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diff --git a/299-8.txt b/299-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b81ea8f --- /dev/null +++ b/299-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6343 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Tales From Two Hemispheres, by Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Tales From Two Hemispheres + +Author: Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen + +Posting Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #299] +Release Date: July, 1995 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller + + + + + + + + + +TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES + +By Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen + + +1877 + + + + +CONTENTS + + THE MAN WHO LOST HIS NAME + THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST + A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING + A SCIENTIFIC VAGABOND + TRULS, THE NAMELESS + ASATHOR'S VENGEANCE + + + + + +TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES. + + + + +THE MAN WHO LOST HIS NAME. + +ON the second day of June, 186--, a young Norseman, Halfdan Bjerk +by name, landed on the pier at Castle Garden. He passed through the +straight and narrow gate where he was asked his name, birthplace, and +how much money he had,--at which he grew very much frightened. + +"And your destination?"--demanded the gruff-looking functionary at the +desk. + +"America," said the youth, and touched his hat politely. + +"Do you think I have time for joking?" roared the official, with an +oath. + +The Norseman ran his hand through his hair, smiled his timidly +conciliatory smile, and tried his best to look brave; but his hand +trembled and his heart thumped away at an alarmingly quickened tempo. + +"Put him down for Nebraska!" cried a stout red-cheeked individual +(inwrapped in the mingled fumes of tobacco and whisky) whose function it +was to open and shut the gate. + +"There ain't many as go to Nebraska." + +"All right, Nebraska." + +The gate swung open and the pressure from behind urged the timid +traveler on, while an extra push from the gate-keeper sent him flying in +the direction of a board fence, where he sat down and tried to realize +that he was now in the land of liberty. + +Halfdan Bjerk was a tall, slender-limbed youth of very delicate frame; +he had a pair of wonderfully candid, unreflecting blue eyes, a smooth, +clear, beardless face, and soft, wavy light hair, which was pushed back +from his forehead without parting. His mouth and chin were well cut, but +their lines were, perhaps, rather weak for a man. When in repose, the +ensemble of his features was exceedingly pleasing and somehow reminded +one of Correggio's St. John. He had left his native land because he was +an ardent republican and was abstractly convinced that man, generically +and individually, lives more happily in a republic than in a monarchy. +He had anticipated with keen pleasure the large, freely breathing life +he was to lead in a land where every man was his neighbor's brother, +where no senseless traditions kept a jealous watch over obsolete +systems and shrines, and no chilling prejudice blighted the spontaneous +blossoming of the soul. + +Halfdan was an only child. His father, a poor government official, had +died during his infancy, and his mother had given music lessons, and +kept boarders, in order to gain the means to give her son what is +called a learned education. In the Latin school Halfdan had enjoyed the +reputation of being a bright youth, and at the age of eighteen, he had +entered the university under the most promising auspices. He could make +very fair verses, and play all imaginable instruments with equal ease, +which made him a favorite in society. Moreover, he possessed that very +old-fashioned accomplishment of cutting silhouettes; and what was more, +he could draw the most charmingly fantastic arabesques for embroidery +patterns, and he even dabbled in portrait and landscape painting. +Whatever he turned his hand to, he did well, in fact, astonishingly +well for a dilettante, and yet not well enough to claim the title of an +artist. Nor did it ever occur to him to make such a claim. As one of +his fellow-students remarked in a fit of jealousy, "Once when Nature had +made three geniuses, a poet, a musician, and a painter, she took all the +remaining odds and ends and shook them together at random and the result +was Halfdan Bjerk." This agreeable melange of accomplishments, however, +proved very attractive to the ladies, who invited the possessor to +innumerable afternoon tea-parties, where they drew heavy drafts on his +unflagging patience, and kept him steadily engaged with patterns and +designs for embroidery, leather flowers, and other dainty knickknacks. +And in return for all his exertions they called him "sweet" and +"beautiful," and applied to him many other enthusiastic adjectives +seldom heard in connection with masculine names. In the university, +talents of this order gained but slight recognition, and when Halfdan +had for three years been preparing himself in vain for the examen +philosophicum, he found himself slowly and imperceptibly drifting into +the ranks of the so-called studiosi perpetui, who preserve a solemn +silence at the examination tables, fraternize with every new generation +of freshmen, and at last become part of the fixed furniture of their +Alma Mater. In the larger American colleges, such men are mercilessly +dropped or sent to a Divinity School; but the European universities, +whose tempers the centuries have mellowed, harbor in their spacious +Gothic bosoms a tenderer heart for their unfortunate sons. There the +professors greet them at the green tables with a good-humored smile of +recognition; they are treated with gentle forbearance, and are allowed +to linger on, until they die or become tutors in the families of remote +clergymen, where they invariably fall in love with the handsomest +daughter, and thus lounge into a modest prosperity. + +If this had been the fate of our friend Bjerk, we should have dismissed +him here with a confident "vale" on his life's pilgrimage. But, +unfortunately, Bjerk was inclined to hold the government in some +way responsible for his own poor success as a student, and this, in +connection with an aesthetic enthusiasm for ancient Greece, gradually +convinced him that the republic was the only form of government under +which men of his tastes and temperament were apt to flourish. It was, +like everything that pertained to him, a cheerful, genial conviction, +without the slightest tinge of bitterness. The old institutions were +obsolete, rotten to the core, he said, and needed a radical renovation. +He could sit for hours of an evening in the Students' Union, and +discourse over a glass of mild toddy, on the benefits of universal +suffrage and trial by jury, while the picturesqueness of his language, +his genial sarcasms, or occasional witty allusions would call forth +uproarious applause from throngs of admiring freshmen. These were the +sunny days in Halfdan's career, days long to be remembered. They came to +an abrupt end when old Mrs. Bjerk died, leaving nothing behind her but +her furniture and some trifling debts. The son, who was not an eminently +practical man, underwent long hours of misery in trying to settle up her +affairs, and finally in a moment of extreme dejection sold his entire +inheritance in a lump to a pawnbroker (reserving for himself a few rings +and trinkets) for the modest sum of 250 dollars specie. He then took +formal leave of the Students' Union in a brilliant speech, in which +he traced the parallelisms between the lives of Pericles and +Washington,--in his opinion the two greatest men the world had ever +seen,--expounded his theory of democratic government, and explained the +causes of the rapid rise of the American Republic. The next morning he +exchanged half of his worldly possessions for a ticket to New York, and +within a few days set sail for the land of promise, in the far West. + + + + +II. + + +From Castle Garden, Halfdan made his way up through Greenwich street, +pursued by a clamorous troop of confidence men and hotel runners. + +"Kommen Sie mit mir. Ich bin auch Deutsch," cried one. "Voila, voila, +je parle Francais," shouted another, seizing hold of his valise. "Jeg +er Dansk. Tale Dansk," [1] roared a third, with an accent which seriously +impeached his truthfulness. In order to escape from these importunate +rascals, who were every moment getting bolder, he threw himself into the +first street-car which happened to pass; he sat down, gazed out of the +windows and soon became so thoroughly absorbed in the animated scenes +which moved as in a panorama before his eyes, that he quite forgot where +he was going. The conductor called for fares, and received an English +shilling, which, after some ineffectual expostulation, he pocketed, but +gave no change. At last after about an hour's journey, the car stopped, +the conductor called out "Central Park," and Halfdan woke up with +a start. He dismounted with a timid, deliberate step, stared in dim +bewilderment at the long rows of palatial residences, and a chill sense +of loneliness crept over him. The hopeless strangeness of everything +he saw, instead of filling him with rapture as he had once anticipated, +Sent a cold shiver to his heart. It is a very large affair, this world +of ours--a good deal larger than it appeared to him gazing out upon +it from his snug little corner up under the Pole; and it was as +unsympathetic as it was large; he suddenly felt what he had never been +aware of before--that he was a very small part of it and of very little +account after all. He staggered over to a bench at the entrance to the +park, and sat long watching the fine carriages as they dashed past him; +he saw the handsome women in brilliant costumes laughing and chatting +gayly; the apathetic policemen promenading in stoic dignity up and down +upon the smooth pavements; the jauntily attired nurses, whom in his +Norse innocence he took for mothers or aunts of the children, wheeling +baby-carriages which to Norse eyes seemed miracles of dainty ingenuity, +under the shady crowns of the elm-trees. He did not know how long he +had been sitting there, when a little bright-eyed girl with light kid +gloves, a small blue parasol and a blue polonaise, quite a lady of +fashion en miniature, stopped in front of him and stared at him in shy +wonder. He had always been fond of children, and often rejoiced in their +affectionate ways and confidential prattle, and now it suddenly touched +him with a warm sense of human fellowship to have this little daintily +befrilled and crisply starched beauty single him out for notice among +the hundreds who reclined in the arbors, or sauntered to and fro under +the great trees. + +"What is your name, my little girl?" he asked, in a tone of friendly +interest. + +"Clara," answered the child, hesitatingly; then, having by another look +assured herself of his harmlessness, she added: "How very funny you +speak!" + +"Yes," he said, stooping down to take he tiny begloved hand. "I do not +speak as well as you do, yet; but I shall soon learn." + +Clara looked puzzled. + +"How old are you?" she asked, raising her parasol, and throwing back her +head with an air of superiority. + +"I am twenty-four years old." + +She began to count half aloud on her fingers: "One, two, three, four," +but, before she reached twenty, she lost her patience. + +"Twenty-four," she exclaimed, "that is a great deal. I am only seven, +and papa gave me a pony on my birthday. Have you got a pony?" + +"No; I have nothing but what is in this valise, and you know I could not +very well get a pony into it." + +Clara glanced curiously at the valise and laughed; then suddenly she +grew serious again, put her hand into her pocket and seemed to be +searching eagerly for something. Presently she hauled out a small +porcelain doll's head, then a red-painted block with letters on it, and +at last a penny. + +"Do you want them?" she said, reaching him her treasures in both hands. +"You may have them all." + +Before he had time to answer, a shrill, penetrating voice cried out: + +"Why, gracious! child, what are you doing?" + +And the nurse, who had been deeply absorbed in "The New York Ledger," +came rushing up, snatched the child away, and retreated as hastily as +she had come. + +Halfdan rose and wandered for hours aimlessly along the intertwining +roads and footpaths. He visited the menageries, admired the statues, +took a very light dinner, consisting of coffee, sandwiches, and ice, at +the Chinese Pavilion, and, toward evening, discovered an inviting leafy +arbor, where he could withdraw into the privacy of his own thoughts, +and ponder upon the still unsolved problem of his destiny. The little +incident with the child had taken the edge off his unhappiness and +turned him into a more conciliatory mood toward himself and the great +pitiless world, which seemed to take so little notice of him. And he, +who had come here with so warm a heart and so ardent a will to join +in the great work of human advancement--to find himself thus harshly +ignored and buffeted about, as if he were a hostile intruder! Before +him lay the huge unknown city where human life pulsated with large, +full heart-throbs, where a breathless, weird intensity, a cold, fierce +passion seemed to be hurrying everything onward in a maddening whirl, +where a gentle, warm-blooded enthusiast like himself had no place and +could expect naught but a speedy destruction. A strange, unconquerable +dread took possession of him, as if he had been caught in a swift, +strong whirlpool, from which he vainly struggled to escape. He crouched +down among the foliage and shuddered. He could not return to the city. +No, no: he never would return. He would remain here hidden and unseen +until morning, and then he would seek a vessel bound for his dear native +land, where the great mountains loomed up in serene majesty toward the +blue sky, where the pine-forests whispered their dreamily sympathetic +legends, in the long summer twilights, where human existence flowed +on in calm beauty with the modest aims, small virtues, and small vices +which were the happiness of modest, idyllic souls. He even saw himself +in spirit recounting to his astonished countrymen the wonderful things +he had heard and seen during his foreign pilgrimage, and smiled to +himself as he imagined their wonder when he should tell them about the +beautiful little girl who had been the first and only one to offer him a +friendly greeting in the strange land. During these reflections he fell +asleep, and slept soundly for two or three hours. Once, he seemed to +hear footsteps and whispers among the trees, and made an effort to rouse +himself, but weariness again overmastered him and he slept on. At last, +he felt himself seized violently by the shoulders, and a gruff voice +shouted in his ear: + +"Get up, you sleepy dog." + +He rubbed his eyes, and, by the dim light of the moon, saw a Herculean +policeman lifting a stout stick over his head. His former terror came +upon him with increased violence, and his heart stood for a moment +still, then, again, hammered away as if it would burst his sides. + +"Come along!" roared the policeman, shaking him vehemently by the collar +of his coat. + +In his bewilderment he quite forgot where he was, and, in hurried +Norse sentences, assured his persecutor that he was a harmless, honest +traveler, and implored him to release him. But the official Hercules was +inexorable. + +"My valise, my valise;" cried Halfdan. "Pray let me get my valise." + +They returned to the place where he had slept, but the valise was +nowhere to be found. Then, with dumb despair he resigned himself to his +fate, and after a brief ride on a street-car, found himself standing in +a large, low-ceiled room; he covered his face with his hands and burst +into tears. + +"The grand-the happy republic," he murmured, "spontaneous blossoming of +the soul. Alas! I have rooted up my life; I fear it will never blossom." + +All the high-flown adjectives he had employed in his parting speech in +the Students' Union, when he paid his enthusiastic tribute to the Grand +Republic, now kept recurring to him, and in this moment the paradox +seemed cruel. The Grand Republic, what did it care for such as he? A +pair of brawny arms fit to wield the pick-axe and to steer the plow it +received with an eager welcome; for a child-like, loving heart and a +generously fantastic brain, it had but the stern greeting of the law. + + + + +III. + + +The next morning, Halfdan was released from the Police Station, having +first been fined five dollars for vagrancy. All his money, with the +exception of a few pounds which he had exchanged in Liverpool, he +had lost with his valise, and he had to his knowledge not a single +acquaintance in the city or on the whole continent. In order to increase +his capital he bought some fifty "Tribunes," but, as it was already +late in the day, he hardly succeeded in selling a single copy. The next +morning, he once more stationed himself on the corner of Murray street +and Broadway, hoping in his innocence to dispose of the papers he +had still on hand from the previous day, and actually did find a few +customers among the people who were jumping in and out of the omnibuses +that passed up and down the great thoroughfare. To his surprise, +however, one of these gentlemen returned to him with a very wrathful +countenance, shook his fist at him, and vociferated with excited +gestures something which to Halfdan's ears had a very unintelligible +sound. He made a vain effort to defend himself; the situation appeared +so utterly incomprehensible to him, and in his dumb helplessness he +looked pitiful enough to move the heart of a stone. No English phrase +suggested itself to him, only a few Norse interjections rose to his +lips. The man's anger suddenly abated; he picked up the paper which +he had thrown on the sidewalk, and stood for a while regarding Halfdan +curiously. + +"Are you a Norwegian?" he asked. + +"Yes, I came from Norway yesterday." + +"What's your name?" + +"Halfdan Bjerk." + +"Halfdan Bjerk! My stars! Who would have thought of meeting you here! +You do not recognize me, I suppose." + +Halfdan declared with a timid tremor in his voice that he could not at +the moment recall his features. + +"No, I imagine I must have changed a good deal since you saw me," said +the man, suddenly dropping into Norwegian. "I am Gustav Olson, I used to +live in the same house with you once, but that is long ago now." + +Gustav Olson--to be sure, he was the porter's son in the house, +where his mother had once during his childhood, taken a flat. He well +remembered having clandestinely traded jack-knives and buttons with him, +in spite of the frequent warnings he had received to have nothing to +do with him; for Gustav, with his broad freckled face and red hair, was +looked upon by the genteel inhabitants of the upper flats as rather a +disreputable character. He had once whipped the son of a colonel who +had been impudent to him, and thrown a snow-ball at the head of a +new-fledged lieutenant, which offenses he had duly expiated at a house +of correction. Since that time he had vanished from Halfdan's horizon. +He had still the same broad freckled face, now covered with a lusty +growth of coarse red beard, the same rebellious head of hair, which +refused to yield to the subduing influences of the comb, the same +plebeian hands and feet, and uncouth clumsiness of form. But his linen +was irreproachable, and a certain dash in his manner, and the +loud fashionableness of his attire, gave unmistakable evidences of +prosperity. + +"Come, Bjerk," said he in a tone of good-fellowship, which was not +without its sting to the idealistic republican, "you must take up a +better business than selling yesterday's `Tribune.' That won't pay here, +you know. Come along to our office and I will see if something can't be +done for you." + +"But I should be sorry to give you trouble," stammered Halfdan, whose +native pride, even in his present wretchedness, protested against +accepting a favor from one whom he had been wont to regard as his +inferior. + +"Nonsense, my boy. Hurry up, I haven't much time to spare. The office +is only two blocks from here. You don't look as if you could afford to +throw away a friendly offer." + +The last words suddenly roused Halfdan from his apathy; for he felt +that they were true. A drowning man cannot afford to make nice +distinctions--cannot afford to ask whether the helping hand that is +extended to him be that of an equal or an inferior. So he swallowed +his humiliation and threaded his way through the bewildering turmoil of +Broadway, by the side of his officious friend. + +They entered a large, elegantly furnished office, where clerks with +sleek and severely apathetic countenances stood scribbling at their +desks. + +"You will have to amuse yourself as best you can," said Olson. "Mr. Van +Kirk will be here in twenty minutes. I haven't time to entertain you." + +A dreary half hour passed. Then the door opened and a tall, handsome +man, with a full grayish beard, and a commanding presence, entered and +took his seat at a desk in a smaller adjoining office. He opened, with +great dispatch, a pile of letters which lay on the desk before him, +called out in a sharp, ringing tone for a clerk, who promptly appeared, +handed him half-a-dozen letters, accompanying each with a brief +direction, took some clean paper from a drawer and fell to writing. +There was something brisk, determined, and business-like in his manner, +which made it seem very hopeless to Halfdan to appear before him as a +petitioner. Presently Olson entered the private office, closing the door +behind him, and a few minutes later re-appeared and summoned Halfdan +into the chief's presence. + +"You are a Norwegian, I hear," said the merchant, looking around over +his shoulder at the supplicant, with a preoccupied air. "You want work. +What can you do?" + +What can you do? A fatal question. But here was clearly no opportunity +for mental debate. So, summoning all his courage, but feeling +nevertheless very faint, he answered: + +"I have passed both examen artium and philosophicum, [2] and got my laud +clear in the former, but in the latter haud on the first point." + +Mr. Van Kirk wheeled round on his chair and faced the speaker: + +"That is all Greek to me," he said, in a severe tone. "Can you keep +accounts?" + +"No. I am afraid not." + +Keeping accounts was not deemed a classical accomplishment in Norway. It +was only "trade-rats" who troubled themselves about such gross things, +and if our Norseman had not been too absorbed with the problem of his +destiny, he would have been justly indignant at having such a question +put to him. + +"Then you don't know book-keeping?" + +"I think not. I never tried it." + +"Then you may be sure you don't know it. But you must certainly have +tried your hand at something. Is there nothing you can think of which +might help you to get a living?" + +"I can play the piano--and--and the violin." + +"Very well, then. You may come this afternoon to my house. Mr. Olson +will tell you the address. I will give you a note to Mrs. Van Kirk. +Perhaps she will engage you as a music teacher for the children. Good +morning." + + + + +IV. + + +At half-past four o'clock in the afternoon, Halfdan found himself +standing in a large, dimly lighted drawing-room, whose brilliant +upholstery, luxurious carpets, and fantastically twisted furniture +dazzled and bewildered his senses. All was so strange, so strange; +nowhere a familiar object to give rest to the wearied eye. Wherever he +looked he saw his shabbily attired figure repeated in the long crystal +mirrors, and he became uncomfortably conscious of his threadbare coat, +his uncouth boots, and the general incongruity of his appearance. With +every moment his uneasiness grew; and he was vaguely considering the +propriety of a precipitate flight, when the rustle of a dress at the +farther end of the room startled him, and a small, plump lady, of a +daintily exquisite form, swept up toward him, gave a slight inclination +of her head, and sank down into an easy-chair: + +"You are Mr. ----, the Norwegian, who wishes to give music lessons?" +she said, holding a pair of gold-framed eyeglasses up to her eyes, and +running over the note which she held in her hand. It read as follows: + + +DEAR MARTHA,--The bearer of this note is a young Norwegian, I forgot to +ascertain his name, a friend of Olson's. He wishes to teach music. +If you can help the poor devil and give him something to do, you will +oblige, Yours, H. V. K. + + +Mrs. Van Kirk was evidently, by at least twelve years, her husband's +junior, and apparently not very far advanced in the forties. Her blonde +hair, which was freshly crimped, fell lightly over her smooth, narrow +forehead; her nose, mouth and chin had a neat distinctness of outline; +her complexion was either naturally or artificially perfect, and +her eyes, which were of the purest blue, had, owing to their +near-sightedness, a certain pinched and scrutinizing look. This look, +which was without the slightest touch of severity, indicating merely +a lively degree of interest, was further emphasized by three small +perpendicular wrinkles, which deepened and again relaxed according to +the varying intensity of observation she bestowed upon the object which +for the time engaged her attention. + +"Your name, if you please?" said Mrs. Van Kirk, having for awhile +measured her visitor with a glance of mild scrutiny. + +"Halfdan Bjerk." + +"Half-dan B----, how do you spell that?" + +"B-j-e-r-k." + +"B-jerk. Well, but I mean, what is your name in English?" + +Halfdan looked blank, and blushed to his ears. + +"I wish to know," continued the lady energetically, evidently anxious +to help him out, "what your name would mean in plain English. Bjerk, it +certainly must mean something." + +"Bjerk is a tree--a birch-tree." + +"Very well, Birch,--that is a very respectable name. And your first +name? What did you say that was? + +"H-a-l-f-d-a-n." + +"Half Dan. Why not a whole Dan and be done with it? Dan Birch, or rather +Daniel Birch. Indeed, that sounds quite Christian." + +"As you please, madam," faltered the victim, looking very unhappy. + +"You will pardon my straightforwardness, won't you? B-jerk. I could +never pronounce that, you know." + +"Whatever may be agreeable to you, madam, will be sure to please me." + +"That is very well said. And you will find that it always pays to try to +please me. And you wish to teach music? If you have no objection I will +call my oldest daughter. She is an excellent judge of music, and if +your playing meets with her approval, I will engage you, as my husband +suggests, not to teach Edith, you understand, but my youngest child, +Clara." + +Halfdan bowed assent, and Mrs. Van Kirk rustled out into the hall where +she rang a bell, and re-entered. A servant in dress-coat appeared, and +again vanished as noiselessly as he had come. To our Norseman there was +some thing weird and uncanny about these silent entrances and exits; +he could hardly suppress a shudder. He had been accustomed to hear the +clatter of people's heels upon the bare floors, as they approached, and +the audible crescendo of their footsteps gave one warning, and prevented +one from being taken by surprise. While absorbed in these reflections, +his senses must have been dormant; for just then Miss Edith Van Kirk +entered, unheralded by anything but a hovering perfume, the effect of +which was to lull him still deeper into his wondering abstraction. + +"Mr. Birch," said Mrs. Van Kirk, "this is my daughter Miss Edith," and +as Halfdan sprang to his feet and bowed with visible embarrassment, she +continued: + +"Edith, this is Mr. Daniel Birch, whom your father has sent here to know +if he would be serviceable as a music teacher for Clara. And now, dear, +you will have to decide about the merits of Mr. Birch. I don't know +enough about music to be anything of a judge." + +"If Mr. Birch will be kind enough to play," said Miss Edith with a +languidly musical intonation," I shall be happy to listen to him." + +Halfdan silently signified his willingness and followed the ladies to a +smaller apartment which was separated from the drawing-room by folding +doors. The apparition of the beautiful young girl who was walking at +his side had suddenly filled him with a strange burning and shuddering +happiness; he could not tear his eyes away from her; she held him as +by a powerful spell. And still, all the while he had a painful +sub-consciousness of his own unfortunate appearance, which was thrown +into cruel relief by her splendor. The tall, lithe magnificence of her +form, the airy elegance of her toilet, which seemed the perfection of +self-concealing art, the elastic deliberateness of her step--all wrought +like a gentle, deliciously soothing opiate upon the Norseman's fancy and +lifted him into hitherto unknown regions of mingled misery and bliss. +She seemed a combination of the most divine contradictions, one moment +supremely conscious, and in the next adorably child-like and simple, now +full of arts and coquettish innuendoes, then again naïve, unthinking +and almost boyishly blunt and direct; in a word, one of those miraculous +New York girls whom abstractly one may disapprove of, but in the +concrete must abjectly adore. This easy predominance of the masculine +heart over the masculine reason in the presence of an impressive woman, +has been the motif of a thousand tragedies in times past, and will +inspire a thousand more in times to come. + +Halfdan sat down at the grand piano and played Chopin's Nocturne in G +major, flinging out that elaborate filigree of sound with an impetuosity +and superb ABANDON which caused the ladies to exchange astonished +glances behind his back. The transitions from the light and ethereal +texture of melody to the simple, more concrete theme, which he rendered +with delicate shadings of articulation, were sufficiently startling to +impress even a less cultivated ear than that of Edith Van Kirk, who had, +indeed, exhausted whatever musical resources New York has to offer. And +she was most profoundly impressed. As he glided over the last pianissimo +notes toward the two concluding chords (an ending so characteristic +of Chopin) she rose and hurried to his side with a heedless eagerness, +which was more eloquent than emphatic words of praise. + +"Won't you please repeat this passage?" she said, humming the air with +soft modulations; "I have always regarded the monotonous repetition of +this strain" (and she indicated it lightly by a few touches of the keys) +"as rather a blemish of an otherwise perfect composition. But as you +play it, it is anything but monotonous. You put into this single phrase +a more intense meaning and a greater variety of thought than I ever +suspected it was capable of expressing." + +"It is my favorite composition," answered he, modestly. "I have bestowed +more thought upon it than upon anything I have ever played, unless +perhaps it be the one in G minor, which, with all its difference of mood +and phraseology, expresses an essentially kindred thought." + +"My dear Mr. Birch," exclaimed Mrs. Van Kirk, whom his skillful +employment of technical terms (in spite of his indifferent accent) +had impressed even more than his rendering of the music,--"you are a +comsummate{sic} artist, and we shall deem it a great privilege if +you will undertake to instruct our child. I have listened to you with +profound satisfaction." + +Halfdan acknowledged the compliment by a bow and a blush, and repeated +the latter part of the nocturne according to Edith's request. + +"And now," resumed Edith, "may I trouble you to play the G minor, which +has even puzzled me more than the one you have just played." + +"It ought really to have been played first," replied Halfdan. "It is +far intenser in its coloring and has a more passionate ring, but its +conclusion does not seem to be final. There is no rest in it, and it +seems oddly enough to be a mere transition into the major, which is its +proper supplement and completes the fragmentary thought." + +Mother and daughter once more telegraphed wondering looks at each +other, while Halfdan plunged into the impetuous movements of the minor +nocturne, which he played to the end with ever-increasing fervor and +animation. + +"Mr. Birch," said Edith, as he arose from the piano with a flushed face, +and the agitation of the music still tingling through his nerves. "You +are a far greater musician than you seem to be aware of. I have not +been taking lessons for some time, but you have aroused all my musical +ambition, and if you will accept me too, as a pupil, I shall deem it a +favor." + +"I hardly know if I can teach you anything," answered he, while his +eyes dwelt with keen delight on her beautiful form. "But in my present +position I can hardly afford to decline so flattering an offer." + +"You mean to say that you would decline it if you were in a position to +do so," said she, smiling. + +"No, only that I should question my convenience more closely." + +"Ah, never mind. I take all the responsibility. I shall cheerfully +consent to being imposed upon by you." + +Mrs. Van Kirk in the mean while had been examining the contents of a +fragrant Russia-leather pocket-book, and she now drew out two crisp +ten-dollar notes, and held them out toward him. + +"I prefer to make sure of you by paying you in advance," said she, with +a cheerfully familiar nod, and a critical glance at his attire, the +meaning of which he did not fail to detect. "Somebody else might make +the same discovery that we have made to-day, and outbid us. And we do +not want to be cheated out of our good fortune in having been the first +to secure so valuable a prize." + +"You need have no fear on that score, madam," retorted Halfdan, with a +vivid blush, and purposely misinterpreting the polite subterfuge. "You +may rely upon my promise. I shall be here again, as soon as you wish me +to return." + +"Then, if you please, we shall look for you to-morrow morning at ten +o'clock." + +And Mrs. Van Kirk hesitatingly folded up her notes and replaced them in +her pocket-book. + +To our idealist there was something extremely odious in this sudden +offer of money. It was the first time any one had offered to pay him, +and it seemed to put him on a level with a common day-laborer. His first +impulse was to resent it as a gratuitous humiliation, but a glance +at Mrs. Van Kirk's countenance, which was all aglow with officious +benevolence, re-assured him, and his indignation died away. + +That same afternoon Olson, having been informed of his friend's good +fortune, volunteered a loan of a hundred dollars, and accompanied him to +a fashionable tailor, where he underwent a pleasing metamorphosis. + + + + +V. + + +In Norway the ladies dress with the innocent purpose of protecting +themselves against the weather; if this purpose is still remotely +present in the toilets of American women of to-day, it is, at all +events, sufficiently disguised to challenge detection, very much like a +primitive Sanscrit root in its French and English derivatives. This was +the reflection which was uppermost in Halfdan's mind as Edith, ravishing +to behold in the airy grace of her fragrant morning toilet, at the +appointed time took her seat at his side before the piano. Her presence +seemed so intense, so all-absorbing, that it left no thought for +the music. A woman, with all the spiritual mysteries which that name +implies, had always appeared to him rather a composite phenomenon, +even apart from those varied accessories of dress, in which as by an +inevitable analogy, she sees fit to express the inner multiformity of +her being. Nevertheless, this former conception of his, when compared +to that wonderful complexity of ethereal lines, colors, tints and +half-tints which go to make up the modern New York girl, seemed +inexpressibly simple, almost what plain arithmetic must appear to a man +who has mastered calculus. + +Edith had opened one of those small red-covered volumes of Chopin where +the rich, wondrous melodies lie peacefully folded up like strange exotic +flowers in an herbarium. She began to play the fantasia impromtu, which +ought to be dashed off at a single "heat," whose passionate impulse +hurries it on breathlessly toward its abrupt finale. But Edith toiled +considerably with her fingering, and blurred the keen edges of each +swift phrase by her indistinct articulation. And still there was a +sufficiently ardent intention in her play to save it from being a +failure. She made a gesture of disgust when she had finished, shut the +book, and let her hands drop crosswise in her lap. + +"I only wanted to give you a proof of my incapacity," she said, turning +her large luminous gaze upon her instructor, "in order to make you duly +appreciate what you have undertaken. Now, tell me truly and honestly, +are you not discouraged?" + +"Not by any means," replied he, while the rapture of her presence +rippled through his nerves, "you have fire enough in you to make an +admirable musician. But your fingers, as yet, refuse to carry out your +fine intentions. They only need discipline." + +"And do you suppose you can discipline them? They are a fearfully +obstinate set, and cause me infinite mortification." + +"Would you allow me to look at your hand?" + +She raised her right hand, and with a sort of impulsive heedlessness let +it drop into his. An exclamation of surprise escaped him. + +"If you will pardon me," he said, "it is a superb hand--a hand capable +of performing miracles--musical miracles I mean. Only look here"--(and +he drew the fore and second fingers apart)--"so firmly set in the joint +and still so flexible. I doubt if Liszt himself can boast a finer row of +fingers. Your hands will surely not prevent you from becoming a second +Von Bulow, which to my mind means a good deal more than a second Liszt." + +"Thank you, that is quite enough," she exclaimed, with an incredulous +laugh; "you have done bravely. That at all events throws the whole +burden of responsibility upon myself, if I do not become a second +somebody. I shall be perfectly satisfied, however, if you can only make +me as good a musician as you are yourself, so that I can render a not +too difficult piece without feeling all the while that I am committing +sacrilege in mutilating the fine thoughts of some great composer." + +"You are too modest; you do not--" + +"No, no, I am not modest," she interrupted him with an impetuosity which +startled him. "I beg of you not to persist in paying me compliments. I +get too much of that cheap article elsewhere. I hate to be told that +I am better than I know I am. If you are to do me any good by your +instruction, you must be perfectly sincere toward me, and tell me +plainly of my short-comings. I promise you beforehand that I shall never +be offended. There is my hand. Now, is it a bargain?" + +His fingers closed involuntarily over the soft beautiful hand, and once +more the luxury of her touch sent a thrill of delight through him. + +"I have not been insincere," he murmured, "but I shall be on my guard in +future, even against the appearance of insincerity." + +"And when I play detestably, you will say so, and not smooth it over +with unmeaning flatteries?" + +"I will try." + +"Very well, then we shall get on well together. Do not imagine that this +is a mere feminine whim of mine. I never was more in earnest. Men, and +I believe foreigners, to a greater degree than Americans, have the idea +that women must be treated with gentle forbearance; that their follies, +if they are foolish, must be glossed over with some polite name. They +exert themselves to the utmost to make us mere playthings, and, as such, +contemptible both in our own eyes and in theirs. No sincere respect can +exist where the truth has to be avoided. But the majority of American +women are made of too stern a stuff to be dealt with in that way. They +feel the lurking insincerity even where politeness forbids them to +show it, and it makes them disgusted both with themselves, and with the +flatterer. And now you must pardon me for having spoken so plainly to +you