THEMANWHOLOSTHISNAME,.........9
THESTORYOFANOUTCAST,.......83
AGOOD-FOR-NOTHING,........129
ASCIENTIFICVAGABOND,.......178
TRULS,THENAMELESS,........221
ASATHOR’SVENGEANCE,........244
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 aint 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 mélange 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 æsthetic 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.
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. “Voilà, voilà, je parle Français,” shouted
another, seizing hold of his valise. “Jeg er Dansk. Talé Dansk,” 1roared 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.
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.”
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.
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 protégé 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.
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 soirées, at which she had coaxed him to
play the principal rôle, 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 out- lived 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.
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.
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 saeter6 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.
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.
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.
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 mountain- sides, 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.
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 flyleaf,” 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.
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 naïive 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 he 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.
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.
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 easy- going 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 æsthetic 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.
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.
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 æsthetic 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.”
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 over- head, 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.
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.”
“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.
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 head- strong 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 mid- night, 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
quick- sands 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.
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 sea-
weeds, 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.
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.” 223>
“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 bride-
groom, 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 Norsernen’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 tho 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!
IT was right up under
the steel mountain wall where the farm of Kværk 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 Kværk 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 Kværk
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 Kværk,” 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 Kværk 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 Kværk 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 Kværk. 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 Kværk
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 Kværk 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 Kværk
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 crew9 over ten
farms in the valley, and it happened to he 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 Kværk, 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 Kværk’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 Kværk 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 Kværk; 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 Kværk.
Aasa Kværk 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 Kværk 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 Kværk;
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 Kværk. 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.
There was not a little
astonishment manifested among the servant-maids at Kværk 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.
Trond Vigfusson must
have made a rich harvest of legends at Kværk, 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 Kværk 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 Kværk,
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.
Far up in the glen,
about a mile from Kværk, 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 Kværk 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 Kværk 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
Kværk 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 Kværk 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 Kværk, 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.
THE END.223>