Prisoners of Conscience By: Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (1831-1919)
First Page: PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE [Illustration: "HE REPEATED ALL THE BLESSED WORDS." ( See p. 230. )] PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE By Amelia E. Barr New York The Century Co. 1897 Copyright, 1896, 1897, by The Century Co. The De Vinne Press. CONTENTS BOOK FIRST LIOT BORSON PAGE I. The Weaving of Doom 3 II. Jealousy Cruel as the Grave 23 III. A Sentence for Life 44 IV. The Door Wide Open 62 BOOK SECOND DAVID BORSON V. A New Life 85 VI. Kindred the Quick and the Dead 107 VII. So Far and No Farther 127 VIII. The Justification of Death 144 IX. A Sacrifice Accepted 169 X. In the Fourth Watch 192 XI. The Lowest Hell 210 XII. "At Last it is Peace" 220 ILLUSTRATIONS "He Repeated all the Blessed Words" Frontispiece A Lerwick Man 33 "The Waters of the Great Deep" 55 "'I Want to Find my Father's People'" 91 Nanna and Vala 103 "But she Held her Peace" 133 At the Kirk 137 Peat gatherers 161 Groat 193 On the Way to Nanna's Cottage 223 "Went in and out among his Mates" 237 PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE Book First LIOT BORSON BOOK FIRST CONTENTS PAGE I. The Weaving of Doom 3 II. Jealousy Cruel as the Grave 23 III. A Sentence for Life 44 IV. The Door Wide Open 62 PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE I THE WEAVING OF DOOM 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... Continue reading book >>

Prisoners of Conscience By: Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (1831-1919)

First Page:

PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE

[Illustration: "HE REPEATED ALL THE BLESSED WORDS." ( See p. 230. )]

PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE

By Amelia E. Barr

New York The Century Co. 1897

The De Vinne Press.

CONTENTS

BOOK FIRST LIOT BORSON

PAGE

I. The Weaving of Doom 3

II. Jealousy Cruel as the Grave 23

III. A Sentence for Life 44

IV. The Door Wide Open 62

BOOK SECOND DAVID BORSON

V. A New Life 85

VI. Kindred the Quick and the Dead 107

VII. So Far and No Farther 127

VIII. The Justification of Death 144

IX. A Sacrifice Accepted 169

X. In the Fourth Watch 192

XI. The Lowest Hell 210

XII. "At Last it is Peace" 220

ILLUSTRATIONS

"He Repeated all the Blessed Words" Frontispiece

A Lerwick Man 33

"The Waters of the Great Deep" 55

"'I Want to Find my Father's People'" 91

Nanna and Vala 103

"But she Held her Peace" 133

At the Kirk 137

Peat gatherers 161

Groat 193

On the Way to Nanna's Cottage 223

"Went in and out among his Mates" 237

PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE

Book First

LIOT BORSON

BOOK FIRST

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. The Weaving of Doom 3

II. Jealousy Cruel as the Grave 23

III. A Sentence for Life 44

IV. The Door Wide Open 62

PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE

THE WEAVING OF DOOM

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... Continue reading book >>

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