on so short an acquaintance; but you are a foreigner, and it may be +an act of friendship to initiate you as soon as possible into our ways +and customs." + +He hardly knew what to answer. Her vehemence was so sudden, and +the sentiments she had uttered so different from those which he had +habitually ascribed to women, that he could only sit and gaze at her +in mute astonishment. He could not but admit that in the main she had +judged him rightly, and that his own attitude and that of other men +toward her sex, were based upon an implied assumption of superiority. + +"I am afraid I have shocked you," she resumed, noticing the startled +expression of his countenance. "But really it was quite inevitable, +if we were at all to understand each other. You will forgive me, won't +you?" + +"Forgive!" stammered he, "I have nothing to forgive. It was only your +merciless truthfulness which startled me. I rather owe you thanks, +if you will allow me to be grateful to you. It seems an enviable +privilege." + +"Now," interrupted Edith, raising her forefinger in playful threat, +"remember your promise." + +The lesson was now continued without further interruption. When it was +finished, a little girl, with her hair done up in curl-papers, and +a very stiffly starched dress, which stood out on all sides almost +horizontally, entered, accompanied by Mrs. Van Kirk. Halfdan immediately +recognized his acquaintance from the park, and it appeared to him a +good omen that this child, whose friendly interest in him had warmed his +heart in a moment when his fortunes seemed so desperate, should +continue to be associated with his life on this new continent. Clara was +evidently greatly impressed by the change in his appearance, and could +with difficulty be restrained from commenting upon it. + +She proved a very apt scholar in music, and enjoyed the lessons the more +for her cordial liking of her teacher. + +It will be necessary henceforth to omit the less significant details in +the career of our friend "Mr. Birch." Before a month was past, he had +firmly established himself in the favor of the different members of the +Van Kirk family. Mrs. Van Kirk spoke of him to her lady visitors as "a +perfect jewel," frequently leaving them in doubt as to whether he was a +cook or a coachman. Edith apostrophized him to her fashionable friends +as "a real genius," leaving a dim impression upon their minds of flowing +locks, a shiny velvet jacket, slouched hat, defiant neck-tie and a +general air of disreputable pretentiousness. Geniuses of the foreign +type were never, in the estimation of fashionable New York society, what +you would call "exactly nice," and against prejudices of this order +no amount of argument will ever prevail. Clara, who had by this time +discovered that her teacher possessed an inexhaustible fund of fairy +stories, assured her playmates across the street that he was "just +splendid," and frequently invited them over to listen to his wonderful +tales. Mr. Van Kirk himself, of course, was non-committal, but paid the +bills unmurmuringly. + +Halfdan in the meanwhile was vainly struggling against his growing +passion for Edith; but the more he rebelled the more hopelessly he found +himself entangled in its inextricable net. The fly, as long as it keeps +quiet in the spider's web, may for a moment forget its situation; but +the least effort to escape is apt to frustrate itself and again reveal +the imminent peril. Thus he too "kicked against the pricks," hoped, +feared, rebelled against his destiny, and again, from sheer weariness, +relapsed into a dull, benumbed apathy. In spite of her friendly +sympathy, he never felt so keenly his alienism as in her presence. She +accepted the spontaneous homage he paid her, sometimes with impatience, +as something that was really beneath her notice; at other times she +frankly recognized it, bantered him with his "Old World chivalry," which +would soon evaporate in the practical American atmosphere, and called +him her Viking, her knight and her faithful squire. But it never +occurred to her to regard his devotion in a serious light, and to look +upon him as a possible lover had evidently never entered her head. As +their intercourse grew more intimate, he had volunteered to read his +favorite poets with her, and had gradually succeeded in imparting to her +something of his own passionate liking for Heine and Björnson. She +had in return called his attention to the works of American authors +who had hitherto been little more than names to him, and they had thus +managed to be of mutual benefit to each other, and to spend many a +pleasant hour during the long winter afternoons in each other's company. +But Edith had a very keen sense of humor, and could hardly restrain her +secret amusement when she heard him reading Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" +and Poe's "Raven" (which had been familiar to her from her babyhood), +often with false accent, but always with intense enthusiasm. The +reflection that he had had no part of his life in common with her,--that +he did not love the things which she loved,--could not share her +prejudices (and women have a feeling akin to contempt for a man who does +not respond to their prejudices)--removed him at times almost beyond +the reach of her sympathy. It was interesting enough as long as the +experience was novel, to be thus unconsciously exploring another +person's mind and finding so many strange objects there; but after a +while the thing began to assume an uncomfortably serious aspect, and +then there seemed to be something almost terrible about it. At such +times a call from a gentleman of her own nation, even though he were +one of the placidly stupid type, would be a positive relief; she could +abandon herself to the secure sense of being at home; she need fear +no surprises, and in the smooth shallows of their talk there were no +unsuspected depths to excite and to baffle her ingenuity. And, again, +reverting in her thought to Halfdan, his conversational brilliancy would +almost repel her, as something odious and un-American, the cheap result +of outlandish birth and unrepublican education. Not that she had ever +valued republicanism very highly; she was one of those who associated +politics with noisy vulgarity in speech and dress, and therefore thanked +fortune that women were permitted to keep aloof from it. But in the +presence of this alien she found herself growing patriotic; that +much-discussed abstraction, which we call our country (and which is +nothing but the aggregate of all the slow and invisible influences which +go toward making up our own being), became by degrees a very palpable +and intelligible fact to her. + +Frequently while her American self was thus loudly asserting itself, +Edith inflicted many a cruel wound upon her foreign adorer. Once,--it +was the Fourth of July, more than a year after Halfdan's arrival, +a number of young ladies and gentlemen, after having listened to a +patriotic oration, were invited in to an informal luncheon. While +waiting, they naturally enough spent their time in singing national +songs, and Halfdan's clear tenor did good service in keeping the +straggling voices together. When they had finished, Edith went up to him +and was quite effusive in her expressions of gratitude. + +"I am sure we ought all to be very grateful to you, Mr. Birch," she +said, "and I, for my part, can assure you that I am." + +"Grateful? Why?" demanded Halfdan, looking quite unhappy. + +"For singing OUR national songs, of course. Now, won't you sing one +of your own, please? We should all be so delighted to hear how a +Swedish--or Norwegian, is it?--national song sounds." + +"Yes, Mr. Birch, DO sing a Swedish song," echoed several voices. + +They, of course, did not even remotely suspect their own cruelty. He +had, in his enthusiasm for the day allowed himself to forget that he +was not made of the same clay as they were, that he was an exile and a +stranger, and must ever remain so, that he had no right to share their +joy in the blessing of liberty. Edith had taken pains to dispel the +happy illusion, and had sent him once more whirling toward his cold +native Pole. His passion came near choking him, and, to conceal his +impetuous emotion, he flung himself down on the piano-stool, and struck +some introductory chords with perhaps a little superfluous emphasis. +Suddenly his voice burst out into the Swedish national anthem, "Our +Land, our Land, our Fatherland," and the air shook and palpitated +with strong martial melody. His indignation, his love and his misery, +imparted strength to his voice, and its occasional tremble in the PIANO +passages was something more than an artistic intention. He was loudly +applauded as he arose, and the young ladies thronged about him to ask if +he "wouldn't please write out the music for them." + +Thus month after month passed by, and every day brought its own misery. +Mrs. Van Kirk's patronizing manners, and ostentatious kindness, often +tested his patience to the utmost. If he was guilty of an innocent +witticism or a little quaintness of expression, she always assumed it +to be a mistake of terms and corrected him with an air of benign +superiority. At times, of course, her corrections were legitimate, as +for instance, when he spoke of WEARING a cane, instead of CARRYING +one, but in nine cases out of ten the fault lay in her own lack of +imagination and not in his ignorance of English. On such occasions Edith +often took pity on him, defended him against her mother's criticism, and +insisted that if this or that expression was not in common vogue, +that was no reason why it should not be used, as it was perfectly +grammatical, and, moreover, in keeping with the spirit of the language. +And he, listening passively in admiring silence to her argument, thanked +her even for the momentary pain because it was followed by so great a +happiness. For it was so sweet to be defended by Edith, to feel that +he and she were standing together side by side against the outer world. +Could he only show her in the old heroic manner how much he loved +her! Would only some one that was dear to her die, so that he, in that +breaking down of social barriers which follows a great calamity, might +comfort her in her sorrow. Would she then, perhaps, weeping, lean her +wonderful head upon his breast, feeling but that he was a fellow-mortal, +who had a heart that was loyal and true, and forgetting, for one +brief instant, that he was a foreigner. Then, to touch that delicate +Elizabethan frill which wound itself so daintily about Edith's +neck--what inconceivable rapture! But it was quite impossible. It could +never be. These were selfish thoughts, no doubt, but they were a lover's +selfishness, and, as such, bore a close kinship to all that is purest +and best in human nature. + +It is one of the tragic facts of this life, that a relation so unequal +as that which existed between Halfdan and Edith, is at all possible. As +for Edith, I must admit that she was well aware that her teacher was in +love with her. Women have wonderfully keen senses for phenomena of that +kind, and it is an illusion if any one imagines, as our Norseman did, +that he has locked his secret securely in the hidden chamber of his +heart. In fleeting intonations, unconscious glances and attitudes, +and through a hundred other channels it will make its way out, and the +bereaved jailer may still clasp his key in fierce triumph, never knowing +that he has been robbed. It was of course no fault of Edith's that she +had become possessed of Halfdan's heart-secret. She regarded it as on +the whole rather an absurd affair, and prized it very lightly. That +a love so strong and yet so humble, so destitute of hope and still so +unchanging, reverent and faithful, had something grand and touching in +it, had never occurred to her. It is a truism to say that in our social +code the value of a man's character is determined by his position; and +fine traits in a foreigner (unless he should happen to be something very +great) strike us rather as part of a supposed mental alienism, and as +such, naturally suspicious. It is rather disgraceful than otherwise +to have your music teacher in love with you, and critical friends will +never quite banish the suspicion that you have encouraged him. + +Edith had, in her first delight at the discovery of Halfdan's talent, +frankly admitted him to a relation of apparent equality. He was a man +of culture, had the manners and bearing of a gentleman, and had none +of those theatrical airs which so often raise a sort of invisible wall +between foreigners and Americans. Her mother, who loved to play the +patron, especially to young men, had invited him to dinner-parties and +introduced him to their friends, until almost every one looked upon him +as a protege of the family. He appeared so well in a parlor, and had +really such a distinguished presence, that it was a pleasure to look +at him. He was remarkably free from those obnoxious traits which +generalizing American travelers have led us to believe were inseparable +from foreign birth; his finger-nails were in no way conspicuous; he did +not, as a French count, a former adorer of Edith's, had done, indulge an +unmasculine taste for diamond rings (possibly because he had none); his +politeness was unobtrusive and subdued, and of his accent there was just +enough left to give an agreeable color of individuality to his speech. +But, for all that, Edith could never quite rid herself of the impression +that he was intensely un-American. There was a certain idyllic +quiescence about him, a child-like directness and simplicity, and a +total absence of "push," which were startlingly at variance with the +spirit of American life. An American could never have been content to +remain in an inferior position without trying, in some way, to better +his fortunes. But Halfdan could stand still and see, without the +faintest stirring of envy, his plebeian friend Olson, whose education +and talents could bear no comparison with his own, rise rapidly above +him, and apparently have no desire to emulate him. He could sit on a +cricket in a corner, with Clara on his lap, and two or three little +girls nestling about him, and tell them fairy stories by the hour, while +his kindly face beamed with innocent happiness. And if Clara, to coax +him into continuing the entertainment, offered to kiss him, his measure +of joy was full. This fair child, with her affectionate ways, and her +confiding prattle, wound herself ever more closely about his homeless +heart, and he clung to her with a touching devotion. For she was the +only one who seemed to be unconscious of the difference of blood, who +had not yet learned that she was an American and he--a foreigner. + + + + +VI. + + +Three years had passed by and still the situation was unchanged. Halfdan +still taught music and told fairy stories to the children. He had a +good many more pupils now than three years ago, although he had made no +effort to solicit patronage, and had never tried to advertise his talent +by what he regarded as vulgar and inartistic display. But Mrs. Van Kirk, +who had by this time discovered his disinclination to assert +himself, had been only the more active; had "talked him up" among her +aristocratic friends; had given musical soirees, at which she had coaxed +him to play the principal role, and had in various other ways exerted +herself in his behalf. It was getting to be quite fashionable to admire +his quiet, unostentatious style of playing, which was so far removed +from the noisy bravado and clap-trap then commonly in vogue. Even +professional musicians began to indorse him, and some, who had +discovered that "there was money in him," made him tempting offers for a +public engagement. But, with characteristic modesty, he distrusted +their verdict; his sensitive nature shrank from anything which had the +appearance of self-assertion or display. + +But Edith--ah, if it had not been for Edith he might have found courage +to enter at the door of fortune, which was now opened ajar. That fame, +if he should gain it, would bring him any nearer to her, was a thought +that was alien to so unworldly a temperament as his. And any action that +had no bearing upon his relation to her, left him cold--seemed unworthy +of the effort. If she had asked him to play in public; if she had +required of him to go to the North Pole, or to cut his own throat, I +verily believe he would have done it. And at last Edith did ask him to +play. She and Olson had plotted together, and from the very friendliest +motives agreed to play into each other's hands. + +"If you only WOULD consent to play," said she, in her own persuasive +way, one day as they had finished their lesson, "we should all be so +happy. Only think how proud we should be of your success, for you know +there is nothing you can't do in the way of music if you really want +to." + +"Do you really think so?" exclaimed he, while his eyes suddenly grew +large and luminous. + +"Indeed I do," said Edith, emphatically. + +"And if--if I played well," faltered he, "would it really please you?" + +"Of course it would," cried Edith, laughing; "how can you ask such a +foolish question?" + +"Because I hardly dared to believe it." + +"Now listen to me," continued the girl, leaning forward in her chair, +and beaming all over with kindly officiousness; "now for once you must +be rational and do just what I tell you. I shall never like you again if +you oppose me in this, for I have set my heart upon it; you must promise +beforehand that you will be good and not make any objection. Do you +hear?" + +When Edith assumed this tone toward him, she might well have made him +promise to perform miracles. She was too intent upon her benevolent +scheme to heed the possible inferences which he might draw from her +sudden display of interest. + +"Then you promise?" repeated she, eagerly, as he hesitated to answer. + +"Yes, I promise." + +"Now, you must not be surprised; but mamma and I have made arrangements +with Mr. S---- that you are to appear under his auspices at a concert +which is to be given a week from to-night. All our friends are going, +and we shall take up all the front seats, and I have already told my +gentlemen friends to scatter through the audience, and if they care +anything for my favor, they will have to applaud vigorously." + +Halfdan reddened up to his temples, and began to twist his watch-chain +nervously. + +"You must have small confidence in my ability," he murmured, "since you +resort to precautions like these." + +"But my dear Mr. Birch," cried Edith, who was quick to discover that she +had made a mistake, "it is not kind in you to mistrust me in that way. +If a New York audience were as highly cultivated in music as you are, +I admit that my precautions would be superfluous. But the papers, you +know, will take their tone from the audience, and therefore we must make +use of a little innocent artifice to make sure of it. Everything depends +upon the success of your first public appearance, and if your friends +can in this way help you to establish the reputation which is nothing +but your right, I am sure you ought not to bind their hands by your +foolish sensitiveness. You don't know the American way of doing things +as well as I do, therefore you must stand by your promise, and leave +everything to me." + +It was impossible not to believe that anything Edith chose to do was +above reproach. She looked so bewitching in her excited eagerness for +his welfare that it would have been inhuman to oppose her. So he meekly +succumbed, and began to discuss with her the programme for the concert. + +During the next week there was hardly a day that he did not read some +startling paragraph in the newspapers about "the celebrated Scandinavian +pianist," whose appearance at S---- Hall was looked forward to as the +principal event of the coming season. He inwardly rebelled against +the well-meant exaggerations; but as he suspected that it was Edith's +influence which was in this way asserting itself in his behalf, he set +his conscience at rest and remained silent. + +The evening of the concert came at last, and, as the papers stated the +next morning, "the large hall was crowded to its utmost capacity with +a select and highly appreciative audience." Edith must have played her +part of the performance skillfully, for as he walked out upon the stage, +he was welcomed with an enthusiastic burst of applause, as if he had +been a world-renowned artist. At Edith's suggestion, her two favorite +nocturnes had been placed first upon the programme; then followed one +of those ballads of Chopin, whose rhythmic din and rush sweep onward, +beleaguering the ear like eager, melodious hosts, charging in thickening +ranks and columns, beating impetuous retreats, and again uniting +with one grand emotion the wide-spreading army of sound for the +final victory. Besides these, there was one of Liszt's "Rhapsodies +Hongroises," an impromptu by Schubert, and several orchestral pieces; +but the greater part of the programme was devoted to Chopin, because +Halfdan, with his great, hopeless passion laboring in his breast, felt +that he could interpret Chopin better than he could any other composer. +He carried his audience by storm. As he retired to the dressing-room, +after having finished the last piece, his friends, among whom Edith and +Mrs. Van Kirk were the most conspicuous, thronged about him, showering +their praises and congratulations upon him. They insisted with much +friendly urging upon taking him home in their carriage; Clara kissed +him, Mrs. Van Kirk introduced him to her lady acquaintances as "our +friend, Mr. Birch," and Edith held his hand so long in hers that he came +near losing his presence of mind and telling her then and there that he +loved her. As his eyes rested on her, they became suddenly suffused with +tears, and a vast bewildering happiness vibrated through his frame. +At last he tore himself away and wandered aimlessly through the long, +lonely streets. Why could he not tell Edith that he loved her? Was there +any disgrace in loving? This heavenly passion which so suddenly had +transfused his being, and year by year deadened the substance of his old +self, creating in its stead something new and wild and strange which he +never could know, but still held infinitely dear--had it been sent to +him merely as a scourge to test his capacity for suffering? + +Once, while he was a child, his mother had told him that somewhere in +this wide world there lived a maiden whom God had created for him, and +for him alone, and when he should see her, he should love her, and his +life should thenceforth be all for her. It had hardly occurred to him, +then, to question whether she would love him in return, it had appeared +so very natural that she should. Now he had found this maiden, and she +had been very kind to him; but her kindness had been little better than +cruelty, because he had demanded something more than kindness. And still +he had never told her of his love. He must tell her even this very night +while the moon rode high in the heavens and all the small differences +between human beings seemed lost in the vast starlit stillness. He knew +well that by the relentless glare of the daylight his own insignificance +would be cruelly conspicuous in the presence of her splendor; his +scruples would revive, and his courage fade. + +The night was clear and still. A clock struck eleven in some church +tower near by. The Van Kirk mansion rose tall and stately in the +moonlight, flinging a dense mass of shadow across the street. Up in the +third story he saw two windows lighted; the curtains were drawn, but the +blinds were not closed. All the rest of the house was dark. He raised +his voice and sang a Swedish serenade which seemed in perfect concord +with his own mood. His clear tenor rose through the silence of the +night, and a feeble echo flung it back from the mansion opposite: + + [3] "Star, sweet star, that brightly beamest, + Glittering on the skies nocturnal, + Hide thine eye no more from me, + Hide thine eye no more from me!" + +The curtain was drawn aside, the window cautiously raised, and the +outline of Edith's beautiful head appeared dark and distinct against the +light within. She instantly recognized him. + +"You must go away, Mr. Birch," came her voice in an anxious whisper out +of the shadow. "Pray go away. You will wake up the people." + +Her words were audible enough, but they failed to convey any meaning +to his excited mind. Once more his voice floated upward to her opened +window: + + "And I yearn to reach thy dwelling, + Yearn to rise from earth's fierce turmoil; + Sweetest star upward to thee, + Yearn to rise, bright star to thee." + + +"Dear Mr. Birch," she whispered once more in tones of distress. "Pray DO +go away. Or perhaps," she interrupted herself "--wait one moment and I +will come down." + +Presently the front door was noiselessly opened, and Edith's tall, lithe +form, dressed in a white flowing dress, and with her blonde hair rolling +loosely over her shoulders, appeared for an instant, and then again +vanished. With one leap Halfdan sprang up the stairs and pushed through +the half-opened door. Edith closed the door behind him, then with rapid +steps led the way to the back parlor where the moon broke feebly through +the bars of the closed shutters. + +"Now Mr. Birch," she said, seating herself upon a lounge, "you may +explain to me what this unaccountable behavior of yours means. I should +hardly think I had deserved to be treated in this way by you." + +Halfdan was utterly bewildered; a nervous fit of trembling ran through +him, and he endeavored in vain to speak. He had been prepared for +passionate reproaches, but this calm severity chilled him through, and +he could only gasp and tremble, but could utter no word in his defense. + +"I suppose you are aware," continued Edith, in the same imperturbable +manner, "that if I had not interrupted you, the policeman would have +heard you, and you would have been arrested for street disturbance. +Then to-morrow we should have seen it in all the newspapers, and I +should have been the laughing-stock of the whole town." + +No, surely he had never thought of it in that light; the idea struck +him as entirely new. There was a long pause. A cock crowed with a +drowsy remoteness in some neighboring yard, and the little clock on the +mantel-piece ticked on patiently in the moonlit dusk. + +"If you have nothing to say," resumed Edith, while the stern +indifference in her voice perceptibly relaxed, "then I will bid you +good-night." + +She arose, and with a grand sweep of her drapery, moved toward the door. + +"Miss Edith," cried he, stretching his hands despairingly after her, +"you must not leave me." + +She paused, tossed her hair back with her hands, and gazed at him over +her shoulder. He threw himself on his knees, seized the hem of +her dress, and pressed it to his lips. It was a gesture of such +inexpressible humility that even a stone would have relented. + +"Do not be foolish, Mr. Birch," she said, trying to pull her dress away +from him. "Get up, and if you have anything rational to say to me, I +will stay and listen." + +"Yes, yes," he whispered, hoarsely, "I shall be rational. Only do not +leave me." + +She again sank down wearily upon the lounge, and looked at him in +expectant silence. + +"Miss Edith," pleaded he in the same hoarse, passionate undertone, "have +pity on me, and do not despise me. I love you--oh--if you would but +allow me to die for you, I should be the happiest of men." + +Again he shuddered, and stood long gazing at her with a mute, pitiful +appeal. A tear stole into Edith's eye and trickled down over her cheek. + +"Ah, Mr. Birch," she murmured, while a sigh shook her bosom, "I am +sorry--very sorry that this misfortune has happened to you. You have +deserved a better fate than to love me--to love a woman who can never +give you anything in return for what you give her." + +"Never?" he repeated mournfully, "never?" + +"No, never! You have been a good friend to me, and as such I value you +highly, and I had hoped that you would always remain so. But I see that +it cannot be. It will perhaps be best for you henceforth not to see +me, at least not until--pardon the expression--you have outlived this +generous folly. And now, you know, you will need me no more. You have +made a splendid reputation, and if you choose to avail yourself of it, +your fortune is already made. I shall always rejoice to hear of your +success, and--and if you should ever need a FRIEND, you must come to no +one but me. I know that these are feeble words, Mr. Birch, and if they +seem cold to you, you must pardon me. I can say nothing more." + +They were indeed feeble words, although most cordially spoken. He +tried to weigh them, to measure their meaning, but his mind was as if +benumbed, and utterly incapable of thought. He walked across the floor, +perhaps only to do something, not feeling where he trod, but still with +an absurd sensation that he was taking immoderately long steps. Then +he stopped abruptly, wrung his hands, and gazed at Edith. And suddenly, +like a flash in a vacuum, the thought shot through his brain that he had +seen this very scene somewhere--in a dream, in a remote childhood, in a +previous existence, he did not know when or where. It seemed strangely +familiar, and in the next instant strangely meaningless and unreal. +The walls, the floor--everything began to move, to whirl about him; +he struck his hands against his forehead, and sank down into a +damask-covered easy-chair. With a faint cry of alarm, Edith sprang up, +seized a bottle of cologne which happened to be within reach, and knelt +down at his side. She put her arm around his neck, and raised his head. + +"Mr. Birch, dear Mr. Birch," she cried, in a frightened whisper, "for +God's sake come to yourself! O God, what have I done?" + +She blew the eau-de-cologne into his face, and, as he languidly opened +his eyes, he felt the touch of her warm hand upon his cheeks and his +forehead. + +"Thank heaven! he is better," she murmured, still continuing to bathe +his temples. "How do you feel now, Mr. Birch?" she added, in a tone of +anxious inquiry. + +"Thank you, it was an unpardonable weakness," he muttered, without +changing his attitude. "Do not trouble yourself about me. I shall soon +be well." + +It was so sweet to be conscious of her gentle ministry, that it required +a great effort, an effort of conscience, to rouse him once more, as his +strength returned. + +"Had you not better stay?" she asked, as he rose to put on his overcoat. +"I will call one of the servants and have him show you a room. We will +say to-morrow morning that you were taken ill, and nobody will wonder." + +"No, no," he responded, energetically. "I am perfectly strong now." But +he still had to lean on a chair, and his face was deathly pale. + +"Farewell, Miss Edith," he said; and a tender sadness trembled in his +voice. "Farewell. We shall--probably--never meet again." + +"Do not speak so," she answered, seizing his hand. "You will try to +forget this, and you will still be great and happy. And when fortune +shall again smile upon you, and--and--you will be content to be my +friend, then we shall see each other as before." + +"No, no," he broke forth, with a sudden hoarseness. "It will never be." + +He walked toward the door with the motions of one who feels death in his +limbs; then stopped once more and his eyes lingered with inexpressible +sadness on the wonderful, beloved form which stood dimly outlined before +him in the twilight. Then Edith's measure of misery, too, seemed full. +With the divine heedlessness which belongs to her sex, she rushed up +toward him, and remembering only that he was weak and unhappy, and that +he suffered for her sake, she took his face between her hands and kissed +him. He was too generous a man to misinterpret the act; so he whispered +but once more: "Farewell," and hastened away. + + + + +VII. + + +After that eventful December night, America was no more what it had been +to Halfdan Bjerk. A strange torpidity had come over him; every rising +day gazed into his eyes with a fierce unmeaning glare. The noise of the +street annoyed him and made him childishly fretful, and the solitude +of his own room seemed still more dreary and depressing. He went +mechanically through the daily routine of his duties as if the soul +had been taken out of his work, and left his life all barrenness and +desolation. He moved restlessly from place to place, roamed at all times +of the day and night through the city and its suburbs, trying vainly to +exhaust his physical strength; gradually, as his lethargy deepened +into a numb, helpless despair, it seemed somehow to impart a certain +toughness to his otherwise delicate frame. Olson, who was now a junior +partner in the firm of Remsen, Van Kirk and Co., stood by him faithfully +in these days of sorrow. He was never effusive in his sympathy, but was +patiently forbearing with his friend's whims and moods, and humored +him as if he had been a sick child intrusted to his custody. That Edith +might be the moving cause of Olson's kindness was a thought which, +strangely enough, had never occurred to Halfdan. + +At last, when spring came, the vacancy of his mind was suddenly invaded +with a strong desire to revisit his native land. He disclosed his plan +to Olson, who, after due deliberation and several visits to the Van Kirk +mansion, decided that the pleasure of seeing his old friends and the +scenes of his childhood might push the painful memories out of sight, +and renew his interest in life. So, one morning, while the May sun +shone with a soft radiance upon the beautiful harbor, our Norseman found +himself standing on the deck of a huge black-hulled Cunarder, shivering +in spite of the warmth, and feeling a chill loneliness creeping over him +at the sight of the kissing and affectionate leave-takings which were +going on all around him. Olson was running back and forth, attending +to his baggage; but he himself took no thought, and felt no more +responsibility than if he had been a helpless child. He half regretted +that his own wish had prevailed, and was inclined to hold his friend +responsible for it; and still he had not energy enough to protest now +when the journey seemed inevitable. His heart still clung to the place +which held the corpse of his ruined life, as a man may cling to the spot +which hides his beloved dead. + +About two weeks later Halfdan landed in Norway. He was half reluctant to +leave the steamer, and the land of his birth excited no emotion in his +breast. He was but conscious of a dim regret that he was so far away +from Edith. At last, however, he betook himself to a hotel, where he +spent the afternoon sitting with half-closed eyes at a window, watching +listlessly the drowsy slow-pulsed life which dribbled languidly through +the narrow thoroughfare. The noisy uproar of Broadway chimed remotely +in his ears, like the distant roar of a tempest-tossed sea, and what had +once been a perpetual annoyance was now a sweet memory. How often with +Edith at his side had he threaded his way through the surging crowds +that pour, on a fine afternoon, in an unceasing current up and down the +street between Union and Madison Squares. How friendly, and sweet, and +gracious, Edith had been at such times; how fresh her voice, how witty +and animated her chance remarks when they stopped to greet a passing +acquaintance; and, above all, how inspiring the sight of her heavenly +beauty. Now that was all past. Perhaps he should never see Edith again. + +The next day he sauntered through the city, meeting some old friends, +who all seemed changed and singularly uninteresting. They were all +engaged or married, and could talk of nothing but matrimony, and +their prospects of advancement in the Government service. One had +an influential uncle who had been a chum of the present minister of +finance; another based his hopes of future prosperity upon the family +connections of his betrothed, and a third was waiting with a patient +perseverance, worthy of a better cause, for the death or resignation of +an antiquated chef-de-bureau, which, according to the promise of some +mighty man, would open a position for him in the Department of Justice. +All had the most absurd theories about American democracy, and indulged +freely in prophecies of coming disasters; but about their own government +they had no opinion whatever. If Halfdan attempted to set them right, +they at once grew excited and declamatory; their opinions were based +upon conviction and a charming ignorance of facts, and they were not to +be moved. They knew all about Tweed and the Tammany Ring, and believed +them to be representative citizens of New York, if not of the United +States; but of Charles Sumner and Carl Schurz they had never heard. +Halfdan, who, in spite of his misfortunes in the land of his adoption, +cherished a very tender feeling for it, was often so thoroughly aroused +at the foolish prejudices which everywhere met him, that his torpidity +gradually thawed away, and he began to look more like his former self. + +Toward autumn he received an invitation to visit a country clergyman in +the North, a distant relative of his father's, and there whiled away +his time, fishing and shooting, until winter came. But as Christmas drew +near, and the day wrestled feebly with the all-conquering night, the old +sorrow revived. In the darkness which now brooded over land and sea, +the thoughts needed no longer be on guard against themselves; they could +roam far and wide as they listed. Where was Edith now, the sweet, the +wonderful Edith? Was there yet the same dancing light in her beautiful +eyes, the same golden sheen in her hair, the same merry ring in her +voice? And had she not said that when he was content to be only her +friend, he might return to her, and she would receive him in the old +joyous and confiding way? Surely there was no life to him apart from +her: why should he not be her friend? Only a glimpse of her lovely +face--ah, it was worth a lifetime; it would consecrate an age of misery, +a glimpse of Edith's face. Thus ran his fancies day by day, and the +night only lent a deeper intensity to the yearnings of the day. He +walked about as in a dream, seeing nothing, heeding nothing, while this +one strong desire--to see Edith once more--throbbed and throbbed with a +slow, feverish perseverance within him. Edith--Edith, the very name had +a strange, potent fascination. Every thought whispered "Edith,"--his +pulse beat "Edith,"--and his heart repeated the beloved name. It was his +pulse-beat,--his heartbeat,--his life-beat. + +And one morning as he stood absently looking at his fingers against the +light--and they seemed strangely wan and transparent--the thought at +last took shape. It rushed upon him with such vehemence, that he could +no more resist it. So he bade the clergyman good-bye, gathered his few +worldly goods together and set out for Bergen. There he found an English +steamer which carried him to Hull, and a few weeks later, he was once +more in New York. + +It was late one evening in January that a tug-boat arrived and took the +cabin passengers ashore. The moon sailed tranquilly over the deep blue +dome of the sky, the stars traced their glittering paths of light from +the zenith downward, and it was sharp, bitter cold. Northward over the +river lay a great bank of cloud, dense, gray and massive, the spectre +of the coming snow-storm. There it lay so huge and fantastically human, +ruffling itself up, as fowls do, in defense against the cold. Halfdan +walked on at a brisk rate--strange to say, all the street-cars he met +went the wrong way--startling every now and then some precious memory, +some word or look or gesture of Edith's which had hovered long +over those scenes, waiting for his recognition. There was the great +jewel-store where Edith had taken him so often to consult his taste +whenever a friend of hers was to be married. It was there that they had +had an amicable quarrel over that bronze statue of Faust which she +had found beautiful, while he, with a rudeness which seemed now quite +incomprehensible, had insisted that it was not. And when he had +failed to convince her, she had given him her hand in token of +reconciliation--and Edith had a wonderful way of giving her hand, which +made any one feel that it was a peculiar privilege to press it--and they +had walked out arm in arm into the animated, gas-lighted streets, with +a delicious sense of snugness and security, being all the more closely +united for their quarrel. Here, farther up the avenue, they had once +been to a party, and he had danced for the first time in his life +with Edith. Here was Delmonico's, where they had had such fascinating +luncheons together; where she had got a stain on her dress, and he had +been forced to observe that her dress was then not really a part of +herself, since it was a thing that could not be stained. Her dress had +always seemed to him as something absolute and final, exalted above +criticism, incapable of improvement. + +As I have said, Halfdan walked briskly up the avenue, and it was +something after eleven when he reached the house which he sought. The +great cloud-bank in the north had then begun to expand and stretched its +long misty arms eastward and westward over the heavens. The windows on +the ground-floor were dark, but the sleeping apartments in the upper +stories were lighted. In Edith's room the inside shutters were closed, +but one of the windows was a little down at the top. And as he stood +gazing with tremulous happiness up to that window, a stanza from Heine +which he and Edith had often read together, came into his head. It was +the story of the youth who goes to the Madonna at Kevlar and brings her +as a votive offering a heart of wax, that she may heal him of his love +and his sorrow. + + "I bring this waxen image, + The image of my heart, + Heal thou my bitter sorrow, + And cure my deadly smart!" [4] + +Then came the thought that for him, too, as for the poor youth of +Cologne, there was healing only in death. And still in this moment +he was so near Edith, should see her perhaps, and the joy at this was +stronger than all else, stronger even than death. So he sat down beside +the steps of the mansion opposite, where there was some shelter from the +wind, and waited patiently till Edith should close her window. He was +cold, perhaps, but, if so, he hardly knew it, for the near joy of seeing +her throbbed warmly in his veins. Ah, there--the blinds were thrown +open; Edith, in all the lithe magnificence of her wonderful form, stood +out clear and beautiful against the light within; she pushed up the +lower window in order to reach the upper one, and for a moment leaned +out over the sill. Once more her wondrous profile traced itself in +strong relief against the outer gloom. There came a cry from the street +below, a feeble involuntary one, but still distinctly audible. Edith +peered anxiously out into the darkness, but the darkness had grown +denser and she could see nothing. The window was fastened, the shutters +closed, and the broad pathway of light which she had flung out upon the +night had vanished. + +Halfdan closed his eyes trying to retain the happy vision. Yes, there +she stood still, and there was a heavenly smile upon her lips--ugh, he +shivered--the snow swept in a wild whirl up the street. He wrapped his +plaid more closely about him, and strained his eyes to catch one more +glimpse of the beloved Edith. Ah, yes; there she was again; she came +nearer and nearer, and she touched his cheek, gently, warily smiling +all the while with a strange wistful smile which was surely not Edith's. +There, she bent over him,--touched him again,--how cold her hands were; +the touch chilled him to the heart. The snow had now begun to fall in +large scattered flakes, whirling fitfully through the air, following +every chance gust of wind, but still falling, falling, and covering the +earth with its white, death-like shroud. + +But surely--there was Edith again,--how wonderful!