y food, and to pay Jan's bill at Torr's; for, alas! Jan would go to
Torr's. Snorro was in a sore strait about it, but if Torr's bill were
not paid, then Jan would go to Inkster's, a resort of the lowest and
most suspicious characters. Between the two evils he chose the
lesser.

And Jan said in the freedom of Torr's many things which he ought not
to have said: many hard and foolish things, which were repeated and
lost nothing by the process. Some of them referred to his wife's
cruelty, and to Peter Fae's interference in his domestic concerns.
That he should talk of Margaret at all in such a place was a great
wrong. Peter took care that she knew it in its full enormity; and it
is needless to say, she felt keenly the insult of being made the
subject of discussion among the sailor husbands who gathered in Ragon
Torr's kitchen. Put a loving, emotional man like Jan Vedder in such
domestic circumstances, add to them almost hopeless poverty and social
disgrace, and any one could predict with apparent certainty his final
ruin.

Of course Jan, in spite of his bravado of indifference, suffered very
much. He had fits of remorse which frightened Snorro. Under their
influence he often wandered off for two or three days, and Snorro
endured during them all the agonies of a woman who has lost her
child.

One night, after a long tramp in the wind and snow, he found himself
near Peter Fae's house, and a great longing came over him to see his
wife and child. He knew that Peter was likely to be at home and that
all the doors were shut. There was a bright light in the sitting-room,
and the curtains were undrawn. He climbed the inclosure and stood
beside the window. He could see the whole room plainly. Peter was
asleep in his chair on the hearth. Thora sitting opposite him, was, in
her slow quiet way, crimping with her fingers the lawn ruffles on the
newly ironed clothes. Margaret, with his son in her arms, walked about
the room, softly singing the child to sleep. He knew the words of the
lullaby--an old Finnish song that he had heard many a mother sing. He
could follow every word of it in Margaret's soft, clear voice; and,
oh, how nobly fair, how calmly good and far apart from him she
seemed!

"Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bird of the meadow!
Take thy rest, little Redbreast.
Sleep stands at the door and says,
The son of sleep stands at the door and says,
Is there not a little child here?
Lying asleep in the cradle?