and the days grew longer, and through the fog you could hear the thunder of the falling snow. Cormac said that the wedding must be soon; and then about the equinox there came a ship from Ireland into the firth, and reported the Toothgnasher’s ship as on the way home. Thorkel said that they must wait for him by all means, and Cormac was left to his mother to deal with.

She found him difficult. He jibbed at the Toothgnasher, and it seemed to her that he had been anxious all along to get Stangerd away before her brother could be home.

“But I had sooner be done with them without Toothgnasher,” he said to his mother. “I shall have to deal with him later, I don’t doubt. No, decidedly I shall not wait for Toothgnasher. Let him ease his hot gums on other men’s affairs--not mine.”

“But he is Thorkel’s only son; he is Stangerd’s only brother,” said she. “You are unreasonable.”

“Ah!” cried Cormac, “how do you know I am unreasonable? I tell you I won’t have him there.”

“What has Stangerd to say to this?” She put this to him because she was at her wits’ end. Cormac gloomed, and jutted out his chin.

“I have not spoken to her. She knows that I have no liking for Toothgnasher. She will say what I wish her to say.”

But it appeared that here he was wrong. Stangerd wanted her brother to be at the wedding. She begged it of Cormac. She went so far as to kiss him of her own accord--a thing which she very rarely did. He remarked upon it, with bitterness, and stored the memory in his troubled heart. There it remained as a grievance, instead of a happy memory: the grievance was that she had not done it before. But he would not promise. Then Stangerd grew hot and showed her cheek-bones.

“You treat me very ill. It is the bride’s right to fix her wedding-day. You force me to tell you so.”

Cormac turned rather grey in the face. “If force drives you against my wish it is a poor look-out from where we stand now. And I will tell you this, Stangerd. It will take more force than you and your brother and Thorkel have at call to drive me against my will.” With that he left her.

He did not see her again until the day which had formerly been fixed for the wedding. On that day he had expected his mother and Thorgils to ride with him to Tongue as if for the wedding; but they would not go with him. Dalla said that he was acting outrageously, and he knew that he was. But the black fit was upon him. “If you will not come to my wedding,” he said, “I shall go alone.”

Go he did, and found Stangerd with her sleeves rolled up, at the well, washing linen. The morning was a fair one, with a fresh wind blowing from the land, and spray from the firth. Cormac had fine clothes on him, with a new scarlet cloak fastened at the shoulder with a golden brooch.

Two of the girls stood up to look at him; but Stangerd bent down to the bulging linen, and pommelled it with a will.

“Is that your bridal gown you are wetting there?” said Cormac.

“The bride’s dress is still on the loom,” said one of the maids.

“What day is this?” he cried out.

“Washing day,” said she, “and a good drying day.”

“Ah,” said Cormac, “and you will be drying more than linen this day. You will be drying up the sap of a man.”

Stangerd had nothing to say. In a fury he slipped off his horse and went to her. He stood over her with threatening eyes.

“Is this how you greet your husband? Is this how our wedding is to be?”

She did not flinch, but gave him a steady look upwards from where she knelt below him.

“It will not be so when the day comes--not so on my part,” she said.

“However it be, it will be you who have made it as it will be,” he told her. She said no more.

One of the girls said, “Toothgnasher is off the islands. He will be here soon.”

“The trolls take Toothgnasher,” said Cormac, and mounted, and rode home.

In the mood he was in now, nothing could be done with him at home. Thorgils, his brother, was a peacefully-disposed man who never said very much. His mother had learned the limits of her tether and did not pull against a rope and an iron peg. Both of them thought him in the wrong; but Thorgils was sure that the spae-wife had done all the mischief. What Dalla may have thought about that, she kept to herself, for she knew how furious Cormac would have been. He took to the fells in these days and was seldom seen. Nobody knew what he did there. Stangerd never saw him, and felt herself aggrieved.

At the beginning of the summer, Toothgnasher brought his ship into the firth and laid her up. He was a tall, high-coloured man, with a fine flaxen beard on his lip. He had dark blue eyes like Stangerd’s: they were a fine couple. Thorkel made much of him, and very soon gave him his bearings.

He stared when he heard the state of the case. “Why, what possesses the man? Is it witchcraft?”

“Some fiend has him. There is no doing anything with him,” Thorkel said.

“There is one thing to do with him,” said Toothgnasher. “You had better let me go and talk with him.”

Thorkel shook his head. “Stangerd would not like that.”

“Well,” said Toothgnasher, “and do you think she likes the thing as it stands?”

But Thorkel’s advice prevailed, that Cormac should be summoned to the marriage. This was done. Word was brought by Narve, who saw Thorgils.

Thorgils said he would give Cormac the message, but that he was from home just now. “And I think he is up in the fells,” he said.