--in a long snow-white +robe, grave and gracious, still with the wistful smile on her lips. See, +she beckons to him with her hand, and he rises to follow, but something +heavy clings to his feet and he cannot stir from the spot. He tries to +cry for help, but he cannot,--can only stretch out his hands to her, and +feel very unhappy that he cannot follow her. But now she pauses in her +flight, turns about, and he sees that she wears a myrtle garland in her +hair like a bride. She comes toward him, her countenance all radiant +with love and happiness, and she stoops down over him and speaks: + +"Come; they are waiting for us. I will follow thee in life and in death, +wherever thou goest. Come," repeats Edith, "they have long been waiting. +They are all here." + +And he imagines he knows who they all are, although he has never heard +of them, nor can he recall their names. + +"But--but," he stammers, "I--I--am a foreigner " + +It appeared then that for some reason this was an insurmountable +objection. And Edith's happiness dies out of her beautiful face, and she +turns away weeping. + +"Edith, beloved!" + +Then she is once more at his side. + +"Thou art no more a foreigner to me, beloved. Whatever thou art, I am." + +And she presses her lips to his--it was the sweetest kiss of his +life--the kiss of death. + +The next morning, as Edith, after having put the last touch to her +toilet, threw the shutters open, a great glare of sun-smitten snow burst +upon her and for a moment blinded her eyes. On the sidewalk opposite, +half a dozen men with snow-shovels in their hands and a couple of +policeman had congregated, and, judging by their manner, were discussing +some object of interest. Presently they were joined by her father, who +had just finished his breakfast and was on his way to the office. Now +he stooped down and gazed at something half concealed in the snow, then +suddenly started back, and as she caught a glimpse of his face, she saw +that it was ghastly white. A terrible foreboding seized her. She threw +a shawl about her shoulders and rushed down-stairs. In the hall she was +met by her father, who was just entering, followed by four men, carrying +something between them. She well knew what it was. She would fain have +turned away, but she could not: grasping her father's arm and pressing +it hard, she gazed with blank, frightened eyes at the white face, the +lines of which Death had so strangely emphasized. The snow-flakes which +hung in his hair had touched him with their sudden age, as if to bridge +the gulf between youth and death. And still he was beautiful--the clear +brow, the peaceful, happy indolence, the frozen smile which death had +perpetuated. Smiling, he had departed from the earth which had no place +for him, and smiling entered the realm where, among the many mansions, +there is, perhaps, also one for a gentle, simple-hearted enthusiast. + + + + +THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST. + +THERE was an ancient feud between the families; and Bjarne Blakstad +was not the man to make it up, neither was Hedin Ullern. So they looked +askance at each other whenever they met on the highway, and the one +took care not to cross the other's path. But on Sundays, when the +church-bells called the parishioners together, they could not very well +avoid seeing each other on the church-yard; and then, one day, many +years ago, when the sermon had happened to touch Bjarne's heart, he had +nodded to Hedin and said: "Fine weather to-day;" and Hedin had returned +the nod and answered: "True is that." "Now I have done my duty before +God and men," thought Bjarne, "and it is his turn to take the next +step." "The fellow is proud," said Hedin to himself, "and he wants to +show off his generosity. But I know the wolf by his skin, even if he has +learned to bleat like a ewe-lamb." + +What the feud really was about, they had both nearly forgotten. All they +knew was that some thirty years ago there had been a quarrel between the +pastor and the parish about the right of carrying arms to the church. +And then Bjarne's father had been the spokesman of the parish, while +Hedin's grandsire had been a staunch defender of the pastor. There was a +rumor, too, that they had had a fierce encounter somewhere in the woods, +and that the one had stabbed the other with a knife; but whether that +was really true, no one could tell. + +Bjarne was tall and grave, like the weather-beaten fir-trees in his +mast-forest. He had a large clean-shaven face, narrow lips, and small +fierce eyes. He seldom laughed, and when he did, his laugh seemed even +fiercer than his frown. He wore his hair long, as his fathers had +done, and dressed in the styles of two centuries ago; his breeches were +clasped with large silver buckles at the knees, and his red jerkin was +gathered about his waist with a leathern girdle. He loved everything +that was old, in dress as well as in manners, took no newspapers, and +regarded railroads and steamboats as inventions of the devil. Bjarne had +married late in life, and his marriage had brought him two daughters, +Brita and Grimhild. + +Hedin Ullern was looked upon as an upstart. He could only count three +generations back, and he hardly knew himself how his grandfather had +earned the money that had enabled him to buy a farm and settle down +in the valley. He had read a great deal, and was well informed on +the politics of the day; his name had even been mentioned for +storthingsmand, or member of parliament from the district, and it +was the common opinion, that if Bjarne Blakstad had not so vigorously +opposed him, he would have been elected, being the only "cultivated" +peasant in the valley. Hedin was no unwelcome guest in the houses of +gentlefolks, and he was often seen at the judge's and the pastor's +omber parties. And for all this Bjarne Blakstad only hated him the more. +Hedin's wife, Thorgerda, was fair-haired, tall and stout, and it was +she who managed the farm, while her husband read his books, and studied +politics in the newspapers; but she had a sharp tongue and her neighbors +were afraid of her. They had one son, whose name was Halvard. + +Brita Blakstad, Bjarne's eldest daughter, was a maid whom it was a joy +to look upon. They called her "Glitter-Brita," because she was fond of +rings and brooches, and everything that was bright; while she was +still a child, she once took the old family bridal-crown out from the +storehouse and carried it about on her head. "Beware of that crown, +child," her father had said to her, "and wear it not before the time. +There is not always blessing in the bridal silver." And she looked +wonderingly up into his eyes and answered: "But it glitters, father;" +and from that time forth they had named her Glitter-Brita. + +And Glitter-Brita grew up to be a fair and winsome maiden, and wherever +she went the wooers flocked on her path. Bjarne shook his head at +her, and often had harsh words upon his lips, when he saw her braiding +field-flowers into her yellow tresses or clasping the shining brooches +to her bodice; but a look of hers or a smile would completely disarm +him. She had a merry way of doing things which made it all seem like +play; but work went rapidly from her hands, while her ringing laughter +echoed through the house, and her sunny presence made it bright in the +dusky ancestral halls. In her kitchen the long rows of copper pots and +polished kettles shone upon the walls, and the neatly scoured milk-pails +stood like soldiers on parade about the shelves under the ceiling. +Bjarne would often sit for hours watching her, and a strange +spring-feeling would steal into his heart. He felt a father's pride in +her stately growth and her rich womanly beauty. "Ah!" he would say to +himself, "she has the pure blood in her veins and, as true as I live, +the farm shall be hers." And then, quite contrary to his habits, he +would indulge in a little reverie, imagining the time when he, as an +aged man, should have given the estate over into her hands, and seeing +her as a worthy matron preside at the table, and himself rocking his +grandchildren on his knee. No wonder, then, that he eyed closely the +young lads who were beginning to hover about the house, and that he +looked with suspicion upon those who selected Saturday nights for their +visits. [5] When Brita was twenty years old, however, her father thought +that it was time for her to make her choice. There were many fine, brave +lads in the valley, and, as Bjarne thought, Brita would have the good +sense to choose the finest and the bravest. So, when the winter came, he +suddenly flung his doors open to the youth of the parish, and began to +give parties with ale and mead in the grand old style. He even talked +with the young men, at times, encouraged them to manly sports, and urged +them to taste of his home-brewed drinks and to tread the spring-dance +briskly. And Brita danced and laughed so that her hair flew around her +and the silver brooches tinkled and rang on her bosom. But when the +merriment was at an end, and any one of the lads remained behind to +offer her his hand, she suddenly grew grave, told him she was too young, +that she did not know herself, and that she had had no time as yet to +decide so serious a question. Thus the winter passed and the summer drew +near. + +In the middle of June, Brita went to the saeter [6] with the cattle; and +her sister, Grimhild, remained at home to keep house on the farm. She +loved the life in the mountains; the great solitude sometimes made her +feel sad, but it was not an unpleasant sadness, it was rather a gentle +toning down of all the shrill and noisy feelings of the soul. Up there, +in the heart of the primeval forest, her whole being seemed to herself +a symphony of melodious whispers with a vague delicious sense of +remoteness and mystery in them, which she only felt and did not attempt +to explain. There, those weird legends which, in former days, still held +their sway in the fancy of every Norsewoman, breathed their secrets into +her ear, and she felt her nearness and kinship to nature, as at no other +time. + +One night, as the sun was low, and a purple bluish smoke hung like a +thin veil over the tops of the forest, Brita had taken out her knitting +and seated herself on a large moss-grown stone, on the croft. Her eyes +wandered over the broad valley which was stretched out below, and she +could see the red roofs of the Blakstad mansion peeping forth between +the fir-trees. And she wondered what they were doing down there, whether +Grimhild had done milking, and whether her father had returned from the +ford, where it was his habit at this hour to ride with the footmen +to water the horses. As she sat thus wondering, she was startled by a +creaking in the dry branches hard by, and lifting her eye, she saw a +tall, rather clumsily built, young man emerging from the thicket. He +had a broad but low forehead, flaxen hair which hung down over a pair of +dull ox-like eyes; his mouth was rather large and, as it was half open, +displayed two massive rows of shining white teeth. His red peaked cap +hung on the back of his head and, although it was summer, his thick +wadmal vest was buttoned close up to his throat; over his right arm he +had flung his jacket, and in his hand he held a bridle. + +"Good evening," said Brita, "and thanks for last meeting;" although she +was not sure that she had ever seen him before. + +"It was that bay mare, you know," stammered the man in a half apologetic +tone, and shook the bridle, as if in further explanation. + +"Ah, you have lost your mare," said the girl, and she could not help +smiling at his helplessness and his awkward manner. + +"Yes, it was the bay mare," answered he, in the same diffident tone; +then, encouraged by her smile, he straightened himself a little and +continued rather more fluently: "She never was quite right since the +time the wolves were after her. And then since they took the colt away +from her the milk has been troubling her, and she hasn't been quite like +herself." + +"I haven't seen her anywhere hereabouts," said Brita; "you may have to +wander far, before you get on the track of her." + +"Yes, that is very likely. And I am tired already." + +"Won't you sit down and rest yourself?" + +He deliberately seated himself in the grass, and gradually gained +courage to look her straight in the face; and his dull eye remained +steadfastly fixed on her in a way which bespoke unfeigned surprise and +admiration. Slowly his mouth broadened into a smile; but his smile had +more of sadness than of joy in it. She had, from the moment she saw him, +been possessed of a strangely patronizing feeling toward him. She could +not but treat him as if he had been a girl or some person inferior to +her in station. In spite of his large body, the impression he made upon +her was that of weakness; but she liked the sincerity and kindness which +expressed themselves in his sad smile and large, honest blue eyes. +His gaze reminded her of that of an ox, but it had not only the ox's +dullness, but also its simplicity and good-nature. + +They sat talking on for a while about the weather, the cattle, and the +prospects of the crops. + +"What is your name?" she asked, at last. + +"Halvard Hedinson Ullern." + +A sudden shock ran through her at the sound of that name; in the next +moment a deep blush stole over her countenance. + +"And my name," she said, slowly, "is Brita Bjarne's daughter Blakstad." + +She fixed her eyes upon him, as if to see what effect her words +produced. But his features wore the same sad and placid expression; and +no line in his face seemed to betray either surprise or ill-will. Then +her sense of patronage grew into one of sympathy and pity. "He must +either be weak-minded or very unhappy," thought she, "and what right +have I then to treat him harshly." And she continued her simple, +straightforward talk with the young man, until he, too, grew almost +talkative, and the sadness of his smile began to give way to something +which almost resembled happiness. She noticed the change and rejoiced. +At last, when the sun had sunk behind the western mountain tops, +she rose and bade him good-night; in another moment the door of the +saeter-cottage closed behind her, and he heard her bolting it on the +inside. But for a long time he remained sitting on the grass, and +strange thoughts passed through his head. He had quite forgotten his bay +mare. + +The next evening when the milking was done, and the cattle were gathered +within the saeter enclosure, Brita was again sitting on the large stone, +looking out over the valley. She felt a kind of companionship with the +people when she saw the smoke whirling up from their chimneys, and she +could guess what they were going to have for supper. As she sat there, +she again heard a creaking in the branches, and Halvard Ullern stood +again before her, with his jacket on his arm, and the same bridle in his +hand. + +"You have not found your bay mare yet?" she exclaimed, laughingly. "And +you think she is likely to be in this neighborhood?" + +"I don't know," he answered; "and I don't care if she isn't." + +He spread his jacket on the grass, and sat down on the spot where he +had sat the night before. Brita looked at him in surprise and remained +silent; she didn't know how to interpret this second visit. + +"You are very handsome," he said, suddenly, with a gravity which left no +doubt as to his sincerity. + +"Do you think so?" she answered, with a merry laugh. He appeared to her +almost a child, and it never entered her mind to feel offended. On the +contrary, she was not sure but that she felt pleased. + +"I have thought of you ever since yesterday," he continued, with the +same imperturbable manner. "And if you were not angry with me, I thought +I would like to look at you once more. You are so different from other +folks." + +"God bless your foolish talk," cried Brita, with a fresh burst of +merriment. "No, indeed I am not angry with you; I should just as soon +think of being angry with--with that calf," she added for want of +another comparison. + +"You think I don't know much," he stammered. "And I don't." The sad +smile again settled on his countenance. + +A feeling of guilt sent the blood throbbing through her veins. She saw +that she had done him injustice. He evidently possessed more sense, or +at least a finer instinct, than she had given him credit for. + +"Halvard," she faltered, "if I have offended you, I assure you I didn't +mean to do it; and a thousand times I beg your pardon." + +"You haven't offended me, Brita," answered he, blushing like a girl. +"You are the first one who doesn't make me feel that I am not so wise as +other folks." + +She felt it her duty to be open and confiding with him in return; and in +order not to seem ungenerous, or rather to put them on an equal footing +by giving him also a peep into her heart, she told him about her daily +work, about the merry parties at her father's house, and about the +lusty lads who gathered in their halls to dance the Halling and the +spring-dance. He listened attentively while she spoke, gazing earnestly +into her face, but never interrupting her. In his turn he described to +her in his slow deliberate way, how his father constantly scolded him +because he was not bright, and did not care for politics and newspapers, +and how his mother wounded him with her sharp tongue by making merry +with him, even in the presence of the servants and strangers. He did not +seem to imagine that there was anything wrong in what he said, or that +he placed himself in a ludicrous light; nor did he seem to speak +from any unmanly craving for sympathy. His manner was so simple and +straightforward that what Brita probably would have found strange in +another, she found perfectly natural in him. + +It was nearly midnight when they parted{.} She hardly slept at all that +night, and she was half vexed with herself for the interest she took +in this simple youth. The next morning her father came up to pay her a +visit and to see how the flocks were thriving. She understood that it +would be dangerous to say anything to him about Halvard, for she knew +his temper and feared the result, if he should ever discover her secret. +Therefore, she shunned an opportunity to talk with him, and only busied +herself the more with the cattle and the cooking. Bjarne soon noticed +her distraction, but, of course, never suspected the cause. Before he +left her, he asked her if she did not find it too lonely on the saeter, +and if it would not be well if he sent her one of the maids for a +companion. She hastened to assure him that that was quite unnecessary; +the cattle-boy who was there to help her was all the company she wanted. +Toward evening, Bjarne Blakstad loaded his horses with buckets, filled +with cheese and butter, and started for the valley. Brita stood long +looking after him as he descended the rocky slope, and she could hardly +conceal from herself that she felt relieved, when, at last, the forest +hid him from her sight. All day she had been walking about with a heavy +heart; there seemed to be something weighing on her breast, and she +could not throw it off. Who was this who had come between her and her +father? Had she ever been afraid of him before, had she been glad to +have him leave her? A sudden bitterness took possession of her, for in +her distress, she gave Halvard the blame for all that had happened. +She threw herself down on the grass and burst into a passionate fit of +weeping; she was guilty, wretchedly miserable, and all for the sake of +one whom she had hardly known for two days. If he should come in this +moment, she would tell him what he had done toward her; and her wish +must have been heard, for as she raised her eyes, he stood there at her +side, the sad feature about his mouth and his great honest eyes gazing +wonderingly at her. She felt her purpose melt within her; he looked so +good and so unhappy. Then again came the thought of her father and of +her own wrong, and the bitterness again revived. + +"Go away," cried she, in a voice half reluctantly tender and half +defiant. "Go away, I say; I don't want to see you any more." + +"I will go to the end of the world if you wish it," he answered, with a +strange firmness. + +He picked up his jacket which he had dropped on the ground, then turned +slowly, gave her mother long look, an infinitely sad and hopeless one, +and went. Her bosom heaved violently--remorse, affection and filial duty +wrestled desperately in her heart. + +"No, no," she cried, "why do you go? I did not mean it so. I only +wanted--" + +He paused and returned as deliberately as he had gone. + +Why should I dwell upon the days that followed--how her heart grew ever +more restless, how she would suddenly wake up at nights and see those +large blue eyes sadly gazing at her, how by turns she would condemn +herself and him, and how she felt with bitter pain that she was growing +away from those who had hitherto been nearest and dearest to her. And +strange to say, this very isolation from her father made her cling +only the more desperately to him. It seemed to her as if Bjarne had +deliberately thrown her off; that she herself had been the one who +took the first step had hardly occurred to her. Alas, her grief was as +irrational as her love. By what strange devious process of reasoning +these convictions became settled in her mind, it is difficult to tell. +It is sufficient to know that she was a woman and that she loved. She +even knew herself that she was irrational, and this very sense drew her +more hopelessly into the maze of the labyrinth from which she saw no +escape. + +His visits were as regular as those of the sun. She knew that there was +only a word of hers needed to banish him from her presence forever. And +how many times did she not resolve to speak that word? But the word was +never spoken. At times a company of the lads from the valley would come +to spend a merry evening at the saeter; but she heeded them not, and +they soon disappeared. Thus the summer went amid passing moods of joy +and sorrow. She had long known that he loved her, and when at last +his slow confession came, it added nothing to her happiness; it only +increased her fears for the future. They laid many plans together in +those days; but winter came as a surprise to both, the cattle were +removed from the mountains, and they were again separated. + +Bjarne Blakstad looked long and wistfully at his daughter that morning, +when he came to bring her home. She wore no more rings and brooches, +and it was this which excited Bjarne's suspicion that everything was not +right with her. Formerly he was displeased because she wore too many; +now he grumbled because she wore none. + + + + +II. + + +The winter was half gone; and in all this time Brita had hardly once +seen Halvard. Yes, once,--it was Christmas-day,--she had ventured to +peep over to his pew in the church, and had seen him, sitting at his +father's side, and gazing vacantly out into the empty space; but as he +had caught her glance, he had blushed, and began eagerly to turn the +leaves of his hymn-book. It troubled her that he made no effort to see +her; many an evening she had walked alone down at the river-side, hoping +that he might come; but it was all in vain. She could not but believe +that his father must have made some discovery, and that he was watched. +In the mean time the black cloud thickened over her head; for a secret +gnawed at the very roots of her heart. It was a time of terrible +suspense and suffering--such as a man never knows, such as only a woman +can endure. It was almost a relief when the cloud burst, and the storm +broke loose, as presently it did. + +One Sunday, early in April, Bjarne did not return at the usual hour from +church. His daughters waited in vain for him with the dinner, and at +last began to grow uneasy. It was not his habit to keep irregular hours. +There was a great excitement in the valley just then; the America-fever +had broken out. A large vessel was lying out in the fjord, ready to take +the emigrants away; and there was hardly a family that did not mourn the +loss of some brave-hearted son, or of some fair and cherished daughter. +The old folks, of course, had to remain behind; and when the children +were gone, what was there left for them but to lie down and die? America +was to them as distant as if it were on another planet. The family +feeling, too, has ever been strong in the Norseman's breast; he lives +for his children, and seems to live his life over again in them. It is +his greatest pride to be able to trace his blood back into the days of +Sverre and St. Olaf, and with the same confidence he expects to see his +race spread into the future in the same soil where once it has struck +root. Then comes the storm from the Western seas, wrestles with the +sturdy trunk, and breaks it; and the shattered branches fly to all the +four corners of the heavens. No wonder, then, like a tree that has lost +its crown, his strength is broken and he expects but to smoulder into +the earth and die. + +Bjarne Blakstad, like the sturdy old patriot that he was, had always +fiercely denounced the America rage; and it was now the hope of his +daughters that, perhaps, he had stayed behind to remind the restless +ones among the youth of their duty toward their land, or to frighten +some bold emigration agent who might have been too loud in his +declamations. But it was already eight o'clock and Bjarne was not yet to +be seen. The night was dark and stormy; a cold sleet fiercely lashed the +window-panes, and the wind roared in the chimney. Grimhild, the younger +sister, ran restlessly out and in and slammed the doors after her. Brita +sat tightly pressed up against the wall in the darkest corner of the +room. Every time the wind shook the house she started up; then again +seated herself and shuddered. Dark forebodings filled her soul. + +At last,--the clock had just struck ten,--there was a noise heard in +the outer hall. Grimhild sprang to the door and tore it open. A tall, +stooping figure entered, and by the dress she at once recognized her +father. + +"Good God," cried she, and ran up to him. + +"Go away, child," muttered he, in a voice that sounded strangely +unfamiliar, and he pushed her roughly away. For a moment he stood still, +then stalked up to the table, and, with a heavy thump, dropped down into +a chair. There he remained with his elbows resting on his knees, and +absently staring on the floor. His long hair hung in wet tangles down +over his face, and the wrinkles about his mouth seemed deeper and +fiercer than usual. Now and then he sighed, or gave vent to a deep +groan. In a while his eyes began to wander uneasily about the room; and +as they reached the corner where Brita was sitting, he suddenly darted +up, as if stung by something poisonous, seized a brand from the hearth, +and rushed toward her. + +"Tell me I did not see it," he broke forth, in a hoarse whisper, seizing +her by the arm and thrusting the burning brand close up to her face. +"Tell me it is a lie--a black, poisonous lie." + +She raised her eyes slowly to his and gazed steadfastly into his face. +"Ah," he continued in the same terrible voice, "it was what I told +them down there at the church--a lie--an infernal lie. And I drew +blood--blood, I say--I did--from the slanderer. Ha, ha, ha! What a lusty +sprawl that was!" + +The color came and departed from Brita's cheeks. And still she was +strangely self possessed. She even wondered at her own calmness. Alas, +she did not know that it was a calmness that is more terrible than pain, +the corpse of a forlorn and hopeless heart. + +"Child," continued Bjarne, and his voice assumed a more natural tone, +"why dost thou not speak? They have lied about thee, child, because thou +art fair, they have envied thee." Then, almost imploringly, "Open thy +mouth, Brita, and tell thy father that thou art pure--pure as the snow, +child--my own--my beautiful child." + +There was a long and painful pause, in which the crackling of the brand, +and the heavy breathing of the old man were the only sounds to break +the silence. Pale like a marble image stood she before him; no word +of excuse, no prayer for forgiveness escaped her; only a convulsive +quivering of the lips betrayed the life that struggled within her. With +every moment the hope died in Bjarne's bosom. His visage was fearful to +behold. Terror and fierce indomitable hatred had grimly distorted his +features, and his eyes burned like fire-coals beneath his bushy brows. + +"Harlot," he shrieked, "harlot!" + +A cold gust of wind swept through the room. The windows shook, the doors +flew open, as if touched by a strong invisible hand--and the old man +stood alone, holding the flickering brand above his head. + +It was after midnight, the wind had abated, but the snow still fell, +thick and silent, burying paths and fences under its cold white mantle. +Onward she fled--onward and ever onward. And whither, she knew not. +A cold numbness had chilled her senses, but still her feet drove her +irresistibly onward. A dark current seemed to have seized her, she only +felt that she was adrift, and she cared not whither it bore her. In +spite of the stifling dullness which oppressed her, her body seemed as +light as air. At last,--she knew not where,--she heard the roar of the +sea resounding in her ears, a genial warmth thawed the numbness of +her senses, and she floated joyfully among the clouds--among golden, +sun-bathed clouds. When she opened her eyes, she found herself lying +in a comfortable bed, and a young woman with a kind motherly face was +sitting at her side. It was all like a dream, and she made no effort to +account for what appeared so strange and unaccountable. + +What she afterward heard was that a fisherman had found her in a +snow-drift on the strand, and that he had carried her home to his +cottage and had given her over to the charge of his wife. This was the +second day since her arrival. They knew who she was, but had kept the +doors locked and had told no one that she was there. She heard the story +of the good woman without emotion; it seemed an intolerable effort +to think. But on the third day, when her child was born, her mind was +suddenly aroused from its lethargy, and she calmly matured her plans; +and for the child's sake she resolved to live and to act. That same +evening there came a little boy with a bundle for her. She opened it and +found therein the clothes she had left behind, and--her brooches. She +knew that it was her sister who had sent them; then there was one who +still thought of her with affection. And yet her first impulse was to +send it all back, or to throw it into the ocean; but she looked at her +child and forbore. + +A week passed, and Brita recovered. Of Halvard she had heard nothing. +One night, as she lay in a half doze, she thought she had Seen a pale, +frightened face pressed up against the window-pane, and staring fixedly +at her and her child; but, after all, it might have been merely a dream. +For her fevered fancy had in these last days frequently beguiled her +into similar visions. She often thought of him, but, strangely enough, +no more with bitterness, but with pity. Had he been strong enough to be +wicked, she could have hated him, but he was weak, and she pitied him. +Then it was that; one evening, as she heard that the American vessel was +to sail at daybreak, she took her little boy and wrapped him carefully +in her own clothes, bade farewell to the good fisherman and his wife, +and walked alone down to the strand. Huge clouds of fantastic shapes +chased each other desperately along the horizon, and now and then the +slender new moon glanced forth from the deep blue gulfs between. She +chose a boat at random and was about to unmoor it, when she saw the +figure of a man tread carefully over the stones and hesitatingly +approach her. + +"Brita," came in a whisper from the strand. + +"Who's there?" + +"It is I. Father knows it all, and he has nearly killed me; and mother, +too." + +"Is that what you have come to tell me?" + +"No, I would like to help you some. I have been trying to see you these +many days." And he stepped close up to the boat. + +"Thank you; I need no help." + +"But, Brita," implored he, "I have sold my gun and my dog, and +everything I had, and this is what I have got for it." He stretched out +his hand and reached her a red handkerchief with something heavy bound +up in a corner. She took it mechanically, held it in her hand for +a moment, then flung it far out into the water. A smile of profound +contempt and pity passed over her countenance. + +"Farewell, Halvard," said she, calmly, and pushed the boat into the +water. + +"But, Brita," cried he, in despair, "what would you have me do?" + +She lifted the child in her arms, then pointed to the vacant seat at +her side. He understood what she meant, and stood for a moment wavering. +Suddenly, he covered his face with his hands and burst into tears. +Within half an hour, Brita boarded the vessel, and as the first red +stripe of the dawn illumined the horizon, the wind filled the sails, and +the ship glided westward toward that land where there is a home for them +whom love and misfortune have exiled. + +It was a long and wearisome voyage. There was an old English clergyman +on board, who collected curiosities; to him she sold her rings and +brooches, and thereby obtained more than sufficient money to pay her +passage. She hardly spoke to any one except her child. Those of her +fellow-parishioners who knew her, and perhaps guessed her history, kept +aloof from her, and she was grateful to them that they did. From morning +till night, she sat in a corner between a pile of deck freight and the +kitchen skylight, and gazed at her little boy who was lying in her lap. +All her hopes, her future, and her life were in him. For herself, she +had ceased to hope. + +"I can give thee no fatherland, my child," she said to him. "Thou shalt +never know the name of him who gave thee life. Thou and I, we shall +struggle together, and, as true as there is a God above, who sees us, +He will not leave either of us to perish. But let us ask no questions, +child, about that which is past. Thou shalt grow and be strong, and thy +mother must grow with thee." + +During the third week of the voyage, the English clergyman baptized the +boy, and she called him Thomas, after the day in the almanac on which he +was born. He should never know that Norway had been his mother's home; +therefore she would give him no name which might betray his race. One +morning, early in the month of June, they hailed land, and the great New +World lay before them. + + + + +III. + + +Why should I speak of the ceaseless care, the suffering, and the hard +toil, which made the first few months of Brita's life on this continent +a mere continued struggle for existence? They are familiar to every +emigrant who has come here with a brave heart and an empty purse. +Suffice it to say that at the end of the second month, she succeeded in +obtaining service as milkmaid with a family in the neighborhood of +New York. With the linguistic talent peculiar to her people, she +soon learned the English language and even spoke it well. From her +countrymen, she kept as far away as possible, not for her own sake, +but for that of her boy; for he was to grow great and strong, and the +knowledge of his birth might shatter his strength and break his courage. +For the same reason she also exchanged her picturesque Norse costume for +that of the people among whom she was living. She went commonly by the +name of Mrs. Brita, which pronounced in the English way, sounded very +much like Mrs. Bright, and this at last became the name by which she was +known in the neighborhood. + +Thus five years passed; then there was a great rage for emigrating to +the far West, and Brita, with many others, started for Chicago. There +she arrived in the year 1852, and took up her lodgings with an Irish +widow, who was living in a little cottage in what was then termed the +outskirts of the city. Those who saw her in those days, going about the +lumber-yards and doing a man's work, would hardly have recognized in her +the merry Glitter-Brita, who in times of old trod the spring-dance so +gayly in the well-lighted halls of the Blakstad mansion. And, indeed, +she was sadly changed! Her features had become sharper, and the firm +lines about her mouth expressed severity, almost sternness. Her clear +blue eyes seemed to have grown larger, and their glance betrayed secret, +ever-watchful care. Only her yellow hair had resisted the force of time +and sorrow; for it still fell in rich and wavy folds over a smooth white +forehead. She was, indeed, half ashamed of it, and often took pains to +force it into a sober, matronly hood. Only at nights, when she sat alone +talking with her boy, she would allow it to escape from its prison; and +he would laugh and play with it, and in his child's way even wonder at +the contrast between her stern face and her youthful maidenly tresses. + +This Thomas, her son, was a strange child. He had a Norseman's taste for +the fabulous and fantastic, and although he never heard a tale of Necken +or the Hulder, he would often startle his mother by the most fanciful +combinations of imagined events, and by bolder personifications than +ever sprung from the legendary soil of the Norseland. She always took +care to check him whenever he indulged in these imaginary flights, and +he at last came to look upon them as something wrong and sinful. The +boy, as he grew up, often strikingly reminded her of her father, +as, indeed, he seemed to have inherited more from her own than from +Halvard's race. Only the bright flaxen hair and his square, somewhat +clumsy stature might have told him to be the latter's child. He had a +hot temper, and often distressed his mother by his stubbornness; and +then there would come a great burst of repentance afterwards, which +distressed her still more. For she was afraid it might be a sign of +weakness. "And strong he must be," said she to herself, "strong enough +to overcome all resistance, and to conquer a great name for himself, +strong enough to bless a mother who brought him into the world +nameless." + +Strange to say, much as she loved this child, she seldom caressed him. +It was a penance she had imposed upon herself to atone for her guilt. +Only at times, when she had been sitting up late, and her eyes would +fall, as it were, by accident upon the little face on the pillow, +with the sweet unconsciousness of sleep resting upon it like a soft, +invisible veil, would she suddenly throw herself down over him, kiss +him, and whisper tender names in his ear, while her tears fell hot and +fast on his yellow hair and his rosy countenance. Then the child would +dream that he was sailing aloft over shining forests, and that his +mother, beaming with all the beauty of her lost youth, flew before him, +showering golden flowers on his path. These were the happiest moments of +Brita's joyless life, and even these were not unmixed with bitterness; +for into the midst of her joy would steal a shy anxious thought which +was the more terrible because it came so stealthily, so soft-footed +and unbidden. Had not this child been given her as a punishment for her +guilt? Had she then a right to turn God's scourge into a blessing? Did +she give to God "that which belongeth unto God," as long as all her +hopes, her thoughts, and her whole being revolved about this one earthly +thing, her son, the child of her sorrow? She was not a nature to shrink +from grave questions; no, she met them boldly, when once they were +there, wrestled fiercely with them, was defeated, and again with a +martyr's zeal rose to renew the combat. God had Himself sent her this +perplexing doubt and it was her duty to bear His burden. Thus ran +Brita's reasoning. In the mean while the years slipped by, and great +changes were wrought in the world about her. + +The few hundred dollars which Brita had been able to save, during the +first three years of her stay in Chicago, she had invested in a piece of +land. In the mean while the city had grown, and in the year 1859 she was +offered five thousand dollars for her lot; this offer she accepted and +again bought a small piece of property at a short distance from the +city. The boy had since his eighth year attended the public school, and +had made astonishing progress. Every day when school was out, she would +meet him at the gate, take him by the hand and lead him home. If any +of the other boys dared to make sport of her, or to tease him for his +dependence upon her, it was sure to cost that boy a black eye{.} He soon +succeeded in establishing himself in the respect of his school-mates, +for he was the strongest boy of his own age, and ever ready to protect +and defend the weak and defenseless. When Thomas Bright (for that was +the name by which he was known) was fifteen years old he was offered +a position as clerk in the office of a lumber-merchant, and with his +mother's consent he accepted it. He was a fine young lad now, large and +well-knit, and with a clear earnest countenance. In the evening he would +bring home books to read, and as it had always been Brita's habit to +interest herself in whatever interested him, she soon found herself +studying and discussing with him things which had in former years been +far beyond the horizon of her mind. She had at his request reluctantly +given up her work in the lumber-yards, and now spent her days at home, +busying herself with sewing and reading and such other things as women +find to fill up a vacant hour. + +One evening, when Thomas was in his nineteenth year, he returned +from his office with a graver face than usual. His mother's quick eye +immediately saw that something had agitated him, but she forbore to ask. + +"Mother," said he at last, "who is my father? Is he dead or alive?" + +"God is your father, my son," answered she, tremblingly. "If you love +me, ask me no more." + +"I do love you, mother," he said, and gave her a grave look, in which +she thought she detected a mingling of tenderness and reproach. "And it +shall be as you have said." + +It was the first time she had had reason to blush before him, and +her emotion came near overwhelming her; but with a violent effort she +stifled it, and remained outwardly calm. He began pacing up and down the +floor with his head bent and his hands on his back. It suddenly occurred +to her that he was a grown man, and that she could no longer hold the +same relation to him as his supporter and protector. "Alas," thought +she, "if God will but let me remain his mother, I shall bless and thank +Him." + +It was the first time this subject had been broached, and it gave rise +to many a doubt and many a question in the anxious mother's mind. Had +she been right in concealing from him that which he might justly claim +to know? What had been her motive in keeping him ignorant of his origin +and of the land of his birth? She had wished him to grow to the strength +of manhood, unconscious of guilt, so that he might bear his head +upright, and look the world fearlessly in the face. And still, had there +not in all this been a lurking thought of herself, a fear of losing his +love, a desire to stand pure and perfect in his eye? She hardly dared +to answer these questions, for, alas, she knew not that even our purest +motives are but poorly able to bear a searching scrutiny. She began to +suspect that her whole course with her son had been wrong from the very +beginning. Why had she not told him the stern truth, even if he should +despise her for it, even if she should have to stand a blushing culprit +in his presence? Often, when she heard his footsteps in the hall, as +he returned from the work of the day, she would man herself up and the +words hovered upon her lips: "Son, thou art a bastard born, a child of +guilt, and thy mother is an outcast upon the earth." But when she met +those calm blue eyes of his, saw the unsuspecting frankness of his +manner and the hopefulness with which he looked to the future, her +womanly heart shrank from its duty, and she hastened out of the room, +threw herself on her bed, and wept. Fiercely she wrestled with God in +prayer, until she thought that even God had deserted her. Thus months +passed and years, and the constant care and anxiety began to affect her +health. She grew pale and nervous, and the slightest noise would annoy +her. In the mean while, her manner toward the young man had become +strangely altered, and he soon noticed it, although he forbore to speak. +She was scrupulously mindful of his comfort, anxiously anticipated his +wants, and observed toward him an ever vigilant consideration, as if he +had been her master instead of her son. + +When Thomas was twenty-two years of age, he was offered a partnership in +his employer's business, and with every year his prospects brightened. +The sale of his mother's property brought him a very handsome little +fortune, which enabled him to build a fine and comfortable house in one +of the best portions of the city. Thus their outward circumstances were +greatly improved, and of comfort and luxury Brita had all and more than +she had ever desired; but her health was broken down, and the physicians +declared that a year of foreign travel and a continued residence in +Italy might possibly restore her. At last, Thomas, too, began to urge +her, until she finally yielded. It was on a bright morning in May that +they both started for New York, and three days later they took the boat +for Europe. What countries they were to visit they had hardly decided, +but after a brief stay in England we find them again on a steamer bound +for Norway. + + + + +IV. + + +Warm and gentle as it is, June often comes to the fjord-valleys of +Norway with the voice and the strength of a giant. The glaciers +totter and groan, as if in anger at their own weakness, and send huge +avalanches of stones and ice down into the valleys. The rivers swell and +rush with vociferous brawl out over the mountainsides, and a thousand +tiny brooks join in the general clamor, and dance with noisy chatter +over the moss-grown birch-roots. But later, when the struggle is at an +end, and June has victoriously seated herself upon her throne, her voice +becomes more richly subdued and brings rest and comfort to the ear and +to the troubled heart. It was while the month was in this latter mood +that Brita and her son entered once more the valley whence, twenty-five +years ago, they had fled. Many strange, turbulent emotions stirred the +mother's bosom, as she saw again the great snow-capped mountains, and +the calm, green valley, her childhood's home, lying so snugly sheltered +in their mighty embrace. Even Thomas's breast was moved with vaguely +sympathetic throbs, as this wondrous scene spread itself before him. +They soon succeeded in hiring a farm-house, about half an hour's walk +from Blakstad, and, according to Brita's wish, established themselves +there for the summer. She had known the people well, when she was young, +but they never thought of identifying her with the merry maid, who had +once startled the parish by her sudden flight; and she, although she +longed to open her heart to them, let no word fall to betray her real +character. Her conscience accused her of playing a false part, but for +her son's sake she kept silent. + +Then, one day,--it was the second Sunday after their arrival,--she rose +early in the morning, and asked Thomas to accompany her on a walk up +through the valley. There was Sabbath in the air; the soft breath of +summer, laden with the perfume of fresh leaves and field-flowers, +gently wafted into their faces. The sun glittered in the dewy grass, the +crickets sung with a remote voice of wonder, and the air seemed to be +half visible, and moved in trembling wavelets on the path before them. +Resting on her son's arm, Brita walked slowly up through the flowering +meadows; she hardly knew whither her feet bore her, but her heart +beat violently, and she often was obliged to pause and press her hands +against her bosom, as if to stay the turbulent emotions. + +"You are not well, mother," said the son. "It was imprudent in me to +allow you to exert yourself in this way." + +"Let us sit down on this stone," answered she. "I shall soon be better. +Do not look so anxiously at me. Indeed, I am not sick." + +He spread his light summer coat on the stone and carefully seated her. +She lifted her veil and raised her eyes to the large red-roofed mansion, +whose dark outlines drew themselves dimly on the dusky background of the +pine forest. Was he still alive, he whose life-hope she had wrecked, he +who had once driven her out into the night with all but a curse upon his +lips? How would he receive her, if she were to return? Ah, she knew him, +and she trembled at the very thought of meeting him. But was not the +guilt hers? Could she depart from this valley, could she die in peace, +without having thrown herself at his feet and implored his forgiveness? +And there, on the opposite side of the valley, lay the home of him who +had been the cause of all her misery. What had been his fate, and did he +still remember those long happy summer days, ah! so long, long ago? She +had dared to ask no questions of the people with whom she lived, but +now a sudden weakness had overtaken her, and she felt that to-day must +decide her fate; she could no longer bear this torture of uncertainty. +Thomas remained standing at her side and looked at her with anxiety +and wonder. He knew that she had concealed many things from him, but +whatever her reasons might be, he was confident that they were just and +weighty. It was not for him to question her about what he might have no +right to know. He felt as if he had never loved her as in this +moment, when she seemed to be most in need of him, and an overwhelming +tenderness took possession of his heart. He suddenly stooped down, took +her pale, thin face between his hands and kissed her. The long pent-up +emotion burst forth in a flood of tears; she buried her face in her lap +and wept long and silently. Then the church-bells began to peal down in +the valley, and the slow mighty sound floated calmly and solemnly up to +them. How many long-forgotten memories of childhood and youth did +they not wake in her bosom--memories of the time when the merry +Glitter-Brita, decked with her shining brooches, wended her way to the +church among the gayly-dressed lads and maidens of the parish? + +A cluster of white-stemmed birches threw its shadow over the stone where +the penitent mother was sitting, and the tall grass on both sides of +the path nearly hid her from sight. Presently the church-folk began to +appear, and Brita raised her head and drew her veil down over her face. +No one passed without greeting the strangers, and the women and maidens, +according to old fashion, stopped and courtesied. At last, there came +an old white-haired man, leaning on the arm of a middle-aged woman. His +whole figure was bent forward, and he often stopped and drew his breath +heavily. + +"Oh, yes, yes," he said, ill a hoarse, broken voice, as he passed before +them, "age is gaining on me fast. I can't move about any more as of old. +But to church I must this day. God help me! I have done much wrong and +need to pray for forgiveness." + +"You had better sit down and rest, father," said the woman. "Here is a +stone, and the fine lady, I am sure, will allow a weak old man to sit +down beside her." + +Thomas rose and made a sign to the old man to take his seat. + +"O yes, yes," he went on murmuring, as if talking to himself. "Much +wrong--much forgiveness. God help us all--miserable sinners. He who +hateth not father and mother--and daughter is not worthy of me. O, +yes--yes--God comfort us all. Help me up, Grimhild. I think I can move +on again, now." + +Thomas, of course, did not understand a word of what he said, but seeing +that he wished to rise, he willingly offered his assistance, supported +his arm and raised him. + +"Thanks to you, young man," said the peasant. "And may God reward your +kindness." + +And the two, father and daughter, moved on, slowly and laboriously, as +they had come. Thomas stood following them with his eyes, until a low, +half-stifled moan suddenly called him to his mother's side. Her frame +trembled violently. + +"Mother, mother," implored he, stooping over her, "what has happened? +Why are you no more yourself?" + +"Ah, my son, I can bear it no longer," sobbed she. "God forgive me--thou +must know it all." + +He sat down at her side and drew her closely up to him and she hid her +face on his bosom. There was a long silence, only broken by the loud +chirruping of the crickets. + +"My son," she began at last, still hiding her face, "thou art a child of +guilt." + +"That has been no secret to me, mother," answered he, gravely and +tenderly, "since I was old enough to know what guilt was." + +She quickly raised her head, and a look of amazement, of joyous +surprise, shone through the tears that veiled her eyes. She could read +nothing but filial love and confidence in those grave, manly features, +and she saw in that moment that all her doubts had been groundless, that +her long prayerful struggle had been for naught. + +"I brought thee into the world nameless," she whispered, "and thou hast +no word of reproach for me?" + +"With God's help, I am strong enough to conquer a name for myself, +mother," was his answer. + +It was the very words of her own secret wish, and upon his lips they +sounded like a blessed assurance, like a miraculous fulfillment of her +motherly prayer. + +"Still, another thing, my child," she went on in a more confident voice. +"This is thy native land,--and the old man who was just sitting here at +my side was--my father." + +And there, in the shadow of the birch-trees, in the summer stillness of +that hour, she told him the story of her love, of her flight, and of the +misery of these long, toilsome five and twenty years. + +Late in the afternoon, Brita and her son were seen returning to +the farm-house. A calm, subdued happiness beamed from the mother's +countenance; she was again at peace with the world and herself, and her +heart was as light as in the days of her early youth. But her bodily +strength had given out, and her limbs almost refused to support her. The +strain upon her nerves and the constant effort had hitherto enabled +her to keep up, but now, when that strain was removed, exhausted nature +claimed its right. The next day--she could not leave her bed, and +with every hour her strength failed. A physician was sent for. He gave +medicine, but no hope. He shook his head gravely, as he went, and both +mother and son knew what that meant. + +Toward evening, Bjarne Blakstad was summoned, and came at once. Thomas +left the room, as the old man entered, and what passed in that hour +between father and daughter, only God knows. When the door was again +opened, Brita's eyes shone with a strange brilliancy, and Bjarne lay on +his knees before the bed, pressing her hand convulsively between both of +his. + +"This is my son, father," said she, in a language which her son did not +understand; and a faint smile of motherly pride and happiness flitted +over her pale features. "I would give him to thee in return for what +thou hast lost; but God has laid his future in another land." + +Bjarne rose, grasped his grandson's hand, and pressed it; and two heavy +tears ran down his furrowed cheeks. "Alas," murmured he, "my son, that +we should meet thus." + +There they stood, bound together by the bonds of blood, but, alas, there +lay a world between them. + +All night they sat together at the dying woman's bedside. Not a word +was spoken. Toward morning, as the sun stole into the darkened chamber, +Brita murmured their names, and they laid their hands in hers. + +"God be praised," whispered she, scarcely audibly, "I have found you +both--my father and my son." A deep pallor spread over her countenance. +She was dead. + +Two days later, when the body was laid out, Thomas stood alone in the +room. The windows were covered with white sheets, and a subdued light +fell upon the pale, lifeless countenance. Death had dealt gently with +her, she seemed younger than before, and her light wavy hair fell softly +over the white forehead. Then there came a middle-aged man, with a dull +eye, and a broad forehead, and timidly approached the lonely mourner. +He walked on tip-toe and his figure stooped heavily. For a long while +he stood gazing at the dead body, then he knelt down at the foot of the +coffin, and began to sob violently. At last he arose, took two steps +toward the young man, paused again, and departed silently as he had +come. It was Halvard. + +Close under the wall of the little red-painted church, they dug the +grave; and a week later her father was laid to rest at his daughter's +side. + +But the fresh winds blew over the Atlantic and beckoned the son to new +fields of labor in the great land of the future. + + + + +A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING. + +RALPH GRIM was born a gentleman. He had the misfortune of coming into +the world some ten years later than might reasonably have been expected. +Colonel Grim and his lady had celebrated twelve anniversaries of their +wedding-day, and had given up all hopes of ever having a son and heir, +when this late-comer startled them by his unexpected appearance. The +only previous addition to the family had been a daughter, and she was +then ten summers old. + +Ralph was a very feeble child, and could only with great difficulty be +persuaded to retain his hold of the slender thread which bound him to +existence. He was rubbed with whisky, and wrapped in cotton, and given +mare's milk to drink, and God knows what not, and the Colonel swore a +round oath of paternal delight when at last the infant stopped gasping +in that distressing way and began to breathe like other human beings. +The mother, who, in spite of her anxiety for the child's life, had found +time to plot for him a career of future magnificence, now suddenly set +him apart for literature, because that was the easiest road to fame, and +disposed of him in marriage to one of the most distinguished families of +the land. She cautiously suggested this to her husband when he came to +take his seat at her bedside; but to her utter astonishment she found +that he had been indulging a similar train of thought, and had already +destined the infant prodigy for the army. She, however, could not give +up her predilection for literature, and the Colonel, who could not bear +to be contradicted in his own house, as he used to say, was getting +every minute louder and more flushed, when, happily, the doctor's +arrival interrupted the dispute. + +As Ralph grew up from infancy to childhood, he began to give decided +promise of future distinction. He was fond of sitting down in a corner +and sucking his thumb, which his mother interpreted as the sign of that +brooding disposition peculiar to poets and men of lofty genius. At the +age of five, he had become sole master in the house. He slapped his +sister Hilda in the face, or pulled her hair, when she hesitated to +obey him, tyrannized over his nurse, and sternly refused to go to bed in +spite of his mother's entreaties. On such occasions, the Colonel would +hide his face behind his newspaper, and chuckle with delight; it was +evident that nature had intended his son for a great military commander. +As soon as Ralph himself was old enough to have any thoughts about his +future destiny, he made up his mind that he would like to be a pirate. +A few months later, having contracted an immoderate taste for candy, he +contented himself with the comparatively humble position of a baker; but +when he had read "Robinson Crusoe," he manifested a strong desire to go +to sea in the hope of being wrecked on some desolate island. The parents +spent long evenings gravely discussing these indications of uncommon +genius, and each interpreted them in his or her own way. + +"He is not like any other child I ever knew," said the mother. + +"To be sure," responded the father, earnestly. "He is a most +extraordinary child. I was a very remarkable child too, even if I do say +it myself; but, as far as I remember, I never aspired to being wrecked +on an uninhabited is land." + +The Colonel probably spoke the truth; but he forgot to take into account +that he had never read "Robinson Crusoe." + +Of Ralph's school-days there is but little to report, for, to tell the +truth, he did not fancy going to school, as the discipline annoyed him. +The day after his having entered the gymnasium, which was to prepare +him for the Military Academy, the principal saw him waiting at the gate +after his class had been dismissed. He approached him, and asked why he +did not go home with the rest. + +"I am waiting for the servant to carry my books," was the boy's answer. + +"Give me your books," said the teacher. + +Ralph reluctantly obeyed. That day the Colonel was not a little +surprised to see his son marching up the street, and every now and then +glancing behind him with a look of discomfort at the principal, who +was following quietly in his train, carrying a parcel of school-books. +Colonel Grim and his wife, divining the teacher's intention, agreed that +it was a great outrage, but they did not mention the matter to Ralph. +Henceforth, however, the boy refused to be accompanied by his servant. A +week later he was impudent to the teacher of gymnastics, who whipped him +in return. The Colonel's rage knew no bounds; he rode in great haste to +the gymnasium, reviled the teacher for presuming to chastise HIS son, +and committed the boy to the care of a private tutor. + +At the age of sixteen, Ralph went to the capital with the intention of +entering the Military Academy. He was a tall, handsome youth, slender of +stature, and carried himself as erect as a candle. He had a light, clear +complexion of almost feminine delicacy; blonde, curly hair, which he +always kept carefully brushed; a low forehead, and a straight, finely +modeled nose. There was an expression of extreme sensitiveness about +the nostrils, and a look of indolence in the dark-blue eyes. But the +ensemble of his features was pleasing, his dress irreproachable, and his +manners bore no trace of the awkward self-consciousness peculiar to his +age. Immediately on his arrival in the capital he hired a suite of +rooms in the aristocratic part of the city, and furnished them rather +expensively, but in excellent taste. From a bosom friend, whom he met +by accident in the restaurant's pavilion in the park, he learned that +a pair of antlers, a stuffed eagle, or falcon, and a couple of swords, +were indispensable to a well-appointed apartment. He accordingly bought +these articles at a curiosity-shop. During the first weeks of his +residence in the city he made some feeble efforts to perfect himself in +mathematics, in which he suspected he was somewhat deficient. But when +the same officious friend laughed at him, and called him "green," he +determined to trust to fortune, and henceforth devoted himself the +more assiduously to the French ballet, where he had already made some +interesting acquaintances. + +The time for the examination came; the French ballet did not prove a +good preparation; Ralph failed. It quite shook him for the time, and +he felt humiliated. He had not the courage to tell his father; so he +lingered on from day to day, sat vacantly gazing out of his window, and +tried vainly to interest himself in the busy bustle down on the street. +It provoked him that everybody else should be so light-hearted, when +he was, or at least fancied himself, in trouble. The parlor grew +intolerable; he sought refuge in his bedroom. There he sat one evening +(it was the third day after the examination), and stared out upon the +gray stone walls which on all sides enclosed the narrow court-yard. +The round stupid face of the moon stood tranquilly dozing like a great +Limburger cheese suspended under the sky. + +Ralph, at least, could think of a no more fitting simile. But the +bright-eyed young girl in the window hard by sent a longing look up to +the same moon, and thought of her distant home on the fjords, where the +glaciers stood like hoary giants, and caught the yellow moonbeams on +their glittering shields of snow. She had been reading "Ivanhoe" all the +afternoon, until the twilight had overtaken her quite unaware, and +now she suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to write her German +exercise. She lifted her face and saw a pair of sad, vacant eyes, gazing +at her from the next window in the angle of the court. She was a little +startled at first, but in the next moment she thought of her German +exercise and took heart. + +"Do you know German?" she said; then immediately repented that she had +said it. + +"I do," was the answer. + +She took up her apron and began to twist it with an air of +embarrassment. + +"I didn't mean anything," she whispered, at last. "I only wanted to +know." + +"You are very kind." + +That answer roused her; he was evidently making sport of her. + +"Well, then, if you do, you may write my exercise for me. I have marked +the place in the book." + +And she flung her book over to his window, and he caught it on the edge +of the sill, just as it was falling. + +"You are a very strange girl," he remarked, turning over the leaves of +the book, although it was too dark to read. "How old are you?" + +"I shall be fourteen six weeks before Christmas," answered she, frankly. + +"Then I excuse you." + +"No, indeed," cried she, vehemently. "You needn't excuse me at all. If +you don't want to write my exercise, you may send the book back again. I +am very sorry I spoke to you, and I shall never do it again." + +"But you will not get the book back again without the exercise," replied +he, quietly. "Good-night." + +The girl stood long looking after him, hoping that he would return. +Then, with a great burst of repentance, she hid her face in her lap, and +began to cry. + +"Oh, dear, I didn't mean to be rude," she sobbed. "But it was Ivanhoe +and Rebecca who upset me." + +The next morning she was up before daylight, and waited for two long +hours in great suspense before the curtain of his window was raised. He +greeted her politely; threw a hasty glance around the court to see if he +was observed, and then tossed her book dexterously over into her hands. + +"I have pinned the written exercise to the fly-leaf," he said. "You will +probably have time to copy it before breakfast." + +"I am ever so much obliged to you," she managed to stammer. + +He looked so tall and handsome, and grown-up, and her remorse stuck in +her throat, and threatened to choke her. She had taken him for a boy as +he sat there in his window the evening before. + +"By the way, what is your name?" he asked, carelessly, as he turned to +go. + +"Bertha." + +"Well, my dear Bertha, I am happy to have made your acquaintance." + +And he again made her a polite bow, and entered his parlor. + +"How provokingly familiar he is," thought she; "but no one can deny that +he is handsome." + +The bright roguish face of the young girl haunted Ralph during the whole +next week. He had been in love at least ten times before, of course; +but, like most boys, with young ladies far older than himself. He found +himself frequently glancing over to her window in the hope of catching +another glimpse of her face; but the curtain was always drawn down, +and Bertha remained invisible. During the second week, however, she +relented, and they had many a pleasant chat together. He now volunteered +to write all her exercises, and she made no objections. He learned that +she was the daughter of a well-to-do peasant in the sea-districts of +Norway (and it gave him quite a shock to hear it), and that she was +going to school in the city, and boarded with an old lady who kept a +pension in the house adjoining the one in which he lived. + +One day in the autumn Ralph was surprised by the sudden arrival of his +father, and the fact of his failure in the examination could no longer +be kept a secret. The old Colonel flared up at once when Ralph made +his confession; the large veins upon his forehead swelled; he grew +coppery-red in his face, and stormed up and down the floor, until his +son became seriously alarmed; but, to his great relief, he was soon made +aware that his father's wrath was not turned against him personally, but +against the officials of the Military Academy who had rejected him. The +Colonel took it as an insult to his own good name and irreproachable +standing as an officer; he promptly refused any other explanation, and +vainly racked his brain to remember if any youthful folly of his could +possibly have made him enemies among the teachers of the Academy. He +at last felt satisfied that it was envy of his own greatness and rapid +advancement which had induced the rascals to take vengeance on his son. +Ralph reluctantly followed his father back to the country town where +the latter was stationed, and the fair-haired Bertha vanished from his +horizon. His mother's wish now prevailed, and he began, in his own easy +way, to prepare himself for the University. He had little taste for +Cicero, and still less for Virgil, but with the use of a "pony" he soon +gained sufficient knowledge of these authors to be able to talk in a +sort of patronizing way about them, to the great delight of his fond +parents. He took quite a fancy, however, to the ode in Horace ending +with the lines: + + Dulce ridentem, + Dulce loquentem, + Lalagen amabo. + +And in his thought he substituted for Lalage the fair-haired Bertha, +quite regardless of the requirements of the metre. + +To make a long story short, three years later Ralph returned to the +capital, and, after having worn out several tutors, actually succeeded +in entering the University. + +The first year of college life is a happy time to every young man, and +Ralph enjoyed its processions, its parliamentary gatherings, and +its leisure, as well as the rest. He was certainly not the man to be +sentimental over the loss of a young girl whom, moreover, he had only +known for a few weeks. Nevertheless, he thought of her at odd times, but +not enough to disturb his pleasure. The standing of his family, his own +handsome appearance, and his immaculate linen opened to him the best +houses of the city, and he became a great favorite in society. At +lectures he was seldom seen, but more frequently in the theatres, where +he used to come in during the middle of the first act, take his station +in front of the orchestra box, and eye, through his lorgnettes, by +turns, the actresses and the ladies of the parquet. + + + + +II. + + +Two months passed, and then came the great annual ball which the +students give at the opening of the second semester. Ralph was a man of +importance that evening; first, because he belonged to a great family; +secondly, because he was the handsomest man of his year. He wore a large +golden star on his breast (for his fellow-students had made him a Knight +of the Golden Boar), and a badge of colored ribbons in his button-hole. + +The ball was a brilliant affair, and everybody was in excellent spirits, +especially the ladies. Ralph danced incessantly, twirled his soft +mustache, and uttered amiable platitudes. It was toward midnight, just +as the company was moving out to supper, that he caught the glance of a +pair of dark-blue eyes, which suddenly drove the blood to his cheeks +and hastened the beating of his heart. But when he looked once more the +dark-blue eyes were gone, and his unruly heart went on hammering against +his side. He laid his hand on his breast and glanced furtively at his +fair neighbor, but she looked happy and unconcerned, for the flavor of +the ice-cream was delicious. It seemed an endless meal, but, when it +was done, Ralph rose, led his partner back to the ball-room, and hastily +excused himself. His glance wandered round the wide hall, seeking the +well-remembered eyes once more, and, at length, finding them in a remote +corner, half hid behind a moving wall of promenaders. In another moment +he was at Bertha's side. + +"You must have been purposely hiding yourself, Miss Bertha," said he, +when the usual greetings were exchanged. "I have not caught a glimpse of +you all this evening, until a few moments ago." + +"But I have seen you all the while," answered the girl, frankly. "I knew +you at once as I entered the hall." + +"If I had but known that you were here," resumed Ralph, as it were, +invisibly expanding with an agreeable sense of dignity, "I assure you, +you would have been the very first one I should have sought." + +She raised her large grave eyes to his, as if questioning his sincerity; +but she made no answer. + +"Good gracious!" thought Ralph. "She takes things terribly in earnest." + +"You look so serious, Miss Bertha," said he, after a moment's pause. "I +remember you as a bright-eyed, flaxen-haired little girl, who threw her +German exercise-book to me across the yard, and whose merry laughter +still rings pleasantly in my memory. I confess I don't find it quite +easy to identify this grave young lady with my merry friend of three +years ago." + +"In other words, you are disappointed at not finding me the same as I +used to be." + +"No, not exactly that; but--" + +Ralph paused and looked puzzled. There was something in the earnestness +of her manner which made a facetious compliment seem grossly +inappropriate, and in the moment no other escape suggested itself. + +"But what?" demanded Bertha, mercilessly. + +"Have you ever lost an old friend?" asked he, abruptly. + +"Yes; how so?" + +"Then," answered he, while his features lighted up with a happy +inspiration--"then you will appreciate my situation. I fondly cherished +my old picture of you in my memory. Now I have lost it, and I cannot +help regretting the loss. I do not mean, however, to imply that this new +acquaintance--this second edition of yourself, so to speak--will prove +less interesting." + +She again sent him a grave, questioning look, and began to gaze intently +upon the stone in her bracelet. + +"I suppose you will laugh at me," began she, while a sudden blush +flitted over her countenance. "But this is my first ball, and I feel +as if I had rushed into a whirlpool, from which I have, since the first +rash plunge was made, been vainly trying to escape. I feel so dreadfully +forlorn. I hardly know anybody here except my cousin, who invited me, +and I hardly think I know him either." + +"Well, since you are irredeemably committed," replied Ralph, as the +music, after some prefatory flourishes, broke into the delicious rhythm +of a Strauss waltz, "then it is no use struggling against fate. Come, +let us make the plunge together. Misery loves company." + +He offered her his arm, and she arose, somewhat hesitatingly, and +followed. + +"I am afraid," she whispered, as they fell into line with the procession +that was moving down the long hall, "that you have asked me to dance +merely because I said I felt forlorn. If that is the case, I should +prefer to be led back to my seat." + +"What a base imputation!" cried Ralph. + +There was something so charmingly naïve in this self-depreciation-- +something so altogether novel in his experience, and, he could not help +adding, just a little bit countrified. His spirits rose; he began to +relish keenly his position as an experienced man of the world, and, in +the agreeable glow of patronage and conscious superiority, chatted with +hearty ABANDON with his little rustic beauty. + +"If your dancing is as perfect as your German exercises were," said she, +laughing, as they swung out upon the floor, "then I promise myself a +good deal of pleasure from our meeting." + +"Never fear," answered he, quickly reversing his step, and whirling with +many a capricious turn away among the thronging couples. + +When Ralph drove home in his carriage toward morning he briefly summed +up his impressions of Bertha in the following adjectives: intelligent, +delightfully unsophisticated, a little bit verdant, but devilish pretty. + +Some weeks later Colonel Grim received an appointment at the fortress of +Aggershuus, and immediately took up his residence in the capital. He saw +that his son cut a fine figure in the highest circles of society, and +expressed his gratification in the most emphatic terms. If he had +known, however, that Ralph was in the habit of visiting, with alarming +regularity, at the house of a plebeian merchant in a somewhat obscure +street, he would, no doubt, have been more chary of his praise. But the +Colonel suspected nothing, and it was well for the peace of the family +that