“And what will he be doing there at this season?” Narve asked.

“Amusing himself,” said Thorgils, “with trapping and such-like.”

“He will find few things there so hard to trap as we find at home,” Narve said.

At Tongue the opinion was that he would come; but that was not Stangerd’s opinion. She kept her thoughts very private, and would not talk to her maids. Her heart was sore at the slight put upon her for no fault of her own, and as well as that she had the memory of Cormac in his days of eager wooing. They had been sweet, and the sweeter they the bitterer her present dule. But she did not cry, for that was not her way when she was sad, but only when she was offended. At this time she was more sad than offended. And she hoped up to the very last that the cloud would lift from her sky before it was too late. She was not yet offended; but she was a proud girl, and knew that she could never forgive him if he failed her.

And so the time wore on to the day of the wedding, when she was dressed in fine clothes, and wore a gold crown on her head. She sat still and flushed with clenched hands, on the daïs with her maids; her kinsfolk and acquaintances sat at the tables; but none came from Melstead.

They sat there, saying at first little, and then nothing for an hour or more. Presently Narve, who was always hopping to the door and back, cried out, “I see a man riding this way.”

No one spoke. Stangerd’s heart was a stone.

He said again, “I know him. It is Thorgils, Cormac’s brother. And he comes alone.”

Thorgils came into the hall and saluted the company. Thorkel bade him welcome.

Then he said, “We looked to see more of you from Melstead, but you come alone. What are we to make of it?”

Thorgils was very much troubled. “I can only tell you what I know myself. The summons was given to Cormac on the day it was delivered to me. I bade him to the marriage, and he said he would remember it and do what was right. After that he went away, and I have not seen him since. What’s more, I can’t tell where he is. He may be on the sea for all I know.”

There was silence for some time. Then Stangerd went away, with her maids following her. She could not now hide her tears, and they came freely, and burning hot.

When she was gone, Thorkel said, “This is a great affront put upon me by your brother, and I am not to pass over it. He sought the girl, and I agreed to it, as you know, though not willingly, for I never fancied the match. Then he began to behave strangely, and it has gone on from bad to worse. You tell me you have nothing more to say--and now I tell you that I also have come to an end of speaking.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Toothgnasher. “It is not a case for talk; but Cormac and I shall have other things to do than talk to each other.”

Thorgils said, “That will be as it must be. It is likely that there will be more to come. I can only say that we are concerned for Cormac. He is not himself in this. His life has been crossed. There is a spell upon him. But you have nothing to do with that, and I can’t ask you even to believe it. But do not think that Cormac is pleasing himself in this affair. He is of all men the most unhappy. But Fate rules us all.”

They stared or gloomed at him according as their natures moved them. It was plain there was nothing more to be said to Thorgils, who presently saluted the company and took himself off. Toothgnasher went into the Bower to see Stangerd.

She had stopped her tears, but her eyes were very red; and she was tired, without heart to speak much about it. When, however, Toothgnasher began to talk about the affront, she broke out afresh, “Oh, he is cruel, he is cruel to use me so!”

“He is tired of you, sweetheart,” her brother said; but she would not have it so.

“No, no, no! That is not so. He loves me--he loves me too much. But he is proud, and he makes me feel his pride. I know very well how it is. He is the most wretched of men just now. He wants me sorely, but will not come. He knows that I could soothe him--and so I could--but he will not allow it.”

“By Heaven and Earth,” said Toothgnasher, “I have the means to humble that pride of his.”

She put hands upon him. “Brother,” she said, “you shall not touch him--or if you do you will have seen the last of me. It is the way of men to think that they can assuage every grief by slashing at each other. They do nothing but comfort to themselves.”

“It is the business of kinsfolk to avenge each other, however you take it,” said Toothgnasher.

“And what comfort is it to me if you slay the man I love or if he slay you?” she asked him, and then she asked herself, “Is there any fool in the world the equal of a man?”

* * * * *

As for Cormac, he did not appear at Melstead for two days more. Then he came in haggard and unwashen, and would do nothing but sit and gaze about him, taking quick and short breath. Nobody knew where he had been. He was splashed all up his legs with brown--so he had been in the peat hags, they judged. He said nothing about Stangerd, but sat about the house for two or three days without speaking at all. After that he seemed to have gathered strength, for he collected himself and did some work in the meadows. He seemed to have forgotten Stangerd altogether,--but he had not, as it turned out.

Now as to this curious business there is plenty to say, and every man will put his own interpretation upon it, and every woman also. There must be few women who will not have experience within them to bring to the reading. A poet (not Cormac) has reasoned it out, but we need not bring in any more poets to the argument--at present. On the showing of this instructed man the day of misfortune was the day when Cormac kissed Stangerd first. There may be much truth in this.