he did not. It may have been cowardice in Ralph that he +never mentioned Bertha's name to his family or to his aristocratic +acquaintances; for, to be candid, he himself felt ashamed of the power +she exerted over him, and by turns pitied and ridiculed himself for +pursuing so inglorious a conquest. Nevertheless it wounded his egotism +that she never showed any surprise at seeing him, that she received +him with a certain frank unceremoniousness, which, however, was very +becoming to her; that she invariably went on with her work heedless +of his presence, and in everything treated him as if she had been his +equal. She persisted in talking with him in a half sisterly fashion +about his studies and his future career, warned him with great +solicitude against some of his reprobate friends, of whose merry +adventures he had told her; and if he ventured to compliment her on +her beauty or her accomplishments, she would look up gravely from +her sewing, or answer him in a way which seemed to banish the idea of +love-making into the land of the impossible. He was constantly tormented +by the suspicion that she secretly disapproved of him, and that from a +mere moral interest in his welfare she was conscientiously laboring +to make him a better man. Day after day he parted from her feeling +humiliated, faint-hearted, and secretly indignant both at himself and +her, and day after day he returned only to renew the same experience. +At last it became too intolerable, he could endure it no longer. Let it +make or break, certainty, at all risks, was at least preferable to this +sickening suspense. That he loved her, he could no longer doubt; let his +parents foam and fret as much as they pleased; for once he was going to +stand on his own legs. And in the end, he thought, they would have to +yield, for they had no son but him. + +Bertha was going to return to her home on the sea-coast in a week. +Ralph stood in the little low-ceiled parlor, as she imagined, to bid her +good-bye. They had been speaking of her father, her brothers, and the +farm, and she had expressed the wish that if he ever should come to that +part of the country he might pay them a visit. Her words had kindled +a vague hope in his breast, but in their very frankness and friendly +regard there was something which slew the hope they had begotten. He +held her hand in his, and her large confiding eyes shone with an emotion +which was beautiful, but was yet not love. + +"If you were but a peasant born like myself," said she, in a voice which +sounded almost tender, "then I should like to talk to you as I would to +my own brother; but--" + +"No, not brother, Bertha," cried he, with sudden vehemence; "I love you +better than I ever loved any earthly being, and if you knew how firmly +this love has clutched at the roots of my heart, you would perhaps--you +would at least not look so reproachfully at me." + +She dropped his hand, and stood for a moment silent. + +"I am sorry that it should have come to this, Mr. Grim," said she, +visibly struggling for calmness. "And I am perhaps more to blame than +you." + +"Blame," muttered he, "why are you to blame?" + +"Because I do not love you; although I sometimes feared that this might +come. But then again I persuaded myself that it could not be so." + +He took a step toward the door, laid his hand on the knob, and gazed +down before him. + +"Bertha," began he, slowly, raising his head, "you have always +disapproved of me, you have despised me in your heart, but you thought +you would be doing a good work if you succeeded in making a man of me." + +"You use strong language," answered she, hesitatingly; "but there is +truth in what you say." + +Again there was a long pause, in which the ticking of the old parlor +clock grew louder and louder. + +"Then," he broke out at last, "tell me before we part if I can do +nothing to gain--I will not say your love--but only your regard? What +would you do if you were in my place?" + +"My advice you will hardly heed, and I do not even know that it would +be well if you did. But if I were a man in your position, I should break +with my whole past, start out into the world where nobody knew me, and +where I should be dependent only upon my own strength, and there I would +conquer a place for myself, if it were only for the satisfaction of +knowing that I was really a man. Here cushions are sewed under your +arms, a hundred invisible threads bind you to a life of idleness and +vanity, everybody is ready to carry you on his hands, the road is +smoothed for you, every stone carefully moved out of your path, and you +will probably go to your grave without having ever harbored one earnest +thought, without having done one manly deed." + +Ralph stood transfixed, gazing at her with open mouth; he felt a kind of +stupid fright, as if some one had suddenly seized him by the shoulders +and shaken him violently. He tried vainly to remove his eyes from +Bertha. She held him as by a powerful spell. He saw that her face was +lighted with an altogether new beauty; he noticed the deep glow upon her +cheek, the brilliancy of her eye, the slight quiver of her lip. But he +saw all this as one sees things in a half-trance, without attempting to +account for them; the door between his soul and his senses was closed. + +"I know that I have been bold in speaking to you in this way," she said +at last, seating herself in a chair at the window. "But it was yourself +who asked me. And I have felt all the time that I should have to tell +you this before we parted." + +"And," answered he, making a strong effort to appear calm, "if I follow +your advice, will you allow me to see you once more before you go?" + +"I shall remain here another week, and shall, during that time, always +be ready to receive you." + +"Thank you. Good-bye." + +"Good-bye." + +Ralph carefully avoided all the fashionable thoroughfares; he felt +degraded before himself, and he had an idea that every man could read +his humiliation in his countenance. Now he walked on quickly, striking +the sidewalk with his heels; now, again, he fell into an uneasy, +reckless saunter, according as the changing moods inspired defiance +of his sentence, or a qualified surrender. And, as he walked on, the +bitterness grew within him, and he pitilessly reviled himself for having +allowed himself to be made a fool of by "that little country goose," +when he was well aware that there were hundreds of women of the best +families of the land who would feel honored at receiving his attentions. +But this sort of reasoning he knew to be both weak and contemptible, and +his better self soon rose in loud rebellion. + +"After all," he muttered, "in the main thing she was right. I am a +miserable good-for-nothing, a hot-house plant, a poor stick, and if I +were a woman myself, I don't think I should waste my affections on a man +of that calibre." + +Then he unconsciously fell to analyzing Bertha's character, wondering +vaguely that a person who moved so timidly in social life, appearing +so diffident, from an ever-present fear of blundering against the +established forms of etiquette, could judge so quickly, and with such a +merciless certainty, whenever a moral question, a question of right +and wrong, was at issue. And, pursuing the same train of thought, he +contrasted her with himself, who moved in the highest spheres of society +as in his native element, heedless of moral scruples, and conscious of +no loftier motive for his actions than the immediate pleasure of the +moment. + +As Ralph turned the corner of a street, he heard himself hailed from the +other sidewalk by a chorus of merry voices. + +"Ah, my dear Baroness," cried a young man, springing across the street +and grasping Ralph's hand (all his student friends called him the +Baroness), "in the name of this illustrious company, allow me to salute +you. But why the deuce--what is the matter with you? If you have the +Katzenjammer, [7] soda-water is the thing. Come along,--it's my treat!" + +The students instantly thronged around Ralph, who stood distractedly +swinging his cane and smiling idiotically. + +"I am not quite well," said he; "leave me alone." + +"No, to be sure, you don't look well," cried a jolly youth, against +whom Bertha had frequently warned him; "but a glass of sherry will soon +restore you. It would be highly immoral to leave you in this condition +without taking care of you." + +Ralph again vainly tried to remonstrate; but the end was, that he +reluctantly followed. + +He had always been a conspicuous figure in the student world; but that +night he astonished his friends by his eloquence, his reckless humor, +and his capacity for drinking. He made a speech for "Woman," which +bristled with wit, cynicism, and sarcastic epigrams. One young man, +named Vinter, who was engaged, undertook to protest against his sweeping +condemnation, and declared that Ralph, who was a Universal favorite +among the ladies, ought to be the last to revile them. + +"If," he went on, "the Baroness should propose to six well-known +ladies here in this city whom I could mention, I would wager six +Johannisbergers, and an equal amount of champagne, that every one of +them would accept him." + +The others loudly applauded this proposal, and Ralph accepted the wager. +The letters were written on the spot, and immediately dispatched. Toward +morning, the merry carousal broke up, and Ralph was conducted in triumph +to his home. + + + + +III. + + +Two days later, Ralph again knocked on Bertha's door. He looked paler +than usual, almost haggard; his immaculate linen was a little crumpled, +and he carried no cane; his lips were tightly compressed, and his face +wore an air of desperate resolution. + +"It is done," he said, as he seated himself opposite her. "I am going." + +"Going!" cried she, startled at his unusual appearance. "How, where?" + +"To America. I sail to-night. I have followed your advice, you see. I +have cut off the last bridge behind me." + +"But, Ralph," she exclaimed, in a voice of alarm. "Something dreadful +must have happened. Tell me quick; I must know it." + +"No; nothing dreadful," muttered he, smiling bitterly. "I have made +a little scandal, that is all. My father told me to-day to go to the +devil, if I chose, and my mother gave me five hundred dollars to help me +along on the way. If you wish to know, here is the explanation." + +And he pulled from his pocket six perfumed and carefully folded notes, +and threw them into her lap. + +"Do you wish me to read them?" she asked, with growing surprise. + +"Certainly. Why not?" + +She hastily opened one note after the other, and read. + +"But, Ralph," she cried, springing up from her seat, while her eyes +flamed with indignation, "what does this mean? What have you done?" + +"I didn't think it needed any explanation," replied he, with feigned +indifference. "I proposed to them all, and, you see, they all accepted +me. I received all these letters to-day. I only wished to know whether +the whole world regarded me as such a worthless scamp as you told me I +was." + +She did not answer, but sat mutely staring at him, fiercely crumpling a +rose-colored note in her hand. He began to feel uncomfortable under her +gaze, and threw himself about uneasily in his chair. + +"Well," said he, at length, rising, "I suppose there is nothing more. +Good-bye." + +"One moment, Mr. Grim," demanded she, sternly. "Since I have already +said so much, and you have obligingly revealed to me a new side of your +character, I claim the right to correct the opinion I expressed of you +at our last meeting." + +"I am all attention." + +"I did think, Mr. Grim," began she, breathing hard, and steadying +herself against the table at which she stood, "that you were a very +selfish man--an embodiment of selfishness, absolute and supreme, but I +did not believe that you were wicked." + +"And what convinced you that I was selfish, if I may ask?" + +"What convinced me?" repeated she, in a tone of inexpressible contempt. +"When did you ever act from any generous regard for others? What good +did you ever do to anybody?" + +"You might ask, with equal justice, what good I ever did to myself." + +"In a certain sense, yes; because to gratify a mere momentary wish is +hardly doing one's self good." + +"Then I have, at all events, followed the Biblical precept, and treated +my neighbor very much as I treat myself." + +"I did think," continued Bertha, without heeding the remark, "that you +were at bottom kind-hearted, but too hopelessly well-bred ever to commit +an act of any decided complexion, either good or bad. Now I see that +I have misjudged you, and that you are capable of outraging the most +sacred feelings of a woman's heart in mere wantonness, or for the sake +of satisfying a base curiosity, which never could have entered the mind +of an upright and generous man." + +The hard, benumbed look in Ralph's face thawed in the warmth of her +presence, and her words, though stern, touched a secret spring in his +heart. He made two or three vain attempts to speak, then suddenly broke +down, and cried: + +"Bertha, Bertha, even if you scorn me, have patience with me, and +listen." + +And he told her, in rapid, broken sentences, how his love for her had +grown from day to day, until he could no longer master it; and how, in +an unguarded moment, when his pride rose in fierce conflict against +his love, he had done this reckless deed of which he was now heartily +ashamed. The fervor of his words touched her, for she felt that they +were sincere. Large mute tears trembled in her eyelashes as she sat +gazing tenderly at him, and in the depth of her soul the wish awoke that +she might have been able to return this great and strong love of his; +for she felt that in this love lay the germ of a new, of a stronger and +better man. She noticed, with a half-regretful pleasure, his handsome +figure, his delicately shaped hands, and the noble cast of his features; +an overwhelming pity for him rose within her, and she began to reproach +herself for having spoken so harshly, and, as she now thought, so +unjustly. Perhaps he read in her eyes the unspoken wish. He seized her +hand, and his words fell with a warm and alluring cadence upon her ear. + +"I shall not see you for a long time to come, Bertha," said he, "but if, +at the end of five or six years your hand is still free, and I +return another man--a man to whom you could safely intrust your +happiness--would you then listen to what I may have to say to you? For I +promise, by all that we both hold sacred--" + +"No, no," interrupted she, hastily. "Promise nothing. It would be unjust +to--yourself, and perhaps also to me; for a sacred promise is a terrible +thing, Ralph. Let us both remain free; and, if you return and still love +me, then come, and I shall receive you and listen to you. And even if +you have outgrown your love, which is, indeed, more probable, come still +to visit me wherever I may be, and we shall meet as friends and rejoice +in the meeting." + +"You know best," he murmured. "Let it be as you have said." + +He arose, took her face between his hands, gazed long and tenderly into +her eyes, pressed a kiss upon her forehead, and hastened away. + +That night Ralph boarded the steamer for Hull, and three weeks later +landed in New York. + + + + +IV. + + +The first three months of Ralph's sojourn in America were spent in vain +attempts to obtain a situation. Day after day he walked down Broadway, +calling at various places of business and night after night he returned +to his cheerless room with a faint heart and declining spirits. It was, +after all, a more serious thing than he had imagined, to cut the cable +which binds one to the land of one's birth. There a hundred subtile +influences, the existence of which no one suspects until the moment they +are withdrawn, unite to keep one in the straight path of rectitude, or +at least of external respectability; and Ralph's life had been all in +society; the opinion of his fellow-men had been the one force to which +he implicitly deferred, and the conscience by which he had been wont +to test his actions had been nothing but the aggregate judgment of his +friends. To such a man the isolation and the utter irresponsibility of a +life among strangers was tenfold more dangerous; and Ralph found, to his +horror, that his character contained innumerable latent possibilities +which the easygoing life in his home probably never would have revealed +to him. It often cut him to the quick, when, on entering an office in +his daily search for employment, he was met by hostile or suspicious +glances, or when, as it occasionally happened, the door was slammed in +his face, as if he were a vagabond or an impostor. Then the wolf was +often roused within him, and he felt a momentary wild desire to become +what the people here evidently believed him to be. Many a night he +sauntered irresolutely about the gambling places in obscure streets, +and the glare of light, the rude shouts and clamors in the same moment +repelled and attracted him. If he went to the devil, who would care? His +father had himself pointed out the way to him; and nobody could blame +him if he followed the advice. But then again a memory emerged from that +chamber of his soul which still he held sacred; and Bertha's deep-blue +eyes gazed upon him with their earnest look of tender warning and +regret. + +When the summer was half gone, Ralph had gained many a hard victory over +himself, and learned many a useful lesson; and at length he swallowed +his pride, divested himself of his fine clothes, and accepted a +position as assistant gardener at a villa on the Hudson. And as he stood +perspiring with a spade in his hand, and a cheap broad-brimmed straw hat +on his head, he often took a grim pleasure in picturing to himself +how his aristocratic friends at home would receive him, if he should +introduce himself to them in this new costume. + +"After all, it was only my position they cared for," he reflected, +bitterly; "without my father's name what would I be to them?" + +Then, again, there was a certain satisfaction in knowing that, for +his present situation, humble as it was, he was indebted to nobody but +himself; and the thought that Bertha's eyes, if they could have seen him +now would have dwelt upon him with pleasure and approbation, went far to +console him for his aching back, his sunburned face, and his swollen and +blistered hands. + +One day, as Ralph was raking the gravel-walks in the garden, his +employer's daughter, a young lady of seventeen, came out and spoke to +him. His culture and refinement of manner struck her with wonder, and +she asked him to tell her his history; but then he suddenly grew very +grave, and she forbore pressing him. From that time she attached a kind +of romantic interest to him, and finally induced her father to obtain +him a situation that would be more to his taste. And, before winter +came, Ralph saw the dawn of a new future glimmering before him. He had +wrestled bravely with fate, and had once more gained a victory. He began +the career in which success and distinction awaited him, as proof-reader +on a newspaper in the city. He had fortunately been familiar with the +English language before he left home, and by the strength of his will he +conquered all difficulties. At the end of two years he became attached +to the editorial staff; new ambitious hopes, hitherto foreign to his +mind, awoke within him; and with joyous tumult of heart he saw life +opening its wide vistas before him, and he labored on manfully to repair +the losses of the past, and to prepare himself for greater usefulness in +times to come. He felt in himself a stronger and fuller manhood, as if +the great arteries of the vast universal world-life pulsed in his own +being. The drowsy, indolent existence at home appeared like a dull +remote dream from which he had awaked, and he blessed the destiny which, +by its very sternness, had mercifully saved him; he blessed her, too, +who, from the very want of love for him, had, perhaps, made him worthier +of love. + +The years flew rapidly. Society had flung its doors open to him, and +what was more, he had found some warm friends, in whose houses he +could come and go at pleasure. He enjoyed keenly the privilege of daily +association with high-minded and refined women; their eager activity +of intellect stimulated him, their exquisite ethereal grace and their +delicately chiseled beauty satisfied his aesthetic cravings, and the +responsive vivacity of their nature prepared him ever new surprises. +He felt a strange fascination in the presence of these women, and the +conviction grew upon him that their type of womanhood was superior to +any he had hitherto known. And by way of refuting his own argument, he +would draw from his pocket-book the photograph of Bertha, which had +a secret compartment there all to itself, and, gazing tenderly at it, +would eagerly defend her against the disparaging reflections which the +involuntary comparison had provoked. And still, how could he help seeing +that her features, though well molded, lacked animation; that her eye, +with its deep, trustful glance, was not brilliant, and that the calm +earnestness of her face, when compared with the bright, intellectual +beauty of his present friends, appeared pale and simple, like a violet +in a bouquet of vividly colored roses? It gave him a quick pang, when, +at times, he was forced to admit this; nevertheless, it was the truth. + +After six years of residence in America, Ralph had gained a very high +reputation as a journalist of rare culture and ability, and, in 1867 +he was sent to the World's Exhibition in Paris, as correspondent of the +paper on which he had during all these years been employed. What wonder, +then, that he started for Europe a few weeks before his presence was +needed in the imperial city, and that he steered his course directly +toward the fjord valley where Bertha had her home? It was she who had +bidden him Godspeed when he fled from the land of his birth, and she, +too, should receive his first greeting on his return. + + + + +V. + + +The sun had fortified itself behind a citadel of flaming clouds, and the +upper forest region shone with a strange ethereal glow, while the +lower plains were wrapped in shadow; but the shadow itself had a +strong suffusion of color. The mountain peaks rose cold and blue in the +distance. + +Ralph, having inquired his way of the boatman who had landed him at the +pier, walked rapidly along the beach, with a small valise in his hand, +and a light summer overcoat flung over his shoulder. Many half-thoughts +grazed his mind, and ere the first had taken shape, the second, and the +third came and chased it away. And still they all in some fashion had +reference to Bertha; for in a misty, abstract way, she filled his whole +mind; but for some indefinable reason, he was afraid to give free rein +to the sentiment which lurked in the remoter corners of his soul. + +Onward he hastened, while his heart throbbed with the quickening tempo +of mingled expectation and fear. Now and then one of those chill gusts +of air which seem to be careering about aimlessly in the atmosphere +during early summer, would strike into his face, and recall him to a +keener self-consciousness. + +Ralph concluded, from his increasing agitation, that he must be very +near Bertha's home. He stopped and looked around him. He saw a large +maple at the roadside, some thirty steps from where he was standing, +and the girl who was sitting under it, resting her head in her hand and +gazing out over the sea, he recognized in an instant to be Bertha. He +sprang up on the road, not crossing, however, her line of vision, and +approached her noiselessly from behind. + +"Bertha," he whispered. + +She gave a little joyous cry, sprang up, and made a gesture as if +to throw herself in his arms; then suddenly checked herself, blushed +crimson, and moved a step backward. + +"You came so suddenly," she murmured. + +"But, Bertha," cried he (and the full bass of his voice rang through her +very soul), "have I gone into exile and waited these many years for so +cold a welcome?" + +"You have changed so much, Ralph," she answered, with that old grave +smile which he knew so well, and stretched out both her hands toward +him. "And I have thought of you so much since you went away, and blamed +myself because I had judged you so harshly, and wondered that you could +listen to me so patiently, and never bear me any malice for what I +said." + +"If you had said a word less," declared Ralph, seating himself at +her side on the greensward, "or if you had varnished it over with +politeness, then you would probably have failed to produce any effect +and I should not have been burdened with that heavy debt of gratitude +which I now owe you. I was a pretty thick-skinned animal in those days, +Bertha. You said the right word at the right moment; you gave me a hold +and a good piece of advice, which my own ingenuity would never have +suggested to me. I will not thank you, because, in so grave a case as +this, spoken thanks sound like a mere mockery. Whatever I am, Bertha, +and whatever I may hope to be, I owe it all to that hour." + +She listened with rapture to the manly assurance of his voice; her eyes +dwelt with unspeakable joy upon his strong, bronzed features, his full +thick blonde beard, and the vigorous proportions of his frame. Many and +many a time during his absence had she wondered how he would look if +he ever came back, and with that minute conscientiousness which, as it +were, pervaded her whole character, she had held herself responsible +before God for his fate, prayed for him, and trembled lest evil powers +should gain the ascendency over his soul. + +On their way to the house they talked together of many things, but in +a guarded, cautious fashion, and without the cheerful abandonment of +former years. They both, as it were, groped their way carefully in each +other's minds, and each vaguely felt that there was something in the +other's thought which it was not well to touch unbidden. Bertha saw +that all her fears for him had been groundless, and his very appearance +lifted the whole weight of responsibility from her breast; and still, +did she rejoice at her deliverance from her burden? Ah, no, in this +moment she knew that that which she had foolishly cherished as the best +and noblest part of herself, had been but a selfish need of her own +heart. She feared that she had only taken that interest in him which one +feels in a thing of one's own making; and now, when she saw that he had +risen quite above her; that he was free and strong, and could have no +more need of her, she had, instead of generous pleasure at his success, +but a painful sense of emptiness, as if something very dear had been +taken from her. + +Ralph, too, was loath to analyze the impression his old love made upon +him. His feelings were of so complex a nature, he was anxious to keep +his more magnanimous impulses active, and he strove hard to convince +himself that she was still the same to him as she had been before they +had ever parted. But, alas! though the heart be warm and generous, the +eye is a merciless critic. And the man who had moved on the wide arena +of the world, whose mind had housed the large thoughts of this century, +and expanded with its invigorating breath,--was he to blame because he +had unconsciously outgrown his old provincial self, and could no more +judge by its standards? + +Bertha's father was a peasant, but he had, by his lumber trade, acquired +what in Norway was called a very handsome fortune. He received his guest +with dignified reserve, and Ralph thought he detected in his eyes a +lurking look of distrust. "I know your errand," that look seemed to say, +"but you had better give it up at once. It will be of no use for you to +try." + +And after supper, as Ralph and Bertha sat talking confidingly with each +other at the window, he sent his daughter a quick, sharp glance, and +then, without ceremony, commanded her to go to bed. Ralph's heart gave +a great thump within him; not because he feared the old man, but because +his words, as well as his glances, revealed to him the sad history of +these long, patient years. He doubted no longer that the love which he +had once so ardently desired was his at last; and he made a silent vow +that, come what might, he would remain faithful. + +As he came down to breakfast the next morning, he found Bertha sitting +at the window, engaged in hemming what appeared to be a rough kitchen +towel. She bent eagerly over her work, and only a vivid flush upon her +cheek told him that she had noticed his coming. He took a chair, seated +himself opposite her, and bade her "good-morning." She raised her head, +and showed him a sweet, troubled countenance, which the early sunlight +illumined with a high spiritual beauty. It reminded him forcibly of +those pale, sweet-faced saints of Fra Angelico, with whom the frail +flesh seems ever on the point of yielding to the ardent aspirations of +the spirit. And still, even in this moment he could not prevent his eyes +from observing that one side of her forefinger was rough from sewing, +and that the whiteness of her arm, which the loose sleeves displayed, +contrasted strongly with the browned and sun-burned complexion of her +hands. + +After breakfast they again walked together on the beach, and Ralph, +having once formed his resolution, now talked freely of the New +World--of his sphere of activity there; of his friends and of his plans +for the future; and she listened to him with a mild, perplexed look in +her eyes, as if trying vainly to follow the flight of his thoughts. And +he wondered, with secret dismay, whether she was still the same strong, +brave-hearted girl whom he had once accounted almost bold; whether the +life in this narrow valley, amid a hundred petty and depressing cares, +had not cramped her spiritual growth, and narrowed the sphere of her +thought. Or was she still the same, and was it only he who had changed? +At last he gave utterance to his wonder, and she answered him in those +grave, earnest tones which seemed in themselves to be half a refutation +of his doubts. + +"It was easy for me to give you daring advice, then, Ralph," she said. +"Like most school-girls, I thought that life was a great and glorious +thing, and that happiness was a fruit which hung within reach of every +hand. Now I have lived for six years trying single-handed to relieve the +want and suffering of the needy people with whom I come in contact, +and their squalor and wretchedness have sickened me, and, what is still +worse, I feel that all I can do is as a drop in the ocean, and after +all, amounts to nothing. I know I am no longer the same reckless girl, +who, with the very best intention, sent you wandering through the wide +world; and I thank God that it proved to be for your good, although the +whole now appears quite incredible to me. My thoughts have moved so long +within the narrow circle of these mountains that they have lost their +youthful elasticity, and can no more rise above them." + +Ralph detected, in the midst of her despondency, a spark of her former +fire, and grew eloquent in his endeavors to persuade her that she was +unjust to herself, and that there was but a wider sphere of life needed +to develop all the latent powers of her rich nature. + +At the dinner-table, her father again sat eyeing his guest with that +same cold look of distrust and suspicion. And when the meal was at +an end, he rose abruptly and called his daughter into another room. +Presently Ralph heard his angry voice resounding through the house, +interrupted now and then by a woman's sobs, and a subdued, passionate +pleading. When Bertha again entered the room, her eyes were very +red, and he saw that she had been weeping. She threw a shawl over her +shoulders, beckoned to him with her hand, and he arose and followed her. +She led the way silently until they reached a thick copse of birch and +alder near the strand. She dropped down upon a bench between two trees, +and he took his seat at her side. + +"Ralph," began she, with a visible effort, "I hardly know what to say to +you; but there is something which I must tell you--my father wishes you +to leave us at once." + +"And YOU, Bertha?" + +"Well--yes--I wish it too." + +She saw the painful shock which her words gave him, and she strove hard +to speak. Her lips trembled, her eyes became suffused with tears, which +grew and grew, but never fell; she could not utter a word. + +"Well, Bertha," answered he, with a little quiver in his voice, "if you, +too, wish me to go, I shall not tarry. Good-bye." + +He rose quickly, and, with averted face, held out his hand to her; but +as she made no motion to grasp the hand, he began distractedly to button +his coat, and moved slowly away. + +"Ralph." + +He turned sharply, and, before he knew it, she lay sobbing upon his +breast. + +"Ralph," she murmured, while the tears almost choked her words, "I could +not have you leave me thus. It is hard enough--it is hard enough--" + +"What is hard, beloved?" + +She raised her head abruptly, and turned upon him a gaze full of hope +and doubt, and sweet perplexity. + +"Ah, no, you do not love me," she whispered, sadly. + +"Why should I come to seek you, after these many years, dearest, if I +did not wish to make you my wife before God and men? Why should I--" + +"Ah, yes, I know," she interrupted him with a fresh fit of weeping, "you +are too good and honest to wish to throw me away, now when you have seen +how my soul has hungered for the sight of you these many years, how even +now I cling to you with a despairing clutch. But you cannot disguise +yourself, Ralph, and I saw from the first moment that you loved me no +more." + +"Do not be such an unreasonable child," he remonstrated, feebly. "I do +not love you with the wild, irrational passion of former years; but I +have the tenderest regard for you, and my heart warms at the sight of +your sweet face, and I shall do all in my power to make you as happy as +any man can make you who--" + +"Who does not love me," she finished. + +A sudden shudder seemed to shake her whole frame, and she drew herself +more tightly up to him. + +"Ah, no," she continued, after a while, sinking back upon her seat. +"It is a hopeless thing to compel a reluctant heart. I will accept no +sacrifice from you. You owe me nothing, for you have acted toward me +honestly and uprightly, and I shall be a stronger, or--at least--a +better woman for what you gave me--and--for what you could not give me, +even though you would." + +"But, Bertha," exclaimed he, looking mournfully at her, "it is not true +when you say that I owe you nothing. Six years ago, when first I wooed +you, you could not return my love, and you sent me out into the world, +and even refused to accept any pledge or promise for the future." + +"And you returned," she responded, "a man, such as my hope had pictured +you; but, while I had almost been standing still, you had outgrown me, +and outgrown your old self, and, with your old self, outgrown its love +for me, for your love was not of your new self, but of the old. Alas! it +is a sad tale, but it is true." + +She spoke gravely now, and with a steadier voice, but her eyes hung upon +his face with an eager look of expectation, as if yearning to detect +there some gleam of hope, some contradiction of the dismal truth. He +read that look aright, and it pierced him like a sharp sword. He made a +brave effort to respond to its appeal, but his features seemed hard as +stone, and he could only cry out against his destiny, and bewail his +misfortune and hers. + +Toward evening, Ralph was sitting in an open boat, listening to the +measured oar-strokes of the boatmen who were rowing him out to the +nearest stopping-place of the steamer. The mountains lifted their great +placid heads up among the sun-bathed clouds, and the fjord opened its +cool depths as if to make room for their vast reflections. Ralph felt as +if he were floating in the midst of the blue infinite space, and, with +the strength which this feeling inspired, he tried to face boldly the +thought from which he had but a moment ago shrunk as from something +hopelessly sad and perplexing. + +And in that hour he looked fearlessly into the gulf which separates the +New World from the Old. He had hoped to bridge it; but, alas! it cannot +be bridged. + + + + +A SCIENTIFIC VAGABOND. + + + + +I. + +THE steamer which as far back as 1860 passed every week on its northward +way up along the coast of Norway, was of a very sociable turn of mind. +It ran with much shrieking and needless bluster in and out the calm, +winding fjords, paid unceremonious little visits in every out-of-the-way +nook and bay, dropped now and then a black heap of coal into the +shining water, and sent thick volleys of smoke and shrill little echoes +careering aimlessly among the mountains. It seemed, on the whole, from +an aesthetic point of view, an objectionable phenomenon--a blot upon the +perfect summer day. By the inhabitants, however, of these remote regions +(with the exception of a few obstinate individuals, who had at first +looked upon it as the sure herald of dooms-day, and still were vaguely +wondering what the world was coming to,) it was regarded in a very +different light. This choleric little monster was to them a friendly +and welcome visitor, which established their connection with the outside +world, and gave them a proud consciousness of living in the very heart +of civilization. Therefore, on steamboat days they flocked en masse +down on the piers, and, with an ever-fresh sense of novelty, greeted the +approaching boat with lively cheers, with firing of muskets and waving +of handkerchiefs. The men of condition, as the judge, the sheriff, and +the parson, whose dignity forbade them to receive the steamer in person, +contented themselves with watching it through an opera-glass from their +balconies; and if a high official was known to be on board, they perhaps +displayed the national banner from their flag-poles, as a delicate +compliment to their superior. + +But the Rev. Mr. Oddson, the parson of whom I have to speak, had this +day yielded to the gentle urgings of his daughters (as, indeed, he +always did), and had with them boarded the steamer to receive his +nephew, Arnfinn Vording, who was returning from the university for +his summer vacation. And now they had him between them in their pretty +white-painted parsonage boat, with the blue line along the gunwale, +beleaguering him with eager questions about friends and relatives in +the capital, chums, university sports, and a medley of other things +interesting to young ladies who have a collegian for a cousin. His uncle +was charitable enough to check his own curiosity about the nephew's +progress in the arts and sciences, and the result of his recent +examinations, till he should have become fairly settled under his roof; +and Arnfinn, who, in spite of his natural brightness and ready humor, +was anything but a "dig," was grateful for the respite. + +The parsonage lay snugly nestled at the end of the bay, shining +contentedly through the green foliage from a multitude of small +sun-smitten windows. Its pinkish whitewash, which was peeling off from +long exposure to the weather, was in cheerful contrast to the broad +black surface of the roof, with its glazed tiles, and the starlings' +nests under the chimney-tops. The thick-leaved maples and walnut-trees +which grew in random clusters about the walls seemed loftily conscious +of standing there for purposes of protection; for, wherever their +long-fingered branches happened to graze the roof, it was always with a +touch, light, graceful, and airily caressing. The irregularly paved yard +was inclosed on two sides by the main building, and on the third by +a species of log cabin, which, in Norway, is called a brew-house; but +toward the west the view was but slightly obscured by an elevated +pigeon cot and a clump of birches, through whose sparse leaves the +fjord beneath sent its rapid jets and gleams of light, and its strange +suggestions of distance, peace and unaccountable gladness. + +Arnfinn Vording's career had presented that subtle combination of farce +and tragedy which most human lives are apt to be; and if the tragic +element had during his early years been preponderating, he was hardly +himself aware of it; for he had been too young at the death of his +parents to feel that keenness of grief which the same privation would +have given him at a later period of his life. It might have been +humiliating to confess it, but it was nevertheless true that the terror +he had once sustained on being pursued by a furious bull was much more +vivid in his memory than the vague wonder and depression which had +filled his mind at seeing his mother so suddenly stricken with age, as +she lay motionless in her white robes in the front parlor. Since then +his uncle, who was his guardian and nearest relative, had taken him into +his family, had instructed him with his own daughters, and finally sent +him to the University, leaving the little fortune which he had +inherited to accumulate for future use. Arnfinn had a painfully distinct +recollection of his early hardships in trying to acquire that soft +pronunciation of the r which is peculiar to the western fjord districts +of Norway, and which he admired so much in his cousins; for the +merry-eyed Inga, who was less scrupulous by a good deal than her older +sister, Augusta, had from the beginning persisted in interpreting their +relation of cousinship as an unbounded privilege on her part to ridicule +him for his personal peculiarities, and especially for his harsh r and +his broad eastern accent. Her ridicule was always very good-natured, to +be sure, but therefore no less annoying. + +But--such is the perverseness of human nature--in spite of a series +of apparent rebuffs, interrupted now and then by fits of violent +attachment, Arnfinn had early selected this dimpled and yellow-haired +young girl, with her piquant little nose, for his favorite cousin. +It was the prospect of seeing her which, above all else, had lent, +in anticipation, an altogether new radiance to the day when he should +present himself in his home with the long-tasseled student cap on +his head, the unnecessary "pinchers" on his nose, and with the other +traditional paraphernalia of the Norwegian student. That great day had +now come; Arnfinn sat at Inga's side playing with her white fingers, +which lay resting on his knee, and covering the depth of his feeling +with harmless banter about her "amusingly unclassical little nose." +He had once detected her, when a child, standing before a mirror, and +pinching this unhappy feature in the middle, in the hope of making +it "like Augusta's;" and since then he had no longer felt so utterly +defenseless whenever his own foibles were attacked. + +"But what of your friend, Arnfinn?" exclaimed Inga, as she ran up the +stairs of the pier. "He of whom you have written so much. I have been +busy all the morning making the blue guest-chamber ready for him." + +"Please, cousin," answered the student, in a tone of mock entreaty, +"only an hour's respite! If we are to talk about Strand we must make a +day of it, you know. And just now it seems so grand to be at home, and +with you, that I would rather not admit even so genial a subject as +Strand to share my selfish happiness." + +"Ah, yes, you are right. Happiness is too often selfish. But tell me +only why he didn't come and I'll release you." + +"He IS coming." + +"Ah! And when?" + +"That I don't know. He preferred to take the journey on foot, and he +may be here at almost any time. But, as I have told you, he is very +uncertain. If he should happen to make the acquaintance of some +interesting snipe, or crane, or plover, he may prefer its company to +ours, and then there is no counting on him any longer. He may be as +likely to turn up at the North Pole as at the Gran Parsonage." + +"How very singular. You don't know how curious I am to see him." + +And Inga walked on in silence under the sunny birches which grew along +the road, trying vainly to picture to herself this strange phenomenon of +a man. + +"I brought his book," remarked Arnfinn, making a gigantic effort to be +generous, for he felt dim stirrings of jealousy within him. "If you care +to read it, I think it will explain him to you better than anything I +could say." + + + + +II. + + +The Oddsons were certainly a happy family though not by any means a +harmonious one. The excellent pastor, who was himself neutrally good, +orthodox, and kind-hearted, had often, in the privacy of his own +thought, wondered what hidden ancestral influences there might have +been at work in giving a man so peaceable and inoffensive as himself two +daughters of such strongly defined individuality. There was Augusta, the +elder, who was what Arnfinn called "indiscriminately reformatory," and +had a universal desire to improve everything, from the Government down +to agricultural implements and preserve jars. As long as she was content +to expend the surplus energy, which seemed to accumulate within her +through the long eventless winters, upon the Zulu Mission, and other +legitimate objects, the pastor thought it all harmless enough; although, +to be sure, her enthusiasm for those naked and howling savages did at +times strike him as being somewhat extravagant. But when occasionally, +in her own innocent way, she put both his patience and his orthodoxy to +the test by her exceedingly puzzling questions, then he could not, in +the depth of his heart, restrain the wish that she might have been more +like other young girls, and less ardently solicitous about the fate of +her kind. Affectionate and indulgent, however, as the pastor was, +he would often, in the next moment, do penance for his unregenerate +thought, and thank God for having made her so fair to behold, so pure, +and so noble-hearted. + +Toward Arnfinn, Augusta had, although of his own age, early assumed a +kind of elder-sisterly relation; she had been his comforter during all +the trials of his boyhood; had yielded him her sympathy with that eager +impulse which lay so deep in her nature, and had felt forlorn when life +had called him away to where her words of comfort could not reach him. +But when once she had hinted this to her father, he had pedantically +convinced her that her feeling was unchristian, and Inga had playfully +remarked that the hope that some one might soon find the open Polar Sea +would go far toward consoling her for her loss; for Augusta had glorious +visions at that time of the open Polar Sea. Now, the Polar Sea, and +many other things, far nearer and dearer, had been forced into uneasy +forgetfulness; and Arnfinn was once more with her, no longer a child, +and no longer appealing to her for aid and sympathy; man enough, +apparently, to have outgrown his boyish needs and still boy enough to be +ashamed of having ever had them. + +It was the third Sunday after Arnfinn's return. He and Augusta were +climbing the hillside to the "Giant's Hood," from whence they had a wide +view of the fjord, and could see the sun trailing its long bridge of +flame upon the water. It was Inga's week in the kitchen, therefore her +sister was Arnfinn's companion. As they reached the crest of the "Hood," +Augusta seated herself on a flat bowlder, and the young student flung +himself on a patch of greensward at her feet. The intense light of the +late sun fell upon the girl's unconscious face, and Arnfinn lay, gazing +up into it, and wondering at its rare beauty; but he saw only the clean +cut of its features and the purity of its form, being too shallow to +recognize the strong and heroic soul which had struggled so long +for utterance in the life of which he had been a blind and unmindful +witness. + +"Gracious, how beautiful you are, cousin!" he broke forth, heedlessly, +striking his leg with his slender cane; "pity you were not born a queen; +you would be equal to almost anything, even if it were to discover the +Polar Sea." + +"I thought you were looking at the sun, Arnfinn," answered she, smiling +reluctantly. + +"And so I am, cousin," laughed he, with an other-emphatic slap of his +boot. + +"That compliment is rather stale." + +"But the opportunity was too tempting." + +"Never mind, I will excuse you from further efforts. Turn around and +notice that wonderful purple halo which is hovering over the forests +below. Isn't it glorious?" + +"No, don't let us be solemn, pray. The sun I have seen a thousand +times before, but you I have seen very seldom of late. Somehow, since +I returned this time, you seem to keep me at a distance. You no longer +confide to me your great plans for the abolishment of war, and the +improvement of mankind generally. Why don't you tell me whether you +have as yet succeeded in convincing the peasants that cleanliness is +a cardinal virtue, that hawthorn hedges are more picturesque than rail +fences, and that salt meat is a very indigestible article?" + +"You know the fate of my reforms, from long experience," she answered, +with the same sad, sweet smile. "I am afraid there must be some thing +radically wrong about my methods; and, moreover, I know that your +aspirations and mine are no longer the same, if they ever have been, and +I am not ungenerous enough to force you to feign an interest which you +do not feel." + +"Yes, I know you think me flippant and boyish," retorted he, with sudden +energy, and tossing a stone down into the gulf below. "But, by the way, +my friend Strand, if he ever comes, would be just the man for you. +He has quite as many hobbies as you have, and, what is more, he has a +profound respect for hobbies in general, and is universally charitable +toward those of others." + +"Your friend is a great man," said the girl, earnestly. "I have read his +book on `The Wading Birds of the Norwegian Highlands,' and none but a +great man could have written it." + +"He is an odd stick, but, for all that, a capital fellow; and I have no +doubt you would get on admirably with him." + +At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the +pastor's man, Hans, who came to tell the "young miss" that there was +a big tramp hovering about the barns in the "out-fields," where he +had been sleeping during the last three nights. He was a dangerous +character, Hans thought, at least judging from his looks, and it was +hardly safe for the young miss to be roaming about the fields at night +as long as he was in the neighborhood. + +"Why don't you speak to the pastor, and have him arrested?" said +Arnfinn, impatient of Hans's long-winded recital. + +"No, no, say nothing to father," demanded Augusta, eagerly. "Why should +you arrest a poor man as long as he does nothing worse than sleep in the +barns in the out-fields?" + +"As you say, miss," retorted Hans, and departed. + +The moon came up pale and mist-like over the eastern mountain ridges, +struggled for a few brief moments feebly with the sunlight, and then +vanished. + +"It is strange," said Arnfinn, "how everything reminds me of Strand +to-night. What gloriously absurd apostrophes to the moon he could make! +I have not told you, cousin, of a very singular gift which he possesses. +He can attract all kinds of birds and wild animals to himself; he can +imitate their voices, and they flock around him, as if he were one of +them, without fear of harm." + +"How delightful," cried Augusta, with sudden animation. "What a glorious +man your friend must be!" + +"Because the snipes and the wild ducks like him? You seem to have +greater confidence in their judgment than in mine." + +"Of course I have--at least as long as you persist in joking. But, +jesting aside, what a wondrously beautiful life he must lead whom +Nature takes thus into her confidence; who has, as it were, an inner and +subtler sense, corresponding to each grosser and external one; who is +keen-sighted enough to read the character of every individual beast, and +has ears sensitive to the full pathos of joy or sorrow in the song of +the birds that inhabit our woodlands." + +"Whether he has any such second set of senses as you speak of, I +don't know; but there can be no doubt that his familiarity, not to +say intimacy, with birds and beasts gives him a great advantage as a +naturalist. I suppose you know that his little book has been translated +into French, and rewarded with the gold medal of the Academy." + +"Hush! What is that?" Augusta sprang up, and held her hand to her ear. + +"Some love-lorn mountain-cock playing yonder in the pine copse," +suggested Arnfinn, amused at his cousin's eagerness. + +"You silly boy! Don't you know the mountain-cock never plays except at +sunrise?" + +"He would have a sorry time of it now, then, when there IS no sunrise." + +"And so he has; he does not play except in early spring." + +The noise, at first faint, now grew louder. It began with a series of +mellow, plaintive clucks that followed thickly one upon another, like +smooth pearls of sound that rolled through the throat in a continuous +current; then came a few sharp notes as of a large bird that snaps his +bill; then a long, half-melodious rumbling, intermingled with cacklings +and snaps, and at last, a sort of diminuendo movement of the same round, +pearly clucks. There was a whizzing of wing-beats in the air; two large +birds swept over their heads and struck down into the copse whence the +sound had issued. + +"This is indeed a most singular thing," said Augusta, under her breath, +and with wide-eyed wonder. "Let us go nearer, and see what it can be." + +"I am sure I can go if you can," responded Arnfinn, not any too eagerly. +"Give me your hand, and we can climb the better." + +As they approached the pine copse, which projected like a promontory +from the line of the denser forest, the noise ceased, and only the +plaintive whistling of a mountain-hen, calling her scattered young +together, and now and then the shrill response of a snipe to the cry of +its lonely mate, fell upon the summer night, not as an interruption, but +as an outgrowth of the very silence. Augusta stole with soundless tread +through the transparent gloom which lingered under those huge black +crowns, and Arnfinn followed impatiently after. Suddenly she motioned to +him to stand still, and herself bent forward in an attitude of surprise +and eager observation. On the ground, some fifty steps from where she +was stationed, she saw a man stretched out full length, with a knapsack +under his head, and surrounded by a flock of downy, half-grown birds, +which responded with a low, anxious piping to his alluring cluck, then +scattered with sudden alarm, only to return again in the same curious, +cautious fashion as before. Now and then there was a great flapping of +wings in the trees overhead, and a heavy brown and black speckled +mountain-hen alighted close to the man's head, stretched out her neck +toward him, cocked her head, called her scattered brood together, and +departed with slow and deliberate wing-beats. + +Again there was a frightened flutter overhead, a shrill anxious whistle +rose in the air, and all was silence. Augusta had stepped on a dry +branch--it had broken under her weight--hence the sudden confusion and +flight. The unknown man had sprung up, and his eye, after a moment's +search, had found the dark, beautiful face peering forth behind the red +fir-trunk. He did not speak or salute her; he greeted her with silent +joy, as one greets a wondrous vision which is too frail and bright for +consciousness to grasp, which is lost the very instant one is conscious +of seeing. But, while to the girl the sight, as it were, hung trembling +in the range of mere physical perception, while its suddenness held it +aloof from moral reflection, there came a great shout from behind, and +Arnfinn, whom in her surprise she had quite forgotten, came bounding +forward, grasping the stranger by the hand with much vigor, +laughing heartily, and pouring forth a confused stream of delighted +interjections, borrowed from all manner of classical and unclassical +tongues. + +"Strand! Strand!" he cried, when the first tumult of excitement had +subsided; "you most marvelous and incomprehensible Strand! From +what region of heaven or earth did you jump down into our prosaic +neighborhood? And what in the world possessed you to choose our barns +as the centre of your operations, and nearly put me to the necessity of +having you arrested for vagrancy? How I do regret that Cousin Augusta's +entreaties mollified my heart toward you. Pardon me, I have not +introduced you. This is my cousin, Miss Oddson, and this is my +miraculous friend, the world-renowned author, vagrant, and naturalist, +Mr. Marcus Strand." + +Strand stepped forward, made a deep but somewhat awkward bow, and was +dimly aware that a small soft hand was extended to him, and, in the next +moment, was enclosed in his own broad and voluminous palm. He grasped it +firmly, and, in one of those profound abstractions into which he was +apt to fall when under the sway of a strong impression, pressed it with +increasing cordiality, while he endeavored to find fitting answers to +Arnfinn's multifarious questions. + +"To tell the truth, Vording," he said, in a deep, full-ringing bass, +"I didn't know that these were your cousin's barns--I mean that your +uncle"--giving the unhappy hand an emphatic shake--"inhabited these +barns." + +"No, thank heaven, we are not quite reduced to that," cried Arnfinn, +gayly; "we still boast a parsonage, as you will presently discover, +and a very bright and cozy one, to boot. But, whatever you do, have the +goodness to release Augusta's hand. Don't you see how desperately she is +struggling, poor thing?" + +Strand dropped the hand as if it had been a hot coal, blushed to the +edge of his hair, and made another profound reverence. He was a tall, +huge-limbed youth, with a frame of gigantic mold, and a large, blonde, +shaggy head, like that of some good-natured antediluvian animal, which +might feel the disadvantages of its size amid the puny beings of this +later stage of creation. There was a frank directness in his gaze, and +an unconsciousness of self, which made him very winning, and which could +not fail of its effect upon a girl who, like Augusta, was fond of the +uncommon, and hated smooth, facile and well-tailored young men, with +the labels of society and fashion upon their coats, their mustaches, +and their speech. And Strand, with his large sun-burned face, his +wild-growing beard, blue woolen shirt, top boots, and unkempt appearance +generally, was a sufficiently startling phenomenon to satisfy even so +exacting a fancy as hers; for, after reading his book about the +Wading Birds, she had made up her mind that he must have few points of +resemblance to the men who had hitherto formed part of her own small +world, although she had not until now decided just in what way he was to +differ. + +"Suppose I help you carry your knapsack," said Arnfinn, who was flitting +about like a small nimble spaniel trying to make friends with some +large, good-natured Newfoundland. "You must be very tired, having roamed +about in this Quixotic fashion!" + +"No, I thank you," responded Strand, with an incredulous laugh, glancing +alternately from Arnfinn to the knapsack, as if estimating their +proportionate weight. "I am afraid you would rue your bargain if I +accepted it." + +"I suppose you have a great many stuffed birds at home," remarked the +girl, looking with self-forgetful admiration at the large brawny figure. + +"No, I have hardly any," answered he, seating himself on the ground, +and pulling a thick note-book from his pocket. "I prefer live creatures. +Their anatomical and physiological peculiarities have been studied +by others, and volumes have been written about them. It is their +psychological traits, ii you will allow the expression, which interest +me, and those I can only get at while they are alive." + +"How delightful!" + +Some minutes later they were all on their way to the Parsonage. The sun, +in spite of its mid-summer wakefulness, was getting red-eyed and drowsy, +and the purple mists which hung in scattered fragments upon the forest +below had lost something of their deep-tinged brilliancy. But Augusta, +quite blind to the weakened light effects, looked out upon the broad +landscape in ecstasy, and, appealing to her more apathetic companions, +invited them to share her joy at the beauty of the faint-flushed summer +night. + +"You are getting quite dithyrambic, my dear," remarked Arnfinn, with +an air of cousinly superiority, which he felt was eminently becoming to +him; and Augusta looked up with quick surprise, then smiled in an absent +way, and forgot what she had been saying. She had no suspicion but that +her enthusiasm had been all for the sunset. + + + + +III. + + +In a life so outwardly barren and monotonous as Augusta's--a life in +which the small external events were so firmly interwoven with the +subtler threads of yearnings, wants, and desires--the introduction of +so large and novel a fact as Marcus Strand would naturally produce some +perceptible result. It was that deplorable inward restlessness of hers, +she reasoned, which had hitherto made her existence seem so empty and +unsatisfactory; but now his presence filled the hours, and the newness +of his words, his manner, and his whole person afforded inexhaustible +material for thought. It was now a week since his arrival, and while +Arnfinn and Inga chatted at leisure, drew caricatures, or read aloud to +each other in some shady nook of the garden, she and Strand would roam +along the beach, filling the vast unclouded horizon with large +glowing images of the future of the human race. He always listened +in sympathetic silence while she unfolded to him her often childishly +daring schemes for the amelioration of suffering and the righting of +social wrongs; and when she had finished, and he met the earnest appeal +of her dark eye, there would often be a pause, during which each, with +a half unconscious lapse from the impersonal, would feel more keenly the +joy of this new and delicious mental companionship. And when at length +he answered, sometimes gently refuting and sometimes assenting to her +proposition, it was always with a slow, deliberate earnestness, as if +he felt but her deep sincerity, and forgot for the moment her sex, her +youth, and her inexperience. It was just this kind of fellowship for +which she had hungered so long, and her heart went out with a great +gratitude toward this strong and generous man, who was willing to +recognize her humanity, and to respond with an ever-ready frankness, +unmixed with petty suspicions and second thoughts, to the eager needs of +her half-starved nature. It is quite characteristic, too, of the type of +womanhood which Augusta represents (and with which this broad continent +of ours abounds), that, with her habitual disregard of appearances, she +would have scorned the notion that their intercourse had any ultimate +end beyond that of mutual pleasure and instruction. + +It was early in the morning in the third week of Strand's stay at +the Parsonage. A heavy dew had fallen during the night, and each tiny +grass-blade glistened in the sun, bending under the weight of its liquid +diamond. The birds were improvising a miniature symphony in the +birches at the end of the garden; the song-thrush warbled with a sweet +melancholy his long-drawn contralto notes; the lark, like a prima donna, +hovering conspicuously in mid air, poured forth her joyous soprano solo; +and the robin, quite unmindful of the tempo, filled out the pauses with +his thoughtless staccato chirp. Augusta, who was herself the early bird +of the pastor's family, had paid a visit to the little bath-house +down at the brook, and was now hurrying homeward, her heavy black hair +confined in a delicate muslin hood, and her lithe form hastily wrapped +in a loose morning gown. She had paused for a moment under the birches +to listen to the song of the lark, when suddenly a low, half articulate +sound, very unlike the voice of a bird, arrested her attention; she +raised her eyes, and saw Strand sitting in the top of a tree, apparently +conversing with himself, or with some tiny thing which he held in his +hands. + +"Ah, yes, you poor little sickly thing!" she heard him mutter. "Don't +you make such an ado now. You shall soon be quite well, if you will only +mind what I tell you. Stop, stop! Take it easy. It is all for your own +good, you know. If you had only been prudent, and not stepped on your +lame leg, you might have been spared this affliction. But, after all, it +was not your fault--it was that foolish little mother of yours. She will +remember now that a skein of hemp thread is not the thing to line her +nest with. If she doesn't, you may tell her that it was I who said so." + +Augusta stood gazing on in mute astonishment; then, suddenly remembering +her hasty toilet, she started to run; but, as chance would have it, a +dry branch, which hung rather low, caught at her hood, and her hair fell +in a black wavy stream down over her shoulders. She gave a little +cry, the tree shook violently, and Strand was at her side. She blushed +crimson over neck and face, and, in her utter bewilderment, stood like a +culprit before him, unable to move, unable to speak, and only returning +with a silent bow his cordial greeting. It seemed to her that she had +ungenerously intruded upon his privacy, watching him, while he thought +himself unobserved. And Augusta was quite unskilled in those social +accomplishments which enable young ladies to hide their inward emotions +under a show of polite indifference, for, however hard she strove, +she could not suppress a slight quivering of her lips, and her intense +self-reproach made Strand's words fall dimly on her ears, and prevented +her from gathering the meaning of what he was saying. He held in his +hands a young bird with a yellow line along the edge of its bill (and +there was something beautifully soft and tender in the way those large +palms of his handled any living thing), and he looked pityingly at it +while he spoke. + +"The mother of this little linnet," he said, smiling, "did what +many foolish young mothers are apt to do. She took upon her the +responsibility of raising offspring without having acquired the +necessary knowledge of housekeeping. So she lined her nest with hemp, +and the consequence was, that her first-born got his legs entangled, and +was obliged to remain in the nest long after his wings had reached their +full development. I saw her feeding him about a week ago, and, as my +curiosity prompted me to look into the case, I released the little +cripple, cleansed the deep wound which the threads had cut in his flesh, +and have since been watching him during his convalescence. Now he is +quite in a fair way, but I had to apply some salve, and to cut off the +feathers about the wound, and the little fool squirmed under the pain, +and grew rebellious. Only notice this scar, if you please, Miss Oddson, +and you may imagine what the poor thing must have suffered." + +Augusta gave a start; she timidly raised her eyes, and saw Strand's +grave gaze fixed upon her. She felt as if some intolerable spell had +come over her, and, as her agitation increased, her power of speech +seemed utterly to desert her. + +"Ah, you have not been listening to me?" said Strand, in a tone of +wondering inquiry. "Pardon me for presuming to believe that my little +invalid could be as interesting to you as he is to me." + +"Mr. Strand," stammered the girl, while the invisible tears came near +choking her voice. "Mr. Strand--I didn't mean--really--" + +She knew that if she said another word she should burst into tears. With +a violent effort, she gathered up her wrapper, which somehow had got +unbuttoned at the neck, and, with heedlessly hurrying steps, darted away +toward the house. + +Strand stood looking after her, quite unmindful of his feathered +patient, which flew chirping about him in the grass. Two hours later +Arnfinn found him sitting under the birches with his hands clasped +over the top of his head, and his surgical instruments scattered on the +ground around him. + +"Corpo di Baccho," exclaimed the student, stooping to pick up the +precious tools; "have you been amputating your own head, or is it I who +am dreaming?" + +"Ah," murmured Strand, lifting a large, strange gaze upon his friend, +"is it you?" + +"Who else should it be? I come to call you to breakfast." + + + + +IV. + + +"I wonder what is up between Strand and Augusta?" said Arnfinn to his +cousin Inga. The questioner was lying in the grass at her feet, resting +his chin on his palms, and gazing with roguishly tender eyes up into +her fresh, blooming face; but Inga, who was reading aloud from "David +Copperfield," and was deep in the matrimonial tribulations of that noble +hero, only said "hush," and continued reading. Arnfinn, after a minute's +silence, repeated his remark, whereupon his fair cousin wrenched his +cane out of his hand, and held it threateningly over his head. + +"Will you be a good boy and listen?" she exclaimed, playfully +emphasizing each word with a light rap on his curly pate. + +"Ouch! that hurts," cried Arnfinn, and dodged. + +"It was meant to hurt," replied Inga, with mock severity, and returned +to "Copperfield." + +Presently the seed of a corn-flower struck the tip of her nose, and +again the cane was lifted; but Dora's housekeeping experiences were +too absorbingly interesting, and the blue eyes could not resist their +fascination. + +"Cousin Inga," said Arnfinn, and this time with as near an approach +to earnestness as he was capable of at that moment, "I do believe that +Strand is in love with Augusta." + +Inga dropped the book, and sent him what was meant to be a glance of +severe rebuke, and then said, in her own amusingly emphatic way: + +"I do wish you wouldn't joke with such things, Arnfinn." + +"Joke! Indeed I am not joking. I wish to heaven that I were. What a pity +it is that she has taken such a dislike to him!" + +"Dislike! Oh, you are a profound philosopher, you are! You think that +because she avoids--" + +Here Inga abruptly clapped her hand over her mouth, and, with sudden +change of voice and expression, said: + +"I am as silent as the grave." + +"Yes, you are wonderfully discreet," cried Arnfinn, laughing, while the +girl bit her under lip with an air of penitence and mortification which, +in any other bosom than a cousin's would have aroused compassion. + +"Aha! So steht's!" he broke forth, with another burst of merriment; +then, softened by the sight of a tear that was slowly gathering beneath +her eyelashes, he checked his laughter, crept up to her side, and in a +half childishly coaxing, half caressing tone, he whispered: + +"Dear little cousin, indeed I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You are +not angry with me, are you? And if you will only promise me not to tell, +I have something here which I should like to show you." + +He well knew that there was nothing which would sooner soothe Inga's +wrath than confiding a secret to her; and while he was a boy, he had, +in cases of sore need, invented secrets lest his life should be made +miserable by the sense that she was displeased with him. In this +instance her anger was not strong enough to resist the anticipation of +a secret, probably relating to that little drama which had, during +the last weeks, been in progress under her very eyes. With a resolute +movement, she brushed her tears away, bent eagerly forward, and, in the +next moment, her face was all expectancy and animation. + +Arnfinn pulled a thick black note-book from his breast pocket, opened it +in his lap, and read: + +"August 3, 5 A. M.--My little invalid is doing finely; he seemed to +relish much a few dozen flies which I brought him in my hand. His pulse +is to-day, for the first time, normal. He is beginning to step on the +injured leg without apparent pain. + +"10 A. M.--Miss Augusta's eyes have a strange, lustrous brilliancy +whenever she speaks of subjects which seem to agitate the depths of +her being. How and why is it that an excessive amount of feeling always +finds its first expression in the eye? One kind of emotion seems to +widen the pupil, another kind to contract it. TO be noticed in future, +how particular emotions affect the eye. + +"6 P. M.--I met a plover on the beach this afternoon. By imitating his +cry, I induced him to come within a few feet of me. The plover, as +his cry indicates, is a very melancholy bird. In fact I believe the +melancholy temperament to be prevailing among the wading birds, as +the phlegmatic among birds of prey. The singing birds are choleric +or sanguine. Tease a thrush, or even a lark, and you will soon be +convinced. A snipe, or plover, as far as my experience goes, seldom +shows anger; you cannot tease them. To be considered, how far the voice +of a bird may be indicative of its temperament. + +"August 5, 9 P. M.--Since the unfortunate meeting yesterday morning, +when my intense pre-occupation with my linnet, which had torn its wound +open again, probably made me commit some breach of etiquette, Miss +Augusta avoids me. + +"August 7--I am in a most singular state. My pulse beats 85, which is +a most unheard-of thing for me, as my pulse is naturally full and slow. +And, strangely enough, I do not feel at all unwell. On the contrary, my +physical well-being is rather heightened than otherwise. The life of a +whole week is crowded into a day, and that of a day into an hour." + +Inga, who, at several points of this narrative, had been struggling hard +to preserve her gravity, here burst into a ringing laugh. + +"That is what I call scientific love-making," said Arnfinn, looking up +from the book with an expression of subdued amusement. + +"But Arnfinn," cried the girl, while the laughter quickly died out of +her face, "does Mr. Strand know that you are reading this?" + +"To be sure he does. And that is just what to my mind makes the +situation so excessively comical. He has himself no suspicion that this +book contains anything but scientific notes. He appears to prefer the +empiric method in love as in philosophy. I verily believe that he is +innocently experimenting with himself, with a view to making some great +physiological discovery." + +"And so he will, perhaps," rejoined the girl, the mixture of gayety and +grave solicitude making her face, as her cousin thought, particularly +charming. + +"Only not a physiological, but possibly a psychological one," remarked +Arnfinn. "But listen to this. Here is something rich: + +"August 9--Miss Augusta once said something about the possibility of +animals being immortal. Her eyes shone with a beautiful animation as she +spoke. I am longing to continue the subject with her. It haunts me +the whole day long. There may be more in the idea than appears to a +superficial observer." + +"Oh, how charmingly he understands how to deceive himself," cried Inga. + +"Merely a quid pro quo," said Arnfinn. + +"I know what I shall do!" + +"And so do I." + +"Won't you tell me, please?" + +"No." + +"Then I sha'n't tell you either." + +And they flew apart like two thoughtless little birds ("sanguine," as +Strand would have called them), each to ponder on some formidable plot +for the reconciliation of the estranged lovers. + + + + +V. + + +During the week that ensued, the multifarious sub-currents of Strand's +passion seemed slowly to gather themselves into one clearly defined +stream, and, after much scientific speculation, he came to the +conclusion that he loved Augusta. In a moment of extreme discouragement, +he made a clean breast of it to Arnfinn, at the same time informing him +that he had packed his knapsack, and would start on his wanderings again +the next morning. All his friend's entreaties were in vain; he would and +must go. Strand was an exasperatingly headstrong fellow, and persuasions +never prevailed with him. He had confirmed himself in the belief that he +was very unattractive to women, and that Augusta, of all women, for +some reason which was not quite clear to him, hated and abhorred him. +Inexperienced as he was, he could see no reason why she should avoid +him, if she did not hate him. They sat talking until midnight, each +entangling himself in those passionate paradoxes and contradictions +peculiar to passionate and impulsive youth. Strand paced the floor with +large steps, pouring out his long pent-up emotion in violent tirades +of self-accusation and regret; while Arnfinn sat on the bed, trying to +soothe his excitement by assuring him that he was not such a monster as, +for the moment, he had believed himself to be, but only succeeding, +in spite of all his efforts, in pouring oil on the flames. Strand +was scientifically convinced that Nature, in accordance with some +inscrutable law of equilibrium, had found it necessary to make him +physically unattractive, perhaps to indemnify mankind for that excess of +intellectual gifts which, at the expense of the race at large, she had +bestowed upon him. + +Early the next morning, as a kind of etherealized sunshine broke +through the white muslin curtains of Arnfinn's room, and long streaks +of sun-illumined dust stole through the air toward the sleeper's pillow, +there was a sharp rap at the door, and Strand entered. His knapsack was +strapped over his shoulders, his long staff was in his hand, and there +was an expression of conscious martyrdom in his features. Arnfinn +raised himself on his elbows, and rubbed his eyes with a desperate +determination to get awake, but only succeeded in gaining a very dim +impression of a beard, a blue woolen shirt, and a disproportionately +large shoe buckle. The figure advanced to the bed, extended a broad, +sun-burned hand, and a deep bass voice was heard to say: + +"Good-bye, brother." + +Arnfinn, who was a hard sleeper, gave another rub, and, in a querulously +sleepy tone, managed to mutter: + +"Why,--is it as late as that--already?" + +The words of parting were more remotely repeated, the hand closed about +Arnfinn's half-unfeeling fingers, the lock on the door gave a little +sharp click, and all was still. But the sunshine drove the dust in a +dumb, confused dance through the room. + +Some four hours later, Arnfinn woke up with a vague feeling as if some +great calamity had happened; he was not sure but that he had slept a +fortnight or more. He dressed with a sleepy, reckless haste, being but +dimly conscious of the logic of the various processes of ablution which +he underwent. He hurried up to Strand's room, but, as he had expected, +found it empty. + +During all the afternoon, the reading of "David Copperfield" was +interrupted by frequent mutual condolences, and at times Inga's hand +would steal up to her eye to brush away a treacherous tear. But then she +only read the faster, and David and Agnes were already safe in the +haven of matrimony before either she or Arnfinn was aware that they +had struggled successfully through the perilous reefs and quicksands of +courtship. + +Augusta excused herself from supper, Inga's forced devices at merriment +were too transparent, Arnfinn's table-talk was of a rambling, incoherent +sort, and he answered dreadfully malapropos, if a chance word was +addressed to him, and even the good-natured pastor began, at last, to +grumble; for the inmates of the Gran Parsonage seemed to have but one +life and one soul in common, and any individual disturbance immediately +disturbed the peace and happiness of the whole household. Now gloom +had, in some unaccountable fashion, obscured the common atmosphere. Inga +shook her small wise head, and tried to extract some little consolation +from the consciousness that she knew at least some things which Arnfinn +did not know, and which it would be very unsafe to confide to him. + + + + +VI. + + +Four weeks after Strand's departure, as the summer had already assumed +that tinge of sadness which impresses one as a foreboding of coming +death, Augusta was walking along the beach, watching the flight of +the sea-birds. Her latest "aberration," as Arnfinn called it, was an +extraordinary interest in the habits of the eider-ducks, auks, and +sea-gulls, the noisy monotony of whose existence had, but a few months +ago, appeared to her the symbol of all that was vulgar and coarse +in human and animal life. Now she had even provided herself with a +note-book, and (to use once more the language of her unbelieving cousin) +affected a half-scientific interest in their clamorous pursuits. She had +made many vain attempts to imitate their voices and to beguile them +into closer intimacy, and had found it hard at times to suppress her +indignation when they persisted in viewing her in the light of an +intruder, and in returning her amiable approaches with shy suspicion, as +if they doubted the sincerity of her intentions. + +She was a little paler now, perhaps, than before, but her eyes had still +the same lustrous depth, and the same sweet serenity was still diffused +over her features, and softened, like a pervading tinge of warm color, +the grand simplicity of her presence. She sat down on a large rock, +picked up a curiously twisted shell, and seeing a plover wading in the +surf, gave a soft, low whistle, which made the bird turn round and gaze +at her with startled distrust. She repeated the call, but perhaps a +little too eagerly, and the bird spread its wings with a frightened cry, +and skimmed, half flying, half running, out over the glittering surface +of the fjord. But from the rocks close by came a long melancholy whistle +like that of a bird in distress, and the girl rose and hastened with +eager steps toward the spot. She climbed up on a stone, fringed all +around with green slimy seaweeds, in order to gain a wider view of the +beach. Then suddenly some huge figure started up between the rocks at +her feet; she gave a little scream, her foot slipped, and in the next +moment she lay--in Strand's arms. He offered no apology, but silently +carried her over the slippery stones, and deposited her tenderly upon +the smooth white sand. There it occurred to her that his attention +was quite needless, but at the moment she was too startled to make any +remonstrance. + +"But how in the world, Mr. Strand, did you come here?" she managed at +last to stammer. "We all thought that you had gone away." + +"I hardly know myself," said Strand, in a beseeching undertone, quite +different from his usual confident bass. "I only know that--that I was +very wretched, and that I had to come back." + +Then there was a pause, which to both seemed quite interminable, and, in +order to fill it out in some way, Strand began to move his head and arms +uneasily, and at length seated himself at Augusta's side. The blood was +beating with feverish vehemence in her temples, and for the first time +in her life she felt something akin to pity for this large, strong man, +whose strength and cheerful self-reliance had hitherto seemed to +raise him above the need of a woman's aid and sympathy. Now the very +shabbiness of his appearance, and the look of appealing misery in his +features, opened in her bosom the gate through which compassion could +enter, and, with that generous self-forgetfulness which was the chief +factor of her character, she leaned over toward him, and said: + +"You must have been very sick, Mr. Strand. Why did you not come to us +and allow us to take care of you, instead of roaming about here in this +stony wilderness?" + +"Yes; I have been sick," cried Strand, with sudden vehemence, seizing +her hand; "but it is a sickness of which I shall never, never be +healed." + +And with that world-old eloquence which is yet ever new, he poured forth +his passionate confession in her ear, and she listened, hungrily at +first, then with serene, wide-eyed happiness. He told her how, driven by +his inward restlessness, he had wandered about in the mountains, until +one evening at a saeter, he had heard a peasant lad singing a song, in +which this stanza occurred: + + "A woman's frown, a woman's smile, + Nor hate nor fondness prove; + For maidens smile on him they hate, + And fly from him they love." + + +Then it had occurred to him for the first time in his life that a +woman's behavior need not be the logical indicator of her deepest +feelings, and, enriched with this joyful discovery, inspired with new +hope, he had returned, but had not dared at once to seek the Parsonage, +until he could invent some plausible reason for his return; but his +imagination was very poor, and he had found none, except that he loved +the pastor's beautiful daughter. + +The evening wore on. The broad mountain-guarded valley, flooded now to +the brim with a soft misty light, spread out about them, and filled +them with a delicious sense of security. The fjord lifted its grave gaze +toward the sky, and deepened responsively with a bright, ever-receding +immensity. The young girl felt this blessed peace gently stealing over +her; doubt and struggle were all past, and the sun shone ever serene and +unobscured upon the widening expanses of the future. And in his breast, +too, that mood reigned in which life looks boundless and radiant, human +woes small or impossible, and one's own self large and all-conquering. +In that hour they remodeled this old and obstinate world of ours, never +doubting that, if each united his faith and strength with the other's, +they could together lift its burden. + +That night was the happiest and most memorable night in the history of +the Gran Parsonage. The pastor walked up and down on the floor, +rubbing his hands in quiet contentment. Inga, to whom an engagement was +essentially a solemn affair, sat in a corner and gazed at her sister and +Strand with tearful radiance. Arnfinn gave vent to his joy by bestowing +embraces promiscuously upon whomsoever chanced to come in his way. + +This story, however, has a brief but not unimportant sequel. It was not +many weeks after this happy evening that Arnfinn and the maiden with the +"amusingly unclassical nose" presented themselves in the pastor's study +and asked for his paternal and unofficial blessing. But the pastor, I +am told, grew very wroth, and demanded that his nephew should first +take his second and third degrees, attaching, besides, some very odious +stipulations regarding average in study and college standing, before +there could be any talk about engagement or matrimony. So, at present, +Arnfinn is still studying, and the fair-haired Inga is still waiting. + + + + +TRULS, THE NAMELESS. + +HE was born in the houseman's lodge; she in the great mansion. He did +not know who his father was; she was the daughter of Grim of Skogli, and +she was the only daughter he had. They were carried to baptism on +the same day, and he was called Truls, because they had to call him +something; she received the name of Borghild, because that had been the +name of every eldest born daughter in the family for thirty generations. +They both cried when the pastor poured the water on their heads; his +mother hushed him, blushed, and looked timidly around her; but the woman +who carried Borghild lifted her high up in her arms so that everybody +could see her, and the pastor smiled benignly, and the parishioners said +that they had never seen so beautiful a child. That was the way in which +they began life--he as a child of sin, she as the daughter of a mighty +race. + +They grew up together. She had round cheeks and merry eyes, and her lips +were redder than the red rose. He was of slender growth, his face was +thin and pale, and his eyes had a strange, benumbed gaze, as if they +were puzzling themselves with some sad, life-long riddle which they +never hoped to solve. On the strand where they played the billows came +and went, and they murmured faintly with a sound of infinite remoteness. +Borghild laughed aloud, clapped her hands and threw stones out into +the water, while he sat pale and silent, and saw the great white-winged +sea-birds sailing through the blue ocean of the sky. + +"How would you like to live down there in the deep green water?" she +asked him one day, as they sat watching the eider-ducks which swam and +dived, and stood on their heads among the sea-weeds. + +"I should like it very well," he answered, "if you would follow me." + +"No, I won't follow you," she cried. "It is cold and wet down in the +water. And I should spoil the ribbons on my new bodice. But when I grow +up and get big and can braid my hair, then I shall row with the young +lads to the church yonder on the headland, and there the old pastor will +marry me, and I shall wear the big silver crown which my mother wore +when she was married." + +"And may I go with you?" asked he, timidly. + +"Yes, you may steer my boat and be my helmsman, or--you may be my +bridegroom, if you would like that better." + +"Yes, I think I should rather be your bridegroom," and he gave her a +long, strange look which almost frightened her. + +The years slipped by, and before Borghild knew it, she had grown into +womanhood. The down on Truls's cheeks became rougher, and he, too, began +to suspect that he was no longer a boy. When the sun was late and the +breeze murmured in the great, dark-crowned pines, they often met by +chance, at the well, on the strand, or on the saeter-green. And the +oftener they met the more they found to talk about; to be sure, it was +she who did the talking, and he looked at her with his large wondering +eyes and listened. She told him of the lamb which had tumbled down +over a steep precipice and still was unhurt, of the baby who pulled +the pastor's hair last Sunday during the baptismal ceremony, or of the +lumberman, Lars, who drank the kerosene his wife gave him for brandy, +and never knew the difference. But, when the milkmaids passed by, she +would suddenly forget what she had been saying, and then they sat gazing +at each other in silence. Once she told him of the lads who danced with +her at the party at Houg; and she thought she noticed a deeper color on +his face, and that he clinched both his fists and--thrust them into +his pockets. That set her thinking, and the more she thought, the more +curious she grew. He played the violin well; suppose she should ask him +to come and fiddle at the party her father was to give at the end of the +harvest. She resolved to do it, and he, not knowing what moved her, +gave his promise eagerly. It struck her, afterward, that she had done +a wicked thing, but, like most girls, she had not the heart to wrestle +with an uncomfortable thought; she shook it off and began to hum a +snatch of an old song. + + "O'er the billows the fleet-footed storm-wind rode, + The billows blue are the merman's abode, + So strangely that harp was sounding." + + +The memory of old times came back to her, the memory of the morning long +years ago, when they sat together on the strand, and he said; "I think I +would rather be your bridegroom, Borghild." The memory was sweet but it +was bitter too; and the bitterness rose and filled her heart. She threw +her head back proudly, and laughed a strange, hollow laugh. "A bastard's +bride, ha, ha! A fine tale were that for the parish gossips." A yellow +butterfly lighted on her arm, and with a fierce frown on her face she +caught it between her fingers. Then she looked pityingly on the dead +wings, as they lay in her hand, and murmured between her teeth: "Poor +thing! Why did you come in my way, unbidden?" + +The harvest was rich, and the harvest party was to keep pace with the +harvest. The broad Skogli mansion was festively lighted (for it was +already late in September); the tall, straight tallow candles, stuck in +many-armed candlesticks, shone dimly through a sort of misty halo, and +only suffused the dusk with a faint glimmering of light. And every +time a guest entered, the flames of the candles flickered and twisted +themselves with the wind, struggling to keep erect. And Borghild's +courage, too, rose and fell with the flickering motion of a flame which +wrestles with the wind. Whenever the latch clicked she lifted her eyes +and looked for Truls, and one moment she wished that she might never +see his face again, and in the next she sent an eager glance toward +the door. Presently he came, threw his fiddle on a bench, and with a +reckless air walked up to her and held out his hand. She hesitated to +return his greeting, but when she saw the deep lines of suffering in +his face, her heart went forward with a great tenderness toward him, +a tenderness such as one feels for a child who is sick, and suffers +without hope of healing. She laid her hand in his, and there it lay for +a while listlessly; for neither dared trust the joy which the sight of +the other enkindled. But when she tried to draw her hand away, he caught +it quickly, and with a sudden fervor of voice he said: + +"The sight of you, Borghild, stills the hunger which is raging in my +soul. Beware that you do not play with a life, Borghild, even though it +be a worthless one." + +There was something so hopelessly sad in his words, that they stung her +to the quick. They laid bare a hidden deep in her heart, and she shrank +back st the sight of her own vileness. How could she repair the injury +she had done him? How could she heal the wound she had inflicted? A +number of guests came up to greet her and among them Syvert Stein, a +bold-looking young man, who, during that summer, had led her frequently +in the dance. He had a square face, strong features, and a huge crop of +towy hair. His race was far-famed for wit and daring. + +"Tardy is your welcome, Borghild of Skogli," quoth he. "But what a faint +heart does not give a bold hand can grasp, and what I am not offered I +take unbidden." + +So saying, he flung his arm about her waist, lifted her from the floor +and put her down in the middle of the room. Truls stood and gazed at +them with large, bewildered eyes. He tried hard to despise the braggart, +but ended with envying him. + +"Ha, fiddler, strike up a tune that shall ring through marrow and bone," +shouted Syvert Stein, who struck the floor with his heels and moved his +body to the measure of a spring-dance. + +Truls still followed them with his eyes; suddenly he leaped up, and +a wild thought burned in his breast. But with an effort he checked +himself, grasped his violin, and struck a wailing chord of lament. Then +he laid his ear close to the instrument, as if he were listening to +some living voice hidden there within, ran warily with the bow over the +strings, and warbled, and caroled, and sang with maddening glee, and +still with a shivering undercurrent of woe. And the dusk which slept +upon the black rafters was quickened and shook with the weird sound; +every pulse in the wide hall beat more rapidly, and every eye kindled +with a bolder fire. Pressently{sic} a Strong male voice sang out to the +measure of the violin: + + + "Come, fairest maid, tread the dance with me; + O heigh ho!" + + And a clear, tremulous treble answered: + + "So gladly tread I the dance with thee; + O heigh ho!" + + +Truls knew the voices only too well; it was Syvert Stein and Borghild +who were singing a stave. [8] + + Syvert--Like brier-roses thy red cheeks blush, + Borghild--And thine are rough like the thorny bush; + Both--An' a heigho! + + Syvert--So fresh and green is the sunny lea; + O heigh ho! + Borghild--The fiddle twangeth so merrily; + O heigh ho! + Syvert--So lightly goeth the lusty reel, + Borghild--And round we whirl like a spinning-wheel; + Both--An' a heigho! + + Syvert--Thine eyes are bright like the sunny fjord; + O heigh ho! + Borghild--And thine do flash like a Viking's sword; + O heigh ho! + Syvert--So lightly trippeth thy foot along, + Borghild--The air is teeming with joyful song; + Both--An' a heigh ho! + + Syvert--Then fairest maid, while the woods are green, + O heigh ho! + Borghild--And thrushes sing the fresh leaves between; + O heigh ho! + Syvert--Come, let us dance in the gladsome day, + Borghild--Dance hate, and sorrow, and care away; + Both--An' a heigh ho! + + +The stave was at an end. The hot and flushed dancers straggled over the +floor by twos and threes, and the big beer-horns were passed from hand +to hand. Truls sat in his corner hugging his violin tightly to +his bosom, only to do something, for he was vaguely afraid of +himself--afraid of the thoughts that might rise--afraid of the deed they +might prompt. He ran his fingers over his forehead, but he hardly +felt the touch of his own hand. It was as if something was dead within +him--as if a string had snapped in his breast, and left it benumbed and +voiceless. + +Presently he looked up and saw Borghild standing before him; she held +her arms akimbo, her eyes shone with a strange light, and her features +wore an air of recklessness mingled with pity. + +"Ah, Borghild, is it you?" said he, in a hoarse voice. "What do you want +with me? I thought you had done with me now." + +"You are a very unwitty fellow," answered she, with a forced laugh. "The +branch that does not bend must break." + +She turned quickly on her heel and was lost in the crowd. He sat long +pondering on her words, but their meaning remained hidden to him. The +branch that does not bend must break. Was he the branch, and must he +bend or break? By-and-by he put his hands on his knees, rose with a +slow, uncertain motion, and stalked heavily toward the door. The fresh +night air would do him good. The thought breathes more briskly in God's +free nature, under the broad canopy of heaven. The white mist rose from +the fields, and made the valley below appear like a white sea whose +nearness you feel, even though you do not see it. And out of the mist +the dark pines stretched their warning hands against the sky, and the +moon was swimming, large and placid, between silvery islands of cloud. +Truls began to beat his arms against his sides, and felt the warm blood +spreading from his heart and thawing the numbness of his limbs. Not +caring whither he went, he struck the path leading upward to the +mountains. He took to humming an old air which happened to come into his +head, only to try if there was life enough left in him to sing. It was +the ballad of Young Kirsten and the Merman: + + "The billows fall and the billows swell, + In the night so lone, + In the billows blue doth the merman dwell, + And strangely that harp was sounding." + + +He walked on briskly for a while, and, looking back upon the pain he had +endured but a moment ago, he found it quite foolish and irrational. An +absurd merriment took possession of him; but all the while he did +not know where his foot stepped; his head swam, and his pulse beat +feverishly. About midway between the forest and the mansion, where the +field sloped more steeply, grew a clump of birch-trees, whose slender +stems glimmered ghostly white in the moonlight. Something drove Truls to +leave the beaten road, and, obeying the impulse, he steered toward the +birches. A strange sound fell upon his ear, like the moan of one in +distress. It did not startle him; indeed, he was in a mood when nothing +could have caused him wonder. If the sky had suddenly tumbled down upon +him, with moon and all, he would have taken it as a matter of course. +Peering for a moment through the mist, he discerned the outline of a +human figure. With three great strides he reached the birch-tree; at +his feet sat Borghild rocking herself to and fro and weeping piteously. +Without a word he seated himself at her side and tried to catch a +glimpse of her face; but she hid it from him and went on sobbing. Still +there could be no doubt that it was Borghild--one hour ago so merry, +reckless, and defiant, now cowering at his feet and weeping like a +broken-hearted child. + +"Borghild," he said, at last, putting his arm gently about her waist, +"you and I, I think, played together when we were children." + +"So we did, Truls," answered she, struggling with her tears. + +"And as we grew up, we spent many a pleasant hour with each other." + +"Many a pleasant hour." + +She raised her head, and he drew her more closely to him. + +"But since then I have done you a great wrong," began she, after a +while. + +"Nothing done that cannot yet be undone," he took heart to answer. + +It was long before her thoughts took shape, and, when at length they +did, she dared not give them utterance. Nevertheless, she was all the +time conscious of one strong desire, from which her conscience shrank as +from a crime; and she wrestled ineffectually with her weakness until her +weakness prevailed. + +"I am glad you came," she faltered. "I knew you would come. There was +something I wished to say to you." + +"And what was it, Borghild?" + +"I wanted to ask you to forgive me--" + +"Forgive you--" + +He sprang up as if something had stung him. + +"And why not?" she pleaded, piteously. + +"Ah, girl, you know not what you ask," cried he, with a sternness which +startled her. "If I had more than one life to waste--but you caress with +one hand and stab with the other. Fare thee well, Borghild, for here our +paths separate." + +He turned his back upon her and began to descend the slope. + +"For God's sake, stay, Truls," implored she, and stretched her arms +appealingly toward him; "tell me, oh, tell me all." + +With a leap he was again at her side, stooped down over her, and, in a +hoarse, passionate whisper, spoke the secret of his life in her ear. She +gazed for a moment steadily into his face, then, in a few hurried words, +she pledged him her love, her faith, her all. And in the stillness of +that summer night they planned together their flight to a greater and +freer land, where no world-old prejudice frowned upon the union of two +kindred souls. They would wait in patience and silence until spring; +then come the fresh winds from the ocean, and, with them, the birds of +passage which awake the longings in the Norsemen's breasts, and the +American vessels which give courage to many a sinking spirit, strength +to the wearied arm, hope to the hopeless heart. + +During that winter Truls and Borghild seldom saw each other. The parish +was filled with rumors, and after the Christmas holiday it was told for +certain that the proud maiden of Skogli had been promised in marriage to +Syvert Stein. It was the general belief that the families had made the +match, and that Borghild, at least, had hardly had any voice in the +matter. Another report was that she had flatly refused to listen to any +proposal from that quarter, and that, when she found that resistance was +vain, she had cried three days and three nights, and refused to take any +food. When this rumor reached the pastor's ear, he pronounced it an +idle tale; "for," said he, "Borghild has always been a proper and +well-behaved maiden, and she knows that she must honor father and +mother, that it may be well with her, and she live long upon the land." + +But Borghild sat alone in her gable window and looked longingly toward +the ocean. The glaciers glittered, the rivers swelled, the buds of the +forest burst, and great white sails began to glimmer on the far western +horizon. + +If Truls, the Nameless, as scoffers were wont to call him, had been a +greater personage in the valley, it would, no doubt, have shocked the +gossips to know that one fine morning he sold his cow, his gun and his +dog, and wrapped sixty silver dollars in a leathern bag, which he sewed +fast to the girdle he wore about his waist. That same night some one was +heard playing wildly up in the birch copse above the Skogli mansion; now +it sounded like a wail of distress, then like a fierce, defiant laugh, +and now again the music seemed to hush itself into a heart-broken, +sorrowful moan, and the people crossed themselves, and whispered: "Our +Father;" but Borghild sat at her gable window and listened long to the +weird strain. The midnight came, but she stirred not. With the hour +of midnight the music ceased. From the windows of hall and kitchen the +light streamed out into the damp air, and the darkness stood like a wall +on either side; within, maids and lads were busy brewing, baking, and +washing, for in a week there was to be a wedding on the farm. + +The week went and the wedding came. Truls had not closed his eyes all +that night, and before daybreak he sauntered down along the beach and +gazed out upon the calm fjord, where the white-winged sea-birds whirled +in great airy surges around the bare crags. Far up above the noisy +throng an ospray sailed on the blue expanse of the sky, and quick as +thought swooped down upon a halibut which had ventured to take a peep +at the rising sun. The huge fish struggled for a moment at the water's +edge, then, with a powerful stroke of its tail, which sent the spray +hissing through the air, dived below the surface. The bird of prey gave +a loud scream, flapped fiercely with its broad wings, and for several +minutes a thickening cloud of applauding ducks and seagulls and +showers of spray hid the combat from the observer's eye. When the birds +scattered, the ospray had vanished, and the waters again glittered +calmly in the morning sun. Truls stood long, vacantly staring out upon +the scene of the conflict, and many strange thoughts whirled through his +head. + +"Halloo, fiddler!" cried a couple of lads who had come to clear the +wedding boats, "you are early on foot to-day. Here is a scoop. Come on +and help us bail the boats." + +Truls took the scoop, and looked at it as if he had never seen such a +thing before; he moved about heavily, hardly knowing what he did, but +conscious all the while of his own great misery. His limbs seemed half +frozen, and a dull pain gathered about his head and in his breast--in +fact, everywhere and nowhere. + +About ten o'clock the bridal procession descended the slope to the +fjord. Syvert Stein, the bridegroom, trod the earth with a firm, springy +step, and spoke many a cheery word to the bride, who walked, silent and +with downcast eyes, at his side. She wore the ancestral bridal crown on +her head, and the little silver disks around its edge tinkled and shook +as she walked. They hailed her with firing of guns and loud hurrahs +as she stepped into the boat; still she did not raise her eyes, but +remained silent. A small cannon, also an heir-loom in the family, was +placed amidships, and Truls, with his violin, took his seat in the prow. +A large solitary cloud, gold-rimmed but with thunder in its breast, +sailed across the sky and threw its shadow over the bridal boat as it +was pushed out from the shore, and the shadow fell upon the bride's +countenance too; and when she lifted it, the mother of the bridegroom, +who sat opposite her, shrank back, for the countenance looked hard, as +if carved in stone--in the eyes a mute, hopeless appeal; on the lips a +frozen prayer. The shadow of thunder upon a life that was opening--it +was an ill omen, and its gloom sank into the hearts of the wedding +guests. They spoke in undertones and threw pitying glances at the bride. +Then at length Syvert Stein lost his patience. + +"In sooth," cried he, springing up from his seat, "where is to-day the +cheer that is wont to abide in the Norseman's breast? Methinks I see but +sullen airs and ill-boding glances. Ha, fiddler, now move your strings +lustily! None of your funeral airs, my lad, but a merry tune that shall +sing through marrow and bone, and make the heart leap in the bosom." + +Truls heard the words, and in a slow, mechanical way he took the violin +out of its case and raised it to his chin. Syvert in the mean while put +a huge silver beer-jug to his mouth, and, pledging his guests, emptied +it even to the dregs. But the bride's cheek was pale; and it was so +still in the boat that every man could hear his own breathing. + +"Ha, to-day is Syvert Stein's wedding-day!" shouted the bridegroom, +growing hot with wrath. "Let us try if the iron voice of the cannon can +wake my guests from their slumber." + +He struck a match and put it to the touch-hole of the cannon; a long +boom rolled away over the surface of the waters and startled the echoes +of the distant glaciers. A faint hurrah sounded from the nearest craft, +but there came no response from the bridal boat. Syvert pulled the +powder-horn from his pocket, laughed a wild laugh, and poured the whole +contents of the horn into the mouth of the cannon. + +"Now may the devil care for his own," roared he, and sprang up upon the +row-bench. Then there came a low murmuring strain as of wavelets that +ripple against a sandy shore. Borghild lifted her eyes, and they met +those of the fiddler. + +"Ah, I think I should rather be your bridegroom," whispered she, and a +ray of life stole into her stony visage. + +And she saw herself as a little rosy-cheeked girl sitting at his side +on the beach fifteen years ago. But the music gathered strength from +her glance, and onward it rushed through the noisy years of boyhood, +shouting with wanton voice in the lonely glen, lowing with the cattle +on the mountain pastures, and leaping like the trout at eventide in the +brawling rapids; but through it all there ran a warm strain of boyish +loyalty and strong devotion, and it thawed her frozen heart; for she +knew that it was all for her and for her only. And it seemed such a +beautiful thing, this long faithful life, which through sorrow and joy, +through sunshine and gloom, for better for worse, had clung so fast to +her. The wedding guests raised their heads, and a murmur of applause ran +over the waters. + +"Bravo!" cried the bridegroom. "Now at last the tongues are loosed." + +Truls's gaze dwelt with tender sadness on the bride. Then came from the +strings some airy quivering chords, faintly flushed like the petals of +the rose, and fragrant like lilies of the valley; and they swelled with +a strong, awakening life, and rose with a stormy fullness until they +seemed on the point of bursting, when again they hushed themselves and +sank into a low, disconsolate whisper. Once more the tones stretched +out their arms imploringly, and again they wrestled despairingly with +themselves, fled with a stern voice of warning, returned once more, +wept, shuddered, and were silent. + +"Beware that thou dost not play with a life!" sighed the bride, "even +though it be a worthless one." + +The wedding guests clapped their hands and shouted wildly against the +sky. The bride's countenance burned with a strange feverish glow. The +fiddler arose in the prow of the boat, his eyes flamed, he struck the +strings madly, and the air trembled with melodious rapture. The voice +of that music no living tongue can interpret. But the bride fathomed its +meaning; her bosom labored vehemently, her lips quivered for an instant +convulsively, and she burst into tears. A dark suspicion shot through +the bridegroom's mind. He stared intently upon the weeping Borghild then +turned his gaze to the fiddler, who, still regarding her, stood playing, +with a half-frenzied look and motion. + +"You cursed wretch!" shrieked Syvert, and made a leap over two benches +to where Truls was standing. It came so unexpectedly that Truls had +no time to prepare for defense; so he merely stretched out the hand in +which he held the violin to ward off the blow which he saw was coming; +but Syvert tore the instrument from his grasp and dashed it against +the cannon, and, as it happened, just against the touch-hole. With a +tremendous crash something black darted through the air and a white +smoke brooded over the bridal boat. The bridegroom stood pale and +stunned. At his feet lay Borghild--lay for a moment still, as if +lifeless, then rose on her elbows, and a dark red current broke from her +breast. The smoke scattered. No one saw how it was done; but a moment +later Truls, the Nameless, lay kneeling at Borghild's side. + +"It WAS a worthless life, beloved," whispered he, tenderly. "Now it is +at an end." + +And he lifted her up in his arms as one lifts a beloved child, pressed +a kiss on her pale lips, and leaped into the water. Like lead they fell +into the sea. A throng of white bubbles whirled up to the surface. A +loud wail rose from the bridal fleet, and before the day was at an end +it filled the valley; but the wail did not recall Truls, the Nameless, +or Borghild his bride. + +What life denied them, would to God that death may yield them! + + + + +ASATHOR'S VENGEANCE. + + + + +I. + +IT was right up under the steel mountain wall where the farm of Kvaerk +lay. How any man of common sense could have hit upon the idea of +building a house there, where none but the goat and the hawk had easy +access, had been, and I am afraid would ever be, a matter of wonder to +the parish people. However, it was not Lage Kvaerk who had built +the house, so he could hardly be made responsible for its situation. +Moreover, to move from a place where one's life has once struck deep +root, even if it be in the chinks and crevices of stones and rocks, is +about the same as to destroy it. An old tree grows but poorly in a new +soil. So Lage Kvaerk thought, and so he said, too, whenever his wife +Elsie spoke of her sunny home at the river. + +Gloomy as Lage usually was, he had his brighter moments, and people +noticed that these were most likely to occur when Aasa, his daughter, +was near. Lage was probably also the only being whom Aasa's presence +could cheer; on other people it seemed to have the very opposite effect; +for Aasa was--according to the testimony of those who knew her--the most +peculiar creature that ever was born. But perhaps no one did know her; +if her father was right, no one really did--at least no one but himself. + +Aasa was all to her father; she was his past and she was his future, his +hope and his life; and withal it must be admitted that those who judged +her without knowing her had at least in one respect as just an opinion +of her as he; for there was no denying that she was strange, very +strange. She spoke when she ought to be silent, and was silent when it +was proper to speak; wept when she ought to laugh, and laughed when it +was proper to weep; but her laughter as well as her tears, her speech +like her silence, seemed to have their source from within her own soul, +to be occasioned, as it were, by something which no one else could see +or hear. It made little difference where she was; if the tears came, she +yielded to them as if they were something she had long desired in vain. +Few could weep like her, and "weep like Aasa Kvaerk," was soon also +added to the stock of parish proverbs. And then her laugh! Tears may +be inopportune enough, when they come out of time, but laughter is far +worse; and when poor Aasa once burst out into a ringing laughter in +church, and that while the minister was pronouncing the benediction, it +was only with the greatest difficulty that her father could prevent +the indignant congregation from seizing her and carrying her before the +sheriff for violation of the church-peace. Had she been poor and homely, +then of course nothing could have saved her; but she happened to be both +rich and beautiful, and to wealth and beauty much is pardoned. Aasa's +beauty, however, was also of a very unusual kind; not the tame sweetness +so common in her sex, but something of the beauty of the falcon, when it +swoops down upon the unwatchful sparrow or soars round the lonely +crags; something of the mystic depth of the dark tarn, when with bodeful +trembling you gaze down into it, and see its weird traditions rise from +its depth and hover over the pine-tops in the morning fog. Yet, Aasa was +not dark; her hair was as fair and yellow as a wheat-field in August, +her forehead high and clear, and her mouth and chin as if cut with a +chisel; only her eyes were perhaps somewhat deeper than is common in the +North, and the longer you looked at them the deeper they grew, just like +the tarn, which, if you stare long enough into it, you will find is as +deep as the heavens above, that is, whose depth only faith and fancy can +fathom. But however long you looked at Aasa, you could never be quite +sure that she looked at you; she seemed but to half notice whatever went +on around her; the look of her eye was always more than half inward, +and when it shone the brightest, it might well happen that she could not +have told you how many years she had lived, or the name her father gave +her in baptism. + +Now Aasa was eighteen years old, and could knit, weave, and spin, and it +was full time that wooers should come. "But that is the consequence of +living in such an out-of-the-way place," said her mother; "who will risk +his limbs to climb that neck-breaking rock? and the round-about way over +the forest is rather too long for a wooer." Besides handling the loom +and the spinning-wheel, Aasa had also learned to churn and make cheese +to perfection, and whenever Elsie grieved at her strange behavior she +always in the end consoled herself with the reflection that after all +Aasa would make the man who should get her an excellent housewife. + +The farm of Kvaerk was indeed most singularly situated. About a hundred +feet from the house the rough wall of the mountain rose steep and +threatening; and the most remarkable part of it was that the rock itself +caved inward and formed a lofty arch overhead, which looked like a huge +door leading into the mountain. Some short distance below, the slope of +the fields ended in an abrupt precipice; far underneath lay the other +farm-houses of the valley, scattered like small red or gray dots, and +the river wound onward like a white silver stripe in the shelter of the +dusky forest. There was a path down along the rock, which a goat or a +brisk lad might be induced to climb, if the prize of the experiment were +great enough to justify the hazard. The common road to Kvaerk made a +large circuit around the forest, and reached the valley far up at its +northern end. + +It was difficult to get anything to grow at Kvaerk. In the spring all +the valley lay bare and green, before the snow had begun to think of +melting up there; and the night-frost would be sure to make a visit +there, while the fields along the river lay silently drinking the summer +dew. On such occasions the whole family at Kvaerk would have to stay +up during all the night and walk back and forth on either side of the +wheat-fields, carrying a long rope between them and dragging it slowly +over the heads of the rye, to prevent the frost from settling; for as +long as the ears could be kept in motion, they could not freeze. But +what did thrive at Kvaerk in spite of both snow and night-frost was +legends, and they throve perhaps the better for the very sterility of +its material soil. Aasa of course had heard them all and knew them +by heart; they had been her friends from childhood, and her only +companions. All the servants, however, also knew them and many others +besides, and if they were asked how the mansion of Kvaerk happened to be +built like an eagle's nest on the brink of a precipice, they would tell +you the following: + +Saint Olaf, Norway's holy king, in the time of his youth had sailed as +a Viking over the wide ocean, and in foreign lands had learned the +doctrine of Christ the White. When he came home to claim the throne of +his hereditary kingdom, he brought with him tapers and black priests, +and commanded the people to overthrow the altars of Odin and Thor and +to believe alone in Christ the White. If any still dared to slaughter +a horse to the old gods, he cut off their ears, burned their farms, +and drove them houseless from the smoking ruins. Here in the valley old +Thor, or, as they called him, Asathor, had always helped us to vengeance +and victory, and gentle Frey for many years had given us fair and +fertile summers. Therefore the peasants paid little heed to King Olaf's +god, and continued to bring their offerings to Odin and Asathor. This +reached the king's ear, and he summoned his bishop and five black +priests, and set out to visit our valley. Having arrived here, he called +the peasants together, stood up on the Ting-stone, told them of the +great things that the White Christ had done, and bade them choose +between him and the old gods. Some were scared, and received baptism +from the king's priests; others bit their lips and were silent; others +again stood forth and told Saint Olaf that Odin and Asathor had always +served them well, and that they were not going to give them up for +Christ the White, whom they had never seen and of whom they knew +nothing. The next night the red cock crew [9] over ten farms in the +valley, and it happened to be theirs who had spoken against King Olaf's +god. Then the peasants flocked to the Ting-stone and received the +baptism of Christ the White. Some few, who had mighty kinsmen in the +North, fled and spread the evil tidings. Only one neither fled nor +was baptized, and that one was Lage Ulfson Kvaerk, the ancestor of +the present Lage. He slew his best steed before Asathor's altar, and +promised to give him whatever he should ask, even to his own life, if he +would save him from the vengeance of the king. Asathor heard his prayer. +As the sun set, a storm sprung up with thick darkness and gloom, the +earth shook, Asathor drove his chariot over the heavens with deafening +thunder and swung his hammer right and left, and the crackling lightning +flew through the air like a hail-storm of fire. Then the peasants +trembled, for they knew that Asathor was wroth. Only the king sat calm +and fearless with his bishop and priests, quaffing the nut-brown mead. +The tempest raged until morn. When the sun rose, Saint Olaf called his +hundred swains, sprang into the saddle and rode down toward the river. +Few men who saw the angry fire in his eye, and the frown on his royal +brow, doubted whither he was bound. But having reached the ford, a +wondrous sight met his eye. Where on the day before the highway had +wound itself up the slope toward Lage Kvaerk's mansion, lay now a wild +ravine; the rock was shattered into a thousand pieces, and a deep gorge, +as if made by a single stroke of a huge hammer, separated the king from +his enemy. Then Saint Olaf made the sign of the cross, and mumbled the +name of Christ the White; but his hundred swains made the sign of the +hammer under their cloaks, and thought, Still is Asathor alive. + +That same night Lage Ulfson Kvaerk slew a black ram, and thanked Asathor +for his deliverance; and the Saga tells that while he was sprinkling +the blood on the altar, the thundering god himself appeared to him, +and wilder he looked than the fiercest wild Turk. Rams, said he, were +every-day fare; they could redeem no promise. Brynhild, his daughter, +was the reward Asathor demanded. Lage prayed and besought him to ask +for something else. He would gladly give him one of his sons; for he had +three sons, but only one daughter. Asathor was immovable; but so long +Lage continued to beg, that at last he consented to come back in a +year, when Lage perchance would be better reconciled to the thought of +Brynhild's loss. + +In the mean time King Olaf built a church to Christ the White on the +headland at the river, where it stands until this day. Every evening, +when the huge bell rumbled between the mountains, the parishioners +thought they heard heavy, half-choked sighs over in the rocks at Kvaerk; +and on Sunday mornings, when the clear-voiced chimes called them to +high-mass, a suppressed moan would mingle with the sound of the bells, +and die away with the last echo. Lage Ulfson was not the man to be +afraid; yet the church-bells many a time drove the blood from his +cheeks; for he also heard the moan from the mountain. + +The year went, and Asathor returned. If he had not told his name, +however, Lage would not have recognized him. That a year could work so +great a change in a god, he would hardly have believed, if his own eyes +had not testified to it. Asathor's cheeks were pale and bloodless, the +lustre of his eye more than half quenched, and his gray hair hung in +disorder down over his forehead. + +"Methinks thou lookest rather poorly to-day," said Lage. + +"It is only those cursed church-bells," answered the god; "they leave me +no rest day or night." + +"Aha," thought Lage, "if the king's bells are mightier than thou, then +there is still hope of safety for my daughter." + +"Where is Brynhild, thy daughter?" asked Asathor. + +"I know not where she is," answered the father; and straightway he +turned his eyes toward the golden cross that shone over the valley from +Saint Olaf's steeple, and he called aloud on the White Christ's name. +Then the god gave a fearful roar, fell on the ground, writhed and foamed +and vanished into the mountain. In the next moment Lage heard a hoarse +voice crying from within, "I shall return, Lage Ulfson, when thou shalt +least expect me!" + +Lage Ulfson then set to work clearing a way through the forest; and when +that was done, he called all his household together, and told them of +the power of Christ the White. Not long after he took his sons and his +daughter, and hastened with them southward, until he found King Olaf. +And, so the Saga relates, they all fell down on their knees before him, +prayed for his forgiveness, and received baptism from the king's own +bishop. + +So ends the Saga of Lage Ulfson Kvaerk. + + + + +II. + + +Aasa Kvaerk loved her father well, but especially in the winter. Then, +while she sat turning her spinning-wheel in the light of the crackling +logs, his silent presence always had a wonderfully soothing and calming +effect upon her. She never laughed then, and seldom wept; when she felt +his eyes resting on her, her thoughts, her senses, and her whole being +seemed by degrees to be lured from their hiding-place and concentrate on +him; and from him they ventured again, first timidly, then more boldly, +to grasp the objects around him. At such times Aasa could talk and +jest almost like other girls, and her mother, to whom "other girls" +represented the ideal of womanly perfection, would send significant +glances, full of hope and encouragement, over to Lage, and he would +quietly nod in return, as if to say that he entirely agreed with her. +Then Elsie had bright visions of wooers and thrifty housewives, and even +Lage dreamed of seeing the ancient honor of the family re-established. +All depended on Aasa. She was the last of the mighty race. But when +summer came, the bright visions fled; and the spring winds, which to +others bring life and joy, to Kvaerk brought nothing but sorrow. No +sooner had the mountain brooks begun to swell, than Aasa began to laugh +and to weep; and when the first birches budded up in the glens, she +could no longer be kept at home. Prayers and threats were equally +useless. From early dawn until evening she would roam about in forests +and fields, and when late at night she stole into the room and slipped +away into some corner, Lage drew a deep sigh and thought of the old +tradition. + +Aasa was nineteen years old before she had a single wooer. But when she +was least expecting it, the wooer came to her. + +It was late one summer night; the young maiden was sitting on the brink +of the ravine, pondering on the old legend and peering down into the +deep below. It was not the first time she had found her way hither, +where but seldom a human foot had dared to tread. To her every alder and +bramble-bush, that clothed the naked wall of the rock, were as familiar +as were the knots and veins in the ceiling of the chamber where from +her childhood she had slept; and as she sat there on the brink of the +precipice, the late summer sun threw its red lustre upon her and upon +the fogs that came drifting up from the deep. With her eyes she followed +the drifting masses of fog, and wondered, as they rose higher and +higher, when they would reach her; in her fancy she saw herself dancing +over the wide expanse of heaven, clad in the sun-gilded evening fogs; +and Saint Olaf, the great and holy king, came riding to meet her, +mounted on a flaming steed made of the glory of a thousand sunsets; then +Saint Olaf took her hand and lifted her up, and she sat with him on the +flaming steed: but the fog lingered in the deep below, and as it rose +it spread like a thin, half-invisible gauze over the forests and the +fields, and at last vanished into the infinite space. But hark! a huge +stone rolls down over the mountain-side, then another, and another; the +noise grows, the birches down there in the gorge tremble and shake. +Aasa leaned out over the brink of the ravine, and, as far as she could +distinguish anything from her dizzying height, thought she saw something +gray creeping slowly up the neck-breaking mountain path; she watched +it for a while, but as it seemed to advance no farther she again took +refuge in her reveries. An hour might have passed, or perhaps more, when +suddenly she heard a noise only a few feet distant, and, again stooping +out over the brink, saw the figure of a man struggling desperately to +climb the last great ledge of the rock. With both his hands he clung to +a little birch-tree which stretched its slender arms down over the black +wall, but with every moment that passed seemed less likely to accomplish +the feat. The girl for a while stood watching him with unfeigned +curiosity, then, suddenly reminding herself that the situation to him +must be a dangerous one, seized hold of a tree that grew near the brink, +and leaned out over the rock to give him her assistance. He eagerly +grasped her extended hand, and with a vigorous pull she flung him up +on the grassy level, where he remained lying for a minute or two, +apparently utterly unable to account for his sudden ascent, and gazing +around him with a half-frightened, half-bewildered look. Aasa, to whom +his appearance was no less strange than his demeanor, unluckily hit +upon the idea that perhaps her rather violent treatment had momentarily +stunned him, and when, as answer to her sympathizing question if he was +hurt, the stranger abruptly rose to his feet and towered up before her +to the formidable height of six feet four or five, she could no longer +master her mirth, but burst out into a most vehement fit of laughter. +He stood calm and silent, and looked at her with a timid but strangely +bitter smile. He was so very different from any man she had ever seen +before; therefore she laughed, not necessarily because he amused her, +but because his whole person was a surprise to her; and there he stood, +tall and gaunt and timid, and said not a word, only gazed and gazed. His +dress was not the national costume of the valley, neither was it like +anything that Aasa had ever known. On his head he wore a cap that hung +all on one side, and was decorated with a long, heavy silk tassel. A +threadbare coat, which seemed to be made expressly not to fit him, hung +loosely on his sloping shoulders, and a pair of gray pantaloons, which +were narrow where they ought to have been wide, and wide where it was +their duty to be narrow, extended their service to a little more than +the upper half of the limb, and, by a kind of compromise with the tops +of the boots, managed to protect also the lower half. His features were +delicate, and would have been called handsome had they belonged to a +proportionately delicate body; in his eyes hovered a dreamy vagueness +which seemed to come and vanish, and to flit from one feature to +another, suggesting the idea of remoteness, and a feeling of hopeless +strangeness to the world and all its concerns. + +"Do I inconvenience you, madam?" were the first words he uttered, as +Aasa in her usual abrupt manner stayed her laughter, turned her back on +him, and hastily started for the house. + +"Inconvenience?" said she, surprised, and again slowly turned on her +heel; "no, not that I know." + +"Then tell me if there are people living here in the neighborhood, or if +the light deceived me, which I saw from the other side of the river." + +"Follow me," answered Aasa, and she naïvely reached him her hand; "my +father's name is Lage Ulfson Kvaerk; he lives in the large house you see +straight before you, there on the hill; and my mother lives there too." + +And hand in hand they walked together, where a path had been made +between two adjoining rye-fields; his serious smile seemed to grow +milder and happier, the longer he lingered at her side, and her eye +caught a ray of more human intelligence, as it rested on him. + +"What do you do up here in the long winter?" asked he, after a pause. + +"We sing," answered she, as it were at random, because the word came +into her mind; "and what do you do, where you come from?" + +"I gather song." + +"Have you ever heard the forest sing?" asked she, curiously. + +"That is why I came here." + +And again they walked on in silence. + +It was near midnight when they entered the large hall at Kvaerk. Aasa +went before, still leading the young man by the hand. In the twilight +which filled the house, the space between the black, smoky rafters +opened a vague vista into the region of the fabulous, and every object +in the room loomed forth from the dusk with exaggerated form and +dimensions. The room appeared at first to be but the haunt of the +spirits of the past; no human voice, no human footstep, was heard; and +the stranger instinctively pressed the hand he held more tightly; for he +was not sure but that he was standing on the boundary of dream-land, +and some elfin maiden had reached him her hand to lure him into her +mountain, where he should live with her forever. But the illusion was of +brief duration; for Aasa's thoughts had taken a widely different course; +it was but seldom she had found herself under the necessity of making a +decision; and now it evidently devolved upon her to find the stranger +a place of rest for the night; so instead of an elf-maid's kiss and a +silver palace, he soon found himself huddled into a dark little alcove +in the wall, where he was told to go to sleep, while Aasa wandered over +to the empty cow-stables, and threw herself down in the hay by the side +of two sleeping milkmaids. + + + + +III. + + +There was not a little astonishment manifested among the servant-maids +at Kvaerk the next morning, when the huge, gaunt figure of a man was +seen to launch forth from Aasa's alcove, and the strangest of all was, +that Aasa herself appeared to be as much astonished as the rest. And +there they stood, all gazing at the bewildered traveler, who indeed was +no less startled than they, and as utterly unable to account for his +own sudden apparition. After a long pause, he summoned all his courage, +fixed his eyes intently on the group of the girls, and with a few rapid +steps advanced toward Aasa, whom he seized by the hand and asked, "Are +you not my maiden of yester-eve?" + +She met his gaze firmly, and laid her hand on her forehead as if to +clear her thoughts; as the memory of the night flashed through her mind, +a bright smile lit up her features, and she answered, "You are the man +who gathers song. Forgive me, I was not sure but it was all a dream; for +I dream so much." + +Then one of the maids ran out to call Lage Ulfson, who had gone to the +stables to harness the horses; and he came and greeted the unknown man, +and thanked him for last meeting, as is the wont of Norse peasants, +although they had never seen each other until that morning. But when the +stranger had eaten two meals in Lage's house, Lage asked him his name +and his father's occupation; for old Norwegian hospitality forbids the +host to learn the guest's name before he has slept and eaten under his +roof. It was that same afternoon, when they sat together smoking their +pipes under the huge old pine in the yard,--it was then Lage inquired +about the young man's name and family; and the young man said that his +name was Trond Vigfusson, that he had graduated at the University of +Christiania, and that his father had been a lieutenant in the army; but +both he and Trond's mother had died, when Trond was only a few years +old. Lage then told his guest Vigfusson something about his family, but +of the legend of Asathor and Saint Olaf he spoke not a word. And while +they were sitting there talking together, Aasa came and sat down at +Vigfusson's feet; her long golden hair flowed in a waving stream down +over her back and shoulders, there was a fresh, healthful glow on her +cheeks, and her blue, fathomless eyes had a strangely joyous, almost +triumphant expression. The father's gaze dwelt fondly upon her, and +the collegian was but conscious of one thought: that she was wondrously +beautiful. And still so great was his natural timidity and awkwardness +in the presence of women, that it was only with the greatest difficulty +he could master his first impulse to find some excuse for leaving her. +She, however, was aware of no such restraint. + +"You said you came to gather song," she said; "where do you find it? for +I too should like to find some new melody for my old thoughts; I have +searched so long." + +"I find my songs on the lips of the people," answered he, "and I write +them down as the maidens or the old men sing them." + +She did not seem quite to comprehend that. "Do you hear maidens sing +them?" asked she, astonished. "Do you mean the troll-virgins and the +elf-maidens?" + +"By troll-virgins and elf-maidens, or what the legends call so, I +understand the hidden and still audible voices of nature, of the dark +pine forests, the legend-haunted glades, and the silent tarns; and this +was what I referred to when I answered your question if I had ever heard +the forest sing." + +"Oh, oh!" cried she, delighted, and clapped her hands like a child; +but in another moment she as suddenly grew serious again, and sat +steadfastly gazing into his eye, as if she were trying to look into his +very soul and there to find something kindred to her own lonely heart. A +minute ago her presence had embarrassed him; now, strange to say, he met +her eye, and smiled happily as he met it. + +"Do you mean to say that you make your living by writing songs?" asked +Lage. + +"The trouble is," answered Vigfusson, "that I make no living at all; but +I have invested a large capital, which is to yield its interest in the +future. There is a treasure of song hidden in every nook and corner of +our mountains and forests, and in our nation's heart. I am one of the +miners who have come to dig it out before time and oblivion shall +have buried every trace of it, and there shall not be even the +will-o'-the-wisp of a legend to hover over the spot, and keep alive the +sad fact of our loss and our blamable negligence." + +Here the young man paused; his eyes gleamed, his pale cheeks flushed, +and there was a warmth and an enthusiasm in his words which alarmed +Lage, while on Aasa it worked like the most potent charm of the ancient +mystic runes; she hardly comprehended more than half of the speaker's +meaning, but his fire and eloquence were on this account none the less +powerful. + +"If that is your object," remarked Lage, "I think you have hit upon the +right place in coming here. You will be able to pick up many an odd bit +of a story from the servants and others hereabouts, and you are welcome +to stay here with us as long as you choose." + +Lage could not but attribute to Vigfusson the merit of having kept Aasa +at home a whole day, and that in the month of midsummer. And while he +sat there listening to their conversation, while he contemplated the +delight that beamed from his daughter's countenance and, as he thought, +the really intelligent expression of her eyes, could he conceal from +himself the paternal hopes that swelled his heart? She was all that was +left him, the life or the death of his mighty race. And here was one who +was likely to understand her, and to whom she seemed willing to yield +all the affection of her warm but wayward heart. Thus ran Lage Ulfson's +reflections; and at night he had a little consultation with Elsie, his +wife, who, it is needless to add, was no less sanguine than he. + +"And then Aasa will make an excellent housewife, you know," observed +Elsie. "I will speak to the girl about it to-morrow." + +"No, for Heaven's sake, Elsie!" exclaimed Lage, "don't you know your +daughter better than that? Promise me, Elsie, that you will not say a +single word; it would be a cruel thing, Elsie, to mention anything to +her. She is not like other girls, you know." + +"Very well, Lage, I shall not say a single word. Alas, you are right, +she is not like other girls." And Elsie again sighed at her husband's +sad ignorance of a woman's nature, and at the still sadder fact of her +daughter's inferiority to the accepted standard of womanhood. + + + + +IV. + + +Trond Vigfusson must have made a rich harvest of legends at Kvaerk, at +least judging by the time he stayed there; for days and weeks passed, +and he had yet said nothing of going. Not that anybody wished him to +go; no, on the contrary, the longer he stayed the more indispensable he +seemed to all; and Lage Ulfson could hardly think without a shudder of +the possibility of his ever having to leave them. For Aasa, his only +child, was like another being in the presence of this stranger; all that +weird, forest-like intensity, that wild, half supernatural tinge in her +character which in a measure excluded her from the blissful feeling of +fellowship with other men, and made her the strange, lonely creature +she was,--all this seemed to vanish as dew in the morning sun when +Vigfusson's eyes rested upon her; and with every day that passed, her +human and womanly nature gained a stronger hold upon her. She followed +him like his shadow on all his wanderings, and when they sat down +together by the wayside, she would sing, in a clear, soft voice, an +ancient lay or ballad, and he would catch her words on his paper, and +smile at the happy prospect of perpetuating what otherwise would +have been lost. Aasa's love, whether conscious or not, was to him an +everlasting source of strength, was a revelation of himself to himself, +and a clearing and widening power which brought ever more and more of +the universe within the scope of his vision. So they lived on from +day to day and from week to week, and, as old Lage remarked, never had +Kvaerk been the scene of so much happiness. Not a single time during +Vigfusson's stay had Aasa fled to the forest, not a meal had she missed, +and at the hours for family devotion she had taken her seat at the big +table with the rest and apparently listened with as much attention and +interest. Indeed, all this time Aasa seemed purposely to avoid the dark +haunts of the woods, and, whenever she could, chose the open highway; +not even Vigfusson's entreaties could induce her to tread the tempting +paths that led into the forest's gloom. + +"And why not, Aasa?" he would say; "summer is ten times summer there +when the drowsy noonday spreads its trembling maze of shadows between +those huge, venerable trunks. You can feel the summer creeping into your +very heart and soul, there!" + +"Oh, Vigfusson," she would answer, shaking her head mournfully, "for a +hundred paths that lead in, there is only one that leads out again, and +sometimes even that one is nowhere to be found." + +He understood her not, but fearing to ask, he remained silent. + +His words and his eyes always drew her nearer and nearer to him; and the +forest and its strange voices seemed a dark, opposing influence, which +strove to take possession of her heart and to wrest her away from him +forever; she helplessly clung to him; every thought and emotion of +her soul clustered about him, and every hope of life and happiness was +staked on him. + +One evening Vigfusson and old Lage Ulfson had been walking about the +fields to look at the crop, both smoking their evening pipes. But as +they came down toward the brink whence the path leads between the two +adjoining rye-fields, they heard a sweet, sad voice crooning some old +ditty down between the birch-trees at the precipice; they stopped to +listen, and soon recognized Aasa's yellow hair over the tops the +rye; the shadow as of a painful emotion flitted over the father's +countenance, and he turned his back on his guest and started to go; then +again paused, and said, imploringly, "Try to get her home if you can, +friend Vigfusson." + +Vigfusson nodded, and Lage went; the song had ceased for a moment, now +it began again: + + "Ye twittering birdlings, in forest and glen + I have heard you so gladly before; + But a bold knight hath come to woo me, + I dare listen to you no more. + For it is so dark, so dark in the forest. + + "And the knight who hath come a-wooing to me, + He calls me his love and his own; + Why then should I stray through the darksome woods, + Or dream in the glades alone? + For it is so dark, so dark in the forest." + + +Her voice fell to a low unintelligible murmur; then it rose, and the +last verses came, clear, soft, and low, drifting on the evening breeze: + + "Yon beckoning world, that shimmering lay + O'er the woods where the old pines grow, + That gleamed through the moods of the summer day + When the breezes were murmuring low + (And it is so dark, so dark in the forest); + + "Oh let me no more in the sunshine hear + Its quivering noonday call; + The bold knight's love is the sun of my heart-- + Is my life, and my all in all. + But it is so dark, so dark in the forest." + + +The young man felt the blood rushing to his face--his heart beat +violently. There was a keen sense of guilt in the blush on his cheek, a +loud accusation in the throbbing pulse and the swelling heart-beat. Had +he not stood there behind the maiden's back and cunningly peered into +her soul's holy of holies? True, he loved Aasa; at least he thought he +did, and the conviction was growing stronger with every day that passed. +And now he had no doubt that he had gained her heart. It was not so much +the words of the ballad which had betrayed the secret; he hardly knew +what it was, but somehow the truth had flashed upon him, and he could no +longer doubt. + +Vigfusson sat down on the moss-grown rock and pondered. How long he +sat there he did not know, but when he rose and looked around, Aasa +was gone. Then remembering her father's request to bring her home, he +hastened up the hill-side toward the mansion, and searched for her in +all directions. It was near midnight when he returned to Kvaerk, where +Aasa sat in her high gable window, still humming the weird melody of the +old ballad. + +By what reasoning Vigfusson arrived at his final conclusion is difficult +to tell. If he had acted according to his first and perhaps most +generous impulse, the matter would soon have been decided; but he was +all the time possessed of a vague fear of acting dishonorably, and it +was probably this very fear which made him do what, to the minds of +those whose friendship and hospitality he had accepted, had something +of the appearance he wished so carefully to avoid. Aasa was rich; he had +nothing; it was a reason for delay, but hardly a conclusive one. They +did not know him; he must go out in the world and prove himself worthy +of her. He would come back when he should have compelled the world to +respect him; for as yet he had done nothing. In fact, his arguments were +good and honorable enough, and there would have been no fault to find +with him, had the object of his love been as capable of reasoning as he +was himself. But Aasa, poor thing, could do nothing by halves; a nature +like hers brooks no delay; to her love was life or it was death. + +The next morning he appeared at breakfast with his knapsack on his back, +and otherwise equipped for his journey. It was of no use that Elsie +cried and begged him to stay, that Lage joined his prayers to hers, and +that Aasa stood staring at him with a bewildered gaze. Vigfusson +shook hands with them all, thanked them for their kindness to him, +and promised to return; he held Aasa's hand long in his, but when he +released it, it dropped helplessly at her side. + + + + +V. + + +Far up in the glen, about a mile from Kvaerk, ran a little brook; that +is, it was little in summer and winter, but in the spring, while the +snow was melting up in the mountains, it overflowed the nearest land +and turned the whole glen into a broad and shallow river. It was easy to +cross, however; a light foot might jump from stone to stone, and be over +in a minute. Not the hind herself could be lighter on her foot than Aasa +was; and even in the spring-flood it was her wont to cross and recross +the brook, and to sit dreaming on a large stone against which the water +broke incessantly, rushing in white torrents over its edges. + +Here she sat one fair summer day--the day after Vigfusson's departure. +It was noon, and the sun stood high over the forest. The water murmured +and murmured, babbled and whispered, until at length there came a sudden +unceasing tone into its murmur, then another, and it sounded like a +faint whispering song of small airy beings. And as she tried to listen, +to fix the air in her mind, it all ceased again, and she heard but +the monotonous murmuring of the brook. Everything seemed so empty and +worthless, as if that faint melody had been the world of the moment. But +there it was again; it sung and sung, and the birch overhead took up the +melody and rustled it with its leaves, and the grasshopper over in the +grass caught it and whirred it with her wings. The water, the trees, the +air, were full of it. What a strange melody! + +Aasa well knew that every brook and river has its Neck, besides hosts +of little water-sprites. She had heard also that in the moonlight at +midsummer, one might chance to see them rocking in bright little +shells, playing among the pebbles, or dancing on the large leaves of the +water-lily. And that they could sing also, she doubted not; it was their +voices she heard through the murmuring of the brook. Aasa eagerly bent +forward and gazed down into the water: the faint song grew louder, +paused suddenly, and sprang into life again; and its sound was so sweet, +so wonderfully alluring! Down there in the water, where a stubborn +pebble kept chafing a precipitous little side current, clear tiny +pearl-drops would leap up from the stream, and float half-wonderingly +downward from rapid to rapid, until they lost themselves in the whirl +of some stronger current. Thus sat Aasa and gazed and gazed, and in one +moment she seemed to see what in the next moment she saw not. Then a +sudden great hush stole through the forest, and in the hush she could +hear the silence calling her name. It was so long since she had been in +the forest, it seemed ages and ages ago. She hardly knew herself; the +light seemed to be shining into her eyes as with a will and purpose, +perhaps to obliterate something, some old dream or memory, or to impart +some new power--the power of seeing the unseen. And this very thought, +this fear of some possible loss, brought the fading memory back, and she +pressed her hands against her throbbing temples as if to bind and chain +it there forever; and it was he to whom her thought returned. She heard +his voice, saw him beckoning to her to follow him, and she rose to obey, +but her limbs were as petrified, and the stone on which she was sitting +held her with the power of a hundred strong arms. The sunshine smote +upon her eyelids, and his name was blotted out from her life; there was +nothing but emptiness all around her. Gradually the forest drew nearer +and nearer, the water bubbled and rippled, and the huge, bare-stemmed +pines stretched their long gnarled arms toward her. The birches waved +their heads with a wistful nod, and the profile of the rock grew into a +face with a long, hooked nose, and a mouth half open as if to speak. +And the word that trembled on his lips was, "Come." She felt no fear nor +reluctance, but rose to obey. Then and not until then she saw an old man +standing at her side; his face was the face of the rock, his white beard +flowed to his girdle, and his mouth was half open, but no word came from +his lips. There was something in the wistful look of his eye which she +knew so well, which she had seen so often, although she could not +tell when or where. The old man extended his hand; Aasa took it, and +fearlessly or rather spontaneously followed. They approached the steep, +rocky wall; as they drew near, a wild, fierce laugh rang through the +forest. The features of the old man were twisted as it were into a grin; +so also were the features of the rock; but the laugh blew like a mighty +blast through the forest. + +Aasa clung to the old man's hand and followed him--she knew not whither. + +At home in the large sitting-room at Kvaerk sat Lage, brooding over the +wreck of his hopes and his happiness. Aasa had gone to the woods again +the very first day after Vigfusson's departure. What would be the end of +all this? It was already late in the evening, and she had not returned. +The father cast anxious glances toward the door, every time he heard the +latch moving. At last, when it was near midnight, he roused all his +men from their sleep, and commanded them to follow him. Soon the dusky +forests resounded far and near with the blast of horns, the report of +guns, and the calling and shouting of men. The affrighted stag crossed +and recrossed the path of the hunters, but not a rifle was leveled at +its head. Toward morning--it was before the sun had yet risen--Lage, +weary and stunned, stood leaning up against a huge fir. Then suddenly a +fierce, wild laugh rang through the forest. Lage shuddered, raised his +hand slowly and pressed it hard against his forehead, vainly struggling +to clear his thoughts. The men clung fearfully together; a few of the +more courageous ones drew their knives and made the sign of the cross +with them in the air. Again the same mad laugh shook the air, and swept +over the crowns of the pine-trees. Then Lage lifted his eyes toward +heaven and wrung his hands: for the awful truth stood before him. He +remained a long while leaning against that old fir as in a dead stupor; +and no one dared to arouse him. A suppressed murmur reached the men's +ears. "But deliver us from evil" were the last words they heard. + +When Lage and his servants came home to Kvaerk with the mournful tidings +of Aasa's disappearance, no one knew what to do or say. There could be +no doubt that Aasa was "mountain-taken," as they call it; for there were +Trolds and dwarfs in all the rocks and forests round about, and they +would hardly let slip the chance of alluring so fair a maiden as Aasa +was into their castles in the mountains. Elsie, her mother, knew a good +deal about the Trolds, their tricks, and their way of living, and +when she had wept her fill, she fell to thinking of the possibility of +regaining her daughter from their power. If Aasa had not yet tasted of +food or drink in the mountain, she was still out of danger; and if the +pastor would allow the church-bell to be brought up into the forest and +rung near the rock where the laugh had been heard, the Trolds could be +compelled to give her back. No sooner had this been suggested to Lage, +than the command was given to muster the whole force of men and horses, +and before evening on the same day the sturdy swains of Kvaerk were seen +climbing the tower of the venerable church, whence soon the huge old +bell descended, to the astonishment of the throng of curious women and +children who had flocked together to see the extraordinary sight. It was +laid upon four large wagons, which had been joined together with ropes +and planks, and drawn away by twelve strong horses. Long after the +strange caravan had vanished in the twilight, the children stood gazing +up into the empty bell-tower. + +It was near midnight, when Lage stood at the steep, rocky wall in the +forest; the men were laboring to hoist the church-bell up to a staunch +cross-beam between two mighty fir-trees, and in the weird light of their +torches, the wild surroundings looked wilder and more fantastic. Anon, +the muffled noise and bustle of the work being at an end, the laborers +withdrew, and a strange, feverish silence seemed to brood over the +forest. Lage took a step forward, and seized the bell-rope; the clear, +conquering toll of the metal rung solemnly through the silence, and from +the rocks, the earth, and the tree-tops, rose a fierce chorus of howls, +groans, and screams. All night the ringing continued; the old trees +swayed to and fro, creaked, and groaned, the roots loosened their holds +in the fissures of the rock, and the bushy crowns bowed low under their +unwonted burden. + +It was well-nigh morn, but the dense fog still brooded over the woods, +and it was dark as night. Lage was sitting on the ground, his head +leaning on both his elbows; at his side lay the flickering torch, and +the huge bell hung dumb overhead. In the dark he felt a hand touch +his shoulder; had it happened only a few hours before, he would have +shuddered; now the physical sensation hardly communicated itself to his +mind, or, if it did, had no power to rouse him from his dead, hopeless +apathy. Suddenly--could he trust his own ears?--the church-bell gave a +slow, solemn, quivering stroke, and the fogs rolled in thick masses to +the east and to the west, as if blown by the breath of the sound. Lage +seized his torch, sprang to his feet, and saw--Vigfusson. He stretched +his arm with the blazing torch closer to the young man's face, stared +at him with large eyes, and his lip quivered; but he could not utter a +word. + +"Vigfusson?" faltered he at last. + +"It is I;" and the second stroke followed, stronger and more solemn than +the first. The same fierce, angry voices chorused forth from every +nook of the rock and the woods. Then came the third--the noise grew; +fourth--and it sounded like a hoarse, angry hiss; when the twelfth +stroke fell, silence reigned again in the forest. Vigfusson dropped the +bell-rope, and with a loud voice called Lage Kvaerk and his men. He +lit a torch, held it aloft over his head, and peered through the dusky +night. The men spread through the highlands to search for the lost +maiden; Lage followed close in Vigfusson's footsteps. They had not +walked far when they heard the babbling of the brook only a few feet +away. Thither they directed their steps. On a large stone in the middle +of the stream the youth thought he saw something white, like a large +kerchief. Quick as thought he was at its side, bowed down with his +torch, and--fell backward. It was Aasa, his beloved, cold and dead; +but as the father stooped over his dead child the same mad laugh echoed +wildly throughout the wide woods, but madder and louder than ever +before, and from the rocky wall came a fierce, broken voice: + +"I came at last." + + +When, after an hour of vain search, the men returned to the place whence +they had started, they saw a faint light flickering between the birches +not fifty feet away; they formed a firm column, and with fearful hearts +drew nearer. There lay Lage Kvaerk, their master, still bending down +over his child's pale features, and staring into her sunken eyes as if +he could not believe that she were really dead. And at his side stood +Vigfusson, pale and aghast, with the burning torch in his hand. The +footsteps of the men awakened the father, but when he turned his face on +them they shuddered and started back. Then Lage rose, lifted the maiden +from the stone, and silently laid her in Vigfusson's arms; her rich +yellow hair flowed down over his shoulder. The youth let his torch +fall into the waters, and with a sharp, serpent-like hiss its flame +was quenched. He crossed the brook; the men followed, and the dark +pine-trees closed over the last descendant of Lage Ulfson's mighty race. + + + + + +Footnotes: + + +[1] "I am a Dane. I speak Danish." + +[2] Examen artium is the entrance examination to the Norwegian +University, and philosophicum the first degree. The ranks given at these +are Laudabilis prae ceteris (in student's parlance, prae), laudabilis or +laud, haud illaudabilis, or haud, etc. + +[3] Free translation of a Swedish serenade, the name of whose author I +have forgotten. H. H. B. + +[4] Translation, from "Exotics. By J. F. C. & C. L." + +[5] In the country districts of Norway Saturday evening is regarded as +"the wooer's eve." + +[6] The saeter is a place in the mountains where the Norwegian peasants +spend their summers pasturing their cattle. Every large farm has its own +saeter, consisting of one or more chalets, hedged in by a fence of stone +or planks. + +[7] Katzenjammer is the sensation a man has the morning after a +carousal. + +[8] A stave is an improvised responsive song. It is an ancient +pastime in Norway, and is kept up until this day, especially among +the peasantry. The students, also, at their social gatherings, throw +improvised rhymes to each other across the table, and the rest of the +company repeat the refrain. + +[9] "The red cock crew" is the expression used in the old Norwegian +Fagas for incendiary fire. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales From Two Hemispheres, by +Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES *** + +***** This file should be named 299-8.txt or 299-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/299/ + +Produced by Charles Keller + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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